Watchman's Teaching Letter #41 September 2001

This is my forty-first monthly teaching letter and continues my fourth year of publication. At the time I’m preparing this lesson, I have been getting all kinds of reports of various teachings being introduced into Identity circles. For the life of me, I can only wonder where all this garbage is coming from. Furthermore, the enemy is really blasting away on television employing every possible avenue to promote his multicultural program. The tide of interracial relationships and marriages is rising steadily. It is evident that we are under attack from without and within. I must warn you, everyone who is spouting Israel Identity is not necessarily a friend. Have you ever wondered what “Jewry’s” Luciferian priesthood means in protocol No. 14 which says: 

“Our philosophers will discuss all the shortcomings of the various beliefs of the non-Jews. But no one will bring under discussion our faith from its true point of view since this will be learned by none save ours, who will never dare betray its secret?” 

If there were ever a belief system the enemy would want to infiltrate and destroy, it would be the Israel Identity message. There are some now who are ashamed of this name designation. If it was good enough for John Wilson and Edward Hine, it’s good enough for me, and I shall continue to use it. 

The so-called “Christian” television has joined the enemy in their agenda of promoting race-mixing. I caught one of John Hagee’s programs which I later tried to record when it was rebroadcast. In my attempt to record him, I missed his pro-interracial remarks. I did get his last few words where he said this: 

“We’re [meaning all races] one in the spirit, and if that’s too liberal for your red-neck theology, hit the door, we need your seat.” 

I also managed to get his remarks on the “Jews” when he stated:

“... The third kind of hatred or enmity, mentioned in Scriptures, is anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is the hatred of the Jewish people. The Romans called the Jewish religion barbaric superstition. Why? Because the Jewish people circumcise their sons on the eighth day, according to the Commandment of God to enter into the Covenant. The Romans looked at what God told the Jewish people to do, and called it barbaric superstition. God called it a Covenant relationship. The Jews considered the Gentiles as unclean because they were polytheists; they had hundreds of gods, as did the Romans. They believed that --- they ate swine’s flesh which made them unclean. And, they were in general, and I’m talking about the Gentiles, and this word Gentile, was the word goyim, which in the King James is translated heathen. So when you read the word heathen in the King James version, your picture is right beside it, cause that’s us. The heathen were sexual --- were sexually immoral. All you have to do is read Acts 15 and 1st Corinthians to understand what Paul was trying to get the Gentiles to do. Anti-Semitism is alive and well in America. Let me tell you this: Genesis 12:1 and 3 says: ‘I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse those who curse you.’ If something within you resents the Jewish people, that something is a demon spirit. The Jewish people, according to the Word of God, are the apple of God’s eye. The nation of Israel is the object of God’s affection, for David said: ‘He that keepeth Israel (and the phrase ‘keep’ was a military term), he that defends Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.’ Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Jesus Christ were all Jews. How can Christians praise the dead Jews of the past and hate the Jews living across the street? You cannot do that. It is not possible to say: ‘I’m a Christian’ and be an anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism is sin, and as sin, it damns the soul. If anti-Semitism is in your thought, is in your speech, is in your nature, get it out, because the judgment of God will come to you ...”

I don’t have to tell you, there is no doubt about it, that Hagee is in bed with the enemy! He is aiding and abetting them in a time of WAR! Folks, we are living in dangerous times.

Today (August 7, 2001), there was a professed “teacher” on “Christian television.” He started talking about the Abrahamic Covenant, and how the whole human race is offered salvation through it. He repeated this “whole human race” doctrine three times. Each time he quoted a Scripture he used it out of context. When he quoted Genesis 3:15, the only subject he discussed was that “Christ” was the seed of the woman. However, he never so much as mentioned the seed of the serpent. He went through the usual routine of nominal “churchianity”, trying to prove the Law was done away with. Here was a man trying to present himself as an authority on the Word of Yahweh, and does not have the slightest iota of what it is all about. When we consider characters of this man’s nature, and the perilous danger our race is in today, we can begin to realize our dilemma. People like this have nothing to offer in our time of need. They are only working against us; against the Almighty and His Kingdom. They are no good to themselves nor anyone else, and at judgment they will stand empty-handed before Yahweh.

WALKING STEP BY STEP THROUGH ISRAEL’S SOJOURN IN EGYPT

FROM JOSEPH UNTIL JOSHUA

In the last lesson, we left off with the subject of the Egyptian obelisks and how they were related to the pyramids. It was also shown how the passage in Jeremiah 43:13 was not referring to the “images” at Bethshemesh (the Biblical On) as being broken up into many small pieces, but that history has proved they would eventually be broken up as a group. We learn more about this from the book Civilization Before Greece And Rome by H.W.F. Saggs, pages 59-60:

“There are other prominent Egyptian monuments which have seized the imagination of non-Egyptians since ancient times. There are the great obelisks popularly known as Cleopatra’s Needles. They go back ultimately to Egyptian Creation mythology. Different Egyptian cities had different Creation myths, but the dominant mythology was that of Heliopolis. This held that at the Creation a primeval hill arose from the waters, and the Sun-god, Re-Atum, the Creator, sat on that hill. A symbolic representation of this primordial hill stood inside the main sanctuary at Heliopolis, and on it was a sacred stone, perhaps of meteoric origin, called the benben; the derivation of that term is obscure. Out of the benben stone, on its substructure representing the primeval hill, developed the religious symbol which we know as the obelisk. There were already small examples of this in some third millennium tombs, and by the first century of the second millennium very large ones were being carved out of granite. With one exception they were always made in pairs. The first two major ones which we know, 66 feet high, were erected at Heliopolis by Sesostris I (twentieth century BC). The largest of all were two pairs set up by Hatshepsut, the royal lady who made herself ruler (c 1490-1470 BC) when regent for young Tuthmosis III. We have texts in which her treasurer refers to the work on one of the pairs. It was a formidable task. Huge blocks of granite ninety-seven feet long and weighing over three hundred and twenty tons had to be cut out in the granite quarries in Aswan in south Egypt, extracted, moved to the river, put on barges, taken downstream, moved to their final site, erected and carved. Reliefs in Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple commemorate this feat, and one of Hatshepsut’s obelisks still stands.

“The first foreigner to take a fancy to removing Egyptian obelisks as souvenirs was Ashurbanipal, when he invaded Egypt for the second time in 663 BC. He stated that he took away ‘two great obelisks cast in electrum [an alloy of gold and silver]’. He does not state the height, but he gives the weight as 2500 talents, which is about 74 tons: transporting them a thousand miles overland to Assyria must have presented his engineers with a considerable task. Either the word we translate as ‘cast’ (Akkadian pitiq) has a less precise sense than we give it, or Ashurbanipal’s scribes were mistaken, for we know that these great obelisks were always carved from solid stone, usually granite. However, some of them were, as Egyptian texts tell us, overlaid with electrum, and this must have been the basis for Ashurbanipal’s description.

“The Romans in their turn were very much taken with Egyptian obelisks. Caesar Augustus moved a pair of them from Heliopolis and set them up in Alexandria, and later emperors took some to Rome and Constantinople (Byzantium, now Istanbul). Altogether forty-eight are recorded as having been transported to Rome, of which six giant ones and seven smaller still stand there, mainly in public squares. Of those taken to Constantinople, one remains standing in front of a mosque, and there are fragments of another. The two obelisks which Caesar Augustus removed to Alexandria had further journeys in the nineteenth century, when one of them came to London, to stand on the Embankment [of the Thames] as Cleopatra’s Needle, and the other went to New York. A number of other obelisks, or fragments of them, are scattered across cities of Europe, Great Britain and America.”

With this quotation it is interesting to observe the so-called “Egyptian myth of the creation.” You will notice that the Egyptians believed there was some land standing out of the waters. Isn’t this similar to what we read in Genesis 1? Before we are through we will see some other beliefs the Egyptians had which correlate with the Bible story. Also, I need to mention again that I used to be under the impression that obelisks were something immoral. I no longer hold that opinion. In some of my former writings, I might have made statements concerning the obelisks being phallic in nature, so if you read anything I have said in the past along this line, please be advised I no longer hold that premise.

THE HELIOP0LIS CONNECTION

This is an important topic, for Joseph obtained his wife from Heliopolis (the Biblical On). Futhermore, she was the daughter of the priest of On. The first thing we should observe is that the Bible mentions no conflict from such a union. Many Bible commentaries imply Joseph married a non-Shemetic wife of a heathen religion. As I have documented before, neither of these charges are true. This is important, for the two dominant tribes of Israel (Ephraim and Manasseh) were mothered by her. We can be sure that if Asenath had not been of pure Shemetic blood, Jacob would never have put his blessings upon her children. The unfortunate problem is that references to Heliopolis and its priesthood are very scarce. I will now try to cover this subject with what few references I can find.

In order to understand the term “Heliopolis”, there are other words connected with it. They are “Anu”, “Aven”, “Beth Shemesh”, and “On.” The Egyptian term “benben” may also have a close association. To show the relationship of Heliopolis and the term “benben”, I will now quote excerpts from Cleopatra’s Needles by E. A. Wallis Budge, pages 8-11:

“THE SUN STONE AND THE OBELISK. At a period which is so remote that no date can be assigned to it, the people of Anu (the On of the Hebrews and the Heliopolis of the Greeks) had as the object of their cult a stone, which was thick at the base and tapered to a point at the top, and much resembled in shape the funerary stelae found in the tombs of Tcha, or Tchat, and other early kings at Abydos. This stone was called Ben, and in the texts of the VIth Dynasty its determinative resembles a small obelisk ... i.e. a short, thick shaft surrounded by a little pyramid ... Why this Ben Stone was sacred, or how it acquired its sanctity, is not known ... In early dynastic times they thought that it was the abode of the spirit of the sun, which made itself visible at the Creation by emerging from the top of the stone in the form of a bird ... This bird was called the ‘Benu’, and in the texts of the later period ... It was regarded as the incarnation of the soul of Ra and the heart of Osiris. It was self-produced and, according to some texts, appeared each morning at dawn on the sacred Persea tree of Anu. A temple called He-t Benu ... was dedicated to it in very early times. The Greeks identified the Benu with the Phoenix, a bird which resembled an eagle and had parti-coloured feathers, red and golden. The home of this bird was someplace in Arabia, and a phoenix visited Heliopolis at the close of every period of 500 years. Towards the end of his life he built a nest in Arabia to which he imparted the power of generation, so when he died another phoenix arose out of it. When the new phoenix had grown up he went to Heliopolis and burned his father, whose ashes he burned in the temple of the Sun-god there (see Herodotus ii. 73; Tacitus, Annals vi. 23 [sic. 24-28]) ... the Ben Stone was far older than the belief in the Benu bird ... It is nowhere in the texts so stated, but it is clear that the pyramidal part of the obelisk was believed to be the abode of the spirit of the Sun-god, and therefore the most important part of the monument. It was called ‘Ben Ben’ ... ‘the Ben of the Ben’, and the shrine in which the Sun Stone was kept was called ‘Benben-t’ ... The Ben Ben, which may be regarded as a small pyramid, was probably intended to represent the heaven, wherein the gods dwelt, above the sky, which, as Maspero pointed out long ago, was supposed to be formed of a rectangular layer of some indeterminate material supported on four columns, one at each angle. If this be so it is easy to understand why tombs were made in the form of pyramids. The substructure of the pyramid represented the shaft of the Ben Stone, and the superstructure the pyramid, or, as it is commonly called, pyramidion, on top of it.” [Note: Herodotus may have a corrupted version of the phoenix bird story. I will comment further on that in the next lesson.]

Is it possible the “form of a bird” regarded by the Heliopolis priests may be similar to Matthew 3:16 where it is said: “... and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him.”? Is it also possible the “Benu” or “phoenix” could represent to the priest at On the idea of death and resurrection as it does to Christians today? On pages 83-84 of this same book we continue:

“We may reasonably assume that there was a great Temple of Ra at Heliopolis during the rule of the last three Dynasties (IV-VI) of the Old Kingdom, but of it no remains have been found. It is probable that all the temples at Heliopolis, Memphis, Tanis, etc., were plundered and demolished during the period of anarchy that immediately followed the downfall of the VI Dynasty, and that the status of the gods were broken and destroyed, and the stones of the sanctuaries used for building purposes. Amenemhat I (XII Dynasty) built a large and magnificent temple at Heliopolis, and his son Usertsen (Sen-Usrit) I set up two large granite obelisks in front of it ... [Later] The Hyksos kings did nothing for the priesthood of Ra, and it is not until about 1200 B.C. that we hear again of the temple, no doubt an entirely new one of Heliopolis.”

Inasmuch as the Hyksos didn’t associate with the priesthood at Heliopolis, is very substantial evidence that Joseph was not sold to the Hyksos in the Delta area as many Bible commentaries try to claim. Also, if the above is true, the temple at Heliopolis and its priesthood must have been in a decline at Joseph’s time. From Josephus’ Against Apion 1:14, it would appear that the Hyksos may have destroyed the temple at Heliopolis and the priesthood had to flee the area. I suggest this possibility because Heliopolis was situated very near the area in the Delta where the Hyksos established their stronghold at Avaris. If the Hyksos were hostile to the priests of Heliopolis, as indicated here, they may have moved further south up the Nile into Egypt. As I have documented before, the Hyksos were the descendants of Cain, and what else would you expect of such people? Let’s now take a look at what Manetho states as recorded in this passage of Josephus:

“There was a king of ours, whose name was Timaus. Under him it came to pass, I know not how, that god was averse to us, and there came, after a surprising manner, men of ignoble birth out of the eastern parts, and had boldness enough to make an expedition into our country, and with ease subdued it by force, yet without our hazarding a battle with them. So when they had gotten those that governed us under their power, they afterwards burnt down our cities, and demolished the temples of the gods, and used all the inhabitants after a most barbarous manner; nay, some they slew, and led their children and their wives into slavery ...”

If this scenario is correct, with the descendants of Cain as the Hyksos, and the priests of On as the descendants of Shem, we have the enmity of the seed of the serpent against the seed of the woman as in Genesis 3:15.

HELIOPOLIS AND “AVEN”

What we are going to consider next may seem like a contradiction to what has been expressed before here, but once we have taken all things into account, we will see it is not contrary at all. The word “Aven” is used at various places in Scripture. So that we can get an idea of what the term means, I will now quote from Insight On The Bible, volume 1, page 221:

“AVEN. 1. Aven appears in the Hebrew Masoretic text at Ezekiel 30:17 and is rendered in the King James Version. Many modern translations here read ‘On’, the city in Egypt called Heliopolis by the Greeks. The Hebrew consonants for Aven are the same as for On, but the vowel pointing differs. Some commentaries suggest that the change in the vowel pointing was a deliberate play on words in order to express contempt for the idolatrous city of On, the center of Egyptian sun worship. — (See On No. 2.) [2, 3: Hurtfulness; Something Hurtful] 2. At Hosea 10:8 Aven appears in the Hebrew text evidently as an abbreviation for Beth-aven. — Compare Ho. 4:15; 5:8; 10:5 (see Beth-aven No 2.) 3. Amos 1:5 refers to the ‘valley plain of Aven’, and this expression from the Hebrew is rendered ‘Bikath-aven’ in The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text and The Jerusalem Bible — See Bikath-aven.”

Because Insight On the Bible refers us to “On” and “Bethaven”, let’s take a look at them next. The expression “On” is found in volume 2, pages 554-555:

“ON. ... 2. An ancient and renowned city in Egypt, located a short distance NE of Cairo, on the E bank of the Nile and near the point where the river’s waters divide to begin the formation of the Delta region. In Egyptian records the city’s name was written as Junu, while Assyro-Babylonian records mention it as Ana or Unu. The Egyptian name is thought to mean ‘City of the Pillar’, perhaps referring to the obelisks (tall, tapering columns topped by a pyramid-shaped point) for which the city was famous; or the name may relate to the sacred stone (called the benben) connected with the worship of the sun-god Ra (Re). The Greeks called the city Heliopolis, meaning ‘City of the Sun’, because it was the chief center of Egyptian sun worship.

“On first appears in the Bible record as the city of the priest Potiphera whose daughter Asenath was given to Joseph as his wife. (Ge. 41:45, 50) The name Potiphera itself includes the name of Ra the sun-god.

“In course of time the priesthood of On became very wealthy, rivaling the priesthood of Memphis in this respect and being surpassed only by the priesthood of Thebes (Biblical No-amon). Connected with its temple to the sun, a school was operated for training priests and for the teaching of medicine. Greek philosophers and scholars were drawn there to learn the priestly theology, and On became celebrated as a center of Egyptian wisdom.

“The prophet Jeremiah was inspired to foretell that King Nebuchadnezzar would overrun Egypt and ‘break to pieces the pillars of Beth-shemesh, which is in the land of Egypt’ (Jer. 43:10-13). Beth-shemesh corresponds somewhat to the Greek name Heliopolis and means ‘House of the Sun.’ Hence the reference here is likely to the city of On, and ‘the pillars’ that were to be broken may well refer to the many obelisks around the temple of the sun.

“Ezekiel’s prophecy contains a similar warning (Eze. 30:10, 17) Here the Hebrew vowel pointing of the name varies from that of Genesis so that the name literally is Aven (Heb., ‘a’wen’). Some scholars suggest that this was done as a play on words, since Aven means ‘Hurtfulness, Something Hurtful’, and On was a center of idolatry.

“This may also be the case at Isaiah 19:18, where the Masoretic text refers to one of the ‘five cities in the land of Egypt speaking the language of Canaan and swearing to Jehovah’ as ‘The City of Tearing Down [Heb., Ir ha-Heres]’ The Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah has Ir ha-Cheres, meaning ‘City of the Sun’, thus pointing to On (Heliopolis). Here again there may be an intentional play on words, Heres (tearing down) being substantiated for Cheres (another Hebrew word for ‘sun’, less common than shemesh) in view of Jehovah’s intention to destroy the idolatrous city of On. The paraphrase of this portion of the verse found in the Aramaic Targums reads: ‘(City of) the House of the Sun, which is to be destroyed.’

“Besides the foretold destructive invasion by Nebuchadnezzar, On (Heliopolis) evidently suffered a further blow when Cambyses II conquered Egypt (according to Strabo, Greek geographer who lived near the start of the common Era) ... By Strabo’s time Heliopolis had lost its position of importance and was partially deserted. Today, the village called Al-Matariya occupies part of the ancient site, and all that remains there of the earlier splendor is a single obelisk of red granite dating from the reign of Sesostris I. Other obelisks from Heliopolis are now to be found in New York, London and Rome.”

Let’s now check out the term “Beth-aven.” This is found in Insight On The Scriptures, volume 1, page 293:

“BETH-AVEN. (Beth-a’ven) [House of Hurtfulness (Something Hurtful)] ... 2. In lamenting the idolatrous conditions to which Israel had turned in his time, the prophet Hosea mentions Beth-aven together with Gibeah and Ramah, other prominent cities of Benjamin. (Ho. 4:15; 5:8; 10:5, 8) It appears that the prophet applies the name in a derogatory sense to the city of Bethel, which at one time had been the ‘house of God’ but had now become a ‘house of what is hurtful’ because of the calf worship instituted there. — 1 Ki. 12:28-30.”

While Insight On The Scriptures is informative, I do not agree with all of its conclusions. For instance, the writer doesn’t seem to grasp the significance that the obelisks of On were not physically broken up in small pieces, but were broken up as a group, even considering that he shows where some of these obelisks are located today. Furthermore, I do not agree with the writer that “Bethshemesh” means the worship of the sun. I would rather believe that the sun became Shem’s symbol, meaning the sons of light. In the Hebrew, the term “beth” means house; shem would mean “Shem”; and, no doubt “esh” would be the Hebrew “ish”, meaning “man.” The reason for examining the word “Aven” is to see that in the Hebrew, it is used in a negative manner. In other words, when Jeremiah made reference to On (Heliopolis), he was not speaking of it in a becoming way. The problem is that Jeremiah is speaking of On 1113 years after the time of Joseph, which is like comparing America today with what it was a millennium ago.

To get a better idea of what the term “Aven” implies, we will consult John Lightfoot in his A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, vol. 2, page 203:

“Among the Jews it was held, in a manner, for a matter of religion, to reproach idols, and to give them odious names. ‘R. Akibah saith, Idolatry pollutes, as a menstruous woman pollutes: as it is said, ‘Thou shalt cast away the [idol] as something that is menstruous, and thou shalt say to it, Get thee hence’ (Isa. 30:22). R. Lazar saith, Thou shall say to it, Get thee hence: that which they call the face of God, let them call the face of a dog: that which they call ... the fountain of a cup, let them call ... the fountain of toil [or of flails]: that which they call ... fortune, let them call ... a stink &c. That town which sometimes was called Beth-el, was afterward called Beth-aven’ ... Take your idol, and put it under your buttocks.” [This is interesting, for the term “God”, as it is used today means “fortune.”]

Now let’s consider the story in its chronological order. Shem was evidently in Egypt as early as the 4th Dynasty bringing it to a high civilization. Centuries later, about the time of the 17th Dynasty, the Hyksos (some descendants of Cain) moved into the area raping and destroying the temple at On and killing many of the temple priests along with their families. Evidently, at the time of Joseph, the Temple of On and its operation was in very steep decline. It was not until later in the 18th dynasty before another temple to the sun was built at On by the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten. I had covered this somewhat in lesson #31, but it bears repeating here:

A good place to start our story of Egypt would be a city called “On.” We are told by most reference books that On represented the heathen worship of the sun god. I hope to set the record straight concerning this city. Originally, On was called “Beth Shemesh” (House of Shem). It was not until the time of Akhenaten that a temple was built to Aten the sun god. I find the documentation for this in the book The Boehm Journey To Egypt, Land Of Tutankhamun by Frank J. Cosentino, page 48:

“... Akhenaten had to have a circle of loyal adherents who converted to his new religion. Friendly foreign princes were not particularly concerned with the change and accepted it as long as their relationships with the royal house were maintained. The king steadfastly forged ahead, trying to impose his new philosophies on Egyptian life. He succeeded in building temples to Aten in Thebes, Gem-Aton in Nubia, Heliopolis, Memphis, Hermopolis, Hermothis, and in some smaller cities.”

As you can see from this, we have to keep things in context which so many people are unwilling to do. You can also see, the situation at On (Heliopolis) at the time of Jeremiah and the 18th Dynasty of Egypt were quite different. No doubt, after the time of Pharaoh Akhenaten, there may have been an effort to bring the priesthood at On back to what it originally was. However, after the Israelites left that area, it was continually downhill for Egypt thereafter. Later, according to Biblical and Infancy Gospel narratives, we are told of a further important engagement with Egypt; the exile of our Messiah into that land as a baby. It is interesting to note that inasmuch as Joseph and Mary had left Bethlehem of Judea with the Child, because of Herod, it was from fear on their later return they settled in Nazareth of Galilee. That story will have to wait for a later time.

OBELISK INSCRIPTIONS

Now that we have considered the background of the obelisks of Egypt, especially the ones which were erected at On, let’s look into what was inscribed upon them. One of the things we have to take into account is that some of the obelisks were quarried and inscribed during the reign of one pharaoh and erected by a later pharaoh. Some pharaohs even usurped credit for obelisks made and erected by predecessors. Here are some excerpts from the book Cleopatra’s Needles by E. A. Wallis Budge, pages 116-122, on one of Queen Hatshepsut’s obelisks the following inscription is found in part:

“The king (i.e. the queen herself) saith: ... I have set [these obelisks] before the henmemt (i.e. people) who shall come into being two hen periods (i.e. 120 years) hence, whose minds shall enquire about this monument which I have made for my father ... who shall speak with awe-struck (?) voices and shall seek to gaze into what is to come later. I took my seat in the Great House (i.e. palace), I remembered him that created me. My heart urged me to make for him two obelisks with tcham coverings, the pyramidions (i.e. pointed tops) of which should pierce the sky in the august colonnade between ... Behold my heart (or mind) took possession (or overcame) me, leading me to utter words. O ye men of understanding ... who shall look upon my monument after years (i.e. in future days), who shall discuss together what I have done, take good heed that ye say not ‘I know not, I know not ... [why] these were made, and [why] a mountain [probably pointed top] was made throughout in gold, as if it (i.e. gold) was of the commonest things that exists’ ... I shall have my being for ever and ever like an An-sek-f star (i.e. one of the circumpolar stars that never set), I shall sink to rest ... in [the land of] life like Atem (i.e. the setting sun), so these two great obelisks (which my Majesty hath worked with tcham for my father Amen, in order that ... my name may abide and flourish shall stand in this temple for ever and for ever ... I kept in mind [what] the people would say — that my mouth was true because of what came forth from it, for I never went back on anything that I had once said ... Now hearken ye to me. I gave to them (i.e. the obelisks) the best refined tcham, which I measured by the heket (bushel?) as if it had been ordinary grain in sacks ... Let no man who shall hear these things say that what I have said is false, but rather let him say, ‘It is even as she hath [said] it (or, it is exactly so) — true before her father.’”

What are the meanings of Queen Hatshepsut’s prophetic words on these obelisks? Are we Israelites the people she was talking about in the matter of “enquiring” about them? Are we the ones to have “awe-struck voices” about them? What does she mean by the “two hen periods, or 120 years?” What does she mean by “and shall seek to gaze into what is to come later?” These are impelling questions, for if they are referring to our day, we should take an interest in what is being said! In the next lesson, we will be looking into more of the inscriptions on the Egyptian obelisks. Maybe you would like to get this book. As far as I know, it can still be ordered from most book stores.