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    The Tree of Abraham
    The Tree of Abraham
    The Tree of Abraham
    Ebook290 pages8 hours

    The Tree of Abraham

    By Richard Govier

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    I have sought to understand the spiritual intent of the Abrahamic Covenant that began with the physical, but ended with the spiritual. We do not see the physical and the spiritual walking hand in hand, but first the physical, and then the spiritual. There was a definite transition that took place between the physical and the spiritual. Using this principle throughout our studies we shall better understand that some of the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled on the physical plane, while others remain to be fulfilled on the spiritual.

    Richard O. Govier (1928-2018) was a Protestant pastor and missionary and travelled the world in that capacity. He planted a number of churches as well as training pastors who served in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and across the United States.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Govier
    Release dateJul 27, 2019
    ISBN9780463035214
    The Tree of Abraham
    Author

    Richard Govier

    Richard O. Govier (1928-2018) was a Protestant pastor and missionary and travelled the world in that capacity. He planted a number of churches as well as training pastors who served in Brazil, Chile, Argentina and across the United States.After his marriage to his lifetime sweetheart, Christine Ann Golfis, at the Bethesda Missionary College in Portland, Oregon, he attended extension classes at Pierce College and the Portland State college. Touched by the Latter Rain revival that began in the Northwest, the call of God rested continually on their hearts and they were forever seeking means of preaching the Gospel to their generation. They bought a small trailer and began an evangelistic trek across the United States, preaching in small churches that were open to the work and moving of the Holy Spirit. They criss-crossed the United States from Los Angeles to New York and finally settled down in Los Angeles where they both got jobs and attended a church in Long Beach, California. While serving in that church their son, Jeffrey Lee, was born on November 4, 1963.God had spoken through prophetic words that they would be going to a land whose language they would not understand. Going through a dry period in their lives, Richard loaded up a small tent and made a trip to Mount Palomar, to wait on God. After a week of prayer and fasting, the Holy Spirit spoke to his heart that it was time to fulfill the call to a foreign land. Richard, Christine, and Jeff, set out for Brazil. They had no financial support for this until the night they boarded the ship. God sent a local Christian businessman who committed himself to their support for two years, just enough time to attend language school.It was while attending the Brazilian language school that a missionary visited and introduced Richard to one of Brazil's most notable guitar players, who had recently converted to Christianity. Richard played with him on the banjo and the two began a ministry together that took them to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Richard taught pastors in afternoon meetings, while accompanying his Brazilian friend in large city-wide evangelistic campaigns in the evenings.After serving for ten years in South America, Richard and Christine returned to the United States, primarily to get Jeff into an English-speaking school. Richard pastored churches in York, Pennsylvania, and later in Brooksville, New Jersey. The family eventually moved to Florida where Richard went to work for Piper Aircraft and Page Avjet.Richard loved studying the word of God and, in his retirement years, wrote over thirty books about the unfolding revelations of God in human history. His son, Jeff, published these books one year after his father passed away.

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      Book preview

      The Tree of Abraham - Richard Govier

      THE TREE OF ABRAHAM

      The Biblical Genealogy of Jesus Christ and His Church

      Richard O. Govier

      Copyright © 2019 by Jeff Govier

      Bible quotations unless otherwise identified are taken from

      the King James Version with emendations by the author.

      Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible®,

      Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995

      by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

      Scripture quotations marked Phillips are taken from

      The New Testament in Modern English,

      copyright © 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and

      1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The Macmillian Company, New York.

      Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      ~~~~~~~~~~

      After reading this book and finding it of value to you, please consider sending a small donation for the the costs of advertising my father's work. Send all donations either by Paypal account name jeffcomputerdoc@yahoo.com or by mail to:

      Jeff Govier, 5511 Lorraine St., Lakeland, FL 33810.

      ~~~~~~~~~~

      Contents

      Introduction

      Part I. The Earthly Phase: From Abraham to David

      Part II. The Metaphysical Phase: From David to Christ

      Part III. The Spiritual Phase: From Christ to the Spread of Christianity

      Conclusion

      About the Author

      INTRODUCTION

      Three things must be kept in mind while studying our subject, The Tree of Abraham.

      (1) That the covenant involved a physical phase that began with Abraham, and ended with David and Solomon extending the physical boundaries of the promised possession from the Euphrates to the Nile;

      (2) That it involved a transitional phase that began with the Davidic Covenant and progressed toward the spiritual through the revelation of the prophets and the final spread of this word throughout the world; and

      (3) It involved a spiritual phase that began with Jesus Christ and ended by the embodiment of the Christ in the Universal Church.

      We shall be dealing with all three phases of the Abrahamic Covenant in these lectures, and for the uninitiated, these studies may seem dry and hard to understand. Nevertheless, we are not attempting to be oratorical, but rather factual, as much as lies within us. For this reason we have had to rely on many authors and source materials that are not in the Bible. Yet the Bible has been our only guide to understanding the Abrahamic Covenant. There is such a thing as having a secular knowledge of scripture without knowing its spiritual intent. Such was the case with the Sadducees who confronted Jesus about the resurrection but who knew nothing about the true meaning of the Abrahamic Covenant (Matthew 22:32). Jesus said unto them ...have you not read that, which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but the living. The Sadducees, who prided themselves in a physical progeny from Abraham, knew nothing of their spiritual heritage. In plain language, Jesus was saying to the Sadducees - God is not the God of the dead branches in the Abrahamic Tree, but only the living who had stayed true to the Covenant. All the other branches out of Abraham were dead branches, in God's view, regardless of their genealogies.

      It is for this reason that I have sought to understand the spiritual intent of the Abrahamic Covenant that began with the physical, but ended with the spiritual. We do not see the physical and the spiritual walking hand in hand, but first the physical, and then the spiritual. There was a definite transition that took place between the physical and the spiritual. Using this principle throughout our studies we shall better understand that some of the promises made to Abraham were fulfilled on the physical plane, while others remain to be fulfilled on the spiritual. A mixing of these two phases of the covenant has led to much error in Biblical exposition. I, myself, have preached for many years a double fulfillment to the Abrahamic covenant that I call the earthly and the heavenly seed, running parallel to one-another. Closer scrutiny on the subject has brought me to the conclusion that there is but one seed that God recognizes; that was precisely what Jesus was trying to say to the Sadducees.

      PART I. THE EARTHLY PHASE:

      From Abraham to David

      A. ABRAHAM'S ANCESTRY

      Before we launch into our studies on the Tree of Abraham it may be well to give a brief survey on Abraham's ancestors going back to Noah. Not from his linear descendency from Noah, but according to a covenant promise given to Shem, Noah's son, that has played such a predominant roll in the history of the Semitic race. According to the Biblical version, Noah was the father of all the nations that originated after the flood (Genesis 9:19). Woolley's discovery of a flood layer at Ur and the surrounding basin established without doubt the existance of a great flood that occurred about 4000 B.C. The disasater engulfed an area of the Persian Gulf 400 miles long and 100 miles' wide that would have embraced the entire civilization of the Euphrates. While there are archaeologists and historiographers who will not agree with this Biblical version we, nevertheless, find it hard to put all our faith in a science that is continually changing its mind. It was but a few decades ago that the patriarch Abraham represented a mythological figure, and only recent discoveries have proven this to be wrong. If Abraham proved to be a real living human being in history, then I am sure that his ancestors were also real human beings. From the mountains of Armenia, where Noah landed from the Ark, the streams of population poured forth to all parts of the world; northwest to Europe, west to Asia Minor, southwest to Egypt and Africa, south to Arabia, southeast to Persia and India, and east to China.[1] The Chinese legends say that Noah was their first emperor. Whether this is true or not, we know that China, like Egypt, was early settled and had a high civilization. The nations moved from Persia in the west until they came to the great Hoang Ho River; along its banks, and to the north and south of it, they settled."[2]

      The Biblical view of the earth after the flood reveals to us a growing number of inhabitants, all descendants of one man - Noah, and all speaking one language (Genesis 11). And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east (from the plains of Armenia), that they found a plain in the land of Shinar (Genesis 11: 2), and there they settled. So there arose several settlements such as Kish, Lagash, Ur, Eridu, Erech, Nippur, Sippar, Babylon, Accad, Larsa, Fara, and others. Some of these cities were pre-flood cities rebuilt after the flood. One of these settlements was Kish whose antiquity goes back 4000 years B.C. About 100 miles' south of Kish is Lagash, which appears in the opening of the historic period to be a serious rival of Kish. It is the capital of the first Sumerian (or Hamitic) kingdom, as Kish is the capital of the first Semitic kingdom. These became small fortified cities each ruled by a king, or a priest-king. They were in constant conflict with one another. Sometimes one city would gain control over others, thus making a small empire. From all indications, these cities were either Semitic, or Hamitic - the descendants of Japheth either remaining in Armenia, or migrating northward. Ham and Shem, on the other hand, migrated westward toward the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt. Some of the tribes remained in Babylonia, being on the border of Hamitic and Semitic lands. The Hamites, or Sumerians, under the leadership of Nimrod, soon passed into the ascendancy. Nimrod took up where the builders of the Tower of Babel left off. He not only made Babylon a great city, but added to it the neighboring city-kingdoms of Erech, Accad, and Calney, that hitherto had been independent tribal communities and later built Nineveh. Though Nimrod's kingdom was small by world standards it, nevertheless, was the beginning of imperialism. Babylonia was long known as the land of Nimrod. He was later deified, his name being identified with Marduk.

      But it took ages for the nations to reach the more distant lands; ages for them to become settled in their new homes; ages for them to people these lands densely. Hundreds of years after the deluge, some of the peoples who reached the Western shores of the Pacific Ocean, and who ventured on its waters, were carried away on the stream whose currents' sweep to the north, then to the east, and thence down again to the south. It has happened in the last few centuries that Malays and Japanese sailors have thus been swept away by the Kuro Shiwo (Black Stream). Thus, in all probability the continent of America was peopled. Thus the present Japanese nation originated from the mixing of these Malays from Southeastern Asia and the Ainos, the nation which had made its way overland to Japan.[3]

      All these nations originally sprang from one man and his three sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth. It is to one of these or a combination of these three that we owe our descendancy.

      1. Sons of Noah

      For all practical purposes we shall not dwell much on the other two sons of Noah (Ham and Japheth) for their lineage does not immediately concern the house of Abraham. It is the house of Shem that represents the ancestors of the Hebrews and the house of Abraham. The promise of blessing as enunciated by Noah was given to Shem (Genesis 9:10). This prophetic word became the basis of a spiritual election that began with Shem, but surfaced again in the persons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So here, for the first time, we see the injection into a tribal family of a divine election that was to culminate in the choice of Israel as a priest among nations. We shall see this divine election at work as we continue our studies on the Abrahamic Tree.

      a. Japheth

      The Bible declares that Noah's three sons were the fathers of all the nations after the flood. Japheth, Noah's eldest son, was the father of seven sons. Each, in turn, became the founders of great nations. Their genealogies appear in the10th chapter of Genesis. Armenian history, for instance, represents the Armenians as descendants of Japheth who migrated to the plateau in later centuries from Babylon. They represent the Togarmah and Ashkenaz of the Old Testament. Madai, another son of Japheth, was the founder of the Medes, who joined the Persians, a Semitic people, under the leadership of Cyrus. So here we see the joining of two great tribal families whose forefathers were Japheth and Shem.

      b. Ham

      In like manner Ham gave birth to four sons. Ham's descendants became closely associated with the Semitic tribes descended from Shem. This is particularly true of the Canaanites and the Egyptians who descended from Ham, but whose territories were invaded by Semitic tribes. The Hebrew invasion of Canaan is a good case in point, for not only did they become mixed racially, but the Semitic tongue became the predominate language of Canaan. We see here a fulfillment to the words of Noah in his inspired utterance about his descendants: Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.

      c. Shem

      The patriarch Shem seemed to hold a special place in the purpose of God. Not only was he the father of a race that gave us Judaism, and ultimately Christianity and Mohammedanism, but his lifespan bridged the gap between the biblical flood and the time of Abraham. He lived before and during the flood, and was still living when Abraham entered Canaan. This has led some to speculate that Melchizedek, King of Salem, to whom Abraham paid tithe, was none other than Shem (Genesis14:18). It would not be hard to see how pre-flood tradition was preserved, for Shem had first hand knowledge of the events leading up to the flood and could have passed it on to Abraham.

      2. The Descendants of Shem

      Shem had five sons: Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram (Genesis 10: 22). These sons, in turn, became the progenitors of great nations and empires. Elam, says Josephus, left behind him the Elamites, the ancestors of the Persians.[5] Asshur, on the other hand, became the founder of one of the most vicious and blood-thirsty tribes known among men - the Assyrians. The Godly traits of Asshur and Shem, their ancestors, were lacking in the Assyrians. Perhaps it was because of their close association with the descendants of Ham and the carnally minded Nimrod whose kingdom they had supplanted on the plains of Shinar. Even so, God sent a prophet to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, that it might repent. The Bible says that it did repent at the preaching of Jonah (Jonah 3).

      Then there was Arphaxad, the third son of Shem, whom Josephus identifies as the forefather pf the Chaldeans. I might add here, however, that the Westminster Dictionary of the Bible takes issue with Josephus. It claims that the Chaldeans descended from the Haldians, the inhabitants of Urartu, and were a non-Semitic people.

      As for the fourth son of Shem, Lud, his descendants were called Laudites who later bore the name of Lydians. Aram, the fifth son of Shem was the father of the Aramaeians who inhabited a region known as Aram (Genesis 10:22-23). This region is where the patriarchs dwelt before going to Canaan, and where also the ancient cities of Haran and Nisibis stood. The region is later identified with Edessa, the seat of Syrian culture. This concludes the names of Shem's five sons and their descendants. We shall now narrow our subject to just the descendants of Arphaxad from whose line Abraham sprang.

      a. Arphaxad

      Arphaxad was born two years after the flood (Genesis 11:10), and after fifty-three years bore a son named Shelah. Though he had other sons and daughters, their names are not mentioned in the Bible (verse 13) with the obvious intent, by the writer, of maintaining only the names of those who were genetically connected to Abraham. As for Arphaxad, there is little that can be said of him historically; but spiritually, he was the only son of Shem that bore the sacred seed of blessing as promised by God to his father Shem. Shem's other sons all became founders of great kingdoms such as Elam, progenitor of the Elamites, and Asshur, founder of the Assyrians. But the descendants of Arphaxad appear on the scene as a nomadic people whose main interest was in living a pastoral life coupled to a simple faith in God's providence.

      It is enlightening to note that God's chosen line placed no great priority on building cities or earthly kingdoms, but rather concentrated on the quiet pursuit of spiritual values. This should serve as a lesson for all time, that God places no premium on human achievement that is man centered whether it is in the building of great cities or in the creation of great systems of religion such as arose later in Babylonia and Egypt. It has been rightly said that ...whenever the culture of a people loses contact with the common life of mankind and becomes exclusively the plaything of a leisure class, it is becoming a priestcraft. It is destined to end, as does all priestcraft, in superstition. To be proud of intellectual isolation from the common life of mankind and to be disdainful of the great social task of education is as stupid as it is wicked. It is the end of progress in knowledge. History shows that superstitions are not manufactured by the plain man. They are invented by neurotic intellectuals with too little to do.[6] It was also the observation of St. Paul who said: For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence (I Corinthians 1:26-29).

      History is filled with the monuments of human achievement, starting from the Tower of Babel to modern space technology; from the priestcraft of ancient Babylon to the ecclesiastisism of modern Rome. The great civilizations of history were not the carriers of the great eternal promise made to Shem, but rather a fringe element that surfaced here and there throughout the history of mankind. This is also true of the great religions of the world, which may have begun as true spiritual movements but have since crystallized into great ecclesiastical organizations.

      b. The Hebrews

      Now Shelah lived thirty years and became the father of Eber. Josephus tells us that the word Hebrew originated with Eber, or Heber, the son of Shelah. In Genesis 10:21, Shem is called: ...the father of all the children of Eber. This terminology cannot be taken literally, but only in the sense that the Hebrews became heirs to the promise made to Shem in much the same way that the Israelites became heirs to the promise made to Abraham. In ancient times it was customary to maintain the clan name even unto many generations, so we find even Abraham called a Hebrew. The name Eber, or Heber, means beyond and here it would designate the people who came from beyond the Euphrates.

      This may explain the broad use of the term and could have applied to all Semites who came from beyond the Euphrates. It more specifically applied to those nomadic tribes that were shepherds whose birthplace was beyond the Euphrates, for many of the Semitic people had settled in Assyria and Chaldea. The name Habiru is found in very early Mesopotamian tablets and means intruding foreigners. It is in this sense that it was used in the Amarna tablets to describe the hordes who came into the country over the eastern frontier. Manetho, in his History of Egypt, mentions a people coming out of the eastern parts and subduing Egypt without so much as a battle. They were called Hycsos (or Hyksos, shepherd-kings) and they ruled Egypt five hundred and eleven years. Could these people have been the descendants of Eber? They were Semites, and were no doubt driven by the Assyrians who were now strengthening their control over the Sumerian and Semitic inhabitants of Mesopotamia. This would explain their fear of the Assyrians. It would also explain the reason that Abraham was so well treated in Egypt, for he must have entered Egypt when the Hycsos were still in power. A shepherd, which Abraham undoubtedly was, was considered an abomination unto the Egyptians (Genesis 46:34). Whether this dislike for the shepherd by the Egyptians came after or before the long rule of the Hycsos is hard to determine here, but we have every reason to believe that Abraham was being entertained by a pharaoh who understood the life of a shepherd. More than this, he may have been a distant Semitic relative, speaking the same Semitic dialect. Archaeology is uncovering more and more information about the Amarna age and its related history and is bringing to light many revelations touching on Abraham and his descendants.

      c. Peleg - The Division of Languages

      Eber gave birth to two sons - Peleg and Joktan (I Chronicles 1). It was during the days of Peleg that the earth became divided (Genesis 10: 25). Until that time the Bible declares that ...the whole earth used the same language (Genesis 11:1). The Semitic language is but a part of a larger language group - Hamito-Semitic. The farther we go back in history the more we shall discover the unity of one language, and the original belief in one God. The Encyclopedia Britannica quotes Cohen as saying: Hamitic is not itself a unity as against Semitic. The situation is rather that Semitic is but one of a number of branches in a larger Hamito-Semitic family to which Greenberg has applied the name Afro-Asiatic. Evidence would seem to point to the existence of one mother tongue; and if we accept the Biblical account, then this language must have been spoken by Noah himself. As the tribes of Mesopotamia were scattered abroad, the more divided and corrupted became their dialects.

      At some point in ancient history the Semitic language, and doubtless all languages, began to divide. This division of languages began in the days of Peleg and the cause of this division is recorded in the eleventh chapter of Genesis. Here we find the origin of the name Babel, ...because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth (Genesis 11:9). The sons of Eber, or the Hebrews, were in a state of ferment and began to migrate from the hill country of the east (Genesis 10:30) toward the west. Says Dobbins: For some time after the confusion of tongues the nation's remained in the vicinity of the tower of Babel. Then they began to disperse, all but one nation. This one journeyed only a short distance to the south and founded the empire of Assyria and Babylon, the Persia of later days. Here we find traces of that idolatrous worship which soon passed into Parsecism. Zoroaster was the man who was instrumental in reforming the ancient Assyrian religion Zoroaster retained the worship of the sun and of fire, and taught that there were two gods, a good god, and an evil god, Ormuzd and Ahriman.[7]

      Joktan, the brother of Peleg, had thirteen sons; one of which was Jobab. Jobab is believed to be the Job of the Bible. So Job was a Hebrew, but it is through Peleg that the royal line comes. Peleg begat Reu, Reu begat Serug, and Serug begat Nahor. Nahor lived twenty-nine years and begat Terah, the father of Abraham. It would be difficult to calculate the number of souls added to the Hebrews during these seven generations from Eber to Abraham - but the number must have been astronomical.

      d. Nahor - Father of Terah

      Josephus tells us that Nahor, father of Terah, and the son of Serug, bore a son named Haran when he was a hundred and twenty. We must not confuse him with the Haran born to Terah in Ur of the Chaldees. If this be true, then Terah had a brother named Haran. He probably built the city of Haran, later visited by Abram and his father Terah after their departure from Ur. Haran, by this time, had become an important commercial center between Babylon and the Mediterranean, and like Ur, was a worshiper of the moon-God.

      e. Terah - Father of Abram

      Terah, the father of Abram, was ...a descendant of Shem, of the eleventh generation, and the original seat of his tribe was among the mountains of southern Armenia, north of Assyria. From thence Terah migrated to the plains of Mesopotamia, probably with the desire to share the rich pastures of the lowlands, and settled in Ur of the Chaldeans.[8]

      Terah had three sons: Abram, Nahor, and Haran; but this last son Haran, after begetting Lot,"...died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis 11:28)." That Terah was a polytheist, there is no doubt, for Joshua mentions it in his discourse to Israel (Joshua 2:2, 3). But he was evidently persuaded to leave Ur, either through the death of his son, or the persuasion of Abram. The family tree of Terah has the origin of tribes like the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, the Midianites, the Syrians, and the Arabs. We must qualify our reference to Syria and Arabia, however, for these regions were already inhabited by other races previous to the coming of the descendants of Terah. Archaeology reveals the presence of a mixed population of Hamito-Semitic nomads who inhabited the regions that are now known as Syria and Arabia. The Aramaeans (later called Syrians) are descended from Shem and inhabited the region known as Aram (Genesis 10:22, 23; I Chronicles 1:17). The city of

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