Ukrainian Crisis in Bible Prophecy

The Ukraine is a seething hotbed of violence and hatred. Some support Russia, others the EU. The Fascists are now starting to come out of the woodwork taking over government buildings demanding the government change. What is next for the Ukraine? What does the Bible say?

Tracing Ukraine’s Roots

We must start at the beginning to find where these people originate from to understand the prophecies of the Bible.  Ukraine’s past starts with the Midianites. The people of the Ukraine originate back to Midian, the son of Abraham through Keturah (Genesis 25:1-2, 4).

When all these sons were born unto Abraham, the Bible says, “And Abraham gave all that he had unto Isaac.

“But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.” (Gen 25:5-6). He sent these children to the east. Where is this exactly? East of Palestine. These concentrated themselves all along east coast of Palestine outside the borders of Isaac’s land.

After Abraham moved his sons to the east, Ishmael and Midian formed a tribal league. The scriptures reveal this league and also where these people dwelt. In the days of Joseph, when he got sold into slavery in Egypt, “And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stripped Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colors that was on him;

“And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.

“And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spices and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.

“And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?

“Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content.

“Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt” (Gen 37:23-28). Midian and Ishmael are used interchangeably. Although spelled Ishmeel. Strong’s and other newer versions of the Bible have “Ishmael” son of Abraham, (see Strong’s # 3459; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia).

In the book of Judges we see the same thing. In the days of Gideon, when he fought for the freedom of Israel from the Midianites, “Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian.

“And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you.

“And Gideon said unto them, I would desire a request of you, that ye would give me every man the earrings of his prey. (For they had golden earrings, because they were Ishmaelites.)

“And they answered, We will willingly give them. And they spread a garment, and did cast therein every man the earrings of his prey.

“And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; beside ornaments, and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of

Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels’ necks.

“And Gideon made an ephod thereof, and put it in his city, even in Ophrah: and all Israel went thither a whoring after it: which thing became a snare unto Gideon, and to his house.

“Thus was Midian subdued before the children of Israel, so that they lifted up their heads no more. And the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon” (Judges 8:22-28). Notice the bible when speaking of the jewelry, used Midian and Ishmael interchangeably! The Jameison Faucette and Brown Commentary notes, “Ishmaelites and Midianites being synonymous terms.” The Ishmaelites with the Midianites “formed a tribal league” (cf Judges 8:22-24)” (JFB, p.52).   

The Bible’s Reveals their Homeland

In the Bible we see the Midian/Ishmaelites coming from “Gilead” (Gen 37:25), which is “east of Jordon” (Strong’s #1568). Ishmael “…settled from Havilah to Shur, which is opposite, of Egypt, in the direction of ASSYRIA…” (Gen 25:18 NRSV). That is northwestern Arabia, in the lands of Syria, Moab and Jordon. Abraham sent his other children to the “east” (Gen 25:6) of Palestine. “Syria, Midian and Moab,” and are “clearly DISTINGUISHED FROM THE DESCENDANTS OF JOKTAN WHO PEOPLED THE ARABIAN PENINSULA” (The Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, under “Ishmaelites,” p.749, emphasis mine).

Secular history reveals these people to be the Mitanni/Hurrians.  There is evidence in the Bible for this as well. In Joshua 13:21 and Numbers 31:8 shows the kings of Midian that were slain, “…kings of Midian… namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian:” One of the Kings names was “Hur,” the tribal name of the Hurrians!

What of the name “Mitanni”? Dr. Crowley in his book “The Hittites,” says in his footnote, “In Gen. 37 the Midianites who bought Joseph are called so…Is it possible that in one of the original sources they were so named and that they are Mitanni? The name would be altered to the more familiar… but preserved here by an oversight of the Masoretics” (p.9, emphasis added). The Book of Tobit (1:14) says, “His descendants, the Midianites, settled in the territory of the Mitanni (hence the name) east of the Jordan River (Tobit 1:14) and also much of the area east of the Dead Sea…,” (Wikipedia under “Midianites,” emphasis added). All the tribes of Midian with their main tribe of the Hurrians were all one, merged into one empire called the “Mitanni Empire” also called the “kingdom of the Hurri,” the leader tribe. Interesting, “…to note is that the first King of Mitanni is born from Kitra. Kitra sounds close to Kutra, the wife of Abraham who was the mother of Median and Midian” (Goran Nowicki, April 5, 2004, KurdistanObserver.com, article “On Kurdistan and Israel Alliance,” emphasis added).

Secular History also reveals that the Mitanni controlled the territory of Syria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia between 1530-1330 B.C. It was a “Major kingdom between 1500 and 1300 B.C.” (Holman’s Bible Dictionary, under Mitanni).  Their homeland was “Centered on eastern Asia-Minor & northern Mesopotamia” (ibid). This empire occupied “northern Mesopotamia and Asia Minor traversed Syria and had several Jordanian settlements. Palestine is ‘Hurru’ in New Kingdom documents of Egypt” (A.H. Gardiner, “Ancient Egyptian Onomastica”, 1947, 3 vols., I, pages181-187). The same areas that the Bible says Abraham sent them.

In the book of Judges, what you are really reading in the days of Gideon was a war between the Israelites and the Mitanni Empire that occupied Israel at the time. But the Bible uses their biblical names, the names that the Israelites would have called them.

The Mitanni Empire then fell and became part of the Assyrian provinces. In Fact the peoples of Kedar firstborn of Ishmael are mentioned in, “The stele of Tiglath-Pileser III (737 B.C.) mentions Kedarites among the tribute-paying peoples. In 691-689 B.C. Sennacherib fought King Hazael of Kedar at Duma in Arabia. In 653 B.C. the Kedarites, under the leadership of Yutha son of Hazael launched marauding raids across the borders of Transjordan and Syria, but were beaten back by the Moabite and Assyrian garrisons stationed along the frontier from Lebanon to Edom. In 652-646 B.C. the Kedarites, together with the sons of Nebajoth (the firstborn son of Ishmael, Gen 25:13) and other nomadic tribes, exerted pressure on the western borders of the Assyrian empire. This forced the king of Assyria to conduct a campaign against an Arabian confederation in 645…” (Illustrated Dictionary & Concordance of the Bible, edited by Geoffrey Wigoder “under Kedar”).

In the days of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon was conquering all the territories of the Assyrians. One of those Territories was the former Mitanni Empire. There is a prophecy in Jeremiah that predicts the invasion of the Ishmaelites and the “men of the east” which include Midian, by the Babylonians. God told Jeremiah of Kedar a son of Ishmael (Gen 25:13) “Concerning Kedar, and concerning the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon shall smite, thus saith the LORD; Arise ye, go up to Kedar, and spoil the men of the east.

“Their tents and their flocks shall they take away: they shall take to themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry unto them, Fear is on every side.

“Flee, get you far off, dwell deep, O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the LORD; for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived a purpose against you.” (49:28-30). these people dwelt in the north east toward Assyria. God tells them to “flee.”  The International Bible Commentary, p.795, says of this passage of scripture that, “The prophecy was fulfilled in Nebuchadnezzar’s sixth year (599-8 b.c.) when the Babylonian Chronicle relates that the king of Babylon in Syria ‘sent out companies and scouring the desert they took much plunder from the Arabs, their possessions, domestic animals and gods.’ More specifically Northern Arabia, ‘Niebchr (Ate. u. Bab., S. 209, 10) and Duncker (Genh. det. Alterth., I. S. 827) are of opinion that Nebuchadnezzar, after returning from the victory of Carchemish, had strengthened his internal dominion, first taking into consideration ‘the extension of his dominion over the Arabs on the lower Euphrates, in North Arabia and the Syrian desert’ (duncker). It is to be remarked in this connection, that according to Ctesias, whose statement Duncker regards as credible (S. 804, 806 Anm. 2, etc.), the Babylonians had already brought Arabs with them to the siege of Nineveh.—The expression ‘sons of the East’ is the ‘general designation of the Arabs, especially the nomad tribes of northern Arabia’ (AnxoLD in Hass., R.-Enc. I. S. 460).” (The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah By Carl Wilhelm Eduard Nägelsbach, Samuel Ralph Asbury, William Henry Hornblower, Johann Peter Lange, Philip Schaff, p.399, emphasis added). As this source reveals, it is not the Arabians to the south, but the Northern Arabians, the Mitanni/Hurrians that dwelt in this area who are clearly distinguished from the southern Arabians.

Where did these people flee to?

History reveals that these people fled to southern Russia between Assyria and Media.

“The southwestern most district of Media Atropatené, along the mountains separating Media from Assyria, inhabited by the Matiani.” ( Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities under article “Matina”).

In the 5th century B.C. Herodotus writes an account of Aristagoras “tyrant of Miletus” who shows Cleomenes a map of the known world, and the next to the “Armenians” were the “Matieni” (bk.5, v.49). This is the area of southern Russia!

In the days of Pliny the elder, A.D. 79, we find the “Matiani” “From the mountain heights of this district, along the range of Caucasus…Below the district…we find the nations…the Matiani…” (Natural History, bk. 6 chpt. 18, vv.9, 10, 17).

Historian Edwin M. Yamauchi says, “Mitanni/KHURRI became the East Slavic (Russian)… Kievans (who traced their ancestry to KHORIV per the (“Russian Primary Chronicle”). (Edwin M. Yamauchi, 1982: 23; History Research Projects, “Nations of Central Asia and the Middle East”, copyright 1994, 2001; Suppiluliuma: Sattiwara Treaty, “PD” no. I, 22-5, rev. 14-21, trans.Liverani (1990: 82)).

The primary source for the history of these Kiev Rus people is from what scholars call the “Primary Chronicle,” “…which is often translated in English as Tale of Bygone Years), is a history of the early East Slavic state, Kievan Rus, from around 850 to 1110 originally compiled in Kiev about 1113…the Tale of Bygone Years is unique as the only written testimony on the earliest history of East Slavic peoples. Its comprehensive account of the history of Kievan Rus is unmatched in other sources. It is also valuable as a prime example of the Old East Slavic literature” (ibid, article “Primary Chronicle, emphasis added). To this we find the earlier origins of the KHURRI, KHORIV “Kiev Rus.” Kiev of course is the capital of the Ukraine.

As they migrated into Russia out of the Middle East, their language gradually changed. D’iakonov notes, “The fate of the Iranian dialects is … very vague … in the first millennium B.C.E. the language of the Ukrainian Scythians was still understandable for the ancient Medians” (D’iakonov 1986 :148 emphasis added).

Why are they called “Rus?” The “land of Rashu” was the land of the “Kingdom of Mitanni.” (see Encyclopedia Britannica under “Mitanni.”). The reason they called this land “Rashu” is for the simple reason that the Mitanni were an “Aryan ruling class” (see Encyclopedia Britannica under “Hurrian Language,”), and “The Mitanni were of the Aryan branch of the Indo-Europeans with their fair skin and often-times blonde hair” (Bashan 1959:29 & Kalyanraman 1969:1:79 emphasis mine). This is the meaning of “Rashu,” the land of the “blondes.” (Orr 1939, art. ‘Rosh’). The word “Rus” for Russia also means “blonde” (Poliakov 1974:113). According to Lubachko, the name of Belaia Rus or Belarus derives from the fact that they are a people with light-colored hair (Lubachko 1972:1). In fact “A Slavic word rusy (refers only to hair color — from dark ash-blond to light-brown)” (Wikipedia under “Rus’ people.”).

History reveals that the “present day Russians Ukrainians; and Belarusians-[are] the ancestors of the eastern Slavs” (The Making of Modern Russia, Lionel Kochan, John Keep, p.2, emphasis added). There was one original group called the “Slavs,” but then they all split into three groups, “by AD 800, three main geographical and linguistic divisions had arisen; the East Slavs inhabiting a large part of European Russia, the South Slavs who settled in the Balkan Peninsula, and the West Slavs who settled in what is now Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany” (History Of Poland Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk Chapter one, emphasis added). These are the ones who created the “Kiev Rus” empire in the 9th century A.D. The Kiev Rus Empire was a time of great expansion for the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian people, and its Christianization.

“The region of Kiev dominated the state of Kievan Rus’ for the next two centuries. The grand prince (kniaz’) of Kiev controlled the lands around the city, and his theoretically subordinate relatives ruled in other cities and paid him tribute. The zenith of the state’s power came during the reigns of Prince Vladimir (r. 980-1015) and Prince Yaroslav (the Wise; r. 1019-1054). Both rulers continued the steady expansion of Kievan Rus’ that had begun under Oleg. To enhance their power, Vladimir married the sister of the Byzantine emperor Basil II…Vladimir’s greatest achievement was the Christianization of Kievan Rus’, a process that began in 988. He built the first great edifice of Kievan Rus’ , the Desyatinnaya Church in Kiev. Yaroslav promulgated the first East Slavic law code, Russkaya Pravda (Justice of Rus’ ); built Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Saint Sophia Cathedralin Novgorod; patronized local clergy and monasticism; and is said to have founded a school system.Yaroslav’s sons developed the great Kiev Pechersk Lavra (monastery), which functioned in KievanRus’ as an ecclesiastical academy.

“The annals of Rus state that when Vladimir had decided to accept a new faith instead of the tradition idol-worship (paganism) of the Slavs…” (Article “The Golden Age of Kiev” Wikipedia, emphasis added).

After the fall of Kiev Rus

Now, after the fall of the Kiev Rus Empire by Batu Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson in 1240, they split into three groups, “the Great Russians, the White Russians (Byelorussians) and the Little Russians (Ukrainians).” (Russia’s Roots, pt1, Steve Sampson).

In Our Booklet Russia in Prophecy, we identified the “Great Russians” as Ishmael one of the tribes of the Mitanni.

Who are the Byelorussians and the Little Russians of the Ukraine?

Pliny refers to these Medanites as the tribe of Medi which dwelt northwest of the Black Sea (Pliny iv.i.3).

Herodotus mentions that the Medes were in upper Asia or inner Asia, north of the Caucasian Mountains (Herodotus 4.1,12).

Strabo stated that the Medi were a people of Thrace bordering on the Illyrian Thunatae (ie western Ukrainian/Rumanian area) (Strabo 3: 265). It seems that the Midianites stayed in the area of the Ukraine after the Kiev Rus Empire fell while the “Great Russians” migrated out further into Russia.

Midian in Prophecy

Is the Ukrainian Crisis prophesied in the Bible? In Numbers the 24^th chapter, the prophecy of Balaam is recorded here. In the latter part of this prophecy he speaks of what will happen in the “latter days.” (v.14). He “which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open:” (v.16), and he “looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said…” (v.21). who are the Kenites? Judges 1:16 says, “And the children of the Kenite, Moses’ fa