A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob

God made a convernent with Abraham: Genesis 15:

¹ After these things the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, “Fear not, Abram. I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward.”

— up to this time Abram had received only general promises of offspring, and of the land being the possession of his seed; where is that land? and years were passing by, and the fulfilment of Abram’s hopes remained distant as ever;

¹⁸ On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates:

— from the river of Egypt; the river of Egypt is the Nile, which overflowed annually and made the basin fruitful; so the Targum of Jonathan calls it the Nile of Egypt; it was rendered, “from the Nile of Mizraim” or Egypt to the great river, Euphrates;

— Keil and Delitzsch: the river (נהר) of Egypt is the Nile, and not the brook (נחל) of Egypt (Numbers 34:5); the character of the promise, the two large rivers, the Nile and the Euphrates, are mentioned as the boundaries within which the seed of Abram would possess the promised land,

— and from hence to the river Euphrates, the eastern boundary, was the utmost extent of it in which it was ever possessed, as it was in the times of David and Solomon, II Samuel 8:3.

¹⁹ the Kenites and the Kenizzites and the Kadmonites, — the Kenites; thought to be the Idumeans, who sprung from Kenaz of Esau’s posterity; found among the Amalekites in the south (1 Samuel 15:6); note that Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, was a Kenite (Judges 1:16); he was also the priest of Midian; and they dwelt among the Midianites; so they were very mixed by comparing Exodus 3:1 with Judges 1:16;

— the Kenizzites are also supposed by some to be the descendants of Kenaz, a grandson of Esau, Genesis 36:11; but then they must be so called here by anticipation, or  that is, the land they were anticipated to live there; since Kenaz was not then born; Caleb, the head of the tribe of Judah, was a Kenizzite, Numbers 32:12, Joshua 14:6;

and from Deuteronomy 2:5:

Meddle not with them [the children of Esau, who dwell in Seir]; for I will not give you of their land, no, not so much as a foot breadth, because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession.

— the Kadmonites; elsewhere the Kadmonites are never mentioned again; probably dwellers on the eastern desert frontier of the Jordan, an eastern or an ancient people, of whom we know nothing;

— besides, none of the land of the children of Esau, at least of those that dwelt about Mount Seir (Deuteronomy 2:5) was to be given to the children of Israel; henced could the Edomites or Idumeans (at least a portion of them had left, some remained) have moved away while the children of Israel were in Egypt?

²⁰ and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Rephaim, — the Hittites, who had their name from Heth, a son of Canaan, see Genesis 10:15; they dwelt about Hebron, in the south of the land of Canaan:

— the Perizzites and the Rephaim; probably these are included in the common name of Canaanites, those that lived in the land of Canaan; 

²¹ and the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” —  v16 above; “for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full” but soon it would be full, like Hamas today;

— the Jebusites; who inhabited Jerusalem and its surroundings, which was first called Jebus, from the founder of this nation;

— in this and the previous verses ten nations are reckoned as occupying the land of Canaan at that time, whereas only seven are mentioned in the times of Moses and Joshua; Deuteronomy 7:1; Joshua 3:10;

— although the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the River Euphrates,” that seed were meant to be the whole house of Israel. Hence, during the Exodus, Moses was tasked of bringing the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, for “I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers” Exodus 6:4.

“When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee — the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou” Deuteronomy 7:1

And Joshua said, “Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that He will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites and the Girgashites and the Amorites and the Jebusites” Joshua 3:10.

and from MSG

When the sun was down and it was dark, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch moved between the split carcasses. That’s when God made a covenant with Abram: “I’m giving this land to your children, from the Nile River in Egypt to the River Euphrates in Assyria—the country of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaim, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

And now on Lebanon

After the Flood and the Confusion at Babel, the Land was divided:

This is a commitment by an oath; from the Book of Jubilees:

And thus the sons of Noah divided unto their sons in the presence of Noah their father, and he bound them all by an oath, imprecating a curse on every one that sought to seize the portion which had not fallen (to him) by his lot.

And they all said, “So be it; so be it,” for themselves and their sons for ever throughout their generations Book of Jubilees Chapter 9:18-19

And here onto the next chapter, the reason is being given in the Chapter 10:

³⁹ In the fourth week in the first year in the beginning thereof in the four and thirtieth jubilee, were they dispersed from the land of Shinar.

⁴⁰ And Ham and his sons went into the land which he was to occupy, which he acquired as his portion in the land of the south.

⁴¹ But Canaan saw the land of Lebanon to the river of Egypt that it was very good, and he went not into the land of his inheritance to the west (that is to) the sea,

⁴² and he dwelt in the land of Lebanon, eastward and westward from the border of Jordan and from the border of the sea.

⁴³ And Ham, his father, and Cush and Mizraim, his brothers, said unto him: “Thou hast settled in a land which is not thine, and which did not fall to us by lot:

⁴⁴ do not do so; for if thou dost do so, thou and thy sons will fall in the land and (be) accursed through sedition;

⁴⁵ for by sedition ye have settled, and by sedition will thy children fall, and thou shalt be rooted out for ever.

⁴⁶ Dwell not in the dwelling of Shem; for to Shem and to his sons did it come by their lot.

⁴⁷ Cursed art thou, and cursed shalt thou be beyond all the sons of Noah, by the curse by which we bound ourselves by an oath in the presence of the holy judge, and in the presence of Noah our father.”

⁴⁸ But he (Canaan) did not hearken unto them, and dwelt in the land of Lebanon from Hamath to the entering of Egypt, he and his sons until this day. And for this reason that land is named Canaan. Book of Jubilees Chapter 10:39-48

— and that Land was allocated to Shem; then later to Abraham and onto the children of Jacob, or specifically the Israelites. The Hezbollah today or any other Lebanese wouldn’t have a chance.

“The anger of the Lord shall not return, until He has executed and till He has performed the thoughts of His heart; in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly” Jeremiah 23:20

~ by Joel on October 12, 2024.

Posted in Books of Ancients, Books of Moses, Hezbollah, Israel