The blast of the shofar

I grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home in Montreal, Canada where I attended Yiddish and Hebrew day school, participated in Montreal’s Yiddish theater group and also performed in a Yiddish mandolin orchestra. My memories of the High Holidays (Rosh Hashoneh and Yom Kipper is how we pronounced them) included the traditional foods – apples dipped in honey, an unusually large and sweet braided challah loaf, and of course the ubiquitous shofar (or ram’s horn).

My religious teachers communicated to me that these Days of Awe (yomim noroyim) were a sober season when men’s souls were judged. Rabbinic tradition states: “Rabbi Judah says: All are judged on New Year and the separate dooms are sealed each in its time – on Passover in respect of produce, on Pentecost in respect of fruit, on Tabernacles judgment is passed in respect of rain, and man is judged on New Year and his doom is sealed on the Day of Atonement” (Babylonian Talmud [TB], Tractate Rosh Hashana 16a).

Another Rabbi (Yochanan) declared: “Three books are opened (in heaven) on New Year, one for the thoroughly wicked, one for the thoroughly righteous, and one for the intermediate. The thoroughly righteous are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of life. The thoroughly wicked are forthwith inscribed definitively in the book of death. The doom of the intermediate is suspended from New Year till the Day of Atonement. If they deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of life. If they do not deserve well, they are inscribed in the book of death” (TB, Tractate Rosh Hashana 16b). This tradition has led to Rosh Hashoneh being described as Yom Ha-Din – the Day of Judgment.

A famous Jewish Montrealer, Leonard Cohen, reflected the theology behind these words in his song ‘Who by fire’ – “And who by fire, who by water, who in the sunshine, who in the night time – who by high ordeal, who by common trial, who in your merry merry month of May, who by very slow decay…And who shall I say is calling?” (“Who by fire”, words & music Leonard Cohen, © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC).

What can Messianic Jews say about the biblical basis or authority of these traditions? Do they help to reflect spiritual truth? Is there something sweet to be found here – some spiritual honey – on the traditional Rosh Hashanah plate?

Man does not live by apples and honey alone

Moses declared, “You shall remember all the way which YHVH your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not… that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of YHVH” (Deuteronomy 8:2-3; quoted by Messiah Yeshua in Matthew 4:4).

Throughout history the God of Israel continues to test Jacob’s heart to see whether or not we will follow every word that proceeds out of His mouth. The choosing of the New Year is one of His words, as the Book of Exodus reveals: “Now YHVH said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you’” (Exodus 12:1-2). “On this day in the month of Aviv, you are about to go forth…Therefore, you shall keep this ordinance at its appointed time from year to year” (Exodus 13:4, 10).

According to the Hebrew Scriptures the New Year occurs in the Spring, at Passover time, on the first day of the month of Aviv (see Exodus 23:15; 34:18; Deuteronomy 16:1)

By the rivers of Babylon

When the Jewish people lived in Babylon’s exile, they became accustomed to using the legal Babylonian names for the months of the year After the remnant of the Jewish people returned from Exile, within a short time these Babylonian month-names triumphed in daily usage over the ancient Hebrew names of the month. A similar dynamic has occurred in our day, where most Jewish people use Roman names of the month and Norse names for the days of the week – as does the majority of the Western world.

One of the consequences of Babylonian conquest and cultural imperialism was that the first month in the Hebrew calendar Aviv was renamed Nisan (from the Akkadian nisānu, meaning ‘sanctuary’ or ‘sacrifice’, or possibly from Sumerian nisag meaning ‘firstfruits’). The seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, Eitanim (‘the strong ones’), was renamed Tishrei (from the Akkadian word tašrītu or ‘beginning’). This process of replacement is acknowledged in the Jerusalem Talmud: “For Rabbi Hanina said, ‘The names of the months came up with them from Babylonia’” (TJ, Rosh Hashanah, 1:2, 56d).

But the Jewish people in the Exile continued to faithfully celebrate the Hebrew New Year according to Moses’ calendar, during the Spring month of Aviv/Nisan (modern March/April). In the days of Mordecai the Bible notes that the casting of lots began “in the first month, which is the month Nisan” (or Aviv; Esther 3:7; see also Josiah in 2 Chronicles 35:1). In Queen Esther’s day the Jews of the Persian Empire still celebrated the biblical Jewish New Year in the Spring, fourteen days before the Feast of Passover.

Two Babylonian New Years…

Here is an interesting and surprising fact: The Babylonian calendar (and the Assyrian) actually had two ‘festivals of new beginnings’ or ‘new years’ (the Akitu festivals). These were celebrated on two different occasions every year. The first one was celebrated on the 1^st of Nisan (called rêš šattim/ resh shattim, meaning ‘head of the year’) and the 2^nd one was celebrated on the 1^st of Tishrei (see The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East, Mark E. Cohen, CDL Press, 1993; also Origin and Transformation of the Ancient Israelite Festival Calendar, Jan A. Wagenaar; Wiesbaden, Harrossowitz Verlag, 2005). These two Babylonian ‘new years’ reflected the seasonal agricultural changes and weather patterns in the Euphrates Valley.

And four Jewish New Years…

By the Second Century AD the rabbinical authorities codified the timing of the Jewish New Year, moving it from the biblical Spring date to an Autumn date in order to better fit in with the politically correct Babylonian social trends. Rabbi Judah the Prince (the editor of the Mishnah) made a valiant attempt at justifying an obvious departure from the biblical New Year date, when he proclaimed circa 200 AD that there are actually a whole bunch of New Years. He explained that there are “four New Years – on the first of Nisan is the New Year for kings and festivals; on the first of Elul is the New Year of the tithe of cattle…; on the first of Tishrei is the New Year for years, for release and for jubilee years, for plantation and for tithing vegetables; on the first of Shevat is the New Year for trees” (TB, Tractate Rosh Hashanah, Mishna 1, 2a).

A crucial fork in the road had been crossed in 33 AD when Messiah Yeshua was rejected by Israel’s spiritual authorities and handed over to the Romans to be crucified. If Jerusalem’s then spiritual leadership could have made such a horrific decision to reject the Messiah, these same leaders could eventually make errant decisions about a host of other issues – including the nature of the New Covenant, the status of the Mosaic covenant, the way of salvation, the authority of the rabbinic leadership, etc.

The authority of the Scriptures and of Messiah Yeshua is very much connected to the issue of the Jewish New Year. Today our spiritual confusion about something as basic about the Jewish New Year is similar to the situation during the Days of the Judges: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). “For My people have committed two evils. They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Shofar show good

The Feast of the seventh month (which today is called Rosh Hashanah or the Jewish New Year) actually has a biblical name – Yom Teru’ah, the day of blowing/trumpeting/sounding of the shofar or ram’s horn (Numbers 29:1). Psalm 81:3 adds that the ram’s horn was sounded on the Feast of Trumpets, on the Feast of Tabernacles, at the other ordained feasts and also every month at the New Moon celebrations.

The trumpet blast was seen as an intercessory act, reminding YHVH of His promises over the Jewish people (Numbers 10:10)

The word teru’ah (from the root ru’a) has another secondary meaning in Hebrew – a powerful shout-out of rejoicing – as used in the following passages:

“Shout to God with a voice of joy!” (Psalms 47:1-2)
“Shout joyfully to God, all the earth!” (Psalms 66:1)
“Shout joyfully to the God of Jacob!” (Psalms 81:1)
“Shout joyfully to YHVH, all the earth!” (Psalms 100:1)

The Feast of Trumpets is called zichron teru’ah in Leviticus 23:24. This term can be translated as ‘a memorial of trumpeting’ or ‘a memorial by shouting out.’

The concept here is a day of shofar blasts as well as a day of gathering in public prayer where the faithful crowd shouts in unison, giving high praise to the name of YHVH (see Joshua 6:20 where shofar and shouting are both described)

The Talmud has a teaching that one of the purposes of the shofar blast on the Feast of Trumpets is to confuse Satan: “R. Isaac further said: If the shofar is not sounded at the beginning of the year, evil will befall at the end of it. Why so? Because the Accuser (ed. Satan) has not been confused” (TB RH 16b).

The Bible however does not connect the Feast of Trumpets to sadness, mourning or incipient danger. Numbers 10:10 instead refers to it as “the day of your gladness in your appointed convocations.” These celebrations were actually happy occasions of great joy. Psalm 81:1-3 refers to singing aloud, making a joyful shout, raising up a song by striking the tambourine, harp and lyre – and all this on the Feast of Trumpets!

Holy Fire on Rosh Hashanah

Here’s an interesting note about the biblical New Year – the one that takes place close to Passover. Moses tells us that YHVH commanded him to get the desert Tent of Meeting operational and dedicated by the 1^st of Aviv, the Jewish New Year. On that date the fire of the Holy Spirit took up burning residence in the Tabernacle in the wilderness.

“Then YHVH spoke to Moses, saying, ‘On the first day of the first month you shall set up the tabernacle of the tent of meeting’… Now in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected… Thus Moses finished the work…Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of YHVH filled the tabernacle. Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of YHVH filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:1-2, 17, 33-35).

The biblical Rosh Hashanah has the honor of being the day when the Ruach Hakodesh, the Holy Spirit, moved in visible form into the Mosaic Ohel Mo’ed (the Tent of Convocation)

A little bit of joy on the Day of Atonement?

It may surprise some that the Bible mentions blowing a shofar on Yom Kippur in only one verse. It’s found in the Book of Leviticus as part of a discussion about the Year of Jubilee (a joyous occasion) when once every fifty years each individual Israeli gets all his debts forgiven and wiped off the books:

“And you shall sound the blast of a shofar on the tenth of the month of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound a shofar throughout all your land. You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family” (Leviticus 25:9-10).

Jewish Blues - afflicting one’s soul is part of reason for the season

YHVH spoke to Moses about the Day of Atonement which comes ten days after the Feast of Trumpets. “You shall afflict your souls…For any person who does not afflict his soul on that same day shall be cut off from his people” (Numbers 23:26-29).

Here is a serious commandment which also carries a serious punishment for its violation. These few verses in the Book of Numbers are the main source for the Jewish people’s somber and subdued approach to the shofar and to these two holy convocations. The Feast of Trumpets kicks off a ten-day corridor to the Day of Atonement, when it was hoped that Israel’s national sins would be forgiven. Though there was much joy in the celebration of the Feast of Trumpets, there was an awareness that the Fast of Yom Kippur was on its way.

Every fifty years the Day of Atonement ended with a shofar blast, declaring the wiping away of a nation’s fiscal debt. This was an economic picture of something spiritual – how YHVH had only moments before this, covered, made atonement for and ‘wiped away’ the sin of the Jewish people (see Zechariah 3:1-5). The national response was a sober heart filled with humble thanks to God. After the shofar blast, that heart would now blossom with overflowing joy. The gates of praise swung open as the entire Jewish nation began preparations for the pilgrim feast of Sukkot, the Harvest Feast better known as Tabernacles.

Divine shofars

The Bible connects trumpets and shofars to some powerful contexts – past, present and future:

The fear-inspiring voice of the God of Israel sounded like a shofar - “So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because YHVH descended upon it in fire. And its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder. YHVH came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain, and YHVH called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. Then YHVH spoke to Moses, ‘Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through to YHVH to gaze, and many of them perish’” (Exodus 19:16-21)

God’s shofar-like voice was unbearable in power – “The blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them” (Hebrews 12:19)

The destructive power of the trumpets at the walls of Jericho - “So the people shouted, and priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city” (Joshua 6:20)

The earth-shaking power of praise and worship when trumpets, shofars and shout-outs blend - “Thus all Israel brought up the ark of the covenant of YHVH with shouting, and with sound of the horn, with trumpets, with loud-sounding cymbals, with harps and lyres” (1 Chronicles 15:28)

The terrible Day of YHVH to be announced with a divine shofar - “Blow a shofar in Zion, And sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of YHVH is coming. Surely it is near” (Joel 2:1)

The appearance of YHVH the warrior with shofar blast - “God has ascended with a shout, YHVH with the sound of a trumpet” (Psalm 47:5-6)

YHVH will Himself blow a shofar as He destroys Israel’s enemies - “Then YHVH will appear over them and His arrow will go forth like lightning. And YHVH God will blow the shofar and will march in the storm winds of the south” (Zechariah 9:14)

The prophetic End of the Jewish Exile will be accompanied by a shofar blast - “It will come about also in that day that a great shofar will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship YHVH in the holy mountain at Jerusalem” (Isaiah 27:13)

Messiah Yeshua will send out angels with a great shofar to gather together Israel’s scattered flock - “And He will send forth His angels with a great shofar and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Matthew 24:31)

The resurrection of the dead will be accompanied by the sound of the shofar – “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52)

The return of Messiah Yeshua to Israel will be signaled by a shofar blast – “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16)

As the High Holiday season draws near, it encourages our souls to remember all these shofar-related events. The shofar gives voice to our praise and our intercession. It accompanies our request for God to remember Israel in times of war (Numbers 10:9) and to visit our spiritual gatherings (Numbers 10:7). It is His clarion call to the Jewish people, emphasizing that YHVH never forgets a promise.

How should we then pray?

Pray for the nation of Israel to receive a revelation of their God who both hears our prayers (mingled with the call of the shofar) and answers us (accompanied by His divine shofar blast)

Pray for the Jewish people to reach out to their God during this season of heightened spiritual focus

Pray for those who have given their lives to communicating the message of Messiah Yeshua’s atonement to His own precious people – that they might be encouraged, receive needed provision, and experience God’s enabling presence

Pray for Messiah’s body to become even more attuned to how the God of Jacob is using His calendar as a catalyst and a holy milestone in bringing forth the salvation of Israel as well as life from the dead for the world

Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the very practical enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do.

In Messiah Yeshua,

Avner Boskey

Donations can be sent to:

FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES

BOX 121971 NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA

Donations can also be made on-line (by PayPal or credit card) through: www.davidstent.org

The Gilded Exile

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling…” (Psalm 46:1-3).

When natural destructions surge across the face of the planet, the God of Jacob is our refuge (Psalm 46:7, 11). And His eye is not only on the sparrow; it focuses with special favor on the safety of the Jewish people and on His promises to them:

“But now, this is what YHVH your Creator says, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel:Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are Mine!When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers – they will not overflow you …For I am YHVH your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.I have given Egypt as your ransom,Cush and Seva in your place.Since you are precious in My sight – since you are honored and I love you –I will give other men in your place and other peoples in exchange for your life.Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east and gather you from the west.I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 43: 1-6)

Many waters cannot quench God’s love for the Jewish people (Song of Solomon 8:15) – whether it be the roaring of flash floods or even the chest-tightening threats of Middle Eastern nations and world superpowers (Jeremiah 51:15).

By the rivers of Babylon

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion…How can we sing YHVH’s song in a foreign land?” (Psalm 137:1, 4).

The anguish of Jewish captivity in Babylon echoes deep within the belly of the psalmist. It hurt to see his people imprisoned among the nations. The response of God’s heart was to breathe out a prophetic vision – the final return of the Jewish people to YHVH’s Jerusalem and to Zion’s God.

The Exile which so disturbed the psalmist began with the ethnic cleansing of Jewish Samaria by the Assyrians (approximately 722 BC) and of Jewish Judah by the Babylonians (approximately 586 BC). Violent Greek attempts at forced assimilation followed (approximately 168 BC) through Antiochus IV Epiphanes. A penultimate zenith was the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and her Temple in 70 AD. Mass enslavement and further scattering across the Mediterranean Basin were another segment of the bitter fruit of Exile. Finally, the jihadi invasion, conquest and resettling of the Land of Israel by Muslims (approximately 638 AD) attempted once and for all to cut the historical connection between the Promised Land and God’s Jewish people (see Psalm 105:5-15, 42-44; Ezekiel 36:1-12).

The fullness of the prophet’s vision – the complete regathering of the Jewish people – is yet future (see Ezekiel 39:27-29). To this very day the majority of the Jewish people are living in the Exile, outside of the Land of Israel. Though the gates of Zion did swing open to Jacob’s scattered children nearly seventy years ago, less than one third of the wandering sheep of Israel have made it home so far.

Why have the majority of Jews stayed in the Exile?
How do most Jewish people understand this divine moment in Hebrew history?
What will be the decisive events which will bring the children of the Patriarchs back to their Promised Land?

Exile – one can get used to it

“And they wandered about from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another people…” (Psalm 105:13).

The original fear of mankind after Noah’s Flood was that God would dislodge them from the safety of the Plain of Shinar and scatter them across the face of the earth: “Let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). Simeon and Levi’s punishment for dishonoring Jacob was to be scattered among the nation of Israel and not have a tribal inheritance (Genesis 49:7). The Jewish people’s disobedience to God’s Mosaic Covenant would lead to worldwide scattering, an Exile of global proportions (Leviticus 26:32-39; Deuteronomy 4:26-28; 28:63-68).

We Jewish people have found ourselves traveling from land to land, across seas and oceans, for the better part of 2,700 years. At times we were able to make it back to our homeland, as in the days of Hillel the Elder, Joseph and Mary, and David Ben-Gurion. But many Jews, often the majority, stayed in the Exile and did not return home to Judah, like Mordecai and Esther.

A total of perhaps 50,000 Jews returned to the Land of Israel (see Ezra 2:64-65) in the first main wave of aliyah led by Zerubbavel, while Ezra and later Nehemiah brought perhaps 5,000 Hebrew returnees (though see Nehemiah 7:66-67). The majority of the Jewish exiles remained in Persia and Babylon (modern Iran and Iraq) for another 2,500 years.

Jeremiah had given short-term instructions for the original Jewish exiles to Babylon – settle in for a longer season than you might have wanted:

“Thus says YHVH of armies, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease. Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to YHVH on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare” (Jeremiah 29:4-7)

Jeremiah’s instructions were not supposed to have a 2,000 year shelf life, however – only for 70 years: “For thus says YHVH, When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans that I have for you, declares YHVH, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:10-11).

The Jewish community of Babylon got comfortable in Babylon and ending up staying there en masse until 1951-52 AD, when EL AL Israel Airlines conducted Operation Ezra and Nehemiah. Between 120,000 and 130,000 Iraqi Jews were airlifted in a secret operation back to the Promised Land (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ezra_and_Nehemiah). At that time the state of Israel printed and distributed a manifesto calling on Iraq’s Jews to immigrate. The handbill started with the following words: “O, Zion, flee, daughter of Babylon,” (Isaiah 48:20; Zechariah 12:7) and concluded thus: “Jews! Israel is calling you – come out of Babylon!” (Jeremiah 51:6).

History shows that people tend to prefer continuity to change, and Jews are no different. One of the main reasons Jewish people stayed in exile is that they stopped seeing Exile as a negative thing.

Covenant fears

Moyshe Rabbenu (Yiddish for Moses our Teacher) prophesied that Jewish existence in the Exile would involve constant persecution and insecurity.

“Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there will be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there YHVH will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.So your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you will be in dread night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life.In the morning you shall say, ‘Would that it were evening!’ And at evening you shall say, ‘Would that it were morning!’ because of the dread of your heart which you dread, and for the sight of your eyes which you will see” (Deuteronomy 28:65-67)

Many Jewish people saw our entire Exilic existence as a continual fleeing from one country to another. When Crusaders began to slaughter the Jewish people in medieval France or the Rhine Valley, the Hebrew nation edged its way eastward to Poland, the Ukraine and Russia. When pogroms and massacres broke out in Kiev, Warsaw and Odessa (1881-84), or again in Kishinev, Odessa and 62 other towns and 626 villages between 1903-1906 (mostly in the Ukraine, Bessarabia and Crimea), vast numbers of Jews fled toward the closest or most secure possibilities of shelter – westward in the direction of Western Europe. But even more sons and daughters of Israel held their breath and crossed the Atlantic in steerage to North and South America – di goldeneh medineh (Yiddish for ‘the Golden Land’).

During that period (1880-1920) over two million Jews immigrated to the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_United_States#Immigration_of_Central_and_Eastern_European_Jews). At the same time (1882-1914) a total of 75,000 Jews migrated to Turkish-controlled Palestine. After the British liberated Palestine from the Muslim Turks, the Mandatory authorities did whatever was in Whitehall’s power to crush Jewish immigration and stop Hebrew refugees from arriving in the Land of Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah_Bet; www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/british-restrictions-on-jewish-immigration-to-palestine).

There was a measure of hidden divine grace during this period. The pogroms stampeded many Jewish people out of Eastern Europe and into North and South America. As a result at least two million of Jacob’s children were spared the genocidal murder-march of Hitler’s Nazis – a Holocaust which wiped out six million European Jews. This people-movement of Jewish refugees which began 50 years before Auschwitz and ended 15 years before the Nuremberg Laws, preserved up to one quarter of Europe’s Jews, though few were aware of this at the time.

“I’m sure things will get better”

There is a famous quote in the movie Schindler’s List when the Jews of Kraków had been moved by the Nazis into the Plaszow work camp. Some of them are standing around an empty oil barrel/ primitive fire pit, with scrap wood burning to warm their hands. “It can’t get any worse than this. This is as bad as it’s going to get!” says one Jewish man. In the next scene it gets excruciatingly worse.

This scenario underscores how people will often remain in hard or even destructive situations, believing that somehow things will get better. Jewish people have the same hopes. Many stayed in countries where they were being oppressed, tortured or murdered, believing that sunny skies were right around the corner.

Iranian Jews in 1978 watched as the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ascended to his terror rule over the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many Iranian Jews (like Iraq’s Babylonian Jewish community) spoke of Cyrus (II) the Great as a defender and protector of the Jewish community since 550 BC. Nothing bad could possibly happen in Iran, they thought. It will soon blow over.

Today the Jews of Western Europe (France, Britain, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, etc.) are feeling the tremors which come prior to the big earthquakes. Anti-Semitic attacks, anti-Zionist attacks, Islamist terror attacks on Jews – they are all growing by leaps and bounds.

An excellent Israeli series on these trends (with a strong prophetic undertone) is available on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt2L_kRomFQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR7REARFFpQ (especially part 4 – Europe’s Jews)

The Charlottesville Nazi-Antifa clashes have highlighted the rise of fascism in both white supremacist and leftist/anarchist manifestations. Many American Jews are beginning to ask if what happened in Nazi and Communist Europe could happen in the West and especially in North America.

Life is not easy in Israel

It is exciting to see how many Jewish people are making aliyah and moving to Israel. But not all is pink champagne. At same time, over the past years (1949-2015) between 250,000 and 750,00 Israelis have left the Jewish homeland. Some common reasons for emigration include the high cost of living, a desire to escape from the ongoing violence and the Arab–Israeli conflict, professional or academic ambitions, and disappointment with Israeli society.

It has been said that the children of pioneers did not ask to be pioneers. Many of the children or grandchildren of the original Zionist pioneers and idealists do not have a biblical perspective on what God is doing in restoring the Jewish people to their homeland. They do not know of the coming challenges, victories and trials ahead. They have never heard of the mighty army of Ezekiel 37:9-11, or that all Israel will be saved (Romans 11:26-29; Jeremiah 31:31-34).

The gilded call of the Exile is still attractive to many Israelis. And many Jewish people who live in the West still feel that the Jewish homeland is not necessarily their personal destiny or their calling.

As I live, declares YHVH

The God of Jacob, who reached into Egypt to rescue a slave-people, has plans of His own to set up His throne in Jerusalem. The scattering which is known as the Exile or the Diaspora (Greek word meaning dispersion) is coming to an end. God will purify His people. He will cleanse them. He will restore them. It will not be a restoration of a Russian Jewish culture (like Fiddler on the Roof). It will not be a renaissance of a Rabbinic Judaism crafted in Babylon on the banks of the Euphrates and then sprinkled with Messianic holy water. It will be so powerful that one could call it ‘a New Exodus.’

“As I live, declares YHVH God, surely with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out, I shall be king over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered, with a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm and with wrath poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples (midbar amim), and there I will enter into judgment with you face to face.As I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you, declares YHVH God. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. And I will purge from you the rebels and those who transgress against Me. I will bring them out of the land where they sojourn, but they will not enter the land of Israel. Thus you will know that I am YHVH” (Ezekiel 20:33-38)

“I will strengthen the house of Judah and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back because I have had compassion on them. And they will be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lordtheir God and I will answer them…And their heart will be glad as if from wine. Indeed, their children will see it and be glad. Their heart will rejoice in YHVH.I will whistle for them to gather them together for I have redeemed them, and they will be as numerous as they were before.When I scatter them among the peoples, they will remember Me in far countries, and they with their children will live and come back.I will bring them back from the land of Egypt and gather them from Assyria. And I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon until no room can be found for them.And they will pass through the sea of distress and He will strike the waves in the sea so that all the depths of the Nile will dry up. And the pride of Assyria will be brought down and the scepter of Egypt will depart.And I will strengthen them in YHVH, and in His name they will walk, declares YHVH” (Zechariah 10:6-12)

Fishers, hunters and assorted anti-Semites

A Communist revolutionary mother once told her son, “Come the Revolution, there will be a chicken in every pot!” The young boy answered, “But mom, I don’t like chicken!” Unperturbed, the mother declared, “Come the Revolution, you will like chicken!”

In a similar way, though right now some Jewish people don’t like the thought of moving back to Israel, the day will come when all Jews will not only like that thought, but will actually speed their way to their own Promised Homeland. “When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them from the lands of their enemies, then I shall be sanctified through them in the sight of the many nations. Then they will know that I am YHVH their God because I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land; and I will leave none of them there any longer” (Ezekiel 39:27-28).

Jeremiah prophesies that YHVH will bring His Jewish people back to their own land and end the Exile. He will also use the nations to complete this process, whether by hook or by crook, with a carrot or with a stick.

“Therefore behold, days are coming, declares YHVH Lord, when it will no longer be said, ‘As YHVH lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’but, ‘As YHVH lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.’ For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.Behold, I am going to send for many fishermen, declares YHVH, and they will fish for them. And afterwards I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them from every mountain and every hill and from the clefts of the rocks. For My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from My face, nor is their iniquity concealed from My eyes. I will first doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted My land…” (Jeremiah 16:14-18)

Point seven on God’s Richter scale

The stirring of anti-Semitism on the Right, on the Left and in the Islamist world all have End of Days significance. These events call out to believers worldwide to focus – even as rivers overflow their banks and earthquakes shake everything that can be shaken.