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Who Were the Ashchenaz?

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Who Were the Ashchenaz? Who Were the Ashchenaz? Open your bible to I Chronicles 1:5. I received this message and an important message because it shows me that this person that follows the Last Days teaching very closely didn’t connect the dots. I asked myself, maybe I should have connected the dots, referring to what this person asked regarding Ashkenaz. The question is: “Help. How can the Ashchenaz (Scythians-Lost Tribes) be the sons of Gomer? This person, knowing how I like the questions asked, gave me chapter and verse (if you have one that you are asking about). Don’t have me go hunting for it, include it in your message; and that is what this person did. I Chronicles 1:5-6: the family record of Adam through Abraham is found in this chapter. Verse five starts with the sons of Japheth. Japheth was one of the sons of Noah. It doesn’t say that here but we will go somewhere else where it does. ‘The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashchenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah.’ I was doing some looking up on Tarshish so I can understand that more when I ran across this scripture and now I'm confused on Gomer being the father of Ashchenaz. I thought the Hebrew Tribes stemmed from Shem (not Japheth) through Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. Absolutely and Scripture does not change that. And by now, if you are like this person that hasn’t connected the dots yet (though I’m pretty sure this person will as soon as they hear where I am going with this question), you are scratching your head also. “I thought the Hebrew tribes stemmed from Shem (not Japheth).” You are correct. Shem and eventually Eber and so forth through Abraham to Isaac to Jacob. I guess names can be duplicated/repeated, but can you help clear this up for me?” That is not what happened here but I will clear it up for you. How can the Ashchenaz (Scythians- Lost Tribes) be the sons of Gomer? They are not. Well the Ashchenaz are the sons of Gomer, but they are not what we know about God’s Word, the Lost Tribes. And I have to clarify that for you and I will. But first let’s go back to Genesis. I went there when I was teaching on this and reading concerning Noah’s family record. I want you to pay attention because it was a good question that shows me that even though I briefly mentioned it and went to the scriptures, it was not caught or connected. Genesis 10:1-3, “Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood. The sons of Japheth; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz...” Then verse six gives us the genealogy of the sons of Ham, which we will skip. I like the way it starts there though, “and the sons of Ham”. Then we jump over to verse 21 (after it is done listing all the Hamites), “Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder...” Have you ever noticed that Shem gets an introduction like the father of all the children of Eber and the brother of the elder? Ham does not get that kind of introduction in verse six in God’s Word. That is a subject for another time, but it is interesting. Genesis 10:21, “Unto Shem also, the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born.” Okay. Now we see Shem’s family record starting in Genesis 11:10 (after the Tower of Babel incident), “And these are the generations of Shem...” and it starts listing all the generations of Shem and it gets down to verse 27, “Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram...” and so forth. Then God calls Abram; and most of you know the story if you’ve been a Christian for a while. And this person is exactly right in this regard, but they are not correct in their assumption or their thinking. “I thought the Hebrew Tribes,” meaning Jacob’s sons (all 12 until Jacob did something under God’s direction with Joseph’s sons, which made them a 13 tribe unit), “stemmed from Shem (not Japheth) through Abraham to Isaac to Jacob.” And that is what you still should keep thinking because that is the only correct answer. So then after what we just read in different places, How can the Ashchenaz (Scythians-Lost Tribes) be the sons of Gomer? So how can the Scythians who are part of the Lost Tribes, who are descended from Eber and Abram (where the promises and all his genealogy after that that follows are promised to) be related to the Ashchenaz? Well they are related but how can they be the Lost Tribes? How can they be Ashchenaz and Hebrew at the same time? I pulled out one of the many bible dictionaries that I have (this happens to be an older one), and about Ashchenaz it reads, “A descendant of Noah through Japheth and Gomer.” That is what we read, in Genesis 10:3 and I Chronicles 1:6. “Eponymous ancestor of the successive inhabitants of an area,” listen closely, “between the Black and Caspian Seas.” Now if you look at a map, you will see the Black Sea along the northern border of Turkey and the Caspian Sea at the center and northern border of Iran. So most dictionaries will tell you the inhabitants of the area were Ashchenaz and they dwelt and lived between the Black and Caspian Sea. So what is it saying? Japheth and Gomer and eventually Ashchenaz dwelt and lived in the areas between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, up in the Caucasus Mountains and even a little further north than that. That is what the dictionaries describe and define as their location or residence. It goes on to say in this particular dictionary that the Ashkenaz, or according to some cuneiform tablets, tell of a tribe of Askunaz or Askuzai who were the allies of the Manai (or Menia.. kind of close to Manasseh isn’t it) in the revolt against the Assyrians in the 7th century (which I already covered that)...and then it goes on to say, and this is where the dictionaries don’t give you the complete story. It goes on to read, “The Ashkenaz are to be identified with the Scythians mentioned by Herodotus.” And I am sure that is what this person is finding in their research as they are checking me out: that the Ashchenaz (because that is what the dictionaries define) were Scythians, and I am saying the Scythians were the Lost Tribes, but Ashchenaz is identified with Gomer, which came from one of Japheth’s sons, which was a son of Noah. So how can it be Hebrew and Ashchenaz at the same time? They are not, but the question is, Why are they not? Now let’s connect the dots. Go to Hosea 1:1-4. “The word of the LORD that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms”— because God was so fed up with the unfaithfulness of Israel and Judah, He was going to make a point and He went to extremes to make the point of what was going to happen to them. And He said to Hosea, “ Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms,” Go marry a whore, Hosea. Think about it. I would clear out my ears and bang on my head a couple of times to make sure I’m getting the word of the Lord correctly, “You want me to go marry a whore?” Try getting away with that in today’s religious world or in Christianity. “Go marry a whore.” This is not me, this is God’s Word saying this. I’m just reading it. “Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD. So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. And the LORD said unto him, Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge [visit] the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel.” The house of Israel, the tribes to the north, will cease to exist. Now it was not a genocide that happened, but they will cease to exist as they were known. Verse 5, “And it shall come to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. And she conceived again.” If one child wasn’t bad enough, with doom predicted from the birth of that child, here comes another one, first a son, now a daughter. “And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Loruhamah”— which means not having obtained mercy—“for I will no more have mercy”—or, I will not add any more mercy—“upon the house of Israel [which is separate from the house of Judah]; but I will utterly take them away.
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