~part 20 of 23~
Standing on God’s Word

The point in going through all this is threefold: To show that 1) there are myriad problems in pinning down exactly what happened in the transfer of the throne from Judah to Ireland and in specifically identifying those involved; but that 2) be that as it may, problems in identification do not negate the possibility that Jeremiah saw to it that Zedekiah’s daughter married into the Milesian line that ruled or would rule Ireland. And 3) the fact that the information available to us can fit any number of workable scenarios actually strengthens the likelihood that Jeremiah did carry out his commission in the way we are generally postulating that he must have according to Scripture.

Pat Gerber, the University of Glasgow lecturer cited earlier, remains unconvinced of any links at all between Ireland and the line of David. But notice what she says: "No serious historian would dare to suggest that Zedekiah’s daughter Tea could have married the Irish King Eochaid the Heremon. And yet—it is not impossible . . ." (p. 50).

She goes on to say: "Dare we link Simon Brech with Jeremiah’s scribe Baruch, connect Tara with the Princess Tea who had passed through Egypt as the guest of Pharaoh on her flight from Nebuchadnezzar, the sole survivor of David’s line? Could she have been given the eponymous name ‘Scota’ by later writers because she wed Eochaid the Heremon, became Queen of the ‘Scots’ as the Irish were then known, and mother to a royal Irish-Scottish dynasty? Probably not—but because none of this is either provable or disprovable as yet, we are free to dream" (p. 50).

However, in general this is surely no dream. For much more is actually provable than what she and others give credit to—particularly in Scripture. Indeed, there is much information in even the Irish annals that fit the facts we definitely know. Yet these are certainly murky waters as we’ve seen, and the links we draw may well be dream and conjecture at times.

Whatever we do, we must be careful not to treat the chronicles of Ireland or those of other nations as Scripture too—expecting them to be infallible. On the contrary, they may contain major blunders and even be all mixed up as we’ve seen. Some of Ireland’s history derives from bardic oral traditions. It is just not reasonable to place too much stock in everything they have to say.

Yet it should encourage us that, in sifting the information, it can be reconciled with the general understanding we have. And what understanding is that? In this case—based on scriptures explaining Jeremiah’s commission and extrapolating backward from clearly fulfilled Bible prophecy regarding the identity of Israel today—that Jeremiah must have gone to Ireland, that he took one of Zedekiah’s daughters at least part of the way, and that she must have married into what was or what became the Irish royal line (either in Ireland itself or in Spain or somewhere else in the process of transferring the throne to Ireland).

It frankly doesn’t matter if this fact is nowhere accounted for in the Irish annals. Of course, we would expect it to be—and it seems likely that it was, based on what we’ve seen. But perhaps Jeremiah and the Hebrew princess are not mentioned as being in Ireland at all. Perhaps her marriage into the throne of Ireland was accomplished with little or no fanfare at all. No matter.

The important thing to realize is that the prophet was there—and that Zedekiah’s daughter did marry into the Milesian royal line. Otherwise Jeremiah went to a great deal of trouble for no reason at all. Moreover, God said through Ezekiel that it would be done—and He used the same language as that in Ezekiel’s prophecy to describe Jeremiah’s commission. We may safely assume then—if we believe God—that Jeremiah completed the transfer of the Davidic throne from Judah to Israel. And if we accept the prophecy about the three overturns as valid, then Jeremiah must have secured the marriage of Zedekiah’s daughter into the royal lineage of Irish kings.

Our proof rests on God’s Word and verifiable history. We must accept these sure facts as a solid foundation. Irish traditions and fragmentary historical details can then be viewed in this light—and that indeed does seem to fill in some interesting and supportive details.

We may repeat the words of F.R.A. Glover, who wrote at length about this subject in the 19th century: "I have . . . no desire to encumber my hypothesis, with any argument, as to whether the Ollam Fodhla of Irish Tradition is, or is not a mistake for Jeremiah the Prophet. I feel that the case of the presence of the illustrious Seer in Ireland is made out on other grounds; that, indeed, he must have been the transporter of the Stone [of Destiny], the conductor of ‘the King’s Daughters’ and the planter of the Standard of Judah, in Ireland. I was satisfied of this, long before I heard a word of the Legend, of his having been Instructor to the great warrior Finn McCoyle, or even of the existence of this Ollam Fola" (England, the Remnant of Judah, and the Israel of Ephraim, 1861).

© 2002 United Church of God, an International Association