South Korea’s Military on High Alert
Flag of Korea, 1889
South Korea is quite concerned about what may happen in North Korea:
Washington Post – 20 December 2011
A plump young man now in his late 20s, Kim Jong Eun studied for a time in Switzerland at a German-speaking high school in Liebefeld, a suburb of the Swiss capital Bern. Former classmates remember a shy but determined boy obsessed with American basketball and expensive sports shoes. They say he spoke passable German and made some local friends, but was monitored closely by staff from the North Korean embassy in Bern.
South Korea has placed its military on high alert in response to Kim Jong Il’s death and the transfer of power, and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that North Korea had conducted at least one missile test Monday.
The North Korean politicians have often been playing a dangerous game with their country and their people.
Yet, biblical prophecy seems to suggest cooperation in Korea in the final time just prior to the return of Jesus Christ (Revelation 16:12). North Korea’s newest leader may inadvertently help get the Koreas to fulfill that prophetic passage. Thus, we may be at a time that is making some type of reconciliation (which does not necessarily have to come peaceably).
Origins of the Koreans
A Chinese tradition says that Korea came from a small kingdom within China:
Somewhere north of that vast region watered by the Sungari River, itself only a tributary to the Amur, there existed, according to Chinese tradition, in very ancient times, a petty kingdom called Korai, or To-li. Out of this kingdom sprang the founder of the Corean race…Arriving at their city, he became the king of the tribe and kingdom of Fuyu, which lay in the fertile and well-watered region between the Sun- gari River and the Shan Alyn, or Ever-White Mountains. It extended several hundred miles east and west of a line drawn southward through Kirin, the larger half lying on the west. Fuyu, as described by a Chinese writer of the Eastern Han dynasty (25 B.a-190 A.d.), was a land of fertile soil, in which ” the five cereals ” (wheat, rice, millet, beans, and sorghum) could be raised. The men were tall, muscular, and brave, and withal generous and courteous to each other. Their arms were bows and arrows, swords, and lances. They were skilful horsemen. Their ornaments were large pearls, and cut jewels of red jade. They made spirits from grain, and were fond of drinking bouts, feasting, dancing, and singing. With many drinkers there were few cups. The latter were rinsed in a bowl of water, and with great ceremony passed from one to another. They ate with chopsticks, out of bowls, helping themselves out of large dishes. It is a striking fact that the Fuyu people, though living so far from China, were dwellers in cities which they surrounded with palisades or walls of stakes. They lived in wooden houses, and stored their crops in granaries (Griffis, William Elliot. Corea, the hermit nation: I. Ancient and mediæval history. II. Political and social Corea. III. Modern and recent history 8th Edition. C. Scribner’s sons, 1907, pp. 19,21).
To learn more about where the Chinese may have come from, please see the article China, Its Biblical Past and Future, Part 1: Genesis and Chinese Characters
Koreans have their own tradition about where they come from:
Korean legends say that Tangun, who lived in the 2300’s B.C., was the father of the Korean civilization. Korea developed by itself until Kija, an exile from China, led about 5,000 followers to Korea in 1122 B.C. He founded a kingdom called Chosen (Hu, Charles Y. Korea. World Book Encyclopedia, 50th edition, Volume 11. Chicago, p. 296)
Chosen is also spelled Chosun and means Morning Calm. One of Japheth’s son had a name that ended with an “n” (Javan) and it may be possible that the Koreans may have partially descended from one of his descendants.
An account penned in the nineteenth century appears to claim that the Koreans (called Corea below) descended from Gomer through Ashkenaz:
According to the Tartars and Orientals, the Chinese are descended from Tchin, or Gin, the son of Japheth, and brother of Tarag, or Turk, from whom came the Turkmans. Tchin is the Ashchenaz of Scripture, the son of Gomer : and Turk is Toragmah, the brother of Ashchenaz. The Orientals call all grandsons, sons. Another division of the descendants of Aschenaz or Atchinez—as his name was pronounced in the following parts—migrated across the Imaus mountains, now the great Altai and Changai. These people spread to a vast extent, till they reached the Pacific Ocean. They formed the following nations :—
First.—The Issedones, about the river Etchine, on the borders of China and the Desert of Thamo.
Second.—The “Kin Tartars, inhabiting the territory round the north of Corea, and along the shores of the Pacific Ocean…
Tonkin, Cochin-China, Tciampa, Laos or Schan States, and Cambodia, anciently formed part of the Chinese Empire, the name of which was Tchin, so called from Atchinez, from which the names of nearly all these countries are derived.
(Source: Painter, John Thomas. Ethnology: or The history & genealogy of the human race: Or, The History & Genealogy of the Human Race. Baillière, Tindall & Cox, 1880 Original from Oxford University Digitized Jul 3, 2006, p. 106)
Some within Church of God circles have also speculated that the Chinese and Koreans have descended from Magog (e.g. Generations of Japheth. Church of God News. Chicago District, 1965). On this point, I have not seen convincing evidence–but am simply not sure either way. It is not impossible that perhaps some descendants from Magog intermarried with some of the descendants of Ashkenaz and likely Javan.
Since Japheth means “expansion” (which the orientals have done in terms of numbers) I believe that the oriental races (and some of the Caucasians), including the Koreans somehow descended from Japheth–but specifically through whom is harder to determine. The Korean language was originally written using Hanja (Chinese characters) pronounced in the Korean way.
The Koreans are Asians and occupy the “land of the sunrise” and I believe that they are part of the kings of the east that the Book of Revelation discusses having a role in the end time.
Two articles of possibly related interest would include the following:
Korea in Prophecy, Any Witness? Does God have a plan for the Koreans? Is Korea mentioned in any prophecies? Will Koreans be among the first in the Kingdom of God? 한국의 언어로 : 한국 예언, 모든 증인에?
Asia in Prophecy What is Ahead for Asia? Who are the “Kings of the East”? What will happen to nearly all the Chinese, Russians, Indians, Koreans, and others of Asia? China in prophecy, where? Who has the 200,000,000 man army related to Armageddon?
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