The First Calamity that Led to Tisha Be’av Mourning and Fasting!
July 27, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
THE PROPHETIC PREDICTION OF THE FIRST CALAMITY
Jeremiah 34:1,2 – The word which came unto Jeremiah from the Lord, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and all his army, and all the kingdoms of the earth of his dominion, and all the people, fought against Jerusalem, and against all the cities thereof, saying, [2] Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel; Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah, and tell him, Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire: [3] And thou shalt not escape out of his hand, but shalt surely be taken, and delivered into his hand; and thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth, and thou shalt go to Babylon.
JERUSALEM AFTER THE FIRST CALAMITY FULFILLMENT
Lamentations 1:1-8 – How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people how is she become as a widow she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary [2] She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. [3] Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits. [4] The ways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts: all her gates are desolate: her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.
[5] Her adversaries are the chief, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: her children are gone into captivity before the enemy. [6] And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
[7] Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths. [8] Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
“BECAUSE THEY HAVE SEEN HER NAKEDNESS”
Those of the church age would do well to remember this quoted phrase from verse eight, because the nakedness
of unrighteousness of this final church age generation will soon be completely exposed to all of heaven at the battle of Armageddon. But Jerusalem and Israel will be restored to their finest hour in history following the terrible calamity described in Revelation 16:15 to 21. Just as surely as the prophecy of Jeremiah, predicting the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians was fulfilled, so also will the prophecies of John and Zechariah be fulfilled concerning the fall of Jerusalem to the enemies of Israel in this day and time. It is not a question of IF, but a question of WHEN!
“LEST HE WALK NAKED, AND THEY SEE HIS SHAME”
Revelation 16:15-21 – Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. [16] And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
[17] And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done. [18] And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. [19] And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. [20] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. [21] And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.
Zechariah 14:4-9 – And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward
the north, and half of it toward the south.
[5] And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. [6] And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: [7] But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. [8] And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. [9] And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one. (See Birth Pang Number 10 in our Birth Pang Archives).
Begin Jerusalem Post Article
Why the Ninth of Av still Matters
Eli Kavon, THE JERUSALEM POST
July 23, 2007
On Tisha Be’av, a traditional day of mourning and fasting in the Jewish calendar, Jews around the world remember the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE, the Roman razing of Jerusalem in 70 CE, and the fall of Betar – the last stronghold of the Bar Kochba Revolt – in 135 CE. Other disasters also occurred on the Ninth of Av in Jewish history.
On the eve of Tisha Be’av, Jews read from the Book of Lamentations, a work of mourning for a fallen Jerusalem ascribed to Jeremiah. The ancient prophet laments, “How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!”
Does Jeremiah’s lament have any meaning to Jews today? Is the Ninth of Av relevant in a world where Jews are sovereign in the Land of Israel, Jerusalem teems with people and is far from solitary, and Jews are able to pray in the Old City of Jerusalem at the Western Wall? Why is there a need to mourn when, in fact, Jews today should be celebrating the fact that after 2,000 years a Jewish state has again arisen in the Jewish homeland?
Do we re ally need to f
ast for our sins and the resulting loss of sovereignty – when, today, there is a Jewish state and a Jewish army and a Jewish parliament in the Land of Israel
?
I MUST admit that I have no easy answer to these questions. But I do know that Jews today still have important reasons to commemorate the destructions of the Ninth of Av.
First, we must remember that in ancient times the Assyrians, Babylonians, Hellenists and Romans persecuted our people, and defiled and destroyed the political and religious center of Jewish life embodied in the Temple. The Jewish people endured much suffering as a result of these tragedies.
Memory is a central component of Jewish faith. We must never forget our past, both the triumphs and the tragedies. If we do, we are doomed to repeat the past’s mistakes. Memory is a central component of Jewish life and theology. The past is always present.
Second, the Jews may have sovereignty over the Land of Israel, but we have not yet rebuilt the Temple. Only in an ideal age will a messiah from the line of King David lead the effort to reestablish the Temple and bring recognition of God as One to the world.
Yes, Israel belongs to the Jewish people. But we are far from the ideal world of a messiah. Israel today faces a crisis of lack of leadership and a great gap between rich and poor.
The State of Israel is the religious, political and cultural center of the Jewish world. But it is far from being the first flowering of messianic redemption.
Meanwhile, Jews all over the world are ignorant of their history, heritage, faith and culture. This crisis of ignorance leads to assimilation and the erosion
of Jewish life all over.
IN THE WIDER world, people are suffering from hunger and from theological and ideological fanaticism. The reality of death permeates the news in our papers and on TV. So we must mourn a defective world and hope for better times.
The Ninth of Av reminds us that we have not yet reached the ultimate goal of a world of peace and brotherhood. We have a long way to go.
Third, and perhaps most important, only two generations ago Six Million Jews died at the hands of
the Nazis and their collaborators. The Shoah is the worst disaster to befall the Jewish people in modern history. Today Jews have sovereignty over Israel. But the cost has been an enormous one.
How can we convert the Ninth of Av into a day of celebration when the survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen and Dachau still live to tell their tales of survival?
As I fast on Tisha Be’av, I will try to experience in a very small way, the starvation of Jews in the ghettos of Warsaw and Lodz during the Second World War.
Israelis and their friends abroad celebrated Jewish triumph on Israel Independence Day. Now comes the time to mourn for the Jews’ great loss. To connect the Ninth of Av to the disaster of the Holocaust in no way detracts from the mourning for the Temples destroyed by our ancient oppressors.
This connection to events of 65 years ago gives an immediacy to an ancient observance, reminding us that while the Assyrians, Romans, Hellenists and Babylonians are gone and we are still here, there are enemies today who want to destroy the Jewish people and the Jewish state. This reality gives us persuasive reason to continue to mourn on the Ninth of Av.
The writer lectures on Jewish history and thought for Nova Southeastern University’s Lifelong Learning Institute in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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