The Three-Hundred-Seventh (The Isles)

We’ve got a very interesting topic this week!  It’s something that seems mundane when you’re just reading through scripture but as you dig in it gets deep fast, and those are the best when you find them!  We’re going to take a look at the isles in scripture, and what they mean to us when we come across that word.

Before we get into it though, I want to take a second to tell you how I got down this rabbit hole.  I’m hoping it will encourage your study of scripture, and also give some background as to how one finds these kinds of things in the first place.  The idea is that if you haven’t had this experience before, you can see how it could come about and you, too, can use it as a template to spark your own studies.

The short of it is that I had a curiosity about something I was reading in scripture.  I went to the next level and dug into the Hebrew word from which the English word that gave me that curiosity was translated.  That might sound a bit obvious, but the key in this particular instance was the sort of randomness of the word.  In the middle of a list of people is where this word showed up, and then the list just continued as if nothing had happened (Genesis 10:1-7 https://biblehub.com/bsb/genesis/10.htm).

It was a simple phrase that caught my attention, and in fact, in the version I was reading, “isles” did not show up.  Instead, the version used the term “maritime peoples.”  Still, the phrase seemed to be randomly inserted, and as we know, nothing with YHWH is random!

So, I dug in.  As it turned out, the Hebrew word used was iy (Strong’s H339) and the full phrase translated to maritime peoples was iy haggoyim (Strong’s H1471).  This, literally translated, means islands, or coastlands, of the nations.

Still seems a bit random, doesn’t it?  Only in the list of the sons of Japheth did scripture say that from these peoples the island nations separated into their territories, according to their languages, by clans within their nations.  It’s also interesting that among these sons are Magog, Tarshish, and the Kittites, and we see those names show up later in scripture in some very key spots.

We have to remember the context of the list of people in which this verse exists.  It’s typically called the Table of Nations, and it is the list of all the people initially descendant from Noah’s sons after the flood.  There are other call outs among the sons of Ham and Shem, and those lists also end with a statement about clans, languages, lands, and nations, so the statement about islands is likely referring to all the sons of Japheth rather than just the sons of Javan who are listed right before it.

The other thing to remember is that in this situation, we have Noah and his sons starting everything over again after the flood.  The ark landed in a certain location, and therefore as the number of descendants grew, the people of the earth spread out from that location.  We don’t know exactly when the sons of Japheth spread out to the islands, or coastlands, but it stands to reason that it was sometime around when YHWH confused the language of the people (Genesis 11:1-9).

The basis for this is that Noah and his family obviously started with one common language since they were all one family.  Yet, in that statement about the sons of Japheth, and in fact all the closing statements of Noah’s sons, it talks about language-“s” plural.  In other words, like we see in various other parts of scripture as a common pattern used, chapter 10 of Genesis seems to be a sort of summary chapter which is then followed by chapter 11 that explains a bit of how all the people listed in chapter 10 came to be.

This is important because the events of the tower of Babel covered in chapter 11 occurred in the land of Shinar, which is also called Babylonia.  If it’s not obvious yet, Babylonia most likely had a capital city of Babylon, which is probably where the people attempted to construct the tower of Babel.  It just makes sense that they would choose their capital city for such a structure, and that because the city was well established all the people that could still understand each other stayed there while the others left to build cities and nations in other parts of the earth.  Also, as much as mankind likes to think of themselves as original thinkers, when it comes to naming things the names tend to stick for a very long time (in this case, millennia!).

Let’s keep Babylon in the back of our minds and get back to these islands, though.  If we look at some occurrences of the word, we can start to make some interesting connections.  We see everything from ideas of distance and separation to judgment, and even a connection to Torah!  The thing that really blew my mind though, is all of the prophetic references to the isles.

We already covered the first occurrence of this word, but as far as non-prophetic references specifically, we find only a handful of them.  In Esther, we see the isles used to show how far a king’s reach extended (Esther 10:1).  In Psalms, we see the isles used to show the extent of YHWH’s reign (Psalm 72:10, 97:1).  Put a pin in Psalm 72 for when we get a little further on into the prophetic uses of the isles.

When we check on what the word iy is translated to in the Septuagint, the Greek version of what we call the Old Testament, we find the word nesos (Strong’s G3520).  It occurs nine times in what we call the New Testament, also in some very interesting places. The majority of these occurrences are not prophetic, however the context of the non-prophetic usage aligns perfectly with the spiritual idea of the isles that’s presented in Hebrew.

All of the non-prophetic occurrences of the Greek word are seen in Acts.  We see Paul and Barnabas going to the island of Cyprus to spread the gospel (Acts 13:6).  Cyprus, by the way, is the same as Kittim (Jeremiah 2:10).  We see Paul again, being taken to Rome after being arrested, giving the crew of the ship courage by telling them they won’t die but they do have to run aground on an island (Acts 27:26).  Finally, we see Paul and the crew’s experience on that island, including him curing the chief official’s father and others on the island (Acts 28:1-11).

These non-prophetic uses of isles, both in Hebrew and Greek, show us that islands refer to distant lands and peoples that, initially at least, don’t know of or follow YHWH.  When we compare that to the descendants of Noah’s other sons, we see three distinct categories.  Those originally following YHWH were the sons of Shem.  This is who Abraham descended from and the name is where the term “Semitic” originates from. Those who were originally against YHWH were the sons of Ham, which included Nimrod and those in his kingdom of Babylon, the Canaanites, the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites, etc.  

The third group were the sons of Japheth, the islands.  We know that if you’re not for YHWH you’re against Him, but these people were not necessarily actively doing things against YHWH.  They just kind of lived their lives, and as we’ll see in a moment, put their trust in themselves, or more generally, in mankind.  The references of Paul’s experiences in the islands is a spiritual representation of the gospel and YHWH’s power reaching these people.

I know you’ve been patiently waiting for the prophetic references of the isles, so let’s get into it!  We can’t get into every single one, because there’s about 36 of them, but we’ll hit the key ones that give us the flavor of its usage in this context.  The verses we won’t specifically get into follow the ideas of the ones that we do.

The first category of usage is to show a dichotomy between YHWH’s power and the power of the isles.  This ties in closely with the second category, as you’ll see in a moment.  We see the isles being a “fine dust” that YHWH can easily pick up (Isaiah 40:15), and that He can even create islands from powerful rivers (Isaiah 42:15).

The second category is that the isles trust in mankind, what he can do and the systems he puts in place.  This ties in with the first category because the isles are looking to mankind’s power when YHWH’s power is so much greater.  We see the isles exporting to merchant cities like Tyre (Ezekiel 27:3, 6, 7, 15), with a group of those isles being the isles of Kittim. By the way, when you compare Ezekiel and Revelation, you see that the Babylon of Revelation is a mirror image of the Tyre of Ezekiel!  Are you catching all these connections?!

The other half of the second category is prophecy of the isles witnessing the fall of the system of mankind that they put their trust in (e.g. Isaiah 20:6, 23:2, Ezekiel 27:35), but in order to get there you need to go through the third category: the isles are summoned to hear YHWH and see His judgment.  The islands are told to be silent and draw near for judgment (Isaiah 41:1), seeing His power and trembling (Isaiah 41:5).  The most striking reference in this category is what can only be described as a Shama for the islands, a mirror of the Shama prayer of Jewish tradition that involves reading verses from Deuteronomy that start with the same phrase, “Hear, O Israel[Isles]”! (Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Isaiah 49:1)

Read that whole chapter of Isaiah and you’ll find that it’s clearly talking about Yeshua!  Isn’t that exciting?!  If you’re not fully tracking, don’t worry, we’ll tie it all up in a moment!

The final category is the isles waiting for YHWH’s Law and His salvation.  Yes, you read that right.  In a prophecy of Yeshua, referenced in the gospel of Matthew (Matthew 12:15-21), we find that the islands will put their hope in YHWH’s Law before Yeshua has established justice on the earth (Isaiah 42:1-4).  I don’t know about you, but I see that exact thing happening all over the earth right now.  True believers are putting their hope and trust in YHWH’s Torah instead of the teachings and doctrines of mankind.

In this final category, we also see the islands waiting on YHWH for salvation and trusting in Him (Isaiah 51:5).  The isles wait for Him and the ships of Tarshish, carrying the sons of Zion from afar, are bringing their silver and gold to YHWH (Isaiah 60:9).  Then, the isles sing a new song to YHWH and declare His praise (Isaiah 42:10, 12).  

Let’s close by tying this all up.  Over and over, we see the phrase “light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6, 51:4) and references to the ends of the earth and its farthest corners (Isaiah 41:9, 42:10, Psalm 72:8) being connected with the islands.  We see YHWH recovering His remnant for a second time from the islands of the sea (Isaiah 11:11).

Every verse we look at puts the picture together, and it’s a picture of the overall message contained in scripture.  It’s never been just about Israel, it’s always been about everyone.  After the flood, the extent of all the people at the farthest reaches of earth is characterized by the isles.  While the focus of scripture narrowed down to the people of Israel, hints were put in prophecy about people in the farthest reaches of earth turning to YHWH, to His Torah, and receiving His salvation through Yeshua’s sacrifice.  

YHWH gathered His remnant from the isles during Yeshua’s ministry, and He continues to gather it today as the scattered people are collected from the four corners of the earth by turning to Him and placing their faith in His Son, Yeshua (Isaiah 11:12).  We are that remnant, and once we become a part of it we are no longer considered the isles.  That was who we once were, but now we are His (Galatians 3:28).

What we see at the culmination of scripture, is that eventually the islands are no more.  John, receiving a vision on none other than an island (Revelation 1:9), sees all the islands moving out of their place and eventually disappearing all together (Revelation 6:14, 16:20).  This mirrors Zephaniah’s prophecy of all the isles of the nations (the exact same phrase from Genesis that we started with) bowing in worship to YHWH (Zephaniah 2:11), and the message is that in the end, there will only be on earth those who live for and worship YHWH!

There are certainly other nuggets that this spiritual idea of the isles produces, but I’ve already gone on long enough!  I hope this has been a blessing, and I encourage you to continue this week studying how the isles are used in scripture.  See if you can figure out all the things YHWH has hidden! (Proverbs 25:2)

Have a great week!  Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!  

-Rob and Sara Gene

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The Gospel

We are born sinful as a result of Adam and Eve's sin (Genesis 2:17, 3:6, 1 John 1:8)

The consequence of sin, which is unavoidable through our own works, is death (Romans 6:23)

Yeshua, the Son of YHWH, lived sinless and was put to death (Hebrews 4:15)

His death, therefore, cleanses us of sin that would have required our death

(2 Corinthians 5:21)

He rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4)

Because of His resurrection, we are confident in our future resurrection and eternal life

(1 Corinthians 15:17-18, John 3:16)