Bible Science Forum

Old Testament prophecies of the first coming of Jesus Christ (around 4 BC to 30 AD) are commonly used by Zionist Bible teachers to justify the existence of the modern state of Israel. This is idolatry.

If you are a follower of the Way of the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah, if He is your number one influencer, how could you be drawn to believe that the modern national state of Israel is a fulfillment of OT prophecy?

The whole Bible is essentially and ultimately about Jesus Christ. It is He who deserves all the glory and adoration. It is He whom the prophets speak about in the OT. Besides the true Israel of God are all those who believe and trust in Him regardless of ethnicity. It is not a nation of Jews at all.

The false teachers reinterpret OT scriptures, usually those heralding the coming of Christ to bring salvation to Israel (the Jews) and the rest of the world (the non-Jews). Those OT texts do not describe a rebuilding of the national state of modern Israel after nearly 2000 years since its destruction in 70 AD by the Roman armies.

Read Is Modern Political Israel God’s Chosen Nation?

Such false teachings are not found in the New Testament, which was written under inspiration of the Holy Spirit by the Apostles. The gospels particularly were written by disciples who walked with Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They directly quoted what Christ said.

1 And as He went out of the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!
2 And Jesus answering said to him, See you these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone on another, that shall not be thrown down.

Mark 13:1-2 AKJV

Jesus Christ did predict that Jerusalem, the Temple and the physical nation of Israel would be destroyed by the Romans 40 years after His crucifixion, by referring to the sign of the prophet of Jonah.

38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from You.
39 But He answered and said to them, An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah:
40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Matthew 12:38-40 AKJV

Jesus leaves no doubt here that He was speaking of His death and resurrection. After His resurrection, the unbelievers still could not believe even though He fulfilled this prophecy and rose from the dead 3 days later (Luke 16:31).

The Apostle Matthew also recorded the following.

1 The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that He would show them a sign from heaven.
2 He answered and said to them, When it is evening, you say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O you hypocrites, you can discern the face of the sky; but can you not discern the signs of the times?
4 A wicked and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah. And He left them, and departed.

Matthew 16:1-4 AKJV

Jonah prophesied against Nineveh that the occupants would be destroyed in 40 days if they didn’t repent. But the Ninevites did repent and destruction didn’t come. In Matthew 16:4 the prophecy by Christ is interpretated with a day = a year. The sign of the prophet Jonah then means 40 years, not 40 days, for the occupants to repent or Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed. The rest is history!

The Temple and Jerusalem were utterly destroyed in 70 AD, 40 years after 30 AD when Christ gave the prophecy.

But when did Jesus predict the Temple, the city of Jerusalem would be rebuilt again in a political nation state called Israel?

No such prediction is found anywhere in the New Testament, which is the New Covenant God made with mankind through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. If it was so-important why didn’t He speak of it?

Satan always tries to supplant Christ at every turn. And the injection of the re-establishment of the nation of Israel has been used by Satan to distract believers and undermine the gospel.

One prophecy the false teachers like to use is the following from the prophet Zechariah.

22 Yes, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD.
23 Thus said the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.

Zechariah 8:22-23 AKJV

Their claim is that this is modern Jerusalem and that many people will follow an Israeli Jew because they believe God is with him. This may even be what the Jews are expecting in their own earthly Messiah.

But this prophecy was about Jesus Christ coming to Israel, being born a Jew. Another prophecy stated He would be born of a virgin and called Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14). Immanuel means ‘God with us’. Jesus of Nazareth is the incarnation of God on Earth, fully man but fully God. That completely covers the Zechariah 8:23 prophecy.

The prophet clearly saw the first coming of Christ and recorded it.

9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes to you: He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding on an ass, and on a colt the foal of an ass.

Zechariah 9:9 AKJV

There can be no doubt that this is about the Lord Jesus. His name in Hebrew, Yeshua (ישוע) is derived from the Hebrew verb “to save” (יָשַׁע, yasha’), and its meaning is closely tied to the concept of salvation. Only He is righteous. Among men there are none just or righteous (Romans 3:10).

Then there is the prophecy in Isaiah 53, which is clearly about Christ.

11 He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

Isaiah 53:11 AKJV

Only a truly just man could justify a sinner in the presence of our holy God. That man is Jesus Christ.

Well then the false teachers claim the following verse in Zechariah 9 is about modern Israel.

10 And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace to the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah 9:10 AKJV

But modern Israel has been at war with the indigenous Palestinian people ever since the mass migration of Jews started from Europe in the early 1900s. So where is the Jew who shall ‘speak peace to the heathen’?

But again this verse is about Christ. He is the only Jew who could fulfil it. And His dominion is not just from the Mediterranean sea to the sea of Galilee but from the Jordan river to the ends of the earth. Christ’s offer of salvation is to all people on earth.

Now let’s turn to Zechariah 14 (emphases are mine).

1 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, and your spoil shall be divided in the middle of you.

Zechariah 14:1 AKJV

The day of the LORD (Yahweh, preincarnate Christ) is a significant event that did occur in 70 AD when Christ came in Spirit. This is what the Lord’s prophecy recorded by Matthew relates to.

29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Matthew 24:29-30 AKJV

The tribulation was the tribulation or persecution of the Jews in Jerusalem starting in 66 AD with invasion by the Roman Emperor General Vespasian and his nephew General Titus.

History records that Jesus was seen in the clouds and that many people saw signs of His actions. You may find historical descriptions on the web, under Preterism and Partial Preterism. I do not believe Preterism, which contends that all prophecies were fulfilled and completed by 70 AD, is correct but that it is partially correct, as much of Matthew 24 was fulfilled in the appearance of the sign of the Son of man in 70 AD, with concomitant events.

God brought down His judgment on wicked Israel and destroyed them and the Temple with His Roman armies. From the cross onward the veil is opened and is no longer found in the Temple but in the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ (Hebrews 10:20).

34 Truly I say to you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Matthew 24:34 AKJV

Jesus said that the generation living at that time would see those events in fulfillment to His prophecy. But from Matthew 24:37 on to the end of the chapter it would seem to relate to Christ second coming, His bodily return at the end of the age.

Read Matthew 24 Prophecy

Now continuing with Zechariah 14.

2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Zechariah 14:2 AKJV

Verse 14:2 in Zechariah’s prophecy here is speaking about those Roman armies and the ensuing Jewish-Roman wars, which lasted for about 70 years, particularly between 66 AD and 135 AD resulting in the exile of most Jews from Jerusalem and Judaea. Many were taken into captivity as slaves, but some remained in the area.

3 Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

Zechariah 14:3 AKJV

This means that God then judged those nations which he used against Jerusalem. And it is nations, plural. Rome consumed all the nations it invaded and built up its armies from those captive nations. In modern science fiction parlance they were like the Borg, which assimilated all those it conquered.

Now Christ was crucified on the Mount of Olives, a hill to the east of Jerusalem.

4 And his feet shall stand in that day on the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall split in the middle thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

Zechariah 14:4 AKJV

When Christ was crucified there was a great earthquake that split or fractured the mountain. The fault zone was through the mountain whereon was Golgotha the place of the skull and where the cross stood. A fault line does not need to move very far to be strongly felt.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent [torn] in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent [split];
52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared to many.

Matthew 27:51-53 AKJV

The earthquake was God’s work. He used it to expose the Holy of Holies by ripping open the veil of the Temple, because from that moment on Jesus Christ is the only high priest between God and man. Rocks were split but obviously the Temple survived another 40 years because later the Romans pulled it apart stone by stone (Matthew 24:2).

The earthquake also opened the graves at that time (30 AD) and OT saints were resurrected, which is in agreement with Matthew 24:31.

31 And He [Christ] shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect [saved OT saints] from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Matthew 24:31 AKJV

This is a precursor to the final reaping at the end of days.

The earthquake mentioned in Matthew’s gospel at the time and place of the crucifixion and resurrection is historically factual and consistent with what we know about earthquakes produced by tectonic plate shifts that characterize the geology of Judea.

Throughout the first and second centuries AD, large and small scale earthquakes occurred there on a fairly regular basis. Produced by the tectonic Dead Sea Rift Valley, statistics drawn from the ancient evidence shows that approximately 100 large scale earthquakes have taken place over the last 22 centuries, occurring on average at least once every 60 years. Of these, 71 took place in the Judea-Samaria region. (E. J. Bickerman, Chronology of the Ancient World (New York: Cornell University Press, 1974), 75–76; Kenneth W. Russell, “An Earthquake Chronology of Palestine and Northwest Arabia from the 2nd through the Mid-8th Century AD,” BASOR 260 (1985): 40.)

After Jesus died on the cross (Matthew 27:50) an earthquake split the mount east-west. Mount Olive is located east of Jerusalem in the same mountain range running approximately north-south.

Thus the description in Zechariah 14 is consistent with an earthquake at that time, as stated by the Apostle Matthew, and used by God to split the rocks, open the graves and open up the middle of the veil in the Temple. Each of these 3 actions involved a splitting open, of rocks, of graves and the veil of the Temple. All were actual events not some allegorical description.

These are action by our holy God whose message here is ‘Look to Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life’ (John 14:6). There is no longer any other way.

Jesus also warned the Jews to get out of Judea and flees to the mountains (Matthew 24:16-20). The same is described in the Zechariah 14 prophecy.

5 And you shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal: yes, you shall flee, like as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with you.

Zechariah 14:5 AKJV

Even the detail of fleeing from an earthquake to the valley of the mountains is the same advice. The Dead Sea Rift Valley is to the east of Jerusalem and is approximately 13 miles (21 kilometers) uphill, and difficult walking over that terrain and in heat of the day. Preparations to flee would be needed.

6 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark:
7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light.

Zechariah 14:6-7 AKJV

The question of whether a solar eclipse occurred during Jesus’ crucifixion has been debated among scholars and astronomers. The biblical accounts of the event (Luke 23:44-45, Matthew 27:45, and Mark 15:33) describe a sudden and prolonged darkness over the land, lasting from noon to 3 pm. Some translations, including the New American Bible, attribute this darkness to “an eclipse of the sun.”

45 Now from the sixth hour [3 pm] there was darkness over all the land to the ninth hour [6 pm].
46 And about the ninth hour [6 pm] Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Matthew 27:45-46 ESV

There is no doubt that there was darkness for 3 hours while Jesus was on the cross but before He died. That is a fact.

Astronomical calculations and historical records suggest that a solar eclipse did not occur on the day Jesus died, if you assume it occurred on April 3, 33 AD, which many do. The moon was in the wrong position to block the sun’s light, and the path of totality for any potential solar eclipse would not have included Jerusalem.

One solution to that is that it did not even occur in 33 AD but in 30 AD making it consistent with the ‘sign of the prophet Jonah’ of 40 years leading up to 70 AD destruction of Jerusalem.

But a 3 hour eclipse is also unknown. The earthquake was definitely a tool in God’s hand so there is no reason to believe that the Creator, who stopped the sun’s motion when Joshua prayed for more time to win a battle (Joshua 10:12-14), could not also create solar-eclipse-like conditions for 3 hours, essentially creating another night period.

This is an important fact. It helps to explain another aspect of the sign of the prophet Jonah.

Critics often say Jesus could not have been 3 days and 3 nights in the grave, like Jonah was 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the beast (Matthew 12:40), because counting from the Friday crucifixion to the Sunday resurrection only includes 2 nights.

But if you include a 3-hour darkness period, and realise that the Jewish method of timing days was from sundown to sundown you now have an extra full day, even though it was short. The period of darkness adds in an extra night of 3 hour duration followed by a short period of day time until sundown.

Continuing in Zechariah 14….

8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9 And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and His name one.

Zechariah 14:8-9 ESV

The living waters are not representative of the Jews cultivating the desert as some suggest, but of the Holy Spirit of God moving out to the whole world, to the eastern sea and to the western sea. Seas are representative of peoples in the scriptures.

This could only happen with Christ’s victory over Satan on the cross. His living words are those living waters. His words were spread by His Apostles and disciples at all times of the year in good times and bad.

Jesus Christ is king of the earth. Once victory was gained on the cross Jesus was crowned King, the King of all kings. The LORD Yahweh is in the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. He is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit. All glory to Jesus Christ!

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Related Reading

1948 State of Israel was NOT a Fulfillment of Prophecy – It was an Ethnic Cleansing Massacre (Nakba)

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