The Afghans, the Ten Tribes, and the Kings of the East. The Druses, the Moabites.

By G. H. Rose

"The Afghans, the Ten Tribes" is a republication of the original 1852 work that delves into the intriguing hypothesis connecting the Afghan people to the lost Ten Tribes

• Language: English
• Publisher: TrueHistoryReads
• Release date: Jun 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798869238979

Book preview

The Afghans,

the Ten Tribes,

and the Kings of the East.

The Druses, the Moabites.

G.H. Rose

(1771-1855)

This is a republication of a

public domain book

originally published in

1852

THE AFGHANS, THE TEN TRIBES, AND THE KINGS OF THE EAST.

THE question of the discovery of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and of their restoration to the land of Canaan, and reunion with those of Judah and Benjamin, is the whole and sole object of this attempt at the development of prophecies bearing upon it.

It was long since suggested that they were the Afghans, but the evidence to prove it did not receive the examination which it can be shown is deserved: and in truth very few took the trouble of examining it at all, although the subject is one of very high scriptural interest.

When, therefore, in the outset of this attempt, the origin and application of baptism are briefly treated of, the reader may be assured, that the discussions respecting that rite, lately so needlessly, and to say the least, unprofitably provoked, are entirely and indeed anxiously avoided. There was no inducement whatever to enter into this painful subject, whilst so to do might divert the attention of the reader from the only object in view, the import of certain predictions, and might leave disadvantageous impressions on his mind.

There are facts relating to this rite, both of the earliest date of the history of this globe which we inhabit, and predicted in yet unexplored futurity, which may well repay attention bestowed on them.

The intention of these pages is to show the connection of baptism with events of magnitude in the future destinies of Israel.

It must strike the most ordinary observer as a peculiar circumstance, that the injunction of baptism is not to be found in the whole of the Old Testament, neither amongst the primeval laws, nor in those subsequently promulgated through Moses. It was a rite prominent in the personal history of our Lord, being as it were the signal and preparation for his mission, and enjoined by him in perpetual and indispensable observance. Yet in the New Testament, when we find John the Baptist preaching the baptism of repentance, for the remission of sins, and that, there went out to him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins, no law, or earlier practice of baptism are cited. Notwithstanding this, when John would fain have declined to baptize our Lord, but expressed a wish to be baptized by him, we find in his words, and in the reply of the Saviour, a complete recognition of the necessity of the rite being fulfilled.

The following words of our man was John before God, "Lord testify how great a man was John before God,

"Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the baptist; and further he says,

If ye will receive it, this is Elias which was for to come. These expressions almost identify the Baptist with Elijah, and must at least lead us to the conclusion, that that ancient prophet was unquestionably and eminently a type of him.

Such then as was John the Baptist, he will afford no mean authority for seeking in actions of his, performed under inspiration, those lights upon the origin and purposes of baptism, which we do not find directly communicated to us.

The question then arises, in what particular circumstances of his life, or actions, the typification existed. A solution is afforded by the following passage of St. Paul; speaking of the Israelites who issued forth from Egypt, he says,  They were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. (1 Cor. x. 2.) It is thus rendered evident that in the case of men who were caused to pass between waters miraculously divided, the rite of baptism was actually administered.

A key is thus furnished for laying open the adumbration in which Elijah appears, as a type of John the Baptist.

Elijah, accompanied by Elisha, smote the waters of the Jordan with his mantle, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground. (2 Kings ii. 8.) Again, when Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven, Elisha smote the waters with the mantle which had fallen from the prophet, and being smitten, they parted hither and thither, and Elisha went over. (v. 14.)

A further and very striking elucidation of this type is afforded by a most important event in the history of Israel. Should we be asked why it was that the Almighty enabled the Israelites to effect their escape from the land of Egypt by so stupendous a miracle as the dividing the Red Sea, we can assign another motive, besides that it afforded an astounding proof of the mercy of the Lord towards the sons of Jacob, and poured down utter destruction upon their enemies.

This wonderful operation of the Almighty, so new and so peculiar in its nature, must have had in view some object commensurate with the wisdom, power, and might, by which it was to be attained. This is the more apparent when we consider that as Pharaoh said, the Israelites were entangled in the land, and the sea had shut them in. It was under heavenly guidance that they came into this position, in which nothing could save them from destruction by their enemies except a passage through the divided waves of the waters in their front.

The purpose then of the Almighty to which he immediately called them, was the destruction of the Canaanites by their swords, and the taking possession of their land. Thus was it that baptism became a consecrating dispensation to the Hebrews.

But Israel rebelled against their heavenly Father, and (two alone excepted) refused to invade the seven guilty nations, and were therefore condemned to waste away their existence in the desert until all of the age of twenty years and upwards had perished. The Lord then resumed his purpose that Israel should be the instrument of his just vengeance, and Joshua led the people to the left bank of the Jordan, which it was necessary that they should cross, in order to make their entry into the land of promise.

Then, if it is true that their fathers were baptized in the Red Sea, as a necessary preparation for their occupation of the land of Canaan, we must expect to see the generation, destined to effect that occupation in their place, undergo that rite, and in the same manner as that in which the preceding generation, which had failed to fulfil that duty, underwent it. Moreover, if a passage between waters miraculously divided is baptism in one instance, it is equally so in another.

Let us now consider what befell the young swarm of Israelites, that, issuing from the howling wilderness, was collected on the frontier of the land of promise, under the guidance of Joshua; and we find that by a repetition of the miracle which opened a road between the waves of the Red Sea, the waters of the Jordan were divided in the like manner, and all Israel, under an especial command of God, passing between them, crossed the dry bed of the river, and took possession of the land of promise.

There are even circumstances which mark this passage of the Jordan as more strongly typical of baptism than was that of their fathers through the Red Sea. The latter passage was absolutely necessary for the escape of Israel from its pursuers; but that through the Jordan was nowise indispensable for the entrance of their children into the land of Canaan, as they might have found other modes of crossing that small river; and God could by other means have impressed as much terror of their approach into the hearts of the Canaanites, as he did by this miracle. Besides this, the passage through the Jordan had a religious character, which is not recorded to have been the case with the march through the Red Sea. The priests, as directed, bore the ark of the covenant before the people: the waters receded as soon as the feet of those priests touched them; and they remained on dry ground in the midst of Jordan whilst the people passed over. The twelve stones, also, which were taken out of the midst of the river, where the priests' feet stood firm, were placed in Gilgal, where the Israelites encamped on that night, as a perpetual memorial to the tribes, that the waters of the Jordan had been cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord.

But if we can find no law in the Old Testament enjoining baptism, we must be the more anxious to search out and to consider carefully such passages of Holy Writ, as may best enable us to ascertain, as far as may be permitted, the purpose of the Almighty in enjoining this rite.

We are told in the beginning of Genesis (i. 2, 3), that the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And we learn that the Hebrew word here translated moved, is a tense of a verb, which denotes the action of a bird fluttering or hovering. The facts here recorded appear to be analogous to, or rather typical of, another scene of wonder, to which the revolution of time was to give birth. It was after a lapse of ages that the period arrived, predestined by the mercy and wisdom of the Almighty to be that at which the fallen race of man should be rescued from a state of miserable confusion and moral darkness, and the intellectual and spiritual world should be brought into shape and form, by the propagation of the Gospel of the Lord; and then it was that He to whom this dispensation of light was confided, when about to shed its beams on the benighted children of Adam, received the purifying and hallowing rite of baptism in the favoured stream of Jordan; and when in the act of leaving its waters, saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him; and there came a voice from heaven, saying, 'Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' (Mark i. 10, 11.) Now the action of the dove in descending, when it lets itself down, is that of fluttering.

The facts related respecting the baptism of our Lord, are of a nature to call particular attention to that mysterious event. We learn from them that even He himself, in whom all holiness essentially resided, was required to receive in his human nature that emblem of the purification of the soul, through the action of the Holy Spirit, which is as indispensably necessary for our entrance into the spiritual Church of Christ, as the fulfilment of that typical sacrament is for our ostensible and visible admission into His religion.

Be it assumed that the facts adduced from the first chapter of Genesis signify, as by baptism, the consecration of the newly formed earth to the service of the Almighty; we may ask, what other purpose of the Most High can be deduced from the inspired narration? The earth was in a state of the greatest disorganization, and yet the waters were evidently not in that state: they were then existing as a separate element, over which the mystical dove was hovering, obviously foreshadowing its fluttering over the waters of the Jordan, when the new creation of the moral world was to take place, and the Saviour to commence his mission.

But if we refer to facts, in which less is left to conjecture, it will be found that, where operations were performed, which we are justified in assuming to have been baptism, their objects were men destined by the Almighty to execute some important commission, which He deigned to intrust to them, and whom, by this rite, He hallowed to His service.

Seeking for further guidance as to baptism from Holy Writ, the next instance of it appears to be that of Noah and his family, whilst floating in the ark on the waters of the flood. St. Peter, in his first Epistle (ch. iii. 20), when speaking of those to whom our Lord preached, when He descended into hell, says, Which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us. Now the commission confided by God to the inhabitants of the ark, was no less than the renovation of the whole human race, through a family destined to carry the knowledge of the Almighty to generations yet unborn, and which had been faithful to their Creator amidst the universal corruption. For this service, then, they were sanctified by baptism.

Next may be adduced the example of Moses, who, just as Noah was miraculously preserved in the ark, was borne in safety upon the mighty waters of the Nile, in his little ark of bulrushes. We are certainly not told that he was thus baptized, but we cannot see, sustained in so fragile a vessel, the chosen prophet of God, destined to be the instrument of rescuing his people from Egyptian slavery, and to communicate to them the law revealed to him in the thunders of Sinai, without calling to mind what had befallen Noah, and having a decided impression that he was thus baptized in the waters of the great river.

After this come the marches of the