"A PECULIAR PEOPLE" - ISRAEL IN THESE LAST DAYS 

by Professor Edward Odlum, M.A.

c1930

[He was active in the community in other ways as well. He was a columnist with the “Vancouver Star” 

and “Vancouver Sun.” He also served as an alderman for some years and as president of the Art, 

Historic and Science Association. He also found the time to engage in real estate and other businesses. 

He was a man of unbounded energy. The professor was born in Ontario in 1850 and died in 1935. 

He was still the president of the organization he founded when he passed on.]

Wonderful were and are the material promises made to Israel, of

whom we read, "Thou art a peculiar people above all the peoples

upon the earth."

This strange people of the olden times were to be scattered and

diminished and then gathered and made populous beyond number.

They were to be chastised and sent to and among all nations, and

yet, nationally they were to be transplanted from Palestine to a

"place prepared for them," an island home in the west, in the

north and beyond the "Great Sea," the Mediterranean.

Concerning these people who were to have the blessings of the

deep and of the everlasting hills, we quote the following

extracts, only a TITHE of the extracts we might use if space

permitted:

Deut.32: 8,9: "When the Most High divided unto the nations their

inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the

bounds of the people (or nations) according to the number of the

children of Israel."

"For the Lord's portion is His people: Jacob is the lot of His

inheritance."

Read this two or three times and catch God's intent concerning

Israel, His national inheritance. 

John Richard Green says of Britain: 

     "Warlike and imperious as is her national temper, Britain

     has never been able to free herself from a sense that her

     business in the world is to seek peace alike for herself and

     for the nations about her."

Sharon Turner says: 

     "The Scythians, formerly inconsiderable and few, possessed a

     narrow region on the Araxes; but by degrees they extended

     their boundaries on all sides, till at last they raised

     their nation to great empire and glory.... The migrating

     Scythians crossed the Araxes, passed out of Asia, and

     suddenly appeared in Europe in the sixth century B.C."

Esdras, the prophet, tells us that the Ten Tribes left their

exile and moved away westward across the Euphrates, beyond

Armenia, to a place called Ar-sareth (city or hill, of Sareth).

To the northwest of the Black Sea is a river called Sareth, to be

seen on the maps to this day.

Herodotus says the Persians called the Scythians by the name

'Sakai,' and Sharon Turner identifies these very people as the

ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons. The old Greek writers spoke often

of the valour, the prowess and the undaunted spirit of these

Scythians. They say: "No nation on earth could match them. They

were unconquerable."

Sharon Turner says: 

     "Of the so-called Scythian nations which have been recorded,

     the Sakai, or Sacae, are the people from whom the descent of

     the Saxons may be inferred with the least violation of

     probability. They seized Bactriana and the most fertile

     fields of Armenia, which from them derived the name

     Sakasina. That some of the divisions of this people were

     really called Sakasuna is obvious from Pliny, for he says

     that the Sakai who settled in Armenia were named Saccasani,

     which is but Sacasuna, and, the name which they gave to that

     part of Armenia which they occupied is nearly the same sound

     as Saxonia. It is also important to remark that Ptolemy

     mentions a Scythian people, sprung from the Sakai, by the

     name of Saxons."

Niebuhr shows that Pliny, Mela and other ancients were surprised

at the influence and numbers of the Scythians, and were puzzled

to give an adequate explanation of their origin. Herodotus and

Hippocrates set forth that they were a distinct people and

nation.

Niebuhr says that the Iberians as well as the Scythians were

Hebrews. 

It is remarkable that the word Scythian means a wanderer. The

Scriptures says; "Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the

people. Israel is swallowed up; now shall they be among the

Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. My God will cast

them away, because they did not hearken unto Him, and they shall

be wanderers among the nations."

Diodorus says: 

     "The Sacae sprung from a people in Media who obtained a vast

     and glorious empire." 

Ptolemy finds the Saxons in a race of Scythians called Sakai, who

came from Media. 

Surely these old writers knew what they were writing about. Pliny

says: 

     "The Sakai were among the most distinguished people of

     Scythia, who settled in Armenia, and were called

     Sacae-Sani."

Albinus says: 

     "The Saxons were descended from the ancient Sacae in Asia."

     Prideaux finds that the Cimbrians (Kumrii) came from between

     the Black and Caspian seas, and that with them came the

     Angli.

Sharon Turner, the most painstaking Saxon historian, says:

     "The Saxons were a Scythian nation and were called Saca,

     Sacki, Sachsen." 

Gawler, in Our Scythian Ancestors, says: 

     "The word Sacae is fairly and without straining or

     imagination translatable as Israelites."