This many thousand year old description of Ismael is accurate for today, as we see Jihad spread world wide before us everynight on the TV news.

Do you even know what Jihad means?

It literally means a "great striving" that includes remorseless and relentless worldwide aggression.

Sura 9:5 But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans when you find them, and seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait (ambush) for them in every stratagem (of war), but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practice regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is oft-forgiving most merciful

Sura 9:29 Fight those that believe not in God (Allah) and his apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of truth [even if they are] of the people of the book [ie Jews and Christians], until they pay jizya [ humiliating tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued [enslaved]

Sura 9:123 O ye who believe! fight the unbelievers....

Yes, that verse was about Nehimiah's response to the Israelite men marrying those not of the faith. Not the response we see today.

"Islam Reviewed" by M. Ali, born and raised Muslim is good book to understand the deep split between Muhammadism and Christianity. "Jihad" will play a major part in leading the world to Armageddon, and in this book, the references of the Koran to killing infidels are all listed and plain to see.
The scism between those of Israel and those who follow Allah is blood deep, going all the way back to Isaac and Ishamael - the sons of Abraham. Isaac was the son of Sarah, the son God promised Abraham and through his seed the world would receive the promise, while Ismael's mother was Hagar the handmaiden's of Sarah - Abraham's son of the flesh. Of Ishamel, the father of all the Arabs, the Bible says:

Genesis 16:12  And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.

This many thousand year old description of Ismael is accurate for today, as we see Jihad spread world wide before us everynight on the TV news.

Blood lineage is dependant upon the father not the mother, otherwise Mary could have not been a human either or the sin nature would have come from her to Jesus.

 I am  O-  hubby is B+   our son is B-   Our son's blood is a mix of  his father and mother.

 

Speaking spiritually, not biologically......The Bible considers the father and mother in lineage, as the two gospels of Matthew and Luke show us Mary's and Joseph's lineages as significant and each contributing promises bytheir union, but the obvious inheritance of sin and death from Adam was negated by the Holy Spirit with Mary being mother. We inherit sin and death from Adam, our physical father, but through Jesus we inherit new life upon receiving the new birth - our spirtual firstborn brother. The firstborn priviledges and the double portion given are an interesting Bible study which is part of what the book is about.

There will also be some sons of Ishmael who were chosen from the beginning. But as you say, the promise of the Messiah comes from the sons of Isaac.

Ofcourse, all people and nations are blessed by God's promise and have opportunity to be grafted in or be cut off.

[all]

In Romans, 9:6, Paul said;, "For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel." What he means is that not all the descendants of Abraham will be believers. Israel was the chosen nation through which God showed His promise through Christ Jesus. But only the ones who were chosen from the beginning will know God. Therefore the true believers are the true Israel. The rest are simply descendants of Abraham.

Well ofcourse, same as all who call themselves Christians are not Christians, as Jesus said of them that call themselves by His name in vain.
Knowing who Israel is can be studied deeper than just reading the New Testament, same as studying the ark of the covenant or the temple reveals more of the rich knowledge there is to be found about our heritage. It's there to be seen, but for some reason people don't want to see what is clearly written about Israel. It doesn't take away one thing from the Church, but only lets us see where it was a plan by God from the very first covenant made to Abraham when He told Him that He would make Abrahams seed "a fullness of Gentiles. The Jews were not the only ones that received promise from the very beginning in God's promise to Abraham for those that care to take notice. I doubt if many people know how far their bloodline goes back or if they are related to those seed of Abraham, but I bet most of us are; but even then, it doesn't matter, because anyone was capable of joining and sojourning with God's chosen people and receive the very same blessings. God did not lie when He said that through Abraham and his seed all nations be blessed.
Ofcourse God knows all those that will receive the promise. There is no dispute here or in God's Word with Rom. 9:6 if taken in full context with the rest of scripture. Check Romans 11 out.
Please read the article. I was very excited to learn these things, and the only way they will not be accepted is if a person believes in replacement theology. Actually, there is only a remnant of both houses that will be saved, and those grafted in are warned to not boast.
All the book does is tell us how God has never changed, but fulfilled His covenant with perfect faithfullness to completion. Going back and understanding why the names Ephraim and Judah had different prophecies given to them and how God never loses anything that belongs to Him is interesting IMHO. I gave the link for you to enrich yor understanding as it did mine, not really to debate over, unless something has changed with God and the scriptures about Jesus being the same yesterday, today, and forever....or Malachi in saying the Lord changes not.
Even when Jesus spoke, He said He had come "sheep which are not of this fold; I must bring them in also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd." And "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (John 10:16; Matthew 15:24) God never loses anything, but redeems and blesses all man through His original covenant made complete, better, and fulfilled in Jesus..

Romans 11:18  Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
19  Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
20  Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
21  For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
22  Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23  And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
24  For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
25  For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
26  And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away
All Israel includes both houses and theoir companions. See Ezeliel 37:16-18

raphu,

I gave this a bit more thought, and what I see, is that we gentiles have our lineage thru Abraham, whom we call father.

We could never claim, we are offspring of Joseph or Jacob.

We are complete strangers, and aliens to the household  of God, we were adopted as total outside strangers, to the promises of God.

On the other hand;

Ephraim whose emother (Asenath and Egyptian), together with Manassah (both half related to the sons of Jacob) were accepted by Jacob and therefore given an inheritance as full fledged members of the other 11 tribes,

They would be more representative not of gentiles, but  of the samaritans, of which many would be called Arabs today.

Petro

Blood lineage is dependant upon the father not the mother, otherwise Mary could have not been a human either or the sin nature would have come from her to Jesus. It is through faith in Jesus' undefiled blood, shed in our behalf, that gains us entry into the "general assembly" and eklesia of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven.
When Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph before he died, Israel moved his right hand to Ephraims head and put his left on Mannasseh's and blessed them, "may they grow into teeming multitudes upon the earth."
Joseph continued the blessing and made the younger brother the greater just as had happened to himself when his father was to bless the older. Over Ephraim he repeated the same thing said to Abraham - that his descendants would be "melo ha'goyim", a fullness of Gentiles. As Jeremiah said, Ephraim became God firstborn with the double portion blessing. Genesis 48:14 is given to us, accurately, to show that Jacob crossed his hands in order to place his right on the son to receive firsborn priviledge, and then through this deliberate act of putting Ephraim before Manasseh declared Ephraim to be Joseph's heir. For Israel said, "Ephraim.....shall be mine as as Reuben," meaning Ephraim shall be my firstborn - again, as Jeremiah 31:9 confirms.
Israel wrote Ephraims will for him which Ezekiel confirms when he says "The stick of Joseph....is in the hand of Ephraim" (Ez.37:19) Each tribe had a member that carried the stick as a symbol fo family leadership (Num. 17:2-3).
This is in chapter 3 - "Jacob's Firstborn Heir" of the book at the link I gave you for the book by Batya Wooten. If you read it and check the scriptures you will be enriched, I assure you.
Be blessed

I saw the movie, and it was very powerful witness to the verse in Isaiah about how the Lord's visage was marred more than any other man's, but I can understand concerns about imagery possibly taking something from instead of adding to the Lord's sacrifice for us.
I wonder myself about us having graven images shown to us in modern the fashion of 60 frame per second (is that the frame rate?), which would include all movies and TV.
Now I just wonder and do not condemn or I'd be condemning myself. Other opinions?

Isaiah 52:14  As many were astonied at thee; his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men:

Exodus 20:4  Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:

I love that God is not limited to the dimensions of man. He even speaks of Himself as plural in Genesis. I think that man naturally tries to trim God down to our own size and dimension in order to understand and have power over Him without even being aware of it. It is our nature to sin and do this. We are unable to control much of the dimensions we are aware of such as time, yet God lives outside it in eternity and sees beginning to end at the same moment. Can such awesome power be confined to one body .....or what words can be found to wrap around and express what and who He is?
I am glad that He can be even more that what I can count on my fingers and toes, and I give Him all the glory and trust I can muster with my life. We are made after His image and not visa-versa.
Another good site with information that could help you is here:
http://www.carm.org/
They have lots of answers about the deity of Jesus Christ and other questions someone formerly JW might have.
I hope this helps some.

Genesis 1:26  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

How can something as transcendental as God favor or be confined to a specific geographic area in the mid east?

It isn't? What gave you that idea? Do you know your bloodline? The ten lost tribes were absorbed into the Gentile nations for a reason, and these tribes had the firstborn rights under Ephriam. We should know that we are all related to Noah, but to Abrahams's seed.......remember God's covenant promise to Abraham was for offspring and seed like the stars in the sky. That's a lot, and the point of God not breaking His covenants even when man does is reflected in the promises recorded for us in scripture to Ephraim by prophecy. God tells us who Ephraim is, what will become of him, and what He will do at the end of days through the prophets. When reading the Old Testament I always wondered who Ephraim was, because it seemed to me that he was awfully cursed by God, but then blessed after banishment.
Going back and reveiwing what God says about the branches in Romans 11 tells us all about the root of Abraham and the grafted in wild branches. This coincides with Ezekiel 37:16-18 where we see that both houses of Israel are to again be joined together along with all the companions (or grafted in branches) of both houses:

Ezekiel 3&:16  Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17  And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.

I really do recommend the book for reading. It takes nothing away from Church doctrine, as I've already said.

As far a God's transcendentalism goes, well, yes He is bigger and more wonderful than we can imagine, yet also personal enough to live inside of me and to walk in a garden with Adam and Eve - more importantly to mention, coming in the flesh and dying for my and your sins. God does not transcend His own Word because He cannot lie. His promise to Abraham cannot be transcended because He can't lie and He is not the covenant breaker. His chosen people have been revealed through the seed of Abraham, just as He did covenant and proclaim in His Word. If we think Him something other than He says, we may pridefully be in error.

The connection is the Church, as Hebrew 12:23 states.
Exodus 4:22 says that Israel is my firsborn. Jeremiah 31:9 says that Ephraim is His firstborn. The hidden ones became the Church of the firstborn, the body of Christ, and Sons of the Living God.
The connection of these two witnesses, Israel and Judah, and knowing who they are can also help us in understanding the two witnesses of Revelations. It must be important or God would not tell us that the better covenant was to Israel and Judah in Hebrew 8:8.
It really has been enlightening reading for me, and I just wanted too share it with you here. I don't think it takes anything away or adds to doctrine, but just deepens our understanding of who we are from the beginning of the Bible to the end.

Have you read the whole thing or only part? Batya agrees with what you have said, and takes nothing from it. The addition is the richness of the heritage shared by all who are born spiritually, even though the promise was given to Abraham, Issac, and Jacob - the true Jew is one of the heart. She agrees with this, but few in the Church realize who Israel is and how God's plan to use Ephraim as God's "firstborn" is interesting to know and understand. Sure, we don't have to know it, but it does help clear up some things in understanding prophecy. Lookup firstborn in the New testament, then see why this verse has significance.
Even Romans points out that the root is Abraham and points out the grafted in branches.
Basically, God had a plan from the beginning and did not change it. I was fulfilled and revealed in time. Sure it pointed to forward to Jesus as we point back in faith to His work on the cross, but all along the way God never boke His covenant with His people, as He is not the covenant breaker. Nothing was lost that belonged to Him before the cross or after, and Ephraim's part in being revived in and through the Church in the end times was part of what Hosea's prophecies were about in the names of Gomer's sons.
In Batya's book, it is pointed out that the promise to Abraham was for hamon goyim - multitudes of Gentile nations, to be heirs to the promise of God and not only the Jews, and this was accomplished, in part, when the ten lost tribes were absorbed into the Gentile nations and never returned from their captivity but ended up growing into mighty nations - one of which is the United States, where religious freedom made it a "pleasant place" for Ephraim to flourish and be the arrow in Judah's bow in the end times.
Remember too, while studying the old testament, that the firsborn always received the double blessing or double portion, which I believe to be the Holy Spirit that the Church received to make it's brother Judah provoked to envy. The remnant of Judah comes from that provocation of the Holy Ghost given to the Church.
Romans 10:19  But I say, Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation I will anger you.

Jeremiah 31:9  They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Colossians 1:15  Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

Romans 8:29  For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Hebrews 12:23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

Acts 13:23  Of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus:

Matthew 15:24  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Hebrews 8:6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. 8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:

Hosea 9:13  Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.

Zech.9:13  When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man. 14  And the LORD shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning: and the Lord GOD shall blow the trumpet, and shall go with whirlwinds of the south.

O sorry DreamWeaver are you a Jew?

:DI always think of this verse (verses?) when I see the word "Jew".

Romans 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

Romans 3:1  What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?

Romans 10:12  For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

The witness we have today, just in the shape of the world, confirms what the scriptures tell us about man, Israel. good, and evil. All a person has to do is read the whole thing with a heart open to God, trusting Him to be potent enough to preserve His truth, and the truth will bear witness within us as to the veracity of it. If God cannot preserve for us the truth and Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we are the most miserable of people, as the scripture tells us.
The Bible is so unique as a book, that there is nothing that even comes close to it. It is not just a book of axioms, but one that is full of the truth about the blood shed and the evil and loss suffered by man as God's creation. Yes, there will be many that try to chip away at the veracity of God's Word and therefore make God impotent, but even that is foretold to us in His Word.
Just the prophecies concerning Israel, popping up in 1948 and the end of Gentile domination of Jerusalem in 1967, should be enough to shock anyone into realizing the truth of God's Word if one has a heart ready and willing to seek and know the truth.
The unregenerate spirit will do all it can to preserve its own pride and position against submitting to the truth of God, preferring, rather, to hide their deeds in darkness - and what better way for them to justify their own darkness and sinful deeds, but to throw doubt upon the truth of God's Word. The last days will produce many that try to turn the truth of God's Word into fables and regard them as mythology or even lies. I am glad we have an anchor for our souls in God's living Word, and that our God is a mighty God and able to keep us through that living Word - Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:16  All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Romans 1:18  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

Romans 9:1  I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,

Ephesians 1:13  In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

2 Timothy 4:4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

Hebrews 6:18  That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:
19  Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil;

I found a book by a Messianic Jew that has come to the Lord Yeshua, Batya Wooten, and I have found a link that publishes it free over the internet for our reading and edification.
I have found it to be one of the most enlightening books I have ever read, and it explains just about everything there is to know about God's plan dealing with the two houses of Israel. I bought the book, and I think that there is some left out at this link, but the largest portion of the book can be read for free. I still wonder at how I could have been so ignorant in my understanding for so long about Ephraim ( Israel) and Judah.
Enjoy if you are inclined:

http://www.aarons-advocates.org/BACONT.html