From the end of the earth

I found this interesting discussion:

"Surely these shall come from afar; Look, those from the north and the west; And these from the land of Sinim. (Isaiah 49: 12). You may wonder what the word “Sinim” means. Where is this land of Sinim, mentioned by Isaiah before his service was terminated in 680 B.C.?... Let us check an English dictionary for help: “‘Sino’ indicates Chinese; for example, Sinophile. [French, from Late Latin ‘Sinae;’ the Chinese, from Greek ‘Sinai;’ from Arabic ‘Sin;’ China, from Chinese (Mandarin) ‘Ch’in’ [Qin], dynastic name of the country.]” Now it is clear that the Hebrew word “Sinim” means China, as can be seen, for example, in the word “sinology”—a study of things Chinese. As we mentioned earlier, all Chinese roots meet in the Qin dynasty. However, the Hebrew alphabet does not have the equivalent of “ch” in English and “Q” in Chinese. Thus “Qin” has been phonetically translated as “Sinim.”

The Significance of Chin In Isaiah’s day, the state of Qin was only one of hundreds of states under Zhou (770 - 256 B.C.). It was located in the present Gansu Province through which trade with the West was conducted. How is it that Isaiah chose Qin to indicate the Middle Kingdom? What was so special about Qin? Rang Kung was appointed as the first Duke of Qin (770 B.C.), then a small, aristocratic house. Under his administration, the state of Qin emerged as one of the 14 major states under the Zhou dynasty.8 It was 500 years after Isaiah that Qin Shi Huangdi defeated all the other competitive states and established the Qin dynasty. From then on, Qin represented the Middle Kingdom [China]. Simply put, the God of Isaiah, with divine foreknowledge, saw all the stages in the development of Qin—from a small, dependent, aristocratic house to becoming the famous Qin empire.

 God knew that the Duke of Qin would become ever stronger, equal with those of the other 13 states. Furthermore, He foresaw that after another 500 years, the Dukedom of Qin would still exist, defeat all the other states, and unite them as one empire, even choosing “Qin” as the name for the new empire! Some attempt has been made to identify Sinim as Syene [Aswan] in upper Egypt. Yet a closer look at what Isaiah said precludes this opinion. Listen to what he said: Indeed He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be my servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob, And to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles, That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49: 6)."

By the way, it is this verse that convinced Oliver Cromwell to heed R. Menashe ben Yisroel's appeal to let Jews back into England, for in Latin the "ends of the earth" translates as EnglaTerra (angles of the earth) , that is England.

Comments

[joshwaxman]

A while back, I discussed this possible China-Sinim connection in Yeshaya. See here:

http://parsha.blogspot.com/2008/08/sin-as-china.html

Kol Tuv,
Josh