Mbostrom2's Blog

These next three months of Tammuz, Av & Elul are the most challenging months for Israel. History repeatedly has shown that if anything tragic is going to happen to Israel it will happen in the months of Tammuz & Av. These three summer months heat up both naturally and spiritually. The kingdom of this world is fighting against God’s plans and promises for Israel.

Tammuz is known as the ‘fourth month’ in the Bible according to the Biblical Calendar and is the tenth month on the civil calendar. The number 4 carries the meaning of learning, teaching, testing and trials. It also is the number of material completeness, a world number since on the 4th day material creation finished. It is the number of the great elements (earth, air, fire, water) regions of the earth (north, south, east, west) divisions of day (morning, noon, evening and midnight) seasons (summer, fall, winter, spring). The number 10 signifies the perfection of Divine order, beginning a new series of numbers. It also stands for completeness of order, marking the entire round of anything, whole cycle is complete. Putting those 2 numbers together we see that there will be a completeness of things that have been sown these past months and many people will be reaping things they do not want to reap. It is a good time to pray for a crop failure on all the negative words and deeds sown and to stand in the gap for our nation like never before.

Tammuz is the name of a Syrian god, but was also worshipped also by the Hebrews women with lamentations, in the fourth month of every year. Their idol worship was an abomination to God! It is a proper noun and means ‘sprout of life’, a Sumerian deity of food and vegetation. The only time the Bible records that name is found in Ezekiel 8:14 when God was showing Ezekiel all the abominations that were going on in the Temple, “So He brought me to the door of the north gate of the LORD’s house; and to my dismay, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz.” Vs 17 tells of how they were smelling the branch. The cedar branch is used in the worship of this Syrian god and instead of the Hebrew women trusting God for life, they had turned to trusting a cedar to give them fertility and life, IN THE HOUSE OF GOD!

Here are some historical events connected with this month (specifically watch the 17th day of Tammuz)

• Tammuz 1, historically it is the date Joseph was born and died. Rabbinical teaching says that if someone fulfills their earthly assignment well they will die on the same date of their birth. This is also said to be the day that Joseph was given the coat of many colors and created major jealousy with his brothers
• Tammuz 17, 1312 BC, Moses descended from Mount Sinai and found the people worshiping the Golden Calf, breaking the 2 tablets containing the Ten Commandments- 3,000 Israelites were killed by Levites that day
• Tammuz 3, 1271 BC, Joshua commanded the sun to ‘stand still at Gibeon’, Joshua 10:12.
• Tammuz 17, 2 Kings 21:7, evil King Manasseh of Judah set up an idol in the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple
• Tammuz 9, 587 BC, 2 Kings 25:3, I Chronicles 27:7, Jeremiah 39:2, 52:6- famine in the land of Israel which resulted in Jerusalem being destroyed a year later and the cease of the daily sacrifices in the Temple
• Tammuz 17, 586 BC, Jerusalem were breached after many months of seige by Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian forces (First Temple was destroyed 3 weeks later on Av 9)
• Tammuz 10, 423 BC, King Zedekiah was captured by Babylonian troops in the plains of Jericho, as recorded in Jeremiah ch. 39. The evil Nebuchadnezzar forced Zedekiah to witness the slaughter of his sons, and then Zedekiah’s eyes were gouged out.
• Tammuz 5, Ezekiel 1:1, Ezekiel began to have prophetic visions of end time events
• Tammuz 17, 70 AD, Titus & Rome breached the walls of Jerusalem. Beginning of the end of the Second Temple, which was destroyed three weeks later on Av 9)
• Tammuz 17, 135 AD, Second Jewish-Roman War. Roman military leader Apostomus burned a Torah scroll prior to Bar Kokba’s revolt
• 325 AD, Constantine started Roman Christianity. The cross Constantine had was for the god of Rome called Tammuz, for which he had a dream of conquest.
• Tammuz 23, 1099,  Crusaders captured Jerusalem to “liberate the Holy Land from the infidels.”  (En route, the Crusaders carried out a campaign of rape and pillage; an estimated 40% of European Jewry was slaughtered in the process.) The day following their conquest of Jerusalem, the Crusaders murdered all the city’s Jews, by herding them into a synagogue and setting it on fire. Jews were barred from Jerusalem for the next century.
• Tammuz 27, 1205 AD, Pope Innocent III published official Church doctrine that saw Jews doomed to eternal damnation for the curcifixion of Jesus. This charge of deicide was the basis for much anti-Semitism.
• Tammuz 17, 1239, Pope Gregory IX ordered the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud
• Tammuz 17, 1391, More than 4,000 Spanish Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain
• Tammuz 17, 1559, The Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted
• Tammuz 29, 1922, the League of Nations confirmed the British Mandate of Palestine, territory taken from the Ottoman Empire following World War I. The Mandate charged Britain with securing the establishment of the Jewish national home, and safeguarding the civil and religious rights of all the inhabitants of Palestine.
• Tammuz 2, 1927, The town of Nablus (biblical Shechem) was convulsed by an earthquake measuring 6.2 on the Richter Scale. Nearly 300 people were killed and 1000 injured, many of Shechem’s historical buildings were destroyed.
• Tammuz 7, 1938, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated a conference at Evian, France, where 32 world leaders discussed the problem of Jewish refugees. Unfortunately, little was accomplished, as nation after nation offered excuses for their refusal to accept Jewish refugees. Chaim Weizmann was quoted as saying: “The world seemed to be divided into two parts — those places where the Jews could not live, and those where they could not enter.” The conference failed to pass even a resolution condemning German treatment of Jews. The lack of action further emboldened Hitler, proving to him that no country had the moral fortitude to oppose the Nazi assault on European Jewry.
• Tammuz 17, 1944, The entire population of Kovno ghetto was sent to the death camps
• Tammuz 5, 1946 (15 months after WWII & Holocause ended), Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, with no other place to go, returned to their hometown of Kielce, Poland and were attacked by the townspeople in a blood pogrom that left 42 Jews dead and 80 wounded. The pogrom began with rumors spread that Jews had kidnapped a Polish child.
• Tammuz 17, 1970, Libya ordered the confiscation of all Jewish property
• Tammuz 6, 1974 (July 4) On July 4, 1976, as America was celebrating its bicentennial, Israeli commandos performed a spectacular raid to rescue 100 Jews held hostage at Entebbe airport in Uganda.
• Tammuz 17, 1981, Israel attacked the Tammuz-1 nuclear reactor at Osiraq in an attempt to scuttle Iraq’s nuclear program
• Tammuz 17, 1994, Shoemaker Levi Comet began to break up, ending with bombarding Jupiter with 16 fragments on Av 9, each with an impact of a nuclear bomb
• Tammuz 16, 2000, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut was nominated as Al Gore’s running mate in the presidential election, becoming the first Jew nominated for this post by a major party.
•  Tammuz 24, 2002, one week following the 17th of Tammuz fast, water started to come out of the Western Wall. One of the stones, 15 meters up the wall, has suddenly become dripping wet with no earthly explanation
• Tammuz 17, 2006, Lebanon and Israel went to war after Hezbollah kidnaped 2 Israeli soldiers. (Chuck Pierce prophesied January 29, 2006, “watch Lebanon. I will bring conflict into Lebanon, because it is the boundary that I will deal with this year concerning My promised land of Israel. The warlike tribes of Lebanon will once again arise. But in the end, I will win this war, and the riches that have been withheld from My Kingdom plan will be released.”)
• Tammuz 1, 2009, Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem on the eve of Tammuz. Rabbis called for fasting and prayer, that the abominations could cause God to ‘vomit out’ the Jewish inhabitants of the Promised Land.
• Tammuz 8, 2010, US, Israel Warships in Suez May Be Prelude to Faceoff with Iran
• Tammuz 17, 2010,  GAZA STRIP – The U.S. has asked Hamas not to talk about contacts with Obama administration officials, a source close to Gaza-based Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh told London’s Arabic-language al-Quds al-Arabi, according to a report in YNet news. The Washington paper said the U.S. administration has decided it must work with Hamas because of its status in the Arab and Islamic world

The 3 week period between Tammuz 17 and Av 9 (Tisha B’Av) are called ‘bein haMetzarim’, aka Between the Straits, Dire Straits. Lamentations 1:3, “Judah has gone into captivity, under affliction and hard servitude; she dwells among the nations, she finds no rest; all her persecutors overtake her in dire straits.” Fear is strong during these 21 days because of the historical events connected with these two dates.

Both Tammuz 17 and Av 9 are fasting days listed in Zechariah 8:19. Feast Days were appointed by God, but these Fast Days are appointed by man. These fasts centered on themselves, not sorrow for sin, but sorrow for thier loss.

TRIBE- Reuben, the first son of Jacob and Leah. As the first born, he should have recieved a double portion of inheritance, leadership and priesthood of the family after Jacob’s passing. Because of his sin of sleeping with Rachel’s handmaiden, he lost all 3 firstborn privileges. The rulership went to Judah, the priesthood went to Levi and the double portion went to Joseph. He was a lover, unpredictable, many bi-polar tendencies, will not fight even to defend his family, stubborn, headstrong.

The prophetic word given to Reuben at Jacob’s passing is found in Genesis 49:3, “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity and the excellency of power. (4) Unstable as water, you shall not excel, because you went up to your father’s bed; then you defiled it– he went up to my couch.”

This shows us the instability facing this coming month, but the redemptive gift to Rueben is “the excellency of”. To those who overcome the weak areas of Reuben, their work will be rewarded for excellency. Remember, Genesis 49:1 said those prophetic words were for the LAST DAYS. We can learn about how to overcome now by those prophetic words and aligning ourselves correctly.

CONSTELLATION/MAZAL- CANCER, “The Crab”- In the summer months,  when the weather is hot, the crabs multiply in the water. Crabs pinch and hurt and this month was basically a time in which the Jewish people were hurt.

The Hebrew name is Sartan. This is composed of two words, sar & tan, which literally reads, “remove the body’ (in order to reveal the soul). This month the pressures of life cause us to reveal what is really inside of us. Interesting how this name is so close to the name of satan.

LETTER- CHET– (ryhymes with ‘mate’ and has a sound of ‘ch’ as in Bach) is the 8th letter in the Hebrew Aleph Bet and has the numerical value of 8. Chet is the pictograph of a wall, a fence or inner chamber and means to separate, to cut off from, to protect.  number of ‘spiritual perfection’.

Grace/favor is a Chet word in Hebrew spelled Chet Nun (action, life). The word picture created is to fence or protect life, like a fence surrounds a garden. (Genesis 6:8)

Refuge is also a Chet word, spelled Chet (fence), Samech (support), Hey (feminine ending, what comes from). The word picture says that refuge is a fence of support. (Psalm 7:1-2)

Life (chayim) and Living (chayah) are both Chet words.

Let’s speak life, grace, favor and life to this coming Hebrew month.

Isaiah 62:1, “For Israel’s Sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not hold my peace”