What Color is Israel and Does it Matter?
Rabbi
Yehudah “Tochukwu” ben Shomeyr
Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God…”
The most enigmatic statement of all time; fully loaded and brimming with
mystery and question.
What does God look like? I don’t know, but what does a spirit look like?
Because God is a spirit (John 4:24).
What does love look like? Because God is love (I John 4:8, 16).
Could God look like us?
Seeing as God is a spirit and yet mankind is made in His image and
likeness; we need to ask ourselves, “What did the first man look like?”
ADAM
God made Adam out of earth East of Eden (Gen. 2:7-8). So where is Eden
and East of it?
Well, the boundaries for Eden are given in Genesis 2:10-15:
Scholars call this area the “Fertile Crescent” or “Mesopotamia” and is
known today as an area connecting the Middle East to Africa, divided by the Red
Sea. Before the British conquered the world and divided and designated the
areas on the map of the world as we know it today, all this area was considered
connected and one land mass. The ancients called it Canaan, it later became
known as Ophir (Gen. 10:29) after one of the sons of Shem. Eventually “O”
became “A”, “Ph” became “F” and the “R” was kept. Flavius Josephus, the Jewish
Historian wrote, “Ophren (Epher) the grandson of Abraham through Keturah, led a
military expedition against Libya and captured it. When his grandchild
colonized that place, they called it (from his name) Africa.”
So now we have the context of where Eden is and what lies to the east of
it. We know Adam was created east of Eden, then placed in Eden itself. We know
that God created Adam from the soil East of Eden and so, we can ask, “What
color was the soil of that area and was that the color of Adam?” Is the Sunday
school flannel-graph pictures us older folks grew up with, with the white,
naked, brown and blonde haired Adam and Eve correct?
The soil around that area varies from a rich reddish-black to dark brown
color, to a sandy orange color. Adam, by the very name in Hebrew is rooted in
the word “dam” meaning blood and blood is red. So I think it is safe to say
Adam was a deep mahogany color; a “black” man if you will.
Scientifically, for there to be lighter skinned people, you first must
start with black skin pigmentation to eventually get what you call “white.” Light
colored people do not have much melanin (skin pigmentation) as “black” folks do
and due to the laws of science, you have to have melanin before you can have a
lack of it, you have to have a black man before you can ever have a white man.
GOD AND MESSIAH
So if the first man (Adam) was a man of color, and as mentioned before,
we were made in God’s image, did this fact shape how God’s people seen Him in
dreams and visions?
I
beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose
garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his
throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. – Daniel 7:9
Hebraically, it implies that the hair on God’s head was of a woolly
consistency, like that of what we would expect of a “black” man.
I
saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the
clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near
before him. – Daniel 7:13
This verse implying, Messiah who came out of God and His Oneness, was
like the “son of man” and we have already established that the first man was a
man of color. So this Messianic “Son of Man” would be a man of color like the
first man Adam.
Now the book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation are both prophetic
books, mirrors of one another. How did John the Revelator, knowing the Book of
Daniel like the back of his hand, envision the fulfilment of this Messianic
“Son of Man”, the first Adam (I Cor. 15:45) Yeshua the Messiah?
Now the Greek and Aramaic use similar verbiage to describe the hair of
the Ancient of Days in Daniel. Whereas Daniel implies of the texture of the
hair, John implies the color and hints about the texture; which again is like
that of a “black” man. When I say “black” I mean anyone of the Afro-Hammetic
and or Semitic ethnicity whose skin colors varies from black to brown to tan
and whose hair ranges from tight, woolly, kinky curls to thick and wavy.
Recall also that sheep can have black or white hair and depending upon
the species of sheep (who produces wool) can range from curly to wavy. And
ironically the Scripture likens us to sheep (Isa. 53:6).
Notice that an additional description, it is that of skin color; burnished
bronze, which is a red or orangy brown color, the color if a Semitic Arab or
Jew.
NOAH AND HIS SONS
Knowing we (mankind) originated in Adam and came about through Noah’s
three sons (Shem, Hamm and Japheth), we must ask, “What color was Noah and his
sons?”
You may think I’m going to say that Noah was black. Nope. He was white.
You may think I am contradicting myself because I just made a solid case for
Adam, the first man, being “black.” So why do I say he was white? Well, perhaps
my verbiage is a bit misleading, to be more specific; I believe Noah was an
albino.
And now, my father, hear me; for to my son Lamech a
child has been born, who resembles not him; and whose nature is not like the
nature of man. His colour is whiter than snow; he is redder than the rose; the
hair of his head is whiter than white wool; his eyes are like the rays of the
sun; and when he opened them he illuminated the whole house. When also he was
taken from the hand of the midwife, His father Lamech feared, and fled to me,
believing not that the child belonged to him, but that he resembled the
angels of heaven. And behold I am come to you, that you might point out to me
the truth. – Enoch 105:10-12
The shocked reaction of Noah’s father would indicate everyone up to that
point was born one color; black. This was “strange”, not normal.
Albinism is simply an absence of melanin. This would set things up
nicely for what we call today, “ethnic diversity” to come into the world. If
Noah, as a white albino man was a new phenomenon, we can assume there was no
one else around like him and thus he married a black woman. Who I believe
according to the wide range of color and ethnicities in the world today had:
· Hamm – A
Black Man – Father of all the African dark skinned, Hammitic Peoples.
· Shem – A
Brown Man – Father of all the Semitic (Jew/Hebrew) and Arab Peoples.
· Japheth –
A “White” Man – Father of what is called “Caucasian” Peoples.
A tradition according to which both Semites and Hammites were dark
skinned and Japhethites being the only fair skinned son of Noah, is found in
Rabbinic Hebrew Tradition as well. According to the 8th century
Pirke De-Rabbi Eliezer 23 said that Shem was “black and comely” and Hamm was
“black as a raven.”
Onnie Kirk in his book “Once We Were Family” said on page 19, “Each of
Noah’s sons had a different degree of melanin. Melanin is the chemical factor
that determines the color of our skin; Hamm had more than Japheth or Shem.”
Ken Ham, Carl Wieland and Don Batten say virtually the same thing in
their book, “One Blood” on pages 68-70.
NIMROD
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one
in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as
Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And
the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in
the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and
builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, And Resen
between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city. And
Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim, And
Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim. – Gen.
10:8-14
Nimrod who is a son of Cush, which according to Bible dictionaries means
black, was a descendant of Hamm (Gen. 10:6), father of the Canaanite nations
and was the first world ruler until divine confounding of the languages at
Babel (Gen. 11).
ABRAHAM
Abraham and Sarah were Semitic, likely a deep brown mahogany color.
Hagar, Sarah’s handmaid whom they acquired in Egypt (Gen. 16:1-3) was likely the
daughter of Pharaoh possibly through a secondary wife or a concubine. And
Pharaoh, being a descendant of Hamm, was black, thus Hagar was likely black
also. Egypt in Hebrew is Mitzrayim and Egyptian in Hebrew means “burnt or black
faced.” Egypt being one of the 11 Canaanite nations descended from Hamm through
Canaan (Gen. 9:18) and were “black” people. Hagar and Abraham produced Ishmael
who was likely dark like his mother Hagar and Isaac through Sarah was likely a
rich dark brown. Keturah, who Rabbis say is really Hagar converted to Abraham’s
Faith had many more children after the death of Sarah and these children by in
large were likely dark like the original Egyptians.
We first knew the original Egyptians were black people because white
archeologists knocked off the broad noses and large full lips of the Egyptian
statutes and artifacts in order to hide their clearly Hammitic features. Not
wanting the world to know that one of the first and most powerful nations upon
the ancient earth were black people. Next we have the bones and mummies and CT
scans that forensic scientists have taken and have re-created their faces,
shows that prior to the Hyksos, Egyptians were black African people. This
apparently was common knowledge back when Family Bibles carried the old wood
cut pictures which portray Pharaoh as a black man. Egypt was known in Canaan as
“Kemet” which means, “Land of the Blacks.”
THE PATRIARCHS
Jacob and Esau were descendants of Shem and so we can assume they were
brown or darker. Esau apparently was more of a mahogany color like Adam because
the Bible says he was red (Gen. 25:25). His name in Hebrew has roots in the
name Adam because his descendants were eventually called “Edomites” and Edom
(same consonants as Adam), means “red.”
Jacob as we know married into his mother’s Semitic side of the family.
He married the daughters of Rebecca’s brother Laban. Laban, a name which means,
“white.” So it is possible Laban was an albino, like Noah was.
JACOB AND THE 12 TRIBES: SONS OF THE HANDMAIDS
Jacob married Rachel and Leah, Semites, likely dark brown like himself
and the handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah, whose ancestry we cannot definitely determine, but according
to Targam Jinathan were daughters of Laban, likely from concubines (other
wives) hinted at in Jasher 30:13, which may have been Semitic or Hammitic
women, seeing as Laban was living among Canaanites.
And Laban had no sons
but only daughters, and his other wives and handmaids were still barren in
those days; and these are the names of Laban's daughters which his wife Adinah
had borne unto him; the name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger
was Rachel; and Leah was tender-eyed, but Rachel was beautiful and well
favored, and Jacob loved her. – Jasher 30:13
This being the case, it is likely the sons of Jacob from Bilhah and
Zilpah were darker than the rest of their brothers. Gad and Asher were sons of
Zilpah and a portion of Gad we know is black, for we can trace Gad’s sons Eri,
Areli and Arodi to the Igbo people of Nigeria. Dan and Naphtali were sons of
Bilhah and because of the description of Samson who was a Danite (Judges 13:5,
16: 13,19) could have looked like a Rastafarian man today with a long beard and
dreadlocks because no razor was to touch his head.
For,
lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head:
for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to
deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines… And Delilah
said unto Samson, Hitherto thou hast mocked me, and told me lies: tell me
wherewith thou mightest be bound. And he said unto her, If thou weavest the
seven locks of my head with the web… And she made him sleep upon her knees; and
she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his
head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him. – Judges
13:5, 16:13,19
Beta Israel of Ethiopia claim to be descendants of Dan and they are
black people.
·
Simeon – Simeon
whose mother was Leah; some of Simeons descendants were black because he had
children by a Canaanite (black) wife (Exd. 6:15). “And the sons of Simeon; Jemuel, and
Jamin, and Ohad, and Jachin, and Zohar, and Shaul the son of a Canaanitish
woman: these are the families of Simeon.”
· Judah – Whose
mother was Leah married a Cannanite woman (Gen. 38:1-11) So many of his sons
would be black men.
· Levi – Also a
son of Leah produced Moses who married Zipporah (who at first confused him with
being a black Egyptian man) a daughter of Midian, which would be a son of
Abraham through Keturah/Hagar as well as took an Ethiopian (black) woman to
wife (Num. 12:1). Also note that the Lemba tribe in Ethiopia have been proven
by a DNA test to be Levites and they are black people.
MOSES
As mentioned above, Moses married a black women and he himself must have
been quite dark for we all know how he was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter and
when he had to flee Egypt for his life Jasher says (Ch. 71-76) that Moses first
flees to Cush, a land of black people, and becomes commander of an army,
obviously under the guise of passing himself off to be a dark Egyptian, because
when he leaves Cush and meets Zipporah he is taken by her to be an Egyptian,
not by way he dressed, but by the way he looked; his complexion.
Now when Pharaoh heard this thing, he sought to
slay Moses. But Moses fled from the face of Pharaoh, and dwelt in the land of
Midian: and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had
seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water
their father's flock. And the shepherds came and drove them
away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock. And
when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so
soon to day? And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the
hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the
flock. And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is
it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread. And
Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his
daughter. And she bare him a son, and he called his name
Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. – Exd. 2:15-22
And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out
of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered
the flock. – Exd. 2:19
Also, with leprosy being white (Num. 12:1, 9-10, Deut. 18:18) Moses had
to be dark for leprosy to show up so noticeably and dramatically upon his hand
as one of the miraculous signs he was to use to convince the Children of Israel
of his mission.
And the Lord
said furthermore unto him, Put now thine hand into thy bosom. And he put his
hand into his bosom: and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as
snow. And he said, Put thine hand into thy bosom again. And he
put his hand into his bosom again; and plucked it out of his bosom, and,
behold, it was turned again as his other flesh. – Exd. 4:6-7
When Moses sister Miriam spoke against Moses’ decision to take on a
second wife by marry an Ethiopian (black) women, she didn’t protest due to the
color of his new wifes skin, but against Moses taking on a second wife seemed
to her to smack with pride. Due to her unfounded criticism the LORD struck
Moses’ sister Miriam (who was a black like her brother) with white leprosy.
And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of
the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman. And
they said, Hath the Lord indeed
spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the Lord heard it. (Now the
man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the
earth.) And the Lord
spake suddenly unto Moses, and unto Aaron, and unto Miriam, Come out ye three
unto the tabernacle of the congregation. And they three came out. And
the Lord came down in the pillar
of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and
Miriam: and they both came forth. And he said, Hear now my
words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord
will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a
dream. My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine
house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently,
and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the Lord shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to
speak against my servant Moses. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them; and he
departed. And the cloud departed from off the tabernacle; and,
behold, Miriam became leprous, white as snow: and Aaron looked upon
Miriam, and, behold, she was leprous. – Exd. 12:1-10
JOSEPH: EPHRAIM AND MANASSEH
Joseph, though his mother was the Semite Rachel, nonetheless was dark
and became darker by being exposed to the harsh Egyptian sun as a slave and
then eventually being appointed by Pharaoh as viceroy of Egypt, to the point
that his very own brothers failed to recognize him and took him for a black
Egyptian. It wasn’t until he revealed himself to his brothers, likely by
removing his Egyptian headgear to reveal his wavy Semitic hair, instead of
tightly curly Hammitic/Egyptian hair, did they know it was really Joseph.
Joseph had Ephraim and Manasseh by a black Egyptian woman (Gen. 41:45), thus
Ephraim and Manasseh were black men.
DAVID AND SOLOMON
· David – David
being from the Tribe of Judah, was said to be “fair and ruddy (I Sam. 17:42)
and those ignorant of the Hebrew has said that this means David was a white boy
with red hair, rosy cheeks and freckles. Not so. “Fair” just means handsome and
ruddy means that his dark skin had a reddish hue to it. This means that David
was likely a mahogany color.
David had many wives, but Bathsheba was a black woman. Bath-Sheba =
Daughter of Sheba. Sheba was the son of Cush (Gen. 10:7). Thus a son of Hamm,
who settled in what is now the Sudan and Ethiopia.
Also note that David was a product of Boaz, a Semite and Ruth a Moabite,
a dark Canaanite woman (Ruth 1:4, 22). Moab, originally a son of Lot and his
daughter (Gen. 19) was likely Semitic brown, but living in Canaan and
eventually becoming enemies of Israel, married into the surrounding black
Canaanite peoples, thus making the Moabites as the generations went on, black
people.
· Solomon – Whose
mother was black Bathsheba, had many wives due to political marriages to keep
peace in the land. But one of his many wives we know was a black woman, all one
has to do is read the Song of Solomon and see that his lover was a black.
I am black, but comely, O ye
daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look
not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my
mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards;
but mine own vineyard have I not kept. – Song of Solomon 1:5-6
Solomon was describes to look like his father.
My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among
ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are
bushy, and black as a raven. – Song of Solomon 5:10-11
The word “white” is misleading; it means in the Hebrew, “dazzling” and
it comes from a word meaning, “glare.” Whit in this verse is used in conjunction
with the word ruddy, like in the description of David (I Sam. 17:42).
I
sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying,
Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled
with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. – Song of Solomon
5:2
So we can say because “dew” is mentioned in the verses prior that this
lover of Solomon describes him as a dark, ruddy, brown man glistening with dew.
White, straight haired people’s hair does not collect glistening beaded drops
of dew like a black man. Furthermore, in v. 11 it tells us Solomon had bushy,
some translations says curly hair that was black as ravens hair. So this could mean Solomon had somewhat of an
Afro hair doo. Tradition states he has a son with the Queen of Sheba a black
woman from Ethiopia and produced the Menelick dynasty of Ethiopian Kings.
Menelick an aberration derived from the Hebrew meaning “From the Kings.”
YESHUA
The color of Messiah has been mentioned before at the beginning of this
article, to further drive the point home, let us consider that God told Joseph
to take Miriam (Mary) and Yeshua and flee to Egypt (Matt. 2:13-15). Now by this
time, due to the Hyksos and other factors Egyptians were not as dark as they
were in Moses’ time, not to mention the Egypt of Yeshua’s day had become a
cosmopolitan melting pot of peoples, students, traders, soldiers and immigrants
of every color, and diverse and large place an olive skinned, burnished bronzed
colored Yeshua could easily hide and blend in with the Egyptians.
PAUL
Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days
madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that
were murderers? But Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of
Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee,
suffer me to speak unto the people. – Acts 21:38-39
Rav Sha’ul (Apostle Paul) was dark enough to be confused for an
Egyptian.
SO ARE ALL JEWS AND HEBREWS BLACK?
No. It’s just that after Babel, Hamm and Shem stayed close together and
spread South and East whereas Japheth migrated North then East and West. So for
a long time the families of Shem and Hamm intermarried with each other and it
wasn’t until the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities that Jews and Hebrews then
began to meet white Japhethites and then mix with them.
The color wheel of a son of Israel has become diverse, spanning one end
of the melanin color scale to the other. Because of early intermarriages with
Canaanites, and intermarriage within the Babylonian and Assyrian captivities,
the color of a Jew, Hebrew and Israelite varies.
Also recall the Torah law of taking a captive as a wife (Deut. 21) the
marrying of converts, the influx of Gentile converts in the 1st
century, the rapes during pogroms, holocausts and wars as well as the various
migrations of Jewish communities all must be factored in for us to correctly
conclude that Israel is black and white and every color in between. So does it
matter? No, after all it is just melanin and nothing more.
So let us all refuse to argue and abandon the tug of war some of us have
been caught in and have been cornered and forced to choose sides between Black Hebraism
and British Israelitism and admit, confess, acknowledge and proclaim the
evidences that has been presented, that Jews, Hebrews and Israelites, sons of
Abraham, whatever you want to label it, is and spans the color of the human
rainbow.
