"We have reason to believe (Saddam) was in there"

On March 20th, 2003, U.S. officials announced they had struck a reinforced bunker in Baghdad that intelligence officials believed hid Saddam Hussein and possibly his sons. The report can still be read at this USA Today web site. The strike involved three dozen ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles that leveled the aboveground structures and four 2,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs, dropped from a B-1 bomber, that are designed to penetrate deep underground after being guided to their target by satellite signals.

After that attack, Saddam was seen on video, but the United States was unconvinced he was still alive, until the day, December 14th, 2003, they found him hiding in a rat hole in Tikrit.

The reason I mention this is because this event represented the first challenge to my original supposition that this Iraqi conflict might be the fulfillment of the Jeremiah 50-51 prophecy of doom upon Babylon. The problem was, if the U.S. had indeed succeeded in killing Saddam before the invasion had even begun, then it would be impossible for the conflict to be the fulfillment of the Jeremiah 50-51 prophecy. I knew that the moment the missile strike was announced on March 20th, 2003.

Here is the critical passage: "Tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end..." (Jer. 51:31). Now if Saddam had been killed on March 20th, 2003, twenty days before Baghdad fell to U.S. forces on April 9th, 2003, there would be no way for this prophecy to have come true, and I would have had to admit it right then and there.

But no one knew for sure whether they had killed Saddam in that strike. For months I paced the house whenever a report came on the news that perhaps he was still alive, saying, "Of course he's still alive... otherwise the prophecy will fail!"

In a way, I kind of wished he had been killed then, because I could have gone to bed that night and breathed a sigh of relief, reassured that ancient Hebrew prophecies from 600 BC were not springing to life and coming true right here and now at the start of the 21st century, during my lifetime.

But instead, the very day Saddam was found, this prophecy also came true: "The king of Babylon has heard the report about (the invaders aroused from the remote parts of the earth), and his hands hang limp; distress has gripped him, agony like a woman in childbirth" (Jer. 50:43). I had also thought about this passage when they said he was dead. How could it be reported to us his state of mind at the invasion, if he was killed in a surprise attack before it even got under way? But then this news story appeared from the London Sunday Times (here retold by the Sydney Morning Herald):

"Samira Shahbandar... said Saddam had arrived at her hiding place on April 9, the day Baghdad fell, to say goodbye. 'He came to me very depressed and sad,' she told the paper. 'He took me to the next room and cried...'"

When I read that report, I didn't know whether to feel elated that the prophecy was coming true in such exacting literalness, or to feel sick that the prophecy was coming true in such exacting literalness. I had already read ahead to the culminating desolation. And for the last three and a half years I've been on pins and needles waiting for the next event to strike, the punishment of the arrogant one, and the resulting burning of the cities.

And there is nothing any of us can do to stop the coming desolation.

Execution, burning, abandonment, defeat in battle, flood, drought and utter desolation. The calamity on Babylon has been decreed.

"The west... broke (it)"

In a Monday editorial on the left-leaning Guardian Unlimited (UK) web site, Gary Younge lays all blame for the sectarian kidnapping/ torturing/ murdering/ bombing/ killing/ burning/ genocide/ displacement and general violent mayhem carried out by both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias right now in Iraq at the feet of the coalition nations who invaded and occupy her --

"It is absurd to suggest that the Iraqis - who have been invaded, whose country is currently occupied, who have had their police and army disbanded and their entire civil service fired - could possibly be in a position to take responsibility for their future and are simply not doing so."

In that condemnation, he agrees with the very folks doing the drilling in foreheads of other Iraqis, the shooting in the streets of Iraqi hairdressers, the kidnapping and torture and killing of Iraqi college students, the indiscriminate lobbing of mortar shells into Iraqi residential neighborhoods, the sending out of death squads in Iraqi police uniforms, and the bombing of Iraqi mosques of the wrong sect --

"For a start, it implies that the occupation is a potential solution when it is in fact the problem. This seems to be one of the few things on which Sunni and Shia leaders agree. 'The roots of our problems lie in the mistakes the Americans committed right from the beginning of their occupation,' Sheik Ali Merza, a Shia cleric in Najaf and a leader of the Islamic Dawa party, told the Los Angeles Times last week. 'Since the beginning, the US occupation drove Iraq from bad to worse,' said Harith al-Dhari, the nation's most prominent Sunni cleric, after he fled to Egypt this month facing charges of supporting terrorism."

In siding with those who encourage the fratricidal violence, Younge states his main point -- "In short, it [coalition leaders blaming Iraqis for their own violence against their fellow Iraqis] makes the victims responsible for the crime."

I don't happen to agree with Younge's 'logic' here. Nevertheless, I appreciated this statement from Younge's commentary -- "Iraq... has been trashed by a foreign invader. The troops must go. But the west has to leave enough resources behind to pay for what it broke."

What it broke. I like that phrasing. It puts down in posterity what Jeremiah said would be said about Babylon -- "Babylon has fallen and been broken..." (Jer. 51:8).

It is certainly broken. And Gary is "wail(ing) over her," demanding we "bring balm for her pain (so) perhaps she may be healed" (Jer. 51:8). But she will not be healed. Our only option now is to "forsake her and let us each go to his own country..." (Jer. 51:9).

Shiites burn 6 Sunnis alive while Iraqi police and military watch

Associated Press report -- BAGHDAD, Iraq - Militiamen grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive as Iraqi soldiers stood by...

The report described the attack as a revenge killing for the slaughter of 215 people in the Sadr City slum on Thursday by Sunni-Arab insurgents using bombs and mortars.

In the action today, members of the Mahdi Army militia also burned four mosques and several homes, using rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns and automatic rifles while the Shiite-dominated police and Iraqi military stood idly by, according to residents and police reports.

So the burning has begun already, another harbinger of the calamitous burning of the cities at the punishment of "the arrogant one" Jeremiah prophesied -- "I am against you, O arrogant one... For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up; and I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs [suburbs]" (Jer. 50:31-32).

And at that time, "her high gates [city centers] will be set on fire; so the peoples [of the coalition] will (have) toil(ed) for nothing; and the nations become exhausted for [because of the] fire" (Jer. 51:58).

That is why they will say, "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country. For her judgment has reached to heaven and towers up to the very skies" (Jer. 51:9).

And when they leave, Jeremiah decrees from the LORD, "I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive... and Chaldea will become plunder..." (Jer. 50:9-10).

Jeremiah identifies this horde of great nations from the north: "The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it... Consecrate (these) nations against her, the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, and every land of their dominion..." (Jer. 51:11, 28).

But it is not enough that Babylon is defeated and plundered at the hands of the Medes; she will also suffer this calamity: "The sea has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves" (Jer. 51:42).

And after the flood, "her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives..." because "I shall dry up her sea and make her fountain dry" (Jer. 51:43, 36).

And because of the fire, defeat, flood and drought, "Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants" (Jer. 51:37).

"Thou, O LORD, hast promised concerning this place to cut it off, so that there will be nothing dwelling in it... but it will be a perpetual desolation."

"Bridges, houses and schools were flattened; hydropower stations were destroyed; livestock was decimated... and agricultural land was made unusable"

This was the statement the International Committee of the Red Crescent (ICRC) issued Tuesday, November 21st, 2006, regarding the flooding in the northern autonomous region of Kurdistan which began on October 25th and continued until early November.

Heavy rains, thunderstorms and enormous mudslides submerged vast areas and made nearly 3,000 families homeless, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, as reported by the IRIN news source at the Reuters Foundation humanitarian AlertNet web site.

At least 20 people in Kurdistan were killed and dozens injured while infrastructure was severly damaged.

Meanwhile in the predominantly Kurdish southeast region of Turkey, 38 people were killed during the flooding caused by torrential rains, according to a USA Today report. The floods were the worst to hit the area since 1937, according to this Reuters report.

Obviously this flooding in northern Iraq's Kurdistan region is not the flood predicted by Jeremiah, but perhaps it is a harbinger of what is to come, and as such, is a warning to get out of the way:

"The sea has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves. Her cities have become an object of horror... (Then) I shall dry up her sea and make her fountain dry. And Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants" (Jer. 51:42-43, 37).

But that is the final calamity. Before that is the defeat at the hands of the Medes. And before that is the abandonment by the great nation and many kings. And before that is the burning of the cities at the punishment of the arrogant one...

Iraqi Patriot: "Iraq will burn"

From a Sunday, November 5th, 2006 post at the "Truth-about-Iraqis" weblog: "Defiant till the end and not afraid of death. That's Saddam Hussein as he was handed down the order of execution."

The blog, written by someone who calls him/herself an "Iraqi Patriot", blasts fellow Iraqis -- "[You] are whores. It is you - the Iraqis who cheered for the American troops as they entered Iraq... You hid in shame from your people, but your people know you... You will be paraded into the streets of Baghdad, whipped with the 3gal, stripped naked in your prostituting treachery."

"Truth-about-Iraqis" continues, prophetically -- "Let Iraq burn for it will surely do so. Baghdad Burning? [A reference to the title of another Iraqi weblog - ed.] Sweetheart, you must have had no idea how prescient you were. It will burn."

Link to the "Truth-about-Iraqis" weblog: truth-about-iraqis: Defiant till the end

And so the stage is set when the Sunni street is already in the mindset to burn it down, just as Jeremiah foresaw -- "And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up; and I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs" (Jer. 50:32).

I had always been most skeptical of this event of the prophecy, but now I see it is what the Sunnis themselves really want. As "Truth-about-Iraqis" declares, "If death is what you cheer for, then you will surely receive it... Long live the Iraqi resistance."

History Channel's 'Prophecies of Iraq' compare Jeremiah with Isaiah

While I generally found the History Channel's program "Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq" [link added 9-3-2010] , broadcast last Monday, November 13th, 2006, to be lacking in focus, I did find a few interesting nuggets. For instance, I appreciated their comparison of the Jeremiah 50-51 judgments on Babylon to a similar brief parallel made in Isaiah chapter 13 --

"The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw... I have commanded my consecrated ones, I have even called my mighty warriors, my proudly exulting ones, to execute my anger. A sound of tumult on the mountains, like that of many people! A sound of the uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together! The LORD of hosts is mustering the army for battle. They are coming from the farthest horizons, the LORD and his instruments of indigation, to destroy the whole land" (Isaiah 13:1-5).

This repeats the warning to Babylon found in Jeremiah: "The LORD has opened his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indigation. For it is a work of the Lord GOD of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. Come to her from the farthest border... and utterly destroy her..." (Jer. 50:25-26).

The Isaiah prophecy against Babylon continues: "Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold, and their bows will mow down the young men, they will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, nor will their eye pity children. And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation... but desert creatures will lie down there... and hyenas will howl in their fortified towers and jackals in their luxurious palaces" (Isaiah 13:17-22).

This is repeated in Jeremiah: "Behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive. There arrows will be like an expert warrior who does not return emptyhanded. And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough... A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!... Therefore the desert creatures will live there along with the jackals... And it will never again be inhabited from generation to generation, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors... Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose is against Babylon to destroy it... And all her slain will fall in her midst" (Jer. 50:9-10, 37-40; 51:11, 47).

The Isaiah prophecy against Babylon also provides a time marker for when this judgment will take place: "Her fateful time also will soon come and her days will not be prolonged, when the LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land..." (Isaiah 13:22-14:1).

This timeframe for the final desolation of the land of the Chaldeans is repeated in Jeremiah: "Babylon has been captured... For a nation has come up against her out of the north; it will make her land an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it... In those days and at that time... the sons of Israel will come, both they and the sons of Judah as well... They will ask for the way to Zion, turning their faces in its direction..." (Jer. 50:2-4).

While Israel was scattered among the nations, the prophecy of doom on Babylon could not come to pass, for it could only happen once the Jews had returned to the land of Zion, Israel. Now that they have returned, and have a nation once again, the time of Babylon's final desolation is here.

And the reason for her destruction also has to do with Israel.

[link to youtube segment added 9-3-2010:]

From a Channel 4 (UK) November 7, 2006 video, a report on the Shia militia turned Iraqi Special Forces Police death squads terrorizing Sunnis under color of the Iraqi Provisional Government Interior Ministry while the U.S. Government, which props up the Shia dominated Iraqi government, turns a blind eye. There is no hope for this country. The Shias, under cover of the Maliki government, are doing to the Sunnis what the Sunnis, under cover of the Hussein government, did to the Shias and the Kurds. No wonder the Sunnis will decide to simply burn it all down when Saddam is executed. No hope leads to nihilism.

"We'll succeed unless we quit"

President Bush is quoted by Will Weissert, Associated Press writer, in an article published today as saying, "We'll succeed unless we quit... [Iraq's Shiite] Maliki government is going to make it unless the coalition leaves before they have a chance to make it."

I am beginning to think it will not be President Bush who will be the one to announce that the coalition forces are leaving Iraq. The Jeremiah prophecy has someone prominent in the coalition saying, "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven..." (Jer. 51:9). That is just too poetic for Bush to speak. Unless he has someone write that speech for him.

Here is what I imagine Bush would say: "Well, we broke her, alrighty, and then we tried to fix'er. But we found out she just couldn't be fixed. Didn't wanna be fixed. So we have no choice but to abandon her to her own pickle."

I really hope, if this event happens in the next year, that it is someone like Blair who makes the announcement; it would be so much more eloquent a speech. Something like, "So swiftly had Babylon fallen and been defeated; and yet we mourned for her. So we brought healing balm for her pain, that perhaps she might be healed. We applied this healing to Babylon, but she was not healed. And so we must finally leave her to herself. Let us each return to his own country."

Now that's a speech. Not, "We'll succeed unless we quit."

Here then is a list of the near term sequential next events of Jeremiah's prophecy against Babylon, if the current conflict is indeed its fulfullment:

• Saddam executed
• His Sunni supporters burn the cities because of the execution
• The coalition becomes tired of the occupation because of the damaged infrastructure
• A prominent leader of the coalition announces all the coalition forces are leaving Iraq because reconstruction has failed
• The coalition forces turn all control over to the Shiite-led government and leave
• The Kurds take control of the Kirkuk oil fields and announce Kurdistan independence from Iraq
• The Turkish Kurds loyal to the PKK are welcomed to the Kurdistan alliance
• The Shiite-led Iraqi government declares war on Kurdistan with encouragement from both Turkey and Iran
• The battle lines are drawn between Iraqi forces and Kurdish forces
• The Kurds decisively defeat the Iraqi army and take control of the northern Iraqi oil fields
• The Euphrates river catastrophically floods and wipes out all the major cities of Iraq, while destroying the canal system
• The river water system is so damaged that the rivers in Iraq's alluvial plain dry up completely and the desert claims the plain
• The nation of Iraq, with all its cities destroyed by fire, flood and drought, becomes virtually uninhabited and uninhabitable, except for jackals

When that all happens, we will know that Jeremiah's prophecy of judgment against Babylon has finally been completely fulfilled.

Next up: Saddam's execution. Then the cities burn. Then the coalition leaves. Then....

Turkey to "put pressure" on Iraq's PM Maliki to take action against Kurds

An article from the KurdishMedia web site from November 15th, 2006 reports on the visit Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was going to make to Turkey that day. According to the report from AKI, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan intends to "put pressure" on al-Maliki to close rebel Kurdish PKK bases in northern Iraq, and to discourage any decision on whether Kirkuk province could join the Kurdistan Regional Government's autonomous partition.

The Kurds, meanwhile, consider Prime Minister Maliki's allegiances to be primarily to his Shiite power base, as reported by Terry McCarthy of ABC News on November 1, 2006. In this article found on the puk.org web site, McCarthy writes, "When [Maliki] came to power five months ago, he promised to bring Sunnis and Shiites together and said there would be national reconciliation, promising a 'wide-open door.' But today he appears to serve only Shiite interests."

The Asia Times has a very revealing article from May 13, 2006 on the relationship between the U.S., Turkey, Iran and Syria on the Kurdish rebel situation. It also has a report on the establishment of the Kurdish unified regional parliament published on May 12, 2006.

Babylon Land of the Chaldeans is not Mystery Babylon the Great

So I watched the History Channel's presentation of Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq, and, of course, found the scholars confusing the Jeremiah 50-51 prophecy of Babylon's ultimate desolation with the description of the destruction of the "great harlot" -- MYSTERY Babylon the Great -- in Revelation 17-18. Simply, if Revelation 17-18 were talking about literal Babylon the nation, as Jeremiah 50-51 is, by name -- "Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans" (Jer. 50:1) -- there would be no "mystery" to the identification of who the "great harlot" is, for she would simply be Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans.

But John "wondered greatly" about her, and the angel said, "I shall tell you the mystery of the woman..." (Rev. 17:7). In other words, the angel is going to reveal what the actual literal thing the symbol of the "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots" represents. And so the angel tells John the actual identity of this "Babylon the Great," a previously unknown entity figuratively symbolized in the vision by a woman clothed in scarlet: "The woman whom you saw is [literally] the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth" (Rev. 17:18). The woman "sits on many waters," (Rev. 17:1) and the waters symbolize "peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues" (Rev. 17:15). In other words, this city "sits on" -- read that as dominates -- peoples and other nations and tells all the other kings of the earth what to do. And as one reads further, one finds the city dominates through her vast consumeristic commercial power.

Another angel comes to John, and throughout the entire chapter of 18 describes in effusive language the "city" the figure represents, so as to provide a clear identification of what "city" it is, at the time the events of the Revelation will be occurring. This city is whichever city fits the description at the time of the events that take place. She is the city whose destruction causes "the merchants of the eath (to) weep and mourn over her, because no one buys their cargoes any more" (Rev. 18:11). Great is this wailing, so that they were "crying out, and weeping and mourning, saying, 'Woe, woe, the great city in which all who had ships at sea became rich by her wealth...'" (Rev. 18:19). (If the city existed at the time of John, the angel might even have told him what it was called.)

Even though this city "sits on" -- read, dominates -- the peoples of the world, still the kings of the earth "committed acts of immorality with her," (Rev. 17:1, 18:3), and her "merchants were the great men of the earth" (Rev. 18:23). Compared to the rest of the world, she "lived sensuously... (having) all things that were luxurious and splendid" (Rev. 18:9,14). She did not live and rule by military power, or even political power -- she ruled by her merchants and her commercial buying power.

When the bible says Jerusalem, it is talking about the capital city as representative for the nation, Judah (today, Israel). When the bible says Babylon, it is talking about the capital city as representative for the nation, Babylon (today, Iraq). When the bible says Damascus, it is talking about the capital city as representative for the nation, Assyria (today, Syria). And when the bible says "the great city which reigns over the kings of the earth," it is talking about the capital city as representative for the nation, the "great [nation] which reigns over the kings of the earth," dominating all peoples everywhere. And if that domination is through economic and commercial power, that capital city is the commercial capital of that nation.

Beside the fact that the two Babylons -- the one of Jeremiah 50-51 and the one of Revelation 17-18 -- are not the same thing at all in the first place, there is another reason to distinguish Jeremiah's destruction of the land of Babylon from the destruction of Mystery Babylon the Great; and that is the timing of the fulfillment of each prophecy. According to the angel, the timing of the events of the Revelation to John deal with the "great day of (the) wrath" (Rev. 6:17), the "great day of the wrath of the LORD" Isaiah talked about repeatedly throughout his book that comes immediately preceding the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. The Apostle Paul said that this "day of the LORD" could not come until the departure in the "gathering together" came first, and the son of lawlessness was revealed (2 Thess. 2:1-5). Since none of that has yet happened, the great day of the wrath of the LORD is still yet future.

On the other hand, the timing of Jeremiah's prophecy against the land of the Chaldeans is related to the return of the Jews to the land of Israel -- "In those days and at that time... the sons of Israel will come, both they and the sons of Judah as well; they will go along weeping as they go, and it will be the LORD their God they will seek. They will ask for the way to Zion, turning their faces in its direction; they will come that they may join themselves to the LORD in (the) everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten" (Jer. 50:4-5).

That everlasting covenant is the promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that the land of Canaan would be given to them and their descendants as an "everlasting possession" (Gen. 17:7-8), and if the Jews were not yet back in the land, Jeremiah's prophecy of Babylon's destruction could not be occurring right now.

Iraq is gone. Now what?

Monica Duffy Toft, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the author of "The Geography of Ethnic Violence", has written a very insightful commentary published today on the washingtonpost.com web site.

In it she notes, "Some 3 1/2 years after the U.S. invasion, most scholars and policy analysts accept that Iraq is now in a civil war." She suggests from her research into past conflicts that the best avenue for a lasting resolution is a decisive military victory. She continues, "A negotiated settlement is what the United States has attempted to implement for the past two years in Iraq, and it is failing."

Ms. Toft predicts that if the U.S. leaves Iraq, "the Shiites will brutally settle accounts with the Sunnis, before, perhaps, opening hostilities against the Kurds (with tacit support from Iran and Turkey)."

This scenario explains how the fulfillment of the prophecy in Jeremiah 50-51 of battle lines being drawn between Babylon -- the nation of Iraq -- and the kings of the Medes -- the leaders of the Kurds -- might originate.

And according to Ms. Toft, the best outcome to achieve a "resolution" is a decisive "military victory." Which, according to Jeremiah's prophecy, is what the Kurds will achieve over the Iraqi army -- "A horde of great nations from the land of the north, and they will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive. Their arrows will be like an expert warrior who does not return empty-handed. And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough..." (Jer. 50:9-10).

Who are these "hordes of great nations from the land of the north"? They are the Medes, known today as the Kurds of southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and western Iran -- "Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz... the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, and every land of their dominion... For the destroyers will come to her from the north..." (Jer. 51:27-28, 48).

History Channel's Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq

The History Channel will be broadcasting Prophecies of Iraq tomorrow, Monday, November 13th, at 11am and again at 5pm. While the program will undoubtedly confuse the issue by allowing certain "scholars" to mush several distinct prophecies together into one incoherent mass, and allow others to myopically focus on the city of Babylon now long gone, there may be a few nuggets of light as they fitfully and fleetingly compare the specific prophecies of Jeremiah 50-51 to the modern-day war in Iraq.

I'm going to watch it anyway.

An outcry is heard among the nations

Jeremiah 50:46 is translated from the Hebrew into English in the New American Standard Bible as, "At the shout, 'Babylon has been seized!' the earth is shaken, and an outcry is heard among the nations." In the NIV, it is translated, "At the sound of Babylon's capture the earth will tremble; its cry will resound among the nations."

The original Hebrew is broad enough to also allow this reading in modern English: "At the threat, 'Babylon to be taken,' the earth will tremble and an outcry among the nations will be heard."

That more precisely reflects the actual fulfillment of Jeremiah's words, since we read this in the mainstream media from the weeks just prior to the U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq:

From the BBC News, Monday, February 17, 2003: "Millions join global anti-war protests".

Here is that article's count of protesters for that weekend of worldwide anti-war demonstrations that was estimated at between six and 10 million people in up to 60 countries:



San Francisco, USA -- 250,000
London, UK -- 750,000
Barcelona, Spain -- 1.3 million
Seville, Spain -- 200,000
Madrid, Spain -- 600,000
Rome, Italy -- 3 million
Australia -- 500,000
New York, USA -- 100,000
Calcutta, India -- 10,000

Smaller protests also took place in many other countries around the world.

The Guardian Unlimited reported the coming protests this way: "Up to 10 million people on five continents are expected to demonstrate against the probable war in Iraq on Saturday, in some of the largest peace marches ever known."

That day of protests even has its own Wikipedia article, titled, "February 15, 2003 anti-war protest". The article begins, "The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a co-ordinated day of protests across the world against the imminent invasion of Iraq."

The web site of the Colorado Campaign for Middle East Peace (CCMEP) has a very comprehensive photo album of protests against war in Iraq that occurred all around the world, not only on February 15th, 2003, but also October 26th-27th, 2002, November 6th, 9th and 30th, 2002, December 2nd, 6th, 10th and 19th, 2002, January 11th, 13th, 18th, 19th, 25th and 27th, 2003, February 3rd, 4th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 18th and 21st, 2003, March 7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd, 27th and 28th, 2003, April 9th, 10th, 12th and 16th, 2003, September 10th, 21st and 27th, 2003, October 23rd and 25th, 2003, November 19th, 2003, January 21st, 2004, February 19th, 2004, March 14th and 20th, 2004, April 8th, 2004, April 19th, 2004, August 26th and 29th, 2004, September 1st, 2004, and March 19th, 2005.

Here are a few select pictures from the CCMEP site:






















1 million+ march in London, UK, February 15, 2003

















200,000 protesters in San Francisco on February 16, 2003























1.5 million+ protest in Rome, Italy, February 15th, 2003

Egypt's president warns against hanging Saddam

According to an Associated Press article updated November 9, 2006 on the msnbc web site, Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, was quoted by state-run Egyptian newspapers as saying in reference to Saddam Hussein's death sentence, "Carrying out this verdict will explode violence like waterfalls in Iraq."

Mubarak is also quoted as saying that hanging Saddam "will transform (Iraq) into blood pools and lead to a deepening of the sectarian and ethnic conflicts."

Certainly this warning coincides with the warning given by Jeremiah: "I am against you, O arrogant one... For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up; and I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs" (Jer. 50:31-32).

Time for review

Have you seen these prophecies about Iraq in Jeremiah 50 - 51?

So far fulfilled:

1. “Be afraid at the report that will be heard in the land — for the report will come one year, and after that another report in another year, and violence will be in the land...”

The first Gulf War, with a pull back, and then preparations for a second Gulf War.

2. “A great nation and many kings will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They seize their bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no mercy... Marshalled like a man for battle against you, O daughter of Babylon.”

The U.S.-led coalition forces preparing for invasion.

3. “Summon many against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her on every side... Her young men will fall in her streets, and all her men of war will be silenced in that day.”

The advancing of the U.S.-led forces over the Iraqi army.

4. “Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts, and the will cry out with shouts of victory over you.”

The quick victory of the U.S.-led forces over the Iraqi army.

5. “Tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end; the fords have been seized and they have burned the marshes with fire, and the men of war are terrified.”

The Iraqi army setting fire to oil wells in retreat and the fall of Baghdad.

6. “The king of Babylon has heard the report about them, and his hands hang limp; distress has gripped him, agony like a woman in childbirth.”

Hussein’s second wife, Samira Shahbandar, told the Sunday London Times that after the fall of Baghdad, Saddam “came to me very depressed and sad. He took me to the next room and cried.”

7. “At the shout, ‘Babylon has been seized!’ the earth is shaken, and an outcry is heard among the nations.”

Huge protests break out all over the world protesting the invasion of Iraq.

8. “There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon.”

The UN has claimed 100,000 are fleeing Iraq every month.

Yet to be fulfilled:

9. “I am against you, O arrogant one... For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up...”

Saddam will be punished.

10. “... And I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs.”

The cities of Iraq will be set on fire.

11. “Her high gates will be set on fire; so the peoples will toil for nothing. And the nations become exhausted for fire.”

With the cities burning, the nations will be tired of the occupation and reconstruction efforts.

12. “Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed...”

The infrastructure and political reconstruction efforts will be viewed as failures.

13. “...Forsake her and let us each go to his own country.”

The call will come for the coalition forces to be withdrawn, and they will leave.

14. “Behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon a horde of great nations from the land of the north...”

The outside threat against Iraq is not over...

15. “Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz... the kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, every land of their dominion... The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes...”

The Medes are the modern-day Kurds...

16. “They will draw up their battle lines against her; from there she will be taken captive. Their arrows will be like an expert warrior who does not return empty handed...”

The Kurds will defeat the Iraqi army...

17. “A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!... And Chaldea will become plunder; all who plunder her will have enough.”

...The Kurds will plunder Iraq’s treasures (oil?).

18. “The ‘sea’ has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves...”

The Euphrates will overflow its banks and cover the cities of Iraq with a devastating flood...

19. “A drought on her waters, and they will be dried up!... I shall dry up her ‘sea’ and make her fountain dry.”

Then the rivers flowing into Iraq will dry up.

20. “Her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert...”

Desertification takes over...

21. “... A land in which no man lives, and through which no son of man passes... Therefore the desert creatures will live there along with the jackals... And it will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation... It will be a perpetual desolation.”

That’s pretty clear all by itself.

Googling Saddam and arrogant

"IF Saddam is the arrogant one." I wrote that several times last couple posts, as if maybe it wasn't an obvious fit. It dawned on me -- if it is in the major media's headline news, it must be widely understood and accepted. So I googled "Saddam arrogant." Here are the results:

FoxNews.com, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124475,00.html, July 02, 2004 headline: "Saddam still defiant, arrogant." The article referred to him as "acting defiant and questioning the authority of the Iraqi court," and "pounding his fists while gesticulating," and shouting "I am Saddam Hussein, president of Iraq." A certified graphologist who studies body language, Alice Weiser, offered this analysis: "His demeanor to me shows... [that he's] arrogant, combative, controlling... at one point he used two fists to point... that's double defiance and rebelliousness..."

Times Online, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1833985,00.html, October 20, 2005 headline: "Blustering and arrogant, a dictator defies his judges." The article referred to Hussein as "showing contempt" for the proceedings, displaying "arrogance", standing "defiant", "berating" the judges, and "glower(ing)" with scorn.

Daily News Transcript, http://www.dailynewstranscript.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=78978, providing an Associated Press article from November 6, 2006, not the headline, but the very first sentence of the article: "BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Defiant, raging and arrogant to the end, Saddam Hussein trembled and shouted... as he was sentenced to hang, then walked steadily from the courtroom with a smirk on his face."


















Saddam gesturing during his trial (photo added to post 08-29-08)


"For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up" (Jer. 50:31-32).

I don't know why I would have hedged.

PM Maliki: Saddam executed by end of year

Following Saddam Hussein's conviction Sunday, the Iraqi Prime Minister, Mouri Maliki, has told the BBC's John Simpson, "I expect the execution to happen before the end of this year." Read the BBC article here.

There is an automatic appeal to the death sentence, to be conducted by a panel of nine judges, and Hussein remains on trial for the deaths of 180,000 Kurds killed in the genocidal gassing of the northern Iraqi province of Anfal. As the article relates, it is unclear whether authorities will wait until the second trial is complete before they execute him for the first conviction. If the first death sentence is upheld on appeal, the execution must be carried out within 30 days.

If Jeremiah's prophecy of Iraqi cities being set on fire is timed to coincide with the "time of the punishment" of the "arrogant one" as Jeremiah 50:31-32 suggests, and if Saddam is indeed that "arrogant one," and if he indeed is executed before "the end of the year" as Maliki expects, then we could possibly see the conflagrations before Christmas.

And the nations will become exhausted for the fire.

The peoples will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted for fire

There are several other references to fire or burning that should be mentioned in conjunction with the judgment of the cities being set on fire at the time of the punishment of the "arrogant one." One is simply a general curse: "I will stretch out my hand against you, and roll you down from the crags and I will make you a burnt out mountain" (Jer. 51:25). If the cities of Iraq are set on fire, that would certainly allude to that calamity.

One other reference to fire is related to the initial invasion and capture by the great nation and many kings: "Tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end; the fords also have been seized, and they have burned the marshes with fire, and the men of war are terrified" (Jer. 51:32). This burning would refer to the various oil wells that were lit on fire, not by the invaders, but by Saddam's own retreating Iraqi army during the initial ground push by coalition forces from the south.

As the web site globalsecurity.org reported: "Prior to the [2003 invasion], the U.S. Defense Department said it had reliable reports that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed the 'capability and intent' to damage or destroy Iraqi oil fields." While the numbers of oil wells set ablaze were not as numerous as had been originally feared, still, as globalsecurity.org relayed, "The oil well fires in Iraq have produced smoke plumes large enough to be visible to orbiting satellites..."


March 20, 2003 March 21, 2003
Photos courtesy of ORBIMAGE

The caption on the photos reads: "The following are two images of Iraq taken from ORBIMAGE's OrbView-2 'SeaWiFS' satellite at 1km resolution from Thursday, March 20th and Friday, March 21st [2003]. The March 21st image clearly shows thick black smoke from burning oil well fires near Basra in southern Iraq [i.e., in the 'Marsh District']."

Peter Mezel, on assignment for Time Magazine, shot some compelling closeup photos of the burning oil wells, which may be seen on his web site here.

But the last mention of fire in Jeremiah's prophecy is this (remembering that the Babylon Jeremiah is talking about is the kingdom, the nation, and not the long gone capital city also at one time called Babylon): "The broad wall of Babylon will be completely razed, and her high gates will be set on fire; so the peoples will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted only for fire" (Jer. 51:58).

I think this might read better this way: "The centers of her cities will be set on fire; so the peoples of the world will have toiled for nothing, and the nations will become exhausted of trying because of the fires."

And so what better reason to say, "we applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country."

We are tired because of the fire.

I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs

Some of Jeremiah's sequential prophetic events have already happened, while others are yet to occur. Here is one that has not really happened on a scale that warrants a claim "it is fulfilled," and so it remains a future punishment: "I am against you, O arrogant one... For your day has come, the time when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall with no one to raise him up; and I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs" (Jer. 50:31-32).

If the "arrogant one" is Saddam Hussein, he has certainly stumbled and fallen, and with his conviction yesterday, there certainly doesn't seem to be anyone able to rescue him. Perhaps if he is finally executed -- the "time (of his) punish(ment)" -- the rest of that decree will transpire at that time. Just speculation on my part as to timing, and as to whether Saddam will indeed be hanged; Jeremiah doesn't specifically say, although there seems to be a link between the "time when (God) shall punish" the "arrogant one" and the burning of the cities.

What is known with certainty is this: Iraq's cities will burn.

Saddam found guilty, sentenced to hang

Today marked the anticipated conviction of Saddam Hussein for the torture murder of 150 Shiites from Dujail.

The news report from Steven Hurst and Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press writers, included this pertinent note: "A trial envisioned to heal Iraq's deep ethnic and sectarian wounds appeared rather to have deepened the fissures."

Sunni leaders threatened death to "hundreds of thousands" because of the death sentence.

And so the decree of Jeremiah's prophecy remains true -- "We applied healing balm to Babylon, but she was not healed..." (Jer. 51:9).

The sooner the U.S. says "forsake her, and let us each go to his own country," the better.

She was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country

When I first read Jeremiah 50-51 in the context of the U.S.-led invasion, my cursory reading led me to wonder if the coalition forces, primarily the U.S. military, would be the cause of Babylon's utter destruction. But my brother, a United States Marine veteran, pointed out this passage to me:

"Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she my be healed. We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country, for her judgment has reached to heaven and towers up to the very skies" (Jer. 51:8-9).

His pointing out that passage caused me to read through the prophecy much more carefully, and to make the proper distinction between the discreet events leading up to the final destruction. That final destruction will be the land of Babylon left uninhabited -- and uninhabitable -- by, specifically, a severe drought on her waters, and before that, a flood that destroys her cities, and before that a victory over her army by the kings of the Medes, who are the modern-day Kurds. And before that, an invasion by "a great nation and many kings," who are "foreigners (dispatched) to Babylon that they may winnow her and may devastate her land; for on every side they will be opposed to her in the day of her calamity... All her army (will be devoted) to destruction. And (her young men) will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and pierced through in their streets" (Jer. 51:2-4).

But Jeremiah 51:8-9 is a critical transition point between the original invasion by the "great nation and many kings", and the slaughter and destruction by the "horde of great nations from the land of the north" (Jer. 50:9), the kingdoms of "Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz" (Jer. 51:27), specifically the "kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, and every land of their dominion" (Jer. 51:27-28).

While the U.S. and its coalition partners are the "great nation and many kings" who first invade her, humilitate her leader, slay her young men in their own streets, and break her, it will be the Kurds who finish off her army, prior to her final destruction by flood and drought.

The U.S.-led coalition forces are those who cause this to be said about her: "Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her!" (Jer. 51:8). It is the Coalition Provisional Authority who says this: "Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed" (Jer. 51:8). But it will be a leader or leaders of the U.S.-led coalition forces who say, "We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed; forsake her and let us each go to his own country" (Jer. 51:9).

Whether that will be Bush or his successor, or some other emerging leader of the coalition, the decree is determined: Iraq will not be healed, and the coalition forces will abandon her to face her ultimate doom without them.

"We (tried to apply) healing to Babylon, but she (could not be) healed; forsake her and let each go to his own country." With that pronounced, and the return of the troops to home, the first phase of invasion, humiliation, occupation, and abandonment will be complete, but the final phase of civil war, resounding defeat, flood, drought, desertification and utter desolation will just be beginning.

There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon

The headline news gives updates to the conflict in Iraq, and the explicit fulfillments of specific events of Jeremiah's prophecy regarding the land of Babylon -- the nation of modern-day Iraq -- are coming fast and furious within those updates.

This just in from the United Nations: Nearly 100,000 flee Iraq monthly. According to Ron Redmond, chief spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, "This is a steady stream of people now who are leaving [Iraq]." According to the U.N., the hundreds of thousands of refugees leaving Iraq are attempting to escape the continued sectarian violence. As Redmond says, "We've got a displacement crisis under way here."

So how does this fulfill prophecy? Placed within the bracketed context of a further description by Jeremiah of the U.S.-led coalition invasion -- "The LORD has opened his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation... Come to her from the farthest border... Put all her young bulls to the sword... Summon many against Babylon, all those who bend the bow; encamp against her on every side; let there be no escape..." (Jer. 50:25-29) -- is this prophetic nugget: "There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon" (Jer. 50:28).

That is a perfect example of the parenthetical prophecy, a stand alone statement placed within the middle of a congruous narrative, to establish it as an associated part of the narrative, but placed in such a way as to stand out as a flag to say, in essence, "this is a special note." This is a simple form of the common biblical literary device called "chiasmus." (Here is a more in-depth look at chiasmus in general literature.)

Verse 28 of Jeremiah 50 is such a prophetic nugget. And today the U.N. advised us that the sound is being heard loud and clear.

As promised, next post will deal with the outcome of the coalition occupation as prophesied by Jeremiah.

A great nation and many kings will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth

This weblog is exploring Jeremiah's explicit decrees of destruction against the land of Babylon -- modern-day Iraq -- as found in chapters 50-51, and how the current U.S.-led occupation has begun to fulfill those decrees, and what we can expect to happen in sequence if this current conflict is the literal fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy.

As I mentioned in the last post, the History Channel is also going to look at ancient biblical prophecies as if applying to Iraq today, and how the two Gulf Wars and the "downfall of Saddam Hussein" parallels the ancient decrees.

I've begun here in this weblog by working backwards in the sequence of Jeremiah's described events of destruction, beginning with the decree of final and complete desolation upon all the "cities" and "environs" of the land of Chaldea, ultimately caused by a severe "drought on her waters" (Jer. 50:38) following a catastrophic flood event: "The sea has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves" (Jer. 51:42). Before this final destruction, her army suffers an overwhelming defeat by "a horde of great nations from the land of the north" (Jer. 50:9), identified explicitly in the prophecy as the three "kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz," the "kings of the Medes" (Jer. 51:28-28), known today as the Kurds of autonomous Kurdistan. Like the flood and the drought, this judgment has not yet occurred.

Yet the prophecy identifies another invading force as well: "A great nation and many kings will be aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They seize their bow and javelin; they are cruel and have no mercy. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride on horses, marshalled like a man for the battle against you, O daughter of Babylon" (Jer. 50:41-42). The United States is arguably the greatest military power on earth today, and when it invaded Iraq, it did so not alone, but with a coalition force comprised of many nations. The full brunt of conventional military force was brought down on Iraq and its army in the 2003 ground invasion of the "land of the Chaldeans."

The account of the invasion within the prophecy reads like a Kevin Sites news report from the front lines: "The mighty men of Babylon have ceased fighting. They stay in the strongholds; their strength is exhausted, they are becoming like women; their dwelling places are set on fire, the bars of her gates are broken. One courier runs to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end; the fords [bridges] also have been seized, and they have burned the marshes with fire, and the men of war are terrified" (Jer. 51:30-32).

The ruler of Babylon is seen in the prophecy: "The king of Babylon has heard the report about them, and his hands hang limp; distress has gripped him, agony like a woman in childbirth" (Jer. 50:43). Saddam Hussein's second wife, Samira Al-Shahbandar, mother of Saddam's youngest son Ali, told the Sunday Times of London in a Dec. 14, 2003 interview , the day Hussein was captured in Tikrit, that after Baghdad fell to coalition forces, Hussein "came to me very depressed and sad. He took me to the next room and cried." As U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told CBS' "60 Minutes", "(Saddam) was cowering in a hole in the ground... In the last analysis, he seemed not terribly brave."


In the next post, we'll look at what the prophecy describes as the outcome to this initial invasion and occupation by the coalition forces led by the "great nation" aroused from the "remote parts of the earth."