Originally released February 10, 2008

OUR GUEST tonight appears regularly on national radio and television programs such as The Glenn Beck Program, The Savage Nation with Michael Savage, and Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. He’s the author of several important books (links below), including his most recent best-seller, The Late Great USA.

Dr. Jerome Corsi writes regularly at WorldNetDaily about the North American Union and the manipulation of the U.S. dollar to force the adoption of a single North American currency. He believes, as we do, that the current mortgage crisis and the imminent meltdown of the stock market are just preliminary steps to forcing changes on Americans that will eliminate our sovereignty (at a tidy profit for those involved).

Topics:

• The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada by Jerome Corsi

• Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians by Jerome Corsi and Craig R. Smith

• Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry by Jerome Corsi and John O’Neill

• N.J. Parkway lease mirrors NAFTA superhighway plan

• Economist: Expect Fed to lower Dow to 8,000

• Real budget deficit: $4 trillion

• Are our banks on life-support?

• Half of gold in central banks gone?

• Dozens of bank collapses are on the horizon

• Arab nations eye control of U.S. companies

• North American merger topic of secret confab

• McCain aide touts ‘Mexico first’ policy

• US-backed Russian institutes help build Iran nuclear reactor

  ---

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, is fighting stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah.

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First released April 25, 2010

THE LAST Days Conference is now history, and everyone who attended would agree that it was a powerful experience. Organizer Tom Dunn pulled together an impressive group of speakers, all of whom contributed a piece to the puzzle that is the timeline of the countdown to the end of the age.

This week’s show is a summary of what attendees heard, a collection of interviews with the featured speakers direct from the conference in Nashville:

• Chris White — The 2012 Deception

• Documentary filmmaker Chris Pinto on the true faith of America’s founding fathers

• Dr. Michael Bennett (AKA Dr. Future) on the role of sorcery in the coming supernatural showdown

• Russ Dizdar of Shatter the Darkness Ministries

• L.A. Marzulli on Politics, Prophecy, and the Supernatural

• Guy Malone on what the Bible says about “alien” contact

• Joe Jordan, co-founder and president of CE4 Research Group, on the human casualties of the cosmic war

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Derek’s new book War of the Watchers Book One: From Baal to Balfour is now available at Amazon in paperback and as a Kindle e-book!

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In 2012, archaeologists examined a massive, multichambered dolmen in the Shamir Dolmen Field on the western foothills of the Golan Heights, a site with over four hundred dolmens. What was truly remarkable about this particular dolmen was the discovery of rock art on the underside of the capstone, a basalt monster weighing about fifty tons.^[i] (For comparison, that’s about twice as heavy as a fully-loaded, eighteen-wheel, tractor-trailer in the United States.) That’s the first time art has been found inside any of the thousands of dolmens in the region, possibly the first written or artistic record that might be connected directly to the biblical Rephaim.

The dolmen itself is surrounded by a tumulus, a burial mound of about four hundred tons of stone. Think about that! Four thousand years ago, maybe a century or so before Abraham arrived in Canaan, a government on the Golan Heights was powerful enough to organize the manpower and logistics (food, water, etc.) to move and assemble some eight hundred thousand pounds of stone into a multichambered tomb for—who? The king and his family? Archaeologists recovered enough bones and teeth to identify “an 8–10 year-old child, a young adult and a 35–45 year-old adult.”^[ii]

Were they—dare we speculate—of the dynasty that produced Og, the enemy of Israel, about six hundred years later? Well, probably not. Most dynasties don’t last that long. But it’s interesting to wonder.

The engravings were fourteen figures comprised of a vertical line and a downturned arc. What did the symbol mean? No idea. Nothing like it has been found anywhere in the Levant or anywhere else.^[iii] It might be a representation of the human soul taking flight, but because the artist didn’t leave a note, we’re guessing. Or—and again, we’re speculating—this could be an ancient symbol with occult meaning even today. Three-dimensional scanning of the images show that at least some of them look very much like the Greek character psi, which is a trident (and the logo for Indiana University), the three-pronged spear traditionally carried by the Greco-Roman god of the sea, Poseidon/Neptune. Today it’s used, among other things, as a symbol for parapsychology, especially research into extrasensory perception, and in a mathematical formula that claims to guide occultists in how to perform rituals in chaos magick.

What did that symbol mean in the twentieth century BC? We have no way to know. It might have been doodling by a bored Bronze Age stonemason.

The takeaway for this section is this: For at least a thousand years, people living in lands the Bible identifies as the home of Rephaim tribes built burial tombs with massive slabs of limestone and basalt. And those huge burial tombs inspired place names linked to the dolmen-builders (Iye-Abarim, “ruins of the Travelers”) and to the restless dead (Oboth, “Spirits of the Dead”).

Get this: Even the place where Moses died was called the Mountain of the Travelers.

Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab, opposite Jericho, and view the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel for a possession. And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.…

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day.
— Deuteronomy 32:49–50, 34:5–6, ESV (emphasis added)

Here’s a thought: Moses was buried in the valley of the Travelers, a place where the Rephaim spirits were believed to cross over to the land of the living. Is that why Satan, lord of the dead, thought he had a claim to Moses’ body after his death?^[iv]

Another question comes to mind: Were all those dolmens up and down the Jordan Rift Valley thought to be portals to the underworld?

Here’s another connection between this valley and the realm of the dead: Remember the prophecy of Balaam? After the king of Moab tried to buy a curse from the pagan prophet, Israel began drifting away from Yahweh again.

While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.
— Numbers 25:1–3, ESV

Who was Baal of Peor? Remember, baal in Hebrew simply means “lord.” So, the Lord of Peor was a local deity linked to a mountain near Shittim in Moab, northeast of the Dead Sea. The clue to the character of Baal-Peor is in the name.

Peor is related to the Hebrew root p’r, which means “cleft” or “gap,”^[v] or “open wide.”^[vi] In this context, that definition is consistent with Isaiah’s description of the entrance to the netherworld:

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened [pa’ar] its mouth beyond measure.
— Isaiah 5:14, ESV

Since we’re looking at a place associated with the dead, it’s worth noting that the Canaanite god of death, Mot, was described in the Ugaritic texts as a ravenous entity with a truly monstrous mouth:

He extends a lip to the earth,
a lip to the heavens,
he extends a tongue to the stars.^[vii]

Yeesh. But that’s what’s in view here: Baal-Peor was apparently lord of the entrance to the underworld.

Yes, the Canaanites believed the entrance to the underworld was at Bashan. But both Molech (or Milcom) and Chemosh, the national gods of Ammon and Moab, which controlled most of the land east of the Jordan from the Dead Sea to Mount Hermon, demanded child sacrifice. Veneration of the dead and appeasing the gods of the dead through human sacrifice appear to have been the norm in this region east of the Dead Sea.

This was also the general location of Sodom and Gomorrah. Now, we try not to put too much stock in the influence of territorial spirits. After all, God created us with free will. But you have to admit this is an awful lot of evil concentrated in a small area.

Anyway, perhaps because of the association with death and the dead, there was, shall we say, a fertility aspect to the cult of Baal-Peor.

And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly.
— Numbers 25:6–8, ESV

How to put this delicately? There are only a couple of physical positions in which Phinehas could have speared both the Israelite man and Midianite woman with one thrust. If you’re an adult, I don’t need to draw you a picture. Emphasizing the point, the Hebrew word translated “belly,” qevah, can refer to a woman’s womb.^[viii] In other words, the sin here wasn’t that an Israelite man brought a foreign woman home for dinner, it’s that the couple performed a lewd ritual act in full view of Moses and the assembly of Israel.

It’s no wonder the men of Israel were tempted to follow Baal-Peor. Roughly 60 percent of the Christian pastors in America today struggle with addiction to pornography.^[ix] Just imagine the temptation of being surrounded by people whose god decreed that extramarital sex was a form of worship. We don’t mean to be flippant, but it might take the real threat of death to keep men away from the temples.

Indeed, twenty-four thousand people died in the plague that God sent as punishment for that apostasy—because it wasn’t just the one couple involved.

And there was even more to it than that. Not surprisingly, given the Amorite/Rephaim culture in that time and place, one of the pagan rites the Israelites adopted during their time in Moab was veneration of the dead:

Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor,
and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;

they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.
— Psalm 106:28–29, ESV

The psalmist remembered the sacrifices to the dead, which is a basic description of the Amorite kispum ritual. The sexual sin of the young couple (and Phinehas’ violent reaction) is shocking to us today, but apparently the psalmist didn’t find it worth mentioning. The real sin that provoked God’s anger was venerating the dead, one of the “abominable practices” of the pagan nations He’d promised to drive out of the land before them.

That brings us back to the point: We’ve identified the area that Ezekiel called the Valley of the Travelers as the east side of the Jordan Rift Valley, specifically ancient Moab east and just northeast of the Dead Sea. And by now you’re asking, “Why are we spending all of this time identifying the area and unraveling the meaning behind the word Travelers?”

Here’s why: It’s the link that connects the Rephaim to Ezekiel’s prophecy of Gog and Magog.

How? Stay tuned.

[i]. Sharon G., et al (2017). op. cit., p. 1.

[ii]. Ibid., p. 10.

[iii]. Ibid., p. 17.

[iv]. See Jude 1:9.

[v]. Strong’s Concordance #H6465, http://lexiconcordance.com/hebrew/6465.html, retrieved 3/27/18.

[vi]. Spronk, K. (1999). “Baal of Peor.” In K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, & P. W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed.) (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans), p. 147.

[vii]. KTU 1.5, ii, 1. In Wyatt, N. (2002). Religious Texts from Ugarit (2nd ed.) (London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press), p. 120.

[viii]. Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Nu 25:8), (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press).

[ix]. Torres, H. (2016). “57% Percent of Pastors, 64% of Youth Pastors in U.S. Struggle with Porn Addiction, Survey Shows.” Christian Today, January 30, 2016. https://www.christiantoday.com/article/57-percent-of-pastors-and-64-of-youth-pastors-in-u-s-struggle-with-porn-addiction-survey-shows/78178.htm, retrieved 3/27/18.

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Meanwhile, the southern kingdom of Judah was being ruled the young, foolish, idolatrous King Ahaz. After being defeated in battle by the Aramean Kingdom of Damascus, Ahaz decided to worship the gods of Syria rather than turning to God for help. He also sacrificed his son to Molech in the Valley of Hinnom southwest of Jerusalem.

Then he turned to the Assyrians for help against Israel, Syria, and Edom, cutting up fixtures in the Temple to send to Assyria as tribute. Needless to say, God was not pleased.

Apparently, neither were the people of Judah. Ahaz was buried in the City of David rather than in the tombs of the kings of his forefathers.

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, has been battling stage 4 bowel cancer and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah.

Derek’s new book War of the Watchers Book One: From Baal to Balfour is now available at Amazon in paperback and as a Kindle e-book!

If you are looking for a text of the Book of 1 Enoch to follow our monthly study, you can try these sources:

• Parallel translations by R. H. Charles (1917) and Richard Laurence (1821)

• Modern English translation by George W. E. Nickelsburg and James VanderKam (link to book at Amazon)

• Book of 1 Enoch - Standard English Version by Dr. Jay Winter (link opens free PDF)

• Book of 1 Enoch - R. H. Charles translation (link opens free PDF)

The SkyWatchTV store has a special offer on Dr. Michael Heiser’s two-volume set A Companion to the Book of Enoch. Get both books, the R. H. Charles translation of 1 Enoch, and a DVD interview with Mike and Steven Bancarz for a donation of $35 plus shipping and handling. Link: https://bit.ly/heiser-enoch

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Many will respond to that news with skepticism given the way we were propagandized during the COVID outbreak five years ago. But facts are facts: Nearly 1600 people have died thus far in the outbreak and it’s spreading much faster than the 2014 outbreak in West Africa.

The infection fatality rate is upwards of 40%. By comparison, COVID only had an IFR of about 0.2%. In addition, this particular strain of Ebola has an incubation period of up to three weeks. That means somebody who appears to be well could conceivably travel on an international flight and bring the virus to another continent. So, fear mongering in this case is probably justified.

Speaking of fear, a robotics company called Satyress has announced a new robot that looks like a giant metallic praying mantis with the head of a goat. It is ostensibly intended for jobs too dangerous for humans, like search and rescue missions after a natural disaster. However, it looks like Baphomet with an extra set of legs. That begs the question: What in the world were the designers thinking?

We also discuss the invasion of the Spanish enclave of Ceuta by 60,000 military age men from Morocco. This is a very bad look for the pro-immigration leaders of the European Union and progressive Democrats here in the United States. Video from Ceuta showing young Moroccan men looting stores, breaking into homes, and attacking Spanish citizens is like something from a horror film.

Also: Mayor Mamdani promises his city-run grocery stores will sell groceries at 30% below average cost elsewhere. That math don’t math.

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah.

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We know from Exodus and Deuteronomy that the Israelites camped on the plains of Moab before crossing the Jordan to begin the assault on Jericho. Likewise, Gog of Magog, whom we’ll show later in the book to be the Antichrist, will bring his army to the very same place—to die.

And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. And I will turn you about and drive you forward [or, “drag you along”], and bring you up from the uttermost parts of the north [yarkete tsaphon, Baal’s mount of assembly], and lead you against the mountains of Israel. Then I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand. You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes and the peoples who are with you. I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. You shall fall in the open field, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands, and they shall know that I am the LORD.
— Ezekiel 39:1–6, 11, ESV

“The Valley of the Travelers, east of the sea.” Many of us have read that verse and paid little attention to the name of Gog’s burial place, maybe assuming it was symbolic.

If you assume the sea is the Mediterranean, that could be anyplace from Dan to Beersheba—in other words, just about anywhere in Israel. This has allowed prophecy scholars to keep the war of Gog and Magog separate from Armageddon, which many still incorrectly place at Megiddo. But “east of the sea” actually means ancient Moab, which was east of the Dead Sea. This opens a fascinating new look at the war of Gog and Magog.

The Hebrew word rendered “traveler” is ōbĕrîm, a plural form of the verb ʿbr, which means “to pass from one side to the other.”^[i] In this context, then, a Traveler is a spirit that passes from one plane of existence to another, in the same sense that the ancient Greeks believed the dead had to travel across the River Styx to reach or return from the underworld.

It is interesting that this was the very place, just northeast of the Dead Sea, where Israel camped before crossing the Jordan to begin the conquest of Canaan. How do we know this? Because places where Israel stopped after the Exodus refer to the dead, and specifically to the Travelers.

And the people of Israel set out and camped in Oboth. And they set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness that is opposite Moab, toward the sunrise.
— Numbers 21:10–11, ESV

Oboth has the same sense as ōbĕrîm, although it’s more specific. Oboth derives from ʾôb, which refers to necromancy, the practice of summoning and consulting with spirits of the dead.^[ii] ʾÔb, in turn, is related to the Hebrew word ʾab, which means “father.” In the Old Testament, the word “fathers” most often refers to one’s dead ancestors. For example:

And when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers [ăbōṯ]”.
— Genesis 47:29–30, ESV

Oboth, then, means “Spirits of the Dead.”^[iii] And, you’ve probably already noticed that the second half of the compound name Iye-abarim is very similar to ōbĕrîm. Excellent work! Spot on. And, significantly, Iye-abarim means “heaps (or ruins) of the Travelers.”^[iv]

Not coincidentally, this area east of the Jordan Rift Valley, from ancient Moab to Bashan, southeast of Mount Hermon, is home to thousands of dolmens, megalithic tombs made from slabs of basalt and limestone that weigh as much as fifty tons.^[v]

While dolmens are found all over the world, there are more of these tombs in Jordan and the Golan Heights than anywhere else. They are simple structures, mostly in a trilithon formation—two standing stones and a capstone, like a “table” across the top, with no cement holding the slabs together. Sometimes additional stones are placed at the front and back, occasionally with a porthole cut to include a frame around the opening cut to hold a removable flat stone. Skeletal remains have been found at enough of them to conclude that the primary function of these intriguing structures was burial of the dead.^[vi]

These ancient monuments are fascinating for a couple of reasons. First, although Iye-Abarim was located just northeast of the Dead Sea, the highest concentration of dolmens in the region is on and around the Golan Heights, where the Rapha king Og and the deity called Rapi’u, King of Eternity, once ruled. A recent survey of the Golan found more than five thousand megalithic burial sites, most of which are dolmens.^[vii] In Jordan, another twenty thousand dolmens have been found,^[viii] although many are threatened by the expansion of modern cities and quarrying for rock and gravel. (Which makes sense—dolmens were built where great big rocks were close to the surface and easy to find.) Secondly, and this is an interesting admission: Scholars really don’t know anything about the people who built them.

The dolmens are generally dated to the third millennium (3000–2000) BC. On the Golan Heights, they are more narrowly dated to between 2250 BC and about 1800 BC.^[ix] Based on pottery shards found near some of the dolmens in Jordan, the megaliths closer to the Dead Sea may be as old as the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, circa 3300 BC.^[x]

If the Bible is accurate, and we believe it is, then the time and location suggest that the builders of the dolmens were the Rephaim tribes, who constructed them in the centuries before Abraham’s arrival in the area. By the time the Israelites returned from Egypt around 1406 BC, only Og’s small kingdom remained of the Rephaim—possibly the last of the dolmen-builders in the Levant.

It’s tempting to go overboard with speculation, but we don’t serve our God well by wandering too far afield without evidence. Still, credentialed scholars link the megaliths to the Rephaim, although instead of identifying the dolmen-builders as Rephaim they tend to view things the other way around, believing the dolmens “were the basis for belief in giants, the Rephaim, Anakim, Emim, Zamzummim, and the like.”^[xi] In other words, scholars think the people who moved into the lands alongside the Jordan River invented stories of giants because they imagined really big men must have moved those really big rocks.

Over the centuries, tomb robbers have removed most of the useful evidence from the dolmens. The few bones left behind in burial chambers don’t show any evidence of giantism, or at least I haven’t found any reliable sources reporting it. Most of the dolmens are oriented north-south, although about 10 percent appear to be oriented east-west, perhaps to face the rising sun.

Is this significant? While it’s interesting to note that the Pole Star was Thuban (Alpha Draconis) in the constellation Draco, the Dragon, when the dolmens were built, we don’t know if that was relevant.

Sadly, despite their ability to lift stupendously heavy blocks of stone, the dolmen-builders weren’t considerate enough to leave behind written evidence.

[i]. Spronk, K. (1999). “Travellers.” op. cit., p. 876.

[ii]. Tropper, J. (1999). “Spirit of the Dead.” In K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, & P. W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed.) (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans), p. 806.

[iii]. Spronk (1986), op. cit., p. 229.

[iv]. Major Contributors and Editors. (2016). “Iye-Abarim.” In J. D. Barry, D. Bomar, D. R. Brown, R. Klippenstein, D. Mangum, C. Sinclair Wolcott, … W. Widder (Eds.), The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press).

[v]. Schuster, R. (2017). “Monumental Carved Dolmen More Than 4,000 Years Old Found in Golan Rewrites History of Civilization.” Haaretz (March 6, 2017), https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/huge-dolmen-found-in-golan-rewrites-history-of-civilization-1.5444970, retrieved 3/26/18.

[vi]. Yassine, K. (1985). “The Dolmens: Construction and Dating Reconsidered.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 259 (Summer, 1985), pp. 63–69.

[vii]. Sharon G, Barash A, Eisenberg-Degen D, Grosman L, Oron M, et al. (2017) “Monumental Megalithic Burial and Rock Art Tell a New Story about the Levant Intermediate Bronze ‘Dark Ages.’” PLOS ONE 12(3): e0172969. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172969, retrieved 3/28/18.

[viii]. Savage, S. (2010). “Jordan’s Stonehenge: The Endangered Chalcolithic/ Early Bronze Age Site at al-Murayghât–Hajr al-Mansûb,” Near Eastern Archaeology 73:1, p. 32.

[ix]. Spronk, K. (1986), op. cit., p. 228.

[x]. Yassine, K. (1985), op. cit.

[xi]. Ibid., p. 66.

Originally released June 3, 2007

OUR SUMMER “archive series” continues with an interview culled from Derek’s radio program on The Eagle 93.9 (KSSZ-FM) in Columbia, Missouri. His guest on Friday, May 25, 2007 was agroterror expert Kate Iola.

Kate has a master’s degree in Molecular Pathology from the University of California, San Diego, and three issued patents. She started reporting on FMD (foot-and-mouth disease) in 1999. In 2000, she decided someone needed to tell the bizarre — and, unfortunately, true — story of the threat of FMD.

Just as Sharon did with avian flu in The Armageddon Strain, Kate chose to spread the word about FMD with fiction. Her novel Deadstock is a chilling look at the ease with which America’s agriculture industry could be brought to its knees.

Derek and Kate also talked about the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed new bioweapons lab, the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility (NBAF). Columbia is one of 17 contenders to host this BSL-4 laboratory, and Kate is raising a red flag. Placing a lab that studies FMD in the middle of America’s beef and pork producing territory raises some serious security issues.

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, is fighting stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah.

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JOIN US IN ISRAEL (NOTE NEW DATES)! We will tour the Holy Land October 25–November 6, 2027 with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. For more information, log on to GilbertHouse.org/travel.

Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square foot pole barn has a new HVAC system, epoxy floor, 100-amp electric service, new windows, insulation, lights, and ceiling fans! If you are so led, you can help out by clicking here: gilberthouse.org/donate.

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First released June 6, 2010

MOST OF us assume that a portal is a physical gateway. But what if the entrance to another dimension is inside your head?

Dr. Michael Bennett, A/K/A Dr. Future of the Future Quake radio program, tells us about government experiments to find and control supernatural doorways, the kinds of drugs that unlock those doors, and how this may lead to a disturbing end times scenario.

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And when the time drew near that Israel [Jacob] must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now I have found favor in your sight, put your hand under my thigh and promise to deal kindly and truly with me. Do not bury me in Egypt, but let me lie with my fathers [ăbōṯ].
—Genesis 47:29–30, ESV

Looking at all of this in context, then, we can safely say that Oboth, one of the Israelites’ campsites near the plains of Moab, where the people fell into the pagan worship of Baal-Peor, essentially means “Spirits of the Dead.”^[i]

The other place mentioned in the Scripture from Exodus, Iye-abarim, or “ruins of the Abarim,” is based on the same root. Abarim is the anglicized form of ōbĕrîm, a plural form of the verb ʿbr, which means “to pass from one side to the other.”^[ii] In this context, it refers to a spirit that passes from one plane of existence to another, or crosses over, in the same sense that the ancient Greeks believed the dead traveled across the River Styx to reach or return from the underworld.

The placement of Oboth and Iye-abarim in Numbers 33 suggests that they were east of the Dead Sea, not far from Mount Nebo and the plains of Moab. This is confirmed by the proximity of Shittim to Beth-Peor. That’s a name that needs a deeper dive.

Peor is related to the Hebrew root p’r, which means “cleft” or “gap,” or “open wide.”^[iii] In this context, that’s consistent with Isaiah’s description of the entrance to the netherworld:

Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opened [pa’ar] its mouth beyond measure. (
—Isaiah 5:14, ESV

This is similar to the depiction of the Canaanite god of death, Mot, in Ugaritic texts as a ravenous entity with a truly monstrous mouth:

He extends a lip to the earth, a lip to the heavens, he extends a tongue to the stars.^[iv]

So, it appears that Baal-Peor was “lord of the entrance to the netherworld,” Thus Beth-Peor, “house (or temple) of the entrance to the netherworld,” was somewhere close to the plains of Moab and Mount Nebo—which, you’ll note in Deuteronomy 32:49, God called “this mountain of the Abarim.”

All of this leads to the real reason God was angry with the Israelites when they camped at Shittim. The worship of Baal-Peor was not about sexual fertility rites, as you might think after reading the story of the zeal of Phinehas.

Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor,
and ate sacrifices offered to the dead;
they provoked the Lord to anger with their deeds,
and a plague broke out among them.

Then Phinehas stood up and intervened,
and the plague was stayed.
—Psalm 106:28–30, ESV

Writing about four hundred years after the incident at Shittim, the psalmist didn’t even mention the young couple caught in the act by Phinehas. It was eating sacrifices offered to the dead that angered Yahweh. And judging by the words of later prophets, the Israelites were slow to learn their lesson.

But you, draw near,
sons of the sorceress,
offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman.

Whom are you mocking?
Against whom do you open your mouth wide
and stick out your tongue?

Are you not children of transgression,
the offspring of deceit,
you who burn with lust among the oaks,
under every green tree,
who slaughter your children in the valleys,
under the clefts of the rocks?

Among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion;
they, they, are your lot;
to them you have poured out a drink offering,
you have brought a grain offering.

Shall I relent for these things?
—Isaiah 57:3–6, ESV

Isaiah wrote nearly seven hundred years after the Exodus, but the Israelites were still engaged in the occult practices that compelled God to smite them with a devastating plague. To “burn with lust among the oaks” suggests fertility rites, which seems obvious given the prophet’s condemnation of the children of the adulteress and “loose woman,” which is also rendered “prostitute” and “whore” in other English translations.

Ah, but once again, there is more in the Bible verse than meets the English-reading eye.

The Hebrew word translated “sorceress,” ʿanan, is difficult to pin down. “Witch” and “fortune teller” have also been used in translation. More likely, however, is a correlation with the Arabic ʿanna, meaning “to appear,” which suggests that the sorceress was actually a female necromancer.^[v]

This, then, may explain why the word rendered “oaks” or “terebinths,” normally spelled ʾêlîm, is ʾēlîm in Isaiah 57:5. This slight difference could be a scribal error, but it seems more likely that it’s the same word we find in Psalm 29:1:

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings (bənē ʾēlīm),
Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

As we saw above in the story of Saul and the medium of En-dor, elohim and its shortened form, elim, was used in Hebrew to refer to departed ancestors. So, Isaiah wasn’t necessarily railing against sex rites among the sacred oaks, but rather something like, “You sons of the necromancer…who burn with lust among the spirits of the dead.” It’s likely the prophet was engaging in the wordplay for which he’s well known, using a pun to emphasize the spirits behind the rituals—the ʾêlîm among the ʾêlîm.^[vi]

Isaiah continues his diatribe by connecting the death cult to the rites of Molech. The valley of the son of Hinnom, later called Gehenna, was the location of the tophet, where Israelites sacrificed their children to the dark god of the underworld.^[vii] The Valley of Hinnom surrounds Jerusalem’s Old City on the south and west, connecting on the west with the Valley of Rephaim (interesting coincidence) and merging with the Kidron Valley near the southeastern corner of the city. It’s as Isaiah described it, a narrow, rocky ravine that was used as a place for burying the dead. Tombs along the sides of the valley are plainly visible to visitors to Jerusalem today. This helps us better understand the real meaning behind verse 6, which begins, “among the smooth stones of the valley is your portion.”

An alternative understanding of the phrase challeqe-nachal, “smooth things of the wadi,” is the “dead” of the wadi. This meaning is based on examples of the related Semitic word chalaq found in Arabic and Ugaritic with the meaning “die, perish.”^[viii]

The picture comes into focus. This chapter of Isaiah is obscure and hard to understand only if we read it without knowing what the prophet knew about the Amorite cult of the dead that had persisted from the time of the conquest to his own day. This is confirmed by the next few verses of the chapter:

On a high and lofty mountain
you have set your bed,
and there you went up to offer sacrifice.

Behind the door and the doorpost
you have set up your memorial;
for, deserting me, you have uncovered your bed,
you have gone up to it,
you have made it wide;
and you have made a covenant for yourself with them,
you have loved their bed,
you have looked on nakedness.

You journeyed to the king with oil
and multiplied your perfumes;
you sent your envoys far off,
and sent down even to Sheol.
—Isaiah 57:3–9, ESV

The high places were almost constantly in use in Israel and Judah, even during the reigns of kings who tried to do right by God, like Hezekiah. The imagery of adultery and sexual license is a common metaphor in the Old Testament for the spiritual infidelity of God’s people. But even here, there are some deeper things to bring out.

This section of Scripture confirms that the target of Isaiah’s condemnation was a cult of the dead. Because Hebrew is a consonantal language (no vowels), similar words in the original Hebrew text, written before diacritical marks were used to indicate vowels, can be confusing. Verse 9 is a case in point. The consonants mem, lamed, and kaph can be used for melech (“king,” which is how it’s interpreted in Isaiah 57:9), malik (“messenger,” especially as a type of angel), or the name of the god Molech.

Considering what precedes that verse, specifically Isaiah’s reference to slaughtering children in the valleys, the latter option is most likely.

So, Isaiah 57:3–9 should be understood as God’s condemnation of the worship of the dead. Isaiah calls out the “sons of the necromancer” who “burn with passion” among the spirits of the dead, sacrificing their children among the dead of the wadis, who were offered food and drink consistent with the Amorite kispum ritual for the ancestral dead. But it was worse than that—the apostate Jews “journeyed to Molech with oil…and sent down even to Sheol,” the realm of the spirits worshiped as the long-dead, mighty kings of old.

To conclude this section of his book, Isaiah relates a warning and a promise from God:

When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you!

The wind will carry them all off,
a breath will take them away.

But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land
and shall inherit my holy mountain.
—Isaiah 57:13, ESV

The “wind” is the ruach, translated elsewhere as “spirit,” as in the Spirit of God. It’s another bit of wordplay by Isaiah, showing who will be responsible for the ultimate defeat of the pagan entities worshiped by the backslidden Jews and how easily it will be done. And more—it’s a picture of the process of winnowing on a threshing floor, where the chaff is blown away to leave behind the grain.

The prophet concludes by reminding us what this spiritual war is all about—reclaiming our inheritance, the holy mountain of God.

[i]. Spronk (1986), op. cit., p. 229.

[ii]. Klaas Spronk, “Travellers.” In K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, & P. W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed.) (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), p. 876.

[iii]. Klaas Spronk, “Baal of Peor.” In K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, & P.W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed.) (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), p. 147.

[iv]. KTU 1.5, ii, 1. In Nicolas Wyatt, Religious Texts from Ugarit (2nd ed.) (London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), p. 120.

[v]. Theodore J. Lewis, “Death Cult Imagery in Isaiah 57.” Hebrew Annual Review 11 (1987), p. 271.

[vi]. Susan Ackerman, “Sacred Sex, Sacrifice, and Death.” Bible Review 6:1 (February 1990). https://www.baslibrary.org/bible-review/6/1/9, retrieved 7/23/19. Fertility rites in sacred groves are mentioned in Isaiah 1:29-30, Hosea 4:12–13, and Ezekiel 20:28.

[vii]. 2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 7:31 and 19:6.

[viii]. Faithlife Study Bible. See also Lewis, op.cit., pp. 272–273.

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While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor.”

And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting. When Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.
—Numbers 25:1–9, ESV

This requires some unpacking. To our twenty-first-century minds, the reaction of Phinehas seems excessive. Some in America today would call him out for his intolerance and accuse him of xenophobia, racism, or both. To them, this story makes God out to be a monster since He obviously approved of Phinehas’ violent act. But that’s because most Americans today, especially those most likely to throw around that kind of epithet, view the world through a naturalistic bias. There is a lot here that’s only obvious if you understand what was happening in the spirit realm.

The first clue that there’s more to this story than is obvious at first read is the description of Phinehas’ killing stroke. Did you notice that he killed both the Israelite prince and the Midianite princess with one thrust of his spear? Without getting too graphic, there are only a couple of physical positions in which Phinehas could have speared both of them with one jab.

There is other evidence in the text that suggests the sexual sin of Zimri and Cozbi, the young lovers who dared transgress “in the sight of all Israel.” The Hebrew word translated “belly,” qevah, means the lower abdomen and can refer to the womb or pubic region,^[i] emphasizing that Phinehas caught the young couple in the act. The word translated “chamber” in the ESV (other translations use “tent” or “pavilion”), qubbah, appears only here in the Old Testament. The passage is a little obscure, but the sense is that the couple were engaged in some rite to the Baal of Peor, possibly a fertility ritual. So, what do we know about this pagan deity?

The name Baal-Peor is actually a title, the “lord of Peor.” The location of Peor isn’t known exactly but it must be near Mount Nebo, from which Moses got his only look at the Holy Land. On a clear day, visitors to Nebo today can see the Dead Sea, Jericho, and the Mount of Olives, which is only about twenty-five miles away. Shittim, or Abel-Shittim, was the name given to the place of the Israelites’ camp in the plains of Moab, directly below the western slope of Mount Nebo. Shittim means “acacia,” the desert tree that provided the wood of the Ark of the Covenant. It’s a hardy plant, surviving where most other vegetation can’t because of its resistance to drought and tolerance for salt water.

A team led by Dr. Steven Collins of Trinity Southwest University began excavating at a site in Jordan that overlooks the ancient plains of Moab in 2005. Dr. Collins is convinced that this site, called Tall el-Hammam, is the biblical Sodom. Based on its estimated population, it would have been the largest city in the Levant in the time of Abraham next to Hazor between the Sea of Galilee and Mount Hermon.

The evidence suggests that it was destroyed around 1700 BC by an air blast similar to the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia.^[ii] Soil samples taken from the lower city revealed a high concentration of salts and sulphates in the ash layer from the city’s destruction, and the chemical composition of the salts and sulphates was “virtually identical to the chemical composition of Dead Sea water.”^[iii] So, whatever exploded over the north end of the Dead Sea around the time of Abraham had enough force to kick up a small tsunami of superheated brine that swept over the lower part of the city. This was devastating—the lower city was built on a hill 75 to 150 feet above the surrounding plain!

Further investigation of the plain itself, the Kikkar, revealed that the salty water essentially poisoned the ground. It was at least six hundred years—about the time of Saul, David, and Solomon—before agriculture and civilization could resume.^[iv] So, when the Israelites arrived on the plains of Moab, it was well named Abel-Shittim, “meadow of acacias”^[v]—because virtually nothing would grow there besides acacia for another 250 years.

Now, why is all of that relevant? Because the area east of the Dead Sea, and especially near the ruined city of ancient Sodom,^[vi] was a place where it was believed that the dead intervened in the affairs of the living. In fact, two of the stops along the Exodus route refer to places where the veil between worlds was believed to be thin.

And the people of Israel set out and camped in Oboth. And they set out from Oboth and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness that is opposite Moab, toward the sunrise.
—Numbers 21:10–11, ESV

The name of the first, Oboth, derives from ʾôb, which refers to necromancy, the practice of summoning and consulting with spirits of the dead.^[vii] This is the Hebrew behind the English word “medium,” as in the woman consulted by Saul to summon the spirit of Samuel.

This is a controversial topic among Christians. Those of us who take the Bible seriously are inclined to believe that there’s no such thing as ghosts. But there is nothing in the biblical account^[viii] to suggest that the spirit who delivered God’s message to Saul was anything but the ghost of Samuel—who, it’s important to note, was called an elohim as he emerged from the earth.

“Elohim” is not a proper name, and it doesn’t refer specifically to “gods.” It’s a designator of place, like “American” or “New Yorker.” Spirits live in the spirit realm, but not all spirits are equal. Some are archangels and others are demons, but all are spirits. In the same way, spirits are all elohim, even the spirits of dead humans, but there is only one capital-E Elohim—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Interestingly, this casts new light on the name of one of the giants who fell before the swords of David’s mighty men.

There was war again between the Philistines and Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines. And David grew weary. And Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was armed with a new sword, thought to kill David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid and attacked the Philistine and killed him.
—2 Samuel 21:15–17, ESV

Contrary to the most common definitions of the name, the giant wasn’t Ishbi-benob, he was Ishbi ben Ob—Ishbi, son of the medium! And remember, the “descendants of the giants” (yĕlîdê hārāpâ) were probably a Philistine warrior cult that venerated the “mighty men who were of old,”^[ix] a practice that had persisted for at least 1,500 years in the Levant by the time of David.

Not a surprise for this one, since his mother was apparently in contact with those same demon spirits. But wouldn’t it be interesting, as author Brian Godawa speculated in his novel, David Ascendant, if Ishbi was the son of the medium consulted by King Saul the night before he died in battle?^[x]

[i]. Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D., Faithlife Study Bible [Nu 25:8] (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[ii]. Dr. Phillip J. Silvia, “The 3.7kaBP Middle Ghor Event: Catastrophic Termination of a Bronze Age Civilization.” American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting (Denver, November 17, 2018), p. 1.

[iii]. Ibid., p. 3.

[iv]. Ibid., p. 1.

[v]. Based on Strong’s Hebrew #58, meaning a “grassy meadow or plain.”

[vi]. Steven Collins and Latayne C. Scott, Discovering the City of Sodom (New York: Howard Books, 2013).

[vii]. Joseph Tropper, “Spirit of the Dead.” In K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, & P. W. van der Horst (Eds.), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd extensively rev. ed.) (Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999), p. 806.

[viii]. 1 Samuel 28:3–25.

[ix]. l’Heureux, op. cit.

[x]. For a highly entertaining, biblically based account of the influence of the giants on human history, Brian Godawa’s Chronicles of the Nephilim series is highly recommended.

Originally released November 25, 2007

WHILE WE complete the first stage of our move from Missouri to Indiana, we present a guest we think you’ll find fascinating. Terry James has been writing about prophecy for years, but what led him to study and write about the coming end of the age is perhaps even more interesting than his work.

Settle in for an hour of discussion about fallen angels, UFOs, nephilim, and the end of the world as we know it.

Links:

• The Nephilim Imperatives: Book Two of the Second Coming Chronicles

• RaptureReady.com

• Book review: The Nephilim Imperatives by Terry James

• Terry James prophecy study archive at RaptureReady.com

  ---

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, is fighting stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah.

Follow us!

• X: @pidradio | @sharonkgilbert | @derekgilbert | @gilberthouse_tv

• Telegram: t.me/gilberthouse | t.me/sharonsroom | t.me/viewfromthebunker

• Substack: gilberthouse.substack.com

• YouTube: @GilbertHouse | @UnravelingRevelation

• Facebook.com/pidradio

JOIN US IN ISRAEL (NOTE NEW DATES)! We will tour the Holy Land October 25–November 6, 2027 with an optional three-day extension to Jordan. For more information, log on to GilbertHouse.org/travel.

Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! Our 1,200 square foot pole barn has a new HVAC system, epoxy floor, 100-amp electric service, new windows, insulation, lights, and ceiling fans! If you are so led, you can help out by clicking here: gilberthouse.org/donate.

Get our free app! It connects you to this podcast, our weekly Bible studies, and our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker. The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at pidradio.com/app.

Think better, feel better! Our partners at Simply Clean Foods offer freeze-dried, 100% GMO-free food and delicious, vacuum-packed fair trade coffee from Honduras. Find out more at GilbertHouse.org/store/.

First released May 30, 2010

THEY CALL themselves Christians but the mythology underlying their beliefs has little to do with Christ.

To Dominionists, Jesus’ return to Earth is on hold, waiting for us to conquer it first.

Dr. Orrel Steinkamp has been watching and writing about Dominion theology for nearly 15 years, and he says 2010 is a banner year for the movement. Leaders in the Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation are being mainstreamed, riding the wave of protest against the policies of Barack Obama and his congressional allies to political power.

Dr. Steinkamp identifies the key players in this movement and shows where the theology of the apostolic/prophetic movement deviates from scripture.

----------

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Please join us each Sunday for the Gilbert House Fellowship, our weekly Bible study podcast. Log on to www.GilbertHouse.org for more details.

Check out our weekly video program Unraveling Revelation (www.unravelingrevelation.tv), and subscribe to the YouTube channel: YouTube.com/UnravelingRevelation.

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Discuss these topics at the VFTB Facebook page (facebook.com/viewfromthebunker) and check out the great podcasters at the Fringe Radio Network (Spreaker.com/show/fringe-radio-network)!

This practice is even mentioned in the Bible. Have you ever wondered why the prophet Samuel was buried “in his house at Ramah”?^[ii] That wasn’t a figure of speech; it was the custom of the time and culture in which Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon lived.

This dedication of the living to the dead, and the dependence of the dead on the living for their existence after death, is likewise reflected in the story of Abraham. If you’re reading this book, you are no doubt familiar with the basic outline of the story of Father Abraham: He faithfully followed God’s call and left his home in northern Mesopotamia, near Harran (it’s spelled with two Rs outside the Bible) and traveled to Canaan.

God promised Abraham—then still called Abram—that his descendants would return from Egypt to Canaan and become a great nation. As time passed, Abraham and Sarah began to doubt because they reached their senior years without a child and heir. Trying to jump-start God’s promise, Sarah gave her servant, Hagar, to Abraham, who promptly fathered Ishmael, considered the father of the Arabian tribes. But even with this display of disbelief, God reappeared to Abraham and Sarah and promised a son, who arrived in the form of Isaac, the son of the promise.

Most of us, reading this with a modern, Western worldview, interpret Abraham’s distress at the lack of an heir as the understandable sadness a father might have over not seeing his family line continue, or over leaving his (rather large) estate to an outsider.

After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
—Genesis 15:1–2

Having read this far into the chapter, you already have a better understanding of why Abraham was distressed about not having a son. Since he didn’t know what later prophets and the apostles knew about the afterlife, Abraham can be excused for thinking that he needed a son to call his name and feed him on the thirtieth of every month. This is confirmed by a closer examination of Genesis 15:2:

mâ titten-lî wĕʾānōkî hôlēk ʾărîrî ûben mešeq bêtî {hûʾ dammešeq} ʾĕlî ʿezer

What can you give me, since I am childless, and the one who will pour libations on my tomb… is Eliezer?

The expression hûʾ dammešeq is a scribal gloss, explaining what was felt to be a damaged text, since the meaning of mešeq was lost until the Ugaritic texts were found. It may be translated “that is, Damascus”, but is an ill-directed attempt to explain an obscure term, and should be omitted. Ben mešeq, “son of the cup”, alludes to the eldest son’s ritual duties at the obsequies of his father.^[iii]

In short, Abraham wasn’t upset that he might have to leave his wealth to a distant relative in Damascus. In fact, Eliezer may not even have been related; he might have been the servant Abraham sent north to find a bride for Isaac.^[iv] Abraham was distressed that he’d have to name a servant his ben mešeq, “son of the cup,” to pour the water every month for the kispum to sustain him and Sara in the afterlife.

Oddly enough, this practice of “pouring the water” for the ancestors is one more religious rite that appears to be connected to, if not inspired by, the Watchers and Mount Hermon.

In September of 1869, Sir Charles Warren climbed the mountain as part of a survey of the Levant for the Palestine Exploration Fund. We quote an excerpt from his report for the PEF later in this book, but the relevant point right now is this: In addition to discovering a four-foot-high stela inside the ruins of a temple near the summit inscribed in archaic Greek with a reference to “those who swore an oath” (i.e., the Watchers), Warren found that the summit of the mountain was scooped out to form a giant bowl about nine feet across and at least six feet deep.

If you’re familiar with the Book of 1 Enoch, you probably know that the two hundred rebellious Watchers descended to the summit of Hermon and bound one another with a mutual oath before proceeding to mate with human women and corrupt most of the living things on the planet. The text of Enoch puts the event “in the days of Jared.”^[v]

Scholar Edward Lipiński, however, has a different view:

The word yarīd… is not the name of a person, as authors generally believe, but a cultic term denoting the rite of hydrophory, which consisted in going down to a well in order to draw water out of it and bring it up in procession to pour it out as a libation.^[vi]

In other words, the descent of the Watchers didn’t take place in the days of Jared, it happened in the days of the yarīd, or perhaps in the days when the yarīd was introduced. Lipiński documents from classical sources that the ritual was performed in a number of places in the Levant, including Hierapolis (modern Manbij, Syria) to honor Atargatis, another name for the goddess Inanna/Ishtar (about whom more later), and Tyre, for the chief god of that city, Melqart—the Phoenician name for the most famous of the Greek demigods, Herakles.^[vii]

The practice of venerating one’s ancestors probably predates Abraham’s day, but we can only definitely date the practice of the monthly care and feeding ritual, the kispum, to the rise of the Amorites around 2000 BC. It’s difficult to believe that religious rites based on the worship of ancestors would have continued for the last four thousand years without some evidence to compel cultures as different as South Korea and rural Madagascar to continue it to this day. The evidence must have been in the form of supernatural intervention in the physical realm, since it was fear of the power of the dead motivated Amorites to feed them in the first place.

As Christians, we understand that the dead only visit the living under special circumstances sanctioned by God. The only example in the Bible was the visit by the prophet Samuel to the medium at Endor (1 Samuel 28:1–25). So, it’s safe to say that demands for food and drink from the dead weren’t coming from dead ancestors. Those demands came from another kind of spirit. They were spirits of the dead, all right, but not dead humans—dead hybrids. Nephilim. In other words, what the Amorites of old and the people of Madagascar today believed were the spirits of the ancestors were actually demons.

And that begs a question: What do the demons get out of this deal? Obviously, a spirit without flesh needs no food or drink, so why the demands for sustenance? The Book of 1 Enoch suggests that the spirits of the giants, barred from heaven and Sheol, were condemned to wander the earth, neither eating nor drinking, causing misery among humans as they hunger and thirst.^[viii] Do the demands for food and drink stem from an ancient longing for the pleasures of the flesh again? Since their hunger and thirst can’t possibly be fulfilled through ritual offerings of food and poured water, we’re left to speculate. What do they gain?

Why have the spirits of the mighty men who were of old pretended to be the dearly departed of grieving humans for thousands of years?

[i]. MacDougal, op. cit., p. 55.

[ii]. 1 Samuel 25:1.

[iii]. Wyatt, op. cit., p. 282.

[iv]. See Genesis 24.

^[v] 1 Enoch 6:6.

^[vi] Edward Lipiński, “El’s Abode: Mythological Traditions Related to Mount Hermon and to the Mountains of Armenia.” Orientalia Lovaniensa Periodica II (Leuvan, 1971), p. 29.

^[vii] Ibid.

[viii]. 1 Enoch 15:11. George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, Kindle Edition, 2012), p. 37.

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Joining us for a deeper dive into the tale of Frankenstein and his monster is our regular Iron and Myth crew: Dr. Judd Burton (BurtonBeyond.net), author of Interview With the Giant; Doug Van Dorn (DouglasVanDorn.com), author of Battle for the Bible’s Truth: Genesis, Jesus, and the Second Century Plot to Deny the Messiah; and Brian Godawa (Godawa.com), best-selling author of Daniel: Exile in Babylon, the first novel in a trilogy about the life of Daniel.

The tale of Frankenstein, over 200 years old, has continued to inspire countless adaptations and debates. Brian notes that the narrative encapsulates humanity’s (and the angelic realm’s) primal drive to create life. This inherent desire raises questions about the morality of creation and the responsibilities that come with it.

One cannot discuss Frankenstein without acknowledging its biblical undertones. From the story of Genesis, where knowledge leads to the fall, to the cautionary tales of the Watchers in the Book of Enoch, there is a recurring theme of humanity overstepping its bounds. Doug emphasizes that Victor Frankenstein’s actions mirror those of the Titans in Greek mythology, who faced dire consequences for their hubris. The parallels between Victor's ambition and the biblical figures reveal a cautionary warning about the pursuit of forbidden knowledge.

Today, the themes of Frankenstein are more relevant than ever as we navigate the complexities of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. The discussions around CRISPR technology and AI echo the dilemmas faced by Victor Frankenstein. As we strive to enhance human life, we must confront the ethical implications of our advancements. We discuss how the creation of autonomous life forms could lead to unintended consequences—much like those faced by Victor and his creation.

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Although there are some differences between the Masoretic text on which the old Testament of our English Bibles is based and the Septuagint, which was translated from Hebrew into Greek by about 200 BC, the overall message is the same: God will chastise His people for their behavior, but He will bless the remnant who repent and return to Him.

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If you are looking for a text of the Book of 1 Enoch to follow our monthly study, you can try these sources:

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The SkyWatchTV store has a special offer on Dr. Michael Heiser’s two-volume set A Companion to the Book of Enoch. Get both books, the R. H. Charles translation of 1 Enoch, and a DVD interview with Mike and Steven Bancarz for a donation of $35 plus shipping and handling. Link: https://bit.ly/heiser-enoch

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This is a reminder that presidents don’t have as much control over the United States government as we (or they) think. The irony is that the clever operatives in the intelligence community are not the ones ultimately in control of world events. As Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.”

In other words, events in the news are simply shadows of the real struggle taking place in the unseen realm.

We also discuss the spiritual forces behind Islam and the true iudentity of Allah.

And we talk about the outbreak of cyclospora in the US, a nasty parasite that causes severe gastrointestinal distress.

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There was more to it than that. The people of the Near East in Abraham’s day never really said goodbye to their ancestors. The dead hung around, always near, as part of everyday life. In fact, they required the attention of their descendants, and through the rituals of the living, those who’d passed on remained an active part of family, tribe, and community. Life among the Amorites of the second millennium BC, at least as far as one’s relationships with family and tribe, both living and dead, were very similar to the ancestor veneration found today in many parts of the world. It may seem odd to Protestants, but the practice is widespread and very old. The earliest written accounts that describe and explain the practice come from the Amorites of the ancient Near East.

Mesopotamians four thousand years ago believed the netherworld was a dark, dreary place. The only food and drink available to the dead was what was provided by one’s descendants. The living were bound by duty to summon the ancestors to a ritual meal called the kispum on the thirtieth day of each month. This was the night of no moon, the darkest night, when the veil between the world of the living and the land of the dead was apparently thinnest. This is likely why one text in Sumerian and Akkadian from the time of Abraham described the last day of the month as “the evil day,” “dangerous day,” “the day of the kispum,” “day of the disappearance,” and “the day of ‘purification’.”^[i]

This wasn’t like children putting out cookies and milk for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. The kispum was a necromancy ritual at which the family called the ancestors by name. Failure to perform the rite condemned the ancestors to a gloomy existence of dull, constant hunger.

Amorite society was based on a moral code that held the family together, a set of values called ahhutum(“brotherhood”).^[ii] These principles included a family’s obligations to its dead ancestors, which were embodied in the term kubbutum, based on a root word meaning “to be heavy.”^[iii] It means something like “gravitas,” implying dignity, respect, and honor paid to those who’d gone on before. We find a similar term in the Book of Job as he reflects on the inevitability of suffering and death:

His sons come to honor, and he does not know it;
they are brought low, and he perceives it not. (Job 14:21)

The word translated “honor” is yikbǝdû, which comes from the Hebrew root kâbad. It’s similar to the Akkadian kubbutum and conveys the same sense of responsibility and honor. The bottom line is that, unlike modern Western society, in which friends, coworkers, and Internet contacts have largely replaced family bonds, the dead in the ancient Near East were never really gone. They were inextricably connected to the world of the living, and the responsibility of the living for the departed was weighty, indeed.

The monthly kispum rite may have originated with the Amorites. The first written references to it date from the early second millennium BC,^[iv] which is when control of Mesopotamia shifted from the Akkadians and Sumerians to the Amorites. The ritual was comprised of three elements: a communal meal, šuma zakāru (“remembering the name”), and mē naqû (“pouring the water”).^[v] Dead ancestors were represented by statues call en-en-ku-ku (“lords who are sleeping”).^[vi] These statues are probably what the Bible calls teraphim, the household gods stolen by Rachel when Jacob fled from his father-in-law Laban (see Genesis 31).^[vii]

The form of the ritual has been preserved in a text from Assur:

[Name], who died a natural death in his bed, the son of [Name], who laid him in the grave (ina qabri). You are Man (amelūta)! I called your name. I called your name among the ghosts of the dead (eṭemmē). I called your name for kispum. I sat you before Šamaš. I called your name as a ghost before Šamaš. I placed you in your grave (“house”). I placed food for you in the entrance to your grave. For the ghosts of your family I performed kispum (kispa aksip).^[viii]

The food provided to the dead was simple—bread, cold water, hot broth, flour, honey, and maybe some wine or beer flavored with roasted grain. Liquids might be poured into a pipe inserted into the earth, presumably to deliver it directly to the deceased.^[ix] The provision of water was so important that the family heir who was responsible for the monthly kispum was called a “pourer of water.”^[x]

It’s hard for us in the modern world to grasp how crucial these monthly rites were in ancient Mesopotamia. Participation in the afterlife absolutely depended on one’s descendants faithfully fulfilling their duties every New Moon.^[xi] This not only nourished the dead through the long years in the netherworld; it kept them pacified. This was important. The dead were dangerous!^[xii] To guarantee that the heir, usually the eldest son, did right by the expired ancestors, inheritance was tied to the performance of the kispum. Receiving one’s birthright was conditional on performing the monthly rites.^[xiii] Disobedient children might be punished in a will by being barred from accessing the gods and the dead of the recently deceased.^[xiv]

The anxiety of children who struggled to meet their obligation to the ancestors is captured in a number of ancient Mesopotamia texts. This letter was sent by a woman who berated her brother for failing to send the needed items for the kispum:

As you, my brother, know, this year you have sent me neither garlic, nor onions, nor sirbittum fish. If I do not write you, you do not call my name (i.e. remember me). I am now sending Muballiṭ‐Marduk (a messenger) before you (with this). Assemble together and send me one shekel silver worth of garlic, one shekel silver worth of onion, and one shekel silver worth of sirbittum fish. (Or else) what shall I give (during) the whole year for the kispum offering for the day of the new moon for the house of your family?^[xv]

Although the responsibility for performing the kispum fell to the oldest male child, the letter above shows that women sometimes took on the duty. In fact, daughters in Abraham’s day could be legally adopted as sons to identify them as heirs, which gave them the right to approach the family’s dead and family gods—a high honor.^[xvi]

The month of Abu in the Babylonian calendar (the Hebrew month of Ab, or July/August) seems to have been especially important in the annual cycle of the kispum. A letter from Ammi-ditana, the Amorite king of Babylon during the seventeenth century BC, a contemporary of Jacob and Joseph, calls for milk and butter for the offerings that month.^[xvii] It seems that Abu was believed to be a good time to ask dead relatives to leave the living in peace and to consult them for supernatural advice about how to cope in the world of the living.^[xviii]

Interestingly, the name of the month may derive from a Semitic term ab, meaning “entrance to the netherworld.”^[xix] In Hebrew, ab means “father,” but in a broader sense of honored ancestors or deities. Many of the gods worshiped in Mesopotamia were called “father,” such as the creator-god of Canaan, El, the “father of mankind,” and the war-god Chemosh, who is described as the father of the Moabites in Numbers 21:29. This has relevance beyond trying to understand the ancient Mesopotamian monthly meal for the dead, because another word based on ab, the Hebrew abarim (“travelers”), identifies the mountain from which Moses got his only look at the Promised Land and the battleground where the army of the Antichrist will fall.^[xx] Ab is also a component of the name “Moab,” where the Israelites camped before crossing the Jordan (and the site of the “mountain of the Abarim,” Mount Nebo). The most common explanation of the etymology of Moab (“from father”) derives from the Bible’s origin story of the nation; the patriarch of the Moabites was a child of incestuous unions between Abraham’s nephew Lot and his daughters, who plied their father with wine when they despaired of having children after losing their fiancés in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.^[xxi] Likewise, Moab’s northern neighbor, Ammon, was founded by Lot’s other son/grandson, Ben-Ammi, whose name means “son of my people.”^[xxii] We’ll address the significance of those names in the context of honored ancestors in another chapter.

[i]. Renata MacDougal, Remembrance and the Dead in Second Millennium BC Mesopotamia (University of Leicester: Doctoral dissertation, 2014) pp. 58–59.

[ii]. Ibid., p. 22.

[iii]. Ibid.

[iv]. Ibid., p. 26.

[v]. Nicolas Wyatt, “After Death Has Us Parted,” in The Perfumes of Seven Tamarisks (Munster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2014) p. 261.

[vi]. Ibid.

[vii]. Karel van der Toorn, “The Nature of the Biblical Teraphim in the Light of the Cuneiform Evidence,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2 (April, 1990), pp. 215–216.

[viii]. LKA 83, Lines 1–10, cited by MacDougal, op. cit., p. 53.

[ix]. Jo Ann Scurlock, “Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Mesopotamian Thought,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson (New York: Scribner, 1995) p. 1889.

[x]. Wyatt, op. cit., p. 276.

[xi]. Scurlock, op. cit., p. 1884.

[xii]. Wyatt, op. cit., p. 264.

[xiii]. Ibid., p. 265.

[xiv]. MacDougal, op. cit., p. 25.

[xv]. BM 17495, CT 43 106, cited by MacDougal, op. cit., p. 58.

[xvi]. Ibid., p. 24.

[xvii]. Wyatt, op. cit., p. 261.

[xviii]. Scurlock, op. cit, p. 1889.

[xix]. Wyatt, op. cit., p. 261.

[xx]. Gog of Magog, in Ezekiel 39:11—the Valley of the Travelers.

[xxi]. Genesis 19:30-38.

[xxii]. And the name of the aforementioned Amorite king Ammi-ditana essentially means “my people are the Ditanu,” the ancient Amorite tribe whose name is the origin of the name of the old Greek gods, the Titans. See Annus (1999), op. cit.