Who Is Saudi Arabia in Bible Prophecy?

With the news that “Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz dies“, it is a good time to review just what Saudi Arabia’s future role will be.

Daniel 11 notes a struggle down through the ages and into the end times between two major powers: The King of the North and the King of the South. Identifying these powers as the main actors changed down through time can seem impossible, but there are enough clues to identify enough to recognize them when they appear on the scene.

It should be noted that as countries became empires, and empires became complicated alliances, geopolitics became more complex overall. However, alliances are nothing new. Even in the Book of Genesis, we see the Battle of the Four Kings Against the Five, even though all the “nations” listed were actually what we would today call city-states.

Empires were created either by conquest or treaty, but it was normally the former. However, even during the Roman Empire, politics was as often about alliances as it was about territory. Egypt maintained a high level of autonomy until the put down of the conspiracy of Cleopatra and Mark Antony changed that status with the Roman Empire.

Adolf Hitler’s attempt to re-establish a Holy Roman Empire also shows that alliances are a valid “kingdom” to rule over, for how many alliances are not dominated by one or two parties?

The final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire will in itself be ten kings who give their allegiance to one. Simply put, it will be an alliance based out of Europe.

Also, the location has changed over time. This is important. As long as the “north” and “south” portion are relative to Jerusalem, the center of power of the King of the North has shifted over time. It started in Babylon, which was swallowed up by the Medo-Persian Empire. BTW, Persia’s origins were from modern Iran. Iran in the past was of the empires controlled by the King of the North. Tehran, the capital city, is north and east of Jerusalem. Gerald Flurry cannot read a map. Saying Iran is the King of the South is not only unbiblical, it is stupid.

That really is the crux of the matter. There are a lot of good things that are taught and practiced within many of the Church of God organizations. However, there is also a lot of stupid in far too many of them.

While the King of the North started at Babylon, illustrated by the statue in the dream King Nebuchadnezzar had, the King of the South was not a force until after Alexander the Great died, and four major generals (and one minor one) took control of his empire. This boiled down to two major powers: The Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Persia and the east.  Then during the Roman Empire, it could be argued it was still Egypt pre-revolt by Antony.

Here is the interesting thing.  During the Diodachi wars, the area of Arabia was not involved.

Likewise, it never really became a part of the Roman Empire.

The Roman presence in Arabia had its foundations in the expansion of the empire under Augustus, and continued until the Arab conquests of Byzantine territory from the 7th century onward. Unlike many other territories, the Romans never managed to conquer Arabia proper.

 

~ Wikipedia, “Romans in Arabia“

Similarly, Saudi Arabia severed ties with Germany and Japan in 1939 and 1941 respectively, and they were officially neutral during WWII. However, they established diplomatic relations with the United States in 1943.

While I have speculated in the past that the King of the South could come from Saudi Arabia, history shows that is unlikely.  The Saudis have oil, and they have managed to stay out of a lot of past conflicts, giving them unusual stability for a region not known for stability.

Having said that, Wahhabism, the extreme sect of Islam held by Osama bin Laden and ISIS/ISIL, originated in Saudi Arabia.  The Bible indicates that religion will once again play a role in the end times, and even the King of the North at one point will proclaim himself as “God”.  The Beast power from the north is pictured as being ridden by an immoral woman who kills the saints, and she perfectly aligns with the actions of the Roman Catholic Church and its persecution of any and all who disagree with it.

Religion is not the King of the North.  Religion is not the King of the South.  Religion is not even a king.  A person is a king.  Anyone who claims or hints that Extremist Islam is the King of the South is a false prophet, Dr Bob teacher.

A kingdom, the COG has often acknowledged, must have a king, land, subjects and laws.  A king is a person who rules.  A king is not Egypt or Iran.  Those are countries.  People need to update their dictionaries.  Countries have rulers, often called kings.  Kings are people.

Saudi Arabia will probably initially try to stay neutral in all of the conflict, as it did in WWII.  It is highly unlikely that the King of the South will come from Saudi Arabia.

However, it appears that there will be two things that will unite groups together in the end time: Islam and hatred of the Jews.  Saudi Arabia might be the birth place of a very extreme form of Islam, but the kingdom and even the monarchy itself is very secular in comparison.  Power corrupts, and money talks, and oil money is the language of the monarchy.  So, Islam isn’t likely to pull Saudi Arabia into the fight, but the second item will, according to the Bible:

83 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.

² For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.

³ They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.

⁴ They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.

⁵ For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee:

⁶ The tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;

⁷ Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;

⁸ Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.

 

~ Ps 83:1-8

There are many commentaries that point out the Ishmael had several descendants, some of whom intermarried with Edom. However, the main power that came from Ishmael is acknowledged to be the Arabs, most who settled in the area of Saudi Arabia. Since they are descended from Hagar, they are at times called Hagarenes, although Ishmaelites, from her son Ishmael, is often also used. One such source is “Who is Saudi Arabia in the Bible?” by the Church of the Eternal God, which quotes previous Plain Truth articles by HWA.  Having said that, “Hagarenes” has not always applied to all Arabs, and as I have pointed out in earlier articles, “Hagarenes” seems to mainly apply to the Arabs who conquered Mesopotamia and Syria.  Having said that, the majority of Ishmaelites would have settled in modern Saudi Arabia.

When does this come to pass?  The Church has long believed it occurs in the end times, but beyond that,  it is pretty fuzzy.  For a time, all nations of the world will become subservient to a one-world government and one-world religion.  Almost all religious conflict in the world centers around Jerusalem.  I suspect that Jerusalem will come under the control of the King of the North, probably kicking off a seven year peace treaty that will inevitably be broken.  Since Assur, Germany, is mentioned as being in league with these other nations, it is likely that this will be at the beginning of this seven year period.

Edom, modern Turkey, tries to straddle the chasm between being Muslim and being part of Europe.  The area of Moab has pretty much been swallowed up by modern Saudi Arabia, and Ammon is Jordan.

When the King of the North throws off the religious system that helped to bring it to power, and he goes into Jerusalem and declares himself God, that will be too much for what is left of his alliance.  Notice in Daniel 11, many nations are passed over when the King of the North swoops in in retaliation for an unspecified offense, including portions under Saudi control, but Egypt does not escape.  Life Hope & Truth says about this:

While the Bible doesn’t give us the reason or reasons for the fighting or provide the specific identity of this “king of the South,” the ancient nations of Edom, Moab and Egypt are all mentioned in the prophecy (Daniel 11:41). Edom and Moab will escape the retaliation by the “king of the North,” while Egypt will not. It thus seems likely that a leader from Egypt may become the “king of the South” or that Egypt will be part of the group of nations representing this power.

 

~ Life Hope & Truth, “The King of the South“

It appears that Saudi Arabia will attempt to remain neutral right up until the end.  Unfortunately, no one will be able to, as Satan will call all powers left together at Armageddon in order to fight Jesus at His return.