THE CELTIC FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARTH

by

B. Paul Blegen (U.S.A.)

WHEN David spoke to Nathan about building a temple and received Nathan’s approval, the Lord intervened in a strange way. The incident occupies the entire seventh chapter of 2 Samuel.


First the Lord makes a speech to Nathan, then He commands Nathan to make a speech to David, then David makes a speech to the Lord; all three speeches are in some detail, and do not seem to be to the point about not building a temple. The words of the Lord seem to be of a slight rebuking tone, and Nathan reports the words of the Lord to David, in part with this now renowned promise: “I will appoint a place for my people Israel”.

But there is more: “Also the Lord telleth thee”, said Nathan, “that He will make you a house ... and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee” (vv 10, 11,16). David, perhaps perplexed, replied to the Lord. “Then went King David in, and sat down before the Lord [Smith & Goodspeed] , and he said, Who am I, 0 Lord God; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant’s house for a great while to come; thou wouldst foretell the destiny of thy servant’s line in days far hence, Lord God, can mortal man claim such rights, 0 Lord God? And what can David say more unto thee?” The last bold italicized passage is from Knox’s translation, to which he has this footnote: “It seems necessary to take these words (literally, this is the law of Adam)...”, and so he brings this all the way back to Adam. (All italics and upper case emphases are this author’s throughout.)

We think of the ‘House of David’ in David’s expression “thy servant’s house” as referring to his descendants; but what if David also means “the House of Israel”? The ‘whole house’ was ‘his’ to reign over, and will be again. (But this House would be remoulded.) David later confirms that the reason he was not to build the Lord a house was because of the blood shed in his many wars. So it seems to me that a reason for this seemingly obscure dialogue does go back much further, yes to Adam and beyond. (The “appointed place” passage certainly referred to the House of Israel, then some centuries old.)

In the allegory of the Israel vine in ISAIAH 5, we are told of a “very fruitful hill; and he fenced it”; afterward, he would “break down the wall [fence] thereof” by way of condemnation. So we had an effective boundary around our House of Jacob. Going back still further, Moses tells us that “he set the bounds of the people” according as he portioned out the nations’ inheritances.
An inheritance implies possessions, planning, foreknowledge, and an earlier time; He did this “when he separated the sons of Adam” - (DEUTERONOMY. 32:8).

We are told clearly that “we were formed” by the Lord “for himself; we shall shew forth his praise”. Understand that there are two notions here, first that God formed; and second, that it is pointedly us whom he formed.

The margin reading for ISAIAH 37:26, The Oxford Bible, reads “hast thou not heard I have made it long ago, formed it of ancient times?” (quoting from II KINGS 19:25).
“I have formed thee, 0 Israel; fear not; thou art my servant” (ISAIAH 43:1; 44: 21). And there is this third notion, too: we were formed long ago to be His servant. There is a connection in all this.

See that these really “are ancient things” (ISAIAH 46:10), “God is my king of old” (PSALM 74:12). He must be older still then than His throne, for he Himself established it: “the world also is stablished that it cannot be moved - thy throne is established of old”, from then [margin] (PSALM 93:1,2). Moreover, in MICAH 6:2, we are called the “strong foundations of the earth”.

From this nexus we see that the throne over Israel was established not later than when the world was fixed; the “from then” [margin] refers directly to the time when the world was fixed of old. So in DANIEL, we read of “the Ancient of Days” [now Father], “even he that abideth of old” (PSALM 55:19); that is, ‘he abideth from of old’.

So the Father is of old; our Lord, Redeemer, Kinsman and King is of old, and we, ourselves the sheep of His pasture, are of old, and likewise our bounds and our purchase from Egypt are from “of old” (PSALM 74:2 and DEUTERONOMY 9:27-29).

When the Israel Truth was first given to me years ago, it was explained how the House of Omri, Beth Omri, became the bit k’Umri of the Assyrians’ language, bit standing for the Hebrew Beth, or ‘house’ and the k or k’ standing for the preposition “of”; and how later they or part of them became known as Kimmerians or Kimmeroi or K’immeroi; and so forth. But it was never explained what the term Celt meant. I had been studying Hebrew at that time, so I knew intuitively where the answer lay hid and it didn’t take much searching to find it.

When I acquired Gladys Taylor’s excellent little set, Our Neglected Heritage, it was interesting to read in vol.4 on page 6, what she wrote about these “Celts”:

“The name Celt is a mystery to historians”; “none have solved the puzzle of its meaning and derivation, or the language from which it comes”;

and again:
“It was widely used by the Greeks, but they had taken it from some earlier source... Keltoi is meaningless as a descriptive word.”

Let me show you today that it really is descriptive, and show you its derivation, too. The Greeks being first Hebrews, and the Greek language being drawn heavily from the Hebrew, we should be alert to search the Hebrew/Semitic tongues.

Gladys Taylor goes on to say, “The name itself is very old!”, pointing out that they (the Keltoi) are mentioned sometimes, particularly by the Roman writers, in connection with the Kimmerians [...Khamri]...show[ing] a relationship between these two considerable race groups.” (The letter c developed from the letter k, and both are the same; the pronunciation “selt” is incorrect - as it is often pronounced in the U.S.)

The quickest philological explanation is that the Greeks called them Kelts because they, the Greeks, being - many of them - Hebrews themselves, knew they were God’s elect, as Isaiah clearly tells. In passing from the Hebrews to the Greeks, and again to the Romans, ears hear differently, and the Romans might pronounce the Greek “eklectos” (elect) as “ek-kelt-os “. this kind of transposition happened often in ancient times—and still does!

Still, the Celts called themselves Celts, and I think that this is not the true solution. I think they were less aware of Isaiah’s writings than they were of the law and the Psalms, and we shall see presently that there is another solution. And besides, it would require a knowledge on the part of the Greeks that we do not know from Scripture that they had.

The riddle is easily solved when we assign the same style to this name as was applied to the term bit k ‘humri.
Kelt, or K'elt is formed from the root “elt” just as Kimry is
formed from the root Umri or Omri. “Elt” means “old”. I found this proof under the entry elt in a German dictionary where I had searched first because in German alt means “old”. So it is apparent that Waddell comes closest, in his Phoenician Origins where he refers to them as “Khalt”.

To elaborate, the 1995 Thorndike Barnhart World Book Dictionary (Chicago, London, Sidney, Toronto), states under the entry “old” that “old” comes from the Old English ald, eald and that the archaic English noun eld comes from “eldo” or “ald”. This dictionary then quotes for usage: “of old has thou laid the FOUNDATIONS OF THE EARTH” - (PSALM 102:25) (italics theirs, upper case mine). And how good it is to see that our best and newest dictionaries STILL hark back to the Holy Scriptures! It also gives “ealderman” as the obsolete form of “alderman”; “ealder + mann” (see entry “alderman”).
“Ald” is the same as the German alt, the substitution of the d for the t is merely one of tongue and ear.

In the same dictionary under the entry “eld”, the derivation is given thusly: “[Old English eldo <ald old] “,
meaning that eldo “developed into”, or became, “ald”, old.
“Elder”, in Old English ealdra, is but the comparative of “ald” according to Thomdike under the entry “elder”.

The first thing this dictionary says under the entry “eld” is:

“n. archaic. 1 ancient times”

and gives this quote for usage: “lands that contain the monuments of eld (Byron)”.

Thus “Kelt” means ancient or “of old”, and we, those ones of old, are his people, his people of old, and so we are then His ancient ones.

Is there proof for this in the Scriptures themselves? The Hebrew words “old” and “eld” in Strong’s at 2056 and 3205 refer to lineage, offspring, and begettal. Remembering what we learned in the preceding paragraphs, we should remember also that “we are the offspring of God” that Ancient of Days [“God the Ancient” in the Sacred Name Bible] who sits on the ancient throne (ACTS 17:29 and PSALM 93:2).

Isaiah tells, “I have appointed the ancient people” (44:7) , clearly referring to us, and “the Lord of hosts shall reign in Zion, and in Jerusalem, and there shall be glory before his ancients” (24:23). Here, His people are expressly called “his ancients”. What more proof do we need?

It is said that only some Celtic tribes called themselves “Celt”. This doesn’t mean that all Israel isn’t God’s ancient ones. Only some tribes were known as Cimmerians, too, but we know that that term refers to all of the House of Israel taken away in captivity. And there are many similar examples which could be set out.

Now, Gladys Taylor takes this still further in her same first chapter. She relates how, in The Book of Jubilees there is a reference to “the mountain of the Celt toward the north”.

In ISAIAH 41 we are addressed to “keep silence before me, 0 isles, and let the people renew their strength”. In ISAIAH 14:13 the mount of the congregation is indicated as “the sides of the north”, and in PSALM 48:2 Mount Zion is referred to as “the sides of the north”; in JEREMIAH 1:15 those of Britain and the lands round about it are “the families of the kingdoms of the north”. The use of the term “mountain” with reference to Israel occurs numerous times; and again, its connection with the Stone (in DANIEL 2), cut out of the mountain is understood by us all.

In the phrase “sides of the north”, “sides” is given by Strong’s at 3411 as follows:

“feminine of 3409 ... coasts, ...“ [in other words, ‘coasts of the north’].

at 3409 we read:
“by euphemism, the generative parts; ... x body, loins ...“

So we can also understand, then, that Zion, the congregation, the mountain of Israel, and the sides of the north, all refer to our being His “offspring” ... and “brought forth” out of Egypt; “from the wilderness [of Egypt] ... there thy mother brought thee forth.” - (SONG OF SOLOMON 8:5)

Knox rendered this as “where sore distress overtook thine own mother, where she that bore thee had her hour of shame”, meaning in the wilderness, when Israel was brought forth, across the Red Sea.
Without going into deeper things, we can see “that he [our Saviour] might be the firstborn among many brethren” - (ROMANS 8:29). We are His brethren, He is our Kinsman.

In I PETER 1:3, Peter says that our Father hath begotten us, “again” — that is, a second time.

Going back into the Old Testament, we run across our grandparents and cousins bitterly complaining about something, and Moses takes the matter to the Lord, and in a kind of complaint of his own, he asks Him, “Have I conceived all this people? Have I begotten them?” (NUMBERS 11:12). In DEUTERONOMY 32:18 Moses tells them that they were begotten of the Rock, and formed by God. And in PSALM 2:7 we have the Father saying “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee”.

I began this article by titling it The Celtic Foundations of the Earth. Bonnie Gaunt points out that the number 12 is the number of the foundations of the earth; 12, as in the 12 tribes. She notes that 99% of the bedrock of the earth’s crust is composed of twelve elements (and that their atomic numbers total 186, the number of displacement. Israel was displaced through sin.) She also points out that 12 of the significant Stonehenge alignments point to an extreme position of the sun (a symbol of the Son) and that 12 alignments point to an extreme position of the moon (a symbol of Rachel and of Israel).

The number 12 is also the active agent in creation. Photosynthesis is possible only because of the 12-fold symmetry of the chlorophyll molecule, which transforms light into substance.

Bonnie Gaunt has written a series of seminal, original books showing the parallels of Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid, and threading through them sacred, Biblical gematria. Her discoveries are astounding. Write her for a book list at 510 Golf Avenue, Jackson, MI 49203 USA.

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