A number of years ago a Futurist wrote a book about this Prophecy advocating an interpretation I certainly can’t agree with now and wasn’t convinced of back then either. But it got me thinking about it.
For context to anyone new to this the Elamites were a people who lived in Southern Iran just east of Mesopotamia. Susa/Shushan was their major Capital before it became Persian.
This Elam Prophecy is very similar to a lot of the Prophecies about the Nations before it. The detail that is unique to it however, that really stands out, is in verse 38 where YHWH says He will place His Throne in Elam.
No where else in Scripture does YHWH ever indicate that He will place His Throne on Earth anywhere other than Israel. Where in Israel is not always as unambiguously uniformly Jerusalem as most assume, but it is definitely always in Israel.
But recently I noticed that Ezra 4:9 refers to Elamites as being among the Pagan Gentile populations settled in Israel by Asnapper, along with Susanchites which may mean people of Susa. Most scholars seem to view the name Asnapper here as a corruption of Assurbanipal. And indeed Secular History shows Elam was conquered and defeated by Assurbanipal multiple times.
The Elamites were not 100% removed from their original homeland, a remnant there continued to exist in the time of Cyrus and then Elymais existed during Greco-Roman/Parthian times.
But since Assurbanipal was before the time of Jeremiah, could it be that Geographically speaking the Elam that Jeremiah is talking about is where they were settled in Israel rather than Elam in Iran?
All of these people were settled in former Northern Kingdom territories, where contrary to what many others assume there were remnants of the Northern Ten Tribes also still among them. The Samaritans do NOT descend from these Gentiles but from those of Ephraim and Manasseh in the area of Shechem.
And this is where my arguments about Bethel and Shiloh come into play. The Ezekiel 40-48 Temple is not within YHWH-Shammah but to the North.
We know Bethel remains a center of the Idolatry of the Northern Kingdom co-opted by these Pagan Gentiles at least until Jeroboam’s original Idol was destroyed by Josiah in 2 Kings 23:15.
Ezra 2:28, Nehemiah 7:32 and 11:31 speaks of Bethel and Hai being resettled by the Tribe Benjamin. Before the Captivity this area was more associated with Ephraim though on the border with Benjamin.
Jeremiah 49 makes reference to God placing His Throne in Elam and then in the next talks about ending Elam’s Captivity.
Could it be Bethel was specifically Elamite from the time of Assurbanipal till Ezra-Nehemiah but then they returned to Iran to become Elymais?
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