October 17, 2015 - A. V. Rauf
Desecrating the Tombs of the Patriarchs
Genesis 29:32—And he charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying place. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth. And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people.
History and tradition are a vital part of the Jewish culture. Even in the Islamic faith the reverence for Biblical patriarchs to some extent is reverential. One of the reasons that the burial place was so important to the patriarchs has to do with God’s promise of the land. This is where the issue gets very touchy and this is where Bible prophecy begins to unfurl before our very eyes.
God had promised that Abraham’s descendants would possess the land where he had been buried.
Genesis 12:1-3—Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
Genesis 15:18-21—In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
Jacob knew that, if he was buried in Canaan, his tomb would forever remain within the Promised Land. The fact that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph would all be buried there—four generations—emphasized their belief in God’s promise to give this land to their descendants.
Take a close look at the map below. This is what the “promised Land” would look like today:
God is a promise-keeping God. This land will one day be given to Israel.
Dozens of Palestinians set fire at dawn on Friday to a holy site known as Joseph’s Tomb, in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Nablus in the West Bank, damaging the tiny stone compound that many Jews believe is the burial place of the son of the biblical patriarch Jacob.
The latest wave violence has been prompted, in large part, by a dispute over Al Aqsa Mosque compound, a contested holy site in Jerusalem revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Psalm 74:1-8—O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual desolations; even all that the enemy hath done wickedly in the sanctuary. Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs. A man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees. But now they break down the carved work thereof at once with axes and hammers. They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land.
This is nothing new.
A recurring theme in the Palestinian press and television is the denial of Jewish rights to holy sites in the Holy Land. Unseen and unheard in the Western media – by choice or by ignorance – are the statements of senior Palestinian clerics and political leaders that deny any Jewish tie to the Patriarchs/Matriarchs, to their burial sites, or to the Western Wall and the Temple Mount.
Denial of the ancient historical Jewish ties to the Land of Israel is an important weapon in the battle to delegitimize the Jewish State of Israel.
Palestinian mobs, led by Palestinian police, destroy Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus a few years ago. It was reported that as Palestinian troops stood by, some shooting in the air to express their own the joy, hundreds of Palestinian men set upon the shrine with pick axes and crowbars while black smoke billowed from the charred structure. Raising a Palestinian flag, the Palestinians said that they were destroying Joseph’s Tomb to ensure that the Israelis never returned.
“Be alert and treat Joseph’s Tomb and Rachel’s Tomb as parcels of Palestinian land which must be liberated, and treat Joseph and Rachel as two people who died, like anyone else.” — excerpt from the official PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, December 1, 1997.
Jews believe that this tomb sits on the parcel of ground that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver, according to Joshua 24:32, an inheritance of the children of Joseph.
Joshua 24:25-32—So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the Lord which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God. So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance. And it came to pass after these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being an hundred and ten years old. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Timnathserah, which is in mount Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaash. And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, and which had known all the works of the Lord, that he had done for Israel. And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.
Thus, this was a direct attack on the inheritance of the people of Israel. To further complicate the matter regarding the Temple Mount, French Ambassador to the UN Francois Delattre said, at an emergency meeting on Friday of the UN Security Council on the ongoing violence between Israel and the Palestinians, that he would circulate a draft statement to the council that would appeal for calm and restraint and for a revival of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and for maintaining the status quo at the Temple Mount. NOTE: OTHER NATIONS ARE BEING DRAWN INTO THIS DEBACLE….JUST AS IT WAS PROPHESIED IN THE BIBLE.
It’s apparent that the hook is already being placed in the jaw of Gog/Magog as a strong Russian military presence has occupied Syria.
Ezekiel 38:1:4—And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
(Again, look at the map above of the borders of the land that was originally promised to Israel: A good part of Syria is in this map.) Israel has now responded by stating that they will never agree to to the stationing of international forces on Temple Mount.
What is happening before our very eyes is that the world is pushing towards a peace treaty that will ultimately divide the Holy land into the two countries of Israel and Palestine. Jerualewm itself may be divided into East and west and control of the temple mount may be given over to the gentiles as well.
Revelation 11:12-2—And there was given me a reed like unto a rod: and the angel stood, saying, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. But the court which is without the temple leave out, and measure it not; for it is given unto the Gentiles: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months.
What is the endgame here? Notice again what the Bible says:
Joel 3:1-2—-For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.
The clock is ticking………Get saved now.