Chapter 9: The Palestinians

Introduction

The Bible gives us the origins of nations that have affected their subsequent history, in some cases, for thousands of years. This chapter addresses the Scriptural history of modern Arabic people. The authors write from a Scriptural perspective, though not necessarily from a so called “Christian perspective”. Sadly, Christians are often as ignorant of the Bible as are non-Christians. For this reason, many of the matters addressed in this document will differ from mainstream Christian thought.

We have not found anything in Christian teachings that properly explain the promises that God made with Hagar, the mother of Ishmael. Almost all the focus has been on Isaac, who was Ishmael’s half-brother. Yet to truly understand the promise to either son, one must know the promise to the other son. Each provides context and contrast to the other.

As we will set out in this chapter, the Bible (and Scriptural law itself) shows that the land originally called Canaan was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. However, the corruption of Abraham’s offspring and the worship of false gods caused God to disinherit them and to exile them to Assyria, where they were known by other names, such as Gimirri and Saka. The name changes contributed toward their disappearance from history.

Isaac’s disinheritance meant that the land reverted to the second in line to inherit the land. This was Isaac’s brother, Ishmael, the father of the Arabs. The Zionists who currently occupy the land base their claim on their genealogy back to Judah, but, as we have already seen, Judah was not allowed to return to that land without first repenting of their hostility to God. They returned under the banner of Edom, which Judah had conquered and absorbed in 126 B.C.

Edom was the nation founded by Esau, Jacob’s brother. They were born in the next generation after Isaac and Ishmael, and hence, Edom stood third in line as the inheritor of the land. The Jews claim to be from Jacob, who had been given the name Israel. But this is a complete falsehood. Zionism is the fulfillment of prophecy regarding Esau, not Jacob.

The bottom line is that Ishmael (Arabs) hold the long-term title deed to the entire land of Palestine.

Abraham

The story of Ishmael begins with his father, Abram. In Genesis 12:1-3 we read how God called Abram (later called Abraham) to leave the land of his birth and to go to a place where God would lead him. Though he did not know at first where this would lead him, he obeyed God. The promise is seen in verses 2 and 3:

And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great. And so, you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Although there remains a possibility that some will be cursed, in the end, “all the families of the earth will be blessed.” In other words, any such curse will be reversed by the end of the story. In effect, Abraham’s descendants were not the exclusive recipients of God’s blessings but were instead stewards for the benefit of others. They were not to hoard the blessings for themselves or selfishly, but they were to be God’s agents of blessing.

Abram was promised a son through whom these blessings were to flow to other nations. The New Testament tells us that Abraham’s children are those who share Abraham’s faith (belief in God’s promises) to fulfill Abraham’s calling (Galatians 3:7).

There are no true children of Abraham apart from those who bless the world, for they must do the works of their father.

The Birth of Ishmael

When Abram and Sarai, his wife, first moved to Canaan, they arrived during a ti me of famine. So, they continued their journey to Egypt, where there was food. Sarai was beautiful, and when Pharaoh saw her, he took her into his harem, not knowing that she was married to Abram (Genesis 12:14, 15). God then “struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues” (Genesis 12:17), which caused Pharaoh to question Abram.

When Abram told him the truth, Pharaoh returned Sarai to Abraham. The ancient Book of Jasher tells us that Pharaoh gave Abram gifts, and that he gave one of his daughters to Sarai as a servant. Jasher 15:30 & 31 tells us:

… And Pharaoh took more cattle, men servants and maid servants, and silver and gold, to give to Abram, and he returned unto him Sarai his wife. And the king took a maiden whom he begat by his concubines, and he gave her to Sarai for a handmaid.

Hagar was an Egyptian princess. This is helpful information because the Bible does not tell us how Sarai obtained Hagar.

The story of Ishmael’s birth is recorded in Genesis 16. Abram and Sarai had no children, and both were getting old. Finally, Sarai suggested that Abram take Hagar as a wife and raise up a son through her. This was a common practice in those days. Years later, Jacob himself married Leah and Rachel, and each of them provided handmaids to Jacob to increase their family size.

Hagar quickly became pregnant, “and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her sight” (Genesis 16:4). The friction increased between the two women, and “Sarai treated her harshly” (Genesis 16:6). Hagar finally resolved to run away and to return to her father’s house in Egypt. We then read:

Now the angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur. He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” And she said, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress Sarai.” Then the angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress, and submit yourself to her authority.”

The angel addressed the root problem, which was Hagar’s pride and presumption after conceiving Abram’s first son. The solution was to submit to Sarai’s authority and let God work out the details. The angel then continued with the conversation to let her know the calling that Ishmael had upon his life.

Ishmael’s Calling

We read the words of the angel to Hagar in Genesis 16:10-12:

Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, “I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count.” The angel of the Lord said to her further, “Behold, you are with child and you will bear a son; and you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him; and he will live to the east of all his brothers.”

The name Ishmael means “God hears.” The root of his name comes from shem, “to hear/obey,” and el, “God.” So, he is compared to a donkey, which has big ears and has good hearing. The angel acknowledged the fact that Hagar had been afflicted and mistreated. In fact, this appears to have formed a pattern of abuse that would follow them into the future.

The angel then prophesied that Ishmael’s descendants would “live to the east” of the land of Canaan. And so it is to this day, although they have since spread to other places as well.

Then we see Hagar’s response, which was prophetic as well. Genesis 16:13 & 14 says:

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God who sees”; for she said, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” Therefore, the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered.

Hagar’s revelation of God was that He was “The God of Vision.” The well’s name means “The Well of Living After Seeing (Him).” In those days it was commonly believed that anyone who saw God would not live to talk about it. (Many years later, the Israelites were afraid to approach God in the Mount for fear that they would die – see Exodus 20:19.)

The Bible makes it clear that the only way to receive life (immortality) is to approach God who is Life itself. Hence, when God talked to Moses face to face, Moses came off the Mount with his face transfigured (Exodus 33:11).

Many years later, Jesus ascended Mount Sion (Hermon), where He too was transfigured in the presence of His heavenly Father (Matthew 17:2). The Apostle John was one of three who witnessed this transfiguration. He later wrote about Jesus in his Gospel of John 1:4:

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Essentially, Hagar’s revelation prophesied of the day when her descendants too would see God and live – that is, receive immortal life. The well in this case pointed to the “wells of salvation” from which the people would drink.

This well was mentioned in Isaiah 12:2 & 3:

Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and song, and He has become my salvation. Therefore, you will joyously draw water from the springs [or wells] of salvation.

The Hebrew word translated “salvation” is Yeshua, which is Jesus’ Hebrew name. The New Testament often makes mention of this. For example, when Joseph and Mary brought the infant Jesus to the temple for dedication, an old man named Simeon (whose name means Hearing) prophesied over Him, saying in Luke 2:30:

“My eyes have seen Your salvation.”

Apparently, Simeon had heard revelation from God that the Messiah would be born at the feast of Trumpets, and so he knew that the Boy would be brought to the temple on the 40th day. He also must have had a revelation that the Messiah’s name would be Yeshua, “Salvation.” Hence, he recognized that Jesus was the Messiah.

Years later, when Jesus went to Jerusalem to keep the feast of Tabernacles (Sukkoth), He prophesied on the last great day of the feast in John 7:37 & 38:

Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said [Isaiah 12:3], ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”

This was a reference to the prophecy in Isaiah 12:2 & 3, where the prophet instructed the people to drink from the wells of Yeshua. Jesus/Yeshua took this as a prophecy referring to Himself. All who seek the truth and the Holy Spirit were instructed to come to Him, so that they might become wells of living water that would never run dry.

Jesus also talked to a Samaritan woman at a well, which scandalized the Jews of His time. John 4:9 tells us:

“For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”

Jesus, however, was different, for He did not discriminate against non-Jews.

We read in John 4:12-14:

“You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle? Jesus answered and said to her, “everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

This “well of Yeshua” was foreshadowed at the well called Beer-lahai-roi, where Hagar received the revelation from the angel. It was the well of living after seeing. The revelation of God and His nature transforms us and springs up within us, bring us into immortal life. Hagar, then, like the Samaritan woman, was promised access to this well of life.

The day comes, then, when the Spirit of God will become a well of life to Hagar and her descendants. This is the promise of God, the hope set before the Arab people in view of the harsh treatment that they have received throughout the centuries.

From Donkey to Lamb

The angel told Hagar that her son would be a pereh awdawm, “wild-donkey man.” This was not to be taken literally, of course. It was a reference to human nature itself, which is derived from Adam, the first sinner, who passed down mortality to all those after Him. Mortality (death) is man’s great weakness which causes him to sin (Romans 5:12).

Yet the Bible provides a way to escape the sentence upon Adam. One must be begotten a second time, not physically, but spiritually by hearing the word of God. This begets a “new man” as we read in Colossians 3:10, existing side by side with the “old man” begotten by our earthly father. The new man reflects the nature of his Father-God, even as the old man reflects the nature of his earthly father.

The divine law depicts this in metaphorical terms. A donkey represents the old man/nature; a lamb represents the new man/nature. According to the law, only a perfect, unspotted lamb was acceptable to God in the laws of sacrifice and offerings. The law instructs men to give God the firstborn of their flocks and herds, but some animals were considered unclean. Unclean animals could not be given to God directly, so they had to substitute a lamb for them.

The same was true of the firstborn sons of men. Exodus 13:11-13 says:

Now when the Lord brings you to the land of the Canaanite, as He swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you, you shall devote to the Lord the first offspring of every womb, and the first offspring of every beast that you own; the males belong to the Lord. But every first offspring of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem it, then you shall break its neck; and every firstborn of man among you sons you shall redeem.

We see here that the firstborn of a donkey had to be redeemed with a lamb – and all firstborn sons of man were to be redeemed. In other words, all the firstborn sons of men, born of earthly fathers, had to be redeemed by a lamb. Why? Because they were spiritual donkeys. To become “the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3), they had to be redeemed with a lamb.

How? By the principle of substitution. The lamb was a substitute by the principle of unity through identification. Legally, the law no longer saw a donkey but saw only an acceptable lamb. By this law, donkeys became lambs, and the naturally-born sons of men changed their identity and nature into sons of God, making them acceptable to God.

All the Old Testament sacrifices were prophetic patterns of something much greater that was yet to come. Every time a lamb was sacrificed to atone for man’s sin, the principle of substitution was set forth for our learning. Every lamb prophesied of the “Lamb of God” who was yet to come. So, John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus, said in John 1:29:

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

He did so by offering Himself up as the great Sacrifice for sin. In so doing, donkeys could be turned into lambs, as recognized by the law of God.

This is the provision that the angel prophesied to Hagar by calling Ishmael a wild-donkey man. The prophecy pointed to a law that was later to be revealed through Moses by which Hagar’s children, and all who are descended from Adam, may be saved. Recall that even the Israelites themselves had to redeem their firstborn sons. Why? Because they were all spiritual donkeys, having a nature that was unacceptable to God.

God Owns His Creation

Genesis 1:1 says:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

A Creator owns that which He creates by His own labor. Man uses what God creates and adds value to it by shaping and forming trees, rocks, and elements into something useful, and so man is said to own that which he has made. He however only owns the labor which he invested, but God still owns the building materials involved.

His Kingdom consists of all that He created; therefore, His Kingdom includes both heaven and earth. These two dimensions were supposed to function in unity, the earth reflecting the will of heaven at all times. Sin, however, put a division between heaven and earth, because the two began to pull in different directions. God’s Kingdom is fully manifested when the earth fully submits to the will of heaven. So, Jesus taught His disciples to pray in Matthew 6:10:

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

His prayer will be answered, even if it takes thousands of years to accomplish.

In the course of history, the revelation of God has been progressive. To know God is not something that happens overnight. The same is true with the history of nations. God began teaching men through an elementary education, based on what the Bible calls the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was designed to teach men the ways of God and to avoid sin. The law defines sin and righteousness, but it does not impart the capacity to be perfect.

Two Covenants

Broadly speaking, the Old Covenant was man’s commitment to obey the laws of God, both in one’s personal life and in governing society with justice.

The New Covenant was where God took personal responsibility to bring the entire creation back into alignment with His laws. He was to do this by changing the hearts of men, rather than by trying to force mortal men into compliance.

The Old Covenant is man’s vow to God, as we see in Exodus 19:5, 6 & 8:

Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation… All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!”…

The New Covenant is God’s vow to man, as we see in Jeremiah 31:31-33 & 31:

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers… But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

The first covenant, being based on the will of man (and his good intentions) failed to bring righteousness into the earth, both individually and nationally. For this reason, God exiled Israel to Assyria. Judah’s exile to Babylon was temporary, and they were allowed to return after 70 years in order that Jesus Christ might be born in Bethlehem according to prophecy (Micah 5:2). Forty years later, however, Judah too was expelled from the land.

It is evident, then, that a new covenant was needed to fulfill the purposes of God. This was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31, one which was based on the promise of God. This ensured the success of this covenant, so that God’s intention would be guaranteed.

The Apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 4:22-26:

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh [natural childbirth], and the son of the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are the two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.”

A slave wife bears children who are also slaves, according to the law in Exodus 21:4. Paul shows how the Old Covenant is a system of slavery, because when a man vows obedience, he becomes a slave to his own vow. Furthermore, because man is imperfect, there is no way for him to fulfill his vow perfectly, regardless of his good intentions. Every sin, then, puts him further into debt-bondage which he cannot possibly pay off by his labor or his good works.

The New Covenant releases slaves from their slavery, because it is based on God’s promise and upon Christ’s death on the cross which paid for the sin-debt of the world. Hence, those who believe in the promise of God become the children of Sarah, the New Covenant, and can join the company of Isaac as free men. One’s status is a matter of faith, not genealogy.

In the course of Paul’s discussion about this historical allegory, he identifies Jerusalem with the Old Covenant and with Mount Sinai in Arabia, the inheritance of Ishmael. When the Jews (as a whole), rejected the Mediator of the New Covenant, they placed themselves under the authority of Mount Sinai and, by extension, Ishmael and his descendants.

Land Promises

The land originally promised to Abraham and his descendants (“seed”) was the land of Canaan, later known as Palestine. The land was certainly given to the tribes of Israel at the time of Joshua’s conquest. However, after repeatedly turning to false gods and sacrificing children to them, God finally expelled them. This tells us that the Israelite claim to the land was not unconditional. In fact, God had warned them through Moses in Deuteronomy 8:20:

“Like the nations that the Lord makes to perish before you, so you shall perish; because you would not listen to the voice of the Lord your God.”

The Impartial God showed no partiality toward the Israelites when they followed the example of the Canaanites. The ten Israelite tribes were cast out and never returned. The Jews know this, because for thousands of years they have prayed to be reunited with them. The Jews know that they are not the Scriptural Israelites, even though they chose to call the name of their nation “Israel.”

The question facing us today is this: In the absence of the Israelites, who has the next claim to the land? To answer this question, we must trace the history back to the two sons of Abraham—Ishmael and Isaac. Genesis 21:12, 13 tells us:

… through Isaac your descendants [“seed”] shall be named. And of the son of the maid [i.e., Ishmael] I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.

Hence, Isaac was the primary inheritor of Abraham’s estate and calling, but at the same time, God gave a promise to Ishmael as well. Isaac’s son, Jacob, was the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, who were given the land of Canaan. These are the tribes who were later exiled and who never returned. In their absence, then, Ishmael was the secondary inheritor of the land.

A third claimant arrived in the next generation when Esau and Jacob contended for the birthright. We have already discussed this at length in earlier chapters.

Esau is Edom (Genesis 36:8), which was later known in the Greek language as Idumea. Idumea was conquered by Judah in 126 B.C. and subsequently absorbed. The Idumeans then converted to Judaism and, as Josephus puts it, were “hereafter no other than Jews” (Antiquities of the Jews, XIII, ix, 1). The legal implication of this was that from then on, Judah had two sets of prophecies to fulfill, because the nation of Edom had ceased to exist as a separate nation.

Judah-Edom was destroyed by the Romans from 70-73 A.D., the last stronghold being Masada, an Edomite fortress. They were all expelled from the land and were scattered throughout many nations, where they were simply known as Jews. In the interim, the land reverted back to Ishmael’s descendants, known as Arabs.

In the late 1800’s, some of these Jews formed a movement known as Zionism, by which they laid claim to Palestine.

The law of God, however, blocked Judah from returning until they had repented of their hostility to God. Leviticus 26:40-42 specifically forbids any of the exiled tribes to return while yet in a state of hostility to God – something they have yet to do.

But God had not forgotten that Esau-Edom had a standing case in the divine court, dating back to Genesis 27:40 (King James Version), where Isaac prophesied to him, “when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.”

In other words, Jacob would have to give back the birthright to Esau to allow Esau to prove himself unworthy, so that he could be disinherited in a lawful manner. God allowed the Zionists to succeed (temporarily) and to supersede Ishmael’s claim on the land. Technically, Esau-Edom was third in line to claim the land, because he was born in the generation after Ishmael.

Unfortunately, very few people (if any at all) understand the Scriptural history of Abraham’s descendants, and even fewer understood the laws of God which govern inheritances. The bottom line is that the true Israelites had first claim to the land, followed by the Ishmaelites, followed by those Zionist Jews who were (and are) motivated by the spirit of Edom, but again, only temporarily.

The New Covenant Inheritance

The land of Canaan was never meant to be the inheritance of the sons of God – those begotten by the Holy Spirit through their ears by hearing the word of truth. Regarding the land of Canaan, Moses said in Deuteronomy 8:7:

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills.”

At that time, it appeared that the land of Canaan was the ultimate inheritance for God’s people. However, this inheritance did not prevent them from worshiping false gods and from departing from the laws of God. No land inheritance could change the hearts of men. Something greater was required. Yet God established Israel in the land to show that they were unworthy and that their Old Covenant vows could not be fulfilled, regardless of good intentions.

The people inherited that land under the Old Covenant, based on the will of man. They were yet unaware that this covenant could not succeed and that a new covenant would be required. So, the people of Isaac and Jacob-Israel were cast out and disinherited according to the terms of the Old Covenant, making it necessary to establish a second covenant that was based upon the will and promise of God who cannot fail. This is the main topic of the New Testament, although the prophet Jeremiah spoke of it 600 years earlier in Jeremiah 31:31. In fact, even Moses himself prophesied about the New Covenant obscurely in Deuteronomy 30:6, saying:

“Moreover, the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.”

This is the great hope of the followers of Jesus. The New Covenant is designed to change one’s nature, whereas the Old Covenant commands men to change their behavior through self-discipline. In addition, the land of Canaan/Palestine and Jerusalem is the inheritance of the Old Covenant, but the New Covenant gives believers a greater inheritance.

The New Testament book of Hebrews 11:8-10 explains it this way:

“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for a city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”

What “city” is this? The answer is given in verses 13-16:

“All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country [Canaan] from which they went out, they could have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

This new “city” is the heavenly Jerusalem – not the earthly city by the same name. Abraham was given a promise from God. It was a New Covenant promise, because it did not originate with Abraham himself. Abraham simply believed that what God had promised, He was able to fulfill.

The land of Canaan was the first step toward the fulfillment of God’s promise, but it was not the ultimate goal. Abraham’s real inheritance was not the land of Canaan at all but “a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” The capital of this better country is the heavenly Jerusalem. Those who share the faith of Abraham are those who have the same vision of this greater inheritance.

To drive home this point, Hebrews 11:15 tells us that if our inheritance had truly been in the land of Canaan, then the exiled Israelites “would have had opportunity to return.” To return would have been relatively easy. Just move back to the old land. But if the true inheritance under the New Covenant were a heavenly city, it would serve no purpose to return to Canaan/Palestine.

Canaan (and later, Jerusalem) was the inheritance under the Old Covenant; as followers of Jesus Christ, we have a greater inheritance under the New Covenant. While Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant (Galatians 3:19), Christ is the Mediator of the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:6).

The dispute over the land of Palestine is largely a dispute between various forms of Old Covenant religions, of which Ishmael is the king. Christians should never have gotten involved in this dispute, except perhaps as mediators to prevent conflict. And the bottom line is that the land which the Zionists claim as their own is not theirs, except by the Judge’s (God) accommodation to give Esau the justice that was due to him. And again, this is only temporal.

In the end, the angel’s promise to Hagar at the well means that the Ishmaelite nations will be given the water of life from the Well of Living After Seeing (God). In other words, they too will receive the greater inheritance, the “better country” that Abraham sought. Meanwhile, prior to that time, the land of Palestine still belongs to Ishmael, even though the land had to be returned to Edom momentarily at the end of this present age.

Because of Edom’s tendency toward violence and bloodshed, the reign of Edom has resulted in much injustice. Esau-Edom has now proven itself to be unworthy of the birthright and unworthy of the name Israel. As the “Israelis” engage in ethnic cleansing and pursue violence to occupy Gaza, they are proving that they are unworthy of the birthright. This is quickly becoming apparent to the entire world.

It is worth noting that Islamic scholars emphasize the need for Muslims to follow the name of Isa (Jesus), whether spoken or written, with the honorific phrase alayhi al-salām (Arabic: عليه السلام), which means peace be upon him. Isa is mentioned by name or title 78 times in the Quran.