The Word describes the skin color of Israelites as dark [Jeremiah 8:18-21, Lamentations 4:6-9, Songs of Solomon 1:1-5, Job 30:28-30]. One of the most telling places is in Genesis where the Hebrews were thought to be ancient Egyptians [Genesis 50:11]. It’s pretty well established that the ancient Egyptians were a dark skinned people, although some still resist this so let’s talk about ancient Egypt a bit.
In the KJV Egypt is translated from the Hebrew word “Mizraim” — we’ll get into the meaning of that shortly — nevertheless, the name Egypt is derived from Greek but is not the name that the land was originally called. It was originally known as Kmt (or Kemet) meaning “land of black.” The meaning is actually similar and related to the name of the father of Kemet whose name in our Bible is “Ham,” meaning “burnt.” Ham was the father of Mizraim which became Kemet/Egypt and also the father of Cush which actually means “black.”
The people of Cush are know today as Ethiopians. In fact, most of Ham’s descendants make up the land of Africa. Kemet became the most powerful nation out of Ham’s descendants, so much so the Word calls Egypt “the land of Ham” [Psalm 105:23, 27; Psalm 106:22]. I make these points to show that Ham begot dark skinned people and the orginal people of Kemet/Egypt were included.
These facts make it quite obvious the complexion of the Hebrews were dark. Especially when Hebrews, even in the New Testament, were confused with Egyptians [Acts 21:38]. Hebrews were also confuses with Egyptians outside of the Bible. Here is a quote from a historian named Tacitus as he speculated about the origins of our fathers:
“Some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete, who settled on the nearest coast of Africa about the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the power of Jupiter. Evidence of this is sought in the name. There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighboring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name. Others assert that in the reign of Isis the overflowing population of Egypt, led by Hierosolymus and Judas, discharged itself into the neighboring countries. Many, again, say that they were a race of Ethiopian origin, who in the time of king Cepheus were driven by fear and hatred of their neighbors to seek a new dwelling-place.”
Notice that he even confused our people with Ethiopians! I assure you, the Hebrews are and were dark skinned people. As you can see, not much has changed. We are still confused with Africans today. Many of the so called “black conscious movement” would contest that we are all Egyptians and everything started in Egypt. We are all sons of Noah but our bloodlines trace back to different kindreds and nations. We are all one race [Acts 17:26] and are sons of Adam but we are not all of the same people groups due to the diversity that Noah produced after the flood.
Still, the question remains: even if the Jewish people are not descendants of Hebrews and the ancient Israelites were dark skinned, how do we know the slaves that were brought from Africa were Hebrew and not African?
To answer that, let’s go back to what we read earlier, in Luke 21:24, about how the people of Judah would be killed or taken captive into all nations. After the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, which was very well documented in the works of Flavius Josephus, Romans took those of our people captive that they didn’t kill yet still many of our fathers escaped into Africa. This is a quote from page 84 of the book From Babylon to Timbuktu:
“In the year 65 B.C. the Roman armies under General
Pompey captured Jerusalem. In 70 A.D. General Vespasian
and his son, Titus put an end to the Jewish state, with great
slaughter. During the period of the military governors of
Palestine, many outrages and atrocities were committed
against the residue of the people. During the period from
Pompey to Julius, it has been estimated that over 1,000,000
Jews fled into Africa, fleeing from Roman persecution and
slavery. The slave markets were full of black Jewish slaves.”
This claim shouldn’t be hard to believe for anyone who knows the history of our people as recorded in the Scriptures. Israel often went deeper into Africa to escape troubles [1 Kings 11:40, Jeremiah 41:17; 43:3-7, Matthew 2:13]. There were historians, Eugčne Albertini and Marcel Simon, who documented the traditions of our people being practiced in Africa at the end of the 1st century — that’s during and just after the destruction of Jerusalem.
This led to the “slave markets [being] full of black Jewish slaves” as related in the book From Babylon to Timbuktu. The Transatlantic Slave Trade, in which Hebrews became the primary target and shipped to America, stemmed from the Islamic Slave Trade that was practiced during the time of the so-called prophet Muhammed and founder of Islam. Islam spread rapidly through Africa and many kingdoms and dominions were established with Islamic rulers. One of the benefits of converting to Islam was avoiding war. An ancient Islamic scholar who lived from 1263 to 1328 commented on this fact, saying, “The root of the beginning of slavery is prisoners of war; the bounties have become lawful to the nation of Muhammad.” He also wrote, “Slavery is justified because of the war itself; however, it is not permissible to enslave a free Muslim. It is lawful to kill the infidel or to enslave him, and it also makes it lawful to take his offspring into captivity.”
Because of this, non-Muslims in Africa were captured and enslaved if they were not killed. The African Muslims, also known as Moors, even took Europeans as slaves for a time because they were Christians and would not convert to Islam. Christian Europeans would in turn enslave Moors when they captured Muslims during their battles. In fact, Christopher Columbus was aided by a Moor named Pedro Alonso Nińo whose mother was a slave in Spain. After Columbus’ findings, a European Christian named John Hawkins sought to make a profit by trading slaves. He had a ship named “Jesus of Lubeck” which he used to transport slaves that he says he obtained “partly by the sword and partly by other means” into the Americas to trade with the Spaniards. Others realized Hawkins discovered a black gold mine. While Hawkins captured many of his slaves by battle with Moors, later European slave traders found it more profitable to trade goods with the Moors for their slaves. Valentim Fernandes even noted about trading alcohol when commenting on a group with Muslims in it saying, they were “drunkards who derive great pleasure from our wine.” This is when Hebrews who would not convert to Islam would have begun to be traded; before this many of the slaves from Africa were Moors who were taken by Christians as prisoners of war. But when rum that came from the Americas was used, along with other alcoholic beverages, to obtain slaves the Moors began to trade Hebrew prisoners for goods from the Europeans. Just as it was prophesied by Joel.
I am going to stop here for a moment to open up discussion about what you just read about what The Holy Bible has to say about the Skin color of the original Hebrews.
Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Sunday, March 29th 2020 at 11:27AM
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