Who are the “mixed” people described in Dan 2:41,43?
“Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of
iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength
of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay… And just as you saw the
iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain
united, any more than iron mixes with
clay.”
The word translated “mixed”, “mixture”, and “mixes” in the
above verses is a word which is transliterated into English (according to
Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon) as “arab”. In the Old Testament, however, this word is
not identical with the other words (also transliterated as “arab” or “ereb”)
which are often translated “Arab” or “Arabia” or “Arabian”, as referring to the
land or peoples of that name.
Why a different word? Because the Daniel passage was
originally written in Aramaic. (Only a very small portion of the OT —
basically, parts of Ezra and Daniel — was actually composed in Aramaic: a
Semitic language very closely related to Hebrew, which eventually replaced
Hebrew as the common language during the latter part of the Old Testament
times.)
So, technically, the Aramaic “arab” occurring in Dan 2:41,43
(and nowhere else in the Old Testament) is not identical with the other, Hebrew,
“arab” occurring in a number of passages… although Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon
states unequivocally that the two words are closely related — as shall be seen.
A brief review of a section of Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon may
help to clarify:
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6148 (arab)
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is a primitive root, meaning “to braid, to intermix”. [6148
occurs 26 times in the OT, and is variously translated “mixing, mingling, etc”
as well as “buying, trading, giving surety” and “meddling”.]
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6150 (arab)
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is “a primitive root” identical with 6148 through the idea of
“covering with a texture”; signifying “to grow dusky at sundown — be darkened,
(toward) evening.” [6150 occurs 3 times: Jdg 19:9; 1Sa 17:16; Isa
24:11.]
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6151 (arab)
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is the Aramaic, “corresponding to” 6148 (the Hebrew). [6151 is
the word which occurs (only) in Dan 2:41,43.]
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6152 (arab)
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is derived from 6150, and signifies the land of Arabia. [6152
occurs in 5 verses: 1Ki 10:15; 2Ch 9:14; Isa 21:13; Jer 25:24; Eze
27:21.]
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6154 (ereb)
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is derived from 6148, and signifies a “web of cloth”, also a
mixture (or mongrel race), and especially the people of Arabia, a “mingled
people” or “mixed multitude”: This Hebrew word (6154) occurs in 15 verses: Nine
of these — in one chapter (Lev 13:48,49,51-53,56-59) — all have to do with
fabrics, mixed or woven or braided together. Of the other 6 verses where 6154
occurs,
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(1)
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Exo 12:38 is about the “mixed multitude” who accompany Israel
out of Egypt. Who these were we cannot know for sure, but it is certainly
possible that they were other enslaved, oppressed people who seized the
opportunity to escape Egypt along with the Israelites. Of what nations? The
other occurrences of the same word (below) certainly give clues!
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(2)
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Neh 13:3 refers to the people of “mixed” extraction in the
Land at the time of return from captivity in Babylon (the immediate context
points to the Ammonites and Moabites: Neh 13:1);
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(3)
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Jer 50:37 refers to the “foreigners” amongst the Babylonians
(the larger context mentions the allies of Babylon: Egypt, Philistia, Moab,
Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar, and Elam: Jer 46-49);
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(4)
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Eze 30:5 refers to other “mixed” peoples (actually translated
“Arabia” by NIV) alongside Cush, Put, Libya, and Egypt.
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(5)
(6)
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Especially interesting are the final passages, Jer 25:20 and
Jer 25:24, where “ereb” occurs twice, bracketing a list of nations — “all the
kings of Uz; all the kings of the Philistines (those of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron,
and the people left at Ashdod); Edom, Moab and Ammon; all the kings of Tyre and
Sidon; the kings of the coastlands across the sea; Dedan, Tema, Buz and all who
are in distant places; all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of the foreign
people who live in the desert.” Basically a checklist of all the “Arab”
nations!
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6163 (arabee)
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is derived from 6152, and signifies “an Arab or inhabitant of
Arabia”. [6163 occurs in 8 verses: 2Ch 17:11; 21:16; 22:1; 26:7; Neh 2:19; 4:7;
6:1; Jer 3:2.]
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Each word in this whole cluster may be seen to be related to
all the others in the cluster; a “family tree” diagram demonstrates these
relationships (not in my words, but in Strong’s words!):
ARAB (6150) is identical with ARAB (6148) # — which
corresponds to ARAB (6151) #.
ARAB (6150)
is root of:
ARAB (6152)*,
Which traces to:
ARABEE (6163)*
And…
ARAB (6151)
Is root of:
EREB (6154)*
(The three words marked * are indisputably descriptive of the
Arabs. The two words marked # both indisputably mean “mixed”.)
It should be seen at a glance, therefore, that “Arab” and
“mixed” are closely related terms; they all belong to the same “family” of
words.
In other words — studying the chart above — it may be
noted:
- The primary words for “Arab” and “Arabia” are derived from the root word
“arab” (6150).
- The basic Hebrew word for “mixed, mingled” (6154) is derived
from a root word “arab” (6148), which (says Strong’s) is “identical with” the
root word for “Arab” (6150).
- The Aramaic for “mixed, mingled” (6151)
“corresponds to” the Hebrew root (6148), from which is derived the basic Hebrew
word for “mixed, mingled” (6154).
Now we already know, from Strong’s, that the “arab” (6151) of
Dan 2:41,43 is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew “ereb” (6154) in the above
passages. Both words — apparently without any doubt — signify “mixed or
mingled”, and the second (the Hebrew word, 6154) plainly indicates, in a number
of its usages, Arab peoples!
Smith’s Bible Dictionary also states that “Arab” and “mixed”
are related terms and ideas:
“Arabia cannot be held to have a more extended signification
than the Hebrew equivalents in the Old Testament. (a) ‘erb’ (Exo 12:38; Neh
13:3) and ‘erb’ (1Ki 10:15; Jer 25:20, 50:37; Eze 30:5), rendered in the AV “a
mixed multitude” (Exo 12:38), here followed by ‘rb’, ‘the mixed multitude,’
kings of ‘Arabia’ so in Vulgate, and in Hebrew in corresponding passage in 2Ch
9:14, and (in the last two instances) ‘the mingled people,’ have been thought to
signify the Arabs.”
It should be noted that, even if — somehow — the linguistic
connections outlined above are disputed, the same conclusion may easily be drawn
from other lines of inquiry.
For example, let us ask the simple question: ‘What peoples in
the Old Testament are described as the result of racial mixing?’ And the Bible
answer would have to be, primarily… the Arabs!
Why? Because, first of all (and leaving aside the linguistic
connections altogether), the last six verses cited above where “ereb” (mixed,
mingled) occurs [6154] plainly point to the Arab peoples… which include:
Ammon, Moab, Egypt, Philistia, Edom, Damascus (Syria), Kedar (Ishmael), Elam,
Philistia, Tyre and Sidon (Lebanon), Dedan, Tema, and Buz (Bedouin, Saudis).
(Does this sound something like Psa 83?)
Even if there were absolutely NO linguistic connection between
“mixed” and “arab” in Dan 2:41,43… the Bible evidence would still point to the
Arabs as the preeminent and predominant “mixed” people of Old Testament times!
When Daniel the Jew hears, and writes, about the “mixed” people, of whom would
he naturally be thinking?
There is more:
The Book of Genesis describes in some detail how the people of
the covenant — the descendants and relatives of Abraham — sinned against the
LORD and violated His covenant by intermarrying with those who had no regard for
that covenant:
- Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian, mocks Isaac, the true “son of the
covenant”, and Ishmael’s descendants (the results, of course, of further mixing)
have done the same toward Isaac’s descendants ever since. (Abraham, meanwhile,
takes careful steps to see that his seed of promise, Isaac, avoids marriage with
the daughters of the Land.)
- Lot, the nephew of Abraham and a righteous man,
becomes the father of other “mixed races”, the Ammonites and Moabites, wicked
and idolatrous nations who have no regard for the God of their father, and who
hate God’s people.
- Esau marries daughters of the Hittites (Gen 26:34); his
family, the Edomites, are another group of “Arab” (mixed) peoples who hate their
“cousins” the Jews, who have received the Promises. (Isaac warns his other son,
Jacob, not to marry a Canaanite woman: Gen 28:1. Esau later compounds his
previous marital errors by marrying a daughter of Ishmael: Gen 28:8,9.)
- When
the Jews were about to enter the Land they were warned by Moses not to make
marriages with the people of the Land, lest they turn them away from God toward
idols (Deu 7:3-4; cp Jos 23:12-13). Such errors by Solomon eventually turned his
heart to idolatry (1Ki 11:1-6; cp 1Co 7:39; 2Co 6:14).
- Ezra and Nehemiah —
at a much later date — also lament that the priests and Levites have “mixed”
and “mingled” their seed with the daughters of the land — specifically the
women of Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab (Neh 13:23).
- More generally, the earlier
peoples of the Land — enumerated in Gen 15:19-21: “Kenites, Kenizzites,
Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites
and Jebusites” — were not all destroyed or driven out of that Land, and they
remained as a continual snare to the people of Israel throughout their time
there.
Three or four thousand years after the events outlined above,
it is now impossible to mark out any individual Arab as an Ammonite or an
Edomite or a Philistine… just as it is impossible to point out one who is a
Canaanite or a Jebusite. In one sense, all these ancient peoples and nations
have “disappeared”; the old national identities are gone. But the fact is (and
the Bible is absolutely plain on this) these people were never completely wiped
out by the Israelites. Their bloodlines remain, and ever since Bible times have
been merging and mingling with one another to create the modern “Arabs”, the
quintessential “mixed” people.
As has been pointed out in other studies, these “Arab” peoples
bear a strong genetic likeness to, and linkage with, the Jews
[see Lesson Jews and Arabs are cousins]. But
they are different, they are “mixed”, and they hate their Jewish “cousins” with
a fierce passion. Also, they desperately desire the same Land promised to
Abraham’s seed… because they are (in part) — or believe themselves to be —
Abraham’s “seed” too. Their prevailing religion, Islam, teaches them as well
that they, and not the Jews, are Allah’s chosen people! They are the true rivals
of Israel… by history, by blood, by proximity, by Old Testament example and
type, and by (many) Bible prophecies.
Question: ‘But isn’t Dan 2:41-43 all about the “ten toes” of
the old Roman empire? How can the Arabs have any part in this?’
However, in fact, the Arabs do have ancient connections with
the Roman Empire, and particularly as it related to the Land and People of
Israel. For details on this, see Lesson, Ten toes, identity.
Finally, TENS EVERYWHERE:
- Ten nations in the Promised Land at the beginning: Gen 15:19-21.
- Ten
nations, the sworn enemies of Israel, in Psa 83.
- Ten Gentile nations,
neighbors of Judah, upon which God lays “burdens” for their treatment and hatred
of His people: Isa 13-23.
- Ten nations in Jer 25: Arabian enemies of
Israel… (or 12 or 14 here, hard to group and enumerate… but a similar
number, and a lot of overlapping with other lists).
- And ten modern nations
that came into existence in the same generation (between 1922 and 1971, a
50-year period centered on 1948). Ten Arab nations living on land that once
formed part of the old Roman empire. With an 11th nation, Palestine, poised to
be “born” after the others… a “little horn” springing up last, ready and eager
to be the spearhead to destroy the State of Israel (see
Lesson, Beasts, heads, and horns).
Possible connections with the (ten?) toes of Daniel’s image,
and the 10 horns and kings of Daniel and Revelation?
Also, there is a plain and evident connection between Daniel’s
image in Dan 2, and the great image of Goliath, slain by the little stone flung
by David (1Sa 17). And that “image” — so very much like the other — was…
Philistine, or Palestinian!
Furthermore, Goliath, being Philistine, would probably have
been of Greek lineage, as were all the Philistines. Therefore we have added to
the “mixture” an element derived from the third portion of Nebuchadnezzar’s
“four-part” image, Greece.
Now this gets interesting…
So we might see the Philistines as a Greek element in the
decidedly varied “mixture” of Arab peoples in and around the Land today.
So the “mixed” peoples calling themselves “Arabs”
(Palestinians, Jordanians, Egyptians, Bedouin, etc, etc) are not just the Last
Days mixture of Abraham’s (apostate) seed and the Canaanites/Jebusites/et al of
Gen 15.
They include a “spoonful” of Greeks too.
Is this surprising? Not really. Think about it. Conquering,
ruling minorities always leave something of themselves behind. And one of the
ways of controlling ruled-over peoples is to systematically undermine their
ethnic uniqueness, their national identity. Thus the Assyrian conquerors of the
Northern Kingdom moved all the conquered peoples here and there, with the
purpose of mixing them all up with one another (and obscuring/obliterating the
strains of national identity, and these people’s connections with their own
lands): see the history in 2Ki 17:24ff.
Then of course there is the racial “mixing” that happens more
or less “accidentally”. (Reminding us of the slur perpetrated against Jesus by
some of the early rabbinical writings: that he was the result of an illicit
relationship between Mary and a Roman soldier. How could such a story be told
about any specific person, unless similar things had happened
generally?)
Just a thought, then: the “Arabs”, in the broadest sense of
the modern word, are plainly a very “mixed” peoples… genetic makeup
contributed from 50 different ethnic groups — including, no doubt, all of
Daniel’s “image parts / beasts” that ruled over their Land for hundreds of
years. {This is no particular slur in and of itself: many peoples today are
really a genetic mixture of a dozen or a score of earlier races. But… in the
Middle East, and in the context of Bible teaching, God always desired that His
people be “pure” of outside influences, that they not intermarry with the
idolaters around them — not disparaging, of course, the occasional “Ruth” who
in faith became a Jew.}
In fact, and naturally speaking, we should expect to see — in
the area of Palestine/Israel/Canaan (the extended Holy Land) — even more mixing
than is normal elsewhere in the world, because this land is the natural “bridge”
connecting the three great continental land masses of the ancient world. Over
this “bridge” passed Egyptians on their way to the east, and Babylonians on
their way to Africa, and Greeks on their way to India, and countless other
generals and armies, explorers and travelers, and traders.
One might ask, “Why would God deliberately put His people in a
place where they would be exposed to so many other non-Jewish influences… if
He really wanted them to remain pure and undefiled from such peoples?” And the
answer — an aside to the main point here — would be: they were SUPPOSED to be
a “light to the Gentiles”, a “city set on a hill”; that’s why they were placed
at the “crossroads” of the world! In large measure, however, they failed — they
did not “conquer” the world with the light of God’s truth, but the world
“conquered” them instead! But later… from this same “crossroads” the Gospel
message, carried by Jews, went forth in all directions, so that the Hope of
Israel will yet “conquer” the world! And God’s purpose did not — and will not
— fail after all!
Enough on the “aside”.
So… when we talk of the whole image of Dan 2 being joined
together, and acting as one, to trample down the Land of God’s Promises… is it
just possible that we can see, in the extended “Arab world” of today, the whole
of Daniel’s “image” standing up together? A microcosm of practically the whole
“world”, bent on the destruction of God’s people? A great blended “mixture” of
Canaanites, Amorites, Jebusites, Philistines, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites,
Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans… and others besides… whose one
unifying feature is their bitter hatred of Israel?