Information Related to "Linguistic Links: What's in a Name?"
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The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy

Linguistic Links: What's in a Name?

What can we learn from names? What we call ourselves defines for others who we are. We're also defined by the labels others apply to us (whether factual or fabricated), the name of the land in which we live or were born and the name of the land of our ancestry. We must consider names and labels as we attempt to trace the people of Israel through history.

In the Bible the people of Israel are sometimes called the sons of Isaac. God promised that the name of Isaac would continue to identify Israel as a people (Genesis 21:12).

In biblical times the Hebrew language was written with no vowels. Thus Isaac would have been spelled simply Sk or Sc in the English equivalents of the Hebrew characters. We should not consider it astonishing that shortly after the exile of the 10 tribes the term SaCae (the letters for the name Isaac with the Latin plural ending "ae") identified the new settlers in the Black Sea region
of Scythia.

The Assyrians similarly spoke of the emergence of the iShKuza and the Persian-Medians of the SaKa, both derivations of the name Isaac. (We have capitalized the S, C and K in these examples to help you see their derivations.)

The Behistun Rock, a mural carved in stone near present-day Bisitun, Iran, provides linguistic clues to the understanding of several ancient languages. The rock relief dates from the reign of Darius I of Persia (ca. 522-486 B.C.). Its depiction of conquered foreign kings paying homage was inscribed in the Old Persian, Elamite (Susian) and Babylonian languages. One sees Skuka, king of the temporarily subjugated Asiatic branch of Scythians, pictured as the last one in line. The Behistun Rock describes him as the king of the Scythians, Saka or Cimmerians (pronounced "Gimiri" in Babylonian).

Read the full article at www.ucg.org/booklets/US/linguisticlinks.asp


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