Tel Arad: The Citadel and Tabernacle of King David, the true and historical Mt. Zion

by Francis J. Ward & Francis P. Ward

The ancient Israelite stronghold of Tel Arad provides a series of very compelling clues as to the possible identity of the Messiah-Savior-Redeemer-Christ who is coming back to save the world.  In this article, we are going to reveal The Citadel and Tabernacle of King David, the true and historical Mt. Zion, and the only ever-discovered House of Yahweh in the land of Israel, but more importantly, we are going to expose the reasons why this knowledge has been hidden for thousands of years, and outline the keys for overthrowing the criminal tyranny of the New World Order.

The ancient Israelite settlement of Tel Arad is located west of the Dead Sea, about 10km west of modern Arad, in an area surrounded by mountain ridges known as Arad Becken.  According to several researchers and archaeologists, the true and historical Mt. Zion has finally been located at Tel Arad, which in turn carries the family name of the senior branch of the Druids—i.e., Arad, Ward or Mac an Bhaird.[1]   Besides Mt. Zion, some biblical scholars maintain that Tel Arad is also “The Citadel” and Tabernacle of King David, and “the only ever-discovered House of Yahweh in the land of Israel.” 

In an article entitled “The Two Jerusalems”, Joel Rosenberg of 24-7 Israel summarized the evidence that there were two Jerusalems, one inhabited by the Amorites, and the other inhabited by the Jebusites:[2]   

According to the Tanakh, there were two locations called Jerusalem: 

·        One inhabited by the Amorites (Joshua 10:5), and the other inhabited by the Jebusites (Joshua 15:63; Judges 1:21).

·        One in the mountains (Joshua 10:6) and the other surrounded by mountains (Psalm 125:2; Nehemiah 8:15).

·        One the Children of Israel conquered when they entered the land of Israel (Judges 1:8) and the other was took by King David some 300 years later (2 Samuel 5:7; 1 Chronicles 11:5).

·        One in the mount of Ephraim (Genesis 33:18; Genesis 14:18; Joshua 18:1; Judges 4:5) and the other just north of Rimmon, which is in the southern part of Judah and the inheritance of Simeon.  (Joshua 19:7-8; Zechariah 14:10; Joshua 15:21-32).  

Therefore, reasonably two questions come to mind: Which one is the modern city Jerusalem that we all know? And where is the other Jerusalem? 

Isaiah 64:10 states that Zion and Jerusalem were two different cities:  “Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.” 

The word “Zion” appears for the first time in the Bible, and according to Ahmed Osman, “Zion” is defined as the “holy place in the desert”:[3] 

. . . it is not an original Hebrew word but consists of two elements, one Hebrew, the other Egyptian. The Hebrew first element, “Zi,” means “a land of drought, a barren place”. It is the Egyptian element whose meaning has hitherto escaped recognition.  “On” is the biblical name of the ancient Egyptian holy city known from Greek as Heliopolis . . . when “Zi” and “On” were joined together has served to obscure the original meaning of the name–the On (holy place) of the desert.

Tell Arad’s location in the eastern Negev Desert would attest to “Zion” meaning the “holy place in the desert”.

Below are a series of pictures from Tel Arad.  As you will see, the archaeological remains of Tel Arad correspond with remarkable precision to the Bible and the Jewish historian Josephus’ written descriptions of Mt. Zion and the Citadel and Tabernacle of King David.  The citadel and sanctuary at Tel Arad were constructed at the time of King David and Solomon, and according to the great archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni (1919-1976), Tel Arad is “the only ever-discovered ‘House of Yahweh in the land of Israel”. 

Figure 1 – According to Josephus:  “The city [of King David] was built upon two hills which are opposite to one another, and have a valley to divide them asunder; at which valley the corresponding rows of houses on both hills end. Of these hills, that which contains the upper city is much higher, and in length more direct. Accordingly, it was called the “Citadel,” by king David; he was the father of that Solomon who built this temple at the first; but it is by us called the “Upper Marketplace.” But the other hill, which was called “Acra,” and sustains the lower city, is of the shape of a moon when she is horned . . .”

Accordingly, the “lower city” of King David is on the left, and “upper city” is on the right, with the valley to divide them asunder—exactly as described by Josephus.

Figure 2  – Above is the lower city of Tel Arad, which is clearly “the shape of a moon when she is horned”—which corresponds exactly with the city of King David as described by Josephus.  

The correlations between the Old Testament descriptions of Mt. Zion and the archaeological remains at Tel Arad are striking.  For example:

• According to Isaiah 49:14-16, Mt. Zion should have walls around it.  See the fortress at Tel Arad above.  
• Mt. Zion should have a wilderness, waste places, and a desert (Isaiah 64:10, Isaiah 51:3). Tel Arad lies in the eastern Negev Desert.
• Mt. Zion would be left alone (Isaiah 49:14-23); “Zion which no man seeketh after”, (Jeremiah 30:17); and Zion was said to be foresaken (Isaiah 62:11-12).  After the Roman Empire conquered the Holy Land and salted the earth, resulting in the Jewish Diaspora, Tel Arad was abandoned and lost for many centuries, until its re-discovery by Yohanan Aharoni in 1962.
•  

An archaeological team from the Tabernacle Congregation of Prayer (“TCOP”) has spent years researching and excavating the site of Tel Arad, and the TCOP places special significance in the   water system at Tel Arad in identifying the site as Mt. Zion and the Citadel and Tabernacle of King David.  The TCOP writes:

“ . . . the tabernacle of David and citadel that we were looking for was said to have a water source coming from out of the citadel. . . . [Professor Yehuda Goverin of the Beersheba University] discovered that the water that came through the channel left marks that showed that its direction was clearly on a downward path toward the lower city rather than in the direction of the citadel. Therefore, he concluded that water must have come from out of the citadel. His findings verified what we had already suspected to be true. And this was also one of the signs that we expected to see in the Tabernacle of David.”

Tel Arad meets the characteristics of the fortified cities that Solomon scattered throughout his kingdom, including Solomon’s distinctive gate design.

Above is an overview of temple at Arad, with the altar almost in the center.  The citadel and sanctuary were constructed at the time of King David and Solomon.  The sacrificial altar is to the right, and in the holy of holies they had two shaped standing stones, one to represent God (Yahweh), the other to represent a goddess or consort (Ashtoreth).  The holy of holies at Tel Arad featured two standing stones to the rear, and two incense altars in the front.  One incense altar was dedicated to Yahweh, and the other to his wife Asherah.  

 “Blow you the trumpet in Zion”

The identification of Tel Arad as the Citadel and Tabernacle of King David, the true and historical Mt. Zion, and the only ever-discovered House of Yahweh in the land of Israel provides another series of clues as to the identify of the Messiah.  According to the Old Testament prophet Joel: 

“Blow you the trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm in my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of Yahweh comes, For it is close at hand . . . . The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses, And as horsemen, so do they run. . . .” – Joel 2:1-4 

• Tel Arad carries the ancient name of the senior sept (or branch) of the Druids—Arad.  (In Gaelic, this name is Mac an Bhaird, and in English–Ward.)
• The tribe of the Druids was known as the Epidii—the People of the Horse.  According to prophecies from the South Sea island of Java, the last avatar, or final incarnation of God appearing on Earth in a bodily form, is to come riding on a white horse, exactly like the Hindu prophecy of the Kalki incarnation of Vishnu and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. (Acharya S., The Christ Conspiracy—the Greatest Story Ever Sold, p. 394.)
• According to their genealogical pedigree, the Mac an Bhairds were styled as Eachthighearna–the Lord of the Steeds.
• The tribe of the Druids was also known as the Sodhain, and according to the ancient Irish Book of Ui Maine, the Sodhain had charge of the horse.[4]
• “I Am that I Am” is a common English translation of the response God used in the Hebrew Bible when Moses asked for His name (Exodus 3:14).   The term Tetragrammaton refers to the Hebrew name of the God of Israel—YHWH–used in the Hebrew Bible.  YHWH or Yahweh is generally translated “I am that I am.”
  • In ancient Egypt, the process of acting as, or becoming a god, was known as “pah-netery.”  In order to practice pah-netery, one requires an “I am” statement. These abound in classical texts, and in Demotic, Greek, and Coptic texts. The standard form is “I am (Name of God)” or “I am he who knows (some magical secret of great power)” “I am he who knows the Secret of the Two Partners (i.e. Horus and Set, a common phrase in New Kingdom healing texts).[5]  In the New Testament, Jesus Christ practices pah-netery when he makes “I am” statements like “I am the Alpha and the Omega” (Revelation 22:13), and “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” (John 14:6)
  • In the Irish Gaelic language, “Is” translates to “I am.”  Hence, “Isis” = “I am that I am.” 
  • “Isis” is part of the divine name of several pharaohs:  “ . . . . several pharaohs and Roman Emperors had as part of their names ‘Auset Meri’ and ‘Ast Meri—Isis Mery.’”[6]   The Druids are the tribe of the pharaohs.
  • According to the Gnostic Christians, the Savior will be a “Bearded Goddess”—as in a man who is named after the Mother Goddess of All–Isis.[7]

The Island “Homeland of the Primeval Ones” & Ward Hill

According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Thoth (i.e., the Egyptian equivalent of Hermes and Mercury) said that an illustrious civilization was destroyed by a Great Deluge:  “I am going to blot out everything which I have made. The Earth shall enter into the waters of the abyss of Nun [the sea-god] by means of a raging flood, and will become even as it was in the primeval time.”[8]

Figure 1 – The outer walls of the Egyptian temple at Edfu speak of the Zep Tepi–the gods of the “First Time”–who came from “the Homeland of the Primeval Ones,” an island that sank during a catastrophic flood.

Thoth’s description of the catastrophe is reiterated in the Edfu Texts, which indicated that the “Homeland of the Primeval Ones” was a great island that sank with most of its inhabitants during the Zep Tepi, or the “First Time.”  We are told that the creation of the world began on this island, but the “mansions of the gods” were suddenly overwhelmed by a great flood.  Led by Thoth, only the “Seven Sages” or “Builder gods” escaped the cataclysm and settled in the Nile Delta, where they created Egyptian civilization.

So where was this island “Homeland of the Primeval Ones”?  In the Boyne Valley of Atlantis-Ireland, Ward Hill is also known as “Tlachta”, which means “the place of the First Time.”  In the Nahuatl language:[9]

• “tla” = “the place of”[10]
• “achto” = “first time” 
• Hence, Tla + achto = Tlachta = “the place of the First Time” = Ward Hill

According to the ancient Irish Book of Ui Maine, in a genealogical poem beginning “Cruas connacht clanna sogain“, the Arads/Mac an Bhairds/Wards were the chiefs of Cinel Rechta:[11] 

 In Irish Gaelic, “Cinel” means clan or tribe, and we propose that “Rechta” may be parsed as follows:

• Re = kings (as in “Rex”)
• Achto = “the first time”
• Re + achto = Rechta = “the kings of the First Time.”

Accordingly, the Arads/Mac an Bhairds/Wards were “the chiefs of the tribe of the kings of the First Time.”   Tlachta—“the place of the First Time”—and “Rechta”—“the kings of the First Time”—come together in the same phrase from the Egyptian Book of the Dead:

The snapshot above is from page 428 from Budge’s translation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead.  To wit:

“The great Tchatcha chiefs who are in Taiu-Rekhti are Isis, Horus . . . .”

“Taiu” means “the land of”, so Taiu-Rekhti may be parsed as follows:

• Taiu = “the land of”
• Rekhti = the kings of the first time.”
• Taiu Rekhti = “the land of the kings of the First Time.” 

Accordingly, the Arad/Mac an Bhaird/Ward Druids are the great Tchatcha (“the place of the First Time”) Chiefs who are in Taiu Rekhti –“the land of the kings of the First Time.”   

Why has this ancient knowledge been hidden?  According to Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, “Just as the goal of a Pagan initiate was to become a god, so for the Gnostics the goal of the Christian initiate was to become a Christ.”[12]  Five thousand years ago, virtually all men and women adhered to the ancient religious doctrine that they were all the divine Sons of Almighty God—no less than Jesus Christ himself. Indeed, Jesus Christ explicitly acknowledged that you too are the Son of God:

• In John 10:34, Jesus said:  “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”
• In 1John 3:1:  “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.”
• In Romans 8:14:  “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
• In the Gospel of Thomas, verse 3:  “Jesus said . . .  “the (Father’s) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.   When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”

 The political and economic turmoil that engulfs the world today is part of a long-term plan by  the world’s rich, wealth-hoarding elites (known as the “New World Order”) to assert their criminal control over the world’s land and natural resources—especially oil.  According to Hindu prophecy, before the Kalki incarnation of Vishnu[13] comes back to save the world, the rulers of the earth will have degenerated into plunderers,[14] which is exactly what the New World Order is doing today.  French economist Frederic Bastiat observed back in the 19^th century:[15]  

“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they will create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.”  

The solutions to mankind’s current problems, and the keys to overthrowing the criminal tyranny of the New World Order, may be summarized as follows:

• The key to saving the world is contained in the first line of the American Declaration of Independence, where the American people declared their national sovereignty based upon “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” This is the ancient notion that God and the Law of God can be discovered in Nature—in Creation—as opposed to the warp and woof of someone’s limited personal experiences, or fraudulent supernatural revelations whispered into a false prophet’s ears.[16] If Almighty God reveals himself to Man through Nature, then Muhammad’s claims to supernatural revelation are an abominable fraud, and accordingly, “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” will end the global Islamic Jihad. 

• As a corollary to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God”, in ancient times, Mankind solved the problem of the inequitable division of land and natural resources via a periodic declaration of economic renewal known as the Jubilee Year, which entailed “Clean Slate” debt forgiveness and redistribution of the land and natural resources.  In Leviticus 25:23, Almighty God says “The land shall not be sold forever, for the land is Mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.”[17]   With this edict from ancient land law–“The land shall not be sold forever”–we are finally getting to the source of the worst crime that has ever been committed against the human race:  the criminal Rich, rent-seeking few have cut-off and deprived most of the human race from access to the God-given land and natural resources that all of Mankind needs to live upon. 

For example, today, five extended families in the Middle East own about 60 percent of the world’s oil[18], but God created the natural resources like the land, water, coal, oil, etc. to supply the material needs of all Mankind.  For over five thousand years, however, the rich plutocrats who control the world have partitioned and divided up the Natural World amongst themselves, and blocked the Poor and Dispossessed from access to the land and natural resources that all Mankind needs to live upon.  All over the world, the Rich oligarchs have planted their flags in the Earth and asserted that “This land is mine”, “This water is mine”, “This coal and oil is mine”, et al, etc., in clear violation of the Natural Law of God, because God created the land and natural resources to provide for the material needs of everyone—and not just the craven, corrupt, wealth-hoarding few.

The Jubilee Year “Clean Slate” debt forgiveness and redistribution of the land and natural resources has been hard-wired into the ground plan of the pyramids at Giza,[19] and according to the Dead Sea Scrolls, when the Messiah returns, he is going to declare a Jubilee Year.[20]  See our article “The Hidden Message of the Great Pyramid.”[21]

• The global depression is the inexorable result of the inherently fraudulent Anglo-American banking system, which is a criminal pyramid scheme—a Ponzi scheme–based upon debt to a private banking cartel.  The key to ending the global depression is to reform the monetary and credit system as a public utility, and not as the private property of the world’s financial elites.[22] 

• “Free trade” is a globalist fraud that does not work, and to restore the manufacturing and industrial base of the American economy, we need to reinstitute the old “American system” of protective tariffs. After the U. S. Constitution was ratified, the first legislation that Congress ever passed was the Tariff Act of 1789.[23]

• After flagrantly committing treason against the Constitution by refusing to protect our borders, the U.S. government has joined forces with the illegal aliens in attacking the citizens of Arizona, when the people have tried to protect themselves.[24]  The American people need to stand up and protect the integrity of our national borders.

Archaeological evidence indicates that Lord God Jehovah was a real person down here on Earth, who lived in the eastern Negev Desert at the Israelite settlement of Tel Arad[25]—which was the Citadel and Tabernacle of King David, the true and historical Mt. Zion, and the only ever-discovered House of Yahweh in the land of Israel, and according to Psalm 82: 

Jehovah presides in the great assembly. He judges among the gods.  “How long will you judge unjustly, And show partiality to the wicked?”   “Defend the weak, the poor, and the fatherless. Maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.  Rescue the weak and needy. Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”  They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.   

I said, “You are gods, All of you are sons of the Most High.  Nevertheless you shall die like men, And fall like one of the rulers.”  Arise, Jehovah, and judge the earth, For you inherit all of the nations.   

The family of the pharaohs who built the pyramids at Giza includes Jehovah, King David and Jesus Christ, and for those who are interested, we have compiled a comprehensive body of evidence for the senior branch of this family—the Wards/Arads/Mac an Bhairds–in the Introduction to our book–The Truth Against the World—which can be read online at www.thetruthagainsttheworld.net.   Among other ancient mysteries, we have solved the hidden message of the Great Pyramid, identified the family of Jesus Christ, and solved the riddles of King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable, the Fisher King, Pahana—the Lost White Brother, the Kalki incarnation of Vishnu, and the fulfillments of the Star, Branch, and World Ruler Prophecies.

About the Authors

Francis Joseph Ward was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1922.  During World War II, Ward served in the Third Army in Africa and Italy, and among his battle decorations, Ward was awarded the Bronze Star, the Combat Infantry Badge, and three Purple Hearts.  After the war, Ward graduated from the University of Scranton in 1948 with a degree in biology.  Ward is retired and lives in Sandy Spring, Maryland, USA.

Francis Patrick Ward—the son of Francis Joseph Ward–was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1951.  Ward graduated from the University of Maryland in 1973 with a degree in accounting, and became a CPA in 1974.  Ward is self-employed and lives in Damascus, Maryland, USA. 

The Truth Against the World—Red Phoenix Rising and the Return of the Thunder Gods is their first book.  www.thetruthagainsttheworld.net

To read the article “The Hidden Message of the Great Pyramid is Revealed” or “The Family of Jesus Christ is Revealed” online, go to www.thetruthagainsttheworld.net  and for more information about the article or the book, The Truth Against the World–Red Phoenix Rising & the Return of the Thunder Gods, please contact:

Frank P. Ward

27507 Mount Radnor Drive, Damascus, MD, USA  20872

(301) 253-4403

Email:  [email protected]