While much of the geopolitical news that pertains to the impending fulfillment of Ezekiel 38’s prophecy is ominous for the modern nations of the house of Israel (those nations in or part of the spheres of influence of NATO and/or the EU), sometimes there is good news. This is one such posting.
While most Americans are not aware of it, the USA has signed a major nuclear-technology sharing agreement with India that draws the nations much closer together. This agreement has huge and positive implications. It has not yet been finalized as India has asked for more than what was in the original agreement, but cooperative trendlines are increasingly positive between the USA and India. This may surprise some as India was usually a thorn in the USA’s side during the Cold War when India was a leader of the Non-Aligned Nations group. However, several major forces are now pushing India and the USA together.
One major change has been economic cooperation. Many American corporations have “outsourced” jobs and facilities to India because it has a lower wage base and it has a large English-speaking population. India and the USA both are democracies as well. These factors make India and the USA natural allies. The logic of the dictum “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” also pushes India and the USA together. Both the USA (with its strong Christian heritage) and India (with its strong Hindu heritage) have been targeted by radical Islamic terrorists. In order to combat this threat, it makes complete sense for America and India to become allies in a war against terrorism. The Western nations also have hoped that economic ties would draw China and Russia into a world geopolitical/economic alliance (“i.e. Babylon the Great”), but Ezekiel 38’s prophecy shows that will not ultimately succeed.
In an April 24, 2007 column at www.newsmax.com (entitled “India and U.S. Forming Alliance”) Charles R. Smith writes: “India and the United States are building a new alliance based on trade and common self-defense.” He also points out a number of factors are causing India to grow more wary of China’s rapidly-increasing military power and its meddling in India’s affairs. This also draws the USA and India closer together as China’s growing military power increasingly is aimed at the USA as well. Given China’s increasingly belligerent actions toward the USA, it is bizarre that more American and Western nations still build manufacturing plants in China as all such plants are at growing risk of being nationalized by the Chinese in the future. China will likely “make nice” to a degree until after the 2008 Olympics in China, but China’s real face may become apparent after those Olympics are concluded. India is a much safer place for such facilities to be located, as this posting will indicate.
Smith’s column also notes that “Pakistan’s nuclear missile force is the Chinese designed M-11 missile…” Pakistan and India have long been enemies who are barely on speaking terms, have intractable territorial disputes and have nuclear missiles pointed at each other. The stronger that ties become between China and Pakistan, the more India is drawn into an alliance with the USA and the West, as it is imperative that India not be surrounded by enemies without having strong allies of its own. I recommend readers review Smith’s column at the Newsmax website.
Although the Bush Administration has had a largely unsuccessful foreign policy in most of its endeavors, it will be a great strategic success if its efforts lead to an alliance between India and the USA.
India is not only drawing closer to the modern nations of the house of Israel, it is also drawing closer to the modern house of Judah (the Israelis). An April 25, 2007 report available at: www.india-defence.com/reports/870 states that the Israelis have trusted India to launch the newest Israeli spy satellite on an Indian rocket.  The report cites a “…pre-existing bilateral accord on strategic cooperation (between India and Israel)…” The Israelis have cooperated with India in a variety of efforts to fight terrorism with shared military applications according to earlier reports in other sources. India and the Israelis are also drawing closer together as they have a common enemy in Islamic radicalism.
Consider the above in light of biblical prophecy. Ezekiel 38 lists many nations which will be part of Russia, China and Iran’s alliance. It states in verse 5 that “Cush” will be part of that alliance (the word “Cush” is translated “Ethiopia” in the King James Version of the Bible). The modern nations in the horn of Africa (including Ethiopia) are likely Cushites, but most Cushites migrated further eastward into Asia. The name “Cush” is still stamped on the region of Pakistan and Afghanistan as the “Hindu Kush” mountains are in those nations. The Al Queda training camps and the Taliban were/are located in this region, and the vast majority of Pakistanis are anti-American, anti-Western and are increasingly sympathetic with Islamic radicals. It is likely Pakistan will turn openly anti-American and anti-Western at some point in the future after President Musharaff leaves office.
In past years, I thought India was included in the “Cush” label. Revelation 16:12 refers to the “kings of the east” who will attacking westward across the Euphrates River at the end of this age. This is a clear parallel to Revelation 9:13-17 which also discusses this same army attacking westward across the Euphrates River at the end of this age. The second account in Revelation states this army of eastern powers will number 200,000,000 soldiers, and the wording in Revelation 9 evokes obvious images of modern tanks, planes and attack helicopters as seen in John’s vision. I had previously thought that to amass such a huge army, one would need to combine the nations of India and China (both of which are “eastern” nations). However, the recent turn of events in geopolitics has caused me to research the role of India deeper, and there is a very interesting possibility.
Ezekiel 38:13 names a number of nations which will not be part of the Russian-Chinese-Iranian axis. “The merchants of Tarshish and the young lions thereof” are such nations and they are identified in my “Ezekiel 38-39 and World War III” paper available elsewhere at this website as being the mercantile nation of Japan and the “young tiger” nations of the Pacific Rim (such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, etc.). I had previously limited “Sheba and Dedan” to the Philippines as they were a Hamitic nation which was a traditional American ally (Genesis 10:6-7). 
However, there is another “Sheba and Dedan” pairing which, like the Israelites, are descended from Abraham. The Israelites are descended from the union of Abraham with his wife, Sarah, who gave birth to Isaac, the father of Jacob who begat the twelve tribes of Israel. Abraham also fathered Ishmael via Hagar, and the Ishmaelites are widely-regarded to be the modern Arabs (a conclusion with which my books agree). However, Abraham fathered many sons via Keturah, his later wife. From this union came his grandchildren, “Sheba and Dedan,” and many others. Abraham also fathered many sons via “his concubines” (Genesis 25:6), and it adds that they migrated “eastward, into the east country.” Since Abraham dwelled in the eventual Promised Land, an eastward migration from there would take the sons of Abraham’s concubines eastward into Asia toward India. Abraham’s sons via his concubines are not named in the Bible.
Abraham was given by God a blessing that his seed would be as numerous “as the dust of the earth” (Genesis 13:15) and that his seed would grow into “many nations” (Genesis 17:5). The seed of Rebekah and Isaac (which included all the Israelite nations and all the Edomite nations) was prophesied to number “thousands of millions” (i.e. billions of people in all generations since Isaac and Rebekah’s lifetime). However, the blessing of massive population growth was on all of Abraham’s “seed,” not just the Israelite nations. This blessing was also on the sons of Abraham via Hagar, Keturah and his (unnamed) concubines. Because the Israelite and Edomite nations were prophesied to eventually have “billions” of descendants, it is no stretch to conclude that some of Abraham’s sons via Keturah and his concubines would also develop into very large nations. India is a very large nation which has also had “billions” of souls born into it over the millennia.
Since Genesis 25:6 indicates the sons of Abraham’s concubines migrated “eastward” into Asia, Sheba and Dedan may have done so as well. India is composed of many tribes and/or castes, and some or many of these tribes and castes may have been originally fathered by Abraham. There is evidence to support this view. The chief caste of India is called the “Brahmins” or “Brahmans” (as the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1943 Wartime Edition, Vol. 3, p. 1013 calls them). Some Vedic texts are referred to as the “Brahmana,” and there is a Hindu deity named “Brahma,” the “father of the Brahman trinity” [Emphasis added.] There is also the great river in the Indian subcontinent called the Brahmaputra. Ancient languages (such as Hebrew) did not include vowels in written words and vowels could easily be omitted or changed over time. If you place an “A” in front of these Indian and Hindu names, you clearly have various forms of the name “Abraham.” The name of Abraham has been placed on the subcontinent of India for a long time just as the name of Cush has been placed on the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. A string biblical linkage exists also in the words “Britain, British, Britons, etc.” These are all forms of the Hebrew word for “covenant” which in consonantal form is “Brt” or “Brth.” The chief tribe of the “Covenant” people (the ten tribes of Israel which were prophesied to grow very numerous after they went into exile, Hosea 1:10) is the Israelite tribe of Ephraim. Ephraim was prophesied to become a “fullness” or “multitude” of nations (Genesis 48:14-20). Most people do not realize that the British Isles have borne a Hebrew/Israelite name for three millennia. The persistent placement of biblical names on peoples and places gives strong support to the belief that the Bible’s version of history and modern mankind branching out from the families descended from Noah is the correct one. 
Significantly, the Indian subcontinent was, for a long time, part of the British (i.e. “Covenant”) Empire, and it was this fact which bequeathed to India the heritage of being a Democracy with a large English-speaking population. The USA is the “brother” Anglo-Saxon nation to the British Anglo-Saxon nations. The prophecy in Genesis 48:14-20 also prophesied that Ephraim’s brother, Manasseh, would grow into a single great nation at the same time the Ephraimites would develop into  group of nations. The United States was formed as the Israelite nation of Manasseh. World events have perfectly fulfilled this biblical prophecy, powerfully confirming that the Creator God who authored the Bible is not only real, but that he is actively directing the affairs of nations to ensure his prophecies come to pass without fail. Whether humanity believes that God is doing this has no impact whatsoever on the fact that God is doing it nonetheless. There are now strong trends pushing India and the USA (along with other Western nations) into becoming allies. Both historical evidence and biblical prophecy indicate that many people in India may be the distant relatives of the nations of the modern tribes of Israel as they descended from the same man, Abraham.
By Steven Collins
May 1, 2007