All the students of Bible prophecy as having reference to the Last Days recognize the concluding section of this long prophecy. Yet it presents many problems, and accordingly has received many diverse interpretations.

The general shape of the prophecy is this:

Beginning (v. 2) with four kings of Persia (Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspes, and Xerxes), it goes on to mention briefly (vv. 3, 4) the Grecian empire of Alexander, and then settles down to give great detail about the ensuing rivalries between the Seleucid kings of Syria (the king of the north) and the Ptolemys who ruled in Egypt (the king of the south). The varied fortunes and interplay of policy of these two powerful neighbours of Israel are traced through a long section, the meaning of which is given in clear detail in the commentaries (and also by Dr. Thomas in “Exposition of Daniel,” pp. 48-55 [1947 edition]).

Then, all at once, the prophecy unmistakably moves to the Last Days. There is a repeated mention of “the time of the end” (vv. 35, 40); and since the prophecy clearly runs on without break into chapter I2 (note 12: 1: “And at that time shall Michael stand up …”), the clear allusion in 12:2 to the resurrection makes imperative the application of the end of chapter 11 to the Last Days. Thus, the characteristic which is discernible in the other prophecies of Daniel (ch. 2, 7, 8, 9) is even more evident here—they all consist of a continuous historic prophecy of some detail, followed by a discontinuity which leaps a great span of years, and the rest relates to the Last Days.

CRUCIAL PROBLEM

Who is the king of the north? The two interpretations most commonly advanced are: (a) Turkey; (b) Russia.

The first of these may have seemed not unreasonable in the time of World War I, but since then Turkey’s role has dwindled away in importance as seen against the backcloth of the momentous events which have transpired since 1917. That Turkey should be given such prominence in the prophetic panorama whilst other happenings of much greater importance in the developing purpose of God should be passed over without mention, is not easy to understand. Briefly, then, this interpretation is not big enough to accord with the vital importance of the prophecy.

Nor is the identification with Russia free from difficulty. It has already been indicated that there is greater probability of Ezekiel 38 finding its fulfilment after, and not before, the coming of the Lord. Also, if the prophecy is about Russia there are two details very difficult to harmonize with the current situation: the defeat (vv.42, 43) of Egypt, which ever since Suez, 1956, has been firmly subordinate to Russia in its economic and foreign policy; and the “escape” of “Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon”— is it possible to imagine a Russia which can sweep through Israel and yet not be able to dominate the feeble state of Jordan also? In any case, is it not obvious that any power, which invades Israel, will, by that very fact, become the dear political ally of all the Arab states, including both Jordan and Egypt?

A further difficulty in the way of both the identifications mentioned is the interpretation of the corresponding role of “king of the south.” Especially is this the case if Russia is the “king of the north,” for the prophecy plainly implies that Egypt is the headquarters of his adversary. Thus to equate “the king of the south” with either Britain or America becomes near-absurdity. Since 1956 they have been almost ceaselessly at loggerheads with Egypt.^[10]

ANOTHER POSSIBILITY

A careful re-examination of Daniel 11:40 brings to light the possibility of a different interpretation of this section of the prophecy which imparts to it an almost startling relevance to modern developments, an interpretation which is now submitted with all diffidence and consciousness of fallibility.

There can be no question whatever that in the earlier part of this prophecy “the king of the south” is the current Pharaoh of Egypt, the ruling Ptolemy, whilst “the king of the north” is the contemporary king of Syria, Antiochus II or Antiochus III (the Great) or—from verse 21—Antiochus IV (Epiphanes). In the

later section, then, the most reasonable interpretation would be to make “the king of the south” Egypt

and “the king of the north” Syria, continuing the earlier meanings unchanged.

“And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind…” What is the picture presented here? Is it that of the two kings pushing at each other, or of both of them pushing at Israel, the buffer state between them? From the language used, either idea would seem to be possible. But if the identification just proposed for the two powers be adopted, then that conclusion becomes decisive in requiring that each be regarded as attacking Israel.^[11] Thus the “him” is identified. Israel’

PROPHECY UP TO DATE?

If now the pronouns in the succeeding verses are similarly referred to Israel, the relevance of this prophecy to the brilliant Israeli blitzkrieg of June 1967, is positively startling: “he (Israel) shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over (this Hebrew word is “hebrew”).” This describes an overwhelmingly successful campaign. “He shall enter also into the glorious land (the rest of the land of Israel not occupied as yet), and many shall be overthrown; but these shall escape out of his hand, even Edom, and Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon.” The Israeli advance against the state of Jordan stopped at the river Jordan (though it need not have done), and the territory formerly occupied by these ancient neighbours has gone untouched.

“He shall stretch forth his hand also upon the countries: and the land of Egypt shall not escape. But he shall have power over … all the precious things of Egypt.” Does the poverty-stricken land of Egypt have anything more precious than the Suez Canal of which that lightning campaign by Israel brought about a long-lasting closure?

“And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas (i.e. the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean) in the glorious holy mountain (that is, in Jerusalem).” This can be nothing else but the capture of the ancient portion of Jerusalem. “Yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.” Evidently the initial sensational success is to be swallowed up in a crushing defeat of the brittle state of Israel. Everyone knows that whilst the Israelis can mount a more efficient swift-moving attack than any other small nation in the world, they simply do not have the military or economic resources to sustain full-scale war for even a couple of months. So when “tidings out of the east (Jordan) and out of the north (Syria) trouble him,” a last desperate attempt to crush all surrounding enemies will be made, and will fail.

Then will begin for Israel “a time of trouble such as never was since there was a Gentile.” And when the frightful experience of the Jews in the times of Titus and Hitler are considered, this must mean horror past present imagining. The Arab enemy, ever unsympathetic to the softer virtues of mercy and compassion, and smouldering with bitter resentment over three ignominious defeats within twenty years, will give full expression to long pent-up hatred and the sudden savage delight of at last having his superior foe at his mercy. He will sweep into the efficient trim little country, which for a generation has been a standing exposure of Arab sloth and backwardness, not to take it over as a going concern, but to smash, ruin and destroy. This will be done with insatiable ruthlessness and with all the delight of teenage hooligans joyously and destructively flouting the forces of law and order. The Arab locusts will let the desert in. Those of Israel who survive will moan in helpless hopelessness. Now, at last, indomitable Jewish optimism and self-reliance is utterly quenched: “our bones are dried, our hope is lost.”

DELIVERANCE

It is at such a time, when all Jewish self-confidence is gone and when the faith that depends on the God of Israel is being re-born that “Michael shall stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people.”

This divine deliverer with the name: “Who is like God,” is commonly assumed to be Jesus because the name is so apt. Is this adequate reason for such identification? The angels also are like God in their glory and immortality. And why should this approach be adopted regarding Michael and not Gabriel (Daniel 8:16 and 9:21), for his name is the same as El-Gibbor, one of the distinctive titles of Messiah (Mighty God; Isaiah 9: 6)? Also what commentator can be found (Christadelphian or otherwise) who is prepared to interpret the earlier mention of Michael in Daniel 10: 13, 21 as meaning the Lord Jesus Christ? There has been a lack of consistency regarding the exposition of some of these Scriptures. It would seem more reasonable to read the reference to Michael as a reminder that the angel of God’s presence who was with Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 23: 20) and who blessed their conquest of Canaanites (Joshua 5: 13-15) will be with them once again in their greatest hour of need.

It is appropriate to link with this angelic aid brought by Michael a further detail of the prophecy which has been badly mauled by interpreters over the years: “But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.” All kinds of unworthy guesses have been made as to the Last Day fulfilment of this prophecy. Fast travel—two generations back it was locomotives and automobiles, now it is jet planes and lunar rockets. And the increase of knowledge has been (undeservedly) credited to the scientists. The variations on these unwholesome themes have been many. Interpreting Scripture by Scripture takes the student of these things in a different direction.

Amos 9 is marvellously detailed prophecy of the rejection of Israel. Very briefly:

One basket of summer fruit (v. 1) in the temple court, when there should have been thousands (Deuteronomy 26: 1-11) tells of a nation wholly unacceptable to their God. It means that there is only one Man whose service is approved. Therefore (v. 2) “the end is come upon my people of Israel.” The Hallelujahs of the temple are reduced to howlings (hellilu). The entire Place (Sanctuary) is littered with dead bodies (all this in A.D. 70). The Land trembles, and all the people mourn (v. 8). The sun goes down at noon (v. 9; Mark 15: 33), there is darkness over all the Land, whilst the Passover feast (v. 10) is turned into mourning for The Only Begotten Son (v. 10; Luke 23: 48). From this time on there is a famine among the people of Israel of hearing the Word of the Lord (v. 11). Instead they wander from sea to sea, and from the north to the east (v. 12), and do not find it. They run to and fro seeking the Word of the Lord, yet their young men and maidens faint for thirst (v. 13).

Joel supplies the complement to this last detail with his prophecy (2: 28) of the Last Day outpouring of the Spirit on sons and daughters, young men and handmaids. And Daniel 12 has the complement of their fruitless running to and fro in a picture of many in Israel running to and fro now to experience a vast increase in Knowledge of the Word (and the Logos), which has eluded them for two milleniums. It is another prophetic anticipation of the repentance of Israel in their great time of trouble. When it is realized that “running to and fro” is used to describe Israel gathering heavenly food in the wilderness (Numbers 11: 8 — same word in Hebrew), the seemliness of this interpretation will be more apparent.

“And at that time thy people shall be delivered, everyone that shall be found written in the book.” There may be a distinction here from “the children of thy people” who are saved by Michael. This is made more likely by the phrase: “everyone that shall be found written in the book” — in the Lamb’s book of life, the burgess roll of the New Jerusalem (Isaiah 4: 3). In that case, this Scripture is comparable with the promise in Isaiah (26: 20) of protection for the saints (Gentile or Jew) in that epoch of desperate trouble.

JESUS AND DANIEL

It is noteworthy that Jesus makes no less than four allusions to this block of three verses: Daniel 12: 1-3:

Thus, even if the language itself does not patently require reference to the Last Days, it is not to be denigrated as the symbolic idealism of a crazy mixed-up apocalyptic visionary, for Jesus took it seriously and found an important place for it in his own teaching. The witness of the verses just quoted provides clear demonstration that Daniel 11:4-12:3 refers to the coming of Christ’s kingdom and the events immediately preceding the Lord’s return. If the interpretation suggested here is incorrect, one can only assume that other dramatic events will be set in train very soon to provide a more relevant fulfilment. But those who would learn from Daniel regarding these things must come prepared to be taught.

[10] There is, of course, always the possibility of a dramatic change in the pattern of Middle East politics, which would turn Egypt into an enemy of Russia and a friend of Britain. But the indications of other prophecies and current events hardly support this.

[11] The phrase “with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships” could apply to both invaders.

To the readers of these words there are few Bible prophecies more familiar than Ezekiel’s vision of the resurrection of Israel. The bones of the nation, which have remained dry, despised, and without decent sepulture over the centuries have been gathered back to the land of their fathers; flesh and sinews have grown on them as the new state of Israel has taken on increasing vigour and efficiency; and today they stand upon their feet an exceeding great army, bursting with confidence after winning the three swiftest wars in all history.

This interpretation, which is so familiar as to have become almost dogma, ignores several significant details and fails to take account of the correct order of development in the vision. The mistake is easily made (it was made repeatedly by the present writer for over thirty years!) because Ezekiel’s record of the vision and prophecy is not given with the tidy logical chronological sequence, which the western mind normally looks for.

THE SEQUENCE IN THE VISION

A careful re-examination of Ezekiel 37 reveals the following as the order in which the prophet saw things happen:

1. The graves where Israel is buried are opened (v. 12).
2. The skeletons are brought into the valley of vision (in the land of Israel), and are left scattered there vv. 2, 12).
3. They say: “our bones are dried, our hope is lost” (v. 11).
4. To this is added confession of their own unworthiness: “We are cut off for our parts” (v. 11).
5. Ezekiel prophesies upon them.
6. There is a noise like thunder, and an earthquake.
7. The bones come together and re-form into skeletons.
8. Flesh and sinews grow on them. They are now corpses.
9. The call to the four winds (spirits) brings the breath (spirit) of life into them.
10. They stand on their feet an exceeding great power.

If this sequence has been assembled correctly then the parable is a prophecy of Israel being brought, in a spiritually dead condition, from their Gentile dispersion back to the land of their fathers. There they become disintegrated and helpless. It is a process, which takes place in the Land. This part of the prophecy has not yet happened. It would seem to correspond to the prophecies in Zechariah 14: 1, 2; Ezekiel 35: 5 and 36: 13-15; Joel 2, 3; Psalm 83; and especially Ezekiel 20: 34-37.

Another prophecy which comes in appropriately here is the familiar Ezekiel 21: 26, 27: “I will overturn, overturn, overturn it: and it shall be on more until he come whose right it is (both mitre and crown: v. 26); and I will give it him.” There must be yet another overturning to be added to that by Nebuchadnezzar and by the Romans in A.D. 70.

HOPELESSNESS

The evil plight to which Israel is reduced causes them to abandon all hope of help or rescue: “our hope is lost.” Through all their chequered history this has never yet happened. Amid all the dire calamities that have come on them, at each Passover they have always said: “Next year in Jerusalem.” But this and other prophecies speak of a time, now achieved in part (by the war of June 1967), when they are in Jerusalem but not yet in a state of utter destitution and despair, with no one but God to turn to for aid.

Because of the calamitous hopelessness of their evil situation, for the first time since they crucified Jesus there will also be a willingness to recognize their own unworthiness and the justice of God’s discipline: “we are cut off for our parts.” Literally this rather mysterious phrase is: “We are cut off for us (or, to us).” Most probably the meaning is: “we are cut off because of ourselves.”

REPENTANCE

It is a noteworthy principle of Bible teaching that only when a man honestly acknowledges his own unworthiness and sin before God can he be forgiven. Concerning Israel this truth is enunciated over and over again: “When thou art in tribulation, and all these things come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice: (for the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them”; Deuteronomy 4:30, 31 (compare also Psalm 81: 13, 14; Jeremiah 3: 14-18 and 4:1, 2; Deuteronomy 30:I-3; Leviticus 26: 41; Zechariah 6: 15; there are many others—see chapter 2 hereof).

Next comes a great thundering (RVm). It is the voice of God (John 12:28, 29) addressed to His repentant people (through the Elijah prophet?). There is also an earthquake. Like that which took place at the crucifixion of His Son, it is the manifestation of the anger of the Almighty at the despoiling of His Land and People (Psalm 18: 7). The result is that the bones move together to become skeletons once again. Flesh and tissue grow on them, so that now they are corpses.

RESURRECTION

When Ezekiel prophesies to the four spirits of the heavens, the Spirit of God comes into this corpse-like Israel so that the spiritually dead come to life and stand up on their feet “an exceeding great company” (the Hebrew here is very emphatic). These four winds or spirits are the manifestation of divine power in the fourfold cherubim chariot, with its fourfold symbol of Israel, which Ezekiel saw: “whither the spirit (wind) was to go, they went … the spirit of life was in the wheels” (1: 20; compare also Zechariah 6: 1-8).

Interpreted in this way, the vision harmonizes very readily with the various other prophecies of Israel’s experiences in the Last Days. But at first sight the next vision of the two sticks, joined into one, appears to have little connection with this. It has to be borne in mind that the political split between Israel and Judah had become final and complete about a hundred and fifty years before the time of Ezekiel, in the days when Shalmanezer V destroyed Sarnaria and took the northern people captive. Since that time Israel (as distinct from Judah) ceased to be identifiable.

It would seem, then, that with reference to the Last Days one must look for a meaning of the joining of the two sticks into one other than that of the re-uniting of the northern and southern kingdoms. Three possibilities present themselves:

1. The uniting of Jewry into one community—the Dispersion actively and wholeheartedly joining with the Yishuv, those who have returned. Hosea 1:11 supports this suggestion.
2. The union of the saints in Christ with that section of the Jews who turn to God in faith in the time of their calamity, thus themselves becoming saints in the higher sense of the term (compare John 10:16).
3. The uniting of Israel to Christ (note the introduction of the name Joseph, the great prototype).
4. The extension of the State of Israel to include all the territory of the ancient kingdom (see end of chapter 4).

The second and third of these are very close in idea, and for this reason one of these is probably to be preferred. But there seems to be little in the context, which is decisive.

THE KINGDOM

The prophecy proceeds to a heart-warming climax. Messiah’s kingdom is now in being. Israel cleansed of sin, dwell happily in their land, ruled over by “David my servant” (the phrase is from the Messianic Psalm 89:20). The land is now theirs forever. In it they “walk in God’s judgements, and observe his statutes, and do them” (v. 24). God’s “covenant of peace” (v. 26 and 34: 25) is now ratified with them for all time. The “evil beasts” and “the beast of the earth” (34: 25, 28; Revelation 13: 11) cease out of the land. God’s tabernacle is now in the midst of His people, a fact that is known (though not yet finally acknowledged and accepted) by all the nations of the world (vv. 27, 28).

All diligent Bible readers, and especially those who give much attention to prophecy, are impressed with the frequency and importance of the allusions to the heavenly bodies. Traditionally the sun has been taken to stand for human government and dominion, the moon for ecclesiastical authority, and (somewhat vaguely, it must be admitted) the stars for lesser political lights. It is not to our credit as a community of Bible students that for a century this approach (culled in the first instance from orthodox commentators!) has been uncritically accepted.

It is agreed that some sort of case might be made for the sun as a symbol of human political government, although even this result can only be achieved by ignoring a number of inconvenient examples (e.g. Micah 3: 6, Luke 23: 45, Isaiah 30: 26, Revelation 21: 23 etc.). But for the idea that the moon represents the ecclesiastical powers of the Gentile world, no Bible evidence worthy of consideration has yet been advanced. Until it is, the notion should be viewed with mistrust.

CONNECTION WITH ISRAEL

Over against the dearth of evidence in favour of these ideas can be set a group of obviously symbolic passages^[12] where a figure of the people of Israel is clearly intended. Sometimes the symbolism runs on to include the spiritual Israel also. This is only to be expected.

For example, in Joseph’s dream the sun, moon and eleven stars (or constellations? — the signs of the zodiac) offering worship to Joseph’s star were immediately perceived to be symbolic of the family of Israel. Children in the Sunday School do not need to have this meaning explained to them.

Appropriately, the seed of Abraham are compared to the stars of heaven (Genesis 15: 5 and 22: 17) not only in number, but also in glory (Daniel 12: 3). By contrast, those who forsake the Hope of Israel and follow false ideas are called “wandering stars” (Jude 13). When God “causes the sun to go down at noon” (Amos 8: 9) it is because He is bringing judgement on Israel: “I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head.” When, “the sun goeth down over the prophets” (Micah 3: 6), they lose their power of spiritual direction of Israel, not their political authority. If, as seems likely, the Shulamite in the Song of Songs is a type of spiritual Israel, then it is understandable that she should be described as “fair as the moon, clear as the sun,” even when she flees in confusion (Song 6: 10).

JEREMIAH AND THE OLIVET PROPHECY

It is especially in the Olivet prophecy and in the book of Revelation where an accurate understanding of this symbolism is important. What are the “signs in the sun, moon and stars … the sea and the waves roaring,” about which Jesus spoke (Luke 21: 25, 26)? It is a matter of some surprise that the allusion here to Jeremiah 31: 35, 36 has not been either recognized or taken proper account of: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever” (Jeremiah 31: 35, 36). So far as is known, this is the only other place in Scripture where mention of sun, moon and stars is combined with allusion to the roaring of the waves of the sea; and the pointed connection here with Israel will be immediately evident to all readers. By contrast, any attempt to read the more usually received meanings in this passage looks particularly unconvincing.

It surely follows, then, that in the Olivet prophecy Jesus was saying to his disciples: Keep your eye on Israel! When there are sensational developments in Israel as a nation, learn that the time is near.

It may well be that the other familiar phrase there should be read: “and in the land (of Israel) distress of peoples.” The form of the Greek phrase allows of this, but it cannot be insisted on.

EVIDENCE THE OTHER WAY

The nearest approach to Bible support for the more usual view concerning sun, moon and stars comes from a group of three passages (Isaiah 13: 10 and 34: 4; Ezekiel 32: 7), which appear to use these symbols where Israel is not in reference at all. Yet a careful re-examination of these passages suggests the possibility of harmonizing them with the others already considered.

For instance, some details in Isaiah 13 suggest that verses 6-12 (or 6-16, perhaps) are really a prophecy about Babylon’s treatment of Israel, hence the judgement pronounced in turn on Babylon in the rest of the chapter: “the day of the Lord cometh … to lay the Land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” This structure of the prophecy is not unique. Isaiah 17, the burden of Damascus, has only two verses about Syria, and all the rest is about Israel. Also, Isaiah 18 apostrophizes Egypt in the first two verses, but the rest of that prophecy is about Israel. Similarly in Isaiah 13, the inclusion of a judgement against Israel adds point to the denunciation of destruction upon Babylon, God’s instrument that vaunts itself against the Almighty.

Again, Isaiah 34 is a sombre picture of divine wrath against “all nations” round about Israel, with special reference to the Arab enemy Edom (v. 6). All this is “the controversy of Zion” (v. 8). Appropriately, then, verse 4 gives the reason for this heavenly vengeance—the ruthless destruction of the Chosen Race: “And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll (in Hebrews 1 similar language is used with reference to the passing of the Mosaic order; see John Carter’s “Hebrews”), and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine (another symbol of Israel).”

Ezekiel 32: 7, 8 concerning Egypt is the only remaining problem, and no very great one: “And when I shall put thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof dark: I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith the Lord God” (Ezekiel 32: 7, 8).

The emphasis here is not so much on the symbolism of sun, moon and stars as on darkness. The plague of darkness with which God afflicted Egypt in the time of Moses is to have its counterpart in the experience of the Egyptian enemies of God’s people in the Last Days. Symbolically, and probably in a very literal sense also, Egypt is to be made to feel the hand of God in the days

to come; compare the allusion to the plague of the slaying of the firstborn, in Zachariah 14: 18, and to the smiting of Egypt’s waters, in Isaiah 19: 5-10.

It is believed that there are no other passages of Scripture, which even remotely appear to offer support to the use of this symbol regarding human governments and ecclesiastical powers. On the other hand, there are several that take on a fresh and much more satisfying meaning when read as symbolic of Israel.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Joel 2: 10 very plainly refer to the desolation of Israel; “The earth (the Land) shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble; the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” The same is true of the other familiar verses in Joel 2: 31 and 3: 15: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come”; and, “The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” Peter used the former of these two passages at Pentecost (Acts 2: 20) with evident primary reference to God’s overthrow of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. And the latter is closely associated with the “multitudes in the valley of decision’’ who desolate Israel (sun and moon darkened) and who themselves come to destruction when “the Lord is the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.”

The same ideas can be traced in the Sixth Seal which, whatever its past historic applications, certainly has reference to a day yet future when “the wrath of the Lamb is come”: “The sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind” (Revelation 6:12).

The language of the Fourth Trumpet is very similar (Revelation 8:12). The third part of the sun, moon and stars are smitten and darkened. Is this the third and worst of the overturnings of Israel foretold in Ezekiel 21:27 before the coming of “him whose right it is”? Many other Old Testament allusions throughout these Trumpets support this conclusion.

Similarly a very luminous exposition of Revelation 12 with reference to the Last Days becomes possible when the woman “clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars, is taken as a figure of Israel who is seen first in heaven (i.e. in covenant relationship with God) but later on the earth, in the wilderness, in fact; persecuted, and yet ultimately saved from her enemies. From this point of view many of the details are very impressive.

There remains the apparent paradox involved in Isaiah’s superb picture of the kingdom: “The sun shall no more be thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.” The meaning here is now seen to be quite simply and appropriately this: Israel is to continue as God’s glorious nation throughout this age of blessing, yet always and in every respect this glory will be subject to, and indeed dependent on, the greater glory of God.

[12] Not all allusions to sun, moon and stars are symbolic.

Matthew 24

On the face of it the Lord’s Olivet prophecy is in three easily separable sections: (a) concerning the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 — this in response to the question: “When shall these things be,” when not one stone of the temple is to be left upon another? (b) the Last Days, the time of the Lord’s return—in answer to the question: What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” (c) exhortation to preparedness, and warning regarding the day of judgement.

Such an analysis of Christ’s discourse actually over-simplifies it. There is fair reason for believing that the A.D. 70 section of the prophecy will also find another fulfilment in the Last Days. In other words, the brethren of the first century saw the fulfilment of the first part of this prophecy in their day, and were able to profit from the knowledge of it; the brethren of the twentieth century will see the entire prophecy fulfilled from start to finish.

Even apart from the Bible evidence, which is available, pointing to such a conclusion, this may be deemed reasonably possible or even probable, because this is the character of such a big proportion of Bible prophecy. The idea is familiar, to the point of obviousness, that the prophets were inspired to utter words which mostly had some kind of fulfilment in their own time or soon after, but which were also prophecies of the consummation of the age. Psalms written by David about his own experiences were also Psalms about the Messiah (Acts 2:30, 31). Isaiah based many of his prophecies on the suffering and glory of good king Hezekiah, but these were also prophecies of Messiah (John 12: 41). So it would be strange indeed if the greatest prophecy of the greatest prophet of all time did not have a similar double application.

A SECOND FULFILMENT

Here, then, are six more reasons educed from the text itself why the first section of the Lord’s Olivet prophecy should be re-studied with reference to the Last Days:

1. “Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes” (Matthew 24: 17, 18). In Luke 17: 31 Jesus had already used almost identical words concerning “the days of the Son of man.” If this fact stood by itself there might be some (though not much) justification for the assumption that the Lord used the same language because there was the same urgency about the occasions. Those who have really absorbed the spirit of Bible prophecy will know how inadequate such a view is. But in any case there are corroborative reasons.
2. “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew. 24: 21). Yet the Old Testament prophets had already made the same portentous declaration over and over again regarding the Last Days! One recalls Daniel’s “time of trouble such as never was” (Daniel 12: 1) and the extreme emphasis of the words of Joel: “there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations” (2: 2). Either the words do not mean what they say, or they are to be reconciled by being applied to the same occasion.
3. It is in this section of the prophecy also that the words come: “But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved” (24: 13). There is more innate difficulty in this saying than has generally been conceded. If “the end” is A.D. 70, was Jesus saying: He who keeps the faith till the temple is destroyed shall be saved? Or did he mean: He who keeps the faith to the end of his life shall be saved? But this is a truism valid for every disciple in every age. Had Jesus said: “He that shall endure in the time of the end (of the Mosaic dispensation), the same shall be saved,” there would have been little difficulty. But he did not say that. On the other hand, reference to the Last Days allows the words to be taken literally, at their face value.^[19]
4. Verse 29 begins: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days …” This word “immediately,” the meaning of which has been evaded by a variety of tortuous or inaccurate devices (e.g. by suggesting that it does not mean “immediately” but “suddenly”) requires a very close connection between the tribulation Jesus has already foretold and the time of his second coming.
5. “Then let them which be in Judæa flee to the mountains” (v. 16). This is the experience of Lot over again: “Escape for thy life … escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed” (Genesis 19: 17). In Luke 17: 28, 29, 32 Jesus pointed to an emphatic parallel between the Last Days and the deliverance of Lot. So it is hard to believe that here also in his Olivet prophecy he used similar language without intending a similar idea.
6. “And the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all the nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24: 14). In the first century these words had their fulfilment in the matchless work of Paul who in humble truth was able to write about “the hope of the gospel … which was preached to every creature under heaven” (Colossians 1: 23). “And then shall the end come”—about a year after Paul was beheaded, the three and a half year’s Jewish War began in Judæa. Yet as the words of Jesus are read and pondered, there is a finality about them that suggests a grander fulfilment. In this twentieth century, in spite of the blameworthy lethargy of God’s elect, the message of the imminent return of Christ goes out from scores of radio stations. Today in a much more universal fashion than was true in Paul’s day the gospel is being preached in all the world, even though it be mixed with error.

MEANING FOR THE LAST DAYS

The foregoing assembly of Bible arguments will surely predispose any earnest student of prophecy towards re-examining this part of the Lord’s discourse with a view to learning more concerning the time of his coming. The following are some of the details specially worthy of re-consideration.

1. Verses 9, 10 speak of persecution and bitter hatred of the faithful. At the time of writing there is no sign of this. Would God there were, for the Household of God needs the bracing influence of external adversity to save it from the eroding effects of a soft materialistic civilization and to provide it with new and better opportunities of evangelism. This could well come.
2. “And then shall many be offended … and many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24: 10a, 11, 12). The words plainly mean that many will openly renounce the Faith, many others will pervert it, but many (most) will just drift. To the modern mind these seem to be incompatible with what has just been mentioned. Yet Jesus saw no incompatibility.
3. An “abomination of desolation” is to stand in the holy place (v. 15). This means: an abomination which desolates the holy city, Jerusalem. Such a conclusion is indicated by the parallel in Luke 21: 20: “And when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies …” Since Jesus adds: “whoso readeth, let him understand,” it is a reasonable inference that the great sign of the imminence of the Lord’s return will be the desolation of Jerusalem, lately freed from nineteen centuries of Gentile domination. In Daniel 12 the prophecy already quoted continues: “And from the time that … the abomination that maketh desolate is set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days;” whilst in Luke 21 the prophecy already quoted continues: “and Jerusalem shall be trodden down until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” This suggests that “the times of the Gentiles” which Jesus had in mind were not the long centuries of Gentile mastery of the city but the “time, times and a half,” a period of literally three and a half years when the city is laid desolate just before the coming of the Lord.
4. “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Matthew 24: 22). There are several impressive examples to be found in Scripture of a divine fore-shortening of evil days. The three days’ pestilence in which David preferred to fall into the hand of God was shortened, by grace, to less than a day—again, for the sake of the elect. David prayed for the people and took the guilt upon himself (2 Samuel 24: 13, 15, 16, 17). The siege of A.D. 70 was shortened, in the mercy of God, to five months precisely (Nebuchadnezzar’s siege lasted the whole of a terrible year). This also was for the elect’s sake: Revelation 9: 5 and 8: 3, 4. Similarly it may well be that the times of the Gentiles which are still future will be shortened through the faith and prayers of the saints who discern the pattern of God’s working and influence it by their intercession as Abraham did in the days of Lot.

Tentative conclusions such as these may be momentous. The possibility of such sensational developments has perhaps not been ventilated and discussed as fully as it might be.

[19] Readers may like to probe further and seek an answer to the question why Jesus chose to include these words here and not in a later section of his discourse where they seem to be so much more appropriate.

There are certain chapters in Isaiah, which clearly had primary reference to the stirring political events in the prophet’s own day. The Assyrian was marching through the Land. Unusual political alliances came into being and dissolved again almost overnight. The Jews themselves were in a state of fragmentation. The more wholesome part of the nation put their faith in Hezekiah, their stricken king, a man whose character and experiences marvellously typify the main aspects of the work of Jesus. Because of this close correspondence between two who were each a Suffering and Glorified Servant of Jehovah, many of these prophetic chapters can be conned afresh with reference to the Last Days and the time of Christ’s Kingdom.^[5] There are difficulties galore, but is this adequate reason for not making the attempt to understand?

A REMNANT

Isaiah 17 is headed: “The burden of Damascus,” but nearly all the chapter is about Israel (one suspects that the same may be true in chapter 13: “The burden of Babylon”). It describes a time when “the glory of Jacob shall be made thin.” The prophecy continues (v. 5): “And it shall be as when the harvestman gathereth the corn, and reapeth ears with his arm; and it shall be as he that gathereth ears in the valley of Rephaim” (ominous word! “Rephaim” means “the dead”). “Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel.” One is immediately reminded of the double harvest symbolically described in Revelation 14: 15-19. Perhaps the “gleaning of grapes” and the “two or three berries” of the olive tree represent the faithful remnant of Israel for whom God has regard. These only are worthy of His care in Israel’s final experience of tribulation and destruction.

The hopelessness of the situation will drive those who hitherto have depended on “the work of their own hands” (Isaiah 17: 8) to “look to their Maker, and their eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel” (v. 7).

RETRIBUTION

Nevertheless, first (as in Jeremiah 16: 18) there must come recompense on the godless nation: “And he shall not look to the altars, the work of his own hands (this is what the Jews worship today!)… In that day shall his strong cities be as the forsaken places of the Amorites and the Hivites, which were forsaken from before the children of Israel” (RVm and Septuagint). In the time of Joshua Israel rapidly took over the cities built by their Canaanite predecessors. In the time of Ben Gurion (1948), they did the same again. But in the time of Sennacherib the reverse process took place just as rapidly (2 Kings 18:13). So also must it be in the time of the end: “And there shall be desolation. Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation, and hast not been mindful of the Rock of thy strength … in the day of thy planting thou hedgest it in, and in the morning thou makest thy seed to flourish (the vigorous beginnings of modern Israel?), but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow.” It is a picture of divine discipline exercised against an ungodly nation. This is inevitable. How can God bless that which ignores Him and glorifies man?

However, ultimately — because the people of Israel are “beloved for the fathers’ sakes” — the Land will be swept clean of all enemies: “And behold at eveningtide trouble: and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.”

The next chapter apostrophizes “the land which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,” that is, Egypt whose chief asset is in the rivers which flow down from Ethiopia. It is the nation, which sends its messengers “in vessels of papyrus”—a nation which is a paper tiger and which is lavish in both paper threats and paper promises. These ambassadors are given, in place of the message in their diplomatic bag, a revelation from the Lord of hosts of Israel, to “a nation scattered and peeled … a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers (that is, the nations, see 17: 13 and 8: 7, 8) have spoiled.”

The essential part of the divine message to such a nation is contained in the words: “For afore the harvest, when the blossom is perfected, and the flower becometh a ripening grape, he shall cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches” (18: 5).

A NEEDED DISCIPLINE

This figure appears to describe the exercise of God’s discipline against the vine of Israel at a time when it is beginning to shew all the signs of luxurious growth. There is as yet no fruit for God when the heavenly vinedresser acts drastically against it, suddenly cutting off what looks so fair.

“They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them” (v. 6). Possibly these words may be interpreted as meaning that the final time of tribulation for Israel is to last a summer and a winter, and not the longer period of three and a half years hinted at in certain other prophecies. “But for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened”—this principle probably has more than one application.

The prophecy concludes with a drastic change of tone: “In that time (why not “in that day,” as in 19: 18, 19, 23, and so frequently in other prophets?) shall a present be brought unto the Lord of hosts (consisting) of a people scattered and peeled (66: 20), and from a people terrible from their beginning (the divine deliverance from Egypt under Moses) hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place (the word also means temple) of the Lord of hosts, the mount of Zion.”

Here is a final picture of Israel chastened and changed, and now gladly and humbly submitting themselves before the God of Abraham. The time of true blessing for Israel can only come when they turn to Him in repentance and cease to glory in the work of their own hands.

[5] Here is a wonderfully fruitful topic of Bible study for those who have not already attempted it’

Traditionally the four beasts of Daniel 7 have been expounded with reference to the four “world empires” of Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome. This is, of course, perfectly correct. And yet, at the same time, it can be — and has been — misleading. The tendency has been to put emphasis on them as world powers, whereas they were hardly that. They did not even dominate the known civilization of their time. Babylon never expanded as far as Lydia and Greece; it gained only a temporary foothold in Egypt, which was as much the centre of civilization as Babylon itself was. Persia failed to conquer Greece and never touched other centres of Mediterranean culture. Alexander’s empire only lasted as long as Alexander. And even though the might of Rome went as far as the north of Scotland, in the east it stopped at the Euphrates, and only for short periods was it effective so far.

But in a Biblical sense these four great powers were all-important, for all of them in turn controlled the fortunes of God’s Land and People. It is from this point of view, and from this view only, that Rome “devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it.” Normally this was not the character of Roman conquest. The legions did not conquer in order to destroy but in order to civilize. Wherever Rome went, law and order followed —the pax Romana. In this respect the Land of Israel was an outstanding exception. The Jews did not want any Roman peace. So at last, against all normal Roman policy, that troublesome country was “broken in pieces, and stamped with the feet of it.”

ISRAEL AND THE EMPIRES

This view of Daniel’s four beasts has good, but much neglected, Biblical support: “Their (Israel’s) heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself” (Hosea 13: 6-9).

There is good evidence in Daniel chapter 9 alone that the prophet was in the habit of poring over the Scriptures already written, and that his Bible included at least the Books of Moses, Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah. So it is not unreasonable to believe that he had also pondered this passage in Hosea and that the revelation of God’s continuing retribution against his wayward people was made in terms of what he was already familiar with. This Hosea passage describes the great powers as raised up for the punishment of Israel. The extent of their dominion over the centuries is a matter of little importance—so little, in fact, that it is not mentioned once throughout Daniel 7 (verse 23 is not the exception to this which it appears to be). No wonder then, that the vision of an everlasting kingdom “given to the people of the saints of the most High” left Daniel not reassured or elated but “much troubled” and with “changed countenance” (v. 28); for he saw clearly that this long sequence of ravagers boded much ill for Israel before peace should come to Jerusalem.

In this view of chapter 7 — and of the prophecy as a whole — there becomes evident the reason for the long gap which exists in all of Daniel’s prophecies (see “The Last Days”, chapter 3). These revelations take no account of the long period during which Israel have been scattered from their land. They all resume in the Last Days when Israel are back in the land preparatory to the setting up of Messiah’s kingdom.

TEN KINGDOMS

This concept helps considerably to impart unification and coherence to the various prophecies in Daniel. The ten toes (ch. 2) and the ten horns (ch. 7) belong to the Last Days, and not to the long period from the decay of Rome to the twentieth century. They are to be equated with the ten kings of Revelation 17 who make war with the Lamb and are overcome by him. For the stone smashes the feet of the image. The horns also are ten powers in the Last Days and not before, for they are there when “the Ancient of Days came.” The strange leaps in the visions at 8: 23 and 11: 40 (or is it 11: 36?) from prophecies long fulfilled to the Last Days are also now readily accounted for.

But one further conclusion follows. The revelation regarding the little horn of the fourth beast will have its true and detailed fulfilment in the days to come. In “The Last Days,” chapters 4, 5, a variety of additional reasons were given for this view. The incompleteness and partial character of the “Papal” interpretation may be summarized in the following brief statements:

1. The usual application assigned to the three uprooted horns is so woefully insignificant as to condemn itself. Why should the transfer to Papal authority of three obscure little provinces (little more than counties) in Italy, be the subject of one of the most powerful Old Testament prophecies of the Kingdom of God?
2. “Made war with the saints.” What saints? Anyone who has read the systematized creeds of Waldenses, Abigenses and Huguenots will hesitate to apply the prophecy to such. The Book of Daniel applies this Hebrew word to Israel (8: 24 and 12: 7; same word—and see Psalm 79: 2), and also to angels (8:13). Obviously, in chapter 7, the former is the proper reference.
3. “prevailed against them; until the Ancient of Days came …”. The persecuting power of the Papacy stopped long before the manifestation of Messiah.
4. “they (the saints) shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.” Even granting, for the sake of argument, the “year for a day” principle (although there is no hint of it in Daniel^[13]), the fact still has to be faced that long before 1868-70 (the standard termination date) the Pope had lost all persecuting power, and has been without it now for nearly two centuries. Yet the prophecy strongly implies a sudden change from the persecuting horn of the everlasting kingdom of the most High.
5. Does the Pope “speak great words against the most High?” At least, he honours Christ, after a fashion—a thing that is hardly to be said about the Jews at any time in their history or about modern scientific rationalism (a much greater enemy to the Truth than the Pope can ever be).

A GAP

It is suggested, instead, that the Last Day interpretation calls for a gap in the prophecy (as in chs. 2, 8, 9, 11), and read the details of the little horn as having reference to the Last Days when Israel are back in their land. It is known from such Scriptures as Zechariah 14: 2, 3 that before the coming of the Messiah, the state of Israel is to be smashed to pieces by assembled enemies. Daniel 7 gives a vivid picture of the final and most terrible oppression in the land, lasting for three and a half years. This tyrant “shall be diverse from the former,” that is, from Rome, Greece, Persia and Babylon, who were all Gentiles and blatantly imperialist. By contrast this persecutor will be himself an Arab son of Abraham seeking revenge rather than power, or he will be a Gentile co-ordinator of Arab hostility. He will speak great words against the most High by taunting the Jews regarding their vaunted national destiny.

It is useful to note that every period of three and a half years traceable in Scripture describes a period of increasing tribulation for men of God, culminating in vindication and triumph.^[14] Elijah’s exile in Zidon during three and a half years of drought ended on mount Carmel. Antiochus Epiphanes’ desecration of the temple had Maccabees rebellion and triumph as its climax. The ministry of Jesus was followed by his resurrection and ascension. The forty-two stages of Israel’s pilgrimage in the wilderness (Numbers 33) led to the Land of Promise. The forty-two generations from Abraham (Matthew 1: 17) brought the birth of Messiah. Here in Daniel 7 is perhaps the most striking example of all.

DANIEL AND REVELATION

In Revelation 13 the very phrases used in Daniel 7 to describe the persecuting horn are applied to the Beast of the sea (vv. 5, 6, 7) which heads up the ten kings who make war with the Lamb (17: 14) and are overcome by him. The oppression of the “saints” — God’s holy people, Israel — described in Revelation 13 is evidently an apocalyptic expansion of the corresponding details in Daniel 7. The language is highly appropriate to Israel: “He that leadeth (Israel) into captivity shall (himself) go into captivity” — where does the Bible ever speak of saints in Christ going into captivity? — “Here is the patience and faith of the saints,” i.e. this especially is when God’s people will need patience, as three and a half bitter years drag their weary course.

This last-day Antichrist has as his “high-priest” one who is described as a lamb-like “beast of the earth,” called also in 19: 20 “the false prophet.” Again the Old Testament helps towards identification. One of Ezekiel’s prophecies of the restoration of Israel has these details: “And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely (Ezekiel 38: 11!) in the wilderness and sleep in the woods (i.e. in open country — without walls, having neither bars nor gates) … And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the earth (Revelation 13: 11) devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid” (Ezekiel 34: 24, 25, 28).

There is much that is difficult about the details of Revelation 13,^[15] but in conjunction with Daniel 7 it appears to teach fairly plainly that its grim picture of oppression and blasphemy will find ultimate fulfilment in the terrible sufferings of Israel through three and a half years of ghastly horror when their state is overrun by Arab enemies headed up in a Power or a Man (Revelation 13: 18).

The ready harmonization of these prophecies with others of a similar tenor, already expounded, will not be lost on the reader.

[13] Not even in the Seventy weeks prophecy, when attention is given to the proper meaning of the Hebrew for “week.”

[14] If this view is justified, what about the “papal” application concluding in 1868?

[15] Inevitably so, once it is agreed that the detailed fulfilment of this part of the vision lies in the future.

In 1967 the writer of this collection of studies in Bible prophecy published an earlier series, written in 1964, under the title: “The Last Days.” They were little more than brief summaries, to suggest lines of investigation. The present compilation, written in the Fall of 1967, is an attempt to dot a few i’s and cross a few t’s.

In recent years there are certain distinctive attitudes discernible regarding the study of Bible prophecy. One school of thought saves itself from thinking and from hard personal Bible study by nailing its colours to the mast and refusing to consider any interpretation more recent than the nineteenth century.

Another trend, also to be deplored, is the picking up of isolated verses here and there from prophetic passages in order to weave them together, with a confidence altogether unwarranted, into a detailed prophetic time-table. Anything, which is attempted in this direction, should always be done with great diffidence. One foresees the possibility of serious strains on personal faith when over-confident schemes of interpretation are turned topsy-turvy by the hard facts of a year or two.

Yet another fashion, understandable but not to be encouraged, is the rambling political commentary, decorated with an occasional knowing allusion to some prophecy or other. This tendency to turn Bible prophecy into a kind of political game — the only kind of politics valid to Christadelphians — is of little spiritual profit. It is especially undesirable when it steers the attention of the Lord’s watchers to the Far East or Africa or Western Europe or the Papacy, and away from Israel. There is no single lesson to be learned by the student of Bible prophecy of more importance than the almost self evident: Watch Israel! By comparison all the rest is negligible.

The present series of studies is a rather miscellaneous sequence of brief expositions of more or less familiar chapters in the prophets. They are essentially Biblical studies. Allusions to current politics are few. Many of the conclusions reached — especially in considering such chapters as Daniel I1, Amos 1, 2 — are very tentative. The writer is prepared to see some of his expectations proved to be mistaken by the events of the next few years. In that case he will be in good company.

Two themes, both of which have suffered unwarranted neglect over the years, were given some prominence in “The Last Days”: the repentance of Israel, and Arab hostility. It will be observed that in these further excursions into prophetic fields, the same motifs (deliberately recapitulated in chapter 2) constantly recur — not because they have been sought, but because they are inescapable.

It is, of course, well recognized that most, if not all, of the prophecies considered here have already had some kind of fulfilment in or soon after the prophet’s own time. But this is not to say that further fulfilment in days yet future must be ruled out. Almost no allusion is made in these pages to any primary fulfilment, but the reader is assured that where such application of the prophecy has been known, it has been borne in mind in order to help towards a harmonious exposition of the later, and now more important, fulfilment.

Some will be disappointed at the paucity of references in these pages to the Book of Revelation. Such readers are assured that there has been no culpable negligence. The present writer has a complete commentary on that remarkable book in manuscript. Perhaps one day it may be possible to make this available for perusal, but it is fervently hoped that the rapid development of events in these Last Days will soon make the further study of the Apocalypse unnecessary.

The phrase (Jeremiah 30: 7) is a familiar one to all students of prophecy. It turns out to be the key to the understanding of a remarkably complete picture of the day of Messiah.

“Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it (a time of trouble such as never was! Daniel 12: 1); for it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it.” Clearly this is intended to be the last great deliverance. And how? By the coming of Israel’s Messiah. The Hebrew text here almost clamours to be translated: “the time of Jacob’s trouble, but out of it Jesus”!

A further specially significant detail is that this keyword “trouble” is the same Hebrew root which is used to describe how Jacob trembled at his impending encounter with Esau: “Then Jacob was exceedingly afraid and distressed … Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau: for I fear him, lest he will come and smite me, and the mother with the children” (Genesis 32:7, 11).

JACOB PRE-FIGURES ISRAEL

The phraseology in Jeremiah 30 seems to imply that Jacob’s experience when he returned from his arduous life with Laban only to encounter Esau near the river Jabbok will be re-enacted in the Last Days experience of his nation.

This conclusion is surely put beyond doubt by the remarkable series of allusions in Jeremiah 31 to that period in Jacob’s life:

Those accustomed to this kind of allusiveness in the writings of the prophets will have no difficulty in recognizing that here the final return of Israel is being described in terms of the return of Jacob from Syria. The entire picture in Genesis is marvellously apposite.

Because he sought the heavenly blessing by his own devices, Jacob was compelled to leave the Land of Promise. He spent many years in a Gentile land enduring hardship and oppression. At last God brought him away from persecution to dwell in the Land, which was his by right. No sooner was he returned than he had to encounter his brother Esau, “which is Edom,” coming against him with a great force of men. In the night, which followed, Jacob wrestled — against Esau, so he thought! — for the safety of his family. If they were to survive, everything depended on his self-reliance, prowess and ultimate victory. Yet all the time he was actually pitting his puny strength against angelic powers who, unseen, controlled and directed his life. All his days this had been Jacob’s fault. Now, wrestling at Jabbok, the lesson was learned. It meant subjection to Esau (see Genesis 33, especially v. 3), and the outcome — all unexpected — was that he was left unmolested in the Land. God appeared to him at Bethel, and the great Promise was ratified.

A TYPE FULFILLED

The teaching of Jeremiah 30, 31 is that all these events, pregnant with meaning, are to be re-enacted in the Last Days. Already Jacob has returned from the land of his oppressor where he has borne long and arduous task work. In the Land of Promise he has encountered Esau soon to prove mightier than he. With little reliance on God but with confidence in his own powers he now wrestles for national survival. All this is according to the unerring counsel of God, but the divine Providence in these momentous developments goes unrecognised. So there must ensue a time when Jacob, lame and disabled, shall acknowledge the superior might of Esau — but, now acknowledging also the over-ruling power and wisdom of God, Jacob becomes Israel, a people of destiny, freed from all adversaries and oppressors and rejoicing in inheritance of the Land and in a glorious vision of God:

And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord (Jeremiah 31: 28).

Jeremiah 16

The greatest day in Israel’s history was their deliverance from Egyptian bondage by the hand of Moses. Of this their Passover is an unfailing reminder, when they say: “The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt.”

Jeremiah 16: 14, 15 foretells the coming of another day of deliverance which will utterly dwarf that ancient experience. Instead, they will say: “…The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers” (v. 15).

This promise certainly did not find its fulfilment in the return from Babylon, for in no respect did that restoration compare with the deliverance from Egypt — and here Jeremiah foretells something considerably greater than that. Also, it is to be noted that the same promise is repeated in Jeremiah 23: 7, 8, where it is specified as the work of Messiah, the Lord our Righteousness. So, without any possibility of doubt, here is a prophecy of the Last Days. The rest of the chapter shows how the fulfilment is to come about.

FISHERS —

“Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them” (v. 16). Since the twentieth century came in, these words have found ample fulfilment. In many different ways God has, so to speak, dangled bait before His ancient people to lure them back to Himself and back to the Land. The Balfour Declaration in World War I was almost an incitement to Jews to get busy on re-colonization of Palestine. And circumstances were every way propitious—the Turks had been driven out, the Land was almost empty of population, the few Arabs there were tolerably friendly and willing to sell large areas of land at give-away prices, and the mandate was in the hands of Britain. The barometer was set at “Fair.”

— AND HUNTERS

But at first the Zionist Movement was slow to gather momentum. Nearly everywhere the Jews were tolerably comfortable, and pogroms seemed to be a thing of the past. So God tried a more radical method: “And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.” Thus there arose, to the utter astonishment of the entire world, a fanatical German demagogue who attracted power to himself as a magnet. This man was possessed with an insane hatred of Jews and everything Jewish. Before World War II began, and especially during it, Jews were hunted with a calculating resolution and inhumanity without parallel in world history. Both before and after the war, this hunting of God’s people meant a great swelling of the stream of immigrants to Palestine. Increasing Arab hostility cleared out the Jewish communities in all the lands of Islam, and the new State of Israel throve. But it throve in godlessness! An overwhelming proportion of its three million people are without effective religion. Such religious conviction as exists is of negligible power, for it is basically a zeal for arid rabbinic tradition. Repentance and faith towards God are almost unknown. Jewish Christians in Jerusalem are only a tiny handful. The great lesson of self-mistrust and of faith in the God of Abraham has still to be learned.

Accordingly, the Jeremiah prophecy proceeds: “For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes. And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land” (vv. 17, 18a).

Israel is God’s firstborn, endowed in time past with double blessing (see Deuteronomy 21: 17), but bearing also double responsibility. The present generation has certainly developed God’s Land with unmatched skill and industry, not to God’s glory however, but out of their own pride and for their own selfish ends. Therefore, first, before the divine blessing can be given them there must come recompense and a consequent change of heart.

When this transpires, the fullness of God’s kingdom will flood in: “The Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit … I will cause them (Israel, or the Gentiles?) to know mine hand and my might: and they shall know that my name is Jehovah” (vv. 19, 21).

The re-gathering of Israel to the Land of their Fathers as a sign that the Last Days are upon us is a fact familiar enough to all who read these words. It is familiar both in Holy Scripture and in modern politics. The thing is past argument. Why cannot others see it as plainly as we can?

And the future of Israel is just as plain. They will come through the chapter of tribulation which yet awaits them, saved by the advent of the Messiah whom they have refused for many centuries; they will then acknowledge him, yielding humble submission, and thus will find themselves exalted to be the head of the nations, and not the tail; the glorious Kingdom of God now brought in will be essentially a Kingdom of Israel, the splendour and power of the Davidic era raised to the nth degree.

It is the purpose of this chapter to suggest that, whilst the fore-going summary is entirely correct, the emphasis is wrong. A subtle distortion has crept in which has resulted in serious loss of perspective.

The key factor is the repentance of Israel. All our thinking regarding this vital element in the divine purpose has been dominated by the familiar passage in Zechariah 12: 10:

“And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.”

An inference, not wholly justified, has been readily made that the inevitable conversion of Israel to faith in Christ will follow instantaneously when they set eyes on Jesus. The stigmata of his sufferings, inflicted by their own race and now displayed before them, will bring full conviction of their national error and sin, and they will prostrate themselves in wretchedness before him.

Such a reading of the passage is weak in two points. Misled by the familiar words of the King James Version, readers have assumed that this transformation in stony-hearted Israel is brought about by the actual evidence of their senses, as was the conversion of hard-headed Thomas: “they shall look upon me… and they shall mourn.” But the Hebrew text is not so explicit. The expression means literally: “they shall look unto me,” and it would be unwise to press the more familiar meaning. The same is also true of the New Testament version of these words in John 19: 37. Incidentally, it is well to be clear also that the allusion in John is not to the piercing by crucifixion but by the spear-thrust of a Roman soldier: yet John’s intention is that this shall be seen as brought about by Jewish malice: “him whom they pierced.”

A further difficulty (to the present writer, though he is aware that many take this in their stride) is the astonishing paradox of a great national mourning in the very moment of redemption and triumph (see, by all means, Zechariah 12: 11-14).

It is well that the fact should be recognized that this picture of a national repentance of Israel at sight of their crucified Messiah stands almost alone. Revelation 1:7 is nearly the only parallel passage:

“Behold, he cometh with clouds: and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”

Ezekiel 36: 24-28 and 37: 23 should perhaps be read in harmony with this idea, but this cannot be taken for certain. Romans 11: 26 is fairly explicit on this:

And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

Yet even here the original text in Isaiah 59: 20 is markedly different in its implications, suggesting that the repentance of Israel must come before the manifestation of the Redeemer:

And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.

This repentance of Israel is a frequent theme of the prophecies concerning the Last Days. The Bible passages concerning it are numerous and explicit. It would appear to be a facet of the prophetic Scriptures, which has suffered from unwarranted neglect. Here is a block of four of these passages.

1. “For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23: 39).
2. “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they have trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me; and that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity: then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land” (Leviticus 26: 40-42).
3. “And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return, and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee” (Deuteronomy 30: 1-3).
4. “For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Romans 11: 15).

These passages call for only brief comment. Their main idea — that the Chosen Race must shew a change of heart before its final redemption can take place — seems to be carried on surface.

1. For many many years the faithful remnant among the Gentiles have said: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” But not so Israel. Nor at the moment is there any clear sign of such conversion. Nevertheless the force of the word “until” here is inescapable.
2. Here the full realization of the covenant promises to the Fathers is made explicitly dependent on the contrite heart of the nation.
3. In the passage from Deuteronomy 30 the word “when” is very forceful. So also is the context in verses 11-14—verses which Paul expounds in Romans 10 with reference to the gospel of faith ignored by self-sufficient Israel.
4. Romans 11:15 is almost like a proportion sum in arithmetic. Paraphrased the words mean this: Just as Israel’s rejection of the gospel has led to their casting off by God, so also their repentance will lead on to the Kingdom of God and the resurrection from the dead.

With such Scriptures as these the case surely stands proven. Nevertheless for the benefit of those who would make doubly sure, another block of four passages may not be amiss:

5. “I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face. In their affliction they will seek me early (earnestly), saying, Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight” (Hosea 5:15-6:2; and see v. 3 also). It is almost as though the nation must re-enact in its own experience the suffering and glory of the one whom they pierced.
6. The great Zechariah prophesy concerning Joshua-Jesus, “the man whose name is the Branch” who is to build the temple of the Lord and sit and rule as a priest upon his throne, concludes with these words: “And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God” (Zechariah 6: 15).
7. The margin of the Revised Version correctly re-shapes Jeremiah 4:1, 2 to read thus: “If thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, and wilt not wander, and wilt swear, The Lord liveth, in truth, in judgement and in righteousness; then the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory — which surely means that the coming in of God’s Kingdom depends on Israel turning to Him in repentance.”
8. Peter’s speech to the Jews of Jerusalem (Acts 3) carries the same exhortation. In the Greek text the point is made explicitly, but is less obvious in the Authorised Version: “Repent ye therefore”—that three results may follow:
   1. “that your sins may be blotted out;”
   2. “that there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the
   3. “and that he may send Jesus Christ which before was preached unto you” (Acts 3: 19, 20).

Omitting (1) and (2) for the moment, Peter’s appeal runs thus: “Repent ye therefore …that he may send Jesus Christ.” The plain implication here is that, in the inscrutable purposes of God, the coming of Messiah’s Kingdom somehow has the repentance of Messiah’s people as a necessary pre-requisite. Perhaps this is the point, easily over-looked, of the familiar fig-tree parable: “When her branch is now become tender” may well be a prophecy of stony Jewish hearts becoming hearts of flesh. In other words, the intention of the parable could be spiritual rather than political — in which case this long foretold revival of the “fig-tree” has not yet begun!

FURTHER EVIDENCE

The catalogue of prophetic Scriptures, which have to do with this theme, is by no means exhausted. For the benefit of those who may care to investigate further, the following are added:

9. Isaiah 17: 6-8.
10. Psalm 81: 13,14.
11. Jeremiah3: 14-I8.
12. Jeremiah 29: 12-14.
13. Deuteronomy 4: 27-31.
14. Amos 5: 15.
15. I5. 1 Kings 8: 47-49.
16. Genesis 18: 19.
17. Zechariah 13: 9.
18. Joel 2: 12-20.
19. Ezekiel 20: 42-44.

The last of these is especially interesting as an explicit prophecy that the return to the Land is to precede the change of heart, which is the recurring theme of so many prophetic testimonies.

One caution is necessary here. It would be a mistake to assume that the Scriptures cited require that there be a wholesale conversion of the nation. So far as can be seen, there is nothing to indicate such a conclusion. Rather is it to be expected (on the basis of Ezekiel 20: 42-44 and other passages to be cited

later) that Operation Fig-Tree — a divine surgical operation (as will be seen by and by) — will concern the Jews in the Land of Israel. The Dispersion may go almost completely unaffected by it. But of this one cannot be sure.

HOW WILL IT HAPPEN?

A further question inevitably arises here: If the Jews in Israel are to undergo such a change before the irresistible conviction which the manifestation of their Messiah is sure to bring sooner or later (and sooner rather than later), then what or who is the power that will bring it about?

There are those who have dreamed of big-scale Christadelphian campaigns in Israel. “Why should not such a project achieve success?” it is asked; “our message would not be blocked by insuperable Jewish prejudices against an orthodox Trinity. ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One’ is our enthusiasm as well as theirs. And would not our appeal be entirely to their Law and Prophets? Who is more qualified than we to open the message of Jewish Scriptures to Jewish ignorance? More than this, the Jews are prejudiced in our favour. Of all believers in Jesus, none stand higher in Jewish regard than do Christadelphians. And what more fitting than that Israel after the flesh be brought to Christ through the ministrations of Israel after the Spirit?”

Expressed in these terms the thesis is an alluring one, and almost convincing. But, alas, it overlooks a vital fact, which completely outweighs all other considerations.

And that is the stark truth that Jesus failed to convert Israel, and Peter and Paul failed! Then what hope that a team of twentieth century Christadelphians might succeed? It is not for nothing that the Bible’s summary assessment of the Chosen Race is this: “children in whom is no faith”!

THE STATE OE ISRAEL DESTROYED

So far as one can discover, Israel’s change of mind will be brought about by a combination of two divinely controlled factors.

The first of these will be the crash in ruin of the State of Israel. For generations now it has been the confident assumption of all our expositors that this will be attempted by the Northern Invader but will fail at the outset because of the divine destruction, which will be poured out in the last great vindication of the authority of God against the puny might of man.

There are certain unresolved difficulties inherent in this view. Whereas the familiar Ezekiel 38 seems to imply an intention —“Thou shalt think an evil thought, and thou shalt say …” — and an attempt – “Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel”— with Jerusalem as an island of safety in a Land swiftly overrun — “in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,” as in the days of Hezekiah and his Assyrian enemy — other prophecies (Zechariah 14: 2; Ezekiel 36: 2, 3) imply a lengthy occupation of the Land, with a time of grievous affliction for the Jews and a settled occupation of the Land by their enemies.^[1]

The effect of such an experience on modern Jewry will be utterly devastating. It needs little exercise of the imagination to picture Jewish reaction to such a cataclysm. A generation, which was beginning to congratulate itself on its steady assimilation into Gentiledom, came suddenly under the full fury of Hitler’s persecution. Millions of them died in misery. Many others fled to the Land of their Fathers. There, surrounded by Arab squalor and backwardness, they fashioned in record time a new state of Israel, a model to all the smaller nations of the world in its drive, efficiency and cocky self-assurance. When Arab attempts were made to wipe the Jews off the map of the Near East, they were defeated with a dedicated swiftness, which made the world marvel.

Today, so far as Arab relationships go, the Jews continue supremely confident. They have beaten the Arabs three times and would positively welcome an opportunity to do so again. Yet all the Biblical indications are that in the next clash between Jews and Arabs, the pride of Israel will be humbled.

The emphasis in the prophets on this sensational development in Israel’s history is itself sensational. Yet in our traditional enthusiasm for searching out the truth of Bible prophecy it has suffered from unwarranted neglect. All eyes have been on Ezekiel 38 (which may well have its fulfilment after the coming of the Lord, and not before: So Dr. Thomas in Eureka Vol. 2 p. 557, 558. Vol. 3 p. 405, 602, 611), with only the most cursory of glances thrown in the direction of other Scriptures equally forthright and exciting — and certainly more numerous.

Here is another block of four to illustrate the truth of what has just been written:

20. Psalm 83 presents a picture of Israel in dire straits, beset by enemies who “have taken crafty counsel against thy people” saying: “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.” So successful is this evil scheme that God’s faithful remnant are driven to appeal to Him for aid: “Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.” The list of confederate enemies is given: “the tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Asshur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot.” Almost all, without exception, occupy what is now Arab territory. This fact is emphasized by allusions to Arab oppressions in ancient days: “Do unto them as unto the Midianites — Sisera and Jabin…Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb, Zeba and Zalmunna.” Lest it should be thought that this psalm is of purely historic reference and is here being blithely misapplied, its climax should be noted: “Let them be put to shame, and perish: that men may know that thou, whose name is Jehovah, art the most high over all the earth.”

If it stood entirely alone, this Scripture would be impressive in its relevance to the modern Jew-Arab problem, but in fact the theme recurs constantly in the prophets.

21. The prophecy of Obadiah against the Edomites (Arabs) ends in this explicit fashion: ‘‘Saviours^[2] shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s” (cited in Revelation 11: 15). The body of this short oracle includes these details: “For thy violence against thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever…Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity…nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity…For the day of the Lord is near upon all nations: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee … as ye have drunk upon my holy mountain, so shall all the nations drink continually … and they shall be as though they had not been. But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness … And the house of Jacob shall be a fire … and the house of Esau for stubble.”

Whatever references this prophecy may have had in ancient days; there is every reason in such phraseology for believing that its true and bigger fulfilment is still to come.

22. Ezekiel 35, 36 is a long and powerful prophecy of judgement concerning Edom,8^[3] “because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end.” The theme is one of divine retribution in the Last Days. “Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries (i.e. the territories of both Jew and Arab) shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the Lord was there: therefore, as I live, saith the Lord, … I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord … When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst rejoice over the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee” (35: 5, 10, 11, 14, 15).

Chapter 36 continues in the same strain. The inveterate Edomite enemy is pictured as gloating over securing possession of “the ancient high places” and the mountains of Israel. The balance is set right by an alluring contrast — Israel re-settled, blessed, and prosperous in their rightful heritage. One feature of this description is especially interesting. The recent conflict with Edom is to be the last oppression of their age-long experience: “Because they say unto you, Thou land (of Israel) devourest up men, and hast bereaved the nation; therefore thou shalt devour men no more, neither bereave the nation any more, saith the Lord God. Neither will I cause men to hear in thee the shame of the heathen any more, neither shalt thou hear the reproach of the peoples any more, neither shalt thou cause thy nations to fall any more, saith the Lord God” (36: 13-15).

23. Joel’s great prophecy of the Last Days has this unexpected detail in its climacteric description of the new Kingdom: “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Israel, because they have shed innocent blood in their land” (Joel: 3: 19). There is little point in this expression of divine wrath except it be as retribution for what has just lately been perpetrated against the Jews. Indeed if these words are not to be referred to some oppression in the Land in the Last Days which has not yet taken place, their application must be sought more than two thousand years earlier.

Readers are now in something of a position to judge whether or not there is good reason to expect a fourth Jew-Arab conflict in the near future in which the brash self-confident swagger of the modern Israeli is reduced to abject terror as he is called upon to face the worst chapter in all his long and bitter history.

ARAB HATRED

If indeed this comes to pass, the condition of mind of the Jews can well be imagined. Their fine new state of Israel, so efficiently built by Jewish brains, sweat and resolution is rubbed right off the map as though there had never been even a single kibbutz. Their vindictive enemies vent upon them all the pent-up jealousy, exasperation and hatred which hitherto has found expression only in futile vituperation and Fatah bomb explosions. The foulest horrors of occupation and slavery multiply in the Holy Land as with fiendish glee Arab out-Hitlers Hitler. And Jewish wails and groans go out to distant lands in vain. For hard political reasons nations like America and perfidious Albion find it advisable to shake their heads sadly—and do nothing. Little Israel is expendable, especially if there is the threat of nuclear escalation.

In such an extreme and desperate situation what aid these poor sons of Jacob who, like their notable forefather, have ever been slow to learn the futility of self-dependence and the wisdom of leaning upon Jehovah can seek? In all their history before God and men, they have believed in justification by their own works. Always they have had plenty of confidence in their own powers and little in the God of their fathers. But here, at last, is the final demonstration of the folly of their historic philosophy. Now they are without a friend in all the world. No one will lift a finger to help them—and this at a time when they suffer as never before.

In such circumstances—and only in such circumstances—will these hearts of stone show any sign of yielding to the appeal of heaven. Here in their bitter disappointment, and their most horrific suffering of all time, is the grace of their God most tangibly evident as He forces them to their knees in supplication and faith for the aid and solace which can come, as they now at last realize, from no other.

ELIJAH THE PROPHET

This repentance of Israel, so vital to the furtherance of the divine purpose and so patiently awaited over long generations, will now be helped forward in this crucial hour of their need by divine help of a sort they neither expect nor implore — the appearance of a prophet of repentance!

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers …” (Malachi 4: 5, 6).

John the Baptist, an Elijah-like prophet, was sent to bring Israel to repentance and failed (Matthew 11: 14 RVm and 12: 43-45). Now the prophecy will have its second, true, fulfilment. Whether this time it will be Elijah in person, or John the Baptist in person or, as is most likely, some other prophet also in the character of Elijah, is of little consequence. This prophet of the Lord will be manifested just when Israel needs him most and for the first time in milleniums is minded to heed a call to godliness.

What do the words of Malachi mean? It is difficult to be sure, but perhaps this Elijah will turn the hearts of the fathers to be like those of children, for no man can achieve true repentance except by such a change — ”Except ye become as little children”, said Jesus. And the hearts of the children — this last generation of natural Israel — he will turn to their Fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) that they might learn to emulate their faith.

HOW LONG?

The guess may be hazarded — if indeed it is a guess — that this ministry of “Elijah” will continue through a period of three and a half years of Jewish wretchedness. Jesus emphasized that the vital part of the first Elijah ministry was three and a half years (Luke 4: 25). This fact is not traceable in Old Testament history. Did Jesus get it by direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, or did he, with divine insight into Scripture, infer it from the mysterious prophetic periods of Daniel? — the time, times, and dividing of time which are to bring in Messiah’s kingdom. And are these times the “times of the Gentiles” which the Lord spoke about with such ill-omen and fair promise in his prophecy on Olivet?

Whether these tentative piecing together of intriguing Scriptures follow the divine pattern and programme is a thing to be learned through personal experience before many years are past. But there does seem to be good ground for believing that (a) there will be a repentance of Israel, at least in part, before the coming of the Lord; (b) Israel will face complete defeat at the hands of the Arabs (aided, doubtless, by more formidable allies) and will suffer as never before — “the time of Jacob’s trouble”; (c) the promised Elijah prophet will lead the people back to God; (d) when they say: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord,” then he will come.

[1] See also chapters 5, 7,13; and “The Last Days” chapter 8.

[2] An intensive plural for “the Messiah”?

[3] Some are inclined to question reference of Edom prophecies to the Arabs. Who else can they apply to? Dr. Thomas’s principle, letting geography, and not national character, settle the issue, is decisive. Is there any Biblical ground whatever for the strange idea, recently published, that the Edom prophecies refer to Russia?