Humans seek Cover, Snakes seek Frogs, Frogs seek Water!
Swarms OF Snakes Attack People & Cattle IN Southern IRAQ!
Earthquakes, Scorching Heat, THE Devil’s Seat, & Three Frogs!
The Great Euphrates River Goes DRY Ahead of Kings From East!
All JUST BEFORE 2nd Advent at the FINAL Battle of Armageddon!
June 16, 2009
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Although the current plague of snakes in Iraq will end after the summer heat, there will be a repeat performance by the Euphrates snakes during the Tribulation Period just before the final battle of Armageddon, when the Euphrates goes dry from being diverted southwest from its waterbed near El Rashid, Syria.
THE TRIBULATION PERIOD DRYING UP OF THE EUPHRATES RIVER AND THE TONGUE OF THE EGYPTIAN SEA, BY GREAT EARTHQUAKES AND SHIFTING OF THE MIDDLE EAST TECTONIC PLATES, WILL ALSO HAVE A TIME OF SCORCHING HEAT, SNAKES SEARCHING FOR FROGS, AND FROGS LOOKING FOR WATER.
Isaiah 11:15,16 – And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. [16] And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.
In Isaiah’s day the ‘tongue of the Egyptian Sea” is what we identify as the Gulf of Suez, a northern extension of the Red Sea that slithers like a serpent’s wet tongue between Egypt and the Sinai. Since Isaiah’s time, man has dug out a northern extension of the “Egyptian Sea” to link the Mediterranean and Red Seas together. The words “utterly destroy” come from the Hebrew word “charam,” which means “to be cut off” or “to shut up.” We are advised by God, through Isaiah, that he intends to completely shut up sections of the Gulf of Suez and the Suez Canal.
In Chapter 1 of Tectonic Chaos, The Great Split, the division of the Mount of Olives into two remaining halves was described, with one half being carried to the north on the extreme southern edge of a newly created Gaza Plate, while the other half drifted southward on the on the northern tip of a newly created Sinai Plate (See Archive Birth Pang Figure 33). In Figure 34 you may observe the consequences of the movement of the Sinai Plate as it floats southward on an underground sea of magma. As you can see, when the southward drift occurs, the Sinai Plate will be jammed against the massive African Plate. Dry land will crunch against dry land, and a northernmost part of the tongue of the Egyptian Sea will be completely “shut up.” (See Archive Birth Pang Figures 31 to 34). It may not be completely closed until the final great earthquake in Revelation.
Revelation 16:18-21 – 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 w
ine of the fierceness of his wrath. [20] And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
It will be possible to walk across this area on dry land throughout the millennial reign of Christ. The nation of Israel may replace the Suez Canal as
the link between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It is possible that Mediterranean maritime shipping commerce will pass upstream to a point on the opposite side of the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem, and then proceed downstream to reach the Red Sea through the Arabah Desert. Of course, the reverse path would be taken by all maritime shipping passing from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. This would cause Israel to receive fees from all nations passing through their port on the eastern side of the river (See Archive Birth Pang Figure 47).
“The river,” Of Isaiah 11:15, has been disputed as to its identity by biblical expositors for centuries. At one time I was convinced that this particular river was the Nile of Egypt. I thought the “seven streams” were most certainly the seven streams of the great Nile Delta, and I was very persistent in this interpretation. I was well aware the expression “the river” was “hannahar, and that this was usually applied only to the Euphrates River. However, because of the “seven streams,” I clung tenaciously to my belief it was the Nile.
But, in my desire to make it the Nile, I had carelessly failed to examine the Hebrew construction of the sentence action. When it said that the river should be smitten “in the seven streams,” the Hebrew does not mean it already existed as seven streams, and that God would smite seven streams already in existence.
It states that God will smite a single river, and, when he performs that action, it will become seven streams because of the smiting. I now know that the single river, which will be divided into seven streams, is none other than the great Euphrates. The inspired Hebrew text phrase, in order to understand its meaning, should be read “and shall smite it into seven streams.” This action will occur at the same time, and is a part of, the action whereby God dries up the Euphrates south of the Palmyra folds and faults.
Revelation 16:12 – And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
We were advised in Isaiah 11:16, that this “drying up” of the Euphrates creates a situation such that it will be possible for the millennial return of tribulation Israelites from the area east of the present Euphrates, and that this return would no longer be hampered by having to boat across the Euphrates. The latter portion of this verse also indicates that such a highway will also extend into Egypt. The “Israel” of verse 16 represents the descendents of the man Jacob, hence the personal pronoun “he” is used, even though it refers to an entire nation that came from Jacob’s loins. When the nation of Israel “came up out of the land of Egypt,” God parted the waters of the extreme northern extension of the Red Sea, the extension that was called “the tongue of the Egyptian Sea in Isaiah’s day, but which is identified as the Gulf of Suez today. On the day Israel crossed this “yam cuwph” extension of the Red Sea, while fleeing from the Egyptian Pharaoh, it could be said God had created a highway of dry land from Egypt to Assyria. But God closed that dry land pathway to destroy the Pharaoh’s mighty army with a flood of closing walls of water. However, the dry land passage of Isaiah will be a permanent thing, because of the drying up of the Euphrates and the shutting up of the Suez Canal, thereby making it possible to move all the way from the huge African Continent to the European, Eurasian, or Asian continents, without having to pass over any ocean or sea. A God made, sea free, highway will be created that will last a thousand years. Throughout the millennial reign these continents will remain fused by God’s power. And, throughout the reign of Christ, the nations of
these massive continents will move up and down
the dry land linkage to worship Christ in the city of Jerusalem, the new capital of the world. The commerce of Africa will flow through Israel to Asia and Eurasia, and the commerce of Asia and Eurasia will flow between themselves and into Africa. Israel will sit at the crossroads of the world’s sea and land commerce. Jerusalem will be the center of the world.
Isaiah 19:23-25 – In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. [24] In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: [25] Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.
And all the nations of the world will come by land, air, and sea to keep the annual Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.
Zechariah 14:9,16 – And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one. [16] And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
Ezekiel 39:21-22, 27-29 – And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. [22] So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from
that day and forward. [27] When I have brought them again from the people, and gathered them out of their enemies’ lands, and am sanctified in them in the sight of many nations; [28] Then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. [29] Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.
Earlier this chapter, I discussed how God would smite the Euphrates River and, as a result of that smiting, it would be separated into seven streams. Now, I will deal as to where that smiting by God will probably take place (See Archive Birth Pang Figures 29 and 35). God has created a long zone of structural weakness in the crust of the earth from the northern headwaters of the Jordan River northeastward to the mighty Euphrates River. It extends from the Sea of Galilee area across Syria to near El Rashid on the Euphrates River, and consists of an elongated zone of major faults and folds in the in the earth’s crust, known as the Palmyra Belt. Please note on Archive Birth Pang Figures 35 and 36 how it links the Jordan and Euphrates Rivers together.
The Euphrates is one of the greatest carriers of top water silt on the face of the earth. It tears the topsoil from Turkish mountainsides and then carries it through the Fertile Crescent of Syria and Iraq into the Persian Gulf. The land delta of the Persian Gulf is the fastest growing delta on the earth. This growth is produced by massive influxes of silt carried into the Persian Gulf by the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Isaiah indicates that God will smite the Euphrates, causing it to divide into seven streamlets in the area where he strikes it. The striking will occur in the zone of the earth which begins on the Euphrates in the vicinity of El Rashid, Syria, and continues southwestward into extreme northern Israel near Dan and the Springs of Banias. When the Arabah Fault is ripped open from the Gult of Aqabah to Lebanon, the resultant fantastic shaking of the earth, will cause the Palmyra Fault Zone to collapse, and the Euphrates River will be diverted southwest from El Rashid across the crumbled zone of rock and earth to link with the northern headwaters of the Jordan River.
Whenever any sediment carrying river moves into a zone with more sediment than it can carry, it invariably produces what geologists call “a braided river.” A braided river is the division of a single river into several streams. Isaiah counted seven after the Euphrates smiting. The seven streamlets will weave their way through the newly formed cracks in the crust along the northern fringe of the Palmyra Belt, eventually to feed into the northern headwaters of the Jordan River. It will be what geologists refer to as “headwater piracy.” In this case the Jordan River will have acted as the pirate to steal the waters of the Euphrates into its own headwaters. This tremendous increase will not only triple Israel’s current volume of water, but will also give it more topsoil for land crops than it can use during its Messiah’s millennial reign. Israel will become the breadbasket of the world.
We are advised by John, in Revelation 16:12, as to the effects of this massive water division into the upper Jordan.
The Euphrates to the east of Israel will go dry.
It will then be possible for the kings of the east to pass unrestricted across a waterless riverbed on the way to Jerusalem to worship King Messiah.
The pools of water left behind after the diversion of the Euphrates will be quickly dried up by the scorching heat described in the Euphrates River Valley, which is the seat of the Devil’s earthly kingdom.
Revelation 16:8-16 –And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. [9] And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory. [10] And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast; and his kingdom was full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues for pain, [11] And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. [12] And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. [13] And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. [14] For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. [15] 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.
Begin Excerpt from Belfast Telegraph via THE INDEPENDENT
Iraqis attacked by plague of snakes
By Patrick Cockburn
Monday, 15 June 2009
Swarms
of snakes are attacking people and cattle in southern Iraq as the Euphrates and Tigris rivers dry up and the reptiles lose their natural habitat among the reed beds.
Doctors in the area say six people have been killed and 13 poisoned. “People are terrified and are leaving their homes,” says Jabar Mustafa, a medical administrator, who works in a hospital in the southern province of Dhi Qar. “We knew these snakes before, but now they are coming in huge numbers. They are attacking buffalo and cattle as well as people.”
In Chabaysh, a town on the Euphrates close to the southern marshland of Hawr al-Hammar, farmers have set up an overnight operations room to prevent the snakes attacking their cattle.
“We have been surprised in recent days by the unprecedented number of snakes that have fled their habitat because of the dryness and heat,” Wissam al-Assadi, one of the town’s vets said. “We saw some on roads, near houses and cowsheds. Farmers have come to us for vaccines, but we don’t have any.”
The plague of snakes is the latest result of an unprecedented fall in the level of the water in the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great rivers which for thousands of years have made life possible in the sun-baked plains of Mesopotamia, the very name of which means “between the rivers” in Greek. The rivers that made Iraq’s dry soil so fertile are drying up because the supply of water, which once flowed south into Iraq from Turkey, Syria and Iran, is now held back by dams and used for irrigation. On the Euphrates alone, Turkey has five large dams upriver from Iraq, and Syria has two.
The diversion of water from the rivers has already destroyed a large swathe of Iraqi agriculture and the result of Iraq being starved of water may be one of the world’s greatest natural disasters, akin to the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest. Already the advance of
the desert has led to frequent dust storms in Baghdad which close the airport. Yet this dramatic climatic change has attracted little attention outside Iraq, overshadowed by the violence following the US-led invasion in 2003 and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
The collapse in the water levels of the rivers has been swift, the amount of water in the Euphrates falling by three-quarters in less than a decade. In 2000, the flow speed of the water in the river was 950 cubic metres per second, but by this year it had dropped to 230 cubic metres per second.
In the past, Iraq has stored water in lakes behind its own dams, but these reservoirs are now much depleted and can no longer make up the shortfall. The total water reserves behind all Iraqi dams at the beginning of May was only 11 billion cubic metres, compared to over 40 billion three years ago. One of the biggest dams in the country, on the Euphrates at Haditha in western Iraq, close to the Syrian border, held eight billion cubic metres two years ago but now has only two billion.
Iraq has appealed to Turkey to open the sluice gates on its dams. “We need at least 500 cubic metres of water per second from Turkey, or double what we are getting,” says Abdul Latif Rashid, the Iraqi Minister of Water Resources. “They promised an extra 130 cubic metres, but this was only for a couple of days and we need it for months.” His ministry is doing everything it can, he says, but the most important decisions about the supply of water to Iraq are taken outside the country – in Turkey, Syria and Iran. “In addition there has been a drought for the last four years with less than half the normal rainfall falling,” says Mr Rashid.
Large parts of Iraq that were once productive farmland have already turned into arid desert. The Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture says that between 40 and 50 per cent of what was agricultural land in the 1970s is now being hit by desertification.
Drought, war, UN sanctions, lack of investment and the cutting down of trees for firewood have all exacerbated the crisis, but at its heart is the lack of water for irrigation in the Tigris and Euphrates.
Farmers across Iraq are being driven from the land.
Earlier this month, farmers and fishermen demonstrated in Najaf, a city close to the Euphrates, holding up placards demanding that the Iraqi government insist that foreign countries release more water.
“The farmers have stopped planting and now head to the city for work to earn their daily living until the water comes back,” said Ali al-Ghazali, a farmer from the area.
“We pay for our seeds at the time of the harvest, and if we fail to harvest, or the harvest has been ruined, the person who sold us the seeds still wants his money.” Najaf province has banned its farmers from growing rice because the crop needs too much water.
The drop in the quantity of water in the rivers has also reduced its quality. The plains of ancient Mesopotamia once produced abundant crops for the ancient Sumerians. From Nineveh in the north to Ur of the Chaldees in the south, the flat landscape of Iraq is dotted with the mounds marking the remains of their cities.
There is little rainfall away from the mountains of Kurdistan and the land immediately below them, so agriculture has always depended on irrigation.
But centuries of irrigating the land without draining it properly has led to a build-up of salt in the soil, making much of it infertile. Lack of water in the rivers has speeded up the salinisation, so land in central and southern Iraq, highly productive 30 years ago, has become barren. Even such rainfall as does fall in northern Iraq has been scant in recent years. In Febru ary, the Gre
ater Zaab river, one of the main tributaries of the Tigris, which should have been a torrent, was a placid stream occupying less than a quarter of its river bed.
The hills overlooking it, which should be green, were a dusty brown.
Experts summoned by the Water Resources Ministry to a three-day conference on the water crisis held in Sulaimaniyah in April described the situation as “a tragedy”.
Mohammed Ali Sarham, a water specialist from Diwaniyah in southern Iraq, said: “Things are slipping from our hands: swathes of land are being turned into desert. Farmers are leaving the countryside and heading to the city or nearby areas. We are importing almost all our food, though in the 1950s we were one of the few regional cereal-exporting countries.”
The experts recommended that, in addition to Turkey releasing more water, there should be heavy investment to make better use of the waterways such as the Tigris and Euphrates. But this year Mr Rashid says that his budget for this year has been cut in half to $500m (£300m) because of the fall in the price of oil.
The outcome of the agricultural disaster in Iraq is evident in the fruit and vegetable shops in Baghdad.
Jassim Mohammed Bahadeel, a grocer in the Karada district, says that once much of what he sold came from farms around the Iraqi capital. “But today, the apples I sell come from America, France and Chile; tomatoes and potatoes from Syria and Jordan; oranges from Egypt and Turkey. Only the dates come from Iraq because they do not need a lot of water.”
Rightly feared: Iraq’s deadly reptiles
*Saw-Scaled Viper (Echis carinatus) About 2ft long, this viper is blamed for more deaths than any other species in the world. Its bite causes extensive internal haemorrhaging in its victims. Recognisable by an arrow-shaped marking on the head.
*Desert Horned Viper (Cerastes cerastes) The Desert Horned Viper is typically found in sandy terrain and is a common sight in Iraq’s southern deserts, identified by the bony horns over its eyes. It lurks in sand, only eyes, nostrils and horns above the surface.
*Desert Cobra (Walterinnesia aegyptia) Like most cobras, it is easily adaptable to various habitats. But locations occupied by humans are a particular favourite where shelter and rodents are on offer. Whilst this glossy snake does not actively seek confrontation, it can move with lethal speed when provoked.
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