The Connection Between Moses and Bini and Yoruba Peoples

The ALTERNATIVE With Reno Omokri
Reading Scripture in just the King James Version of the Bible is one of the most injurious things you can do to your faith as a believer, because quite frankly, that version is misleading. Whether that is deliberate or inadvertent is another matter.

I have written copiously about this, but some of these things keep repeating.

Take for example a verse like Isaiah 45:11. The King James Version renders that verse as a command, which gives its reader the impression that God wants us to command Him about the works of His Hands.

But are we to command God? Elsewhere in the same Book of Isaiah, we are rightly told that to command God is an abomination (Isaiah 29:16).

The truth is that Isaiah 45:11 is meant to be rendered as a question not as a command.

It is not meant to be

“Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.”

It is meant to be ‘concerning the work of my hands command ye me?’

And if you read that verse in other translations, the error of the King James Version is corrected.

Thus, in the New International Version, that verse reads:

“This is what the Lord says—
the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker:
Concerning things to come,
do you question me about my children,
or give me orders about the work of my hands?”

And in the English Standard Version, it reads:

“Thus says the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him:
“Ask me of things to come;
will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?”

There are many such verses which give a misleading interpretation in the KJV, and I urge my readers to read up on my previous works on this issue.

But today, I want to talk about Moses. I was having a discussion with a famous evangelical pastor and he told me Moses was married to a woman from modern-day Ethiopia, and I told him he was wrong.

He then cited Numbers 12:1, which in the King James Version reads:

“And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.”

Sadly, this very popular and respected man of God had never read Scripture in the original languages and relies on translations, which is why he has been misled.

I read Scripture in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, and Numbers 12:1 in the original language does not say Moses married an Ethiopian woman. The Hebrew word used is Cush, meaning Black.

The proper translation of the verse is that Moses married a Black woman.

Now, why did the King James Version use the word Ethiopian?

It is because in 1611 when the King James Version was translated, the word African was not in common usage. The word for Africa was Ethiopia. And the word for all Black people was Ethiop.

Everybody used that term, including Shakespeare, who wrote the play Romeo and Juliet in 1595. In that play, he wrote:

“Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.”

Go to a dictionary or encyclopaedia and check the meaning of the word Ethiope or Ethiop. This is what you will get:

“The terms Aethiops, Ethiop, or Ethiope are archaic words for a dark-skinned person.”

Scholars of Scripture understand that when the Old Testament of what is called The Bible in Christendom makes reference to the nation that is known today as Ethiopia, the term used is Seba or Sheba. This is evident in Psalms 72:10; Isaiah 43:3; 45:14 as well as the entire chapters of 1 Chronicles 9 and 1 Kings 10.

In the Quran, modern-day Ethiopia is known as Saba. There is even a whole chapter in the Quran about Saba.

It is only in the New Testament (written centuries after the Old Testament) that Ethiopia was used to refer to what is today the modern nation of Ethiopia in a few verses of Acts chapter eight.

The term Ethiopian (or Ethiope in the works of Shakespeare) referred not to a person from Sheba, but to a person of the Black Race and we see proof for this in Jeremiah 13:23:

“Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard take away its spots?”

In translating that verse some other translations (Holman, Young) use the word ‘Cushite’ instead of Ethiopian. Cush simply means a Black person. One translation (Aramaic Bible in Plain English) even translates it as “Indian”.

But, why is all this important?

Because of Moses. You see, Moses was tutored by his wife’s father, who taught him much of what he knew about God. We see this in Exodus 18:24:

“Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said.”

So, who was this man, who mentored Moses, if he was not from modern-day Ethiopia?

To understand this, we need to also understand that the most ancient Egyptians were not White or Arabs, they were Black.

And this is actually in Scripture. The word Egypt does not exist in Scripture. The word used in the original Hebrew is actually Mizraim. Please do not take my word for it. Research it yourself.

According to Scripture, Ham is one of the sons of Noah and in Genesis 10:6, his offspring were recorded as Cush (meaning Black), Mizraim (of whom the actual Egypt is named after) Phut and Canaan, who are interpreted as having populated Africa and adjoining parts of Asia. Scripture refers to Egypt as “the land of Ham” in Psalms 78:51; 105:23,27; 106:22; 1 Chronicles 4:40.

In the Quran, the word used to describe Egypt is Misra.

Now, note that Moses was not a Hebrew name. It is a name from Mizraim (Egyptian name), given to Moses by Pharaoh’s daughter (Exodus 2:10).

You and I call him Moses, because we first read about him in an English or European language based Bible, but in Amharic he is known as Muse or Mose. In Hebrew he is known as Moshe.

Why is that important? Because one of the Pharaoh’s of Mizraim, who has been proved to be Black (obvious from his statue in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo), is Thutmose.

Another Black Pharaoh was Amenhotep, whose wife was also Black, and named Tiye. The biggest statue in the Egyptian Museum is the statue of Queen Tiye and her husband Amenhotep III. I did a video in front of the statue, it is on YouTube.

The name of Tiye’s mother was Yuya. The name of her husband’s mother was Mutemwiya.

Tiye’s son, who succeeded his father as Pharaoh was Akhenaten, who was succeeded by Smenkhare. These were all Black people. The name of the god they worshiped is Amun.

In fact, the word Amen, which we use in Christianity, is believed to originate from the word Amun. Amen is a tense of Amun. For example Amenhotep simply means Amun is satisfied. So, when you sacrifice to the god Amun, if he was pleased, his priest would say Amen, meaning Amun is satisfied. Please research these by yourself. Do not just believe me.

I have been to the modern nation of Ethiopia 14 times. None of these names correspond to their ancient languages (Ge’ez, Tigrinya or Amharic).

But if you look at these names, they correspond almost word for word, and alphabet for alphabet to Edekiri (the real name of the language wrongly called Yoruba) language, because Iye means mother in Bini (Benin), which is an Edekiri language, and Iya means mother in Yoruba (another Edekiri language).

Now, go back to the names of the wives of mothers of the Pharaohs I listed above. They either end with Iye, or Iya, or Uya.

Now, look at these names Akhenatan, Smenkhare, Amun. If you are Bini (I am not Bini, but I have studied Bini culture) they will be very familiar to you.

In fact, till today, there are modern-day Bini names that correspond in pronunciation, meaning and etymology to these names, including Amun (often used as a hyphenated name, such as Giwa-Amun, etc).

Look at the name Smenkhare. It corresponds with many Bini names such as Nehikhare, or Nosakhare.

Even take the name of the Pharaoh Akhenaten, it corresponds to many Bini names, including Akenzua, the grandfather of the present Oba of Benin. In fact, the word Akhenatan is still in use in Bini language today. Akhe no ton in Edo (Bini) language means ‘Hot Pot’, and Archaeologists and Egyptologists say Akhenatan means hot for Aten, or effective for Aten. You connect the dots.

Many Black Africans would be surprised to learn that the Oba of Benin actually had a full-scale pyramid in his palace before it was destroyed by the British, during their invasion of the Benin empire in 1897. Why would the British destroy a pyramid? What quarrel did they have with it? I do not know. I can only theorise that they did it because it upset their version of history with regards to the ancient Egyptian pyramids.

Let me further surprise, or perhaps shock you. You may recall that when the ancient Israelites were dying of snake bites in the wilderness, the Scriptural Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole and anyone who looked at it was saved from death (see Numbers 21:9).

Well, a similar structure, a snake coiled on a pole, was carved onto the pyramid in front of the Oba of Benin’s palace, before the pyramid was destroyed. Go on Google, and type in Oba of Benin pyramid, and you will see a photograph of the pyramid taken by a missionary before it was destroyed.

That picture taken by the missionaries of the pyramid before it was destroyed is now in a museum.

Moses taught Aaron, his brother, the art of divination, also known as casting of lots. We see this in his instruction from God to Aaron in Exodus 28:30, which reads:

“Also put the Urim and the Thummim in the breastpiece, so they may be over Aaron’s heart whenever he enters the presence of the LORD. Thus Aaron will always bear the means of making decisions for the Israelites over his heart before the LORD.”

For those who do not know what Urim and Thummim are, these are divination beads. Please do not take my word for it. Research it yourself.

David also regularly practiced divination (casting the lot).

We see this in 1 chronicles 24:31

“They also cast lots, just as their relatives the descendants of Aaron did, in the presence of King David and of Zadok, Ahimelek, and the heads of families of the priests and of the Levites. The families of the oldest brother were treated the same as those of the youngest.”

The land of Canaan was divided amongst the tribes of Israel by divination.

Numbers 26:55 reads:

“But the land shall be divided by lot. They shall receive their inheritance according to the names of the tribes of their fathers.”

Even in the New Testament, the disciples of our Lord and Saviour used divination to choose a successor to Judas Iscariot.

In Acts 1:26 we read:

“Then they cast lots, and the lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the eleven apostles.”

This practice of casting lots, is a very ancient and still common practice amongst the Jebu or Ijebu people of Nigeria, and the Bini people specifically, and amongst the descendants of Oduduwa.

Just as the Jewish priests use beaded jewels known as Urim and Thumim, so do the Jebu or Ijebu, the Bini and the Omo Oduduwa use beads for their divination.

I do not want to draw conclusions for you. But research these things you have read here and draw your own conclusions.