In the Middle East of thousands of years ago lived a young man whose story is crucial to understanding the current configuration of the Middle East, as well as future events. When he was orphaned, he had an aunt and uncle who were childless, making them the logical ones to take him in. Not only was his uncle without any heirs, but he also possessed considerable wealth. So this young man stood to inherit a great deal.

The uncle took him in, but did not make the young man his heir, for the uncle and aunt eventually had children and direct heirs of their own. Years of living with and working alongside his uncle brought the young man a lot of personal wealth-so much so, that the time came when nephew and uncle had to separate their holdings. The temperament and character of the nephew was such that he put his own interests ahead of those of his uncle. Fierce rivalry between their respective clans made it impossible for them to live in close proximity to each other.

You know the nephew's name, as well as the uncle's, but let's speak of the uncle first. He was Abraham, father of the Arab and the Israelite peoples. In past issues of World News and Prophecy, we've chronicled the rivalry between the descendants of the two sons of Abraham: Ishmael, father of the Arabs, and Isaac, father of Jacob and the Israelites, including the modern Israelis. But we've not told the story or the significance of the nephew who was left out. His name was Lot.

Muhammad identified with him

He's mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, as well as several times in the Koran. When Abraham graciously gave him the choice of land in which he would settle, Lot took the better-looking property. You may know how he eventually went to live in a morally depraved city, Sodom, after he split off his holdings from his uncle's. He was not completely without good qualities, for the Christian Bible tells us that Lot was "righteous" and "was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked" in the city (2 Peter 2:7). Muhammad identified closely with Lot, seeing himself in a similar role as he preached to the wicked citizens of Mecca in the seventh century.

What does Lot's story have to do with today's Middle East-or tomorrow's Middle East? In a somewhat oblique prophecy found in Psalm 83, the Bible foretells a conspiracy or a confederation of nations against Israel. While fulfilled perhaps many times in antiquity, this prophecy has end-time applications. Students of prophecy know that the Old Testament prophets were stirred to forecast events up to and beyond the return of Jesus Christ.

(Israel in the end time includes but is not limited to the small nation in the Middle East. See our free booklet The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy for more details.)

The prophecy reads, in part, "The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites; Moab and the Hagrites; Gebal, Ammon, and Amalek; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assyria also has joined with them; they have helped the children of Lot" (Psalm 83:6-8). We may not be able to identify with certainty the modern descendants of all these strange-sounding tribes, but it's evident that the descendants of Abraham's nephew-"the children of Lot"-play a prominent role in this confederation of peoples who will oppose the descendants of ancient Israel.

After going his separate way from Lot, Abraham's family eventually grew large; he was a patriarch or sheik. In time, his sons eventually became the patriarchs of their own large families, tribal chieftains in their own right. Where are their descendants now? Do they all fit neatly within the borders of this or that nation? Or should they still be thought of as tribes?

The Western view is, "Think in terms of nations." But the Middle Eastern perspective is, "Think in terms of tribes." While the Bible uses names that are the same as some modern nations (Egypt, Libya, etc.), it reflects the Middle Eastern way of thinking by speaking mostly in terms of tribes. There's a profound difference between the two, and thinking only in terms of national boundaries prevents us from understanding present events and anticipating future ones.

History tells us that Lot and Abraham were both rich when they went their separate ways. However, Lot's fortunes quickly reversed with the supernatural destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. His clan was reduced to merely three members, two daughters and himself. Contrasting that with the fantastic wealth of Abraham's clan must have been humiliating for Lot. Bible students are familiar with the dreadful events that led to the reestablishment of his family, which also eventually grew into several tribes.

After many years, when Lot's clan was finally established, its members likely looked with envy upon the clans of Israel and Ishmael. Biblical history tells us that the two principal tribes that sprang from Lot were known as the people of Moab and Ammon (Genesis 19:37-38). Interestingly, these are two names that we read in the above prophecy of Psalm 83.

Families not the same as nations

If you think like a Westerner, you're asking, "What nations are these people today?" But the Bible speaks in Middle Eastern terms. It simply identifies the people as having descended from the two patriarchs, Moab and Ammon. Although their beginnings were inauspicious, these people were treated with respect by the God of Abraham. He forbade the nomadic Israelites from troubling them. When traversing the wilderness between Egypt and Palestine, Israel was warned against harassing the tribe or clan of Moab. Remarkably, God said that He had given a specific territory to "the descendants of Lot as a possession" (Deuteronomy 2:9).

Ownership of land has always been important to the tribes of the Middle East, whether the tribes that sprang from Israel, Ishmael or Lot in antiquity-or their modern descendants.

Presently, the Middle East has been carved up into nations that do not take into account or reflect the tribal roots of their citizenry. When England and France drew national boundaries after engineering the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, those boundaries were positioned for political reasons, irrespective of clans or tribes.

Bernard Lewis, the preeminent Middle East historian, wrote, ".Iraq was a medieval province, with borders very different from those of the modern republic; Syria, Palestine and Libya are but names from classical antiquity and hadn't been used in the region for a thousand years or more before they were revived and imposed by European imperialists in the twentieth century; Algeria and Tunisia do not even exist as words in Arabic-the same name serves for the city and country. Most remarkable of all, there is no word in the Arabic language for Arabia, and modern Saudi Arabia is spoken of instead as 'the Saudi Arab kingdom,' or 'the peninsula of the Arabs,' depending on the context" ("The Revolt of Islam," The New Yorker, Nov. 19, 2001, pp. 51-52, emphasis added throughout).

Arab identity

Lewis continues, "This is not because Arabic is a poor language-quite the reverse is true-but because the Arabs simply did not think in terms of combined ethnic and territorial identity. Indeed, the caliph Omar, the second in succession after the Prophet Muhammad, is quoted as saying to the Arabs, 'Learn your genealogies, and do not be like the local peasants who, when they are asked who they are, reply: "I am from such-and-such a place"'" (ibid.). Curiously, except for the Jews, most of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have lost their sense of genealogy and with it, their identity. Thinking in terms of their tribal identity is a key to understanding other prophecies of the Bible (see The United States and Britain Bible Prophecy for this amazing story).

That's in contrast to the Islamic world where "the states are almost all dynastic, with shifting frontiers, and it is surely significant that, in the immensely rich historiography of the Islamic world in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, there are histories of dynasties, of cities, and primarily, of the Islamic state and community, but no histories of Arabia, Persia, or Turkey" (ibid.).

How does that relate to today? The Western way to project national policy is to think in terms of a national entity. If we want to know the direction U.S. policy will take, we focus on Washington. Now, Western thinking is beginning to include the multinational European Union, although it is still a developing entity. For the most part, we focus upon the administrations of Britain, France, Germany, etc. Doing so will enable us to ascertain the direction of national policy.

But if we think that way of the Middle East, we will be caught off guard. Nations such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, for example, may announce national policies, but the nations aren't cohesive families grown great. And, they aren't like the legendary American "melting pot," which theoretically amalgamates all ethnic groups into Americans. Irrespective of national boundaries, tribes are scattered throughout the region. Of course, there are national allegiances and identities, but they are familial ones, too, which aren't limited to the countries in which they live.

A wild card dynamic

Anticipating their actions and reactions is a wild card, and cannot be ascertained by official statements that come from the national capitals in the Middle East.

Clearly, Jordan's capital, Amman, is associated with the people called "Ammon" in Psalm 83. But that doesn't mean that all the people of Jordan are necessarily from that tribe-or that all of that tribe lives within Jordan's boundaries. Jordan's boundaries also were not drawn with regard to tribal or clannish populations, but rather for artificial and political motives. "To protect against French encroachment of British interests in Palestine, Britain had excluded from Syria the desert and mountainous region east of the River Jordan, the land that became Transjordan. In 1921, Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill carved out the emirate of Transjordan, agreed to finance it with a modest subsidy, and gave it to Abdullah [the great grandfather of the present king]." (God Has Ninety-Nine Names by Judith Miller, 1996, p. 334).

Yet, as we see in the prophecy of Psalm 83, the Bible is written from the perspective of Middle Eastern families, which will not necessarily coincide with the boundaries of Middle Eastern nations. Some Bible students are aware of the historic rivalry between the sons of Abraham-the Arabs and the Israelites. This prophecy injects a reminder of another historic rivalry-between the tribes of Lot and the tribes of Israel. Further, it shows that the children of Lot are still a component of the Middle East at the end time.

How the people will align themselves and who will conspire with "Assyria" against the modern descendants of Abraham's grandson Israel isn't yet clear. But we shouldn't limit our thinking to national boundaries. As we watch events in the Middle East develop toward their inevitable grand conflict, which will realign the world's great powers, we need to add this biblical perspective to our thinking. WNP