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Twin Timelines

Part XXXIV

The previous chapter of Twin Timelines sought to show how Ezekiel's writings, which detail the salvation of Israel the LORD delivers when the Gog and Magog passages come to pass, are actually addressing the Spiritual redemption of Israel at the time of the cross.

One of the reasons the non-literalist reality of the vivid prophecies of Ezekiel's 38^th and 39^th chapters are resisted, is the age old issue of context. People studying the political alignment of modern states – and the nations that are hostile to the contemporary country called Israel -- commonly open the book to the 38^th chapter, and fail to recognize the flow of prophecy in the previous chapters.  For example, all the way back in chapter 33, the text speaks of the people who inhabit the "wastes" of the land:

"They that inhabit the wastes of the land of Israel speak, saying…the land is given us for inheritance" (Ezekiel 33:24).

This chapter was penned when Judah was dispersed as a result of the Babylonian sacking of the temple in Jerusalem, and the captivity in Babylon. The Edomites (the descendants of Esau) were then in a position to have free reign over the territories of Samaria and Judaea. We can pinpoint the time frame, because two chapters later, Ezekiel tells us that Mount Seir, which was identified with Edom, says the following:

"Thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it" (Ezekiel 35:10).

The LORD vows to remember Edom's insolence as they celebrated the devastation of both nations:

"As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O Mount Seir, and all Idumaea" (Ezekiel 35:15).

We note that there is no conclusive modern identity associated with Mount Seir, to say nothing of the fact the Idumaens (a variant name of the Edomites) were prominent during the time of Jesus.

"And a great multitude from Galilee followed [Christ], and from Judaea, and from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan" (Mark 3:8).

It's worth reminding the reader of the fact that the descendants of Esau (the Edomites/Idumaeans) blended their bloodline with the Arabs through Esau's marriage to a daughter of Ishmael, the genetic antecedent of all the Arab nations. Further, Esau also married at least two Hittite women.

"And Esau was forty years old when he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Bashemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite" (Genesis 26:34).

In his massive revisionist reconstruction of world history timelines, historian Immanuel Velikovsky showed the so called "Hittite Empire" was actually just an ethnic branch of the Neo-Babylonian Empire of Nabopolasar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar.

Thus, when the Babylonians (who were obviously Arabs, as the empire is easily traced to modern Iraq) crushed Judaea, the Arabs of Edom were clearly in the service of Nebuchadnezzar's military power. It is, therefore, no surprise that the LORD promised a recompense to the Idumaeans for their presumption that they could take the then desolate nations of Israel and Judah for their own.

"And thou [Edom] shalt know that I am the LORD, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou has spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume" (Ezekiel 35:12).

In the next chapter of Ezekiel, the LORD recounts the judgment He poured upon the two houses of Israel and Judaea, and it is clear that Israel had already been dispersed through all the judgments from God. 

"When the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way, and by their doings…Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it" (Ezekiel 36:17, 18).

Northern Israel, then called Samaria, had already been enslaved by the Assyrians (the predecessor empire to Babylon) long before the time of Ezekiel. Israel/Samaria was judged first because the Northern tribes had departed from the ways of the LORD much earlier than Judaea. Moreover, God had preserved Judaea longer than Samaria, for the sake of Jerusalem.

"And the Lord said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah" (Jeremiah 3:11).

When God finally wearied of Judaea's apostasy as well, He gave them over to judgment at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon.

"I  Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem" (Daniel 9:2).

Both houses of Israel were in shambles after Nebuchadnezzar devastated Jerusalem, but they were still remembered as two separate nations during this period. Further, Ezekiel lived during the Babylonian captivity, so these verses indicate the events referred to in Ezekiel's chapters 33-35 were when both houses of Israel were still a "wasteland" (Ezekiel 33:24, 35:10).

Years before Ezekiel and the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Isaiah was present in Jerusalem when the Assyrians had conquered the known world. The massive power had already deported the Northern ten tribes of Samaria, and seeded what was left of the Israelite population with trans-Caucasian subjects from their dominion in Nineveh. In the time of Isaiah and good King Hezekiah, they had come to subdue Jerusalem in Judaea, the last stronghold resisting their rule.

That massive Assyrian army was miraculously destroyed in one night by the angel of the LORD, because the LORD had ordained that Judaea was to be given more time to repent – and their later punishment was not to occur through the Assyrians. Thus, Northern Israel was to be oppressed by the first two empires of Egypt and Assyria; but the Judaeans were preserved as their chastisement, sent by the LORD, was prophesied to occur later at the hands of the Babylonians. Because it was clearly a supernatural deliverance (detailed in Isaiah 37) from what was a certain defeat by Assyria, the Jews in Jerusalem began to think that God would always favor them.

The devastation which destroyed the Northern tribes was actually ordained to be an example to the Southern Judaeans in Jerusalem. Moreover, even though the Northern house of Israel (which had been torn from the rule of Solomon's son in Judaea) had been punished by the LORD, the Jews thought they would not suffer the same judgments.

Jeremiah, voicing the LORD's repeated warnings to Judaea, told of how the inhabitants of Jerusalem saw the judgment which fell on Israel in the North.

"[God said] when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also" (Jeremiah 3:8).

As the Babylonian Empire was rising and threatened Judaea, Jerusalem's Jews believed that Egypt would intervene, and oppose Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. Centuries earlier, Solomon had married the Pharaoh's daughter in Jerusalem, so the Jews thought the Egyptians would fight the Babylonians -- but the LORD reminded the Jews of their history with the Egyptians, even before the Assyrians devastated the Northern Israelites.

"Why [do you resist] so much to change thy way? Thou also shalt be ashamed of Egypt, as thou was ashamed of Assyria" (Jeremiah 2:36).

Jeremiah was dispatched by the LORD to tell the inhabitants of Jerusalem that they were ordained to be conquered by the Babylonians, and they were not to flee to Egypt, as many planned to do.

"And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon…that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand" (Jeremiah 27:8).

It's useful for us to remember that the prophet Isaiah, who preceded the time of Jeremiah by many years, had already prophesied that Jerusalem was to receive double the judgment which fell on Samaria in the North. This was addressed in Chapter XXXII of the present work. In this regard, Isaiah's amazing prediction anticipates four kingdoms which were to dominate the Southern kingdom of Judaea.

"Cry unto [Jerusalem], that her warfare is accomplished…for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins" (Isaiah 40:2).

The reader will recall the Northern house of Israel was oppressed by Egypt and Assyria – but Isaiah was an eyewitness to the fact that God had directly intervened to stop Assyria from conquering Jerusalem -- because the ancient city was ordained to be trampled down by the four Gentile powers of Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. This amounted to twice the doubled dominion of the two powers of Egypt and Assyria which menaced Israel.

We might add that the prophecy in Daniel, in which the astute Judaean interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the quartet of Gentile Empires (Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome), would not be written until after Isaiah's timeline. Thus, when Ezekiel prophesied concerning Judaea and Jerusalem, after the Babylonian kingdom inaugurated the cycle of four Gentile kingdoms which were to conquer Jerusalem, his prophetic utterances anticipated the deliverance of the LORD's ancient people through the entrance of the Saviour.

Ezekiel saw that the crown of Israel, as the LORD's Old Covenant chosen, was to be removed.

"And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Remove the diadem, and take off the crown…and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him" (Ezekiel 21:25,26).

Similar to entire chapters of Ezekiel, the prophet bitterly lamented the wretched state of the Jews who had turned away from the LORD. The phrase "when iniquity shall have an end" refers to the time mentioned in Daniel's statement of the "seventy weeks" (Daniel 9:24) in which the LORD will "make an end of sins" through the arrival of the rightful king who will receive the crown.

It's also instructive to again note the presence of the Idumaeans, who capitalized on Babylon's destruction of the independent Judaean state -- as at the end of the cycle of the four kingdoms which ruled Jerusalem, the crown was permanently removed from the Jewish dynasties. During the Roman rule, King Herod, who was an Idumaean, reigned in Jerusalem. The Herodian dynasty found favor with Rome, and they controlled Judaea until the city of Jerusalem (as well as the temple), was burnt to the ground in the Roman siege of 70 AD.  

The crown worn by the Idumaean usurpers continued until the arrival of the LORD Jesus Christ, "whose right it is." As He was given an earthly crown of thorns, His magnificent victory occurred, and all these things came to pass, which brought about the time "when iniquity shall have an end" (Ezekiel 21:25).

Addressing the centuries when God turned Jerusalem over to the four successive Gentile powers, Ezekiel zeroed in on the Spiritual realm as he recognized the real power behind all these kingdoms as Satan. 

"By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches…Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering…Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth…Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee…therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee" (Ezekiel 28:5,13-15,18).

The language of Ezekiel is exceedingly flowery with extensive poetic symbolism; and it is particularly utilized with regard to the Spiritual degradation of Israel. For example, lamenting the desolation because Judaea was under judgment, the prophet writes the following:

"As I live, surely they that are in the wastes shall fall by the sword, and give him that is in the open field will I give to the beasts to be devoured, and they that be in the forts and in the caves shall die of the pestilence. For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate" (Ezekiel 33:27,28).

Livestock is described as "diseased" (Ezekiel 34:4), the people are characterized as "scattered because there is no shepherd" (Ezekiel 34:5), and the sheep "wandered through all the mountains" (Ezekiel 34:6), where they were "prey" (Ezekiel 34:8).

As the writings of Ezekiel approach the Gog and Magog events in chapters 38 and 39, and the doubled judgment is completed when Jerusalem's "warfare is accomplished [and] her iniquity is pardoned [through the arrival of Christ]" (Isaiah 40:2), the flow of prophecy turns to the LORD's statements that He is about to fulfill His promises to save Israel.

"Thus saith Lord God; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumaea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds" (Ezekiel 36:5).

As the LORD indicates He still loves Israel even though He has severely chastised them, He promises to regather His people, and "sprinkle clean water upon them" – obviously a supernatural move in which they will be "cleansed from all [their] iniquities" (Ezekiel 36:25,33). He vows to give them "a new heart" and "a new spirit" (Ezekiel 36:26) – obvious references to the New Covenant. When this occurs, "the wastes shall be builded" and they shall say "This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden" – even as the "ruined cities" will again be "inhabited" (Ezekiel 36:35).

This amazing restoration points to the Messianic promise that the Son of David will rule in righteousness.

"And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David…and I will make with them a covenant of peace…And I the Lord will be their God" (Ezekiel 34:23, 24).

In the New Testament book of Acts, when certain legalistic Jews resented the Gentiles being accepted into the body of Christ, the Lord's half brother James clearly claimed the inclusion of the Gentiles was a fulfillment of these very prophecies in Ezekiel.

"To this agree the words of [Ezekiel] as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up" (Acts 15:15, 16).

In the last chapter before the Gog and Magog "war," we have the famous dry bones prophecy where skeletal remains come together, indicating a resurrection of sorts, when the LORD shall "put my spirit in you" (Ezekiel 37:14). This is followed by the prophecy of two sticks pressed into one – a similitude of the resurrection of the two houses of Israel, which are joined back into one, with the Davidic dynasty ruling over them.

"I…will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore, My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people" (Ezekiel 37:26, 27).

Clearly, these verses all speak of Israel being born again in JESUS CHRIST, and it is at this point that the demonic hordes identified as Gog and Magog, and all their infernal confederates, seek to fight against the astounding redemptive work of the LORD, in which Jesus Christ translates the flesh and blood Israel into the Spiritually born again body we know to be Israel.

----- James Lloyd

To Be Continued

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