SHOULD TRUE CHRISTIANS SUPPORT ISRAEL OR NOT? (PART 3)
THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT
In Genesis 12:1-3 God established a covenant with Abraham (who was the forefather of the Jewish nation).
God promises 3 things:
A source of blessing to the nations
Land (Israel)
Descendants – and a great nation
It is from the Jews that we have received the Bible, the prophets, the apostles and our blessed redeemer.
Rom 9:4-5 (NIV) … the people of Israel. Theirs is … the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah …
1) A SOURCE OF BLESSING TO THE WORLD
While the blessing is primarily spiritual, Israel has also blessed the world in other ways:
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the UN General Assembly on
1 October 2015 in New York, he said, “Israel is a world leader in science and technology, in cyber, software, water, agriculture, medicine, biotechnology and so many other fields that are being revolutionized by Israeli ingenuity and Israeli innovation.” *
* https:// www.timesofisrael.com/ full-text-of-netanyahu-2015-address-to-the-un-general-assembly [AFP Photo/ Timothy A. Clary]
He added, “Israeli knowhow is everywhere. It’s in your computers’ microprocessors and flash drives. It’s in your smartphones,
when you
send instant
messages and
navigate your
cars.”
“It’s on your
farms, when
you drip irrigate
your crops and keep your grains and produce fresh.”
“It’s in your universities, when you study Nobel Prize winning discoveries in chemistry and economics.”
“It’s in your medicine cabinets, when you use drugs to treat Parkinson’s Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.”
“It’s even on your plate, when you eat the delicious cherry tomato. * That too was perfected in Israel, in case you didn’t know. We are so proud in Israel of the long strides our country has made in a short time. We’re so proud that our small country is making such a huge contribution to the entire world. Yet the dreams of our people, enshrined for eternity by the great prophets of the Bible, those dreams will be fully realized only when there is peace.” **
* The development of the cherry tomato known as the "Tomaccio" took place in Israel. It is a sweet and flavorful cherry tomato that was bred for its unique taste and extended shelf life. ** Ibid.
God promised Abraham’s descendants land. Today the land includes Israel.
Because of this, Israel has a God-given right to their land, a right to be a nation, and a right to defend themselves.
2) LAND
The Jubilee Year in Israel is significant in Scripture. It occurred every 50th year - a sabbatical year after seven cycles of seven years (49 years).
The Year of the Jubilee included the restoration of property to its original owners.
From 1517 to 1917, what is today Israel, along with much of the Middle East, was ruled by the Ottoman Turks.
1967: 50 years later, the Jordanian occupied Old City of Jerusalem is recaptured by Israel.
2017: 50 years later the US officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel when President Donald Trump ordered the relocation of the American diplomatic mission to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
1917: Eight Jubilees after the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem, the British liberate the city. The Balfour Declaration is also issued.
3) A GREAT NATION
God promised to protect the nation of Israel. He blesses those nations who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel. This alone is a good reason to support Israel.
Any nation in the world (including our own) who seeks to harm Israel will face God’s wrath – sooner or later.
US SUPPORT OF ISRAEL
God has blessed the USA because of its support for Israel. It is the world’s richest country having
31% of the total wealth
in the world (2022). *
US President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day Ben-Gurion announced it - the first country to do so.
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign aid.
* https:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ List_of_countries_by_total_wealth
On 14 November 2023 close to 300,000 marched in Washington in support for Israel and decrying antisemitism.
According to the organizers, this has been the largest pro-Israel rally in the history of the United States.
THE EGYPTIANS
Any nation that supports
and defends Israel will be
blessed by God. But any
nation that seeks to harm Israel will face an outcome far worse than expected. This isn’t just an empty promise. History is full of examples of this prophecy being fulfilled. Some happened long ago. Others are more recent. *
The first nation to oppress Israel was Egypt. They enslaved them and threw their baby sons into the Nile River.
* https:// endtimes.substack.com/ p/ the-danger-of-cursing-israel
God sent Moses to warn Pharaoh, telling him, “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” But Egypt refused. The outcome of this refusal was the series of terrible plagues the Lord unleashed on Egypt, culminating in the death of the firstborn of every household. *
Eventually Pharaoh let the Israelites go but then he relented and pursued them. Pharaoh and his army were destroyed in the Red Sea.
* Ibid.
THE AMORITES
While heading toward the Promised Land, Israel sought to pass through the land of the Amorites, sending messengers to King Sihon asking if they could go directly through without drinking any water or disturbing any fields. * Sihon refused and assembled an army to fight against Israel. He was defeated and Israel took all their cities (Num 21:24-25)
* Ibid.
MIDIANITES
In the book of Judges,
Israel was oppressed and impoverished by the Midianites and they cried out to God for help.
The Lord used Gideon and a small army to save Israel. This tiny group was able to overcome an overwhelming army of Midianites and Amalekites who numbered “as the sand by the seashore.”
BAbYLON
King Nebuchadnezzar and the armies of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple, taking many Jews into exile.
Years later, Belshazzar, the last king of that empire, would see a hand writing a proclamation of judgment on the wall of the palace. That very night, he was killed and Babylon invaded by the Persians and Medes.
THE SELEUCID EMPIRE
The Seleucid Empire, in particular the ruler, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, was known for persecuting the Jews. He outlawed Jewish religious practices and desecrated the Temple.
This gave rise to the Jewish Maccabean revolt, where the outnumbered Jewish rebels would consistently humiliate the much larger Seleucid forces and ultimately rededicate the Temple in Jerusalem.
Antiochus would face many military woes and would die of an illness in Persia aged 50-51 after battling with the Parthians.
RUSSIA
In the 19th century, the Russian Empire once was home to the world’s largest Jewish population but confined them to ghettos, and attacked them in pogroms. Because of anti-Semitism, the people blamed Jews for their economic and political problems.
In 1871 mobs, with the tacit approval of authorities, attacked Jews in the city of Odessa, bringing a rebuke from the US State Department under President Ulysses S. Grant. A period of emigration by Russian Jews — many to America — began in earnest.
One of the most infamous pogroms occurred in Kishinev in 1903. The violence resulted in the deaths of dozens of Jews, and it gained international attention. This pogrom sparked calls for a Jewish state — to prevent attacks like this one.
According to the Washington Post:
Homicidal gangs stalked the streets, chasing down Jews and beating them lifeless with crowbars. One victim, a local tradesman named Mordecai Greenschopin, was dragged out of a shed where he was hiding by a mob and bludgeoned to death with poles. The streets were littered with Jewish corpses like Mordecai’s. Many of these bodies were disemboweled and stuffed with feathers. … The ruling regime, led by Tsar Nicholas II, sometimes tacitly condoned pogroms and other times actively encouraged them. *
* https:// www.washingtonpost.com/
history/ 2023/ 10/ 14/ kishinev-pogrom-russia-israel-jews
Pogroms also occurred during the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War (1917-1922), with various factions participating in attacks on Jewish communities.
The Romanov dynasty had ruled Russia for three centuries but lost the throne in 1917 because of the Russian Revolution. The last czar, Nicholas II, and his family were executed in 1918. The Russians suffered under oppressive and cruel communist regimes for decades.
Dave Hunt writes:
In contrast to the
favoured treatment
of Arab refugees, the
full story of the
inhuman treatment
of Jewish refugees
during World War II (let alone throughout the centuries) would fill a library. One seldom-mentioned crime was the deliberate drowning of hundreds in the Black Sea.
On December 12, 1941, the Struma left Constanta, Romania, bound for “Palestine.” The 769 Jewish refugees aboard (including 103 children and infants) were fleeing the Nazi Holocaust and had paid exorbitant fees, only to find themselves escaping Hitler on a dilapidated Greek cattle barge with only one bathroom, an engine that kept breaking down, and scarcely room for 100
people. The fare was supposed to have included
entry visas to be picked up in Istanbul.
When the disabled vessel was
finally towed into Istanbul with
a dead engine, the Struma was
anchored in a quarantine
section of the port and no one
(including the crew) was allowed
ashore.
There the passengers endured a living hell for seventy-one days. The only water and food was supplied by Jewish benefactors. It was then that the refugees learned that they were victims of a hoax more cruel than they had imagined—the promised “immigration certificates” in Istanbul did not exist.
The British, who controlled “Palestine” under a mandate to make it the Jewish national home but kept Jews out, forbade the Turkish government to allow the Struma through the Bosphorus Strait to the Mediterranean—a needless prohibition because all efforts to repair the engine failed. To return to Romania—even if possible—would have meant death. Finally, on February 23, 1942, under British pressure, Turkish police forcibly came aboard, cut the anchor chains, and towed the helpless vessel, with its occupants, far into the Black Sea.
The Struma was blown apart and sunk early the next morning by a Russian sub, for which the sub’s commander, Lieutenant Denezhko, was given a medal. *
The lone survivor (except for one pregnant woman allowed ashore to have her baby) was 19-year-old David Stoliar, who, though near death and unable to walk, was confined to a Turkish jail. He is presently a resident of Bend, Oregon, and was interviewed by the author. *
* Excerpt from chapter 5 of Judgment Day! Islam, Israel, and the Nations
Nazi Germany under Hitler murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust.
The Nazis referred to the Third Reich as the “Thousand-Year Reich,” but it ended after only 12 years. The Allies defeated Germany, Hitler committed suicide, and his corpse was set on fire. Germany was divided as was the capital city Berlin. East Germany was dominated by their enemies, the Russians – for decades.
GERMANY
MODERN ARAB STATES
In the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel only had 75,000 troops, while the Arab armies totaled more than 500,000. Israel was outgunned and had far fewer resources.
But Israel staged a successful ground offensive and seized the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.
The brief war ended with a UN - brokered ceasefire, but it significantly altered the map of the region. Estimates showed that around 20,000 Arabs had died in 132 hours of fighting. Fewer than 900 Israelis died.
Egyptian President Nasser – one of the main instigators against Israel - resigned in disgrace.
HAMAN
The Persian Haman despised the Jews and sought king Ahasuerus to make an edict to kill the Jews. He also sought the death of Mordecai by hanging (or impalement).
Haman was a racist who was responsible for a decree that called for the slaughter of an entire people group solely on the basis of their race.
THE ANTICHRIST
And tragically it will happen again. Two thirds of all Jews will be killed by the Antichrist (Zech 13:8). In a very sobering prophecy Jesus warns a future generation of Jews to flee to the mountains because: “For then there will be great distress, unequalled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equalled again.” (Matt 24:21)
So Haman is also a type of the coming Antichrist. Like Antiochus Epiphanies, Adolph Hitler and the Antichrist, the goal remains unchanged – killing Jews!
HAMAN
ANTICHRIST
A royal decree issued that everyone should bow to him (Est 3:2-3).
Rev 13:8 All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast…
Intends to kills dissenters (like Mordecai) who will not bow to him (Est 3:6).
Rev 20:4 … And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded… They had not worshiped the beast…
Brags of his wealth and influence (Est 5:11-12).
Dan 7:8 … This horn had … a mouth that spoke boastfully.
Is four times called “the enemy of the Jews” (Est 3:10, 8:1, 9:10, 9:24)
Rev 12:17 Then the dragon was enraged at the woman (Israel) and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring (the Jews).
Attempts to kill all Jews in the Medo-Persian kingdom (Est 3:8-9).
Kills two thirds of all Jews in his empire. Zech 13:8 In the whole land… two-thirds will be struck down and perish…
TABLES TURNED
Esther 9:1 On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them.
This is the day that Haman had chosen to destroy the Jews, and all those who hated the Jews were still hoping to do just that.
But the opposite happened. Far from being eradicated and destroyed, because of the new decree by Xerxes (because of Esther’s interceding for them) the Jews were now able to defend themselves against their attackers and they gained the upper hand.
Esther 9:16 … the remainder of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them
The enemies of the Jews had been waiting eagerly for this day to arrive. Like Hitler they had a “final solution” to resolve “the Jewish problem”. It was a day when it was legal to kill Jews and take their property.
This all happened in Persia. 2500 years later not much has changed. Modern Persia (Iran) is noted for often calling for the total annihilation of the State of Israel. Hezbollah established in 1985 with the backing of Iran, led Lebanese efforts to attack and drive Israelis from Lebanon.
HISTORY REPEATED
Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said: “Hezbollah has 100,000 missiles that are ready to hit Israel to liberate the occupied Palestinian territories if the Zionist regime repeats its past mistakes”. (Huffington Post 2017)
Former Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s time
in office was characterized by
contentious speeches including
calls to “eliminate the Zionist
regime”. He took part in a protest called “The World Without Zionism” and has derided Israel on numerous occasions. He urged regional powers to cut diplomatic and economic ties with Israel and halt oil sales. *
* https:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
IRAN
Iran has continued to fund Hamas to allow it to rebuild its tunnel network and rocket armoury, which it has used against Israel in multiple conflicts since 2008.
Keep this history in mind as you see Iran continue to flex its military muscle in the Middle East, or as further talks take place about a nuclear deal with Iran. Keep this history in mind when you see anti-Israel protests. Keep this history in mind when you hear casual anti-Semitism from friends or larger-scale anti-Semitism on the news. *
Those who seek to challenge Israel find themselves facing an outcome they did not expect. The promise God made to Abraham is eternal, and God curses those who curse His people. *
There has never been a world power that persecuted the Jews that remained great. That has been true in the past and it will remain true when the Gog-Magog War erupts … and when the entire world converges in battle against this tiny nation. *
* https:// endtimes.substack.com/ p/ the-danger-of-cursing-israel
When the world leaders were entering into a nuclear deal with Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to celebrate the deal, complaining that the deal didn’t make peace more likely, but made war more likely. He warned that the deal would make Iran more dangerous.
A week before Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly on October 1, 2015 in New York, the commander of Iran’s army publicly proclaimed, “We will annihilate Israel for sure.”
* AFP Photo/ Timothy A. Clary
Netanyahu responded:
I know that preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons remains the official policy of the international community. But no one should question Israel’s determination to defend itself against those who seek our destruction. For in every generation, there were those who rose up to destroy our people. In antiquity, we faced destruction from the ancient empires of Babylon and Rome. In the Middle Ages, we faced inquisition and expulsion. And in modern times, we faced pogroms and the Holocaust. Yet the Jewish people persevered.
And now another regime has arisen, swearing to destroy Israel. That regime would be wise to consider this: I stand here today representing Israel, a country 67 years young, but the nation-state of a people nearly 4,000 years old. Yet the empires of Babylon and Rome are not represented in this hall of nations. Neither is the Thousand Year Reich. Those seemingly invincible empires are long gone. But Israel lives.
Clearly we are dealing with far more than racial hatred. Unseen spiritual principalities behind the scene fuel and instigate this blind hatred, because Satan knows that if he can destroy the Jews – he can invalidate the promises of God.
But as in the time of Esther God can and will vindicate and protect his covenant people.
This brings to mind the events of 1967 where the fledgling nation of Israel again faced overwhelming odds against the combined military might of the Arab nations intent on destroying her.
The following war which would become known as the Six Day War, was fought on multiple fronts by Israel, and the world was astounded by the swift nature of the outcome in the face of what seemed like certain doom.
TABLES TURNED
Life magazine reported what happened:
Astounding is the only word for it. In 60 hours the war that exploded upon the Middle East became a fact of history. Tiny Israel stood in the role of victor over the surrounding Arab nations that vowed to exterminate her. Middle Eastern alliances, balances of power, even political boundaries, were of a new shape, as though mutated by a Biblical cataclysm. Seldom in military history has victory been so efficient or so visible decisive in so short a span of time. So swiftly did Israel mount her assault that her adversaries were deprived of the means of winning almost before the world awakened to the fact that a war was in progress. *
* Life, June 16, 1976, pp. 33, 38a
The Agag connection
Agag was the king of the Amalekites - the sworn enemies of Israel. When Israel was weak and leaving Egypt as recently liberated slaves, the Amalekites attacked them from the rear
and tried to
destroy them.
They targeted
those who
were lagging
behind the
main body of
people i.e. the
weak and
vulnerable.
As such Moses had
instructed the
Israelites to
destroy the
Amalekites. (Deut
25:17-19)
Saul was instructed
by God through
Samuel to execute
this directive from
Moses. (1 Sam 15:1-3) Unlike us, God knows the future. God knew what the results would be if Israel did not completely eradicate the Amalekites.
If Israel did not carry out God’s orders, the Amalekites would come back to trouble the Israelites in the future. Saul claimed to have killed everyone but the Amalekite king Agag
(1 Sam 15:20).
Obviously, Saul was
lying or mistaken—
just a couple
of decades later,
there were enough
Amalekites to take
David and his men’s
families captive
(1 Sam 30:1-2).
After David and his men attacked the Amalekites and rescued their families, 400 Amalekites escaped. If Saul had fulfilled what God had commanded him, this never would have occurred. Several hundred years later, a descendant of Agag, Haman, tried to have the entire Jewish people exterminated… So, Saul’s incomplete obedience almost resulted in Israel’s destruction. God knew this would occur, so He ordered the extermination of the Amalekites ahead of time. *
* https:// www.gotquestions.org/ Canaanites-extermination.html
When Saul was disobedient
with regards to destroying all
the Amalekites, along with
their king Agag, it was Samuel
who executed
this enemy king.
Agag initially
thought that he
would be spared
until he heard the
pronouncement
by Samuel:
As your sword bereaved women, so will your mother be bereaved among women.
Centuries later, in many aspects
the Nazis were the ‘spiritual’
descendants of the Amalekites,
preying upon Jews in a desperate
and weak state.
During the Holocaust, Adolf
Eichmann played a key role in the
deportation of Jews to death
camps. Towards the end of the
war, he said that he would “leap
laughing into the grave because
the feeling that he had five million people on his conscience would be for him a source of extraordinary satisfaction.” *
* William L. Shirer (1960),The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Footnote, p. 978
Like Agag, Eichmann
too thought he had
evaded justice when
he fled to Argentina
after the war. But he
was later captured by
Mossad agents, taken to
Israel and convicted as
a war criminal. When sentenced to death by hanging, his wife sent a plea for clemency by telegram to Israeli president Itzhak Ben-Zvi. In his reply he quoted Samuel’s words to Agag, “As your sword bereaved women, so will your mother be bereaved among women.” (1 Sam 15:33)
PURIM
The Jews would celebrate their victory over Haman and a celebration called Purim was instituted.
Some 2500 years later, the Jews still celebrate this feast of Purim every year. They remember God’s intervention and deliverance from the hands of an enemy who wanted to exterminate the Jewish race.
Esther 9:7-10 They also killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai and Vaizatha, the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews…
Here we note that Haman had ten sons. Prophetically Haman is a type of the coming Antichrist who will again turn on the Jews and seek to destroy them.
Interestingly the Antichrist will align himself with 10 kings in the end times.
HAMAN’S 10 SONS
ANTICHRIST’S 10 KINGS
When Haman falls, his sons were defeated as well. Likewise, the 10 kings will meet their doom as well when the beast (Antichrist) is defeated at the return of Jesus. (Rev 17:12-14)
But why bother to list the names of Haman’s sons?
Esther 9:12-14 (NASB) The king said to Queen Esther, "The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman at the citadel in Susa … Now what is your petition? It shall even be granted you. And what is your further request? It shall also be done.”
If it pleases the king, let tomorrow also be granted to the Jews who are in Susa to do according to the edict of today; and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged on the gallows.
So the king commanded that it should be done so; and an edict was issued in Susa, and Haman’s ten sons were hanged.
10 SONS HANGED
We see in this passage that the Jews were able to gain a great victory over those that desired to kill them and Queen Esther even petitioned for a second day to be available on which the fight could continue. This of course was granted by the king.
But Esther’s second request – that Haman’s 10 sons be hanged – is an unusual one. Why?
What is strange about it is that we are told twice previously that the 10 sons had already been killed. Why hang a person who is already dead?
It may be because this was the intended fate that Haman had wanted for Mordecai and so it is fittingly applied to his sons. But there is another interesting prophetic type that is indicated here.
Like the Amalekites and Haman before them, the Nazis tried to eradicate the Jews off the face of the earth. This translated into what became known as the Holocaust, where 6 million European Jews were exterminated in death camps by means of shooting and later gassing.
The city of Nuremberg was the place where the infamous anti-Semitic “Nuremberg Laws” were passed, which revoked German citizenship for all Jews and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.”
Nuremberg was also the home of the Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer - a weekly anti-Semitic Nazi newspaper. As early as 1933 and during the war, Streicher regularly authorized articles in the paper calling for the extermination of the Jewish race.
Adolf Hitler banned and forbade the observance of Purim. In a speech made on 10 Nov 1938 (the day after Kristallnacht), Julius Streicher surmised that just as “the Jew butchered 75,000 Persians” in one night, the same fate would have befallen the German people had the Jews succeeded in inciting a war against Germany; the “Jews would have instituted a new Purim festival in Germany”. *
On Purim 1942, ten Jews were hanged in Zduńska Wola to “avenge” the hanging of Haman’s ten sons. In a similar incident in 1943, the Nazis shot ten Jews from the Piotrków ghetto. On Purim eve that same year, over 100 Jewish doctors and their families were shot by the Nazis in Częstochowa. The following day, Jewish doctors were taken from Radom and shot nearby in Szydłowiec. *
* https:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Purim
At the end of the Second World War, Hitler, Goebbels and Himmler committed suicide and so couldn’t be tried as war criminals for their part in the atrocities committed against the Jews and others. But the surviving Nazi leaders were put on trial at Nuremberg, which commenced on 20 Nov 1945, with 22 German Nazi leaders being indicted.
12 of the German defendants were sentenced to death by hanging on 1 Oct 1946, for their part in the crimes against humanity, including the Holocaust.
One of those convicted was Martin Bormann, who was sentenced in absentia, although it was later confirmed that he had also committed suicide in Berlin to avoid capture by the Soviets.
A second convicted Nazi was Hermann Goering, but he evaded the noose by committing suicide in his cell just hours before the executions by taking a cyanide capsule.
The remaining 10 Nazis were hanged on 16 October 1946, the very same number as Haman’s sons who were hanged almost 2½ millennia earlier.
Interestingly another parallel between these two eras in Jewish history is that the Talmud (Megillah 16a) explains that in the Purim story, Haman’s daughter committed suicide and thus wasn’t hanged (similar to Goering).
Moshe Katz (of Technion - the Israel Institute of Technology) notes the following about the outcome of the Nuremberg Trials.
Since the trial was conducted by a military tribunal, the sentence handed down should have been death by firing squad, or by electric chair as practiced in the U.S.A. However, the court specifically prescribed hanging, exactly as in Esther’s original request: “… let Haman’s ten sons be hanged.”
In an apparent connection made by Hitler between his Nazi regime and the role of Haman, he stated in a speech made on 30 Jan 1944, that if the Nazis were defeated, the Jews could celebrate “a second Purim”.
Indeed, Julius Streicher seems to have been aware of the parallel: he was heard to sarcastically remark “Purimfest 1946” as he ascended the scaffold after Nuremberg. *
* https:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Purim
Remember we asked why the author of Esther would bother to list the names of Haman’s sons?
It has been noted by some that there is a code in the Book of Esther. In the very part which lists the names of Haman’s 10 sons who were hanged, three of the Hebrew letters — a tav, a shin and a zayin — are written smaller than the rest. (The tav of Parshandata, the shin of Parmashta, the zayin of Vizata)
The numerical values of tav, shin and zayin add up to 707 which is the common form of the Jewish year 5707. *
Wed, 16 October 1946 = 21st Tishrei, 5707
The ten Nazi defendants in the Nuremberg Trials (Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and Julius Streicher) were hanged on 16 Oct 1946, which corresponds to the Jewish year 5707.
* “When written in Hebrew numerals, year numbers usually omit the millennium.” – HEBREW DATING by Nachum Dershowitz and Edward M. Reingold
= 5707 = 1946
The date of the execution (21st Tishri 5707) also happened to be the seventh day of Sukkot in the Hebrew calendar.
The seventh day of Sukkot is also known to the Jews as Hoshana Rabbah, the day that they believe that God’s judgments are sealed for the following year. *
* https:// en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Hoshana_Rabbah
Like Haman before them, the Nazis discovered to their own peril - that the true God in heaven will avenge those who curse his covenant people.
It is apparent that God’s providence has played a role in the remarkable events leading up to Israel becoming a nation again after over 2 millennia.
The words spoken to Abraham and his natural seed many years ago still ring true:
Gen 12:3 “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse…
GOD DEFENDS HIS PEOPLE
Scripture predicts that ultimately the nations of the world will turn against Israel (Zechariah 12:3).
But at the second coming of Christ (the Second Advent) God will rise up to defend his people when the world turns against them. (Zechariah 14:2-4)
Christ will judge the nations who hate Israel (Joel 3:1-2 ).
SHOULD CHRISTIANS SUPPORT ISRAEL OR NOT?
Zech 2:8-9 (ESV) For thus said the LORD of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye: Behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them.
God says to those nations who will oppose Israel in the end times:
AUTHOR: Gavin Paynter
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