One of our oldest traditions teaches that whatever happens to the fathers will happen to the sons—ma’aseh avot siman lebanim. The patterns set in the Torah are not mere history; they are blueprints that reappear in later generations until the final redemption. I was thinking recently about the ten spies who entered the Land of Israel and returned with a bad report. Is there a thematic or intertextual connection between those ten men and the ten matei who later went into exile? The answer, I believe, is yes. Furthermore, it opens a prophetic window onto our own time.
The Ten Spies and the Two Faithful Voices
In Numbers 13–14, twelve men, one from each matei, scout the Land. Ten return with a report of fear: the people are too strong, the cities too fortified, the giants too great. Only two stand against the majority. Kalev (Caleb) of the matei of Yehudah and Yehoshua (Joshua) of the matei of Ephraim insist that the Land is good and that Hashem will give it into their hands. Their minority report costs them nothing less than the future of the generation. The people side with the ten, and that generation dies in the wilderness.
What stands out is not only the courage of the two but their tribal identity. Kalev represents Yehudah. Yehoshua represents Ephraim, the leading matei of the northern kingdom that would later be lost. The Torah itself is already pointing forward. In the end of days, these two matei—Judah and Ephraim—will again be the ones who stand with Hashem and speak what He wants into existence. The ten who brought the bad report foreshadow the ten matei who were later carried into exile by Assyria and disappeared among the nations. The two who brought the good report foreshadow the reunion that the prophets promise.
The Question That Must Be Answered: Who Is Ephraim Today?
Ephraim was not with Yehudah, Levi, and Benjamin after the Assyrian exile. He was lost among the ten matei. Hosea, whom our sages call one of the greatest of the prophets, speaks directly to this lost house. In that day, he says, those who were called “not My people” shall be called “My people,” and where it was said of them “You are not My people,” it shall be said, “You are the sons of the living God.” The northern kingdom would be joined again with Yehudah, and they would choose a king.
All the other major prophetic markers have already come to pass. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, and the rest have described the return, the rebirth of the Land, and the ingathering from the nations. They also describe the pressure surrounding Jerusalem that we are living through right now. If we are in those days, then the question that must be answered is: Who is Ephraim today? Whoever he is, he must be connected to the Torah, know the prophecies, and understand his place in the world.
Ezekiel 37: The Two Sticks Become One
The clearest picture is given in Ezekiel 37:15–28. The full text reads:
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, ‘Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, ‘Belonging to Joseph (that is, to Ephraim) and all the Israelites associated with him.’
Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand. When your people ask you, ‘Won’t you tell us what you mean by this?’ say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim’s hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to the stick of Judah. I will make them into one stick… I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone.
I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols… They will be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd.
They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob… forever… I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the Lord make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.’”
The structure is unmistakable. First comes the symbolic action of the two sticks. Then the explanation: God Himself will unite the divided house. To the ingathering from the nations. Then the cleansing from idolatry. Then one king—My servant David—over one nation in the Land forever, with the sanctuary in their midst. This is not replacement. This is restoration.
Obadiah’s Fire and Flame Against Edom
Obadiah 1:18 places this reunion in the context of a final confrontation: “The house of Jacob shall be a fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau stubble; they shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau.” Jacob (Judah) is the fire. Joseph (Ephraim) is the flame. Together they consume Esau.
Our sages have long identified Esau with Rome and, by extension, with the Christian West that rode on Rome’s back. The Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox together still form the two largest Christian bodies on earth. Christianity did not merely inherit Rome’s power; it used Rome as the vehicle to conquer the world with a theology that removes the Jewish people from the center of God’s plan. Islam does the same with a different final revelation. Both systems claim the inheritance while declaring that the original covenant with Israel and the Land has been superseded.
In our day, the power center of that Edomite system has been the City of London and the network of European powers that drew the modern borders of the Middle East, created the Muslim Brotherhood, and controlled oil routes through the Strait of Hormuz. They also sold the same land to multiple claimants. Britain, France, Germany, and their allies are the kingdoms that have shaped the last two centuries. Spain’s leaders still speak against the Jewish state. The European Union, the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court have issued warrant after warrant and resolution after resolution against Israel. Jerusalem remains the most contested piece of real estate on earth precisely because every replacement theology has its eyes fixed on it.
The United States: The Open Question
Against this background stands one nation that, more than any other, still treats the Tanakh as the literal word of God, sends archaeologists to prove its truth, and continues to stand with Israel when almost every other nation has turned away. The United States represents only about four or five percent of the world’s population. Yet its Christian and Jewish communities together hold the overwhelming majority of Nobel prizes. After October 7, large numbers of Christians began questioning the foundations of their own religion as they watched the blood libels return and the prophecies they had been told would never happen unfold before their eyes.
DNA studies have repeatedly shown unexpected Jewish genetic signatures in early American populations, especially in regions such as Pennsylvania. Many families discovered ancestors who had forgotten they were Jewish and simply became Christians of one denomination or another. Is this the beginning of the return of those once called “not My people”?
If the United States is merely another expression of Edom, then it too will be judged. If it is Ephraim—the flame that stands with the fire of Judah—then the prophecy of the two sticks is already taking visible form. The evidence is not hidden. One set of nations consistently seeks to replace the Jewish people and deny their claim to the Land and to Jerusalem. Another nation, for all its flaws, still proclaims the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and refuses to abandon the Jewish state.
Presenting the Evidence and Leaving the Decision
This essay does not force a conclusion. It presents the evidence.
On one side stands the traditional identification of Edom with Rome and its modern political and religious extensions: the City of London, the European powers, the United Nations system, and the two great replacement theologies that still claim the inheritance while writing Israel out of the final plan.
On the other side stands the prophetic portrait of Ephraim: a people once lost among the nations, connected to the Torah and the prophecies, able to stand with Judah, and destined to become one stick with him under one king in the Land.
The reader must decide where the United States belongs. The same decision applies to every other nation that has joined itself against Israel and Jerusalem. The patterns set by the fathers continue to play out. The ten spies and the ten matei, the two faithful voices of Judah and Ephraim, the fire and the flame of Obadiah, and the two sticks of Ezekiel are no longer distant texts. Instead, they are the living map of our generation.
The sanctuary will stand among them forever. The nations will know that the Lord has made Israel holy. The only remaining question is which stick each of us chooses to hold.
Footnotes
- Numbers 13–14.
- Hosea 1:9–10; 2:23.
- Ezekiel 37:15–28.
- Obadiah 1:18.
- Bereishit Rabbah 42:2 and parallel midrashim on the four kingdoms.
- Traditional rabbinic identification of Edom with Rome (see, for example, the discussions in the Talmud and later midrashim, and the five-part series by Rabbi Ephraim Palvanov, “Understanding Edom”).
- Historical record of Sykes-Picot, the creation of modern Middle Eastern borders, and the role of the City of London in oil and finance.
- Trudy Gold, J-TV interview on the origins of the blood libel and Christianity’s use of Rome (quoted in full on beithashoavah.org).
- DNA studies of early American populations showing elevated Jewish genetic markers in certain regions.
- Post-October 7 public shifts among Christian audiences regarding the historicity of their own scriptures and the centrality of Israel.