Dear friends,
The month of August 2019 is very interesting in terms of prophecies in the Bible.
What Asaph wrote in Psalm 81 came true in the olden times, and also in the present. Verses 11-12 say, “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.”
The words of Asaph were a warning. The Assyrians and Babylonians had attacked them already. This psalm was written when the second temple was rebuilt and rededicated during the time of Zerubbabel the governor of Judah during that time.
The Israelites listened and God brought them back. And then the next generation did not listen to God. So the Greeks came, and the Romans came. And Israel was gone by the year 70 AD. It was only on May 14, 1948, more than 2,000 years, when Israel became a nation.
Psalm 81 was one of the prophecies that were fulfilled when modern Israel became a nation. They listened to God, and God brought them back again. It was an impossibility by human standards but God did that.
Psalm 81:13 says, “If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.”
Last August 10-11, 2019 was Tisha B’Av. It is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. According to the Jewish calendar, it is the 9th day of the month of Av or sometime between July and August every year. This is the period of time during which the Israelis mark the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. According to history, both Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on this date. It started their diaspora and period of suffering for all Jews.
Days before Tisha B’Av, on August 6, 2019, foxes were seen for the first time for more than 2,000 years in the Western Wall. Shmuel Rabinowitz, rabbi of the Western Wall and holy sites said, “One cannot refrain from crying at the site of the fulfillment of the prophecy of ‘foxes will walk on it.'” The rabbi was referring to Lamentations 5:15-18 that say “The joy of our heart has ceased; Our dance has turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our heart is faint; Because of these things our eyes grow dim; Because of Mount Zion which is desolate, With foxes walking about on it.” They are reading these verses every year but it was only this year that they have seen foxes.
Talmud Tractate Makkot 24b reads, “Until the prophecy of Uriah with regard to the destruction of the city was fulfilled, I was afraid that the prophecy of Zechariah would not be fulfilled, as the two prophecies are linked.”
And what is the prophecy of Zechariah? It is about the rebuilding of Jerusalem. It can be found in Zechariah 8:7-8 – This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I will save my people from the countries of the east and the west. I will bring them back to live in Jerusalem; they will be my people, and I will be faithful and righteous to them as their God.”
These events and prophecies in the Bible should give us the confidence that our God is trustworthy before, now and forevermore.
Sincerely,
Rev. Francis Neil G. Jalando-on