MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Gil Ronen – “Jews familiar with an ancient compilation of Aggadic exegesis called Yalkut Shimoni noticed in recent weeks that current tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia matches a prophecy it contains regarding the year in which the Messiah – the King who redeems Israel and the world – is to appear.

In particular, the recently revealed Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. and subsequent reports that the Arab nations are pressuring the West to attack Iran, appear to fit the sequence of events predicted in the Yalkut Shimoni.

In to the part of the book dealing with the Book of Isaiah, the following passage appears:

“Rabbi Yitzchak said: ‘In the year in which the Messiah-King appears, all the nations of the world are provoking each other. The King of Persia provokes an Arab king and the Arab king turns to Aram for advice. And the King of Persia goes back and destroys the entire world. And all the nations of the world are in panic and distress and they fall upon their faces and are seized with pains like those of a woman giving birth, and Israel are in panic and distress and asking ‘where shall we go? Where shall we go?,’ and He says to them ‘my sons, do not fear; all that I have done, I have done only for you. Why are you afraid? Do not fear, your time of redemption has come, and the final redemption is not like the first redemption, because the first redemption was followed by sorrow and servitude under other kingdoms, but the final redemption is not followed by sorrow and servitude under other kingdoms.”

Persia is currently known as Iran, and an Arab king – or the Arab king – can be reasonably understood, in modern eyes, as referring to the king of [Saudi] Arabia, the Arab homeland.

This passage is relatively well-known and oft-quoted, and some modern versions of it substitute ‘Edom’ for ‘Aram.’ Ancient Jewish references to ‘Edom’ are nowadays generally seen as referring to Europe or the West. ‘Aram’ refers to a part of ancient Mesopotamia, roughly congruent to the northern part of modern Iraq and eastern Syria. The instability in precisely this area is reportedly what most concerns the Saudis, as a U.S. pullout from Iraq looms and Syria’s pro-Iranian regime teeters.” Read more.

Ehud Barak: Iran Will be ‘Unstoppable’ in One Year – “In another of several interviews he has given this past week on the Iranian issue, Defense Minister Ehud Barak is hinting that in time is running out to stop Iran from achieving nuclear capability. In an interview to CNN’s ‘Fareed Zakaria GPS’, which will air on Sunday and of which an advanced transcript was released on Saturday, Barak says that Iran is less than a year away from becoming unstoppable in its goal to produce a nuclear weapon. When asked by the host whether Israel is going to attack Iran, Barak says, ‘I don’t think that that is a subject for public discussion. But I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world…and people understand that the time has come…'” Read more.

Flashback: Israel National News: Will 2012 See The Beginning of Gog-Magog? – “In Israel, we find ourselves in foreboding circumstances today, in Spring 2011. The State of Israel seems to have lost a major measure of its support in the non-Jewish world and is being stampeded into abandoning large parts of the Land of Israel to the tender mercies of sworn enemies who have no peaceful intentions at all – the Palestinians. These are Arabs who constitute a ‘national entity’ invented recently of whole cloth and which never existed in world history. Their wish is to destroy the State of Israel and kill as many Jews as possible in the process. Prime Minister Netanyahu is being pushed into formulating a plan of further concessions, beyond those already granted… The Palestinian enemy fully expects this scenario to materialize and so, steadfastly refuses to negotiate. Since the ‘World’, lead by US President Barack Hussein Obama whose father was a practicing Moslem, does not punish them in any way for not negotiating, they feel vindicated in this assessment.” Read more.