In the last few weeks, I’ve had to delve back into a subject that I haven’t spent much time researching since my initial deconversion. Ezekiel’s prophecy of Tyre, which can be found in Ezekiel 26-28, was a major piece of evidence for me in showing that the Bible was not as accurate as I had always thought. I’ve written about it twice before: first in a rather matter-of-fact manner, and later with a touch of sarcasm. The blog Thomistic Bent has recently done a 3-part series on Ezekiel’s prophecy of Tyre (1, 2, and 3), and my own posts on the subject have seen a lot of recent activity as well, so I think it’s time that I do a new series on the prophecy in as thorough a fashion as I know how. This will be a lengthy study, so I’ve decided to break it up into several parts.
At Face Value
I think it’s important to state up front that this prophecy simply fails at face value. To me, that’s significant, since God would be powerful enough to ensure that no matter what the prophecy stated, events would unfold exactly as predicted. In the prophecy, Ezekiel states that Tyre would be destroyed:
3 therefore thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Tyre, and will bring up many nations against you, as the sea brings up its waves. 4 They shall destroy the walls of Tyre and break down her towers, and I will scrape her soil from her and make her a bare rock. 5 She shall be in the midst of the sea a place for the spreading of nets, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. And she shall become plunder for the nations, 6 and her daughters on the mainland shall be killed by the sword. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
— Ezek 26:3-613 And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more. 14 I will make you a bare rock. You shall be a place for the spreading of nets. You shall never be rebuilt, for I am the Lord; I have spoken, declares the Lord God.
— Ezek 26:13-1421 I will bring you to a dreadful end, and you shall be no more. Though you be sought for, you will never be found again, declares the Lord God.”
— Ezek 26:21
And as you can see, in addition to being destroyed, it’s prophesied that Tyre will never be rebuilt or found again. But this is simply not true. We’ll get into the details later, but the simple fact is that once Tyre was finally destroyed, it was immediately rebuilt. Instead of being a bare rock, or even a ruin, it remained an extremely important trade hub in the region for centuries. And it’s the 4th largest city in Lebanon today.
So the events haven’t worked out exactly as the prophecy claimed they would. And for many people, myself included, that’s enough. I view this prophecy as a failure. Nevertheless, there’s much more that can be said by digging into the details of this prophecy, as well as the geography and history of Tyre and its surroundings. A number of people have found ways to claim that this prophecy has been fulfilled by focusing on the minutiae. I don’t find their arguments persuasive, however, and the next several posts will go into my reasons why.
Finding Truth 
Hi Nate,
can you read Hebrew? Have you studied chiastic structure in Hebrew poetry? What about Chiastic structure in Beowulf?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiastic_structure
Now, I’m not qualified to say there’s actually a Chiastic structure proper working on the pronouns of who-does-what in this passage. I don’t even know if this form of prophecy *cares* who does what. I’d have to hassle that Professor of OT I know again, but quite often biblical prophecy is not even meant to be all *that* predictive, but more theologically descriptive. For all I know, Ezekiel may have watched the oncoming storm of Nebuchadnezzar’s approach across the Middle East and put 2 and 2 together, and so described it theologically. Biblical prophecy is often a far more nuanced and layered thing than, say, the more literal type of prediction we see from Harry Potter’s professor Sybill Trelawney. The general vibe could be that Tyre would one day fall, and Nebuchadnezzar would kick this off on the *mainland*!
The only Chiastic structure papers I’ve seen about this section of Ezekiel reveal Tyre’s happiness turning to mourning across the few chapters concerning Tyre, and it did not answer our particular questions. Indeed, the Tokyo Institute of Technology website shows a Chiastic structure working across the whole *book* of Ezekiel which I did not realise was there!
http://www.valdes.titech.ac.jp/~h_murai/bible/26_Ezekiel_e_2.html
But not only that, there’s some other Hebrew literary form that can confuse readers of the modern English translations where the subject turns on a pronoun. We’re used to the nouns in a paragraph dictating to the following pronouns. EG: “The cat sat on the mat. He was cranky”. We would never think that ‘he’ referred to someone else! But in Hebrew, sometimes the subjects are set up at the beginning of a poem, and then the following poem bounces back and forth between the subjects based on changing pronouns.
This might all sound like an ‘excuse’ to someone hostile like William, but go read the Chiastic structure wiki, and ask yourself honestly: “What do I really know about Chiastic structure? Has my ignorance of this basic Hebrew literary structure hindered my understanding of the text?”
Back to the text. The nations were coming on Tyre like the waves. Is it not feasible that somewhere in there the subject switches? Or that Ezekiel doesn’t even care to tell us when the subject switches, but just that Nebuchadnezzar will kick off the action against Tyre on the mainland (which happens) and then “they” take over and then “I” (God) takes over?
Seriously, try and have a little respect for the power of ignorance! What might seem obvious to you in the English may be laughable to a Professor of Hebrew! Try this: who are the actors here?
“I am against you, Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves. 4 They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers; I will scrape away her rubble and make her a bare rock.”
God and the nations.
How are they described?
“I” (God) and “They” (nations).
Agreed? Now try this:
Where does Neb start?
“I am going to bring against Tyre Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, king of kings, with horses and chariots, with horsemen and a great army. 8 He will ravage your settlements on the mainland”
Yup, the mainland. But when will Tyre proper be destroyed, and which historical figure will do it? I put to you that Ezekiel doesn’t even say! He leaves that up to God.
Neb’s actions are described in the pronoun “he” and “his”, but I will capitalise for readability and focus.
“The hooves of HIS horses will trample all your streets; HE will kill your people with the sword, and your strong pillars will fall to the ground.”
Good so far? Watch verse 12!!!!!!
12 THEY will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; THEY will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea.
Woah, hold on there. THEY? Really? Who’s this THEY? To an English reader surely it has to be the horses of Neb’s army? I mean, who in their right minds shifts subject on a pronoun? It’s just *not done* in English. This is where I’m not qualified to state what *has* happened in the text, and I cannot find a commentary that delves on this ‘problem’ of yours this specifically. Basically, the commentaries have probably missed that this is even a problem for some people! But I’m just telling you what I suspect is going on in the Hebrew because I’ve heard this sort of thing before in other passages. I *suspect* that Ezekiel is linking pronouns to the setup at the beginning of the passage where he shifts between God and THEY, the nations. Pronoun shifting is a thing in Hebrew literature as much as Chiastic structure, but I just cannot find the wiki’s to *prove* it at this stage.
Then what happens in 13? It shifts again! It’s not Neb, but GOD who does the rest, and finishes off Tyre’s more personal aspects of culture and songs and harps, and degrades Tyre (that “YOU”) to a fishing village.
“13 I will put an end to your noisy songs, and the music of your harps will be heard no more. 14 I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishnets. You will never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken, declares the Sovereign Lord.”
Not Neb, but God! “I”.
Pronoun shifting. It’s a thing.
Also, who’s to say Tyre didn’t have fine palaces and towers and defensive ramparts and main walls on the *mainland?* Who’s to say specifically when the subject shifts from the mainland to Tyre proper? Don’t both settlements have both? Even the ‘bare rock’ sounds like Tyre out in the sea, but it might not be. It could be that Ezekiel saw something of Alexander wiping the mainland off the face of the earth and leaving *that* patch a bare rock in Alexanders EPIC (I mean, they really should make a movie of this!) siege of Tyre, building a causeway out of mainland Tyre.
But, after all my rambling about Chiastic Structure and Pronoun Shifting, the main point is this:
GOD will make Tyre a bare rock, not Neb. It says so in the passage!
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In other words, “this whole Tyre prophecy thing failed” could be an epic strawman based on ignorance of Hebrew poetry.
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Eclipse Now,
I appreciate what you’re saying, but do you really believe what you’re laying out here? And I don’t want that to come across as condescending — I’m honestly asking you. To tell you the truth, it reminds me a bit of the questions I was asking myself when I read those articles on Daniel.
Let’s think through some of your points.
1) Let’s say that “he” in the passage suddenly changes to a different antecedent. It’s impossible to determine that from the English, and while I don’t read or speak Hebrew, I’m inclined to think that it would be very difficult to determine it there, as well. And in Hebrew, would the text suddenly become unintelligible if the writer had just used the proper noun again? I doubt it… which means had God actually inspired this, he probably could have done it in a way that would make sense in Hebrew as well as later languages. If, on the other hand, it’s impossible to do that for some reason, then why would God have used Hebrew in the first place?
2) Maybe the prophecy doesn’t care who actually does what? Do you think other biblical prophecies work that way? Could the prophecy about Josiah have been about anyone else? When there are prophecies about a descendant of David, would a descendant of Saul or Jeroboam or Ahab work just as well? And if it is that fluid, why should we believe any of them? Wouldn’t it mean that the Bible’s prophecies are less specific than Nostradamus’s?
3) Pronoun shifting at verse 12 and beyond. Yes, here you’re absolutely right. The pronouns shift. That’s actually why I was only focusing on verses 7-11. While I think “they” probably means Nebuchadnezzar’s army, I acknowledge that it could be referring to the later nations that Ezekiel says would come against Tyre. But verses 7-11 don’t do that.
To your points about what may have been on the mainland, I’ve addressed all of that in this series. I have to think that you haven’t read these other articles. I suggest you check them out, because I go into much more detail in the rest of them than I could do in this one comment.
The bottom line is that verses 7-11 are definitively talking about Tyre (the island city), not the mainland settlements, which were typically called Ushu or Sazu, never Tyre. And Nebuchadnezzar never made it into Tyre.
Really, please read these other articles. They’re not all that long, and since you’re interested in the subject, I think you’d find them interesting.
I think that’s extremely unlikely.
Let me ask you this: do you think there’s any possibility at all that you could be wrong? Because most of the statements in your last two comments sound like someone who’s determined to hang onto a position no matter what. Please don’t be offended by that — we all have the tendency from time to time. But I think you’d agree that it’s something we should try to be aware of and avoid at all costs…
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PS: “Because while it’s painful and disorienting to have your worldview fall apart, it’s far better to be closer to truth.”
I appreciate that you’ve experienced some profound changes in your life, and want to blog about them. But here’s the rub: am I going to discover the ‘truth’ about Hebrew prophecy from a blog where the author and his blogging mates can’t describe Chiastic Structure and other pronoun-shifting literary forms from the ancient world, and can’t even really read Hebrew? Isn’t that a bit like a climate denier assuring a newbie to the global warming debate that they will find the ‘truth’ if they just take off their goggles of respect for peer-reviewed science, and read only their special list of other climate-denying blogs?
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Do you think God would expect people to believe in his word if it takes scholar-level understandings of ancient languages and literary styles to keep the message from looking false?
But by all means, don’t feel like you need to come here to find truth. I’m just a guy trying to understand this stuff to the best of my ability. I encourage you to dig into all the sources you can find.
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“1) Let’s say that “he” in the passage suddenly changes to a different antecedent. It’s impossible to determine that from the English, and while I don’t read or speak Hebrew, I’m inclined to think that it would be very difficult to determine it there, as well. And in Hebrew, would the text suddenly become unintelligible if the writer had just used the proper noun again? I doubt it… which means had God actually inspired this, he probably could have done it in a way that would make sense in Hebrew as well as later languages. If, on the other hand, it’s impossible to do that for some reason, then why would God have used Hebrew in the first place?”
Do I honestly believe what I’m saying? I’m not *smart* enough or qualified enough to invent Hebrew textual analysis. That assumes I’m just making all this up to justify the text, and says far more about your own assumptions towards believers than anything about the text itself. You assume that we’ll grasp at straws, and just cannot understand the sheer magnitude of the ‘problem’ you see here. But now it appears that you don’t know *anything* about Hebrew poetic structure, and are asking me if I really believe in this stuff? Seriously? I only know enough to begin to scratch at the surface but have friends who can *dream* in ancient Hebrew. It’s like you’re asking if I believe in Shakespeare and his use of iambic pentameter.
I’m sorry I left any doubt for you, but as I said, I’m not qualified in this stuff. The pronoun swapping or shifting is not what it was called, so I didn’t know how to google it. The passages I have heard discussed before with pronoun shifting were probably a longer form of Hebrew Parallelism.
Here is an example of “close knit” parallelism. It analyses Genesis, the classic opening sequence in chapter 1 with the parallelism. This is an easier to understand example because the subjects shift from the creation of the forms to the filling of the forms. It’s close knit and one easily fulfils the next. In stages. 3 days for forms, 3 days for filling of forms, 1 day for enjoyment of the creation: the classical number 7 respected and repeated multiple times throughout the passage! (Multiple times: the first sentence opens with 7 Hebrew words, the second 14 Hebrew words, and “God said” and other phrases are repeated in other multiples of 7. Number symbolism is a thing as well!)
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/language_poetry.html
No I did not make this up: the Hebrews did, and it is a widely respected genre of poetry. But Hebrew Poetry is a vast and extensive universe of literature, and I’m not really qualified to analyse it. Here are the various subjects the wiki covers.
1 Characteristics of Ancient Hebrew poetry
1.1 Rhyme
1.2 Unusual forms
1.3 Parallelism
1.4 Quantitative Rhythm
1.5 Accentual rhythm
1.6 The Dirges
1.7 Anadiplosis
1.8 Acrostics
2 Division of the poetical portions of the Hebrew Bible
2.1 Poems that deal with events
2.2 Didactic poems
2.3 Lyrics
2.4 Poems that urge action
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_poetry
The Ezekiel passage does not appear to me to be strict “parallelism” like the tied in, neatly bundled of the Genesis 1 poem. But the subject switching by pronouns through a longer text is a rhythm I have encountered too many times by too many highly qualified OT lecturers to just forget. No, I did not imagine this or make it up.
As to the mainland versus, I’ve got family stuff tonight (we watch Marvel’s Daredevil over food, and it’s great family time! I highly recommend it if your kids are in their teenage years). I’ll try to get my head around your problems with the mainland versus island thing, but my initial comment is going to sound like a HUGE cop-out to a hyper-literalist like yourself, but here goes.
Hebrew poetry is often more about the VIBE of the thing than the details! The feel, the imagery, the terror, the substance of an event, but not the details. And that’s from a head lecturer at Moore College, the Sydney Anglican bible college. So while we’re scraping through this in forensic detail, Ezekiel may have been saying no more than “Waves of badness is going to hit Tyre, and it all starts with Nebuchadnezzar on the mainland”. He might have been perplexed at the level of analysis we’re going through now. Tyre was destroyed. Waves of nations came against Tyre. Jesus and the apostles were not in the remotest bit freaked out by the existence of Tyre. And experts I know in Hebrew poetry have said that the details are sometimes *just* not as important as the vibe! Cop out much? Only if it isn’t true! I’ll ask some of my contacts if they’re at church tomorrow.
PS: I may have sounded a bit snappier than I really am on the Ezekiel 2 thread just then. Please note that while I question your knowledge of Hebrew, I do appreciate the effort you’ve put in to reading about these questions: but maybe not some of the more flippant conclusions.
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“Do you think God would expect people to believe in his word if it takes scholar-level understandings of ancient languages and literary styles to keep the message from looking false?”
At the time and to the original audience it was probably just not as misunderstood as it is now. We’re in a different culture. That’s where hermeneutics comes in, and respecting how an original audience would have received something and what they made of it. Your misunderstandings of this text really are a fringe issue compared to the overall narrative of the bible. From your more autobiographical posts, it seems the problem of suffering and God judging were of more emotional importance than this particular text.
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So, unless you live in the 20th/21st century (and thus have access to almost everything thanks to the Internet), or are a Learn-ed Scholar (and thus born into the Upper Classes) in some previous centuries, you could easily think that the Ezekiel prophecy is false because you wouldn’t have access to knowledge about ancient Hebrew poetic forms.
Too bad God couldn’t be bothered to make the translations accurately represent the original, or inspire the original to be less confusing…IF that is what is happening. Prophecy is for the future. God knows that future generations and cultures won’t share the same linguistic or literary concepts as the one he is inspiring. He knows that the lack of knowledge of the original style and intent would create the “illusion” of a failed prophecy when people looked back to see if the prophecy is fulfilled. But he does it anyway?
“You see, the prophecy isn’t wrong just b/c it looks wrong–you have to understand that “he” could mean anybody, and it isn’t meant to be that specific or predictive anyway…that is just our modern literalist interpretations and expectations. It is the same thing as Genesis–clearly the 7 days of creation weren’t meant to be literal, it was was just a literary device.”
These are Modern Arguments based on modern knowledge. It is now common knowledge that neither the earth nor the animals/plants on it are as recent as Genesis describes. Before the 1700s nobody knew that, or maybe only a select few geologists had any hint of it. They believed Genesis literally and had no reason not to. (Remember Galileo? “Literalist interpretations” are anything but a modern development.) Perhaps a few erudite scholars cloistered away in their, well, Cloisters, or Monasteries, knew of the literary structure of Genesis, but would that have been informative? No. They would have seen the 7 Days of Creation matching this 7 pattern of poetry as just evidence of God’s perfection or whatever. Nobody needed to say “well, clearly that isn’t meant to be taken literally”; they would have said “to not take it literally is Heresy!”
It is easy for anybody to find out that Nebby didn’t perform the tasks specifically assigned to him in this prophecy. There is enough history to show that the *eventual* downfall of Tyre (by waves of nations) was as inevitable as the downfall of Carthage, Rome, and Babylon in the same manner. But no, you see, b/c I know the Bible is true, so if it appears to not be true it is because you are not reading it *correctly*. Why? Because God wants unquestioning, blind faith…or highly intelligent scholars of theology and ancient literature. Nothing in-between makes him happy, otherwise he would have ensured the scriptures were undeniably clear.
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Sorry, I haven’t had a chance to reply until now, but I think eSell has said everything I could have said, and he’s probably said it better. I do know about chiastic structures, though I’ve never heard anyone argue that Ezekiel’s prophecy is an example. But I’ll look into that further. It’s certainly interesting, though it doesn’t make sense to me that an actual god would use it, for the same reasons that eSell laid out.
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esell,
nearly 2000 years ago Phil the Jew was asking why God couldn’t make everything in an *instant*, and why he was so weak that it took 7 days! As a Theistic Evolutionist (TE) I see Creationism as simply poor reading. I personally feel sorry for modern day Creationists, not just because they have to live in such terrible fear of everything ‘sciencey’ that indicates an old earth, but because they’re missing out on the theological *gold* that is in Genesis 1 because of their literalistic reading of it! Try this piece by Dr John Dickson with a Phd in history as well as being a theologian. Yes, the middle ages saw a rise of literalism, but John covers that and explains it as a reaction to other ‘liberal’ forces in Christian thought at the time.
http://www.iscast.org/journal/articlespage/Dickson_J_2008-03_Genesis_Of_Everything
Meanwhile, the OT Prof I know was not at church on Sunday and to be honest, is probably tired of me hassling him. (I’ve been on his case about more than Tyre). I’m trying other avenues to identify the style of writing here, and strongly suspect it’s all to do with the nature of metaphor. After all, he *was* accused of being that “maker of metaphors”!
I hope to get back to you in a week or so.
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“It’s certainly interesting, though it doesn’t make sense to me that an actual god would use it, for the same reasons that eSell laid out.”
Well Nate, when you’ve got your own universe that you command you can compare notes with Him. But also note that it doesn’t make much “sense” that He would become incarnate as a human being and let Himself be crucified, taking the punishment we deserve and all that gospel stuff. He made the Word of God become flesh, so I guess it follows that for us Christians, it isn’t that big a jump that he would allow His words to flow through human language and culture, being both “God breathed” and yet integral to the speaker’s personality and culture and language styles. Nope: no *logical* contradiction here at all! Just a matter of your personal preference.
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Wow, Eclipse, I have never seen that view before–I read the link. Yeah, really! *gasp*
It really makes a lot of sense. I’ve always been a fan of history and so this historical/cultural/literary look at Genesis really speaks to me. The “subversive theology” idea is compelling!
And I am surprised to know that “Genesis isn’t really literal” is a really OLD idea. The whole “your god is so weak it took him several days to make everything; why didn’t he do it instantly?”
“Uhhh…He DID do it instantly, Genesis is just using several days to illustrate Order and Productivity!”
Honestly, I never would have thought of that!
This is very interesting territory and I might just have to read more into it. And yes, I can see the “you don’t have to reject the Bible b/c Genesis is inaccurate–it was never meant to be accurate” argument. But, at the moment, I don’t see any reason to accept the Bible, just one less Factual Objection.
And I recognize that this paper that is focusing on Genesis is supposed to be applicable to the central argument of this thread, namely the Prophetic Accuracy of Ezekiel’s pronouncements against Tyre.
OK, so it was Prophecy about the eventual destruction of Tyre as a Culture and Power on the world scene. “He” doesn’t mean Nebby b/c it is poetry and it would break the poetic flow to accurately reference the correct antecedent.
So now we are left with “I am God and I will punish you, Tyre, for rejoicing at the destruction I brought on Jerusalem b/c of the sins of Israel. I will send waves of nations against you, starting with Nebby, and over the course of these waves of nations one/some/all of them will take down your towers, ride cavalry through your streets, and put battering rams against your walls and gates; I will bring you so low that you are naught but a fishing village. Your culture and World Power status will not recover. I am the Lord”.
Even if we take it as poetry, and say that this poetic structure means that Nebby wasn’t supposed to do anything in particular except attack once, we are left with a Prophecy as profound as “one day the Culture and Power of United States of America will be at an end. There will be civil strife, external attack, great winds shall blow and the earth shall shake and destroy your cities, and the great power of your Coin shall fail you. I am the Lord”.
Saying that something will happen that cannot fail to happen is not Prophecy. If we discount all the failures of specifics due to “it wasn’t supposed to be specific b/c it was poetry/literary devices”, we are left with an almost meaningless pronouncement of Judgment.
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“Saying that something will happen that cannot fail to happen is not Prophecy. If we discount all the failures of specifics due to “it wasn’t supposed to be specific b/c it was poetry/literary devices”, we are left with an almost meaningless pronouncement of Judgment.”
OK, granted. But here’s the thing. I’m no expert in this area, and may change my mind on what I am about to say with new data, but Ezekiel may not have been *all* that interested in *predicting* the future at all but interpreting the present trends! It might be more about interpreting Neb’s march across the ancient world as God’s judgement than being predictive. However, let’s also remember the stuff about the ocean covering them. To my knowledge no commander in history had ever thrown an entire town into the sea to get at an enemy! The verses about the sea covering Tyre really are remarkable when one considers Alexander built his famous causeway two centuries later!
For the life of me, I don’t know why there isn’t a whole movie about this one event. There are enough twists and turns in the battle that actually happened that, combined with an illicit romance and some personal rivalry between Alexander and the King of Tyre, and there’s a whole movie right there!
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Esell, one another comment about Genesis (although I’m loathe to dwell on it too much in a thread about Tyre).
First, I’m glad you enjoyed the John Dickson paper. He’s not just a great historian but a personal friend. I’m glad I know him. I really appreciate not just the material about the ancient authorities that read it metaphorically, including St Augustine!, but also the number symbolism and especially the contrast with the Enuma Elish. I went and read the Enuma Elish after reading John’s paper, and love some of the characters and stories. I mourned when ISIS destroyed so many valuable Babylonian statues of Marduk and the other heroes of Babylon’s mythology. They’re important for the ‘compare and contrast’ exercise that is built into Genesis!
So while the first 11 chapters of Genesis are recognised as a more poetic & structured genre of writing, at some point around there the writing changes to become more of a historical theological tale, following the evolution of God’s chosen family into a nation. Only liberals would write off the whole of Genesis as some sort of constructed fable, and I think John Dickson would reject that. Just a comment.
Cheers.
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I went out on the south side of the firing ranges on Ft. Huachuca on Sunday and read Ezekiel Chapters 26 – 28 again. I realized that chapters 27 and 28 are not talking about chapter 26. Chapter 27:3 ends with “I am of perfect beauty” and verse 4 reads “Thy borders are in the midst of the seas, thy builders have perfected thy beauty.” And then it speaks of over 25 groups of people, many are nations, as of Egypt, Persia, Lud, Phut, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, Dedan, Judah, Damascus, Dan, Javan, Dedan, Arabia, Haran, Canneh, Eden, Sheba, Asshur, and Chilmad. And many others are mentioned as all being merchants of, or soldiers of Tyrus. And the in verse 26 it reads ¶ “Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas.” which is a quote from Psalm 48:7, “Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind.”
Do you know what the east wind is. The bible speaks of the four winds of heaven as being for legions of angels. And the east wind is Michael and his angels and even Judah (Jesus) in this case. So when Tyre (Muslim armies) gains full control of the nations surrounding Israel, and attempts to wipe Israel from off the earth(psalm 83:4) “They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.” then Jesus with his saints and angels will come and destroy Islam and her armies, (muslims) because all that has ever been written in the Old Testament has been written about Isaac and Ishmael, and Jacob and Essau. The children of promise and the children of cursing.
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Really? You realized that? Cool! Now, is there any way to be a little more specific? I don’t mean to sound dismissive, it’s just that, well, the Muslim nations surrounding the current state of Israel have said, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” three times already.
First was the War of Independence in ’48. One would think that they were defenseless and that the armies of several nations around them would destroy them. But no…
Then the famous Six Day War in June of ’67. Again, all (or at least most) of the Muslim Arab nations around tried to sweep Israel into the sea. Didn’t work.
The Yom Kippur War of ’73 was lead by Egypt and Syria, but most of the nations around there contributed troops and/or supplies.
No victory for the Muslims, and no East Wind of Jesus’ intervention. But maybe that is the fault of the Israelis. Maybe they’re just too tough. Probably Jesus is waiting until they actually need His help, meaning he has to wait until someone starts lobbing Nukes at Tel Aviv…so the *next* Arab/Israeli war.
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I think you’re wrong, Charles. The first 4 verses make it very clear that this is a continuation of the proclamation against Tyre:
Now, you can read whatever symbolism you want into the passage, but a straightforward reading clearly makes it a prophecy about Tyre. And any other interpretation is conjecture that can’t be supported by any real evidence. The lists of other nations merely talk about all the trade that came through Tyre, as well as the different nationalities of people who had come to live there. Not surprising in a prosperous city.
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Charles,
Nate is (sadly) not a believer any more, and I as an evangelical, bible-believing Christian have to side with him on this one! As an Amil, I think any attempt at predicting when the Lord will return is utterly fruitless, especially when wrenching historical prophecies out of their context of being clearly fulfilled thousands of years ago! Seriously, what do you think you’re doing? There is as little justification for marching across this text with your futurist presuppositions as there is in going hyper-literal on a poetic metaphor.
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Like I said, God made me a prophet, and he gave me a prophecy in oct of 2009, the number of the beast was actually saying the “multitudes of the beast” with the writing of “in the name of allah, crossed swords” on theirs foreheads and on their hands. The mark of the Beast is the Mark of Islam. And Islam is a false religion and Allah is a false God. Allah is Satan and about 1.5 billion people are worshipping satan and thinking that they are worshipping the true God which is really the God of the Jews. Malachi 1:2-3 “I have loved you, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? saith the LORD: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.” Genesis 225:22-26 “And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD. And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger. And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb. And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them.”
As it says in Romans 9:13 “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
God loves Israel and hates all the Islamic nations. God loves Israel now but hates the way they are living. He will protect a remnant of Israel until they say as a nation “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” And they won’t say that until they have been defeated by the Islamic nations of the world. Then will the east wind blow on Tarsus and they will be defeated.
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@charles, “God loves Israel and hates all the Islamic nations.”
Does this include Egypt, Charles ?
Isa 19:25 “The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”
Also, John wrote that the number “is the number of a man’s name; and his number is 666.” This tells us that those who received the “mark” were actually in allegiance with a “man,” an actually person of the first century. So, who was he? Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus! Better known as Nero Caesar. (http://www.ecclesia.org/truth/beast.html)
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Charles,
Like I said in another thread last night, I’d like for you to stop making pronouncements. Instead, actually demonstrate why the Bible should be believed. And if you want to bring your own “prophecies” into the mix, you’ll need to demonstrate why we should believe you’re a prophet. Until then, you just come across as delusional. I’m not trying to be insulting — I just think you should know that most atheists are going to view you that way (honestly, a lot of Christians will too). It’s in your best interest to focus on evidence right now.
Thanks
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in response to kcchief1, Have you read Ezekiel chapter 29 where he states ” 29:1* ¶ In the tenth year, in the tenth month, in the twelfth day of the month, the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him, and against all Egypt: Speak, and say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. But I will put hooks in thy jaws, and I will cause the fish of thy rivers to stick unto thy scales, and I will bring thee up out of the midst of thy rivers, and all the fish of thy rivers shall stick unto thy scales. And I will leave thee thrown into the wilderness, thee and all the fish of thy rivers: thou shalt fall upon the open fields; thou shalt not be brought together, nor gathered: I have given thee for meat to the beasts of the field and to the fowls of the heaven. And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.”
and “29:8 ¶ “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring a sword upon thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know that I am the LORD: because he hath said, The river is mine, and I have made it. Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it, neither shall it be inhabited forty years.” and in Ezekiel 2912, “And I will make the land of Egypt desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be desolate forty years: and I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.” and Eze 30:23 “And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and will disperse them through the countries.” and Eze 30:26 “And I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among the countries; and they shall know that I am the LORD.”
And in Daniel where he states 11:42-45, “He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt: and the Libyans and the Ethiopians shall be at his steps. But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly to make away many. And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”
This is the man who thinks he is God in Ezekiel 28:3-10 “Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures: By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.”
This has not happened yet.
kcchief1, have you ever read about Gypsies? Some of the Gypsies came from Egypt, not India as many people think. And God said that they would be scattered in all nations.
Yes God will destroy the Egypts that he is speaking against and love the other Egypts that he is speaking of.
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So…he will like OR destroy the Egyptians just like he will all the rest of us.
Yes, I have read the entire Bible cover to cover multiple times.
What about 666 the mark of the beast ?
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The problem is, Nate, to Charles the bible IS evidence. It’s pretty obvious he’s unable to see anything but scripture … most likely because he’s never looked beyond “god’s word.” In fact, tor many believers, it’s practically blasphemy to research other sources. But you probably already know that.
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The Greek letters of the alphabet that represented the numbers 666, are actually arabic letters for “in the name of Allah, crossed swords.” go to http://www.mindspring.com/~marlowe777/af.html/
look for RevelationSynopsis and scroll down to the end of chapter 13. There is a graphic representation of the symbols there. And a link to a site that explains what Walid Shoebat discovered about 15 years ago. The end of Rev. 13 should read “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath an understanding consider the multitude in the name of the beast: for it is the multitude of a man; and his multitude is “In the name of Allah, crossed swords.”
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