Reviving the Ottoman Empire

He was right about Turkey’s pivotal role

What is the future of Turkey? The Bible answers.

Herbert W. Armstrong highlighted biblical prophecies that say the modern Israelite nations—America, Britain and the Jewish state called Israel—will suffer coming captivity at the hands of a German-led united Europe. But Europe will not be alone in attacking the Israelite nations. It will be aided by an ally that straddles Europe and Asia: Turkey.

The key is to understand the biblical identity of Turkey.

Turkey’s Biblical Identity

The Turks are descended from the patriarch Esau, son of Isaac and older twin brother of Jacob. God had promised Abraham, Isaac’s father, to make his descendants into the most powerful nation on Earth (Genesis 12:1-4). These blessings were later passed down to Isaac. God told Isaac that he intended Jacob rather than Esau to inherit these blessings (Genesis 25:23). Yet as the firstborn, Esau still started out with the legal right to these national promises. Genesis 25 and 27 tell the story of how Jacob acquired these promises. First, he pressured Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of red soup. Jacob later impersonated Esau to gain the national blessings from Isaac, who had become blind in his old age.

Little could be done once Isaac and Esau realized Jacob’s deception. Esau was extremely bitter and begged Isaac to give him a blessing.

Isaac responded that Jacob’s descendants would rule over Esau’s descendants. But there was one prophecy Isaac offered Esau: “… Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; And by the sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; And it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck” (Genesis 27:39-40).

Mr. Armstrong analyzed this verse in The United States and Britain in Prophecy: “In verse 39, quoted above, the Hebrew preposition min should be translated ‘from’ or ‘away from,’ not ‘of.’ Actually, the prophesied lot of Esau was more of a curse than a blessing. The Revised Standard Version translates it: ‘Behold, away from the fatness of the earth shall your dwelling be, and away from the dew of heaven on high.’ Moffatt renders it: ‘Far from rich soil on earth shall you live, far from the dew of heaven on high.’ Actually, the Hebrew words convey the dual meaning, and both have happened to Esau’s descendants.”

The nation that sprung from Esau became known as Edom, meaning “red” for the soup Esau purchased. Later scriptural accounts show the Edomites inhabiting the territory directly southeast of the Holy Land. Edom became a peripheral civilization in the biblical narrative. Occasionally, as in 2 Kings 3, Edom befriended the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. More often, Edom and the Israelitish peoples were enemies.

Edom features heavily in biblical prophecy. The book of Obadiah, one of the minor prophets, is directed specifically to Edom. Verse 17 prophesies that Mount Zion, the hill on which Jerusalem is founded, will have “deliverance” through “holiness”—speaking of the Second Coming of Christ. Verses 19-20 show this is when Israel and Judah jointly return from captivity—an event that has yet to happen. It is a time when “saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau …” (verse 21). This is a prophecy for the end time.

Notice the description of Edom in this prophecy. Verse 3 indicates Edom’s territory is extremely mountainous. Verse 10 tells of a national attitude of “violence against thy brother Jacob.” Verse 11 shows it can project its military around the area of Jerusalem. Verse 14 states Edom stands “in the crossway” Israelites flee to when attacked; Edom is at a major international crossroads of geography.

Mr. Armstrong knew Edom had a role in end-time events, that there is a nation descended from Edom on the scene now, fulfilling its prophetic role. Combining biblical details with secular history, Mr. Armstrong concluded that Edom is Turkey today.

He continued in The United States and Britain in Prophecy: “The sparse records of history, with other proofs, show that many of the descendants of Esau became known as Turks. Therefore, we must remember that prophecies pertaining to the latter days referring to Edom, or Esau, refer generally to the Turkish nation.

“In Isaac’s dying prophecy, he foretold that Esau’s descendants would come to a time when they should have dominion, and then break the yoke of the Israelites from off their necks. That has happened. The children of Israel, through sin, were driven out of the Promised Land that belonged with the birthright. The Turks came to power and dominion and for many centuries possessed that land. Those descendants, the Turkish people, occupied Palestine 400 years before Britain took it in 1917. Esau’s descendants always have lusted for that land, central promise of the birthright! The Turks have truly lived by the sword!”

“Esau, or Edom, as he is also called, lived southeast of Palestine near Petra. Arab Bedouins live there now. Then where have Esau’s children gone?” the July 1957 Plain Truth asked. “From the days of Nebuchadnezzar, who carried them captive, they disappear for 1,000 years from history. Then suddenly we find Amalek the name of a city in Turkestan in Central Asia (from Paul Herrmann’s Sieben vorbei und Acht Verweht). The Egyptians used to call the Amalekites Amu. In Turkestan is the River Amu today! In Bible times the Edomites inhabited Mount Seir (Genesis 32:3). In Turkestan is the Syr Darya—the River of Syr, or Seir.

“The leading Turkish tribe is the Ottoman. The prophecies referring to Edom or Esau mention Teman as the leading tribe in these latter days (Obadiah 9). The conclusion is inescapable. The Ottoman Turks are the sons of Teman. Merely the vowels in spelling have been changed over these past millenniums. From Central Asia the Turks, or Edomites, moved into Asia Minor. That is where Esau’s children live today! Turkey controls the ‘crossway’ of the nations—the Dardanelles (Obadiah 14).

“How clear, Esau, or Edom, is Turkey today!”

Warning of a Betrayal

As far back as World War ii, Mr. Armstrong was publishing material based on the prophecies of Obadiah. In those early days, he thought they would be fulfilled during World War ii. He was mistaken in that detail, but he knew that Turkey would one day attack the Israelitish nations in a massive betrayal.

“It all started,” Mr. Armstrong wrote in 1940, “when Esau undervaluated the most precious material gift God had ever bestowed—the birthright—that national wealth and greatness which the British and the American people have inherited and enjoyed! Then, after rejecting this colossal gift of God, Esau and his descendants have hated Jacob and his descendants, with jealousy scheming to gain back the birthright by foul means, finally double-crossing brother Jacob, as the Turks now are beginning to do in his hour of sorest need” (Plain Truth, November-December 1940).

Decades after World War ii concluded, Mr. Armstrong stood by his prediction. During a visit to Istanbul, Turkey, in 1971, he wrote a Tomorrow’s World article titled “Visiting a Nation Fraught With Impending Total Disaster.” Mr. Armstrong quoted verses like Obadiah 12: “But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger; neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction ….” He wrote: “This, in past tense, may refer … to the captivities and exiles of Israel, 721–718 b.c., and of Judah, 604–585 b.c., respectively—but merely as a type of captivities now imminent. The time of the prophecy is now—and the immediate future.” Mr. Armstrong summarized the Bible’s prophecies of Israel and Edom’s coming clash: “All these ancient rivalries are playing crucial parts in the tense world conditions of today!”

“Obadiah’s prophecy reveals that Edom (modern Turkey) will turn against his brother Jacob,” stated the June-July 1980 Plain Truth, “against America and Britain, and also against the Jews of the modern-day State of Israel in Palestine. Turkey will actively cooperate with Jacob’s enemy! That enemy is prophesied as a final short-lived restoration of the ancient Roman Empire as 10 nations or groups of nations in Europe. … America, Britain and the Jews are to suffer crushing national defeat—and Turkey will rejoice! That is the plain message of Obadiah!”

In “Visions of Jerusalem,” page 61, we covered Europe’s prophesied outreach to the Arab world. Psalm 83 specifically lists Edom as a part of this coming alliance (verse 6). Turkey geographically straddles Europe and the Middle East. It is the headquarters of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is prophesied to join with the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the Plain Truth expected Turkey to be especially integral within the Psalm 83 alliance.

“Consider: an Islamic country the site of a major focus of a powerful new united Christendom!” the Plain Truth wrote in April 1985. “Turkey’s historic role as a bridge between two worlds—the Christian West and Islamic East—would automatically be enhanced. … Were such an alliance of Christianity and Islam—of Europe and the Arab world—ever to arise in the years ahead, Turkey could well play an instrumental—even indispensable—role in its formation. By virtue of its unique position between two worlds, Turkey could find itself thrust into a middleman role in the piecing together of that new and precedent-shattering political-religious configuration.”

Why This Was Remarkable

Such a forecast contrasts sharply with the pro-Western turn Turkey was taking over that period. Starting in 1923, Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk revolutionized Turkish society. He abolished the old Ottoman Empire and changed Turkey from an Islamic theocracy to a secular republic. He moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, replaced the Turkish language’s Arabic-based script with a Latin-based one, and banned traditional Muslim clothing. Atatürk sought to transform Turkey into a Westernized, First World nation. After World War ii, Turkey became a founding member of the United Nations. Nervous of the growing influence and ambitions of its neighbor, the Soviet Union, it made itself one of the United States’ and Britain’s best friends in the Middle East, if not the best.

In 1950, Turkey was the second country after the U.S. to respond to the UN’s call to defend South Korea in the Korean War. Turkey contributed about 15,000 soldiers to the conflict, making it the fourth-biggest contributor to the UN force. In 1952, Turkey joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Through nato, Turkey even allowed the U.S. to station nuclear weapons on its soil. In 1955, Turkey signed a separate alliance with the United Kingdom and other Middle Eastern countries to oppose the Soviet Union.

Turkey also had relatively warm relations with the State of Israel. It was the first Muslim country to recognize Israel’s existence in 1949. For decades, Turkey was one of Israel’s few neighbors to have formal relations with it. And throughout the various Arab-Israeli wars—including the Six-Day War when Israel captured East Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa Mosque in 1967—Turkey continued to recognize Israel, often losing prestige in the Arab world for doing so.

Few Muslim countries were more anchored to the Western world order than Turkey. Few countries in the Muslim world embraced Western culture and Western values as much as Turkey did. It was in this context that Mr. Armstrong prophesied that Turkey would betray America, Britain and Judah.

How have events played out since Mr. Armstrong’s death in 1986?

From Friend to Foe

In 2003, former Mayor of Istanbul Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, of the Islamist Justice and Development Party, became leader of Turkey. First through the office of prime minister and then as president, he has transformed Turkish politics. He has loosened restrictions on religious people entering university and lessened pressure on Turkey’s Kurdish minority. But he has also turned Turkey into one of the most oppressive countries for journalists and free speech.

Most importantly for our purposes, Turkey under Erdoğan has substantially altered its geopolitical orientation: It is now significantly against America, Britain and especially the State of Israel.

A telling moment came in 2010 in the form of the Marmara Affair. A fleet led by the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara tried to breach an Israeli naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by force. Israeli commandos raided the fleet in international waters in an incident where nine passengers died, most of them Turkish.

The Turkish government had helped organize the flotilla in active support of Hamas. In the aftermath, Prime Minister Erdoğan said this was “a turning point” in Israel-Turkey relations. President Abdullah Gül said Israel made “one of the biggest mistakes ever in its history” and said Israel-Turkey relations “will never be the same again.”

“Never be the same again” was an understatement. Since 2010, Turkey under Erdoğan has reevaluated Islam’s place in Turkish society. This is best seen in his foreign policy. Turkey has become one of the biggest sponsors of some of the most notorious Islamist terror groups in the world. It supported the Muslim Brotherhood’s post-2011 takeover of Egypt. After Egyptian secularists regained control in 2013, Erdoğan gave the Muslim Brotherhood haven. He did the same thing for Hamas, letting it move its headquarters to Istanbul after it was ejected from Qatar in late 2024.

Turkey has also courted other enemies of the West. In 2017, Turkey ordered Russia’s S-400 missile defense system. The United States was selling its elite F-35 fighter aircraft to Turkey and was concerned that integrating such an important component of the U.S. military into a system integrated with Russian technology could allow Russia to gather data on U.S. defense systems. Turkey went ahead with acquiring the S-400 and has been put on hold from the F-35 program ever since. Russia-Turkey relations have been rocky with Turkey’s support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia since 2022. But Turkey has kept many points of contact open with Russia that other nato members have not.

Turkey has also drawn close to China. In 2013, it became a “dialogue partner” of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Chinese-led political bloc. In 2024, Turkey expressed a desire to become a full member. In 2015, it joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (bri); between then and 2022, China invested $4 billion in Turkey through the bri. In 2024, the brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) economic bloc invited Turkey in as a member. (India eventually killed the membership bid due to Turkey’s relationship with Pakistan.)

These may be small steps, but they are giant symbols of intent: to decouple from the West and forge links with America’s and Britain’s authoritarian adversaries.

Yet even as Turkey has turned to the authoritarian East, it has also forged closer ties with Europe. During the height of the Syrian civil war, Turkey hosted hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, sparing Europe from a flood of refugees. Along with Europe, Turkey has been one of Ukraine’s biggest backers in fighting off Russia’s invasion. Germany has a large Turkish diaspora population, and Turkey is a major export destination for German arms. While Turkey and Europe have their ups and downs, Turkey is firmly on Europe’s side.

In late 2024, Syrian rebels launched a lightning offensive that ousted longtime dictator Bashar Assad. These rebels were supported by Turkey and supplied with Turkish weapons. But these weapons were supplied to Turkey by Germany. Months before the Syrian rebels began their offensive, Germany lifted a yearslong arms embargo on Turkey. Turkey’s famous military drones, which the Syrian rebels used to fight Assad, are made with German parts. German defense corporation Hensoldt has been supplying parts to Turkish drone companies, including its famous Bayraktar brand, for years.

Syria, as taught at Ambassador College under Mr. Armstrong, corresponds to the “Hagarenes” of Psalm 83:6. And as the Plain Truth foretold in 1985, Turkey is playing “an instrumental—even indispensable—role” in forming the Psalm 83 alliance!

As Mr. Armstrong forecast, Turkey has grown hostile to the U.S., Britain and Israel. At the same time, it is growing closer to Germany, acting as a bridge between Europe and the Arab world.

The Future

Turkey’s prophesied betrayal could involve American and British soldiers stationed in the Middle East initially fleeing to Turkey for protection. Biblical passages such as Psalm 83 show Turkey won’t be acting alone but as part of a wider alliance with Europe and the Arab world. (Request a free copy of Gerald Flurry’s booklet The King of the South to learn more.)

No matter how events play out, much of Mr. Armstrong’s analysis is already proving correct. During Mr. Armstrong’s time, Turkey was one of the last countries one would have anticipated turning against America, Britain and Israel. Yet in the years following his death, it became clear that his forecasts were entirely plausible, even likely. It is only a matter of time before circumstances line up for the prophecy to be fulfilled entirely.