How God Prepared Ireland for Jeremiah

God had a monumental job that needed to be done. It was so crucial that He did something very unusual: He chose the man who would carry it out when he was yet in his mother’s womb.

When Jeremiah reached his teenage years, God spoke to him. “Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jeremiah 1:4-5).

Jeremiah was a great prophet of God—and God chose him from the womb! He went on to deliver a strong warning to the nation of Judah before that kingdom went into captivity to Babylon.

Yet here, God told Jeremiah that he was to be a prophet not only to Judah but “to the nations.”

When Jeremiah received this commission, he was afraid. He protested that he was too young. But God was firm: “Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee.” God told him: “I have put my words in thy mouth” (verses 7-9).

God then gave this young man the crucial but mysterious commission for which he had been specially chosen:

“See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (verse 10).

God was going to use Jeremiah to carefully preserve something invaluable. What was it that he was to root out, pull down, destroy and throw down—then to build and to plant?

Herbert W. Armstrong answered this question in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It takes us back to some of the Bible’s earliest recorded history and to one of its most extraordinary personalities.

Judah’s Scepter

Fifteen hundred years before Jeremiah, God chose a man named Abraham as the progenitor of His chosen nation. To him He made extraordinary promises—both physical, national promises and spiritual, individual promises (see Genesis 12:1-3). He confirmed these to Abraham’s son Isaac, and then to Isaac’s son Jacob (Genesis 26:1-5; 28:13-15). Jacob then bestowed these blessings on his children and their descendants. To two of his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh (Joseph’s sons), he passed on the physical birthright promise of national greatness (Genesis 48). You can read this story in detail in The United States and Britain in Prophecy.

To his fourth son, Judah, father of the Jewish people, Jacob conferred the spiritual promises God had made to Abraham. This included the promise of salvation—that Jesus Christ would be a Jew—and of an unbroken royal line that would culminate in Christ’s Second Coming and accession as King of kings. This is called the “scepter” promise (Genesis 49:10).

Genesis 38:27-30 record some unusual circumstances of how this promise would continue through Judah’s line. Judah was to have twin sons, the firstborn of whom would carry on the scepter promise. At the birth, one extended his hand from the womb first, and the midwife tied a scarlet thread around it. He then drew back, and the other was actually born first. The midwife said to this child, “Wherefore hast thou made this breach against thee?” (margin). This child was named Pharez, meaning breach; and the other, of the scarlet thread, was named Zarah.

As Mr. Armstrong explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, the unbroken kingly line would remain among Pharez’s offspring, but at some future point would come a marriage with a descendant of Zarah, thus healing this breach and uniting these royal families.

The succession of Pharez’s descendants is easy to trace—right down to the time of the most famous king in Israel’s history.

After God’s Own Heart

King David was an extraordinary man. We have a more detailed biography of him than any other individual in Scripture, particularly when you include the rich collection of psalms he composed.

Not only did God perpetuate the scepter promise through David, who was a Jew, but He refined and amplified it.

Even when David was a youth, God saw something special in him. When He sent the Prophet Samuel to the house of Jesse to anoint a king from one of his sons, the family entirely overlooked David—they didn’t even consider him an option. But God instructed Samuel to bypass all of Jesse’s other sons and directed him to young David. “[T]he Lord seeth not as man seeth,” He told Samuel, “for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

The heart God was looking on in David was one after God’s own (Acts 13:22). This young man was hardworking, loyal, brave and bold. He was wholehearted, devoted, emotional. He loved God and expressed that love in many ways, especially by composing masterful, ardent, prayerful poetry.

David is specifically credited with writing over half the psalms in the biblical book of Psalms, and probably wrote many more than that. These psalms reveal much about David, and about God and about how David approached God. They show how he dealt with his sins. He described his personal experiences, his emotions, his feelings—at times in extreme and even near-death circumstances! How remarkable that he sat down and wrote such deeply personal thoughts and events, then published them for the world to see! We tend to keep such matters to ourselves, but David publicized it all and was happy to share it. These psalms are some of the greatest poetry ever composed.

There was a point when David wanted to do even more for God: He wanted to build a house for God as a love offering. God was deeply pleased with this desire. He responded by revealing His purpose to perpetuate the everlasting royal lineage through David in a special way.

God’s Special Promise

Read this extraordinary promise in 2 Samuel 7:12-16: “And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever.”

This was more specific than “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah.” God had made David king and established him specifically as head of a royal line that would continue from his day forward. God said it, and He meant it. He would always ensure that David had an heir on this throne, to be called “the throne of David,” ruling over the peoples of Israel.

The astonishing history of that throne, and that royal line, can be traced right down to the present day.

Two millenniums later, when God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, was born, David’s actual kingly line was elsewhere: It had been transplanted to the British Isles. Yet Jesus was a “son of David” through both His mother’s and His stepfather’s genealogies (Luke 3:23, 31; Matthew 1:1, 6, 16, 20; 21:15; 22:42). When the archangel Gabriel visited Mary to prophesy about the child she would bear, he said, “And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:31-33).

God’s intent was always to make His Son a king. As Jesus told Pilate, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world …” (John 18:37). That the throne on which Christ will sit would be the throne of David specifically was prophesied by Isaiah, who said this of Christ: “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever”! (Isaiah 9:7).

Think about God establishing His Son’s throne in a human being. How God honors David! David bridges the gap between God and man. The fact that God named this throne after David shows the emphasis God puts on this man. It is not really the throne of David—it is the throne of God! But God wants to bring men into His Family and make us royalty of the highest level. This illustrates God’s exalted plans for human beings!

When you understand God’s illustrious intentions for this throne, it makes perfect sense that God would take unusual care to ensure that this royal Davidic lineage, and the integrity of that throne, would always be preserved.

This was God’s purpose in calling Jeremiah a prophet from the womb. It was the preservation of David’s throne that God sought to guarantee. This was the specific aim of His mysterious commission for His prophet.

Jeremiah’s Commission

Jeremiah warned Judah, but that is not all he did. God’s commission was, “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). Jeremiah was to actually pull down and root out the throne of David—then to build and plant the throne of David in another nation of Israel. What a commission!

Jeremiah had to uproot David’s throne from Jerusalem and plant it in Ireland. The phrase “set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms” indicates that Jeremiah would have a measure of political authority. He was able to exercise that authority “to build, and to plant.”

This was a crucial and challenging commission. One powerful way Jeremiah strengthened himself to fulfill this duty was by deeply studying the man after whom that throne was named. He learned all about the religious and cultural reforms David implemented. He mastered the psalms. He emulated the thinking and expression of Israel’s greatest-ever king. He probably knew more about David than anybody ever, besides God. Imagine how much he thought about David and David’s throne!

Jeremiah meditated deeply on the covenant God had made with David. This was a glorious promise—and God reemphasized and even amplified it to Jeremiah.

The prophet recorded, “For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel”—and then, further: “and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn cereal offerings and to make sacrifices for ever” (Jeremiah 33:17-18; Revised Standard Version). Here, in addition to the covenant that David’s throne would exist perpetually, is a related covenant that there would always be a leading minister proclaiming God’s message about the eternal throne of David! Jeremiah was the first of those priests.

Note how emphatic God was regarding the absolute certainty of this two-part covenant: “And the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers” (verses 19-21).

God had imprinted this truth on Jeremiah’s mind from his youth. It motivated and prodded and drove this prophet throughout his ministry. He looked forward to the day when he would play his vital role in preserving and perpetuating the throne of David.

Before we see how this took place, however, we must travel backward in history once more and examine how—centuries earlier, even back in the time of King David—God was overseeing another sequence of events essential for Jeremiah to fulfill his commission.

God was laying the groundwork necessary to heal the Pharez-Zarah breach.

An Easily Overlooked Statement

In The United States and Britain in Prophecy, Herbert W. Armstrong made an intriguing statement that is easy to overlook.

“The real ancient history of Ireland is very extensive, though colored with some legend,” he wrote. “But with the facts of biblical history and prophecy in mind, one can easily sift out the legend from the true history in studying ancient Irish annals.”

He then wrote of three separate times when the history of the peoples recorded in the Bible intersects with the history of Ireland.

“Throwing out that which is obviously legendary, we glean from various histories of Ireland the following: Long prior to 700 b.c. a strong colony called ‘Tuatha de Danann’ (tribe of Dan) arrived in ships, drove out other tribes, and settled there. Later, in the days of David, a colony of the line of Zarah arrived in Ireland from the Near East.

“Then, in 569 b.c. (date of Jeremiah’s transplanting), an elderly, white-haired patriarch, sometimes referred to as a ‘saint,’ came to Ireland.” This third instance—Jeremiah migrating to Ireland toward the end of his life—is a major focus of Mr. Armstrong’s book and also at the heart of the book you are now reading.

But what about the two previous instances of God’s people making their way to Ireland? This history too holds vital clues about God’s plans and purposes. You can read about the first of them in Appendix A: “The Serpent’s Trail.” The tribe of Dan had a presence in Ireland even back to the time of Moses!

Here we will survey the second of these instances—how, “in the days of David, a colony of the line of Zarah arrived in Ireland from the Near East.” (You can also read about it in more detail in Appendix B: “The Scarlet Thread.”)

While Pharez’s descendants are easy to trace through David and beyond, Zarah’s line all but disappears from the Bible. We can find them, however, by connecting the dots of secular history—recorded as far back as the time of the Exodus.

Zarah’s Descendants

History shows that when God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, some of Zarah’s descendants made their own separate journey.

Zarah’s grandson Azariah (1 Chronicles 2:6, 8) was there in Egypt. Irish annals show that, around the time of the Exodus, his son, Ezra, rather than remaining with the rest of the Israelites, migrated to Crete with a small group of Zarahites. Ezra’s son Eber then moved to Scythia, on the north shore of the Black Sea.

These Zarahites remained in Scythia for many generations. As Mr. Armstrong wrote in The United States and Britain in Prophecy, “History shows the descendants of Zarah became wanderers, journeying to the north within the confines of the Scythian nations, their descendants later migrating to Ireland in the days of King David.”

This migration to Ireland was started by a prince of Zarah named Bratha leading an expedition to Spain. His descendants conquered considerable Spanish territory. One of them became known as Milidh of Spain, and his sons as the Milesians.

In the days of King David, one of Milidh’s sons, Gede, led a successful charge into Ireland to defeat the Danites, who had already been there for several hundred years. Gede was crowned high king of Ireland and assumed the title Herremon, which in Hebrew has a meaning akin to “consecrated.”

Gede had married his first cousin Tea, and she became Queen Tea of Ireland. She was also a princess of the tribe of Zarah.

Thus, at this point in history there were two Jewish kingdoms: the kingdom of Israel in the Near East, ruled by David of the line of Pharez, and the kingdom of Teamhair, of the line of Zarah, in the British Isles. God was preparing Ireland for a special purpose.

A ‘Hebrew Revolution’

For many reasons, I have come to believe that King Gede the Herremon was a righteous king. The Danite rulers of Ireland had adopted many pagan practices. Gede and his wife, Tea, were determined to purify the nation.

Tea loved the Boyne River Valley of Ireland. Her husband renamed the area Teamhair (Tea’s Hill), and made it the new capital of Ireland. This is the same area later called Tara. Some say this is reminiscent of torah, the Hebrew word for law.

Gede unfurled a red lion rampant banner at Tara. Why? There are no lions in Ireland. That is a beast indigenous to Judah and is prominent in the Hebrew Bible. David killed a lion and a bear to protect his sheep. You can trace its presence in Ireland back to the tribe of Judah, whose banner featured a lion.

To this day, the royal banner of Scotland is the red rampant lion on a gold background. Why, when those isles have no lions? British historian Frederick Robert Augustus Glover referenced Edmund Campion’s A Historie of Ireland to show how the lion symbol was introduced to Scotland from Ireland. It is used to this day in the heraldry of Ireland, Scotland and England. This is evidence of the Hebrew culture in the British Isles. What you see on that flag is the lion of Judah.

Glover noted how the lion rampant was the standard of Ireland or of its reigning family until it was replaced by the harp during the reign of England’s King Henry viii in the 1500s.

King Gede also led a musical renaissance in Ireland similar to the one his cousin King David led in Israel. There is evidence that Gede and Tea may have personally known King David, and that David purchased tin later used in the bronze for Solomon’s temple from Gede and his half-brother Eber Donn. This is certainly consistent with the significant archaeological evidence—consistent with the Bible—of the extensive reach of David’s kingdom.

As Mr. Armstrong wrote of a practice that apparently started with King Gede, “[T]he crown worn by the kings of the line of Herremon and the other sovereigns of ancient Ireland had 12 points”—common in biblical numerology representing the 12 tribes of Israel (op cit).

The scant history of the time suggests that Gede and Tea’s descendants were faithful to God for three generations, and it suggests a connection between Ireland and the kingdom of David and Solomon. But it is clear that God used Gede the Herremon to establish certain practices and traditions that lay the groundwork for an even greater work God would later accomplish in Ireland through Jeremiah.

The Fall of Judah

The Bible gives us the detailed and reliable picture of Judah’s history that we lack for Ireland. In the mid-10th century, when David’s grandson Rehoboam took the throne, the kingdom of Israel split. The northern tribes selected a new king, while Judah stayed loyal to the house of David.

The northern kingdom of Israel suffered greatly. Civil war was common. Dynasties rarely lasted more than two or three generations. In the eighth century, Assyria began slicing off parts of its territory. In 718 b.c., the capital fell and the entire nation was carried into captivity.

Judah, with its single dynasty, had some righteous kings and much more stability. The last righteous king was Josiah of Judah, who died young while trying to prevent an Egyptian army from passing through his kingdom. At that point, Judah grew very unstable. It was ruled by a succession of weak kings who were, to varying degrees, puppets of their Babylonian overlords.

In 585 b.c., King Zedekiah tried to restore Judah’s independence by forging an alliance with Egypt and rebelling against Babylon. The Prophet Jeremiah, who was in prison at the time, warned that this was a mistake, but Zedekiah ignored him.

When Zedekiah rebelled, Nebuchadnezzar invaded once more and destroyed the Holy City. He razed the fabulous temple Solomon had built for God—probably the most beautiful structure ever on Earth. He took Zedekiah’s sons—the heirs to the throne of David—and killed them before their father. He then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, took him to Babylon, and cast him into prison, where he stayed until he died.

It was a deadly turn of events! For the first time since King David nearly 400 years before, there was no Jewish king reigning from Jerusalem!

Yet there was still a Jewish king reigning in Teamhair. Historian Roderick O’Flaherty related that King Sirna the Long-Lived, a direct descendant of King Gede i and Queen Tea, reigned in Tara.

During Sirna’s reign, O’Flaherty wrote, “the Babylonian destroys and lays waste the citadels of Jerusalem, and reduces the magnificent works of Solomon to ashes” (Ogygia).

Yet King Sirna could not inherit the scepter promises made to Judah. Although he was a descendant of Judah through Zarah, he was not a descendant of David.

Yet through all these twists and turns of history, migrations and political upheavals over generations, God was orchestrating a plan to keep His promise to David—and at the same time, to heal the breach between Pharez and Zarah.

The various strands of the history were about to converge: God would have a son of Sirna—heir to the throne of Zarah—marry an heir to the throne of Pharez, and the couple would bear a royal child.

This child would rule on the throne of David in this new home, the place where the Prophet Jeremiah would plant it—in Ireland.

But before that, God would put His prophet through a formidable test.

Continue Reading: Chapter Two: Jeremiah’s Faith Crisis