Damascus into smoke?
Sep 21st, 2007 by jjp
Prophesied destruction of Damascus imminent?
(Excerpted from Hal Lindsey’s recent article at WND.)
Israeli Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter told reporters this week, “Iran has entered into strategic cooperation with Syria on conventional and nonconventional weapons development,” adding, “The Iranians are very big in Syria.”
Iran’s Ahmadinejad is preparing Syria to cover his flank should war break out between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear arsenal. Ahmadinejad is evidently gambling on Syria taking out Israel while Iran squares off against the United States. Were Iran and Israel to face each other head-to-head, one or the other would inevitably cease to exist. Israel would have no choice but to annihilate Iran before Iran annihilated Israel.
Israel’s “Samson Option” is named after the biblical judge who sacrificed himself in order to take his enemies with him. In the event of its impending destruction, Israel’s retaliatory plan involves taking the Middle East along with it.
As the Iraq experience has proved, war with the United States is survivable. The terms of Israel’s “Samson Option” mean war with Israel involving first-use weapons of mass destruction is not.
Twenty-five hundred odd years ago, the Hebrew prophet Isaiah prophesied of the destruction of Damascus. This prophecy is made more fascinating by the fact it remains unfulfilled in history: Damascus is the oldest continually inhabited city on earth. Although conquered many times, its status as an economic and cultural center of antiquity preserved it intact to this day.
But Isaiah predicted Damascus would one day face utter destruction: “Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city and it will become a fallen ruin,” he writes in Isaiah 17:1.
The prophet also predicts Damascus’ destruction will come at a time when “the glory of Jacob” had begun to fade (verse 4), at a time when Israel is in great peril of being “shaken like an olive tree,” leaving only a few “on the topmost bough.”
Isaiah prophesies that when Damascus’ destruction comes, there will be “an uproar of many peoples” and “the rumbling of nations” but that they will flee at God’s rebuke.
“At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning, they are no more” (Isaiah 17:13-14).
