The Watchmen's Page - Dec 1975
by Joseph Hunting
"I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem... "
"WHEN MY PEOPLE OF ISRAEL DWELL SAFELY"
There are few passages of Scripture more pregnant with meaning at the present time than Ezekiel's prophecy of an invasion of Israel described in chapters 38 and 39. This prophecy could well be one step nearer its fulfilment when viewed in the light of the recent Israel – Egypt peace agreement.
Two very important statements are made by the prophet. Firstly, he foretells that the invasion of Israel by the great confederacy of nations is from "the north parts" . ( Heb. "uttermost north" 38:15).
The magnitude of this invading army is too terrible to contemplate. Nothing on the same scale has ever been attempted by Israel's enemies in 4,000 years! And this includes the awful assault upon European Jewry by Hitler's Nazis. But, in spite of the gargantuan dimensions of the invading forces Israel survives because of Divine intervention. Details of Israel's deliverance are described by Ezekiel in chapters 38 and 39.
Secondly, and what is possibly more important for this generation of Israelis, is the timing of the invasion. Ezekiel sets this as occurring in "the latter years" of Israel's history (38:8). He then makes this astonishing statement: "THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD, IN THE DAY WHEN MY PEOPLE OF ISRAEL DWELL SAFELY, SHALT THOU NOT KNOW IT?" (Ezekiel 38:14)
From the moment the State of Israel was born in May 1948 Israel has existed in a state of war with her Arab neighbours. Those twenty-seven years of statehood have been punctuated with four wars and thousands of acts violence perpetrated almost daily by terrorists against Israel's border settlements, and even in major cities.
The road to the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt has been a long and bloody one, yet the importance of this peace agreement cannot be over-emphasized. For the first time in a span of over two thousand years Israel is in a position to make a peace agreement, thus enabling "my people of Israel to dwell safely" particularly at a time when "the land is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people … brought forth out of the nations". (Ezekiel 38:8) This could well be the prelude to the greatest bloodbath in the Middle East that the world has witnessed, coupled with the miracle of Israel's deliverance.
