Noureldein GhanemWashington, DC — "I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse."
To many American Evangelicals, this Genesis 12:3 verse is more than scripture; it's a foreign policy mandate.
Cited on Capitol Hill and across pulpits in red-state America, the verse is used to justify unwavering US support for Israel despite the separation of church and state, and to brand any deviation from that line as spiritual betrayal.
But the verse, weaponised recently by Republican Senator Ted Cruz, in a televised exchange with Tucker Carlson, never actually mentions Israel.
In fact, it never did.
So where did the Israel connection come from? And why has this single verse, devoid of geopolitical context, become central to the American Christian Right's worldview?
1909 Reference Bible that changed everything
The idea that Genesis 12:3 refers to Israel can be traced back to a single source: the Scofield Reference Bible, published in 1909. The Bible's footnotes, not its text, made the leap, suggesting the verse referred to Israel.
Biblical scholars say it was a stretch then, and it remains a misreading today.
"The Scofield (Reference) Bible, with its footnotes and commentary, was written before the State of Israel was even established, so clearly it cannot refer to the State of Israel," Jonathan Kuttab, co-founder of the Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq, tells TRT World.
"But it does reflect Christian Zionist thinking that the End Times will be preceded by a Gathering of the Jews into Palestine, and a major battle (Armageddon) where all the Jews will be slaughtered except for a small minority who will convert to Christianity."
Kuttab adds, "Christian Zionism actually preceded Jewish Zionism, the latter being a secular movement without religious significance."
He explains that the verse refers to the "seed of Abraham", which is not modern Israel or even biological descendants of Abraham, but "Jesus Christ, and through him will all the nations of the world be blessed."
He's not alone in this view.
Reverend Dr Donald Wagner, a Presbyterian clergyman and veteran Middle East analyst, says Genesis 12:3 refers to a covenant with Abraham — not a political state created in 1948.
"Genesis 12:3 states that God initiates a Covenant with Abraham, and it is an assumption Israel is included, but this is not the case. There are four uses of Israel in the Bible, and none of them imply or mean a modern state," Wagner tells TRT World.
"In a Biblical covenant, God is the initiator, and there are conditions. They are stated throughout the first five books of the law, and they include keeping the commandments, the first of which is to have no other gods other than the one God, Yahweh or Elohim."
He adds: "In several texts, the children of Abraham are warned that if they violate the covenant (no killing, no stealing, no idolatry), the land can be lost. And they do lose the land."
Gary Burge, a New Testament Scholar, stressed that only select Evangelicals in the US believe that the verse refers to Israel, but said, "There are countless things wrong with this argument."
"This is a promise for Abraham's immediate context with Egypt — and his descendants are supposed to create a temple-centred religious nation. Modern Israel is none of these," Burge tells TRT World.
'Narrow understanding of identity'
Even if Evangelicals want to apply the verse to Abraham's descendants, that logic may have its own problems.
The Torah makes a distinction between the blessings of Ishmael (the father of Arabs) and his brother Isaac.
In it, the blessings of Abraham run uniquely through Isaac and Jacob (the prophet later known as Israel), but both Old and New Testament prophets reject this.
"Because some people think the promises and blessings follow ethnic lines, then you must have the Jewish ethnicity to benefit from them," Burge says.
"It is an ethnic argument. However, the OT (Old Testament) prophets and especially the NT (New Testament) reject this narrow understanding of identity," he adds.
Many Jews in Israel today are of Ashkenazi descent. Among them is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, born to secular Jewish parents.
Who is Scofield, and what does his reference entail?
So, who was Cyrus Scofield, the man who helped fuse biblical prophecy with modern Zionism?
He was, by most accounts, a deeply flawed figure. A war veteran who struggled with alcohol abuse and abandoned his wife and children. A lawyer who resigned in disgrace after bribery allegations. A man once jailed for forging his own sister's signature.
Yet it was his reference Bible, peppered with unverified commentary, that helped embed the Israel-Genesis connection in American Evangelical consciousness.
Jesse Wheeler, Associate Executive Director at Friends of Sabeel–North America: A Christian Voice for Palestine, calls it "deeply problematic."
"The issue is less about the translation so much as the inclusion of Scofield’s notes/commentary within the pages of scripture and their elevation almost to the point of sacred text itself," Wheeler tells TRT World.
Reverend Wagner agrees.
"This reference Bible includes a type of fundamentalist Christian theology called premillennial dispensationalism," he says. "It implies God favours the Jewish people and a modern Israel that will be the location of the final prophetic events, such as the return of Jesus and the final battle between evil, the devil, and a militarised Israel."
"This is a human invention and is not consistent with the Hebrew prophets or Jesus’ life and teachings. In fact, Jesus rejects using the Bible or religious ideas to predict the future and particularly a militant interpretation of the final days."
Burge says, "Very few evangelicals use it in the US. But it was a dispensational project that believed in the ethnic exclusivity of the Jews in the programme of God, and these things were inserted into its footnotes."
For Kuttab, the motivation for misreading the verse isn't theological — it's political.
"Those who exclude not only Arabs, but also Christians from the label 'children of Abraham' do so for political reasons that have nothing to do with theology or religion," he says.
