Will the cities burn?

Jeremiah pronounced nine judgments upon the land of Babylon, ultimately resulting in complete desolation: "'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.'"

The nine judgments begin with "a great nation [The United States of America] with many kings [The Coalition of the Willing] (being) aroused from the remote parts of the earth. They seize their (weapons); they are cruel and have no mercy [Abu Ghraib tortures]... (They are) marshalled like a man for the battle against you, O (future) daughter of Babylon [Iraq].

"The king of Babylon [Saddam Hussein] has heard the report about them, and his hands hang limp; distress has gripped him, agony like a woman in childbirth. [Samira Shahbandar, Saddam's second wife, said that as the Americans surged into the centre of the capital, Hussein crumbled: "He came to me very depressed and sad. He took me to the next room and cried. He knew he had been betrayed." The Sunday Times Dec 15, 2003]

"Thus says the LORD:... 'I shall dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may... devastate her land... Devote all her army to destruction. And they will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and pierced through in their streets.'"

The invasion will result in its capture, the second judgment: "Declare and proclaim among the nations...'Babylon has been captured'...  '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.'"

Despite what Samira said about her husband -- "If I know my husband, he will not be captured," -- the culmination of this second judgment and the end to all resistance was in fact the capture of the ruler, Saddam Hussein himself, who was hiding in a rat hole in the desert. "In the last analysis, he seemed not terribly brave," quipped US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

The third judgment was the execution of the Arrogant One: "I am against you, O arrogant one... For your day has come when I shall punish you. And the arrogant one will stumble and fall [through the trap door of the gallows] with no one to raise him up..." [Saddam's corpse was taunted by those in attendance.]

The hebrew conjunction "and" links the execution to the next judgment: "The arrogant one will... fall with no one to raise him up. And I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs." The judgment of fire is repeated: "And her high gates [city centers] will be set on fire; so the peoples will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted (because of the) fire."

The exhaustion of the nations because of the fires leads to the fifth judgment: abandonment -- "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 to the very skies.'"

Will the cities of Iraq burn? Is the ISIS militant revolution going to burst into literal flames? Will this be the fulfillment of the fourth judgment?

Is Iraq the Babylon of Jeremiah chapters 50 - 51?

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...

'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).

Renewed tensions in Iraq

The New York Times Opinion Pages offered an editorial on the renewed tensions in Iraq following the sentencing of Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi to death in the killing of two Iraqis.  In the editorial, published Sept 10, 2012 at nytimes.com, the NY Times asserts the decision by a panel of judges is "sure to exacerbate... tensions -- in Iraq and the wider region."

Hashimi, a Sunni muslim, was convicted in absentia on Sunday of the murders of a lawyer and a security official, and is living in Turkey, which is a Sunni-majority nation. He had been a "vocal critic" of Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al -Maliki, who has, according to the editorial, "shown more interest in reprisals against the Sunni minority than in encouraging inclusion..."

We are coming up on 2,090 days since the execution of Saddam Hussein, the third judgment on Babylon pronounced by Jeremiah the hebrew prophet in chapters 50 through 51 of his book in the bible. The first judgment, invasion of the land by "a great nation and many kings", was followed by its "capture", and then the  "punishment of the arrogant one."

The fourth judgment is the burning of the cities. Will that occur soon?

Gulf News reviews devastation inflicted on Iraq

Patrick Seale, Special Correspondent to the Gulf News, recounts in an August 12, 2011 article the destruction inflicted upon Iraq in the last 30 years:

Iraq was once a proud and powerful Arab country. With its vast oil resources, its great rivers, and its educated middle class, it was in many ways an Arab success story — before things started to go wrong. The last 30 years have been terrible.

Among the gruesome landmarks were first, the eight-year-long life-and-death struggle with the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1980-88, which Iraq managed to survive, but only with great loss of life and material destruction; second, the Gulf War of 1991, when it was forcibly expelled from Kuwait by America and its allies after Saddam Hussain was rash enough to invade his neighbour; third, the 13 years of punitive international sanctions which followed the Kuwait war and which are said to have cost the lives of half a million Iraqi children; and fourth, America’s devastating invasion of 2003 and its long occupation of the country, which is due, at least in principle, to end on December 31 this year.

Jeremiah the Hebrew prophet of 2,600 years ago predicted an invasion and occupation of the land of the Chaldeans by "a great nation and many kings... aroused from the remote parts of the earth... (who are) cruel and have no mercy" (Jer 50:41-42) who then "cry out with shouts of victory over (it)" (51:14), foreigners who "winnow (Babylon) and... devastate her land" (51:2).

Seale continues:

Iraq’s dilemma today is that it may still need help from the United States, the power which, more than any other, has destroyed it.

Jeremiah describes this destruction: "How (you have) 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... Come to her from the farthest border; open up her barns, pile her up like heaps and utterly destroy her" (50:23-27).

Despite an agreement of withdrawal, a possible extension of U.S. troops may be in the works:

This is the background to the current discussions between Baghdad and Washington about a possible extension of America’s military presence in Iraq beyond 2011 — the date set by the 2008 Status of Forces Agreement (Sofa) for a final US evacuation.

There are still some 46,000 American soldiers in Iraq,

While the respective political leaders of today hold "divided" opinions on the extension, Jeremiah describes the scenario that will precipitate a rapid abandonment of Iraq by its occupying reconstructionists -- "I shall set fire to his cities, and it will devour all his environs... The broad wall of Babylon will be completely razed, and her high gates will be set on fire; so the (foreigners) will toil for nothing, and the nations become exhausted (because of the) fire" (50:32; 51:58). Then 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" (51:8).

Writes Seale:

The Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid declared last month that ‘now is the time for our military mission to come to a close.’ Republicans, in contrast, want America to remain in Iraq — to defend its interests and confront Iran. Senator John McCain, for example, has argued that there is a ‘compelling case’ for the US to keep at least 13,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely. Opinion is divided in Iraq also. The Kurds desperately want the Americans to stay as guarantors of their fragile semi-independence from Baghdad, while hardline Shiite factions, notably the Sadrists, who are close to Iran, want to get rid of the Americans altogether, and the sooner the better. In between these two poles are a number of more moderate parties, both Shiite and Sunni, who have no great love for the Americans, and would rather be free of them, but recognise that they may still be needed to stabilise a highly volatile situation — both inside the country and in the surrounding neighbourhood.

But when the fires break out and consume the cities, the occupiers will "forsake" the land, and the rest of the judgments will then play out, leading to a final and complete "desolation" (51:62), "and it will never again be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation" (50:39).

Seale declares the present state of Iraq:

There is a vast amount of rebuilding to be done in Iraq. The 2003 war overthrew Saddam Hussain’s brutal regime, but the horrors which followed have been at least as bad as — and probably a good deal worse than — anything he was guilty of.

Just as Jeremiah quoted the occupying reconstructionists lamenting in his vision: "'Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; Wail over her! Bring balm for her pain; Perhaps she may be healed...'" (51:8). But of course she will not be healed, but abandoned.

Seale then counts off the "horrors" -- just as Jeremiah called them -- inflicted upon the land:

The US invasion triggered a sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites which killed tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of people, displaced millions inside the country and sent millions more fleeing as refugees abroad (including much of the Christian community).

And so Jeremiah recites the same: "There is a sound of fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon... Flee from the midst of Babylon, and each of you save his life! Do not be destroyed in her punishment... Come forth from her midst, my people, and each of you save yourselves..." (50:28; 51:6, 45).

It destroyed Iraq as a unitary state by encouraging the emergence of a Kurdish statelet, now linked awkwardly to the rest of the country in a loose federation.

The prophecy envisions the rising again of this nation to the north, which shall itself be "aroused" against Babylon, the kingdoms of "Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz... the kings of the Medes" (51:11,27-28), who are in fact none other than the Kurds [Who are the Kurds?; Are Kurds descended from the Medes?].

It smashed Iraq’s infrastructure to the extent that, in this summer’s heat, with temperatures climbing to over 50 degrees Celsius, the country suffers from crippling power cuts. On average in the south, electricity is on for one hour and off for four. The population is clamouring for better services.

As Jeremiah recounts: "She will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a parched land, and a desert... Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified and will hiss because of all her wounds" (50:12-13).

And so Seale concludes:

Al things considered, it does not look as if America’s involvement with Iraq — which has proved catastrophic for both countries – will be ended soon.

Until the fires begin. Then we shall "forsake her", and each return to his own country.

Broken promises, broken Iraq

An August 30, 2010 article at English.xinhuanet.com gives a pretty good synopsis of the events of the Iraq conflict thus far, which can be compared to the initial judgments of Jeremiah upon Babylon:

A secure, stable and free Iraq, it's what the United States promised after its tanks and armored vehicles rumbled into the center of Baghdad and toppled former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Yet, as the U.S. troops are leaving "as promised and on schedule," for Maher Abbas, a Bagdhad lawyer, the world is as broken and dangerous as these promises could be.

"Broken" -- just as Jeremiah saw the land of the Chaldeans after the invasion by "a great nation and many kings... aroused from the remote parts of the earth," (Jer 50:41): "Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail over her!" (Jer 51:8). The invasion of those forces foretold: "Surely I will fill you with a population like locusts, and they will cry out with shouts of victory over you," (Jer 51:14) along with the capture of the capital: "Tell the king of Babylon that his city has been captured from end to end," (Jer 51:31) and the 'toppling' of Saddam: "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," (Jer 50:31-32a).

The 'broken promise' of a secure, stable and free Iraq was also foretold: "Bring balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed. We applied healing to Babylon, but she was not healed," (Jer 51:8b-9a). And the abandonment at the failure of reconstruction: "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 heaven and towers up to the very skies," (Jer 51:9).

Abbas, 34, is a Sunni resident living in the capital's western neighborhood of Khadraa with his family.He said that the U.S. invasion and the following seven years were devastating to Iraqi society.

"Devastating," just as Jeremiah prophesied: "I shall dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her and may devastate her land," (Jer 51:2).

"It created deep cracks between the Iraqi factions who used to live together for hundreds and thousands of years," he said with an apparent anguish.

And so the specter of civil war looms, just as Jeremiah foresaw, not war between factions of Islam, but between Chaldean (Iraqi) and Mede (Kurd): "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... The kings of the Medes, their governors and all their prefects, and every land of their dominion... The sound of an outcry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! For the LORD is going to destroy Babylon... And her mighty men will be captured, their bows are shattered," (Jer 51:11,28,54,56).

Seven years and five months ago, the Americans rushed to war. Now they are trying to leave the mess of their own making by convincing their victims that they could put things strait [sic] all by themselves. [...] As Iraqis are taking over the baton, they are destined to face the consequence of similar broken promises. The only difference, if any, is the Iraqis may have to struggle much longer and with far greater efforts to put their broken homeland back to normal life.

According to Jeremiah, there will never be another normal in Babylon.

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."