Asphyxiated With Deuteronomy 28:68

There is a dialogue among the 1 West Camp of ISUPK, Israel School United Practical Knowledge is asphyxiated with Deuteronomy 28:68 as a paradigm of slavery. They teach that the 12 tribes of Israel were scattered into the Americas via Africa in the TransAtlantic slave trade.

While they focus particularly on Deuteronomy 28:68 as a proof text, there are other verses in the chapter which refute the claim of perpetual slavery and its corollary of perpetual expectation of deliverance from it. This view has already fueled the futurist doctrine based upon the 9th chapter of Revelation.

In that chapter, John writes of the event which occurs at the sounding of the sixth angel. He would release the four angels who were bound at the great River Euphrates. Four angels prepared for the event were released to kill a third of mankind. This would be carried out with an army of horsemen stated to be two hundred million strong, (9:13-16).

Observe that this event was one of two final events, noted by the 6th and 7th trumpet. The horsemen are released at the sounding of the sixth, not the seventh trumpet. This is significant. The seventh trumpet signals the time of the end, which is the coming of the Lord. We find that trumpet mentioned in Rev. 10:7:

“But in the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets. We must now go to chapter 11:15 to see what transpired at the sounding of the 7th, which is the last trumpet.

The Historical Context of Revelation

We must not accept a doctrine that has been lifted from its historical and contextual setting and taken out of context. That is the fallacy of ISUPK and Captain Tazaryach with whom I had a brief exchange. The Book of Revelation has historical and contextual guides by which it can and must be interpreted. Using one’s culture and history far removed from the original setting of the book is naive.

First, the book has a historical context. It was written to encourage the New Testament Christians who were undergoing persecution largely from their Jewish brethren throughout the empire. Through their alliance with Rome Daniel 11:35f and Psalms 2, there was imperial persecution which by the way began with Pontus Pilate and Herod against the Messiah, Jesus, the Christ.

The events in the book were shortly to come to pass and the time for their occurrence had drawn near, (Rev. 1:1-3). This cannot possibly fit a 21st century view of the book for it was neither near nor shortly to occur because in the very doctrine of the ISUPK organization, the event remains future to this day, almost 2000 years later.

The Seven Churches

Next, the book was written to the Seven churches in Asia Minor (what is today known as Turkey). So, the recipients of the book are far removed from the continent of Africa from which the Trans-Atlantic Slave-Trade occurred. The messages to the churches speak of events which they would encounter, both negative and positive.

For example, when speaking to the church at Ephesus, the Lord commends the congregation for having tested the false apostles who were among them and found them to be liars. They had persevered, had patience and had labored for the name of Christ already at the time of the writing of the letter. They were told to repent lest he removed their candlestick. Their faithfulness endurance would reward them with the “tree of life”. Or, as with the church at Smyrna, they were told to be faithful unto death, at which success they would receive the crown of life, (Rev. 2:10)

Marking the Temple for Destruction

One of the major contextual clues is the temple which yet stood in Jerusalem. John was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told to measure the temple of God, the altar, and those who worship there. This is not a reference to the Judaism’s temple who follows later.

This is the temple of the saints, and the altar of which the Torah-only Jews had no right to eat, (Heb. 13:14). It is the church of built upon the foundation of Christ. This temple was laid in Zion with Jesus Christ as the chief cornerstone which the builders rejected, (Acts 4:11-12; Eph. 2:20-22; 1 Pet. 2:3-8).

However, concerning the outer court, John was told not to measure it, but to leave it out, for it has been given to the Gentiles. They would tread the holy city under foot for forty two months. This is proof the book was written before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and the subsequent Roman invasion.

The Great City Spiritually Called Sodom and Egypt

The reference to the Great City is Jerusalem. Two designations and the description fit the time and history. “And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.” (Rev. 11:8)

Jerusalem is repeatedly called Sodom in the Tanakh. “Only one city, other than historical Sodom, was ever called Sodom. In Isaiah 1:10, Jeremiah 23:13f and Ezekiel 16:44f, it is none other than Jerusalem.” (Who Is This Babylon, Don K Preston, p. 52).

In addition, Jerusalem is called Egypt in the New Testament, because it became a symbol of Egyptian bondage as it related to sin. See Luke 9:31, where the Lord’s decease is spoken of as making an exodus. He was born under Torah (Gal. 4:4) and died to it, i.e. made an exodus from it.

Also, in Acts 15:10, Gal. 4:9, 21-25,  5:1, the Torah is called the “yoke of bondage” and is represented by Hagar, the Egyptian who was in bondage with her children. Thus, the city was “spiritually” called Egypt.

Finally, on this point, and to ensure no mistake is made about its identity, it is said to be the city “where also our Lord was crucified.” Thus, we cannot escape the conclusion that Revelation chapter 11 has Jerusalem, the ancient city of the first century as its central theme.

None of these descriptions prophetically apply to America, (Washington, DC), Baghdad Iraq, Rome, (which no longer exists), Moscow, Tehran or any city of modern times. What is even more true is the fact that Christ never set foot in a single one of those cities and he certainly was crucified in America. Thus, America is not Mystery Babylon of Revelation as ISUPK claims.

The Lord himself stated that it could not be that a prophet perishes outside of Jerusalem, Lk. 13:33. He also charged Jerusalem with the murder of all the prophets, (Matt. 23:32-37) and likewise did Stephen just before the council in Jerusalem stoned him to death fulfilling more of the Lord’s predictions, (Acts 7:51-53).

Deuteronomy 28

This brings us to Deuteronomy 28:15f, where the curses for unbelieving Israel are listed. In the chapter, there are almost a dozen references to “national Israel” coming to a complete and full end. There is never a mention of any deliverance for the “nation” in a single text.

The end time prophecies were only and altogether about saving a remnant from the nation who were called Christians. They are the new people of Isaiah 51:16, 65:17; and Psa. 102:18. Here are a list of verses which speak of the nation of Israel’s full end from Deuteronomy 28.

• The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. (v. 21)
• The LORD will strike you with consummation , with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. (v. 22)
• The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. (v. 24)
• The LORD will strike you will the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. (v. 27)
• And  you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. (v 37)
• Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. (v. 45)
• And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and your descendants forever. (v. 46)
• Therefore you shall service your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. (46)
• And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, or the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. (v. 51)
• And every sickness and every plague, which not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. (v. 61)
• And it shall be, that just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. (v. 63)
• And the Lord will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, ‘You shall never see it again,’ And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you. (v. 68)

No Remedy From This Destruction

From the dozen verses above, there is not one single mention or implication that national Israel would be restored. The fact that the LORD said they would utterly perish means there would be no “covenantal” restitution, redemption or deliverance from the bondage of Egypt. Their only salvation is to be gathered into Christ as a part of the New Covenant, without the “yoke of bondage”.

The Roman ships carried Israel into Egyptian captivity and that was the end of the prophecy. Egypt is not prophetic symbolism for America. Egypt was Egypt. It was the same Egypt that God said they would never see it again. If national Israel wasn’t taken out of America in the first place they weren’t sent back to America. It is a fallacy and abuse of the Divine Scriptures to come almost a century and a half later and apply the language to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

The irony of that farcical idea is that according to writers such as the late Professor Tony Martin, the Ashkenazi Jewish converts, i.e. those whom Gamal Abdel Nasser, 2nd President of Egypt said left black and returned white, were 75% culpable in the enslavement of Blacks from Africa.

In other words, it would be a case of the European Jews coming out of Europe to enslave the Black Jews who were in Africa, only to have the European Jews drop them off in America and return themselves to the very land where from which they took the Africans in the first place and call it their home.

This is not to say that I am totally opposed to everything in the ISUPK platform. I am not. The value they have brought to the table is the awareness of the African origin of Israel on the streets, a fact, that not even the Israelis can ignore judging from the expressed global interests and recent debate with Harry Rosenberg of Israel and Brother Polight of NuCovenant. The more that message gets out, the more it exposes the hypocrisy and identity theft of the ancient people of the Bible. As that dialogue continues, then one can talk about the true holocaust of the African descendants of Israel and the implications of that dialogue.