From a reader:
Hello Mr. Collins,
I’ve enjoyed your interviews on Trunews with Rick Wiles and wanted to ask you if you know who the black Africans and particularly African Americans are descended from in connection to the table of nations in Genesis? Any thoughts to why God allowed Israel/America to bring over thousands of black Africans over as slaves and for the majority of America’s history, African Americans have been the dominant minority in America (I think now Latinos may be numerically more in the U.S., though that may entail illegals too). I know many racists have used the curse of Canaan to justify African enslavement here in America and have stated that blacks are inferior, both mentally and socially, due to this curse. Of course, I reject that theory, but I really want to know the truth, if you have researched it, if black Africans/African Americans are really descended from Canaan or are they descended from Phut or Mizraim or Cush? It is clear that Ethiopians are different than the typical black African…Ethiopians, Somalis, some Sudanese have “straight” hair like Caucasians while they typical black African and African American have tight, curly hair. I assume the Ethiopians and Somalis are of Cush.
I know many African Americans, like myself, are of mixed blood due to interracial marriages and rapes by white slaveowners and white taskmasters in the South…it’s a fact in our national history and was curious if African Americans that are born and bred here are considered Israel too, just like an English American or Irish American?
I am looking forward to your answers to these questions. Thanks for taking the time to answer and keep up the good work.
May God bless you and yours!
H.K.
My response:
Hello Haile,
I’m delighted that you enjoyed my interviews with Rick Wiles on TruNews.com, and I thank you for your inquiry. While it would have been easy to simply reply to you privately, I felt very strongly led by the Holy Spirit to post our exchange for all readers to consider. Your email asks questions re: sensitive issues. However emails posing difficult and sensitive issues also need to be openly addressed. Your email asks very valid questions, and I will do my best to respond to them.
To begin with, many who have heard me speak in live audiences in the past (when I had better health and could travel) have heard me state that the modern Israelite nations have enjoyed their national blessings not because they are “better” or “superior,” but rather because God has been faithful to the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (“Israel”) and to their “birthright” descendants who eventually became the modern western nations of the western world. I have also stated that “Jesus Christ is an equal opportunity savior” and that people of any race or ethnic group can come to him and be saved. All believers are “brothers and sisters” in Jesus Christ/Yahshua regardless of our race or ethnicity! With that preface made plain, I will respond to your questions.
Genesis 10:6 records that Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut and Canaan. Mizraim has long been identified with the Egyptians, Phut with the North African nations such as Libya, Algeria, etc., Cush has been identified with both the region of the Horn of Africa and in the region of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, etc. The Bible states that the Canaanites once lived in the Promised Land, but Genesis 10:18 also states the Canaanites “spread abroad” to other locations. By the process of elimination, it is logical that sub-Saharan, black Africans descended from Canaan. The “curse of Canaan” in Genesis 9:25 is only vaguely described in the Bible, but the phrase “servant of servants” does infer that many of Canaan’s descendants would be in servitude to other nations. Indeed, in the modern slave trade where many black Africans were brought to the New World on the slave ships of several European nations, it was often rival black tribes or Arab slavers who sold other Africans into slavery. I highly recommend that readers watch the movie, Amazing Grace, which portrays the efforts of William Wilberforce to abolish the slave trade and shows the anguish of guilt suffered by John Newton (the author of the hymn by the same name) who had previously captained slave ships which caused the deaths and extreme sufferings of many black Africans.
Unfortunately, all races have done evil things to other races. In the time of the Exodus, the Israelite tribes (the forbears of many of the modern Caucasian nations) were oppressed in hard bondage by the Egyptians, who were Hamites descended from Mizraim. In pre-Civil War America, it was the members of the tribes of Israel who oppressed Black Africans in the American/Caribbean slave trade. Every race is made “in the image of God” as all of us have descended from Adam and Eve and, later, from Noah’s family. Acts 17:26 states that all nations were made by God “of one blood.” Different nations have different strengths and weaknesses and have various dispensations given by the sovereign Creator.
When the Israelites were freed from Egyptian slavery, a “mixed multitude” of slaves from non-Israelite nations accompanied the Israelites out of Egypt (Exodus 12:38, Numbers 11:4). Undoubtedly, the Egyptians had taken slaves in wars against their fellow Hamitic nations of Phut, Canaan and Cush. Leviticus 19:33-34 and Ezekiel 47:22-23 both state that it was possible for people from other nations to assimilate into the Israelite tribes even in Old Testament times! If a “stranger” (someone from a non-Israelite nation) adopted the customs of the Israelite tribes and served the God of Israel, the Israelites were to accept such people as “one born among you” and they were to be given an inheritance amongst the tribes of Israel. The word “sojourn” means much more than just take up a physical residence. It would mean having the attitude that Ruth the Moabitess (a non-Israelite) had in Ruth 1:16 when she said to Naomi “Your people shall be my people and your God my God.” In other words, she fully assimilated into the Israelite nation. Since the above scriptures clearly show that non-Israelites could be assimilated into the Israelite tribes in Old Testament times, and since God says he does not change (Malachi 43:6), I think it is obvious that non-Israelites can be assimilated into the Israelite nations (tribes) today as well. There is a specific example of this in the Old Testament. When Jeremiah was being persecuted by many in his own Israelite nation, it was an Ethiopian (a Cushite) who had mercy on him and was directed by the King of Judah to lead a rescue mission for Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38:7-13), and he was specifically blessed by God for doing so (Jeremiah 19:6). This Ethiopian was obviously close to the king of Judah and had assimilated into the tribe of Judah. As an “Ethiopian,” he was of the same stock of the Ethiopians of today.
In New Testament times, God sent Philip to convert an Ethiopian eunuch who was a very high-ranking official to the Queen of Ethiopia to bring Christianity deep into the African continent so it is clear that God is “not a respecter of persons.”
Let me conclude this by putting all of this in a modern context. My books also assert that Americans of any race are all Americans! I have written about the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog-Magog war in which Russia, China, Iran and their allies will invade the USA, Canada, the UK, Scandinavia, Europe, Australia, and their western allies. When that war occurs, the invaders will not care what race each American is that they are attacking. They will mean to annihilate or enslave all Americans (Europeans, Australians, etc.) All Americans of all races will need to band together by state, city and even neighborhood to fight the invaders (which God says they should do in Ezekiel 38:21) until God sends Divine rescue and victory to them against their invaders (Ezekiel 38:20-39:29). Since we will all need each other for our mutual survival at that time, I think it is very important for us to start regarding each other as allies and fellow Americans now.
I hope that this response is satisfactory to you. Your email likely expressed questions thought by many non-Caucasian readers of my blog so it was important to give this inclusive message to all readers of this blog. For further reading against racism, I urge you (and all readers) to read my article, The Serpent Seed Heresy, available at the Article link at my website, which opposes racism and which I co-authored over 20 years ago.
May God bless you and yours as well!
Steve Collins
