Posted on 09/21/2007 12:20:09 PM PDT by Fennie
A stunning report published by Jane's Defense Weekly confirms rumors of a July explosion at a Syrian military base at al-Safir, near Aleppo, in which reportedly "dozens" of Iranian engineers were killed along with their Syrian counterparts. Syria had originally dismissed reports of the explosion by saying the blast was generated by the desert heat causing the accidental detonation of a stockpile of explosives. Jane's reported that the explosion was actually triggered while the engineers were fitting a chemical warhead onto a Scud-C missile. The explosion and fire released containers of the deadly nerve agents VX and sarin gas, as well as a mustard gas blistering agent. Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter told reporters this week, "Iran has entered into strategic cooperation with Syria on conventional and nonconventional weapons development," adding, "The Iranians are very big in Syria"...
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Seems to be so. What is more recent is that the Crusaders never conquered Damascus.
Indeed. But the very existence of Damascus today proves in fact that the prophecy is not fulfilled.
They had to rebuild the town several times over the millenia. One of the oldest places around where you can sometimes “have a good time”.
I can't bring myself to agree with you. While I recognize that "awareness of the end times" and the "godless movement" grew up at roughly the same time, I do not agree that one was necessarily causal to the other. One must consider that prophetically the reestablished Israel (pointer to the beginning of the end-times), and the great "falling away" could be happening in the same breath as opposing forces.
One must also consider that the "falling away" in this country is not the beginning of the "falling away" itself, Christian Europe having begun it's decline arguably as soon as the French Revolution.
I can't bring myself to agree with you. While I recognize that "awareness of the end times" and the "godless movement" grew up at roughly the same time, I do not agree that one was necessarily causal to the other. One must consider that prophetically the reestablished Israel (pointer to the beginning of the end-times), and the great "falling away" could be happening in the same breath as opposing forces.
One must also consider that the "falling away" in this country is not the beginning of the "falling away" itself, Christian Europe having begun it's decline arguably as soon as the French Revolution.
sorry for the DP...
It might be worth your while to review the life and conquests of Tiglath-Pileser III.
Hint: It's probably less healthy for you than pure lard.
No...The Prophet Isaiah...
>> It can also be taken to mean that Syria itself will lose it’s crown, or that Syria will cease to be as a sovereign nation for all time. <<
Once Damascus fell, Syria never became its own nation again until 1945... about 3,000 years later. And in that time it has been dominated by the Soviet Union, Egypt, and Iran.
I could argue that even as it was dominated, Syria has almost always retained it's identity. It's usual state of existence has been as a vassal state through Rome and Alexander, the Selucids, Egypt, etc.. Even during the Ottoman empire the area was still known as Syria, and it was almost always governed from Damascus or from Antioch.
But all of that is beside the point- as the prophecy against Damascus suggests utter destruction for all time... Yet here it is... Syria is sovereign, and Damascus is inhabited.
It's existence suggests the prophecy is not fulfilled.
“Damascus” refers to a nation, the way we now refer to “Washington” to denote the United States. Hence, her CITIES will be abandoned. What sense does it make to say that a city’s cities will be adandoned, unless we recognize that city to be in a hierarchy over other cities?
“Her cities shall be forever abandoned,” then do not mean that they shall always be abandoned by all of mankind, but just that they shall always be adandoned by her. Maybe not even that they shall always be depopulated by her, but even simply deprived of her.
In fact, the “remnants of Aram (the Aramites)” have had “the same glory of the Israelites.” What “glory” does Isaiah refer to? The utter destruction of them as a people, for just as Israel was destroyed before Isaiah, by the Aramite Assyrians, the Aramites would be destoyed by the Babylonians. So partly, the use of the term “glory” is meant with irony, since Israel had long ago fallen. OTOH, today the Aramites are a most persistently Christian people, and their persistent can easily be compared to the modern Jews.
But these near-term events will be in opposition to Israel, so they cannot be end-of-days: “On that day, the glory of Jacob will fade, ... In that day, man will look to his maker, his eyes turned towards the Holy One of Israel.”
See? These are JEWS in Damascus Isaiah is preaching to! They abandoned their faith under foreign domination, and Isaiah is foretelling that their conquerers will be conquered again, by an even worse rulers. WHat he was referring to was the iminent invasion of Assyria by Babylon, which resulted in the Jews in Damascus ceasing to exist.
From then on, Assyria would never again exist, nor would Damascus be peopled by Aramites, nor by Jews. Aramites, also known as Assyrians or Syriacs, are not related to the Arabs who dominate Syria, nor is Syria the same as Assyria. (There is even debate whether or not they are etymologically related.)
Though the “remnant” Aramites survive to this day, in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, the Caucasus, Jordan, and Lebanon, Syria is Arab, not Aramite.
>> No...The Prophet Isaiah... <<
Or at least Hal Lindsey-esque interpretations of the prophet Isaiah.
I guess you've never been to Los Angeles.
Why anyone would continue to listen to this discredited pop prophecy preacher is beyond me. He hasn't gotten one right since ... never.
Nah. Just rip hell out of the leadership structure.
"The utter destruction of them as a people, for just as Israel was destroyed before Isaiah, by the Aramite Assyrians, the Aramites would be destroyed by the Babylonians."
You are confusing Assur and Aram. Assyria was made up of them both. "Assyrians" were invaders from the northern land of Assur (thought to be on the eastern coast of the Black Sea), and were an elite class over the (more-or-less native) Aramites, who had naturally drifted south and east from their origins (probably Turkey).
AFAIR, when Babylon conquered Assyria, it didn't exactly conquer Assur, but merely drove them far to the north, back to their ancestral lands, but did receive dominion over the land of Syria and the Aramites.
So one could also suggest that the prophecy against Damascus was against the people of Assur rather than the people of Aram, who have continued much as you have described through a long series of dominant empires. It hardly seems fair to punish the underclass for what their overlords had done.
The most straightforward reading of the prophecy would be in the most literal sense. It also seems to take place at a time when Ephraim returns to occupy his native soil, and i so populous that he spills out into all the regions South of Damascus, as reported in Isaiah and Zechariah (among others).
I believe that time to be the aftermath of the War of Gog and Magog, yet prior to the time of the end.
>> The most straightforward reading of the prophecy would be in the most literal sense. <<
I don’t get either sense as being more “literal.” There’s ambiguity as to what “Damascus” refers to, and who’s abandoning Damascus’ cities, not a sense of one meaning being more literal than another.
And I don’t find your distinction between Aram and Assur supported; in any case, what I wrote about the Aramites holds true for the Assurites, so your distinction changes nothing. (I researched Aram, finding that they were Assurites, which redircted my to Assyrians, and them proceeded to describe what became of them.) In any sense, the reason I refered to Aram is because that’s who the prophecy on Damascus specifically refers to. It certainly would be wierd to refer to Aram and the Aramaic city of Damascus when what was meant was the Assurites, who still kept Assur as their religious capital, no?
Aramites were sons of Aram, son of Shem, son of Noah.
Assurites were sons of Assur, son of Shem, son of Noah.
These were nations (countries) as found in the Table of Nations (Gen 10). They are not the same thing.
Another point to contend is that the "cities of Aroer" are not Syrian cities- Aroer is a city of northern Moab, far south of Syrian land.
AFAIR,the "Valley of Rephaim" is south of Jerusalem and drains eventually into the Vally of Jehoshaphat above the Dead Sea.
This is not simply about Damascus, but rather the Damascus Prophecy is one of a number of "oracles" within this chapter.
And yet another aspect:
Isaiah 17:9 (KJV)
In that day shall his strong cities be as a forsaken bough, and an uppermost branch, which they left because of the children of Israel: and there shall be desolation.
What cities lie barren because of the Children of Israel? What cities did Isreal cause to be desolate?
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