On July 4, 1776, the thirteen American colonies declared their independence from the British throne. Their delegates believed that God endows all people with certain divine and unalienable rights, which the king had repeatedly ignored. His violations not only threatened their liberty, but jeopardized God's plan for the new land they were beginning to settle.

Chief among their complaints was the heavy taxation the king exacted. The monies his levies raised not only paid for the administration of a colonial government, including the posting of an army for protection, but they filled his treasury with unnecessary riches. What galled the colonists was that the taxes were assessed without their input. The throne could extract whatever wealth from Americans it wanted, and for whatever reason, without granting them the courtesy of even token representation. While the king claimed them as his subjects, he refused to extend the same rights to them that he gave native Britons.

Sometimes the taxes appeared quite arbitrary, as if they were intentionally enacted to oppress the colonists. Americans could easily believe that the king was anxious to rob them of every possession they laboriously forged from a difficult and sometimes hostile frontier. Resentment increased. Bostonians threw the tea the king taxed into the harbor instead of paying the assessment imposed upon it. New Englanders faced death to defy the Stamp Act. Americans began to demand a voice before the imposition of any new taxes. Their motto became, "No taxation without representation." When their requests went unheeded, they declared their independence to avoid, at least in part, paying unnecessary and sometimes humiliating tribute to the throne.

Generations before, the Hebrews had a similar situation. King Solomon had taxed all Israel to support his extensive administration and build his lavish palaces. Most of the economic benefits of his levies fell to the people living in or near his capital, which was Jerusalem. More distant regions foWld the taxes excessive because their costs exceeded their benefits.

After Solomon's death representatives from Israel approached his successor and son, King Rehoboam. They requested that he ease their financial burden. The Bible recounts, "Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came, and spake unto Rehoboam, saying, Thy father made our yoke grievous: now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee" (1 Kings 12:3-4). His youthful advisors persuaded Rehoboam to reject their plea. Unwilling to submit to oppressive taxes, ten tribes rebelled. Only the tribes of Judah and Benjamin supported the king. The rest declared their independence from the throne of David.

Irish tradition reports that about 585 BC, at the time Babylon led Judah into captivity, a "notable man" named Ollam Folla, which is Hebrew for "revealer" or "prophet," came to Ulster. He was accompanied by a scribe whose name was Breck, Brach, or Barach, depending on the translation, the daughter of an eastern king named Tea- Tephi, which in Hebrew means "daughter of the king," and her attendants. Among other things he also brought a harp and a stone. He married the accompanying princess to King Herremon upon the stone he carried. The British claim the stone, which still sits underneath the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, is the same stone Jacob first anointed at Bethel (Genesis 28: 18-19) and later gave to the tribe of Joseph (Genesis 49:24). The harp of David has been the royal arms of Ireland ever since. These and other facts led J. H. Allen, a Methodist Bishop, to conclude at the turn of the century that the throne of England is the continuation of David's throne and that the British monarch is a descendant of that ancient king.

Other evidence testifies that many settlers of Northwestern Europe were descendants of the northern tribes of Israel that rebelled against King Rehoboam and were exiled by the Assyrian several centuries later to northern Iran. The exiled Hebrews formed the nation of Scythia. Population pressures, primarily from China, gradually forced its citizens north and west. Since their migration from Scythia was piecemeal, specific Hebrew tribes became prominent in the various migrating bands and the nations subsequently descending from them. The prominent tribe among those settling England was the tribe of Ephraim, the same tribe to which Jacob gave his stone and of which Jeroboam, the leader of the Israelite rebellion, was a member.

When Americans rebelled against English rule, they were replaying a more ancient revolution. The English were the prominent nationality. among Americans. Ephraimites were prominent among the English. Ephraimites led the rebellion against the throne of David. English Americans led the revolt against the modem successor to the throne of David, the throne of England. The resentment by both Americans and Israelites to unfair taxation led to their respective declarations of independence. Both revolutions were prophesied by God.

The reason God scattered the exiled Israelites to Northwestern Europe and the British Isles was so they could recuperate from their transgressions. Isaiah said, "Keep silence before me, 0 islands; and let the people renew their strength" (Isaiah 42:1). In the British Isles descendants of Israel recovered from their pagan practices by embracing the gospel of Christ and the freedom of the Reformation. When strengthened, they flourished into a global power. Isaiah addressed them again, saying, "Listen O isles, unto me" (Isaiah 49:1). He went on to say, "For thy waste and desolate places, and the land of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed thee up shall be far away. The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, the place is too strait for me: give place to me that I may dwell" (Isaiah 49:20-21). In England the descendants of Ephrairn were far from their Assyrian conquerors and the Babylonians and Persians who later swallowed their Scythian nation. They lived on islands near many straits. As they grew into a world wide power, their citizens outgrew their homeland. They could no longer all occupy the inheritance given them by Moses. Neither could they remain confined to the British Isles. They began populating America, but lost it when it declared its independence. The prophesy states, "The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say... give place to me that I may dwell." After England lost America, its need to provide colonies for its citizens scattered them throughout the isles of the earth.

God separated Israel from the throne in Judah to fulfill the prophesy of Ahijah. He separated America from the throne in England to fulfill the prophesy of Isaiah. God has appointed America to be a refuge for the outcasts of the earth. Under its freedom He will gather the dispersed of Israel. "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand a second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea" (Isaiah 11: 11). Many of the places Isaiah mentioned were sites in Scythia. Some of their descendants have already been pushed to the "land of the tree." Under its banner God will join them to the faithful so they can welcome the Savior when he returns in clouds of glory to rule upon his throne.