A BIBLE TITLE SEARCH OF THE LANDS OF THE WORLD ROGER WAITE A BIBLE TITLE SEARCH OF THE LANDS OF THE WORLD Roger Waite 1 Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3 Early Migrations from Babel .............................................................................................................. 5 Lands Granted to the Descendants of Abraham ............................................................................... 6 Edom‘s Inheritance........................................................................................................................ 8 Moab‘s Inheritance ...................................................................................................................... 11 Ammon‘s Inheritance ................................................................................................................... 11 The Inheritance of Abraham‘s Sons with Keturah ........................................................................ 12 Ishmael‘s Inheritance .................................................................................................................. 12 Israel‘s Land Inheritance ............................................................................................................. 13 The Migrations of the Peoples of the World .................................................................................... 18 The Migrations of the Tribes of Israel .......................................................................................... 34 The Birthright Promised to the Sons of Joseph ............................................................................... 51 The European Age of Discovery and Colonialism ........................................................................... 58 The United States of America ...................................................................................................... 82 Canada ....................................................................................................................................... 95 South Africa............................................................................................................................... 104 Australia .................................................................................................................................... 121 New Zealand ............................................................................................................................. 136 The Land Dispute Between the Jews and Palestinians ................................................................. 142 The Millennium and Beyond .......................................................................................................... 151 2 A BIBLE TITLE SEARCH OF THE LANDS OF THE WORLD Introduction In the Middle East today we see a major dispute over land title to the land of Israel or Palestine between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In the nations settled by the English speaking peoples there have been disputes over who owns those lands between the indigenous peoples and the English speaking peoples who have colonised those lands. What does the Bible say about who owns these lands and other nations across the world? When I was in my early twenties I worked for the Commonwealth Bank. One of my jobs was as a search clerk. It was my job to go to the Land Titles office each day and obtain photocopies of the government‘s copy of each land title or deed of properties upon which housing loans were being sought from the bank for property transactions. Before the bank would lend money it had to confirm who was the true owner of the land and what credit suppliers may have had a mortgage on the property which would give them a claim on the property if the owner defaulted on what they owed. If we were to do a title search on the lands of the world such as the lands of the Middle East or even other lands such as our Western nations what information could we find to confirm just who owns these lands in God‘s eyes? Given the Bible is the revelation of the Creator of the earth what can we find in the Bible to confirm just who owns these lands? God as Creator of the earth owns all and gives it to us as He sees fit. In Exodus 19:5 He says: ―…for all the earth is mine.‖ When it comes to land titles in human society either the king or government owns all the land of a nation and its territories until specifically titled to individuals or companies. All land that is not specifically granted and titled to individuals and companies is referred to as crown land in British commonwealth countries. Many of the kings of Europe felt that they had a divine right to rule given to them by God and were His agent on earth. This flowed on with how they distributed land. In Texas, which was originally claimed by Spain before American settlers moved in, the chain of title for many properties (the record of who previously owned a piece of land) goes right back to the kings of Spain. There‘s an old expression that possession is nine-tenths of the law. This is not the case with human land laws. If people settle on land that hasn‘t been titled by the government or the king in human law they do not own the land and they are referred to as squatters. This principle also applies with God‘s law. God owns the earth and He gives it to who He wills. Tribes of people can settle in parts of the earth but that doesn‘t automatically give them ownership of the land in God‘s eyes no matter how long they have lived there as God is Creator and the ultimate owner of the earth. Only those to whom God grants that land truly own it. That said, we will see that God is generous with how He does grant land. A foundational verse with regards to how God has granted or titled the earth to various peoples is found in Deuteronomy 32:8 which says: ―When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.‖ 3 We read here God sets the boundaries of the peoples and divided to the nations their inheritance. God has done this but how can we tell what those boundaries are of the national inheritances that He has granted or titled to them? In Acts 17:26 we read: ―And He has made all nations of men of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth, ordaining fore-appointed seasons and boundaries of their dwelling.‖ National peoples have been ordained pre-appointed seasons and also boundaries of dwelling. The seasons could possibly mean times of national greatness as many different nations have had their season of greatness or empire. This ordaining of the boundaries of their dwelling strongly implies that God‘s guiding hand is involved in where each major group of people have ended up on this earth. I suspect that God has also had a hand in the development of the wonderful difference in the accents of the many different peoples around the world. In relation to Deuteronomy 32:8 and Acts 17:26 Herman Hoeh wrote the following in his article ―The Race Question‖ (Plain Truth, April 1957): God gave the nations their separate inheritances. [In the early post-Flood world] Most people would not take their own inheritance. They wanted to ... make their own kind of ONE WORLD. They could have had one world then, with one language, IF THEY HAD BEEN OBEDIENT. But the people rebelled. They were not satisfied with separate inheritances. They did not want to be segregated. "So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence"- from Babel - "upon the face of all the earth. Therefore was the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did then confound the languages of all the earth" (Genesis 11:8-9)… The very color of the skin makes it more tolerable for a Negro to withstand tropical climate. Whites were not meant to populate Central Africa. South Africa, however, does provide the type of climate suitable for Europeans... Take the example of the Mongolians. Only in East Asia does the climate constantly vary from extremely hot to extremely cold. No other portion of the earth's surface presents such a variation in weather. The Oriental was made exactly for that climate. His blood vessels are not so near the surface of the skin as among Whites. Hence the color of his skin. Mongolians do not therefore notice the extremes in climate. Next, take the example of the Germans. They are an energetic people. They form the very heart of Europe. That is why God led them there - so that the whole of Europe could be efficiently and thoroughly integrated in its economy. Similar parallels may be drawn with all peoples, races and nationalities...Each of the primary races [white, black/brown and yellow] is separated by bodies of water, deserts or great mountain barriers (p.19, 22). We see some general principles in how national peoples have been guided by God to the places that God has given to them as an inheritance. One fairly clear principle is that the darker skinned peoples have been guided to the areas of the earth closer to the equator than the white peoples. People with darker brown and black skin have the skin pigment to withstand tropical weather far better than light skinned people who are far more at risk of skin cancer when living close to the equator. 4 This is evident with the Oriental peoples of Eastern Asia who vary in skin colour with the darker skinned peoples closer to the equator and progressively lighter skinned