I want to bring you back to the realization that this land does not belong to the Arabs. The Arabs are trying to steal the land that God promised to Israel. Before I continue with the three title deeds to the land, let me remind you that the Abrahamic Covenant involves real estate.

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: (Genesis 12:1)

We found the first title deed in Genesis Chapter 15:

And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. (Genesis 15:9-12)

Remember, a title deed tells who the owner is and it tells the boundaries. The legal owner is Abraham and his seed. The children of Abraham have ownership of this land. The boundaries of this land is between the Nile river in Egypt, and the Euphrates river in Iraq.

In Chapter 17 we get more clarity on the boundaries.

And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. (Genesis 17:8)

Here we see that it includes all the land of Canaan. The southern border would be Beersheba, and the northern border would be Dan. It goes all the way to the Jordan river. This includes the West Bank. It also covers the old Philistine area, which today is the Gaza Strip. The Mediterranean is the western border.

This brings of the question of which seed, Isaac or Ishmael? Ishmael is the firstborn son, so by tradition he gets the birthright. In this case, it doesn’t go that way.

And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee! And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, [and] with his seed after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. (Genesis 17:18-21)

This passage makes it clear that the son who received the birthright is Isaac. This passage shows Abraham’s love and concern for Ishmael, but that he is not the son of promise. God promised a son by Sarah, and said this son, Isaac, is the son who will receive the birthright.

God also gave a promise for Ishmael. God promises that he will be multiplied exceedingly, and that he will have 12 princes, or sons. Ishmael will also become a great nation, but the covenant is with Isaac.

Chapter 17 makes in abundantly clear that the title to the land is given to the Jews, the descendants of Isaac. the Ishmaelites, the Arabs, will be blessed also, but God’s covenant is with Isaac.

Do the Arabs know about this passage? Absolutely! They claim that this is how the Jews corrupted the Bible. They say that the Jews changed the Word of God to benefit the themselves. Why do Muslims say this? Because their holy book, the Qur’an, which by the way came to them through an Arab, an Ishmaelite, tells the same stories, but changes who gets the blessing to Ishmael.

The Qur’an always favors Ishmael. For example, when Abraham’s faith was tested, and God told him to take his son, whom he loved, to a mountain and sacrifice him, the Qur’an tells us that the son was Ishmael.

The problem is that our Old Testament was given long before the Qur’an, and the Muslims rewrote things to their benefit. There are many copies of the Old Testament that existed hundreds of years before the writing of the Qur’an. If the Jews corrupted the Old Testament, why are there no manuscripts that indicate such corruption?

Back in 1947, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls showed that the Scriptures we have today read the same as those which existed some 2,250 years ago. This shows that the Old Testament is unchanged for more than 2,000 years. By the way, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by a Muslim shepherd boy. It is ironic that the evidence which confirms the accuracy and credibility of our Bible was found by a Muslim.

Now let’s look at the third title deed. Things get very interesting in this third deed. In Deuteronomy 11:24, Moses, who is of the seed of Isaac, gives us this third title deed.

Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. (Deuteronomy 11:24)

If you were to get news like that, wouldn’t you put on your walking shoes? God put them on a 40 year walking journey. He also gives them some boundaries. The southern boundary is the wilderness and Lebanon is the northern boundary. The eastern boundary is the river Euphrates, which, as we saw before, is in Iraq, and the western boundary is the “uttermost sea,” the Mediterranean sea.

The question that remains is, which wilderness? There are two wildernesses, one in the Sinai peninsula, where we have been told the Jews wandered, and where the Law was given. It is the closest to where they were in Egypt before crossing the Red Sea. The other wilderness is in the Arabian peninsula. There is evidence that the Israelites wanderings were not in the Sinai peninsula, it was the Arabian peninsula.

If you read yesterday’s post, I told you that it was something that Osama Ben Laden said that got me started studying this. He put out a recording that said:

What will the rulers do if Israel starts to expand its unfair and unjust settlements, which the leaders do declare as such, beyond its currently known boundaries, and says, our borders extend to Medina.

I asked why Muslims would think that the Jews would say their borders went all the way to Medina. Some of the things I had read in the past didn’t make sense. As I studied this, I found that the Jews did not cross the Red Sea at Suez. it was the Gulf of Aqaba. I visited Aqaba this past year, and there are a lot of interesting things in this part of the world.

Tomorrow I am going to give the proof that the wanderings of the Jews were in Arabia. Remember, God promised to Moses that everywhere they walked, would be theirs. Their wanderings set the boundaries of the land God gave to the Jews. This changes the map, and I will lay out the evidence tomorrow.