Read More Amos - [Are] ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? Isaiah - Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which [is] beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: Read More Isaiah - Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which [is] beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: 1 Chronicles - And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabta, and Raamah, and Sabtecha. Catching sight of the sacred bundle, hundreds of women in the crowd began ululating—making a singsong wail with their tongues—as many Ethiopian women do at moments of intense emotion.
As the clerics began to walk down a rocky pathway toward a piazza at the center of town a legacy of Italy's occupation of Ethiopia in the s , they were hemmed in by perhaps 1, more chanting and ululating devotees. At the piazza, the procession joined clerics carrying tabots from seven other churches. Together they set off farther downhill, with the trailing throng swelling into the thousands, with thousands more lining the road. About five miles later, the priests stopped beside a pool of murky water in a park.
All afternoon and through the night, the priests chanted hymns before the tabots, surrounded by worshipers. Then, prompted by glimmers of light sneaking into the morning sky, Archbishop Andreas led the clerics to celebrate the baptism of Jesus by playfully splashing one another with the pool's water. The Timkat celebrations were to continue for three more days with prayers and masses, after which the tabots would be returned to the churches where they were kept.
I was more eager than ever to locate the original ark, so I headed for Aksum, about miles northeast. Just outside Gonder, my car passed Wolleka village, where a mud-hut synagogue bore a Star of David on the roof—a relic of Jewish life in the region that endured for as long as four millennia, until the s.
That was when the last of the Bet Israel Jews also known as the Falasha, the Amharic word for "stranger" were evacuated to Israel in the face of persecution by the Derg. The road degenerated into a rutted, rocky pathway that twisted around the hillsides, and our SUV struggled to exceed ten miles per hour.
I reached Aksum in darkness and shared the hotel dining room with United Nations peacekeepers from Uruguay and Jordan who told me they were monitoring a stretch of the Ethiopia-Eritrea border about an hour's drive away. The latest U. The next day was hot and dusty. Except for the occasional camel and its driver, Aksum's streets were nearly empty. We weren't far from the Denakil Desert, which extends eastward into Eritrea and Djibouti. By chance, in the lobby of my hotel I met Alem Abbay, an Aksum native who was on vacation from Frostburg State University in Maryland, where he teaches African history.
Abbay took me to a stone tablet about eight feet high and covered in inscriptions in three languages—Greek; Geez, the ancient language of Ethiopia; and Sabaean, from across the Red Sea in southern Yemen, the true birthplace, some scholars believe, of the Queen of Sheba. His finger traced the strange-looking alphabets carved into the rock 16 centuries ago.
Abbay led me to another stone tablet covered with inscriptions in the same three languages. As we walked on, we passed a large reservoir, its surface covered with green scum. Ahead was a towering stele, or column, 79 feet high and said to weigh tons.
Like other fallen and standing steles nearby, it was carved from a single slab of granite, perhaps as early as the first or second century A. Legend has it that the ark of the covenant's supreme power sliced it out of the rock and set it into place. On our way to the chapel where the ark is said to be kept, we passed Sheba's bath again and saw about 50 people in white shawls crouched near the water.
A boy had drowned there shortly before, and his parents and other relatives were waiting for the body to surface. They believe the curse has struck again. Abbay and I made our way toward the office of the Neburq-ed, Aksum's high priest, who works out of a tin shed at a seminary close by the ark chapel. As the church administrator in Aksum, he would be able to tell us more about the guardian of the ark.
Only he can see it; all others are forbidden to lay eyes on it or even go close to it. But the Ethiopians say that is inconceivable—the visitors must have been shown fakes. I asked how the guardian is chosen. I told him I'd heard that in the midth century a chosen guardian had run away, terrified, and had to be hauled back to Aksum. The Neburq-ed smiled, but did not answer. Instead, he pointed to a grassy slope studded with broken stone blocks—the remains of Zion Maryam cathedral, Ethiopia's oldest church, founded in the fourth century A.
Now that I had come this far, I asked if we could meet the guardian of the ark. The Neburq-ed said no: "He is usually not accessible to ordinary people, just religious leaders. The next day I tried again, led by a friendly priest to the gate of the ark chapel, which is about the size of a typical suburban house and surrounded by a high iron fence. A few minutes later he scurried back, smiling.
A few feet from where I stood, through the iron bars, a monk who looked to be in his late 50s peered around the chapel wall. He wore an olive-colored robe, dark pillbox turban and sandals.
He glanced warily at me with deep-set eyes. Through the bars he held out a wooden cross painted yellow, touching my forehead with it in a blessing and pausing as I kissed the top and bottom in the traditional way. Alas, oh land of whirring wings Which lies beyond the rivers of Cush, Which sends envoys by the sea, Even in papyrus vessels on the surface of the waters Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, To a people feared far and wide, A powerful and oppressive nation Whose land the rivers divide.
All you inhabitants of the world and dwellers on earth, As soon as a standard is raised on the mountains, you will see it, And as soon as the trumpet is blown, you will hear it. For thus the LORD has told me, "I will look from My dwelling place quietly Like dazzling heat in the sunshine, Like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. They will be left together for mountain birds of prey, And for the beasts of the earth; And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them, And all the beasts of the earth will spend harvest time on them.
Go up, you horses, and drive madly, you chariots, That the mighty men may march forward: Ethiopia and Put, that handle the shield, And the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow. And the people who came with him from Egypt were without number: the Lubim, the Sukkiim and the Ethiopians. Persia, Ethiopia and Put with them, all of them with shield and helmet;.
But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, while he was in the king's palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern Now the king was sitting in the Gate of Benjamin; and Ebed-melech went out from the king's palace and spoke to the king, saying, "My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet whom they have cast into the cistern; and he will die right where he is because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city.
Then the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, "Take thirty men from here under your authority and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the cistern before he dies. Then Ebed-melech the Ethiopian said to Jeremiah, "Now put these worn-out clothes and rags under your armpits under the ropes"; and Jeremiah did so.
So they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern, and Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guardhouse. Now the word of the LORD had come to Jeremiah while he was confined in the court of the guardhouse, saying, "Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, "Behold, I am about to bring My words on this city for disaster and not for prosperity; and they will take place before you on that day.
Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim an immense army with very many chariots and horsemen? Yet because you relied on the Lord , He delivered them into your hand. Asa and the people who were with him pursued them as far as Gerar; and so many Ethiopians fell that they could not recover, for they were shattered before the LORD and before His army.
They destroyed all the cities around Gerar, for the dread of the LORD had fallen on them; and they despoiled all the cities, for there was much plunder in them. Alas, oh land of whirring wings Which lies beyond the rivers of Cush,.
Then you also can do good Who are accustomed to doing evil. Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married for he had married a Cushite woman ;. So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship,.
Now it took place in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over provinces,. All rights reserved. Toggle navigation. Land Becoming Empty Ethiopia. Genesis Verse Concepts.
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