Posted on 12/24/2014 7:39:55 AM PST by Jan_Sobieski
This past Friday, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza fired a rocket into southern Israel without any provocation, setting off air-raid sirens and rekindling fears of a return to this past summer’s hostilities.
Indeed, although barely four months have passed since the end of Operation Protective Edge, Hamas is said to be actively preparing for the next round of conflict, rebuilding its network of terror tunnels and working to improve the accuracy of its arsenal.
It is no wonder, then, that Israel’s Military Intelligence is forecasting a possible resumption of fighting in 2015...
(Excerpt) Read more at jpost.com ...
Zephaniah 2 New International Version (NIV)
Judah and Jerusalem Judged Along With the Nations
Judah Summoned to Repent
2 Gather together, gather yourselves together,
you shameful nation,
2 before the decree takes effect
and that day passes like windblown chaff,
before the Lord’s fierce anger
comes upon you,
before the day of the Lord’s wrath
comes upon you.
3 Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s anger.
Philistia
4 Gaza will be abandoned
and Ashkelon left in ruins.
At midday Ashdod will be emptied
and Ekron uprooted.
5 Woe to you who live by the sea,
you Kerethite people;
the word of the Lord is against you,
Canaan, land of the Philistines.
He says, “I will destroy you,
and none will be left.”
6 The land by the sea will become pastures
having wells for shepherds
and pens for flocks.
7 That land will belong
to the remnant of the people of Judah;
there they will find pasture.
In the evening they will lie down
in the houses of Ashkelon.
The Lord their God will care for them;
he will restore their fortunes.[a]
Moab and Ammon
8 “I have heard the insults of Moab
and the taunts of the Ammonites,
who insulted my people
and made threats against their land.
9 Therefore, as surely as I live,”
declares the Lord Almighty,
the God of Israel,
“surely Moab will become like Sodom,
the Ammonites like Gomorrah—
a place of weeds and salt pits,
a wasteland forever.
The remnant of my people will plunder them;
the survivors of my nation will inherit their land.”
10 This is what they will get in return for their pride,
for insulting and mocking
the people of the Lord Almighty.
11 The Lord will be awesome to them
when he destroys all the gods of the earth.
Distant nations will bow down to him,
all of them in their own lands.
Cush
12 “You Cushites,[b] too,
will be slain by my sword.”
Assyria
13 He will stretch out his hand against the north
and destroy Assyria,
leaving Nineveh utterly desolate
and dry as the desert.
14 Flocks and herds will lie down there,
creatures of every kind.
The desert owl and the screech owl
will roost on her columns.
Their hooting will echo through the windows,
rubble will fill the doorways,
the beams of cedar will be exposed.
15 This is the city of revelry
that lived in safety.
She said to herself,
“I am the one! And there is none besides me.”
What a ruin she has become,
a lair for wild beasts!
All who pass by her scoff
and shake their fists.
The world has no idea the horror about to be unleashed on it...but if they had listened to the prophets they would ...
You really must read Isaiah 14 the second half in parallel to Zephaniah 2 to put the puzzle together. Where it starts the prophecy of the Palestinian people at 14:28, read to the end comparing section for section. Both are half of the story.
You have to know the modern history of the “Palestinians” to get the opening puzzle: Do not rejoice that the rod that struck you is broken, (Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was the first leader of the Arabs in Palestine, he aligned with Hitler and was a cruel master.) For out of its root will come a serpent, (Yassar Arafat, was his nephew, from his family line, his root. The inventor of the suicide belt and air plane hijacking, he was far worse for the Arabs.) And from him will come a flying dragon. (Hamas is the leader ship that spawned from Arafats rule, and openly kills its own people and oppresses them just like the Taliban.)
This prophecy pair spells out the destruction of the Gaza strip by a smoke cloud from the north that kills every one in the strip, along with the burning of Ashkelon the third largest city in Israel, and its industrial center.
I believe that the idiot Jihadi will rocket attack Ashkelon and burn it and in it is the chemical plants that create the chlorine gas used to sterilize the water for all of Israel. In fact there is a huge tank of compressed liquid chlorine gas in town.
If it is ruptured when the wind is blowing south, like it often does, it will kill every oxygen breathing thing down wind, the length of the Gaza strip.
Gaza strip is a five mile wide, twenty mile long beach front, fenced it from israel on two sides, its southern tip is the gate to Israel, and Gaza city, home to a million Jihadi.
Wail o gate, cry oh city, for a smoke cloud comes from the north and you all have your place in it.
Perhaps not a Maccabeean solution but a Machiavellian one.
The end of Isaiah is a rebuke to the country that politically forced Gaza to be given to the Jihadi.
America.
Ashkelon in the Biblical day was Philistine; today it is a Jewish city in Israel.
ping
WOW! I had never seen that scripture in this context! Do you have any others? Many thanks in advance!!!
Correct. I was in Ashkelon last summer with one of the few gentile teams allowed to compete in the Maccabiah Games. It is very near to Gaza. Zephaniah 2 may be pointing out that one of the casualties of the coming destruction of Gaza is Ashkelon.
Whatever the Bible may have prophecied, it’s hard to believe that Israel can continue to exist with a prime minister who has adopted the principle of passive resistance against Israel’s enemies.
Hamas has discovered that it can send missiles against Israeli sites, as long as it doesn’t fire too many at once, and Israel’s leader, Mohandas Netanyahu, will do nothing to stop them. And, unfortunately, the majority of Israelis support him.
The majority of Israelis no longer believe in God because they consider religion irrational, yet the same Israelis think its perfectly reasonable to believe that their country can survive against brutal terrorists with a leader who’s too stuck in a permanent lotus position to retaliate.
Good points...but it would be an unenviable job (Prime Minister of Israel). When you do crush your enemies is it “disproportionate response” and “war crimes”. When you just beat the enemy it is “weakness”.
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