HOLLAND….ZEBULUN  of  Israel

BY  HELENE  W.  KOPPEJAN  (1984)

FORWARD

Was I led "by chance" to Zebulun Hove in Glastonbury? I also used to ask myself was I led by chance to become an archaeologist, writer and publisher. But I have since realized I had no choice! My personal belief is that the daily events in one's life are just cogs in the wheel of Destiny, when one is cognizant that God controls our destiny.

What appeared to have been a chance remark mentioned a film purported to identify the Netherlands with one of the so-called Ten Lost Tribes in Israel that disappeared in Assyrian captivity. The film had been produced by a Dutch family living in Glastonbury, England. I immediately went to Glastonbury where I met a fellow researcher in a subject I had been studying for many years. What a thrill to meet Helene Koppejan whose painstaking research I found contributed so much to my understanding of the Dutch people.

A major portion of my research and writings concerned the history of the Israelites as revealed from Assyrian clay cuneiform tablets of their sojourn in captivity and their eventual migrations westward. Archaeology has confirmed the identification of the Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian,  Celtic and kindred peoples as descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel and have actually identified some of the tribes with certain modern nations. However, it is imperative that all the ten tribes be found and identified today to confirm the Old Testament prophecies and awaken all Israelites to their heritage and destiny.

Helene had not only produced a film on the strange parallel between the Netherlands and Zebulun, a tribe of Israel, but also a book on the same subject. I had wondered in the past about the possibility of the Dutch being of Zebulun because of Jacob's blessing on Zebulun. These prophetic blessings made reference to ships and the Dutch were one of the greatest maritine nations of modern history. After viewing the film "Strange Parallel" I was firmly convinced the Dutch were predominantly of the tribe of Zebulun.

Helene shared my desire that her work be made available to the people of the United States, many of whom are of Dutch descent, and graciously gave me permission to publish this American edition of her book "Strange Parallel."

E. Raymond Capt

PREFACE

At last, Strange Parallel, you go forward into the world! May you travel fast into the heart of the right readers. "At last" said I, because I studied the subject for more than ten years. At last "fast," I say now, having written this book within a couple of weeks. It all of a sudden was given to me in the sequence of Zebulun being mentioned in the Bible. I wrote it almost in my sleep in the early morning-hours.

Of course the purpose of the book is to draw your attention towards my country, Holland, in a completely new way never heard of so far. As such it is written for those who are interested in another people or may be even their own ancestors, the Dutch.

The main aim is to arouse interest for a completely new kind of reading the Bible. People have told me that I am introducing an entirely new principle which has been the result of my systematic research. The principle itself is very simple: I read a name in the Bible and I started to make lists of all the references to this particular word in different Concordances (James Strong and Gesenius). I then laid the verses alongside the culture of my own country and its history. Soon I began to realize I had to learn Hebrew myself.

I got the chance to attend the lessons of the Jewish Professor F. Weinreb in Holland during 1964-1968, years in which I was being taught the deeper meaning of the Hebrew words and their letters being numbers. Thus for instance it came to me how Zebulun's Hebrew letters might symbolize one of our national treasures: the water-windmills.

One may see how the results of my research fit in like a jigsaw-puzzle, following the sequence of the Biblical Books as they have been handed down in the English James version and the Dutch Statenbijbel. What I have written down is only a first start showing the main headlines. There being many more sub-titles such as the meaning of Zebulun's sons and the names of the cities in Zebulun's territory, I have left them out in this first approach. I hope it is enough for the reader to get a first glimpse of the blueprint the Creator gave to a strangely interlaced circle of peoples and each individual born within it to be gathered back into Israel.

I hardly realize myself that I have been delving into something new. To me it came in such a logical sequence and I don't understand why others did not find it long before me. It seems however as if the time was not ripe until now to be given the Light that a Biblical name, a son of Jacob, (one of a circle of twelve, being the symbolic number of earthly completion which is to be found everywhere in the cosmos) can be laid word for word and meaning for meaning in all its Hebrew implications alongside the character and the culture and the history and the geography and even the language of a people in North Western Europe, having nothing to do with the Jews but with their lost ten brothers.

In the parallel between Zebulun and Holland mind and matter or the spiritual and the physical world become one again. As such this study is only a start. Others may take over the lamp with the light that has been thrown on Holland and Zebulun first, which in itself will be a remarkable proof of Isaiah's prophecy on the light in Zebulun's land dealt with in the text.

I am indebted to E. Raymond Capt for his intiative to get my book revised and published for the American readers. My special greeting and blessing go with this book to all friends of American-Dutch descent. May this book enlighten your identity with the heritage of a small but great nation—Holland.

January 1984 Helene Koppejan

CHAPTER 1.

HOLLAND  IDENTIFIED  WITH  ZEBULUN,   A  NEW  IDEA?

You had probably never heard of this identification. It may strike you as strange. It is indeed quite a new idea. Indeed it took wings only recently and has already roused interest in Anglo-Dutch-Danish quarters, which prompted me to write this booklet, containing the results of my investigations. The novelty of the idea is apparent from parts which deal with the Biblical background and the research work involved. It shows quite a new approach to the subject. A systematic analysis of a Biblical tribe of Israel and its comparison with a north-western European country with a national culture has never before been undertaken. As such it is original.

The identification of one of Israel's tribes with a country and a particular nation is not new. At Hoorn, north of Amsterdam, there are three 17th century step-gabled houses with a decorated frieze showing the battle of the Dutch at Hoorn against the Spanish Admiral Bossu. The houses are now called Bossu-Huizen with inscriptions saying that the Hollander identify themselves with Israel and the Spanish with Amalek, who is always Israel's antagonist in the Bible.

One inscription reads:

„0, loffelijke daed. O! schoone guide tijden!

Wie dat er aen gedenckt, die moet hem nog verblijden,

Het land dat schut, en beeft, den vijand die komt aen;

Hij wii met Arpelak gantsch Israel verslaen.

Hij koornt met groote magt, maer God theeft ons gegeven

Ook arons ende hurs1) wiens namen zijn geschreven."

'"Oh glorious deed, oh golden times,

who ever thinks of them, he is rejoicing still,

the land that shakes and trembles, the enemy

is nearing fast,

he will with Amalek all Israel defeat, he comes

with greatest might,

But God has given us Aarons, even Hurs,

whose names are written.

In that "golden" 17th century when the Dutch had won the battle for religious (Protestant) freedom, they were conscious of being literally Israel. They were enlightened Bible-readers.

The 17th century "Chronicle of Zealand" by Smallegange (see page 86 ) shows how historians in those days were convinced that the early inhabitants of the Netherlands, the Batavians, the Frisians, the Menapians and others were  descended from the Hebrews and father Noah.

For generations the British have noticed a parallel between Ephraim and England, Manassah and the United States, Dan and Denmark. Although a vast literature exists about it in English, no publication exists of a systematic study comparing the Biblical aspects word for word with a modern country, showing parallels from a historic, geographic, socio-psychological, cultural and symbolic aspect.

This study is a very first attempt at starting a new kind of research and creating fresh interest in these strange parallels, which may be called hypotheses or inner visions, or just pure nonsense. If a reader comes to the latter conclusion he would have to prove that it is indeed non-sense. Until then my view is just as valid as his, with this important difference that I have studied the subject for many years.

Trying to launch a new idea, unheard of by most readers, it is difficult to make a choice from the vast storehouse of wisdom existing in British libraries about the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples being descended from the ancient House in Israel, (as distinguished from the Jews) and the vision that the personal identification with the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel (not to be identified with the modern State of Israel) will have its origin within the nucleus of these cultures. In what follows I have hardly scratched the surface of this enormous amount of material.

Before The Light returns to restore the earth we have to know ourselves and our identities, not only as individuals but also as peoples. This will serve as a passport for entry into the coming new age in which purified Israel with twelve different 'tribes' will once again form the twelve gates of Jerusalem.

This strange-sounding pronouncement is based on the strong faith that we in our present generation have to guard as a pearl of great value all that has been passed on to us by previous generations who have ruled with God and have been enlightened by His Spirit.

I hope, therefore, that this first study of parallels may be followed by systematic research into eleven other equally strange parallels so that we may be able to store up a definite knowledge of what we now only see as a dim light in the distance during the years in which our countries only seem to be heading towards darkness.

'Holland' and 'The Netherlands' have been used as inter-changeable names. Strictly speaking 'The Netherlands' is the Kingdom's official name. (Kroninkrijk der Nederlanden) The name 'Holland' is more familiar, specially in the States although the name only applies to the two coastal provinces of North and South Holland. The old geographical name 'the Lowlands' is of ancient historical origin and comprises the coastal area of both Belgium and Holland.

John Wilson Identified Holland With Zebulun

In 1837 a theologian from Cambridge, John Wilson, started lecturing all over the British Isles and continued doing so until his death in 1870. His main subjects were the Israelitish origin of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples, the Davidic descent of the British Royal Family, the Hebrew origin of North-West European languages, the difference between the Lost House of Israel (in Western Europe) and the Jews of Judah, who at the time were dispersed all over the world.

According to later reports his lectures were timely and they became very popular in England. Clergymen, schoolmasters, rabbis, even Queen Victoria herself became interested. However Wilson himself said:  "Let us work with patience and hope for the rising generation; it always takes a generation for any newly discovered truth to take root and spring up, as this must evidently do."

Regarding his vision that Holland was to be identified with Zebulun, Jacob's son, it took more than a hundred years before this truth began to take root, in Holland! Strangely enough this subject failed to receive the attention of British researchers into Anglo-Saxon-Celtic-Israel origins, although a storehouse of books, magazines and lectures about the other ideas launched by Wilson, is now in existence and available in English-speaking countries.

A  CENTURY LATER, A CHALLENGE IN HOLLAND

When in Canada, just after having graduated from Amsterdam University in social sciences and feeling well-informed, I was asked in all sincerity to which tribe of Israel the Dutch belonged. I simply could not answer the strange question. It became a challenge and I hope it will have the same effect on you, dear reader. It was either sheer folly connecting a figure in the Bible with the national character of one's own nation and thus reversing the present trend towards internationalism and one-worldism or it would be a fascinating discovery. I saw in a flash that all my scattered academical knowledge could be integrated for the purpose of one fascinating research project. I took up the challenge and the idea became more than a strange parallel to me.

Back in Holland in 1958 I talked about this idea of Holland being Zebulun with Willem Koppejan, who at the time was a medical-psychological consultant of repute at The Hague. To my surprise he lent me a book, written by a Dutchman in 1920, J.A.F. Moerzer Bruyns at the League of Nations in Geneve, writing about the psychology of nations. In this rather odd book with some extreme views he mentioned however that Holland was Zebulun!

Willem Koppejan told me he himself was convinced about Holland's identity with Zebulun-Cancer. He however did not have the time to go deeper into the subject. This convinced me more than anything else of being on the right track and it prompted me to start my independent research. The reward came, when this same Willem asked me to marry him in March '70.

The first articles in Holland about Zebulun were published in the journal "Een Nieuw Geluid" (Striking a New Note) in 1962. This is the monthly magazine of the "Bond Nederlands Israel" (Association Netherlands-Israel) Evert Smit, the former Editor of this magazine replied to my article as he happened to have arrived at the same conclusion but from a different angle. He specially mentioned the "light-prophecy" in connection with Zebulun in Holland for which I am indebted to him. Here then were "two witnesses" to carry on our research. The idea caught on and resulted in quite a few Dutchmen calling themselves Zebulunites, considering it a blessing and a shield against the arrows of a new moral. What is in a name? It might become a life-saver! Some have approached me with the request for further details as to Zebulun's identification with Holland. I hope that this book will fill this need for the time being.

Now, please get a Bible and follow me to those places where Zebulun is mentioned both in Hebrew and in Greek - from Genesis to Revelation so as to investigate what they may mean.

A hundred years ago John Wilson sowed a seed. May Prince Zebulun come soon to wake his beautiful sleeping princess Holland.

CHAPTER 2

WHO WAS ZEBULUN?

In the first book of the Bible, Genesis 30:20, an account of his birth is given. Zebulun is the youngest son of Jacob's (the patriarch) marriage to Leah (the matriarch), being the sixth son. His elder brothers are Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah and Issaschar.

Although being the youngest son Zebulun must have enjoyed the same education as these elder brothers of Leah's household. There were half-brothers as well, children of Jacob's wives maids. Their names were Asher, Dan, Gad and Naphtali. Their mothers being bondswomen, suggests that these did not possess the outspoken characters of Leah's and Rachel's children. Jacob loved Leah's younger sister Rachel. He had been tricked by their father, Jacob's uncle Laban, who had given him Leah instead of Rachel on his wedding night. Leah had given him children but Rachel was still barren although Joseph was to be born soon after Zebulun. Leah, the tender-eyed, was not loved but she still hoped that Jacob would finally "dwell'' with her. In this mood she named her sixth son and said:

"God has endued me with a good dowry, now will my husband dwell with me, because I have born him six sons, and she called him ZEBULUN." This Hebrew word means: to inclose, to reside, to dwell. It is composed of three Hebrew letters:

Zain meaning fish-hook, hook

Beith meaning house, home, dwelling

Lamed meaning movement, streaming, impulse to action.

Although the name Zebulun was chosen for the purpose of calling Jacob home to Leah, this wish remained unfulfilled. Zebulun was her last son. Rachel became pregnant and gave him a son called Joseph, a fruitful bough who was destined to become Pharoah's right hand in Egypt. Soon after Jacob fled from Laban his father in law with all his household and cattle.

Standing before the promised homeland Canaan, he struggled with an angel, was blessed and given a new name by him: Israel, meaning "as a prince ruling with God who hast power."

All this happened when Zebulun and Joseph were under seven years old. It is well known that experiences gained during the first seven years leave a marked impression on one's adult life.

CLOSE  FRIENDSHIP  BETWEEN  ZEBULUN  AND  JOSEPH

Although the Bible does not tell us, we may assume, that it must have made a deep and lasting impression on these youngest sons (Benjamin was still to come) that their father Jacob got a lame hip overnight, and changed his and consequently their name into Israel!

Their reaction must have been quite different to that of then-eldest brother Reuben, then already a grown-up man, who had defiled his father's bed!

In "The Testament of the Patriarchs'" a very plausible story is told about Zebulun and Joseph, demonstrating their close friendship:

When the Patriarch Zebulun is lying on his deathbed he tells his sons how Joseph was sold by his brothers. After having related how his elder brothers wished to kill Joseph, he mentions how he as the only one pleaded with tears for his brother Joseph's life and how his heart pounded and he was unable to stand.

"And when Joseph saw me weeping with him, and them coming against him to slay him, he fled behind me, beseeching them." The brothers sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites, but Zebulun warns his sons, saying: "In his price, I had no share, my children!" Because, when he was crying for Joseph who was thrown into a pit, he had been set as a watch over him, and Zebulun had been crying with and talking to Joseph.

"I'm not conscious that I have sinned all my days save in thought, not yet do I remember that I have done any iniquity, except the sin of ignorance which I committed against Joseph, for I covenanted with my brethren not to tell my father what had been done."

BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS "CANNOT WITHOUT THE OTHER"

Taking for granted for a moment that the Netherlands are identifiable with Zebulun, and Britain with Joseph (whose children Ephraim symbolize England and Manasseh North America), one only has to have a glance at the history of these two peoples since Roman times to notice that basically, they look the same, they talk the same way, they have more or less the same mental outlook, they share the same interests, and they have always had the same common enemies, although forefathers of the Dutch (the Batavians) as Roman soldiers were set to watch over Britannica, and although the English and the Dutch have fought their brotherly sea-battles, and although the Boer-war in South Africa made a deep scar. Still it is in comparison with what other peoples did to each other, as close a friendship as Zebulun had with Joseph. For the future we may certainly remember the words of Queen Elizabeth I in the 16th century about England and the Netherlands:

'THE ONE CANNOT WITHOUT THE OTHER'

THE PATRIARCH ZEBULUN, A DECENT MAN, (DR.A.VANSELMS.)

We know very little about the man Zebulun from the Bible, like his brothers, he did not do anything spectacular.

A Dutch theologian, Dr. A. van Selms, wrote a book in Dutch, "Living Past," exclusively about Zebulun and he made a special trip to Israel to describe all the historical spots and places associated with Zebulun. This is a remarkable study by a Dutchman, and although he does not give us the slightest hint ever to have heard about the identity of Holland with Zebulun, he gives us food for thought.

Van Selms stresses the fact that in contrast to his brothers, nothing evil or wrong doing can be said of Zebulun and his tribe: He was unlike Reuben, who defiled his father's bed, unlike Levi, who plundered and murdered, unlike Judah who took "the harlot'' and gave her his ring and staff, unlike the Ephraimites who became drunkards, unlike Manasseh's tribe worshipping idols, unlike Dan slaying people with the sword and burning them, unlike Asher and Naphtali preferring to live amongst the degenerated Canaanites.

Only about Issaschar and Zebulun nothing wrong has been mentioned. When realizing, that up till the present time no evil could be told about this Prince Zebulun and his descendents, Dr. van Selms writes, that he continuously hears singing in him, while walking thirty kilometers a day, in his sixtieth year, over the ancient territory of Zebulun, "No evil from Zebulun, not in the Bible, not now in the present.''

Isn't it strange that in 1965 this Dutch Reformed clergyman was so happy with this discovery, that his heart began to sing? Why did this Hollander choose Zebulun of all twelve patriarchs to write a book about? Pure chance? Unconscious intuition that the Dutch have some kind of relationship with the Israel tribe of Zebulun? Or is he unconsiously bearing as a blind witness to being a Zebulunite himself? Or again, is it just a strange parallel, that a Protestant Dutch Doctor of theology, was the only one so far to write a study about Prince Zebulun and his former territory?

Anyhow he stresses the fact that Zebulun was a decent man, the most peaceful patriarch, full of compassion, and that his tribe was the happiest one of all the twelve.

THE DUTCH, A PEACEFUL PEOPLE

What can be said about the Dutch throughout the ages? In comparison with other powers in the world they have indeed played a peaceful rule. Was it mere accident that the International Court of Justice (the Peace-Palace) was chosen to be built at The Hague, right in the parliamentary heart of Holland?

Although the Dutch were by no means suckers they have only fought defensive wars when others have invaded their territory. The Romans in the first century, the Vikings with their raids in the Middle Ages, the Spaniards with their objectionable religion in the 16th century, while the French under Napoleon took the country without resistance, as the Germans almost did in our own time. Against both the latter Regimes the Dutch fought back more mentally than physically.

On the whole they have not been aggressors, apart of course from the fact that individual Dutchmen helped to slaughter Indians, sold negroes as slaves and bred revolts in their former colonies. The innate folk-character of the Dutch favors peaceful families and clean dwellers.

Moreover the Dutch frequently have functioned as a buffer-state for Britain against agression from other nations. Often the visible results seemed small, and like at the time of Zebulun when he was watching over Joseph in the pit, there   was weeping, trembling, a pounding of heart and inability to remain standing upright, though mentally in accord with John Bull.

ZEBULUN'S TESTAMENT

The traditional (Hebrew) manuscript dating from the last century B.C. "The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs," gives an account of Zebulun's spiritual legacy to his children:

"Have compassion to all as I did on account of Joseph.''

"I made a catch of fish for Jacob my father, and when many were choked in the sea, I continued unhurt.''

"I was the first to make a boat to sail upon the sea, for the Lord gave me understanding and wisdom therein.''

"Through compassion I shared my catch with every stranger."

"Have therefore yourselves also, my children, compassion towards everyman with mercy...because also in the last days God will send His compassion on the earth, and wheresoever he findeth bowels of mercy, He dwelleth in him."

"Observe the waters and know when they flow together...if they are divided into many streams, the earth swalloweth them up and they become of no account. Be ye not therefore divided into two heads..."

The Patriarch prophecizes concerning his posterity: They will be divided in Israel, they shall follow two kings, and shall work abomination, and their enemies shall lead them captive..after these things shall they remember the Lord and repent...but again they shall provoke Him to anger, and they shall be cast away until the time of the consummation.

Could there be something of a sad parallel, in that the "southern-Netherlands,'' the Dutch speaking parts of Belgium are under a different king, and their northern brothers by the Spaniards, the French and the Germans? And isn't there also a divided mentality among the tribe themselves?

The last words of the Patriarch to his sons before he falls asleep at the good old age of one hundred and fourteen years, are:

For I shall rise again in the midst of you, as a ruler in the midst of his sons; and I shall rejoice in the midst of my tribe, as many as shall keep the law of the Lord, and the commandments of Zebulun their father. But upon the ungodly shall the Lord bring (eternal) fire, and destroy them throughout all generations."

Not much more is known about Zebulun apart from the Bible. From the other semi-apocryphal books we don't get better information than what we find in the Bible. So let us turn to that Book again and search if there is anything in the blessings given to Zebulun and the Netherlands.

It has sometimes been argued by English fellow researchers that Holland's status of elder brother compared to Ephraim — England's is significant and that Holland therefore should be identified with Manasseh, Joseph's eldest Son. However so far I have not found any indications of similarity so as to identify Manasseh with Holland while on the contrary the point of this book is that Zebulun-identity-marks are legion. My British friends have sustained my thesis, by stressing the "elderly brother position" towards Britain in our Dutch history. However the parallel is: Zebulun-Holland as the elder brother of Joseph-Britain. This is a subject in itself and in this study no further comparisons will be made with other tribes.

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TO  BE  CONTINUED