Thus says the Lord (The God of Israel) Who gives the sun for light by day; the ordinances of the moon and the stars for light by night; Who rouses the sea and its waves roar (The Lord of hosts is His name): “If these ordinances ever depart from before Me,” says the Lord, “then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Jeremiah 31:35-36
If the enemies of God’s people, Israel, knew these scriptures from His Word, they would shoot their rockets and missiles at the sun, moon, and stars because only when they can destroy those ordinances could they destroy the people of God, and the seed of Israel would cease from being a nation before Him forever.
However, since they don’t know this formula of Israel’s destruction, they keep firing rockets at Israel.
Since last week, Iran and Hezbollah have been threatening Israel with reprisal attacks and many in Israel and around the world are expecting this to happen very soon. Some predict that it will happen on the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av, the 13th of August.
The 9th of Av is the culmination of the 3 weeks called “Between the Straits.”
“From the straits I called to Yah”Psalm 118:5
The three weeks between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av is known as “the Dire Between the Straits” (see Lamentations 1:3 “All her persecutors overtake her in dire straits”.)
The period of the Dire Straits starts on the 17th of Tammuz (the month before Av), marking the breach and fall of Jerusalem’s walls and the destruction of her first and second temples on the Temple Mount on the same day, the 9th of Av and most of the Jews going into exile – the first time to the Babylonian captivity for 70 years, and the second to a far greater Diaspora throughout the world for about 2000 years.
The Jews have experienced many calamities over the centuries, and it is amazing to learn that many of those calamities have occurred on the same day of the year, the 9th of Av.
The Destruction of the two Temples, especially the Second Temple, changed the path of Jewish History and the nation of Israel, dispersing the Jewish people among the nations.
Against all odds, the Jews have survived persecution, expulsions, relocation, pogroms, and calamities. Nonetheless, Jewish learning, wisdom, and tradition have not only survived but have flourished in many countries, enriching the world in many ways.
The 9th of Av, Tisha b’Av, commemorates a list of catastrophes so severe that Jews believe God set it aside for their suffering.
Jews Praying at Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, by Johann Martin Bernatz (Ottoman Archives, 1868)
Some of the catastrophes and calamities that happened to the Jews on the 9th of Av were:
- The First Temple was destroyed on the 9th of Av (423 BCE).
- In 70 CE, The Romans torched The Second Temple and destroyed it and much of Jerusalem on the same day as the First Temple.
- When the Jews remaining in the Land rebelled against Roman rule, they believed that their leader, Simon bar Kochba, would fulfill their messianic longings. But their hopes were cruelly dashed in 133 CE as the Jewish rebels were brutally butchered in the final battle at Betar. The date of this massacre was the 9th of Av!
- One year after their conquest of Betar, the Romans plowed over the Jew’s holiest site, the Temple Mount.
- In 1290 CE on the 9th of Av, the Jews were expelled from England.
- In 1492, the Golden Age for the Jews of Spain, freedom and prosperity ended when the Queen of Spain and her husband banished Jews from their land. The edict of expulsion was signed on March 31, 1492, and the Jews were given exactly four months to leave the country. The Hebrew date on which no Jew was allowed any longer to remain in Spain was the 9th of Av.
- World War II and the Holocaust were actually the outcome of World War I which began in 1914. The Hebrew date when Germany declared war on Russia setting the First World War into motion was the 9th of Av.
- The evacuation of Jewish settlers from Gaza in 2005 occurred on the 9th of Av. Two years later, In June 2007 the terrorist organization of Hamas took over the Gaza Strip from the Palestinian Authority. Since then, many thousands of rockets and mortar shells have been fired by Hamas from the Gaza Strip onto southern Israeli towns and villages, terrorizing and destabilizing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens. Now, since October 7th, 2023 when Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, committing atrocities against Israeli men women, children, and soldiers, for the past ten months, Israel has been engaged in a terrible war against Hamas in Gaza, claiming many Israeli soldiers’ lives. Hamas’ creed is to destroy Israel as a Jewish nation and take over the land as their homeland of Palestine.
However, as the Lord God of Israel has promised in many prophecies to return His beloved Jewish people from the diaspora to the land of Israel, the Land of Promise, the Jewish state is a reality that is here to stay. The enemies’ plans to annihilate Israel and take over the land promised to the Jews, will never come to pass.
In fulfillment of God’s promises, Israel is back in the Land physically. Now God plans to bring them back to Him spiritually, through faith in Messiah Yeshua.
One day, Israel will look upon the pierced Yeshua (Zech. 12:10,) and will invite Him to return, proclaiming, “Baruch Haba Beshem Adonai, as Yeshua said: Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord, (Matt. 23:39).
On that day, the day they see Him again, they will see Him as He is, their Messiah and Savior. They will mourn for Him as for a first-born Son (Zech. 12:10). And then, All Israel will be saved (Rom. 11:26.) On that day, God will turn their mourning into great joy again.
Please continue to pray for the salvation of Israel and the Jewish people – that God touch hearts of mourning on the 9th of Av; that they recognize their rebellion against their God and repent and accept His Salvation, Yeshua.
Pray that until that day, Israel, with God’s help, stands against the enemy that wants to annihilate her and thwart God’s good plans for Israel.
Pray for victory over all God and Israel’s enemies, and that the Lord, the God of Israel, get all the glory, for His Name’s Sake. Amen
Image above: Tisha Be’av at the Western Wall 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem – The Jerusalem Post)
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