GOD SINGLED OUT the Amorites for their wickedness, telling Abraham (then still Abram) that “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” What did God mean by that? This week, we revisit the people who dominated the world of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Amorites dominated the ancient Near East—theContinue Reading
DAVID’S FRAME OF MIND was apparently much better by the time he wrote these psalms, which are dated to about the time he was anointed king over all Israel.Continue Reading
STRONG WOMEN rose to the occasion when Israel fell under the oppressive hand of Jabin, the Canaanite king of Hazor.Continue Reading
IT DIDN’T take long for Israel to forget God. Within thirty years of arriving in Canaan, God was compelled to tell the Israelites that because of their disobedience, He would not drive out the people before them.Continue Reading
The origin of the term for “king” or “ruler” in languages from Western Europe to East Asia is a word used by our distant ancestors for the pre-Flood god-kings, the Rephaim.Continue Reading
In Ugaritic texts, the Rephaim were summoned through a necromancy ritual to the “threshing-floor” of the Canaanite creator-god El–the summit of Mount Hermon.Continue Reading
A cave under the Dome of the Rock, directly below the Foundation Stone, has been called the Well of Souls since at least the Middle Ages.Continue Reading
What did God mean by “the iniquity of the Amorites”? Why did He single out a group of people that most of us have only heard of, if we’ve heard of them at all, in the list of nations that the Israelites had to push out of Canaan? There must have been something unique about the Amorites for God to call them out.Continue Reading
THE PEOPLE in Canaan engaged in what God called “abominable practices”: First, burning a child as an offering to Molech, followed by divination, reading omens, augury, sorcery, enchantment, consulting mediums, necromancy, and inquiring of the dead.Continue Reading
THE INCAS are credited with building some of the most incredible megalithic sites in the world—Machu Picchu, Sacsayhuamán, Ollantaytambo—even though the Inca themselves never claimed to be the builders.Continue Reading