Is there anything in the Scriptures about the greatest and most powerful nation the world has ever known? Well, I have studied the Scriptures for several years and to my delight I have found many scriptures that can have no other meaning than referring to the United States of America. This is a subject that many books have written about, of which I have many - and they are historical and interesting. But we will keep our remarks to, IT IS WRITTEN.

In Genesis 48 and 49, Jacob (Israel) bestows a blessing on his sons, and in so doing this, brings into existence the thirteen tribes. Genesis, Chapter 28, verse 5 says, "And now your two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; as Reuben and Simeon, they shall be mine." Genesis 48, verses 16-20: "The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, Bless the lads; Let my name be named upon them, And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. (17) Now when Joseph saw his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head. (18) And Joseph said to his father, "Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head." (19) But the father refused and said, "I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his decedents shall become a multitude of nations." (20) So he blessed them that day, saying "By you Israel will be blessed saying, 'May God make you as Ephraim and as Manasseh!'" And thus he set Ephraim before Manasseh." Jacob gave them a full inheritance with Joseph's brothers. And in verse 22 it says, "Moreover I have given to you one portion above your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and my bow." Jacob gives Joseph the double portion blessing, which makes Joseph the head of all his brothers, and this blessing becomes Ephraim's and it has never been revoked. In chapter 49, verse 26, it tells us, "The blessings of your father have excelled the blessings of my ancestors. Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers."

Nathan, the prophet, came into David and gave him a very strange prophecy in 2 Samuel, chapter 7 and verse 10, where Samuel says to David, "Moreover I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own and move no more; nor shall the sons of wickedness oppress them anymore, as previously," Now, they are already in the promised land. David has established the kingdom and had rest from all his enemies, verse 1: "Now it came to pass when the king was dwelling in his house, and the LORD had given him rest from all his enemies around" The prophecy says, they will be planted in another place and will move no more. In 2 Kings 17, verse 23 it says, "until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight, as He said by all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away from their own land to Assyria, as it is to this day." The ten tribes were carried away, captured by the Assyrians and seem to disappear from Scripture. One hundred and forty years later, Jeremiah records in chapter 39, verses 1 and 2, "In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and besieged it. (2) In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, the city was penetrated." The capture of Jerusalem and the carrying away of the remnant that consisted of the other three tribes of Israel; Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, though some of them did return to Israel under Ezra and Nehemiah, but they are never established as a nation again. Verse 9: "Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away the captive to Babylon the remnant of the people who remained in the city and those defected with him, with the rest of the people who remained."

In Matthew chapter 10 and verses 5 and 6, Jesus says, "These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: "Do not go into the way of the heathen, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. (6) But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Again in Matthew chapter 15, verse 24 Jesus said, "But He answered and said, "I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Now Jesus did not say to the house of Judah or to the Jews - but to the House of Israel. Now He had to know where they were or He could not have made that statement.

James, the half brother of Jesus, in chapter 1 verse 1 made the following statement, "To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greetings." How could James make this statement if he did not know where they were? Also he expected them to get his letter.

There is a prophecy through Moses in chapter 15 of Deuteronomy and verse 6 that reads, "For the LORD your God will bless you just as He promised you; you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow; you shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over you.." This prophecy was never fulfilled by Israel and the people that call themselves Jews today cannot fulfill it, so who are these people in Scripture today? There is a little chapter that is seven verses long in the middle of Isaiah that has no relation to any of the chapters around it. So, let us study the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah.

(1) "Woe to the land shadowing with wings, Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:"
'Woe' - this same word appears in verse 12 of chapter 17, and it means listen up - pay attention, such as a military commandment, 'attention', so let us pay attention to what Isaiah tells us in these seven verses.

(2) "That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, "Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled."

(3) "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifts up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye."

(4) "For so the LORD said unto me, "I will take My rest, and I will consider in My dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest."

(5) "For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches."

(6) "They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowl shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter on them."

(7) "In that time shall the present be brought unto the LORD of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the Mount Zion."

Now let us explain these seven verses. We have looked at the word 'Woe', which means, listen up or pay attention. The land shadowed with wings is where? Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, or the Nile river. Beyond the Nile river across Northern Africa, we find only desert and waste land, the great Sahara desert. The verse says, "land shadowing with wings, beyond the Nile river". So where is this land? If you look at a world map, you will find that the 30th parallel is just south of Jerusalem. If you draw a line from Jerusalem to the west you cross the worthless desert of Northern Africa and will come ashore in northern Florida and southern Georgia, the first land of any value west of the Nile. The verse says, "to the land shadowing with wings". No other nation has for its national emblem an eagle with outreached wings, except the United States of America.

Here are some different translations of these verses:
Verse one - The New King James says, "Land shadowed with buzzing wings" - The New American Standard translates this as, "land of whirring wings". - The American Standard translation says, "land of rustling wings". - In the Revised Standard translation, it says, "land of whirring wings". - The Young's translation says, "land of shadowed wings". - The Webster's translation says, "the land shadowing with wings".

Verse two - "That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the water, saying go ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled." Let us dissect this verse. First it says, "that sendeth ambassadors by the sea". No African country west of the Nile has ever sent ambassadors by sea, but America has sent ambassadors to all the nations by boat. The verse says, "even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, go ye swift messengers,". Now when the Scriptures were translated into English in the 1611, the only boats known on the Nile river were made of bulrushes, so that was the word that was used. But the original Hebrew word implied a 'water drinking vessel', that meant nothing to the translators back then. What is a water-drinking vessel? It is a steam ship, invented by Fulton and had its trial run on the Hudson River. Today, we have the atomic water-drinking vessel. Soon, our ambassadors were swift messengers to all the nations by steam ship. Verse two goes on to say, "a nation scattered and peeled to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto;". The New King James translation says, "To a nation tall and smooth of skin". The New American Standard, American Standard, and Revised Standard all say, "To a nation tall and smooth". The Young's translation says, "a nation drawn out and peeled". The Webster's translation is the same as the King James. Four translations say, "a nation tall and smooth". The American soldiers are the tallest in the world, and basically, Americans are clean-shaven, smooth-faced men. "Terrible from their beginning" - America was the most feared and revered nation on the earth until the Korean War. Verse two continues on to say, "a nation meted and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled." The New King James, the New American Standard, and the American Standard all translates this as, "Whose land the rivers divide". It said, "a nation meted and trodden down". Did you ever read in history of the Meets and Bonds Act of 1800? It was a law that required every section (640 acres) to be surveyed and a brass marker put at each corner of the sections. The United States was meted out, measured, trodden down by the surveyors as they walked every section of the nation. Abraham Lincoln worked as a surveyor for a while on this project, which was not finished until the 1890's. No other nation has been meted out (measured) trodden down (walked from shore to shore and boundary to boundary) but the United States of America. Finally, verse two says, "whose land the rivers have spoiled", but three translations say, "the rivers divide". The Amazon River runs through Brazil, but no other nation on the earth but America is divided by first the mighty Mississippi, which starts in Canada, then quartered by the Ohio River that reaches from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and by the mighty Missouri, that begins at the continental divide in the great Rocky Mountains of the Northwest.

On to verse three: "All the inhabitants of the world, dwellers on the earth, pay attention when his ensign is lifted up." The Star Spangled Banner is that ensign - and almost all the inhabitants of the world want to come to America.

Verses four, five and six, I believe, are an account of the Civil War. Verse seven says, "In the time shall present be brought unto the LORD of hosts by the people that are tall and clean-shaven." The American Standard and the Revised Standard say, "Gifts or presents will be brought to the LORD of hosts from a people tall and smooth." The rest of the verse we have already discussed and it concludes by saying that these people bring their gift to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, Mount Zion, the place of praise.

Read the vision of Columbus. He said God told him to find the new world. The Pilgrims said they were coming to the great wilderness and called it the Promised Land. Every American, and especially every Christian should read the Mayflower Compact and the Virginia Charter, "For the Glory of God". They said they came to the new world, the Promised Land.

The original thirteen colonies represent the thirteen tribes, and no other nation on the earth can or has fulfilled verses 8 through 12 of Deuteronomy chapter 28, but America. Those verses are as follows; "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: (2) And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. (3) Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field. (4) Blessed shalt be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep. (5) Blessed shalt be thy basket and thy store. (6) Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. (7) The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways. (8)The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

America has made financial loans to every nation, and borrowed from none, and the only nation that has ever repaid us is little Finland. If another nation is God's chosen nation, and can fulfill these verses, then they should be loaning money to America. What other nation on earth's national anthems are about the LORD?

Remember Jacob, (Israel's) prophesying the future to Joseph in Genesis, chapter 48 about his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh? Jacob has laid his right hand on the head of the younger and his left on the older, and Joseph has asked him to change, and verse 19 says, "And his father refused, and said, I know it, my son, I know it: he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great: (the United States of America) but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations." (The Commonwealth of Great Britain). God has blessed America! I highly recommend the books featured at "Do You Know Your American Heritage" for further study on this subject.

(Reprinted from March/April 2002 edition, Voices From His Excellent Glory)

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