More of MYSTERY BABYLON revealed...
In Genesis 3:15, God speaking to Satan ("that old serpent" - Rev.20:2), God told him He would put emnity between his seed, and the Seed of the woman. In Genesis 3 the Seed of the woman represents the family of Christ, God's people which He chose to bring His Salvation Promise through. That's when the battle lines were drawn between Satan and God's people for this present world.
Soon after that event, Satan used Cain to try and destroy that Seed of the woman, murdering Abel who was righteous before God. Satan's attack upon the Seed of the woman continued all the way down to the times of Baby Jesus, with Herod (an Idumean of Esau) trying to kill Christ when born through woman's womb.
Early in Genesis, God gave Abraham His Promise by Faith, and included certain lands on earth within that Promise. When it was time, God led the children of Israel, the children of the Promise, into those lands, crossing the Jordan with Joshua in charge. The Canaanites were already there in those lands to contest God's Will in His Promise to Abraham. Around 400 years prior, God had told Abraham that the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet full. The Amorites were one of those Canaanite nations. The Canaanites practised all sorts of pagan idolatry against The One True GOD of The Bible. They did human sacrifice of their children to false gods that are no gods. They practised sexual immorality in religious ritual form. Because of that, God told Israel to literally destroy all those Canaanite nations in that specific land, and leave alive nothing that breaths (Deut.20). But for other lands and peoples outside Canaan, Israel was to make peace.
In the process of Israel trying to obey God in that, certain Canaanites hid their identity as strangers and sojourners coming from a differrent land far away, dressing up in old tattered clothes with food that had wasted, and came to Israel under Joshua and asked for help, and to make a pact, and come in among the children of Israel to live. Joshua, believing their deception, agreed and made a pact with them. Then they were later discovered as Canaanites. Joshua kept his pact, but made those Canaanites hewers of wood, and drawers of water for the congregation of Israel. And they remained living among Israel (Joshua 9).
Per Judges 2 & 3, the children of Israel did not fulfill God's command to destroy all the nations of Canaan, but instead allowed the various Canaanite peoples to live among them. And for this reason, God said He would use them as a test upon Israel, to see if Israel would follow Him or not. So He left those nations among Israel.
In 1 Kings 9, in Solomon's days, those left of the nations of Canaan are mentioned by name, as bondservants to Israel, while the children of Israel were to perform other duties. In those days, some of those Canaanite bondservants became workers in the Temple in service of the Levitical priesthood. They were joined with other bondservants David and Solomon hired and traded with Hiram king of Tyre (Sidonians) - 2 Sam.5; 1 Kings 5. That began the connection of masons and skilled workers in metallurgy associated with Solomon's temple. One could say, that set the framework for the later trades guilds that grew the later Masonic traditions.
After God split the old kingdom of Israel into two separate kingdoms, a southern kingdom under the "house of Judah" and Solomon's son at Jerusalem, and a northern kingdom of ten tribes ("house of Israel") in the northern lands of Israel, God removed all the ten tribed northern kingdom into captivity to the Medes and Assyria. Then later the house of Judah also fell away from God, and He caused Jerusalem to be destroyed through the king of Babylon taking them into captivity to Babylon for seventy years. After the seventy years, a small remnant of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin returned to Jerusalem to build the second temple and city (Books of Ezra and Nehemiah). Returning with that small remnant of Judah and Benjamin were priests that could not find their genalogy among Israel, and also a group called Nethinims.
The word Nethinim was applied to those bondservants from Canaan that became Temple workers. They cut wood for the altar, carried water, cleansed the Temple and utensils used in Temple service (all Levitical priest duties). Ezra looked at the remnant returning from Babylon and saw none of the sons of Levi returning (Ezra 8). They had priests that were returning from Babylon, but they were not of Israel. So Ezra sent a head Nethinim back to Babylon to retreive sons of Levi for the priesthood. The meaning of some of the names of the sons of Levi that were brought back shows how the Levitical priesthood had sunken into oblivion by non-Israelites that had crept in. King Jeroboam over the ten tribes had made common priests of the people which helped cause the ten tribes to fall away from God and be scattered among the nations.
In Ezra 9, something worse had happenned to the house of Judah while captive to Babylon. Many of the people had taken wives of the Canaanites that dwelt among them, and were following the abominations of the Canaanites, the priests, Levites being guilty, and the princes and elders of Israel being chief violaters in that.
During the Babylon captivity was when the priesthood developed the Babylonian Talmud, a sage-like book of sayings only based on Torah traditions. Soon after that time is also when the main editors of Scripture became the duty of the scribes that dwelt at Jabez. In 1 Chronicles 2:55, we are told the families of the scribes were the Kenites. Per Genesis 15, the Kenites were a non-Israelite peoples that dwelt among the nations of Canaan, i.e., Canaanites.
That is a mystery which the New Testament writers knew about, and is why our Lord Jesus and His Apostles rebuked certain ones among the Jews, especially those who were followers of "the Jew's religion", a religion that had developed not in the days of Abraham, not in the days of Moses, not in the days of Joshua, not in the days of David, but in the days just prior to Judah's captivity to Babylon, and during the Babylon captivity, and thereafter. The "Jews' religion" Apostle Paul had been born into, and it caused him to persecute Christ's Church until Christ called him into His service.
These are the "...certain men crept in unawares..." Jude spoke of in Jude 1, "...who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ."
It's these that Apostle Paul warned of with tears day and night that grievous wolves would creep in among Christ's Church (Acts 20:28-31).
It's these that also exist among us in Christ's Churches today that want us to accept the idea of a utopian form of one world government of the 'now', without our Lord Jesus coming to do the setting up of His True Eternal Government and Kingdom. These "certain men crept in unawares" don't have authority from Christ to setup their planned global system over all nations. Christ Jesus is not part of their plan, for only Christ Jesus is LORD of lords, and KING of kings and is coming in Person to this earth to reign over all nations. Our Lord Jesus will setup His Throne here on earth as written. Their fake throne and kings they plan to setup on earth in the last days will fail. In time they will be visited by The Lord at His return to this earth with clouds. And in that time when Christ begins His reign, there will no more be the Canaanite in the House of The LORD of hosts (Zechariah 14:21).
