We Live in Prophetic Times
As a Bible-believing and practicing Jew, I consider the current events in Israel as signs that we live in prophetic times. From that perspective I find hope, confidence and strength in the many prophecies concerning the return of the Jewish people to the Promised Land, where the desert will bloom again.
However, we are being confronted with situations similar to those in Biblical times, as nations behave extremely heartlessly towards Israel. These situations could end in the possible war of Gog and Magog, a war considered in the Jewish prophecies as a final battle between Israel and the nations, as well as between good and evil.
A period of global peace will follow that war, with universal recognition of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, including the rebuilding of the Temple, and a renewed sense of Israel as God’s chosen people.
Learning from biblical times
To better understand and deal with the daily events Israel is confronted with, we can often learn from similar situations in Biblical times. In the time of Moses, the Lord hardened the hearts of Pharaoh and his servants as we can read in Exodus 10 so that they would not escape punishment for all that they had done to the Jewish people over a long period.
From Ex. 4:21, 9:12, 9:16, 10:1 we can draw a strong comparison between Pharaoh and his servants with the modern-day nations and their allies, whose hearts have also been hardened against Israel.
Israel covers only about 22,000 square meters of the total 510,000,000 square kilometers of the earth’s surface, with a population of around 9.5 million including 8 million Jews. It is confronted by the United Nations, with its 193 member states, representing about 8 billion inhabitants. Those states have often abused their power against Israel, by adopting about 140 resolutions in favor of Israel’s enemies. There have been a series of unjust judgments by the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague. In short, the hearts of the United Nations member states are already so hardened that they did not even condemn the terrible murders, gruesome acts and hostage taking against Israel on 7 October 2023, but instead continue to support Israel’s enemies.
Even Israel’s so-called allies have regularly limited Israel in its defense and do not adequately protect the Jewish population in their own country from resurgent antisemitism.
Israel’s distinct path
In Biblical times Israel was accused of acting radically differently from other nations with their pagan practices. This began with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who refused to participate in the global cultures of idolatry, including child sacrifices.
It often angered the dominant world empires and their subordinates because the Jews worshiped only one God and followed His divine principles. The difference between the Jews and other nations was so significant that the Jews were confronted with oppression, dispossession, expulsion, persecution, rape, kidnapping, murder, for thousands of years, culminating into the Holocaust.
However those same divine principles that made Israel so different throughout history, have ironically become the basis of all major religions, nations and modern ethical thinking. Therefore it is outrageous that these same nations and their allies continue to accuse Israel of immorality, apartheid, genocide, etc. Meanwhile they are witnessing the fulfillment of over 2,000-year-old Biblical prophecies declaring the return of the Jewish people to their promised land.
A return which benefits all nations looking at the important contributions that Israel now makes to the ‘modern’ world, through its many technological developments, inventions, innovative high-tech sector, progress in science, medicine, agriculture, energy, communication, etc.
A mixed multitude
Despite this, Israel is treated by the nations, as Pharaoh did to Israel in his days causing pain, despair and confusion among many Jewish people in Israel, and Jewish communities worldwide. A confusion fueled by the Erev rav, the stranger among them. We read in Ex. 12:38 that when the Israelites left Egypt, they were joined by a ‘mixed multitude’ of people called the Erev rav, who continued their idolatries and immoral habits despite the Sinai revelation.
The Bible teaches us that the Erev rav incited the multitude to idolatry and sexual immorality, the reasons why God destroyed the world of Noah with water, after which He placed His rainbow as a reminder of His promise never to destroy the world with water again.
Thus, when seeing the rainbow, people should remember God’s laws of morality and justice. However, later, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah fell into grave sexual immorality. Abraham pleaded with God for compassion, hoping to find at least ten righteous people. When he failed, God kept His promise and destroyed the cities—not with water, but with fire and brimstone. This demonstrates that there are ultimately consequences when humanity fails to live according to divine principles.
Also in the time of Nehemiah (13:3), after they (Israel) heard the Law, they separated the mixed multitude (The Erev) from Israel. Also in Ezra 10:11: “Now give glory to the Lord, the God of your forefathers, and separate yourselves from the people of the land and from the foreign women’”
In short, throughout history the Jewish people were to keep themselves separate from the foreigners among them. They were to identify and manifest themselves as Jews or as part of Israel. The explicit goal of the Erev rav has been to undermine Israel, and divine principles universally, replacing divine principles with those of modern humanism where man decides about life and death, sexual relations, and gender status. So-called morality and righteousness of man is placed above God’s laws.
In addition, we learn that from Biblical times until today, the Jewish people, as they did in Egypt, settled as refugees in a host country. There they grew in number and made great contributions to the development and prosperity of their host country, while gaining power and great personal wealth. The result was often the loss of their Jewish traditions, identity, and desire to return to the Promised Land.
Settled periods were often followed by a wave of antisemitism, forcing Jewish people to do some soul searching, inspiring them consciously or unconsciously to choose as to their Jewish identity, return to the Promised Land, purpose in life, and their relationship with God.
Shared prophetic prospect
In Isaiah. 25:7 we read: “And on this mountain He will destroy the veil that is over the face of all peoples, and the covering that is spread over all nations”. Today we can already experience the synergy of Bible-believing people, Jews and Christians worldwide, who stand shoulder to shoulder in the battle between good and evil, between humanism and divine principles. Our task is to inspire our fellow man worldwide, with the divine principles of morality, justice and charity.
Despite differences in origin and divine destiny, we walk together toward a shared prophetic prospect—without Jews becoming Christians or vice versa. Together we can form a small group of Bible believers, who through charity and the practice of morality and righteousness according to God’s divine principles, may become a symbolic group of ten people. In the hope that God, because of our symbolic group of ten people, will hasten the coming of the Messiah and limit the suffering of humanity.
In the last days God will remember all nations and people concerning the promise to Abraham: “Whoever blesses you I will bless, and whoever curses you I will curse.” Ultimately, many will say: “Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord… He will teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” (Isaiah 2:3-4).
Zechariah 8:23 foretells a time when “ten men shall from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, “Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.”’
These prophecies fill me hope, courage, and strength assuring that in the end, all will be good.
