Ezekiel 20:43: There you shall remember your ways, and all your doings, in which you have polluted yourselves; and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed.
I had been contemplating for some days about the Yoruba traditional religion, particularly about the “personality” called ELA, the number 16, the Irunmole, and the Yoruba calendar otherwise known as Kojoda. I had wondered why and how it seemed that a of the people had forgotten or failed to consider the reason for the observance of their traditional practices. Rather, they seem okay with an attitude of “we inherited them from our ancestors”.
I had also studied the migration of the Yoruba and Ijebu peoples from the east, Canaan/Levant to be exact. Many want to deny this fact or think themselves too intellectually lazy to investigate. Yet there are many proofs relating to pointers like etymology and cultural anthropology that confirm the migration. The German anthropologist Dierk Lange, an emeritus professor of African History, has shown that the Yoruba people are the people of Israel who were deported from Assyria and migrated to West Africa.
Then, either on the 29th of August or 1st of September 2011, I had an argument with my dad concerning our understanding of the Word. This was after telling him the Yoruba/Ifa story concerning the establishment of the 7-day week.
Suddenly, it happened. The thought was distinctly “dropped” into my mind/heart and I was troubled. Rather, I was terrified. This is what was directed to me:
YESHUA ESHU
The name on the left is the Hebrew for the Son of God – erroneously taught worldwide as Jesus. That on the right is of the supposedly Yoruba trickster “divinity” who rebelled against God (some accounts say the rebel was actually Olosi and not Eshu) and was thus expelled from heaven, according to the Ifa literary corpus. If the first and last letters of the name YESHUA are removed we have ESHU which when spelled using present-day Yoruba alphabets is EṢU. Could this be just a coincidence? Coincidence can be ruled out given the Yoruba migration from Canaan. I was all the more upset as I am not given to judgment and condemnation without reason. I remembered the Ifa account of how Ela supposedly became the most senior of all the Irunmole after an act of love, humility, proactiveness and responsibility. I also called to mind how this same Ela or another who was the son of Moremi (said to be linguistically similar to Miriam/Mary) ascended to heaven of his own accord and saves man.
So I prayed to God about what I thought to be a dilemma for me as I knew HE did not see it as such — I wanted to be sure about the source of the thought. The following day I wanted to read part of the Book of Ezekiel (his hair had locks; Yoruba people and “blacks” possess this unique hair type). If I remember correctly I first opened my Bible to a passage from the Book of Jeremiah and these two verses immediately caught my attention:
“Jeremiah 23:26: How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, even the prophets of the deceit of their own heart?
Jeremiah 23:27: who think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.”
That was the answer to my prayer — Israel was forgetting the name of God for that of Baal. I still was not totally sure but I then remembered that a particular Yoruba cult, that of Shango (Ṣango) who is said to have been a king (Alaafin) of the former Oyo Empire and who is also worshiped by members of that cult depict him as holding a bifid axe in the same posture as Baal. It seems many of such devotees spend more time extolling extolling the likes of Ṣango that they’ve forgotten the name of God the Father. This is not surprising as it is like a repetition of history.
The Ewe who are one with the Yoruba and acknowledge Ile-Ifẹ as their home, refer to God Most High as Mawu. Curiously, the Yoruba word for cattle is Malu, and Jeroboam caused his people to worship a calf as their creator (1 Kings 12:26-30; 17:16; 2 Chronicles 11:15); likewise Aaron Exodus 32). If the etymologies of Mawu and Malu prove that the words are cognates perhaps Israel abandoned the calf-worship but forgot the divine name.
Could it be that sometime after the emigration of Israel from Assyria that there was a deliberate and perhaps political attempt by some Yoruba cultural custodians via substituting and flipping names in order to prevent their people from remembering their home in the Levant? Such happened before during the reign of Jeroboam (1 Kings 12:26-33; 13:33) and could account for the non-recollection of the name of God among the Yoruba, especially custodians like Ifa priests.
I shuddered to think of the implications. If indeed there was a name substitution — YESHUA / ESHU — and they are truly cognates then the Holy Bible as written in Yoruba language would need to be edited appropriately if the devil is named as Eshu therein. Perhaps the name substitution could account also for the “organized chaos” and stunted growth that seem to be prevalent within Yoruba land and amongst Yoruba peoples today. Prayers, preaching, discussions and the likes within the society including religious institutions would need to be modified accordingly. There is hope for the lost sheep of Israel in confessing the name of God Most High as some of the lost seep like the Nigerian philologist Modupe Oduyoye have studied the Ewe/Yoruba dialects and noted the word Yehve/Yevheh/Yihve.
Nevertheless the questions that need to be answered to put this name substitution hypothesis to rest is:
- What is the meaning of the name (if it is a name and not an epithet) EṢU?
- What are the etymologies of Mawu and Malu?
Fascinating!
The oldest layer of the biblical material is certainly African and encompasses west central Africa and the Nile, so I believe that you are correct. The oldest layers certainly were not in Hebrew which is a relatively recent language. Arabic is much older and closer to Hausa.
The Genesis material was probably brought together more or less the way it is today in the time of King David (about 1000 BC).
I have lived in Nigeria almost all my life and one thing that baffles me is the apparent nonchalance of the fellow Nigerians who I have interacted with towards the origin and reasons for various traditional practices. An example is the practice of naming children. It seems also that many speakers of Nigerian languages do not bother to know the root/meaning of the words they speak. For instance, the Yoruba people have what I see as some of the most beautiful titles for YHWH, perhaps even more beautiful than that found in English.
The attitude has been mostly that of: “It requires a lot of deep thought which I fear I cannot handle” or “One could go mad thinking of such” or “You are reading/thinking too much which is not good for the brain”.
The Igbo also mention “Ekwensu” but I wonder if at all I would meet any Igbo-speaking person who knows the meaning of that word.
Alas, I do not yet know how to speak my mother tongue(s), i.e. Yoruba and Ijebu. I don’t yet have the technical skills that you use for dissection but I believe that the Holy Spirit can inspire and guide a individual who loves YHWH to produce works of quality.
Furthermore, the impression I had when growing up was that the Book of Genesis was written by Moses.
The Rabbis of old perpetuated the idea that Genesis was written by Moses, and that is certainly possible since Moses and his family were Horites and would have known the customs of Abraham’s Horite ancestors.
I’ve learned to be a little suspicious of rabbinic tradition when it comes to the Old Testament, however. The rabbis have done much damage to the fabric of the text in their attempt to cut Christ out of Genesis.
I just hope they did not edit the text. By the way, since I published the essay my macbook's performance waned and it later crashed, hence my delayed response. Some other things happened as well and I had no backup. Nevertheless. ALL IS WELL.
I’m glad that you are back online.
There is some evidence of rabbinic editing, but it is easy to detect because it is a late overlay on very ancient material and designed to position one group of people as the rightful owners of the land. The Zionist tone characterizes the rabbis’ work. There was no reason for Abraham to take this attitude since his Horite people were rulers in the heartland of Canaan. Bethlehem was a Horite holding.
The Yorua word for father is “BABA”. This is similar to “Abba” as mentioned in Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6. Recently, I have wondered if BABA is the real translation.
It is “abba” in Hebrew and “appa” in Dravidian. Both languages are related to the ancient Egyptian. You will find many similarities between languages of Yoruba peoples and ancient Egyptian also. Here is an example: ir.t – Egyptian word for eye; compare to Yoruba iri – to see.
I guess I got overexcited. Baale is sort of the Yoruba equivalent of Lord as used in the United Kingdom. However the word seems to be absent in Yoruba titles for GOD unlike in English.
Baal means lord, but isn’t really a name for God. “El” is the oldest known name for God in the Hebrew Bible. It is related to the name Ala (usually spelled Allah in English).
Another Hebrew word for lord is “adonai” and it is used to describe both God and human rulers.
Yoruba tradition has it that Ela is derived from the name Orunmila which has been said to be a contraction of Orun lo mo atila, meaning “only Heaven knows who will be saved.”
The Yoruba Baale means father of the land. Hence the word Baale must be a contraction of Baba Ilẹ since baba and ilẹ are translated as father and earth/land/ground respectively. I wonder if this is the actual meaning of lord and ba’al is father of the land. If that is the meaning of baal would it then be equivalent to adonai? An answer in the negative should justify the excision of lord from Biblical texts.
I think that you are exactly right. Ela and El are cognates, meaning God. Baale and Baal are cognates also. Each tribe or clan had a name for their patron spirit. This spirit was regarded as a deified ancestor and offerings were given at the regional shrines. That said, all the baales were subservient to the High God who was the Father over all. When the rulers in Jerusalem sought to concentrate the worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem they set about to destroy the local shrines and baales.
Interesting site. Please add me to your mailing list.
I’ve sent an invitation to your email.
Compromising my blog can’t and won’t stop me!
An interesting discussion about (Esu (Yoruba), Shu (Egyptian) and Yeshua (Hebrew)) very much related to this blog entry can be read at
http://destee.com/index.php?threads/differences-in-kemetic-theology.31493/page-14
Here’s a glimpse as submitted by imhotep06:
There’s an interesting article on the misrepesentation of Esu in Yorubaland today: “Esu: The Revenge Of Bishop Ajayi Crowther”
http://saharareporters.com/article/esu-revenge-bishop-ajayi-crowther
Fascinating!
The word “Pope” is also derived from the word bridge – pontus, in Latin. I thought of this when I learned that Pope Shenouda III, the head of the Coptic Church, died recently.