Hawaiian Israelites

I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:

Deuteronomy 32:26 (KJV)

Scatter – YHVH prophesied of a time when Israel would turn away, and a time when He would scatter them throughout the world, to every corner.

I just happened to be in Hawaii this last week on business and saw the prophesy of God fulfilled. Take a look at some of these comparisons between Hawaiians and Israelites.

Cities of Refuge

These six cities shall be a refuge, both for the children of Israel, and for the stranger, and for the sojourner among them: that every one that killeth any person unawares may flee thither.

Numbers 35:15

God commanded the establishment of six cities of refuge for the purpose of protecting a person who committed accidental manslaughter. Often times the families of the deceased would seek out revenge and hunt for the person who killed their loved one. The only way this person was protected was by fleeing to a city of refuge where no one was allowed to kill them. They would then await their trial there and either be freed or convicted.

Hawaii has this as well — an actual city of refuge. The Hawaiians had laws that governed political and religious affairs called kapu. Some of the laws forbade men and women eating together, restrictions of eating pork, etc. If a kapu was broken, the punishment was death. The only way one could avoid death was to flee to a city of refuge — Puʻuhonua. Once there, the individual was under the protection of the Kahuna. If forgiven by the Kahuna, that individual could then return to the community again.

Just as the city of refuge in Hawaii was governed by a Kahuna, the cities of refuge in Israel were part of the cities given to the Levitical priests.

Kahuna

Kahuna is the Hawaiian word for “priest.” This follows very closely to the Hebrew word Cohanim or Cohen which also means “priests” or “priest.”

Ha

In Hawaiian, the word ha means “the breath of life.” In Hebrew the word, hayah also means “life” or “existence.” The two words are very similar.

Other similarities

• The practice of circumcision among Hawaiians was very common prior to any establishments of American missionaries in the region.
• Separation and purification of women after childbirth enforced under penalty of death.
• Pollution by touching a dead body, and purification therefrom by religious ceremonies.
• Offering of the first-fruits to their gods.
• Wearing sackcloth in mourning.
• The custom of the chiefs of washing their hands before and after eating.
• A resemblance is perceived between the poetry of the Hebrews and the Hawaiians; and a structural likeness in the two languages, especially in the causative form of the Hawaiian verb, which is precisely the same as the Hiphil of the Hebrew.*
• Hawaiian tradition relates, that man was originally made of the dust of the earth, by Kane and Kanaloa, two of their principal deities.
• In the story of Waikelenuiaiku, we have a pretty close relation to that of Joseph.

These comparisons are meant to show that God’s plan is in action. His people were scattered and their remembrance was practically lost. But Yeshua has opened up the kingdom through His death. The house of Israel can return and partake as adopted children of God once again.

 

* ' The Hawaiians have no auxiliary verb "to be;" there are no variations in nouns for case, number, or person ; but the moods and tenses of verbs are pretty clearly distinguished by simple prefixes an.l suffixes. The mode of conjugating verbs, the existence of a causative form, and the derivation of words from roots of two syllables, arc thought to indicate a resemblance and cognate origin with the Hebrew and other Oriental tongues.'—Chccver, Life in the S. Islands. London. 1851.