Have No Fear About Jerusalem...
MAKE SENSE OUT OF GAZA
END TIME PROPHECIES CONCERNING ISRAEL AND THE JEWS

Zechariah 12:2-3

2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of staggering unto all the peoples round about, and upon Judah also shall it fall to be in the siege against Jerusalem. 

3  And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a stone of burden for all the peoples; all that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it. 

4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with bewilderment, and his rider with madness; and I will open Mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the peoples with blindness. 

5  And the chiefs of Judah shall say in their heart: 'The inhabitants of Jerusalem are my strength through the LORD of hosts their God.' 

6  In that day will I make the chiefs of Judah like a pan of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire among sheaves; and they shall devour all the peoples round about, on the right hand and on the left; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own  place, even in Jerusalem.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zechariah 14

1  Behold! A day of the Lord is coming, and your plunder shall be shared within you. 
2  And I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to wage war, and the city shall be captured, and the houses shall be plundered, and the women shall be ravished, and half the city shall go into exile--and the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. 
3  And the Lord shall go forth and wage war with those nations, like the day he waged war on the day of the battle.

4  And on that day His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem from the east. And the Mount of Olives shall split in the midst thereof--toward the east and toward the west--a very great valley. And half the mountain shall move to the north and half of it to the south.

Amos 9

Amos 9:14-15, "And I will bring again the captivity of my people of Israel [literally means 'I will bring back the exiles of My people, Israel] ... And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God."

Ezekiel 28:24-28

 “And there will no longer be to the House of Israel a pricking briar or painful thorn from all that are around them, who plunder them, and they will know that I am the Lord G-D. So says the Lord G-D: when I gather in the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they have been scattered, and I have been sanctified through them in the eyes of the nations, then they shall dwell on their land that I gave to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell upon it securely, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards and dwell securely when I execute judgement against all those that plunder them from all around them, and they shall know that I am the lord their G-D.”

Obadiah 1

Worse still, says the prophet, was that Edom rejoiced at Israel’s (previous) downfall and joined in the fray, attacking the survivors and plundering their possessions. Because of this, G-d promises that at the end of days, “And the house of Jacob shall be fire, and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau shall become straw, and they shall ignite and consume them, and the house of Esau shall have no survivors, for G-d has spoken (Chap. 1, verse 18).” The Jewish people will then inherit Edom’s territory and G-d will reign as King over the earth.

In the wake of the devastation of the Jewish presence in Gaza, many powerful emotions are sweeping through the Israeli public. Those “blue” partisans on the left side of the map are in some cases even gleeful that the Messianic ideology of the State of Israel as the harbinger and tool of the coming of the Messiah has been demonstrated to be empty of significance, and the land of this country has been reduced to its rightful status as only a bargaining chip for the personal security of its citizens. An outstanding expression of this attitude is the major surge in Stock Market indicators in the last week. Money is to be made now that we are back to a purely materialistic orientation to our existence.
 
 The “orange Orthodox” on the other hand may be expected to be in deep depression at the apparent shattering of a 140-year-old ideology, where the State of Israel can no longer be viewed as “reishit tzemichat geulateinu” the initial flowering of our Redemption. A state which would do what the government, army and police have just done cannot possibly have this role to play. A political refuge for persecuted Jews – maybe. A vessel of classical Bible-based prophetic Redemption – never.
 
Both positions are incorrect, says Jewish tradition. It turns out that this process of the destruction of Neveh Dekalim and its satellites was foretold, and is an integral element in the unfolding scenario of Redemption. The source is the Targum Yonatan ben Uziel (ancient Aramaic elaborate rendering of the Pentateuch and Prophets, sentence by sentence, in light of prophetic and rabbinic [Midrashic] sources) on Deuteronomy 34:3. First, the Hebrew, then the Targum, then the English:

1) Ve’et hanegev ve’et ha kikar, bikat Yereicho ir hatemarim ad Tzoar.

2) VeYat melich daroma di’mitchaber im melich tzifuna lechabala yatvei ar’ah, veAmonai uMoavai yatvei meishra deme’ikin lehon leYisrael, ve-yat galvat talmidei  Eliahu de galan min bikata deYereicho, ve-yat galvat talmidei de’Elisha de galu min Kirvat Diklaya al yedei ahuhon beit Yisrael matan alfin guvrin, ve-yat akat kol dar vedar, ufuranut Armalgus reshia ve sidrei krava d’GOG, uve’idan tzaarah rabah hahi, Michael yekum bideraa leferuka.

3) “And the King of the South who joins with the King of the North to cause injury to the inhabitants of the Land [of  Israel], and the Ammonites and Moabites – dwellers on the plains who cause pain to Israel, and the exile of the disciples of [the Prophet] Elijah who are exiled from the plains of Jericho, and the exile of the disciples of [the Prophet] Elisha who are exiled from the town of Dekalim by two hundred thousand of their brethren of the House of Israel, and the pain of each and every bonfire, and the disaster [caused by] Armalgus the Evil One, and the battle order of Gog, and at the time of that great agony, [the Archangel] Michael will rise up with [G-d’s outstretched right] forearm to redeem.”
 
Here is a brief rendering of the sources for this text and their context:
 
a) Kings of the South/North – see Daniel 11: 40 and sentences following. At the Et Ketz – Time of the End [End of Days] there is a back-and-forth conflict between a King of the South and the King of the North. The classic Jewish commentator Metzudot David identifies the King of the North as Rome – the Christian world. The Malbim, another commentator,  identifies the King of the South as associated with the land of Ishmael – the Moslem world. As to the specifics of this conflict, kindly consult your daily newspapers since 9/11. The information is written there in gruesome detail. In the end, they  invade Israel under the leadership of Gog from the Christian world.

b) Ammonites – dwellers in Rabat Ammon – the modern Amman, capital of transJordan. Moabites are the people who dwelled in southern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Their descendants migrated into Turkish-Mandatory Palestine during the last century and one half and are today identified as “the Palestinians”. These indeed cause great pain to Israel.

c) Elijah went up to heaven in a fiery chariot at Jericho, and his disciple Elisha assumed his mantle of prophetic calling. Their disciples are those who embrace the redemptive message of prophecy.

d) The reference to the town of Dekalim requires no elaboration. The reference to “two hundred thousand men” can be correlated with the total number of soldiers and police in uniform at this time – close to 50,000 dealing directly with the exile and destruction in Gush Katif, the balance dealing with the needs of the rest of the country.

e) “Dar” in Aramaic can be “generation”, it can be “bonfire”, and it can be a “ploughed furrow”. Here the context of bonfire is most logical. Some citizens even set fire to their own homes in the last week. Enough said.

f) Armalgus is a “misrendering” of  “Armilius”, originally the Aramaic version of “Romulus” the founder of Rome (see the Targum on Isaiah 11:4). According to the students of the Vilna Gaon, he considered that in the gradual unfolding of the Redemption, Armilius will be not from Rome but the leader of the Erev Rav, the modern-day faction among the Jews, who, like the original Exodus Erev Rav [mixed multitude], will agitate for the undoing and the ridiculing of the Geula – Redemption. Since this “misrendering”  leads to a Gematria – numerical value of 340, and since there exists a leading promoter of Palestinian interests among the veteran Jewish ministers whose name in gematria equals 340, this may not be a misrendering at all, and Sharon may ultimately not be the one who is behind this entire scenario. Time will tell.

g) The War of Gog uMagog is the final battle where G-d Himself rescues the Jewish People in Israel (see Zecharia 14) from an invasion led by a leader referred to as Nasi Gog – President Gog (see Ezekiel 38-39). Taking into account that the classic Yemenite pronunciation of Hebrew can render this GeOGe, with soft Ge’s, and that in Texas the southern drawl renders this name Geo’ge with no “r” being pronounced, it is entirely possible that the leader of the Christian world to whom there is Biblical  reference is easily identified as a current leader. We should not be surprised if in the wake of the precedent set by the destruction of last week, the UN [Ha’um - Magog in Gematria -52], under American Presidential leadership organizes an expeditionary force to invade Israel with the “peaceful” purpose of applying this Dekalim precedent further to other Israeli presences beyond the Green Line, when Sharon refuses to do so. If this happens, we will likely be witnessing the beginning of the War of Gog uMagog.

h) The Archangel Michael is the guardian Angel of the Jewish people (see Daniel 12:1). He will carry out G-d’s will in the ultimate Redemption and save the Jews. It is his role that is referred to here.

i) The above sources were first brought to my attention about 12 years ago at the time of the Oslo (“Jericho First”) accords, by Mr. Shabtai Shiloh  of Jerusalem, may he be well, who has done much research in these matters. We did not suspect then that the reference to Dekalim was in the Gaza strip. Today, it is clear.

And so, the “blue” camp, supporters of the “Disenagement”, should not rejoice yet. The messianic redemptive vision, leading to the Messiah, the first modern true prophet, who will begin to function in the wake of the War of Gog Umagog, is alive and well, and is supported, not negated, by the events at Neveh Dekalim and its environs.
 
The “orange Orthodox” camp, resolute opponents of “Disengagement”, may take heart. We mourn the terrible injustice and privation visited upon thousands of innocent citizens whose only “sin” has been intense idealism. However, what has happened to them may well be a harbinger of wonderful times to come. May they be comforted and their pain assuaged. And may all of Israel be blessed from On High.
 
Yacov M. Tabak, Ph.D.
 
August 29, 2005

PSALM 83