"Iraq has proven to be all but unfixable"

(c) STRINGER. | REUTERS/REUTERS

I really like the way Michael Totten writes. He is so prophetic. In his latest article on the ISIS crisis for the New York Daily News, published Sept. 14, 2014, he wrote: "Iraq has proven to be all but unfixable..."

My other favorite prophet, Jeremiah, wrote 2,600 years ago: "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. 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).

Totten recognizes the possibility of failure: "Supporters of deeper U.S. engagement must acknowledge that American efforts could easily fail." Different words, but same message given by Jeremiah so long ago.

"The entire Middle East has been a disaster for thousands of years..." writes Totten.

Writes Jeremiah: "Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, and object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants... Her cities have become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert, a land in which no man lives and through which no son of man passes..."

In other words, a disaster.

US hopeful as al-Maliki steps down

Iraq's new prime minister-designate vows to fight corruption, terrorism

In an article at FoxNews.com published today, August 15, 2014, Fox News reporters say there is "relief in Iraq and among Western leaders... as a new prime minister-designate vowed to unite the Iraqi people, and fight corruption and Sunni militants who have overrun large parts of the country."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would not seek a third term, making room for new leader Haider al-Abadi. The decision gives hope to U.S. officials that Iraq will now be able to move towards a more united front against Islamic State extremists, who have conquered about a quarter of the country.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is quoted in the article as saying the move "sets the stage for a historic and peaceful transition of power in Iraq."

READ MORE HERE...

I am skeptical of the optimism expressed by Kerry.  So far, every major event that has occurred in Iraq since the original 1993 Gulf War invasion by U.S. forces has coincided with the sequential judgments on the "land of Babylon" decreed by the prophet Jeremiah in chapters 50 and 51 of his book in the Hebrew bible.

The judgments and decrees fulfilled thus far:

The judgments come when Israel has been "(brought) back to his pasture" (Jer 50:19)
      -  Israel became a nation once again in 1948 after almost 1,900 years of exile

The "report" of coming "violence" will come in one year, and then another report in another year, and then "violence will be in the land" (Jer 51:46)
      -  The first Gulf War did not result in invasion of Iraq itself, but then ten years later, the second Gulf War resulted in invasion of the land of Iraq itself

An "outcry is heard among the nations" at the shout "Babylon to be seized!" (Jer 50:46)
      -  The largest expression ever seen of mass anti-war protest against the announcement of the intent to invade Iraq breaks out world-wide

Invasion by "a great nation and many kings" (Jer 50:41)
      -  US-led invasion by the "Coalition of the Willing"

The "mighty men of Babylon" cease fighting and hide (Jer 51:30)
      -  Saddam's armies gave little resistance and many of them threw down their weapons and melted into the civilian population

The invaders are cruel and have no mercy (Jer 50:42)
      -  Abu Graib tortures

The king of Babylon has heard the report of them and distress grips him (Jer 50:43; 51:31)
      -  Saddam Hussein cried when he was told Baghdad was captured

Capture of the whole land (Jer 50:24; 51:41)
      - The invasion results in a complete capture of the whole nation, culminating in the capture of dictator Saddam Hussein

The "noise of battle in the land" and "great destruction" (Jer 50:22)
      -  Critics say the U.S.-led invasion "destroyed" Iraq

Punishment of the "Arrogant One" with no one to support him (Jer 50:32)
      -  The execution of the "arrogant" Saddam Hussein while witnesses deride and mock him

There is a sound of fugitives and refugees in the land (Jer 50:28)
      -  Mass exodus of refugees continuing even to this day

"I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon to devastate her land" (Jer 51:2)
      -  Islamic State militants are wrecking havoc and destruction all over Iraq

There is a call to God's "people" to come out of her (Jer 51:45)
      -  Jews have all left Iraq, and now Christians are fleeing Iraq in droves in the face of militant Islamic jihadist threats

JEREMIAH'S JUDGMENTS YET TO COME --

"I will set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs" (Jer 50:32; 51:58)
      -  The cities of Babylon will be set on fire

The occupiers abandon her after a failed attempt at reconstruction (Jer 51:8-9)
      -  With the U.S. back in Iraq with military advisers and troops to protect "U.S. personnel" and interests, the scenario exists for an announced abandonment of Iraq as a failed attempt to "heal her"

"A horde of great peoples from the land of the north [the Medes] draw up their battle lines against her and take her captive" (Jer 50:9; 51:11,14,27,28)
      -  The Kurds, modern-day Medes, are growing more powerful economically and militarily in a stunning transformation; they will invade and defeat Iraq

"A sword against her treasures, and they will be plundered!" (Jer 50:10,37)
      -  The nation from the north will plunder Babylon's "treasures"

A major flood event devastates the land (Jer 51:42)
       -  The dams on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers are potentially dangerous, both in potential collapse or as targets of sabotage

"A drought on her waters, and they are dried up!" (Jer 50:38; 51:36)
      -  After the flood event, the rivers will be dried up, and the land will be unable to sustain life

"And it will never again be inhabited from generation to generation" (Jer 50:39)
     -  Because of the wars, flood, and perpetual drought, no one shall be able to live there ever again

Complete desolation.  This is the judgment of the LORD in the land of Babylon according to Jeremiah the Hebrew prophet, at the time Israel is back in its promised land.

Is the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy coming true in our time?  Are we witnessing prophecy being fulfilled? Will the cities of the "land of the Chaldeans" soon be burning?

Is Babylon burning, Jeremiah?

Shock and terror: Islamic State boasts mass executions in Iraq [GRAPHIC]

rt.com  July 30, 2014

Screenshot from 36-minute IS video released for the Eid holiday marking the end of Ramadan 

As part of their psychological war to create a medieval-style caliphate, the Islamic State [IS] has released a new shocking video showing scenes of mass executions, warning Iraqi soldiers and others who dare to resist that they will be rounded up and killed.

The video shows IS fighters sweeping through a town, standing over dozens of terrified Iraqis, and leading soldiers to a pit in the desert and murdering them one by one.

READ MORE HERE...

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If the IS militants succeed in taking over Iraq from the Maliki government, the land of Babylon will be controlled by men who rule through terror, mayhem and murder, who hate the Zionist state of Israel with every fiber of their being.

The judgments of Jeremiah's prophecy leading to complete desolation of the land of the Chaldeans are brought upon Babylon as a vengeance for the sake of Israel.

"The noise of battle is in the land, and great destruction. How the hammer of the whole earth has been cut off and broken! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!... The LORD has opened his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation, for it is a work of the Lord GOD of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans...

"Pile her up like heaps and utterly destroy her. Let nothing be left to her. Put all her young bulls to the sword, let them go down to the slaughter! Woe be upon them, for their day has come, the time of their punishment... I will repay Babyon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil they have done in Zion before your eyes, " (Jer 50:22-27; 51:24).

Invasion, capture, punishment, burning, abandonment, war with the 'Medes', plundering, flood, drought, eventual desolation, an uninhabited wilderness, an object of horror among the nations.

Invasion, capture and punishment are completed. When the cities of Iraq start burning, the rest of the judgments are fated to be completed in their order.

In God's eyes, those Chaldeans left in Iraq as the judgments flood over them, deserve what they get. As this video documents, who can argue?

ISIS extremists smash the gravestone of the prophet Jonah

Russian Times online reported July 9, 2014 that ISIS militants in Iraq have been "ruthlessly smashing centuries-old graves to pieces" in the city of Mosul.

Writes RT: "Iraqi authorities, according to the Daily Mail, have confirmed that one of the smashed graves belonged to the Prophet Jonah (Younis in Arabic), who is revered by Muslims and Christians alike and is best known as the main character of the Book of Jonah."

READ MORE HERE...

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Now it is getting personal. God's prophets speak for God. Jeremiah said God was going to destroy Iraq, cutting it off to utter desolation. ISIS is giving him every reason to complete the destruction. 

Sunni militants advance toward large Iraqi dam

www.nytimes.com | Middle East
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ROD NORDLANDJUNE 25, 2014

The Haditha Dam in 2006, when it was protected by American Marines. CreditJim Wilson/The New York Times

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security officials said Wednesday that fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria were advancing on the Haditha Dam, the second-largest in Iraq, raising the possibility of catastrophic damage and flooding.

This would not be the first time that dams have figured in the conflict. In April, when ISIS fighters seized the Falluja Dam, they opened it, flooding crops all the way south to the city of Najaf. The water at one point washed east as well, almost reaching Abu Ghraib, close to Baghdad.

READ MORE HERE...

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The threat of "catastrophic damage and flooding" figures greatly in Jeremiah's prophecy of doom on the land of Babylon, representing the eighth judgment, the most destructive of all nine: "The sea (or broad river) has come up over Babylon; she has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves," Jer 51:42.

Following the catastrophic flood, "(God) shall dry up her sea (or broad river) 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 51:36-37.

The drought seems to be a consequence of the flood, and the flood and drought result in Babylon's "perpetual desolation," Jer 51:62.

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

Dismemberment of Iraq gives Kurds hope of independence

Excerpts from article by Margaret Evans, CBC News Jun 25, 2014
at CBCnews | World www.cbc.ca/news/world/

The Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been able to keep ISIS at bay while Iraqi forces melted away in the face of the militant group's advance (Margaret Evans/CBC)

Baghdad's increasing ire over Kurdish plans to export its oil and gas abroad directly led the central government to suspend the Kurdish share of Iraq's national budget in 2013.

It would be an understatement to call it bad timing for Iraq's beleaguered Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to be on the outs with the Kurds given they control the only truly cohesive fighting force in Iraq, the renowned Peshmerga.

At first glance, there would seem to be little incentive for the Kurds to prop up a central government under al-Maliki's control.

The chaos in Iraq and the potential for its dismemberment has opened up a crack through which the Kurds can clearly see their long cherished dream glistening in the distance -- that of an independent Kurdistan.

Said Gareth Stansfield, a professor of Middle East politics at England's University of Exeter, "The Kurdish leaders... (are) being very quiet and they're waiting for everything to fall around them."

Kirkuk is key to the notion of Kurdish independence. The city would give the Kurds the economic independence that they need to pursue their own course.

Last year, Kurdish and Iraqi government troops came close to open clashes after Baghdad moved a special army unit up to Kirkuk. But that unit is no more. Its commanders and soldiers simply melted away two weeks ago like other Iraqi troops in the north when faced with the potential threat of the group calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) coming their way.

The Kurds, would-be claimants to the throne of Kirkuk, simply slipped in and took over their abandoned positions.

Kurdish troops have also moved in to other mixed or disputed cities in Iraq proper since the advance of ISIS. The Kurds have taken advantage of the chaos in the rest of the country to expand their borders.

Said Stansfield, "If ISIS and [its allies] are successful (the Kurds) will be facing an enemy that will turn its attentions north very quickly."

"We often hear how good the Kurdistan army is, that they're willing to defend Kurdistan to the death," said Stansfield. "But we haven't seen them fully deployed. We haven't seen them face an opponent as brutal, as well organized, as well funded as ISIS and their (allies) that we see here."

READ MORE HERE...

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Now we see the battle lines drawing between the "kings of the Medes" -- the leadership of the modern day Kurds -- and a re-constituted and extremely militant Iraq -- the land of the Chaldeans, the Babylon of Jeremiah's prophecy:

"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... Chaldea will become plunder... Because you are glad, because you are jubilant, O you who pillage my heritage, because you skip about like a threshing heifer and neigh like stallions, your mother will be greatly ashamed, she who gave you birth will be humiliated. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land and a desert..." Jer 50:9-12

The beginning of the end of Iraq?

One of my favorite world affairs columnists, Michael J. Totten, provides an insightful commentary today on the ISIS militant surge towards Baghdad at worldaffairsjournal.org, titled "The Beginning of the End of Iraq?"

Totten began his piece with an update: "Al Qaeda has taken the Iraqi city of Tikrit and the Kurdish Peshmerga has taken the Iraqi city of Kirkuk. Iraq's army fled both and hardly fired a shot."

What he wrote next stopped me short: "God only knows what happens next".

Yeah, that's what I've been saying, since 2006. God not only knows, but told Jeremiah what was going to happen next.

Totten continues, clearly in tune with what is going to happen next: "In the future we might see the events of the last few days as the beginning of the end of Iraq as a state".

Actually, the invasion of 2003 (Judgment 1) was the 'beginning' of the end, with Saddam's capture (Judgment 2) and execution (Judgment 3) the next sequential events in the prophecy of doom on the land of Babylon shown to Jeremiah about 2,600 years ago.

Totten makes one prophetic statement after another: "But we are not going to save Iraq".

Oh so right. Judgment 4 is the cities burning, with Judgment 5 the complete abandonment of that land by the reconstructionists (Jer 51:9 -- "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...").

I like how Totten writes. He concludes: "This is the time of festering."

That is one way of putting it.

READ MORE OF TOTTEN HERE...

Kurds take control of Kirkuk as Sunni militants surge toward Baghdad

www.reuters.com

BY AHMED RASHEED AND ISABEL COLES

BAGHDAD/ARBIL Iraq Thu Jun 12, 2014 12:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - Iraqi Kurdish forces took control of the northern oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday, after government troops abandoned their posts in the face of a triumphant Sunni Islamist rebel march towards Baghdad that threatens Iraq's future as a unified state.

In Mosul, Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant staged a parade of American Humvee patrol cars seized from a collapsing Iraqi army in the two days since ISIL fighters drove out of the desert and overran the northern metropolis. At Baiji, near Kirkuk, they surrounded Iraq's largest oil refinery.

At Mosul, which had a population close to two million before the weeks events forced hundreds of thousands to flee, witnesses saw ISIL fly two helicopters over the parade, apparently the first time the militant group has obtained aircraft in years of waging insurgency on both sides of the Iraqi-Syrian frontier.

READ MORE HERE...

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Once the militants have taken over control of the Iraqi government, there will be no reason for the Kurdistan Regional Government not to declare independence, which will set up a scenario for conflict between the two forces. Jeremiah prophesies that after the cities of Iraq burn (Judgment 4), and the reconstructionists abandon their efforts and leave Iraq to face its future alone (Judgment 5), the nation will be invaded by armies from the north, led by the "kings of the Medes", today known as the Kurds of Kurdistan (Judgment 6). The Chaldeans (Iraqis) will be defeated by the Medes (Kurds), who will then plunder the "treasures" of Iraq (Judgment 7). A catastrophic flood event will wipe out the cities of Iraq (Judgment 8), and then severe drought sets in (Judgment 9) to render the nation desolate and uninhabitable (Final Outcome).

If the cities of Iraq go up in flames soon, the Judgments will have resumed in sequential order to the above.  

'I risked my life, for what?': Iraq War veterans chilled by country's slide into civil war

At U.S. News on NBCNEWS.com July 25, 2013, NBC News contributor Bill Briggs brings a story of the effects of Iraq's renewed civil strife on Iraq War veterans 10 years after the invasion and capture of Saddam Hussein -- "As they watch Iraq's mounting body count and potential slide into civil war, some Iraq War veterans are more intensely questioning why they went, what it all meant, and whether the deaths of 4,486 U.S. troops on that foreign soil were worth the permanent cost."


Civilians inspect the aftermath of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, Iraq, on July 24. A bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in Baghdad's southern Dora neighborhood on July 23, killing several people and wounding many more, police said.

Briggs recounts the struggles many veterans are having with depression, anger and suicide stemming from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the war. One veteran, Andrew O'Brien, an Army convoy gunner who served in Iraq in 2008 and 2009, survived an IED blast, but attempted suicide in 2010.

READ MORE HERE...

Briggs reports that "during July, almost 700 people in Iraq have been killed in militant attacks, including car bombs, ambushes and gun fights." He quotes Alex Horton, a former specialist in the 3rd Stryker Brigade of Second Infantry Division who served during "the surge": "Many troops in Afghanistan have also deployed to Iraq, so to see their hard work unraveling while their mission in another country is still in progress could be demoralizing... Personally, it's frustrating to see this."

Jeremiah the hebrew prophet foresaw the frustration of having the reconstruction efforts go for naught: "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; 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).

"Now that I'm hearing about (all the bombings and deaths), all I think about is the guys we lost in Iraq. It's hard to not think that it meant nothing," Briggs quoted O'Brien as saying.

According to Jeremiah, the destruction brought upon the land of the Chaldeans by the invading forces had a resounding purpose -- to bring vengeance upon the land for "arrogance against the LORD" --

"The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet: 'Declare and proclaim among the nations; proclaim it and lift up a signal flag; do not conceal it, but say, "Babylon has been captured... Behold, I am going to punish the king of Babylon and his land, just as I (will) punish the king of Assyria... Against the land of Merathaim, go up against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod. Slay and utterly destroy them... and do according to all that I have commanded you.

"The noise of battle is in the land, and great destruction... How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations! I set a snare for you and you were also caught, O Babylon, while you yourself were not aware; you have been found and also seized because you have engaged in conflict with the LORD. (He) has opened up his armory and has brought forth the weapons of his indignation. For it is a work of the Lord GOD of Hosts in the land of the Chaldeans.

"Come to her from the farthest border; open up her barns, pile her up like heaps and utterly destroy her... 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...

"I am going to arouse against Babylon and against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai the spirit of a destroyer. I will dispatch foreigners 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... For neither Israel nor Judah has been forsaken by his God, the LORD of hosts, although their land is (still) full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel...

"For this is the LORD's time of vengeance; he is going to render recompense to her," (excerpts from Jer 50:1 - 51:6).

Briggs quotes an anti-war activist, Mike Prysner, who also was part of the 2003 Army invasion: "What (the violence in Iraq) makes me feel is deeper guilt... One of our roles was to shred their national identity. What is happening today is a direct result of the U.S. occupation's strategy... I'll live the rest of my life knowing I was a part of that."

What Prysner was a part of, was God's wielding of his weapons: "You are my war-club, my weapon of war; and with you I shatter nations, and with you I destroy kingdoms... I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before (my) eyes," (Jer 51:20-24).

Salon: American reconstruction fails

IN a Thursday, August 16, 2012 editorial appearing at salon.com, Peter Van Buren, a 24-year veteran Foreign Service Officer, writes, "I spent a year with the Department of State helping squander some of the $44 billion American taxpayers put up to 'reconstruct' (Iraq)... To this day I'm left pondering...,: Why has the United States spent so much money and time so disastrously trying to rebuild (this nation)...?"

Van Buren, author of the 2010 book "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People", continues -- "Now, it's definitive. Reconstruction in Iraq has failed. Dismally... The accounts of that failure still pour out. Choose your favorites... (From) a $200 million year-long State Department police training program (that has) shown no results (none, nada),... (to) a long official list of major reconstruction projects uncompleted, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted, all carefully catalogued by the now-defunct Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction."

When Van Buren does media interviews now, only two years later, the question of the day is not "Did we succeed in Iraq?" or "Will reconstruction pay off?", but "Why did we fail?"

READ MORE HERE...

Jeremiah the hebrew prophet presages Van Buren's lament over latter day Mesopotamia's demise: "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; 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)

And so, with reconstruction having failed, miserably, the reconstructionists shall abandon her, each returning to his own country, and she shall fall into the remaining judgments alone and without hope.

Invasion by "a great nation and many kings" (Jer 50:41), humiliating capture and occupation (Jer 50:46, 51:14) and execution of her "arrogant" ruler (Jer 50:31-32) has already occurred. The burning of the cities (Jer 50:32, 51:58) and subsequent abandonment by the reconstructionists (Jer 51:8-9, 58) comes next.

Then her "judgment" really begins: war with and defeat by a horde "from the land to the north" (Jer 50:9), the "Medes" (Jer 51:11,28,48) -- the modern-day Kurds of Kurdistan -- who then "plunder" her "treasures" (Jer 50:10,37), a catastrophic flood event (Jer 51:42) and finally a drought (Jer 50:38-40, 51:43) so severe it renders the land "an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it" (Jer 50:3), so that "she will be completely desolate; everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified..." (Jer 50:13).

Will the fires that precipitate the final abandonment be lit soon? Will judgments 4 and 5 occur in 2012?

Iraq faces decades of sand storms

Reuters Baghdad reporter Aseel Kami today relayed Iraqi Deputy Environment Minister Kamal Latif's warning that, "despite efforts to restore the marshes, Iraq was likely to suffer from dusty weather for a majority of days over the next decade."

The June 21, 2012 article at reuters.com reported that "sandstorms started to increase and become more severe after the wetlands were dried out by Saddam's government in the 1990s to flush out rebels living there."

"I expect we will reach 300 days of dusty and stormy weather per year during the coming 10 years if the circumstances stay as they are," Latif is quoted as saying. "Three-hundred days a year means a catastrophe for the economy and human health."

The current situation could be but a harbinger of the greater calamity foreseen by Jeremiah the prophet, following invasion, capture, punishment, burning, abandonment, civil war, plundering and a horrific flood event -- "Chaldea... will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land, and a desert... She will be completely desolate; everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified..." (Jer 50:12-13).

The curse of a "drought on her waters" (Jer 50:38) so that "her cities... become an object of horror, a parched land and a desert" (Jer 51:42), rendering the land of Babylon "a perpetual desolation" (Jer 51:62), is the final judgment decreed upon the land of the Chaldeans, the land of Babylon, as a "vengeance of the Lord" (Jer 50:15).

Is the present "dusty weather" -- a result of an "increase in temperature and lack of rain" according to Latif -- just a taste of the coming disaster?

Nine judgments were pronounced upon the land of Babylon: invasion by a great nation and many kings, humiliating capture and occupation, punishment of the "arrogant one", burning of the cities, abandonment by the reconstruction forces, defeat in a civil war with the Medes, plundering of her treasures by the conquering armies, a catastrophic flood event and the final desolation brought on by unrelenting drought.

The first three have occurred in order. Will the cities burn and the reconstructionists abandon Babylon? If both occur, look for war with the Medes (Kurds), defeat and plunder, flood and drought. Fulfillment of a 2,600 year old prophecy.

History Channel: Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq

In that one statement, they got it right. The hypothesis that Jeremiah's ancient prophecies of doom on Babylon may be playing out in modern-day Iraq has not escaped the attention of the History Channel. An episode of Decoding the Past: Prophecies of Iraq [link to archived site updated 08-29-08] will run on Monday, November 13th at 11am and again at 5pm. [link to archived youtube videos updated 09-01-10:]



The producers, however, give nod to those who say the prophecies deal strictly with the ancient capital city, also called Babylon: "It was one of the greatest cities ever depicted in biblical text. Hebrew prophets of the Bible all predicted its destruction -- as many as 150 years before it happened. And, when in 539 BCE, Babylon fell to Cyrus the Great of Persia, the prophets were thought to have been proven correct."

As I've noted already, however, Jeremiah's prophecy is explicit in its description of doom upon the entire "land of the Chaldeans" and all her "cities... and... environs", not just upon the single city. And this argument has not gone unnoticed by the History Channel: "Ancient Babylon is now known as modern-day Iraq, and eerily similar parallels exist between the prophecies of Babylon and the events of the late 20th and early 21st centuries--including both Gulf Wars and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Is it possible that Biblical prophecies are playing out in modern times?"

I, of course, say yes, and am exploring those similarities between Jeremiah's curse on the land of Babylon and the events of the current coalition occupation of Iraq and its subsequent near-future events here in this weblog. My position is based on the premise that Jeremiah's decrees are against the "whole land" of the Chaldeans -- Iraq as a nation -- and not meant at all for just the one-time capital city long gone.

But I fear the idea remains stuck in the head for many, for the History Channel continues: "But scholars and academics have long debated the question of whether these ancient predictions were meant for the city of Babylon of more than 2,500 years ago, or whether they referred to a different Babylon, a future Babylon to be rebuilt where the old city once stood."

I say, forget the city once called Babylon, and forget a future rebuilt city on its ancient site, and take Jeremiah for what he said -- he is talking about Babylon the kingdom, the "land of the Chaldeans" (Jer. 50:1) -- now Iraq the nation -- and not just about the capital city of that ancient kingdom also called Babylon, a city now gone. He is talking about the "inhabitants of Chaldea" (Jer. 51:24), the whole region, not just the inhabitants of one ancient city. He is talking about "the land of the Chaldeans", not one city. He is talking about the "cities" and "all (the) environs" (Jer. 50:32) of Babylon, not just the one-time city called Babylon.

When people can come to take Jeremiah as if he said what he meant and meant what he said, then they may be able to figure out what he was talking about. It was the land of Babylon, not the city of Babylon. Like the state of New York, not just the city of New York. Like the country of Kuwait, not just the city also called Kuwait. There is more beyond Manhattan, however that may come as a shock to some.

I look forward to watching the History Channel's offering, but expect to be disappointed. Then I won't be disappointed.

The final outcome: complete desolation

So what is the prophecy of Jeremiah 50-51 concerning the land of the Chaldeans, all her cities and environs? It begins and ends with this: "[T]here will be no inhabitant in it..." (Jer 50:3). This climactic finale is repeated throughout the two chapters: "She will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land, and a desert. Because of the indignation of the LORD she will not be inhabited, but she will be completely desolate..." (Jer 50:13). And again: "It will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah with its neighbors... No man will live there, nor will any son of man reside in it" (Jer 50:39-40). And again: "[T]he purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand. To make the land of Babylon a desolation without inhabitants... And Babylon will become a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals, an object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants" (Jer 51:29, 37).

Chapter 51 ends with one final decree of calamity upon Babylon: "So Jeremiah wrote in a single scroll all the calamity which would come upon Babylon, that is, all these words which have been written concerning Babylon... 'Thou, O LORD, hast promised concerning this place to cut it off so that there will be nothing dwelling in it, whether man or beast, but it will be perpetual desolation'" (Jer 51:60,62).

That total desolation so that the "land of Babylon" -- modern day Iraq -- is "without inhabitants" has never in all of history ever happened. That land has always had thriving populations. That is why I take the futurist view that it is yet to happen, and that with the U.S.-led invasion, the prophetic events described in the rest of the prophecy are already well under way.