It is a great honor to be called a "past master" in anything, for the name bears the connotation of someone that has truly mastered all that he professed to be. In Freemasonry, the same is true for the actual past master, the man that has presided over a Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. It is a title worthy of the praise that sometimes comes his way.
Like all of Freemasonry, this writer tries to find Biblical parallels or backgrounds, whereby we may get the religious background that all Masons should have in their Masonic search for truth. In today's article, the writer looked to several books in the Bible, searching for a deeper meaning for the Past Master Mason than what was found in the ritual that we use.
Going to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, we found Tyre, or ancient Phoenicia, a land of seafaring people and a strange bunch of men called the Tyrian artisans. From I Kings, we read about Hiram, King of Tyre and his love for David, the king, and how he promised David that Hiram would send skilled men, hewers of trees and "workers of stone." The artisans were also skilled in dyes, especially purple, the color of royalty. From this bunch came Hiram Abif, a widow's son, who was much more skilled than the rest, so much so, that Hiram called him, 'father' in due respect for his great knowledge. Hiram Abif was highly skilled brass works too, and later would be in charge of making all the holy vessels of King Solomon's Temple.
A larger group of men came from further up the coast and from the city-state of Gebal, the home of the Giblimites. Sometimes, Gebal was termed, "Giblim" by the Hebrews. These people would play a major part in the building of the Temple, and the future of Royal Arch Masonry. It was a land destined to become an intricate part in the way the Temple was built, a land that dictated how the stones would be drawn from the quarries around Jerusalem, squared and numbered, "away from the Temple site" where there "was not the sound of axe, or hammer or nail, or anything of metal." It was a land that gives us the "stone squarers."
In Joshua, Gebal is described as one of the regions given to the Children of Israel through Joshua 13:5. In I Kings 5:18, the men of Gebal are numbered separately from Hiram's builders and Solomon's builders. In Psalms 83:7, Asaph has Gebal in conspiracy with the likes of the Edomites, the Ishmaelites, the Moabites and Hagarites, and others, all against Israel. The ancient inhabitants were, like their neighbors to the west, Tyre, most skilled in several things including building.
All of these regions were in what is now southern Lebanon where the tall cedars grew in great abundance a few miles further up the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. How the timbers got from the forest to the port of Joppa, the present city of Jaffa, Israel's port city, is one piece of knowledge known only to the ancient Phonecian sailors, a group that knew the currents of the Medditerranean Sea. Joppa was merely a continuation of the mountainous region of the area, and at the steep cliffs overlooking the sea, workers undid the rafts of cedar trees that had flowed 'against' the current to Joppa. From Joppa the trees would travel the twenty or so miles to Jerusalem, pulled probably by beasts of burden.
And so, it was to the past masters that the young men would look for wisdom and knowledge, and what they sought, they found. It has been said that the Hiram Abif's father was a black man, and it would make sense, for all of Canaan was populated by a dark skinned people for the most part. All of this area was occupied by the descendants of Ham, through his son Canaan and his sons: Sidon, Heth, father of the Hittites (Urriah and Bathsheba), the Jebusites, the Amorites. Their land, the Bible says in Genesis 10:19, extended from Sidon in the direction of Sodom and Gomorah, Admah and Zeboim. We all know, black people have been called, "the children of Ham." Let's accept it! From this region came the past masters! From this region came Jesus Christ!