During a weeklong excavation project near Beit Shemesh (19 miles west of Jerusalem), 240 Israeli students from Jerusalem’s Boyer High School uncovered the remains of an ancient Jewish community dating back to Israel’s Second Temple period.
The archaeological dig was launched prior to the construction of a new residential neighborhood in the area and, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) district archaeologist for Judah, Dr. Amit Shadman, “the excavations will be followed by the site’s preservation and development as an archaeological site in the heart of the new neighborhood.”
Discoveries at the site included “eight ritual baths, cisterns and hiding refuges, along with rock-hewn industrial installations,” the IAA said.
The IAA directors leading the excavation added, “The settlement’s extraordinary significance lies in its imposing array of private ritual baths, which were incorporated in the residential buildings. Each household had its own ritual bath and a cistern….Underneath the dwellings and rock-hewn installations, another surprising discovery was unearthed, dating to the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (2nd century CE) — a winding labyrinth of hiding refuges connected to sophisticated and elaborate complexes.”
The Israeli students’ excavation work served as a means of supplementing the expenses of an upcoming student delegation to Poland. Funding from Israel’s Ministry of Construction and Housing supported the initiative, which was directed by the IAA and also involved pre-army course cadets.
Israeli Defence Force soldiers can be seen staring in amazement and taking photographs of the huge duststorm cloud
On November 27 two ISIS fighters were killed during an attack on Golan Heights
Four days later a cloak of dust and rain suddenly appeared on the frontier
Israeli forces have occupied the Golan Heights, in Syria, since 1967
A huge cloud of dust and rain blew up along the border between Israel and ISIS last week, sparking online claims that it was a biblical storm.
Four days after ISIS fighters attacked an Israeli patrol in the Golan Heights, a plateau in Syria which the Jewish state has occupied since 1967, the bizarre meteorological phenomenon suddenly appeared.
Eyewitnesses said the storm seemed to stop at the boundary and be unable to enter the Golan Heights, which tower above the rest of Syria.
The cloud seemed to almost hover over the fence which the Israelis have constructed in occupied Syria, along the 1967 ceasefire line
They wrote: 'A weather phenomenon occurred at 8am Thursday on the other side of the Syrian border, in the same place where ISIS attacked Israel.
This strange storm of what appears to be dust, cloud and rain did NOT cross the border fence into Israel. It sat like a barrier between ISIS and Israel.'
Underneath Deborah Van Dam posted: 'Absolutely the divine intervention of God protecting Israel. Amen!'
Anna Rider Pollutro added: 'That is God. Israel is the Apple of His eye. Those who hate Israel God hates, those who love Israel God loves. He will defend Israel at all times. Nothing can tear her down. When God is for you nothing can stand against you.'
But the biblical bubble was burst by Matt Hingley who wrote: 'Actually, sorry to be boring, but it's simply a weather phenomenon.'
Obed Adore added: 'These dust clouds are normal and common phenomenona across the deserts of the Middle East and Africa.'
He went on to point out that in April 1980, six months before a presidential election, eight US servicemen were killed when a dust storm in the Iranian desert ruined the attempted rescue of 52 US Embassy staff during Operation Eagle Claw.
And another cynic, Adam Labaton, pointed out that large areas of northern Israel were recently devastated by forest fores: 'Has everyone already forgotten the fires? Seriously, last week half the country burnt down....no protection there.'
Eric Crane went even further: 'It's a long shelf cloud. Nothing more. Saw it more times than I can count while living in Kansas. Why some of you idiots stretch things for more than they are is the unbelievable. It's either race, gender, politics, religion, and now you can add weather to the list.
As the civil war in Syria has raged in the last five years Israelis have worried about a possible threat from ISIS but recently military setbacks have made it less likely, although the November 27 incident shows that some maverick rebels still see Israel as their main target.
What if we told you that there was a mystery right in front of us? A mystery that is not just imaginary but real, a mystery that when solved could have implications to the entire world. Would you be interested to read such a story? More than that, would you be interested to join in with such a story?
What we are about to embark upon could be every bit as exciting as a Sherlock Holmes mystery novel. Everyone loves a good mystery novel! We get caught up in the writer’s story, identifying with the characters as they seek to solve the mystery in front of them. But when the book ends, the adventure also ends. A book can be a needed escape, perhaps, but then we must go back to real life.
But we would like to offer you something different. To become detectives with us – in real life, in a mystery of epic proportions.
Which mystery? Not the mystery of when the Messiah will appear! Yes, that is the most important mystery of all, but let us agree that such a mystery can be left to many others, and has defeated many a detective over the years.
No, the mystery we propose to work on together is the Mystery of the Lost Jubilee. We propose that we work together in a series of articles and to communicate with each other in the comment fields below, in order to try to solve it.
This mystery novel, we would suggest, is a novel itself being written by God and all Bible-believing people are characters in the novel, and all are invited to be detectives if they choose to be. We—Bob, an evangelical Christian from America and Gidon, an Orthodox Jew from Israel—are co-authoring this series together. This mystery is most certainly a shared mystery, of great interest to Jews and Christians alike. Gidon Ariel, recently wrote an article on the subject, asking the question of whether the release of Jonathan Pollard on November 20th was a sign and signal that we are currently in a Jubilee year.
To “find the lost Jubilee” is to definitively find any Jubilee, and then to definitively find a second Jubilee, and then with that pattern established, solving the mystery means finding all Jubilees to come. If we are in a Jubilee year right now, and we were all to agree upon it, then we may have just solved the mystery. But, we are a long way from understanding the possibilities, or agreeing with the evidence, evidence which we have not even begun to present just yet, but which we will present as these articles go forward—physical, historical and biblical evidence.
If things go well, we might be able to solve the Mystery of the Lost Jubilee as early as Spring 2016, and if not perhaps by Summer or Fall of 2016, but—and here is the best part—we have a lot of confidence that, with God’s help, together we should all be able to propose a definitive solution to the Mystery of the Lost Jubilee no later than by the end of 2017.
Suppose we find it. So what? What does finding the Lost Jubilee imply for our world? We begin by establishing a few simple facts that those who have studied the Jubilee will already know.
What is the Jubilee?
The Jubilee is a special year that was instituted by God thousands of years ago when it was announced to the children of Israel in the Sinai desert just after their Exodus from Egypt. It is instituted in scripture in Leviticus 25:8-10:
“8 You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. 9 You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through you land. 10 You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family.” NAS with emphasis added.
The English word “jubilee” in verse 10 in Hebrew is pronounced “yovel” and literally means “a ram’s horn.” The ram’s horn and horn mentioned in verse 8 is pronounced “shofar,” which is itself ram’s horn.
Why is the Jubilee important?
The Jubilee is a year of freedom and restoration. But beyond that, since it is a year that is consecrated to the Lord, the time of Jubilee hints at heavenly participation in earthly freedom and restoration.
Why should Jews and Christians care?
Jews in Israel may have restored during a Jubilee something critically important to their national identity, namely physical land. Christians are grafted into the seed of Abraham and Israel, so the Jubilee can bring, at the very least, spiritual blessings to Christians even as it brings, at the very least, physical blessings to the Jews.
When does Jubilee occur?
God explains that it is to be the 50th year, occurring after seven 7-year long cycles. There is great controversy about whether this fiftieth Jubilee repeats every 49 years or 50 years. We will study this later, but if our overall objective of together finding the Lost Jubilee is met, we should be able to answer this question once-and-for-all.
Is any specific year designated as the Jubilee Year by the Jews?
No, not officially, although interest to identify this year has been growing among Jews recently. There are many obstacles to an official recognition of the Jubilee in Israel today, the first of which is that lack of recognized boundaries for what land belonged to which of the twelve tribes. We will cover this more detail in future articles in this series.
Was Jubilee observed in ancient Israel?
Not that we know of. We do not possess any definitive evidence of such observance.
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Is Jubilee recognized by Christians?
Not in general, except by the Catholic Church, which is coincidentally declaring a Jubilee year to begin on December 8th, 2015! We will discuss that in part III of this series.
How will we solve this mystery?
By praying, watching, and sharing our insights together. We will pray for God’s will to be done regarding the Jubilee; we will watch to see what happens on the earth; and we will share with each other our thoughts in the comments section following each article in this series. If God decides, he can make it very obvious to all of us that a Jubilee year has occurred. We will see it with our own eyes, and hear it with our own ears. It should be that obvious.
And what if nothing happens?
If we reach December 2017 and nothing substantial has happened, then we may simply have to declare the mystery still unsolved. Our promise to you is that we won’t try to force future events to fit into our preconceived notions. Detectives follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if it means they have to go back to the beginning and start over.
This is where real life differs from a novel. If we read a good mystery novel, we are guaranteed to reach a meaningful conclusion by the end of the book. In our case, God has no obligation to grant us the right to solve a mystery in any certain time period.
We have no guarantees! But the rewards are real, not imaginary. And the Bible says in Proverbs 25:2 that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search it out.
We therefore to humbly invite you to join us in treasure hunt! Would you like to put your detective skills at work, and jump into this story with us? Shall we try to search it out together, as Jews and Christians who share a common interest in the outcome?
As the authors, we will gather together for you, in a series of articles, all the main facts and clues that have been written about the Jubilee, especially those hints that appear in the Bible. We will also review the facts and clues you provide as well on the comment pages! Together we will attempt to solve this mystery, by finding a treasure not hidden in the ground, but hidden in time, the Mystery of the Lost Jubilee.
Next Time…
In the next article we will travel to Jerusalem to see why so many people are wondering if we might be entering a Jubilee year, either right now, or at least very soon.
Everyone wants a miracle. People from all walks of life, literally, want a miracle.
Some suffer physically, others in relationships. In today’s economy, just getting through each day financially is often a catastrophic undertaking.
Some people pray for miracles, others simply hope.
From time to time, a legitimate miracle is available for all to see.
I would like to highlight a gigantic miracle that few know anything about.
Israel.
n order to fully see this miracle in all its splendor, one must have some basic understanding of the Bible. Specifically, the Hebrew Scriptures, or what Christians call the Old Testament. There, one finds a remarkable narrative that weaves its way from Genesis to Malachi.
In this narrative, God reveals the entire sweep of Jewish history. Born in Genesis, the Jewish national identity was forged at Mt.Sinai. Over millennia, they became the world’s most famous ancient kingdom, the “myth critics” notwithstanding
Early on, God says that the day would come when Israel would be exiled from the land He gave their forefathers. But “after many days,” He would remember them and return them to that land.
The fact that the Jews have returned by the millions, in our time, is not disputable. Yet most miss this astonishing miracle, this fulfillment of Bible prophecy, largely for two reasons: A) They do not read the Bible and therefore do not know and B) Some read the words and refuse to see it.
Neither fact removes the miracle.
I have found over the years that when talking to church audiences, few have a real understanding of the profound implications of Israel’s existence. For various reasons, many people miss the special nature of the Jewish people.
About a year ago, my friend Gary Frazier had an idea for a book, a primer of sorts about Israel. He kindly asked me to be part of the project and lo and behold, it just released, published by New Leaf Publishing Group.
We wanted to provide a basic chronology, a timeline of biblical history/Jewish history, and then to help people understand the implications. I’m certain we accomplished the first part; it is up to readers to decide if we managed the second part.
Honestly, for years people have asked me for a basic resource to understand Bible prophecy. I do believe The Miracle of Israel is at least a significant contribution to this field. Broken into three parts — Past, Present, and Future — the book features chapters like: Beginnings and Father Abraham; Jesus Years; God’s Endgame.
We also provide sidebars, like “Fascinating Facts” and “Amazing Prophecies.”
As the Bible predicted for the last days, the deserts of the Holy Land have bloomed like a garden.
Aside from basic history and geography, we cite numerous examples of miracles in the ancient and present life of national Israel, such as:
“The Israelis were literally being overrun in the Golan Heights in the first hours of the Yom Kippur War by the Syrian army who had crossed the eastern border into Israel with 1,400 tanks and men. Israel had been caught off guard. The Israelis deployed their forces of only 200 tanks, only to be largely decimated by the onslaught of the Syrian forces. Avi Dor Kahalani, a veteran of the Six Day War of ’67, whose story became a best-selling book entitled Fury 77, was the tank company commander. Kahalani was on his radio screaming for reinforcements. He was being told reinforcements were on their way, but they must hold out until they arrived because if the Syrians broke out into the valley there would be no stopping them in their march to Tel Aviv. Kahalani kept radioing as the situation became more dire by the moment, and continued to be told help was on the way. The fact was, help was not coming; there was none to send.”
The dramatic conclusion to that story, which occurred during Israel’s miraculous victory in 1973, is just one of many in The Miracle of Israel.
The underlying point we aim for in the book is to show people that if God keeps His promises to the Jews — and He has, very clearly — then He will keep His promises to you as an individual. If He says that you can find peace, or that He will never leave you…well, you can count on that. You can stake your life on it.
If you need a miracle, make yourself aware of the biggest modern miracle in our world.
With the rise of Islamic terrorists threatening Jews and Christians, western civilization and the rest of the world, there are many inspiring lessons that can and should be learned from Israel’s rescue operation in Entebbe to help in our fight against a new generation of the same terrorists.
If you’ve never heard of Entebbe you’ve probably never heard of what makes Entebbe famous, or why that matters.
This July 4, as the US celebrates its 240th anniversary of independence, Israel and those who support her will celebrate the historic milestone and miracles connected to the rescue of hostages and heroic counter terrorism operation at Uganda’s capital, 40 years ago. The celebrated operation was comprised of tremendous bravery and numerous miracles.
On 27 June 1976, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by Arab and German terrorists, and flown to Entebbe, Uganda’s main airport. Uganda’s government provided cover for the hijackers who were welcomed personally by dictator Idi Amin. In the ensuing week, as the United States was gearing up to celebrate its 200th anniversary of independence, Israel was gearing up for a brave, imaginative, and outrageously bold operation to rescue hostages held by the terrorists as yet another battle in a decades long fight to secure its independence.
While Israel had been fighting Arab terrorists for decades, the involvement of German terrorists brought back haunting memories of Jews being rounded up and murdered throughout Europe just 35 years earlier.
As horrific and scary as the situation was, throughout the planning and implementation of the rescue, it was clear how God’s protection of Israel against its enemies continued at every turn. Today, in a world where insidious Islamic terrorism flourishes, this remains a model of the resolve needed to overcome and defeat terrorists.
Initially, the terrorists separated the Israelis and Jews from the larger group of hostages and forced them into another room. The first day, 47 non-Israeli hostages were released. The next day, 101 more non-Israeli hostages were allowed to leave. More than 100 Israeli and Jewish passengers remained as the hijackers threatened to kill them if their demands were not met. This threat led to the planning of the rescue operation.
During the time between the hijacking and the rescue, Israel’s Mossad built an accurate picture of the hostages’ location, the number of hijackers, and the involvement of Ugandan troops from the released hostages. Additionally, because Israelis were involved in many building projects in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, a large Israeli construction company had built the terminal where the hostages were held. This allowed Israel to construct a replica of the building with the assistance of those who had helped build the original, while planning the military operation. Divine intervention continued.
The Israeli government and military considered many options, yet what seemed like the most improbable choice was made. In a modern version of David the child taking on Goliath the giant, an Israeli commando force of some 100 soldiers was trained and briefed, practicing and preparing for any imaginable scenario. One of these was securing a Mercedes that was the same as that of Idi Amin, painting it to look like Amin’s car and, after touchdown, driving that car loaded with Israeli troops straight to the terminal building.
Operation Thunderbolt was led by Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, composed entirely of elite commandos. His unit was given the primary task of attacking the airport terminal and rescuing the hostages. A Paratroopers force was tasked with securing the civilian airfield, clearing and securing the runways, and protecting and fueling the Israeli planes. A group from Israel’s famed Golani unit secured the C-130 Hercules aircraft for the hostages’ evacuation, getting as close as possible to the terminal to board the hostages. Another elite commando unit was tasked with destroying the squadron of MiG fighter planes on the ground to prevent any possible interceptions by the Ugandan Air Force, and holding off potential hostile ground forces.
The operation took place under cover of night and a nearly new moon. In what took most of a week to plan, the operation lasted less time than the length of the movies made to tell the story. 102 hostages were rescued. Five Israeli commandos were wounded and one was killed. Three hostages, all the hijackers, and 45 Ugandan soldiers were killed. Most of Uganda’s Soviet-built MiGs were destroyed.
It would have been impossible for Israel to transport a convoy of planes and equipment 2500 miles alone, undetected, without God’s protection and the involvement of numerous people He set in place to help carry out the mission. Because of good relations in Kenya with the Jewish owner of the Block Hotel chain, and with other members of the Jewish and Israeli community in Nairobi, they used their influence to persuade Kenya’s President Jomo Kenyatta to help. Israel received Kenyatta’s permission for the IDF task force to cross Kenyan airspace and refuel at Nairobi’s International Airport. After the operation when it became public, it also became clear that Kenya’s President, a Christian, understood God’s imperative to bless Israel. His support provided cover and allowed the essential refueling of the Israeli planes. This was another way of God showing His Hand and merciful protection. Yet, in the aftermath of the operation, Idi Amin retaliated and slaughtered several hundred Kenyans in Uganda.
Lt. Col. Netanyahu, the older brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was the only Israeli military casualty of the entire operation. Operation Thunderbolt was renamed Operation Yonatan in memory of the unit’s leader, Yonatan Netanyahu.
I remember Operation Yonatan as if it were yesterday. The heroism and success was celebrated globally. It represented a combination of human bravery, imagination, the will to fight and overcome terrorists, and many instances of God’s protection. There are numerous examples of this all, and I welcome you writing to me and I’ll be glad to share other sources with you.
Indeed, with the rise of Islamic terrorists threatening Jews and Christians, and western civilization and the rest of the world, there are many inspiring lessons that can and should be learned from this to help in our fight against a new generation of the same terrorists.
During the time between the hijacking and the rescue, Israel’s Mossad built an accurate picture of the hostages’ location, the number of hijackers, and the involvement of Ugandan troops from the released hostages. Additionally, because Israelis were involved in many building projects in Africa during the 1960s and 1970s, a large Israeli construction company had built the terminal where the hostages were held. This allowed Israel to construct a replica of the building with the assistance of those who had helped build the original, while planning the military operation. Divine intervention continued.
