Challenges and hopes of prophecies in Israel and Iran

There are hundreds of prophecies in the Bible that are related to Israel, the Jewish people, the Land of Israel, and the restoration of Jewish sovereignty.

When I speak in churches and other Christian venues, I’m often asked to speak about prophecy in general, but I choose to speak very personally, about the prophecies I witness and experience first-hand. Sometimes, I do that interactively, involving multiple senses.  Recently, driving through Jerusalem with the roads largely empty due to the war, I had an epiphany in realizing that sometimes the prophecies come with some challenges.

Regarding the prophecy of Zachariah 8:4-5 which specifically relates to the restoration of Jerusalem, I realized that in seeing every old person walking slowly along Jerusalem’s streets, and children defiantly playing in its playgrounds or outside the hotels to which they have been evacuated because the homes were destroyed in central Israel, just by being outside they were part of the prophecy, but putting themselves in danger. 

“Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.”

Despite this threat, Ezekiel 37:25-26 speaks of an everlasting covenant of peace which is comforting, but “peace” seems distant given the reality. 

“They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever… I will make a covenant of peace with them.”

Isaiah 65:20-23 speaks to both the young and old, living out their days and prospering, and adding an extra dimension of blossoming and harvesting of fruits in the land.

“No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old… They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit… for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.”

Picking up on the theme of the land, blossoming, Ezekiel 36:8 prophesies of how the land will essentially sigh a breath of relief when the Jewish people return, and it will flourish again. It has. I often speak about how I not only get to witness prophecy being fulfilled, but actually taste it from the fruit of my own trees. 

Since the current war against the Islamic Republic of Iran began, I believe more people have googled the prophecy of Jeremiah 49:35-39 than ever, since Jeremiah himself wrote these words. It is one of only several prophecies not related to Israel, the Land of Israel, or the Jewish people, and one that specifically is related to another place entirely: Elam, modern Iran. 

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘See, I will break the bow of Elam, the mainstay of their might.

I will bring against Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven; I will scatter them to the four winds, and there will not be a nation where Elam’s exiles do not go. I will shatter Elam before their foes, before those who want to kill them; I will bring disaster on them, even my fierce anger,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will pursue them with the sword until I have made an end of them. I will set my throne in Elam and destroy her king and officials,’ declares the Lord. ‘Yet I will restore the fortunes of Elam in days to come,’ declares the Lord.”

What’s remarkable about the prophecy relating to Elam, modern Iran, as one of just a few not relating to Israel and the Jewish people is not only that we are seeing this unfold before our eyes, but that it is very much connected to Israel. 

It’s impossible, not to look at that now as being terribly relevant, and something that we should all pray for. It can be debated whether regime change is a legitimate foreign policy of any country, but what’s clear is that rising up against Iran’s evil leaders is part of God’s Policy. It’s also irrefutable that among nation that have cursed Israel, against the prohibition in Genesis 12:3, Iran is the modern mothership. Today God’s reciprocal curse is on their front steps and ties in directly to Jeremiah 49.  

It's not prophetic per se, but there’s another significant biblical observation that bears out the miraculous times in which we are living.

The Jewish people derive 613 biblical commandments: 248 positive “the thou shall do,” and 365 negative, “thou shall not do.” It is the challenge of every Jewish person everywhere through the millenia to observe each of these. 

However, it’s not only a significant number for that reason. Since the war against the Islamic regime began, the number 613 has played itself out several times.

The war began on June 13, 6/13. It began at 3:00am on day 61 after President Trump gave Iran a deadline to reach a nuclear deal. 613.

Another significant biblical reference also going back to Persia, modern Iran, is found in the Book of Esther, chapter 6, verse 13.

“Haman told his wife Zeresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and his wife Zeresh said to him, ‘If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not overcome him but will surely fall before him.’”

If this is not a prophecy in the little literal sense, it is surely relevant to the fall of one genocidal antisemitic Persian tyrant then that is relevant today, and in fact being witnessed for before our eyes as it relates to the descendants of Mordechai being victorious over the ideological descendants of Haman. 

There are too many coincidences not to see God’s hand of protection, leading us all to wish for the realization of His own promise, “I will set my throne in Elam and destroy her king and officials.”