Elder Kepha Arcemont

Born Into Sacrifice

Elder Kepha Arcemont was born into sacrifice — and not for the first time in his bloodline.

Five hundred years before he drew his first breath, his earliest documented ancestor, Nicolas Mius, stood beside Admiral Gaspard de Coligny during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572 in Paris, France. When the Admiral ordered his servants to flee and save themselves, Nicolas refused. He died where he stood, defending the man he served. His young son was taken in by the noble house of d'Entremont, given a new name — and a lineage was preserved. The lineage that would one day become Arcemont.

In the centuries that followed, this line was exiled from Acadia, deported across the Atlantic, and held in France for twenty-seven years. In 1785, Elder Arcemont's direct ancestors boarded a ship named La Ville d'Archangel and crossed the sea to Louisiana. Three hundred and three souls. One hundred and thirteen days at sea. Fifteen did not survive the crossing.

Through the Acadian and d'Entremont marriages of the 1600s and 1700s, the Arcemont bloodline carries the heritage of the Mi'kmaq Nation of Acadia and the Penobscot (Panawahpskek) people of the Wabanaki Confederacy — through none other than Chief Madockawando, Grand Bashaba of the Wabanaki, whose granddaughter Therese d'Abbadie de Saint-Castin married into this family in 1707. The Arcemont line is Métis: European noble, Protestant martyr, Acadian exile, Indigenous royal — all flowing into one covenant servant.

A Life Called to the Nations

Elder Kepha Arcemont is a retired firefighter, a father, husband, teacher, musician, carpenter, and spiritual man. He is the founder of Miqdash Bethel — The Sanctuary of the House of Yahweh — the restorer of The House of Yahweh of Odessa, and a founding member of the Counsel of Peace alongside Asayah Y. Hawkins.

For decades Elder Arcemont has pursued one calling above all others — to bring the Word of Yahweh as revealed in the Hebrew Tanakh to bear on the real world. Not as theory. Not as religion. But as a living covenant truth that speaks to peoples, nations, tongues, governments, and leaders in the language of Yahweh's own authority.

The Sound of the Covenant

The blues has always been the music of the truth-teller. But it is older than America. It is older than the continent.

The Hebrew root behind all sacred music is zamar (זָמַר — H2167): to sing, to make music, and — in its agricultural form — to prune. Sacred music cuts away what is false and lets what is real remain. Dawid (דָּוִד) was first called to the palace not as a soldier but as a musician. Under the covenant order established by Dawid and Shlomo, the Levitical musicians numbered 288 trained masters leading 24 divisions of Temple service — classified as avodah: the same word used for the priestly service at the altar.

That covenant thread migrated through centuries of suffering into the blues — zamar alive in the American South. The blues is zamar. It is grief that refuses to lie. It is the sound of a man bringing his whole self before Yahweh, laying everything on the altar of honest sound.

Elder Kepha Arcemont is a blues-rock guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter performing under The Kepha Arcemont Experiment and Peace of Blues. His studio recordings feature world-class session musicians — Kenny Aronoff (drums), Philip Bynoe (bass), Kevin Eaton (drums), Tiffany Ann Pollack (vocals), Rik Fletcher (piano/organ), Coyote Anderson (slide guitar), Rick Nelson (violin/cello) — recorded at Studio in the Country, Jack Miele Studios, and Marigny Studios.

For the full covenant study on sacred music, visit the Covenant of Music section.

Twenty-One Years Inside the House of Yahweh

For twenty-one years, Elder Arcemont was an insider within the House of Yahweh organization in Abilene, Texas. When he left, he built themanbehindthename.com — a documented evidentiary archive that stands as one of the most thorough first-hand accounts of that organization in existence. It is not opinion. It is witness testimony.

A Debt Paid in Blood

Staff Sergeant Terry Gilman Arcemont — decorated with the Purple Heart, Silver Star, Bronze Star, and Oak Leaf Cluster — gave his life in the Republic of Korea on October 6, 1967, serving with HHC, 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry. He was shot on the Imjin River, one day before his twenty-fifth birthday.

Elder Arcemont also served as a retired New Orleans firefighter — retiring early due to an on-the-job injury — and as former volunteer fire chief for the Irish Bayou Volunteer Fire Department. Service is not a chapter in this family. It is the entire book.

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