The Fast of Tisha BAv and the return of Adonai Tzidkenu=2

Jerusalem 

Israel's Last King

In about 600 BC, when Jehoiakim stopped paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar in the hopes of forming an alliance with Egypt, Babylon once again laid siege to Jerusalem. Just two years later, Jehoiakim died.  In fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy, Jehoiakim’s son Jehoiachin (Jeconiah) sat on the throne for just over three months before Nebuchadnezzar deposed him, ending the reign of Jehoiakim's descendants (2 Chronicles 36:8–9; 2 Kings 24:8). Nebuchadnezzar then plundered the Temple, exacting an oath of loyalty from Zedekiah, whom he placed on the throne. He returned to Babylon with Jeconiah as prisoner, along with the elite of the people, including the Prophet Ezekiel.

Jewish women worship at the Western (Wailing Wall).

During this time, Jeremiah worked to help the people understand that their exile was God’s judgment for having turned away from Him and His laws.  He continuously implored them to repent wholeheartedly. Jeremiah prophesied to the exiles that God would return them to Jerusalem in 70 years.  In the meantime, he instructed them to rebuild their lives and be good citizens of Babylon. He sent them the following message: “Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce.  ‘Take wives and become the fathers of sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; and multiply there and do not decrease.  ‘Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf; for in its welfare you will have welfare.’  …  For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfil My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.’”  (Jeremiah 29:5–10)

The Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem.

Though Zedekiah pledged loyalty to Nebuchadnezzar, he revolted against Babylon (against Jeremiah’s advising).  Nebuchadnezzar again laid siege to Jerusalem for two and a half years. Hoping to reverse the consequences of his actions, Zedekiah asked Jeremiah to pray that God would deliver them from the invading forces.  The prophet told Zedekiah to surrender for his children’s sake and the people of the city, but he refused, throwing Jeremiah instead into a dungeon. When Nebuchadnezzar suddenly withdrew because he heard that Egyptian forces were marching against him, Jeremiah prophesied that he would return. He continued to warn about the upcoming destruction, which apparently lowered morale among the soldiers.  Following Jeremiah’s instructions would have relieved the impending doom; instead, Zedekiah allowed officials to throw him into a waterless cistern where he sank in the mud. Yet, God saved Jeremiah’s life when a Cushite pleaded on his behalf before the king and attained his release.

 

On Tisha B'Av, Jewish men pray and read, kneeling

and seated on the ground at the Western (Wailing)

Wall, which is just below the Temple Mount in the

Old City of Jerusalem.

  

Though Zedekiah did not listen to any warning Jeremiah gave him before, he brought Jeremiah into a private room and asked him for the truth.  Jeremiah gave the king hope, telling him how to save his own life and those of his family and nation. “This is what the LORD God Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘If you surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, your life will be sparedand this city will not be burned down; you and your family will live.  But if you will not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be given into the hands of the Babylonians and they will burn it down; you yourself will not escape from them.’”  (Jeremiah 38:17–18) Like many people, Zedekiah’s great downfall was his fear of man over God.  He told Jeremiah,  “I am afraid of the Jews who have gone over to the Babylonians, for the Babylonians may hand me over to them and they will mistreat me.”  (Jeremiah 38:19) Fearing the people more than the God of Israel, Zedekiah did not surrender to Babylon.

A model of the Second Temple on Jerusalem's Temple Mount

Consequently, in the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign, the city wall was breached.  By this time, many had died from starvation and sickness.  Zedekiah fled through a tunnel but was captured on the plains of Jericho. In fulfilment of Jeremiah’s final, unheeded warning, Zedekiah was taken captive and forced to witness the death of his own sons before the Babylonians gouged out his eyes and led him in bronze chains to Babylon. The walls of Jerusalem were torn down and the city was set on fire, including the royal palace. The destruction of the Temple came toward evening on the 9th of Av after all of its treasures had been removed and taken as booty to Babylon. Many were killed and thousands were taken into captivity.  Only the poorest of the poor were allowed to remain and they were given vineyards and fields (Jeremiah 39:10). As a consequence of sin, Zedekiah became the last king of Judah, and all that Jeremiah prophesied was fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled.

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The Fast of Tisha BAv and the return of Adonai Tzidkenu-1

A view from the Mount of Olives of the Temple Mount where the First and

Second Temples once stood.

“And you will say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord, If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you, to listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I have been sending to you again and again, but you have not listened; then I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse to all the nations of the earth.’”  (Jeremiah 26:4–6)

Amid rockets, tunnels, and death, begins Tisha B’Av, the day of fasting on which Jews mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples that stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Although the Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site, increasingly Muslims are rioting there, protesting Jewish access to the location of the ancient Holy Temples. On Thursday night, July 24, at the end of Ramadan, thousands of Hamas-loving Arabs broke through Israel police barriers on the Temple Mount.  After the police were instructed to temporarily abandon the Mount in the face of tensions over Operation Protective Edge, Arabs burned down the police station, smashing riot gear, office equipment, and computers full of data. Tisha B'Av comes at a time when the Jewish state is reeling from a string of funerals for the too many young men fallen in Operation Protective Edge—the battle to protect Israel from the barrage of Hamas rockets and destroy hundreds of Hamas terrorist tunnels built to infiltrate Israel. Hamas missiles steadily fall on Israeli population centers and even on Gazans.  And Israelis mourn the loss of the innocents on both sides. In the midst of this horror, in preparation for the fast that begins tonight, many will eat the traditional seudah mafseket, a small final meal eaten without conversation while seated on the floor.  This meal often consists of a hard-boiled egg, a symbol of mourning, and a piece of bread sprinkled with some ashes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows UN Secretary General Ban

Ki-moon remains of a rocket fired by Hamas terrorists at Israel.

Jeremiah Warns of Impending Destruction

Tisha B'Av (Av 9) is the saddest day on the Jewish calendar.

The event that established the 9th of Av as a day of fasting and mourning is the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC, an act that had been prophesied by the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 26:6). The destruction wasn’t immediate; God gave the people much forewarning. Babylon had successfully laid siege to Jerusalem without destroying the Temple around 605 BC, taking Daniel and many Israelites captive. As well, the Prophet Jeremiah had very vocally warned the people of the coming destruction for many years.  He repeatedly called for repentance, which could have prevented the destruction of the Temple.

 

Jeremiah, by Michelangelo (Sistine Chapel)

In Jeremiah 36:1–24, the prophet had even written God’s warning in a scroll, which was read aloud before the Temple court. Then, it was read to King Jehoiakim, a king who vacillated between paying tribute to Egypt and then Babylon, and then Egypt again when it appeared to be more powerful than Babylon. As a show of defiance, Jehoiakim burned the scroll and unsuccessfully tried to take Jeremiah captive.  (Jeremiah 36:26) Like so many of us do in the face of a word of correction, or something we consider an affront, the king wanted to silence the messenger. God then instructed Jeremiah to rewrite the warning on a second scroll, calling again for repentance.  He also added the following prophecy: “Also tell Jehoiakim king of Judah, ‘This is what the Lord says: You burned that scroll and said, ‘Why did you write on it that the king of Babylon would certainly come and destroy this land and wipe from it both man and beast?’  Therefore this is what the Lord says about Jehoiakim king of Judah:  He will have no one to sit on the throne of David; his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night.  I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.”  (Jeremiah 36:29–31) With this, Jeremiah prophesied both the destruction of Jerusalem, the death of Jehoiakim, and the demise of his line on the throne of David.

The Jordan, a river of miracles-4 

Healing Waters From the Temple

Although the Jordan is polluted, and its resources severely stretched and fought over by the nations in its vicinity, the prophet Ezekiel describes a new river of life that will begin at the Temple threshold, flowing into and restoring the Dead Sea, which is fed by the Jordan. “When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh.  Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. ... Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. ...  Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. ...  Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”  (Ezekiel 47:8–12) The Book of Revelation describes it as a new river of life “clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.”  (Revelation 22:1–2)

Accumulations of salt in the Dead Sea.

The Talmud (Jewish Oral tradition) teaches that these waters will heal not only the Dead Sea, but presumably the waters that flow into it from the Sea of Galilee, which would also include the connecting Jordan River. “To where do they flow?  To the Sea of Tiberias [Sea of Galilee, Kinnereth] and then to the Sea of Sodom [Dead Sea], and then to the Great Sea [Mediterranean] to heal the salty waters and to sweeten them.”  (Jerusalem Talmud 3:9) This restoration of the River Jordan and the bodies of water it feeds is exactly what Yeshua does with our own spirits. Yeshua says to all of us, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink.  Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”(John 7:37)

Jacob Wrestles with the Angel

  

The River of Miracles

“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”  (Joshua 3:5) In Genesis 32:11, Jacob crossed the Jordan and its eastern tributary, the Jabbok River (Zarqa River) situated east of Shechem, which is in present-day Samaria. Here, Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord to receive a blessing, which he received along with a new name—Israel (Genesis 32:23–24). Perhaps the most dramatic moment on the Jordan occurred when Joshua redeemed Israel from their desert existence by leading them across the Jordan to the Promised Land.  Miraculously, the river dammed up even though it was flood season, and the people crossed a dry riverbed (Joshua 3). Although all of Israel entered the Promised Land, not everyone lived on the west side of the Jordan. The river became the demarcation line between two groups of the tribes of Israel, with the “nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh” settling on the west side and Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh settling on the east side (Numbers 34:13–15; Joshua 13:7–8).

Naaman cleanses in the Jordan River to be healed of tzaraat, a Biblical

skin disease that is traditionally thought to be caused by gossip, murder,

perjury, forbidden sexual relationships, arrogance, theft, and envy.

In 2 Kings 5:14, the Jordan was instrumental in the miraculous healing of Naaman the Aramean, whom Elisha sent to bath in the Jordan’s waters in order to be healed of leprosy. In yet another miracle in 2 Kings 6:6, Elisha reclaimed a borrowed axe head that had sunk in the waters by causing it to float to the surface. At the Jordan, Yohannan the Immerser announced the identity of Yeshua as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” The Jordan is also mentioned in connection with the coming of the Messiah “by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations.”  (Isaiah 9:1–2)

The Sea of Galilee, which is located in the Jordan Valley, is 19 kilometers

(12 miles) long and from 5–10 kilometers (3–6 miles) wide.

Yeshua is soon coming again and, in the meantime, He has given His followers a spiritual source of water that wells up within them. “Whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life." (John 4:14) This spring of spiritual renewal brings everlasting life and is available now by believing in the One the Hebrew prophets spoke of—Yeshua haMashiach (Jesus the Messiah). If you wish to drink of His waters of life, or wish to rededicate your life to Him, why not follow in His footsteps and be mikvahed in Israel's Jordan River.

Dear reader......... the fact that Israel has once again become an independent nation and the Jewish People are being drawn back to their ancient land is evidence that God’s Spirit is moving in the midst of His people.