Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

Is the British Royal House Descended from David?

by John D. Keyser

Almost all the British-Israelites, at one time or another, have claimed that the royal house of England is descended from King David of Israel. An example of this is found in a booklet by Brigadier G. Wilson:

"Our Throne is still held by a descendant of David's Royal line -- and of his forebear Judah, fulfilling the scripture 'The sceptre shall not depart from Judah...' Our Royal House trace their descent back to King David, and through Pharez to Judah (and also through Zarah, Pharez' twin brother). DETAILS OF THIS SUCCESSION through Scottish and Irish kings were kept at Windsor Castle but are now held in the MANUSCRIPT DEPARTMENT OF THE BRITISH LIBRARY (MS 43968)." [1]

In an amazing about-face THIS SAME PUBLICATION makes the following incredible statement in the Appendix:

"In Section 2 [above statement on pages 3-4] it should be made clear that DAVID IS NOT MENTIONED IN MS 43968 (now kept in the British Library, manuscript section). This particular chart gives the descent from ADAM THROUGH BRUTUS. Charts published by the Covenant Publishing Co. Ltd. by Rev. W.M.H. Milner entitled 'The Royal House of Britain' and by M.H. Gayer entitled 'The Heritage of the Anglo Saxon Race' both trace the ancestry of the Royal House through several lines of descent from the Patriarch Judah including BRUTUS who is shown as a descendant of Judah's son Zarah.

"Tradition places descendants of Zarah in many places including TROY, SPAIN and IRELAND. The Royal Line from David and Solomon is detailed in the Bible as descended from Zarah's twin brother Pharez (Gen. 38). THIS LINE APPEARED TO END WITH THE DEATH OF THE LAST KING ZEDEKIAH AND HIS SONS AT THE HANDS OF THE BABYLONIAN KING NEBUCHADREZZAR (Jer. 52)."

What sort of double-talk is this? If the reader of this booklet failed to check the Appendix, he would be under the impression that the British royal family is descended from David, and that Manuscript 43968 in the British Library proves it! Unfortunately, a large number of British-Israelite publications use this dishonest subterfuge to fool the unwary reader!

History records that Edward I. of England used to boast of his descent from the TROJANS who arrived in Britain under the leadership of BRUTUS. Now is it just possible that this line, descended from DARDA the brother of CALCOL (grandson of Judah), brought the DAVIDIC LINE to Britain? Some have thought so. In order to do this, Brutus would have had to migrate with his Trojans AFTER the time of David! When did Brutus arrive in Britain?

According to author E. Raymond Capt:

"The descendants of DARDA (Dardannes or Danaans) ruled ancient TROY for several hundred years, until the city was destroyed in the famous 'Siege of Troy.' AENEAS, the last of the ROYAL BLOOD, (Zarah-Judah) collected the remnants of his nation and traveled with them to ITALY. There he married the daughter of LATINUS, king of the Latins, and subsequently founded the great Roman Empire.

"Aeneas' grandson, BRUTUS, with a large party of the TROJANS migrated to 'the GREAT WHITE ISLAND' (an early name for BRITAIN due to its chalk cliffs). Tradition says that on the way to the 'white island' Brutus came across four other Trojan colonies upon the coast of SPAIN and persuaded them to join him.

"At TOTNES on the RIVER DART, twelve miles inland from TORBAY (the oldest seaport in South Devon) is an historical stone that commemorates the COMING OF BRUTUS TO BRITAIN. (CIR, 1103 B.C.) The stone is known as the 'Brutus stone,' the tradition being that the TROJAN PRINCE set foot upon it when he first landed. The Welsh records state that three tribes of his countrymen received Brutus and his company as BRETHREN and proclaimed Brutus king at a national convention of the whole island.

"His THREE SONS, born after his arrival in Britain were named after the three tribes -- Locrinus, Camber, and Alban. BRUTUS' NAME HEADS THE ROLL IN ALL THE GENEALOGIES OF THE BRITISH KINGS, preserved as faithfully as were those of the kings of Israel and Judah." [2]

In the booklet How Israel Came to Britain, published by the Canadian British Israel Association, we read the following:

"Another [group of Israelites], under the leadership of DARDANUS, a brother of CALCOL, crossed to Asia Minor to found the Kingdom later known as TROY. When Troy was destroyed by the Greeks, the Trojans fled to Italy and LATER TO BRITAIN where they established themselves as the Kingdom of Britain ABOUT THE YEAR 1100 B.C." [3]

Herman L. Hoeh, of Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, pushes the date of Brutus' arrival in Britain back even further:

"In 1181 the Trojans were crushed in the First Trojan War with Greece. AENEAS, of the ROYAL FAMILY, fled to Italy. A son, BRUTUS, expelled from Italy returned to the Aegean area and organized the enslaved Trojans, Lydians and Maeonians. The Greeks were defeated and TROY was recaptured. With the recapture of Troy IN 1149 [B.C.] the list of Sea Powers of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean began. According to the terms of the treaty with the Greeks BRUTUS MIGRATED, with all who wished to follow him, via the Mediterranean INTO BRITAIN. With him [Brutus] the line...continued to RULE ANCIENT BRITAIN, and on occasion vast areas of the continent. The line of Brutus fell in a fratricidal war in 482." [4]

Hoeh then goes on to list the reign of Brutus as being from 1149 to 1125 B.C.

The Welsh historian Nennius (circa. 796 A.D.) further dates the arrival of Brutus in the British Isles:

"And when BRUTUS had finished the building of the city [New Troy -- London], and had strengthened it with walls and castles, he consecrated them and made inflexible laws for the governance of such as should dwell there peacefully....AT THIS TIME, BELI THE PRIEST RULED IN JUDEA, AND THE ARK OF THE COVENANT WAS IN CAPTIVITY TO THE PHILISTINES." [5]

Since the "Beli the Priest" mentioned by Nennius is obviously ELI the priest in the first book of Samuel, then this dates Brutus' reign in Britain as being BEFORE the reign of Saul in Israel. All the references show that Brutus arrived in Britain BEFORE THE TIME OF DAVID, THEREFORE BRUTUS COULD NOT BE OF THE DAVIDIC LINE!

What About the Ethiopian line?

If there was any royal line that had the right to claim it was directly descended from David and Solomon, and also had one of the longest uninterrupted periods of rulership, it was that of the royal house of Ethiopia! The last monarch of this African nation -- Haile Selassie I. -- called himself the "Lion of Judah" and claimed direct descent from King Solomon of Israel. Was this true?

In II Chronicles 9, we read the famous story of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon in Jerusalem:

"Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon, she came to Jerusalem to test Solomon with hard questions, having a very great retinue, camels that bore species, gold in abundance, and precious stones; and when she came to Solomon, she spoke with him about all that was in her heart. So Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing so difficult for Solomon that he could not explain it to her.

"And when the queen of Sheba had seen the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his servants, the service of his waiters and their apparel, his cupbearers and their apparel, and his entryway by which he went up to the house of the LORD, there was no more spirit in her...

"Now king Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all she desired, whatever she asked, much more than she had brought to the king. So she turned and went to her own country, she and her servants" (verses 1-4, 12).

In a parallel account in the Antiquities of the Jews, by Flavius Josephus, the author states that the queen was monarch of BOTH Ethiopia AND Egypt! In Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:31 Yeshua called the Queen of Sheba "the queen of the South." If you carefully read the eleventh chapter of the book of Daniel, you will find that the king of the SOUTH is the ruler of BOTH Egypt and Ethiopia. Yeshua's comments about the Queen of Sheba being the "queen of the South" therefore means that she was the ruler of Ethiopia AND Egypt. Who was this queen whom Solomon so awed with his wisdom and magnificence?

During the long history of the Egyptian nation there were only THREE WOMAN PHARAOHS or queens recorded -- Nitocris of the 6th Dynasty, Scemiophris (Sebeknofru) of the 12th, and Hashepsowe (Hatshepsut) of the 18th. Which one of these could have been the Queen of Sheba?

Immanuel Velikovsky, in his ground-breaking work entitled Ages in Chaos, discovered a clue:

"There is a detail in the Ethiopian legend [about the Queen of Sheba] which only by a RARE CHANCE could have been invented. The Ethiopians call the Queen of the South MAKEDA. The royal name of QUEEN HATSHEPSUT, mentioned throughout the Punt reliefs, is MAKERA. 'Ra' is the divine name of a god. (Likewise 'DA' could be the divine name ADAD or ADA, which is a part of several scriptural names). The main part of the name of the Egyptian queen is IDENTICAL with the first two syllables in the name of the Queen of the South [Sheba]. It was preserved in the Ethiopian tradition; it did not come from the Scriptures." [6]

Furthermore, Josephus preserves the NAME of the Queen of Sheba in his Antiquities of the Jews:

"I suppose also that Herodotus of Halicarnassus, when he said there were three hundred and thirty kings of Egypt after Menes, who built Memphis, did therefore not tell us their names, because they were in common called Pharaohs; for when after their death there was a queen reigned, HE CALLS HER BY HER NAME NICAULE....I have discovered from my own books, that after pharaoh, the father-in-law of Solomon, no other king of Egypt did any longer use that name; and that it was after that time when the FORE-NAMED QUEEN OF SHEBA [NICAULE] came to Solomon." [7]

Anybody with an understanding of philology (historical and comparative linguistics) would immediately recognize in the name NICAULE (NIKAULE in Greek) a form of the Egyptian MAEKAURE -- the PRENOMEN OF HATSHEPSUT!

This evidence (and other which I don't have room for here) proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Queen Hatshepsut of the 18th Dynasty was the Queen of Sheba who visited Solomon in Jerusalem.

"We learn from the Bible that Solomon was not adverse to having children by foreign women and, according to Ethiopian history, the Queen of Sheba (Hatshepsut) married King Solomon and produced a son. 'The Ethiopian Royal Chronicles record that Prince MENELIK I. of Ethiopia was the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. He lived in the palace in Jerusalem and while being educated by the priests of the Temple he became a strong believer in Jehovah.'" [8]

In the September, 1935 issue of the National Geographic magazine [9], an article appeared recounting this same story. Priests in different parts of Ethiopia told the author, L. Roberts, that the Queen of Sheba had visited Solomon in Jerusalem and bore him a child. According to this article: "Solomon educated the lad in Jerusalem until he was nineteen years old. The boy then returned to Ethiopia with a large group of JEWS..." This son of Solomon and Hatshepsut, himself part Jewish, founded the longest-living monarchy in history when he returned to Ethiopia.

"The descendants of the Jews who accompanied him to Ethiopia formed the ruling class during the greater part of the country's history, and are known today as 'Falasha' Jews. 'The dynasty from Solomon and the Queen of Sheba [through their son Menelik] ruled continuously until the twelfth century.

"The Abyssinian Royal Chronicles record that the Jewish Ethiopian kingdom was still being ruled by a Falasha Queen Judith about A.D. 950 and continued for two centuries. For several hundred years following a Muslim invasion in the twelfth century, the Muslims then ruled most of Ethiopia. Finally the original Solomonic dynasty was reestablished in A.D 1558 by a Jewish king and continued until Emperor Haile Selassie.'" [10]

When Ethiopia was taken over by a Communist coup in 1974, the royal line from Solomon and Hatshepsut came to an abrupt end and Emperor Haile Selassie was imprisoned. He later died and was buried in an unknown grave. Some of his descendants managed to escape from the country and are now living in the West. THIS LINE OF DAVID, THE ONLY ONE TO CARRY ON BEYOND THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR, IS NOW DEFUNCT AND "CAST DOWN...TO THE GROUND." This once again shows that YEHOVAH's promise to David was CONDITIONAL and dependent upon the actions of his sons.

References:

[1] Brigadier G. Wilson, Co-Incidences? Pointers to Our Heritage. Committee of North West B.I.W.F., Manchester: England, pp. 3-4.

[2] E. Raymond Capt, Missing Links Discovered in Assyrian Tablets. Artisan Sales, Thousand Oaks, CA. 1985, pp. 65-66.

[3] How Israel Came to Britain, Canadian British Israel Association, page 2.

[4] Herman L. Hoeh, Compendium of World History, Vol. I. Ambassador College, 1962, pp. 453-454.

[5] Nennius, Nennius: British History and the Welsh Annals, translated by John Morris. Publishers: Phillimore, 1980.

[6] Immanuel Velikovsky, Ages in Chaos. Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, N.Y. 1952, p. 137.

[7] Josephus, "Antiquities of the Jews", Book VIII, chapter vi, part 2. The Complete Works of Josephus, translated by Wm. Whiston. Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI 1991.  

[8] Grant R. Jeffrey, Armageddon: Appointment with Destiny. Bantam Books, 1990, p. 113.

[9] The National Geographic Magazine, National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C. September, 1935. 

[10] Grant R. Jeffrey, Armageddon: Appointment with Destiny. Bantam Books, 1990, pp. 115-116.

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