And in the six hundred and first year (of Noah’s life), at the beginning, on the first of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked. And, behold! The face of the earth was dried. And in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry. And God spoke to Noah, saying, Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out from you every living thing that is with you, of all flesh, of fowl, of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, and bear, and multiply on the earth. Genesis 8:13-17
Ark Encounter, Hebron, Kentucky, USA
Noah’s Ark came to rest in the mountains of Ararat (Urartu) in eastern Turkey. People often struggle to fathom a ship the size of the Ark and how it could have held so many animals for a year. A ministry called Answers in Genesis wanted to show how it was possible, so they built a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark based on the dimensions given in scripture. The Ark along with multiple other attractions are part of Ark Encounter exhibit and theme park in Kentucky, USA; you can find out all about them at Ark Encounter.com. Also from Answers in Genesis is an excellent video called Noah’s Ark and the Flood: Science Confirms the Bible, which you can find here.
The Ark is 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high; and as the largest timber-frame building in the world, it is a modern engineering marvel.
“From the moment visitors turn the corner and the towering Ark comes into view, to the friendly animals in the nearby zoo, to the jaw-dropping exhibits inside the Ark, they experience the pages of the Bible like never before.”
The Original Eight
Genesis 11:1-2 And the whole earth was of one lip and of one speech. And it happened, as they travelled from the east, they found a level valley in the land of Shinar. And they lived there.
Our theory is that Noah and his family made their way south along the ancient shoreline, marked in purple on the map. This line is approximately where the elevation drops from around 1200 m to 350 m. We believe Noah and his extended family settled near the location marked and planted crops and vineyards. About 100 years after the flood, when the water had receded enough that the lowland plane of Shinar (Sumer) was exposed, the people migrated down there and began to build the Tower of Babel.
Akkadian Empire
Genesis 10:8-12 And Cush fathered Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one in the land. He was a mighty hunter before YHWH; so it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before YHWH. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Akkad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land he went forth to Assyria and built Ninevah, and Rehoboth the city, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah, which is a great city.
Nimrod was the great-grandson of Noah, grandson of Ham, son of Cush. Sometime around a hundred years after the flood, Nimrod built the first cities of his kingdom in the land of Shinar (Sumer): Babel (Babylon), Erech (Uruk), Calneh, and Akkad. Babel (Babylon) is where the people began to erect the Tower of Babel, until YHWH dispersed the people and confused their languages. The Akkadian king, Sargon, was likely Nimrod, who unified the city-states into the Akkadian Empire. The main languages of the empire were the Semitic Akkadian language and Sumerian.
The city of Akkad was believed to be destroyed by the Gutian hordes that looted and destroyed most of Mesopotamia. The Sumerian city of Ur survived and the centre of the empire moved south, under King Ur-Nammu. He created the Code of Ur-Nammu and built the famous Ziggurat of Ur. The Kings from this era held the titles: “King of Ur” and “King of Sumer and Akkad”. The Sumerian Kings List gives leaders of the different city-states, many contemporary to each other. That specific title “King of Sumer and Akkad” was only used by one king at a time, but moved from the king of Ur to the king of Isin to the king of Larsa. Along with that title went control of Nippur, which was the religious capital for the god Enlil. Historians separate these dynasties and do not consider them to be the Akkadian Empire; however, there is no difference between the kingdoms, other than location of capital. The title the kings claimed were the same (King of Sumer and Akkad), the languages were the same (Sumerian and Akkadian), and the culture was identical to the point where archaeologists are unable to differentiate the artifacts found one from another. Other empires have changed capital cities and ruling families without their empire being renamed by historians. It is our belief that the evidence supports the continuation of the Akkadian Empire at varying sizes and capital city locations until it splits into the empires of Assyria and Babylonia.
Terah and Abraham were originally from the city of Ur.
Genesis 11:31 And Terah took his son Abram, and Lot, Haran’s son, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, his son Abram’s wife. And he went forth with them from Ur of Chaldea, to go into the land of Canaan. And they came to Haran and lived there.
Babylon is the Greek word for the Hebrew place-name Babel, the two are one and the same. In our English translations of the Bible, translators changed the Hebrew, Babel to the Greek, Babylon, everywhere after this earliest mention in Genesis. This is unfortunate, because many readers do not realize that the later empire of Nebuchadnezzar’s is the same place as the Tower of Babel. The first location of man’s rebellion against YHWH after the flood.
The city of Babylon was very near the city of Akkad, and it grew to be strong under Hammurabi, who changed the patron God from Enlil to Marduk. Hammurabi took the titles “King of Babylon” and “King of the Four Corners of the World”. This change in patron god and title for the empire marks, from our perspective, the division of the Akkadian Empire into the separate empires of Babylonia and Assyria. In the eighth century BC, Tigleth-Pileser, would unite them to rule over the whole of the Akkadian Empire and take the title King of Sumer and Akkad; but his heirs would divide it again about a century later.
The northern kingdom of Assyria had its capital in Assur and then Ninevah. In 741 BC, under King Shalmaneser, Assyria conquered the House of Israel (also a northern kingdom).
The southern kingdom of Babylonia had its capital city at the same location as the original Akkad. In 609 BC, under King Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylon conquered the House of Judah (also a southern kingdom, and also has the same capital location as the parent kingdom).
We will often use the term “Babylonian Empire” instead of “Akkadian Empire” when talking about the prophetic empires of the book of Daniel because in Daniel’s day, there was only Babylonia remaining. Babylon was, therefore, the starting point for the sequence of empires that would control Jerusalem and Daniel’s people, which was the subject of his prophecies.
The seven decades that the people of Judah spent in Babylon influenced their culture and religion. Many of them chose to remain in Babylon even after the Persian king allowed them to return to the Promised Land.
Aryan Empire
Daniel 9:1 In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans.
The Aryan people populated Media, Persia, and possibly northern India. One of the Aryan kings, Darius I, left his genealogy in stone on the Behistun Inscription in north-western Iran. It shows his ancestor was Achaemenid, the same as the ancestor of Cyrus the Great, and the man the Achaemenid Empire (Persian Empire) was named after. Achaemenid’s grandsons divided his kingdom into two, a northern (Media) and a southern (Persia). After the death of Cyrus the Great’s son, Cambyses II, Darius I took the throne, reuniting the kingdoms. For more information on the Aryan Kings, see our study here.
There is little consensus among scholars regarding the origin of the Aryan people; however, Dr. Nathaniel T. Jeanson has identified them through DNA to be from the Hittite Empire between 1200BC and 700BC. You can read more on this in our study, Traced.
The northern kingdom of Media conquered Assyria (also a northern kingdom) in 609 BC, first sacking Assur and then Ninevah.
The king of the southern Kingdom of Persia, Cyrus II, acting as the general of the Medo-Persian army, conquered Babylonia (also a southern kingdom), with the help of Yeshua and the angel Michael.
The Aryan Empire, commonly known as the Achaemenid Empire or Medo-Persian Empire, grew to be the largest empire the world had known up to that time. It covered as far east as Afghanistan and west to include Egypt, the Levant, and north to Turkey. Frequent battles with Hellas (Greece) would be their downfall. In fact, just as Yeshua told Daniel would occur, the King of “Greece”, Alexander the Great, conquered the empire in 334 BC.
European Empires
Daniel 10:20 And he said, Do you know why I have come to you? And now I will return to fight with the ruler of Persia. And when I have gone out, then, lo, the ruler of Greece shall come.
Alexander the Great took all of the land the Aryan Empire controlled and created the first major empire of Europe.
The Hebrew word translated ‘Greece’ is Strong’s h3120 יָוָן Yâvân (Javan).
Genesis 10:2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras.
We learned in our study Traced, that Japheth settled in the region of modern Turkey and that some of his descendants migrated to Europe, eventually forming the Hellenic, Roman, Scandinavian, Celtic and Germanic Cultures.
Eleven years after conquering Persia, Alexander the Great died in Nebuchadnezzar II’s palace in Babylon leaving his generals (the Diadochi) to divide up his empire. Two powerful Hellenic kingdoms resulted from the division: the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire, and they would take turns controlling Jerusalem for almost three hundred years. These centuries resulted in the Hellenization of the Jewish people and their religion.
Daniel 11:3-4 And a mighty king will stand up and will rule with great authority and do according to his will. And when he stands up his kingdom will be broken, and it will be divided to the four winds of the heavens, and not to his posterity, nor according to his authority with which he ruled. For his kingdom will be pulled up and given to others besides these.
The Seleucid Empire (northern kingdom) and the Ptolemaic Kingdom (southern kingdom) are the two competing powers that we read about in Daniel 11. You can learn more about the King of the North and the King of the South in our studies: King of the North: Part One and King of the North: Part Two.
In the first century BC, the Hellenic kingdoms began to fail, just as Rome was increasing its power and influence. Eventually, the Roman Empire would rule most of the land controlled by the previous empires, in addition to much of the continent of Europe and North Africa.
The Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital city to Byzantium, renaming the city, Constantine, in the fourth century AD. About a thousand years later, the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and the Roman Empire became Turkish until 1918, when the British Empire conquered it.
American Empire
Daniel 7:7 And after this I looked in the night visions. And, behold, the fourth beast, fearful and terrifying, and very strong! And it had great iron teeth. It devoured and crushed, and stamped what was left with its feet. And it was different from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
The American Empire began to grow in their power and influence from early in the 20th century, and by mid-century they had developed into a leading world power. As the power of the British Empire declined, the American Empire flourished.
In 1948, Britain gave the land controlled by the British Mandate for Palestine to the Jewish Zionists, and the modern State of Israel was born. The Islamic nations living in the area were outraged and there has been almost constant fighting in the region ever since. Whereas, there is much controversy over whether the State of Israel or the Palestinians rightfully own the land, especially regarding the city of Jerusalem, we believe this is a moot argument. The creation of modern Israel was necessary for the fulfillment of prophecy.
The final kingdom with be the Millennial Kingdom of Yeshua Messiah, which will begin when He returns for His Bride and His Land.
Revelation 19:11-16 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.
May you be blessed by this study. Shalom.