This past week, Major General Avi Bluth, the commander of Central Command, stated at an official ceremony for the change of command of Judea and Samaria:

 "On the coming Shabbat we will read the portion that begins 'When you go out to war against your enemy' and ends 'Remember what Amalek did to you'. On October 7, these two verses came together — when we, as an army, failed to defend our citizens, and the enemy, Hamas — like Amalek — launched a wicked attack."

The Arutz Sheva article went on to state:

The general stressed that all IDF actions are carried out "with an offensive and cunning approach that sanctifies initiative, and all while adhering to the state's laws and rules of morality. The Torah says 'Justice, justice shall you pursue' — and we pursue it! We also pursue our enemies, and doing so while justice, morality and the law are our guiding light."

This brings to light the fact that the struggle for Israel’s survival today is very similar to that of Biblical times. The passage General Bluth quoted is found in Deuteronomy:

“Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; How he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, even all that were feeble behind thee, when thou wast faint and weary; and he feared not God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord thy God hath given thee rest from all thine enemies round about, in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possess it, that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; thou shalt not forget it.” (Deuteronomy 25:17–19)

The connection between Amalek and Hamas cannot be missed. Hamas smote those living on the edges of Israel, “the hindermost” with savage cruelty.  It is reminiscent of Israel’s enemies who exhibit what Ezekiel called “a perpetual hatred” (Ezekiel 35:5).

Netanyahu also made the connection between Amalek and Hamas back when Israel began its ground offensive following the October 7^th attack in 2023 stating:

The Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war … this is a time for war… "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible," Netanyahu said, echoing the words of  Deuteronomy 25:17, which states: "Remember what the Amalekites did to you along your way from Egypt…

He continued:

"We shall realize the prophecy of Isaiah. There will no longer be stealing at your borders, and your gates will be of glory. Together, we will fight, together we will win."

He was citing Isaiah 60:18, one of the prophecies of the restoration:

“Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, Wasting nor destruction within thy borders; But thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, And thy gates Praise.” (Isaiah 60:18)

The fact that Israeli politicians and generals are drawing strength from the Bible is, in itself, a fulfilment of prophecy. While 45% of Israel remains secular, 55% is religious, and 71% are reported to believe in God, according to the Pew Research Centre. America lists only 47% being actively religious, Canada 37%, Germany 21%, Britain 18%, France around 10%, with Europe in total estimates between 15% and 25% (6% of which is comprised of Muslims).  Malachi prophetically calls upon the people of Israel in the latter days to bring to mind the word of God:

“Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, Which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments.” (Malachi 4:4)

This shift is being seen in the land of Israel today, while faith is drying up all over the world. The Lord prophesied of Israel’s scattering until the end of the “times of the Gentiles:

“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” (Luke 21:24)

The times of the Gentiles are coming to an end. Paul also picks up on this change:

“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. 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: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.” (Romans 11:25–27)

The word fullness (Greek pleroma) means ‘the full number’ and was used to describe a ship being fully manned by a crew. One only has to drive around Canada to see the number of churches closed and converted into Condominiums, houses, or stores to understand that the heart of the nation is turning to stone. Yet, Canada boasts double the number of actively religious people as Britain.

The fullness of the Gentiles is definitely drawing to a conclusion, and the times of the Gentiles ended in 1967 as we have discussed in previous Bible in the News podcasts.

The history of modern-day Israel mirrors that of the return of the Exiles when they came back the first time. The parallel cannot be missed, and is brought forward in Isaiah:

“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” (Isaiah 11:11–12)

Today, both the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah are being gathered — the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

Today’s return is the “second time”, the first time being in the time of Zerubbabel the governor, Joshua the high priest and later in the time of Ezra the scribe and Nehemiah.  When we consider the time of the first return, we see similar struggles and parallels to today.

It must be noted that the first return was the result of the prophetic word as Daniel understood:

“In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.” (Daniel 9:2)

He set his heart to pray to God for Israel’s return from the Babylonian captivity. This would be accomplished by a decree of Cyrus the Great, recorded at the beginning of Ezra’s writing:

“Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 1:1–4)

Notice here, this first return was God’s doing. He stirred up the heart of a gentile sovereign to initiate the return. He also stirred up the heart of his own people. The same is true today, remember Isaiah’s words “the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people.” Both the first and second returns are the work of the hand of God. We cannot miss this important point. Neither was the result of mere politics or man’s desires — God was behind both.

God inspired men to participate:

“Then rose up the chief of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests, and the Levites, with all them whose spirit God had raised, to go up to build the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem. And all they that were about them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, beside all that was willingly offered.” (Ezra 1:5–6)

Similarly, in recent history, God instilled in the hearts of mere mortals a spirit “to rise up and rebuild” the state of Israel from the ashes.

Even though the king of Persia had decreed it, there were many adversaries:

“Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.” (Ezra 4:4–5)

The same has been true in Israel’s recent history.

Similarly, in the modern day, Truman, the President of America, would recognise the creation of the State of Israel, against the wishes of his cabinet and the State Department. Truman’s recognition was not without its adversaries. Meeting at the White House two days before the declaration, both General George C. Marshal, Secretary of State, and his undersecretary Robert Lovett opposed recognition. Clifford Clark and David Niles, advisors to the President, voiced favour.

Truman, without the blessing of the State Department, instructed his press U.S. representative to the UN General Assembly, Philip Jessup, to read out his recognition of the State of Israel 11 minutes after it was declared:

US declaration read out at the United Nations May 14, 1948

This Government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine and recognition of the provisional government has been requested thereof. The United States recognizes that provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel

According to Michael Oren in his book “Power, Faith and Fantasy”:

Truman never regretted his decision of May 14. On the contrary, he seemed to revel in the Jew’s restoration and the role that he, a plain-speaking Baptist from Missouri, had played in it. Introduced by Eddie Jacobson to an American Jewish delegation as the leader who helped create the State of Israel, Truman snapped, “What do you mean ‘helped create’? I am Cyrus, I am Cyrus.”

Turning our minds back to the 1^st restoration, those rebuilding Israel were not without their adversaries. As different administrations changed in Persia, so did the policies. By the time King Ahasuerus came along, the adversaries turned to legal accusations to prevent the work:

“And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem.” (Ezra 4:6)

This practice continued into the reign of King Artaxerxes:

“And in the days of Artaxerxes wrote Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of their companions, unto Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue, and interpreted in the Syrian tongue. Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort:” (Ezra 4:7–8)

The accusation was fraudulent, like the blood libels today, a false accusation written to prejudice the king – without any factual support:

“Be it known unto the king, that the Jews which came up from thee to us are come unto Jerusalem, building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up the walls thereof, and joined the foundations. Be it known now unto the king, that, if this city be builded, and the walls set up again, then will they not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and so thou shalt endamage the revenue of the kings. Now because we have maintenance from the king’s palace, and it was not meet for us to see the king’s dishonour, therefore have we sent and certified the king…” (Ezra 4:12–14)

The result was a command for the cessation of the work:

“Give ye now commandment to cause these men to cease, and that this city be not builded, until another commandment shall be given from me.” (Ezra 4:21)

Upon receiving the desired command, the surrounding nations joyfully prevent Israel from rebuilding:

“Now when the copy of king Artaxerxes’ letter was read before Rehum, and Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went up in haste to Jerusalem unto the Jews, and made them to cease by force and power. Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.” (Ezra 4:23–24)

This same spirit is seen today in Hamas using the United Nations as its voice. This is what Mike Huckabee had to say in an interview with CNN this week:

It is a challenge for Israel, because the monolithic media is so against them. It is partly because of the leftist slant to the media, but a lot of is because Hamas has controlled the message machine pretty well. Now, they have a lot of people complicit with them: the United Nations, who puts out whatever they say through “the Gaza Health Ministry,” that’s Hamas. So, they’ll put out a news release, they’ll issue numbers and stories. The NGOs will pick it up, give it to the UN. The UN then publishes it without verifying any of it. They’ll say, “This is the latest news,” and every network, pretty much in the world, will carry it as if it is so. Now, if it gets discredited, which most of the time it will in a day or two, every now and then you’ll have the New York Times, The Washington Post or the BBC, pull back and retract their story, but they do it in such an obscure way that nobody knows it has been retracted, that’s been a huge problem.

The same spirit of lying hate that was at play in Ezra and Nehemiah’s time is at work today.

However, the purpose of God could not be undone. It was his decree made through his prophets that trumped all of men’s decrees.

“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” (Isaiah 55:10–11)

God would send his prophets to encourage the people – against popular and political opinion of the surrounding nations. The people of the land lived in fear and decided it was not time to build, a feeling which God’s prophets were sent to address:

“Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the LORD’S house should be built. Then came the word of the LORD by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.” (Haggai 1:2–6)

Their daily ambitions would be stifled until they put God first. The command was clear:

“Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.” (Haggai 1:7–8)

God would encourage and work with the leaders of ancient Israel:

“Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the LORD; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the LORD, and work: for I am with you, saith the LORD of hosts:” (Haggai 2:4)

Zechariah would also prophecy during this time encouraging the people:

“In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet,” (Zechariah 1:1)

The message Zechariah delivered encouraged the people, and specifically the governors, to continue the work of rebuilding the house of God:

“The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.” (Zechariah 4:9–10)

Simultaneously, God worked in the kingdoms of men. King Darius would search the records and find the decree of Cyrus:

“Then Darius the king made a decree, and search was made in the house of the rolls, where the treasures were laid up in Babylon. And there was found at Achmetha, in the palace that is in the province of the Medes, a roll, and therein was a record thus written: In the first year of Cyrus the king the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid…(Ezra 6:1–3)

Accordingly, he made a decree of his own:

“Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place. Moreover I make a decree what ye shall do to the elders of these Jews for the building of this house of God: that of the king’s goods, even of the tribute beyond the river, forthwith expenses be given unto these men, that they be not hindered.” (Ezra 6:7–8)

We see this paralleled in the governments of today. Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and put into play the Abraham Accords, bringing prosperity to Israel. Biden turned against Israel, stifling their ability to defend themselves and putting pressure on them not to build. With Trump’s return to office, and the appointment of Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel, we see support for Israel on multiple levels, and an encouragement to build – and possibly even annexe Judea and Samaria. There has been an ebb and flow under multiple presidents, with some pressuring Israel to give up land President Carter did with Begin, President Clinton did with Rabin and Perez, and President Bush did with Sharon and Olmert. Obama turned against Israel completely.  

During the first return, Nehemiah also faced adversaries. The fledgling state had come under duress, as was reported to him in the Palace in Shushan:

“Hanani, one of my brethren, came, he and certain men of Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews that had escaped, which were left of the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.” (Nehemiah 1:2–3)

Nehemiah made his appeal to the king after offering a quiet prayer to his God:

“Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven. And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers’ sepulchres, that I may build it.” (Nehemiah 2:4–5)

The king responded favourably to his request:

“And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time. Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah; And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.” (Nehemiah 2:6–8)

Again, this was the “hand of God” to bring to pass his will, working with the rulers of the day to bring about his commands.

Nehemiah’s mission to rebuild the nation was not without its adversaries either:

“But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they laughed us to scorn, and despised us, and said, What is this thing that ye do? will ye rebel against the king? Then answered I them, and said unto them, The God of heaven, he will prosper us; therefore we his servants will arise and build: but ye have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.” (Nehemiah 2:19–20)

The surrounding nations were relentless, trying every means possible to undermine the work of God through his people, including mocking them:

“But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews. And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall.” (Nehemiah 4:1–3)

When their propaganda campaign failed, they turned to military means:

“But it came to pass, that when Sanballat, and Tobiah, and the Arabians, and the Ammonites, and the Ashdodites, heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, And conspired all of them together to come and to fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it.” (Nehemiah 4:7–8)

Their goal was to use infiltration:

“And our adversaries said, They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them, and slay them, and cause the work to cease.” (Nehemiah 4:11)

The leaders encouraged the people, and reminded them it was the work of God, and the Jews returned to the work of rebuilding:

“And I looked, and rose up, and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, Be not ye afraid of them: remember the Lord, which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives, and your houses. And it came to pass, when our enemies heard that it was known unto us, and God had brought their counsel to nought, that we returned all of us to the wall, every one unto his work.” (Nehemiah 4:14–15)

This pattern was repeated again and again, but the efforts of Israel’s adversaries failed, and both the temple and the wall of Jerusalem was rebuilt. There were adversaries within and without, even some of the Jews allied themselves with their adversaries for political advantage:

“And one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was son in law to Sanballat the Horonite: therefore I chased him from me.” (Nehemiah 13:28)

This too failed.

Modern Israel has seen Jews who would also make peace with the enemy. There have been Jews in America who have been amongst the worst opponents of Israel, including politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer. The majority of Democratic Jewish senators have voted for policies against Israel. Groups such as J-Street have been adversaries of Israel. These types of Jews, who in the spirit of Joiada make alliances with Israel’s enemies, have been there since the time of Nehemiah. Their goal is comfort for themselves and their own positions, either in the land or in the diaspora. Mike Huckabee in an interview on CNN stated:

That’s really troubling, you see people like Chuck Schumer, who is more afraid of his own shadow and AOC, which is a shadow I wouldn’t want to have, than he is his own conviction. You know, Chucker Schumer is saying things that are 180 degrees than what he said in his own career. Jerry Maddler, who’s Jewish, just announced he’s not running again, probably a good idea. It’s hard to understand why so many people who have been strong supporters of the US-Israel relationship, now are afraid of some of, really the crazy people out screaming in the streets, and they are just folding like a cheap tent in a thunderstorm.

The recognition of Jerusalem by President Trump was a Cyrus moment. What Cyrus was like as a person, we do not know, but he was a tool used by God to achieve his means. What will happen next, we wait to see. We know that eventually the area of Judea and Samara will be part of Israel. It is the issue that brings the nations down at the time of the end:

“After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.” (Ezekiel 38:8)

The mountains Israel are to be inhabited by the Jews, and defined by God “my people Israel” (v16), “the land of Israel” (v18) and “all my mountains” (v21). It is just a matter of time before this area comes under Jewish sovereignty.

It is entirely possible that the recognition of “Palestine” by France and the nations that have joined it will cause Israel to finally annexe Judea and Samaria. Yesterday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested this very scenario:

As far as what you are seeing with the West Bank and the annexation, that is not a final thing, that is something that is being discussed among some elements of Israeli politics, I’m not going to epine on that today. What I am going to tell you is that it was wholly predictable. We told all these countries before they went out, and they did this, we told them, that if they did this, if they went through with this thing, there wasn’t going to be a Palestinian State, because that is not how a Palestinian State is going to happen, because they have a press conference somewhere. And we told them that it would lead to these sort of reciprocal actions, and it would make a ceasefire harder. And by the way, let me tell you something, the minute, the day that the French announced their thing, the thing they did, that day Hamas walked away from the negotiating table, they immediately increased their demands and walked away, and stopped negotiating. So, we also warned that that would happen, and it did. Sometimes these guys don’t listen; they do what they are going to do because of their own domestic politics (which is fine), but these are consequences of that.

Mike Huckabee in an interview with CNN stated the following:

It was the most insane thing when the European countries did this. First of all, it is a violation of the Oslo Accords, so that is a problem. They can’t declare a Palestinian State, they just can’t do that. Also, they haven’t defined where the boundaries are, who would lead it, how it would all work out. So, it is really nonsensical. It is aspirational for Macron of France and these European leaders to demand this. But the fact is, it is not happening. All they have done is empowered Hamas and emboldened them. They have really set back any type of de-escalation of tension between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and they have kind of given Israel an incentive now to go and talk about sovereignty over larger parts of Judea and Samaria. So, I’m not sure this is what they thought they would accomplish, but what they are accomplishing is the polar opposite of what they said they want.

As far as the future of Hamas, Huckabee was clear on Trump’s views:

He’s being saying, repeatedly, consistently, and with great clarity, that two things had to happen: one, all the hostages had to come home, not some, all of them. And the second thing he said is that Hamas has no future in Gaza, they are going to have to leave. They can disarm and they can go into exile, and Israel’s offered them an opportunity to go into exile. But what they can’t do is to stay in Gaza and have any future in Gaza. To let them stay there, would be as ridiculous as thinking that somehow the Nazi’s could stay and have a role in governing Germany after World War II, nobody would have thought that was realistic, possible, or even rational.

So we watch the Bible in the News as events roll on like a rushing river, bringing us closer to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the establishment in Israel of the Kingdom of God, which will bring true peace to this troubled world.

For the Bible in the News, this has been Jonathan Bowen joining you.