Mbostrom2's Blog

It has been said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Please learn from the history of this Hebrew month and pray. This is going to be a very challenging month world-wide.  Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Israel’s enemies acknowledge historical dates and plan attacks on those dates.

Zechariah 8:17,  “Thus says the LORD of hosts: ‘The fast of the fourth [month], The fast of the fifth, The fast of the seventh, And the fast of the tenth, Shall be joy and gladness and cheerful feasts For the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.’

Bob Jones and Paul Keith Davis wrote a great article in the Elijah List June 21, 2007 called The Season of the Basilisk. www.elijahlist.com  This season for 2012 will be July 6 through July 28. The teaching is lengthly but worth reading. Bob Jones had visions of Basilisk in 1996 and 1997, each year it was larger.

We must not forget that prayer changes things, that our God will give us song of deliverance. We must never forget that if God be for us who can be against us. We must never forget that the Covenant making and Covenant keeping God never slumbers or sleeps, He preserves and protects His chosen people and His Promised Land.

BUT HE NEEDS TO HEAR OUR PRAYERS!! Isaiah 62:6, “I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they shall never hold their peace day or night. You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent. (7) And give Him no rest til He establishes and till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”

Here are some historical events connected with this the 17th of Tammuz

• 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
• 2 Kings 21:7, evil King Manasseh of Judah set up an idol in the Holy Sanctuary of the Temple
• 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)
• 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)
•  135 AD, Second Jewish-Roman War. Roman military leader Apostomus burned a Torah scroll prior to Bar Kokba’s revolt
• 1239, Pope Gregory IX ordered the confiscation of all manuscripts of the Talmud
• 1391, More than 4,000 Spanish Jews were killed in Toledo and Jaen, Spain
•  1559, The Jewish Quarter of Prague was burned and looted
• 1944, The entire population of Kovno ghetto was sent to the death camps
• 1970, Libya ordered the confiscation of all Jewish property
• 1981, Israel attacked the Tammuz-1 nuclear reactor at Osiraq in an attempt to scuttle Iraq’s nuclear program
• 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 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
• 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.”)
• 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.

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

• Praise to prepare the way for the King (Judah means praise)
• Praise to over through the works of the enemy (Judah goes first to war)
• Revelation (month of spring, direct light, unveiling of hidden things)
• Things that looked dead to come back to life (Spring and raising of Lazarus)
• Deeper revelation of our redemption (month of Passover)
• Deliverance (when the Hebrew children were delivered from bondage in Egypt)
• Crossing Over into your Promised Land (when Joshua led the Hebrew children through the Joran River)
• Payback of back pay, finances stolen from you (women ‘asked’ the Egyptian neighbors for riches, Ex 3:22; 12:35-36)
• Take new ground, expand your territory as this is the month ‘Kings go to war’ (2 Samuel 11:1, not defensive, but offensive battle against the enemy)
• Family deliverance (Exodus 12) from captivity, from bondage, from sickness and loss of strength, from no hope, from lack, from oppression…….
• Fresh revelation of the Power of the Blood for cleansing, deliverance, redemption, protection, drawing you near to God!!!

Constellation- Aries, The Lamb.

• The erection of  Moses Tabernacle was completed. Moses completed the consecration rites of Aaron  his sons. Aaron performed the first sacrifical rites. Death of Nadab &  Abihu.
• King Hezekiah  commenced the reconstruction of the Temple.
• The plot of  Bigtan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasherus was discovered by  Mordecai.

• King Ferdinand  and Queen Isabella signed a decree expelling Jews from Spain,  1492

• In 1944, the Nazis perpetrated the Children’s Action in the Kovno Ghetto. That day and the next, German soldiers conducted house-to-house searches to round up all children under age 12 (and adults over 55) — and sent them to their deaths at Fort IX. Eventually, the Germans blew up every house with grenades and dynamite, on suspicion that Jews might be in hiding in underground bunkers. They then poured gasoline over much of the former ghetto and incinerated it. Of the 37,000 Jews in Kovno before the Holocaust, less than 10 percent survived. One of the survivors was Rabbi Ephraim Oshri, who later published a stirring collection of rabbinical responsa, detailing his life-and-death decisions during the Holocaust. Also on this date, in 1937, American Jews held a massive anti-Nazi rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

• In 1948, a convoy of 78 Jewish medical personnel, en route to Hadassah Hospital in the Jewish enclave of Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, were killed in an Arab ambush. The ambush cut off the hospital from the rest of Israel and forced Hadassah to relocate, eventually opening a larger medical center in 1961 at Ein Kerem. The Mount Scopus facility would reopen after Jerusalem was reunited in 1967

• In the Hebrew year 2488, Joshua sent scouts to survey Jericho in anticipation of the Jewish conquest. The mission was risky in the sense that 40 years earlier, Moses had sent scouts to Israel, only to have them recommend against entering the land. This time the mission was successful, and in the ensuing siege, Joshua’s troops — amidst shofar blasts — encircled Jericho seven times until its walls came down. The events are recorded in the biblical Book of Joshua, chapters 2 and 6

• On this date in 1915, the Zion Mule Corps, a Jewish militia, was formed. Zev Jabotinsky had proposed that Jewish volunteers fight to liberate Palestine from the Turks, but the British resisted the idea of Jewish soldiers on the Palestinian front. So instead Jabotinsky established the Zion Mule Corps, whose 650 members were commanded by the famed one-armed fighter, Joseph Trumpeldor. It was essentially the first organized Jewish fighting force since Roman times, and a precursor to the Israeli Defense Force (IDF)

• The Jews, led  by Joshua, crossed the Jordan and erected 12 monuments at Gilgal
• Death of  Miraim

• Haman published  decree callng for the extermination of all Jews the Persian Empire. Esther  ordered the 3 day fast for the Jews of Shushan.
• Nazi party  emerged on the anniversary of Haman’s decree to kill all the  Jews

• Joshua lifted  up his eyes and saw the Lord with a sword in His hand. Jericho march (Joshua  5:10-15)
• Cain & Able  offer their sacrifices to God

• Rabbincal teaching belives in the Hebrew year 2018 (1742 BCE), God made a covenant with Abraham, granting him and his descendents the Land of Israel, as recorded in Genesis chapter 15
• Feast of  Unleavened Bread begins
• Birth of  Isaac
• Isaac summoned  Esau and requested that he prepare a tasty meal for him and receive his  blessing
• Moses saw the  burning bush
• The Tenth and final plagues of Egypt: Eqyptian  first-born were slain
• The Hebrew children were protected by the blood of the lamb on their doorposts as the Death Angel passed over (Passover instituted)
• The defenders  of Masada died, 73 AD

• 3 million Jews left in the Exodus from Egypt, in what is known as the “birth” of the Jewish nation.
• Wicked Haman was hanged
• Mordecai was  appointed chief minister to replace Haman

• Adolph Hitler  made his first appearance on the very anniversary of teh same day Pharoah set  out pursuit of the Jewish people

• Jacob left  Laban’s home to return to Israel
• 2448 BC, The Hebrew children crossed  the Red Sea as God opened it for them and covered their enemies.  Moses & the people of Israel sang the Song of Moses as Miriam danced and played her tambourine

• In the Hebrew year 2488, Joshua began a seven-day march around Jericho in anticipation of the Jewish conquest. The Jews circled the walls one time each day, for six days, and then on the seventh day marched around Jericho seven times — until its walls collapsed amidst shofar blasts. The events are recorded in the biblical Book of Joshua 6.

• In 1921, Arab mobs attacked Jewish residents of Jaffa and stormed the Zionist Immigration Center, killing 47 Jews

• In the Hebrew year 2448 (1312 BCE), after crossing the Red Sea, the Jews came to a place called Mara — literally “bitter,” because the water there was bitter. The people complained and Moses miraculously made the waters turn sweet. It was here that God gave the Jews some of the first mitzvot — the laws of Shabbat and some civil laws — in anticipation of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, some six weeks later

• In 1912, the RMS Titanic sank after crashing into an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

• In 1945, U.S. soldiers liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp. Although not technically an extermination camp (prisoners were used as slave labor in local armament factories), mass killings took place at Buchenwald, and many inmates died in the course of gruesome medical experiments. Elie Wiesel, who went on to write stirring accounts of the Holocaust, for which he earned the Nobel Peace Prize, was an inmate at Buchenwald. Toward the end of the war, the Nazis evacuated inmates from Buchenwald to Flossenberg, where they were liberated.

Every Hebrew month has a Tribe, Constellation and Hebrew letter associated with it. These hold keys to our promises for that month and help us to pray in line with God’s timing and to get our lives into time with His specific appointed times.

Shevat  is known as the ‘eleventh month” according to the sacred calendar and is the ‘fifth month’on the civil calendar.

The only mention of Shevat is found in Zachariah 1:7, “On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shebat (Shevat), in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechaih, the son of Iddo the prophet.” This month is mentioned with reference to the angels ‘walking to and fro throughout the earth’ (Vs 11) so this month is associated with our awareness and cooperation with heavenly messengers. The significance of this vision was God’s message that He will again be merciful to Jerusalem. (Vs 14, 16, 17)

The word Shevat is not a Jewish word, but a word coming most likely from Babylon. The word means ‘rod’. Which is a symbol of judgment to God’s enemies. For us, we find the rod and the staff of our Shepherd as a comfort (Ps 23:4). As we walk through these dark last days we find comfort that the Lord, Jehovah Rohi, is protecting us with His rod and staff.

For 37 days Moses gave his last message to Israel. He began the message on the 1^st day of the 11^th month (Shevat) and ended on the 7^th day of the 12^th month of Adar. Deuteronomy 1:3 reads, “And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh month, on the first [day] of the month, [that] Moses spoke unto the children of Israel, according unto all that the Lord had given him in commandment unto them.” Note: “Now it came to pass” means behind the phrase- ‘begins in turmoil and ends in a blessing’. (Genesis 22:1; Ruth 1:1)

The 15^th of Shevat is called Tu B’Shvat, the “New Year of Trees”,which is the Jewish Arbor Day. This is technically the day when trees stop absorbing water from the ground, and instead draw nourishment from their sap. No fruit is eaten from a tree under three years old. Tu B’ Shevat is celebrated by eating some of the varieties of fruit found in Israel (dates, pomegranates, figs, grapes). Food is made from dried fruit and gifts of fruit are often given and received. This is also a celebration for the Tree of life, which symbolizes the Messiah who give true life. The first blooming in Israel is the almond. Nehemiah 10:35 reads, “And me made ordinances to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of all trees, year by year, to the house of the Lord.”

In History, this is the month that 2 Space Shuttles were destroyed in Space, both carrying Israeli astronauts- 1986 & 2003. (see historical dates below)

Every Hebrew month has a Tribe, Constellation and Hebrew letter associated with it. These hold keys to our promises for that month and help us to pray in line with God’s timing and to get our lives into time with His specific appointed times.

Kislev is known as the ‘ninth month” according to the sacred calendar and is the ‘third month’on the civil calendar. Cheshvan and Kislev are either 29 or 30 days in length, and this year Kislev has 30.

Kislev is a Babylonian name means ‘ his confidence, trust, security’. The theme of the month has become to be known as ‘Restful Sleep’ and a ‘Month of Dreams’.

 Cheshvan is the eighth of the twelve months on the Jewish “lunar” sacred calendar and second in the civil calendar. This month has 30 days, sometimes 29.  This year it begins at sundown October 27th to sundown November 26, 2011.

Cheshvan (hesvan) is call the month of bool, a name that stems from the word for “flood”. The flood began on the 17^th of Cheshvan, and ended the following year on the 27^th of Cheshvan. On the following day, the 28^th of Cheshvan, Noah brought his sacrifice to God and God swore never again to bring a flood upon the earth to destroy all mankind, and then revealed the sign of His covenant with the world, the rainbow. For this reason, it is called “MarCheshvan” or ‘bitter Cheshvan’.

I Kings 6:38 calls this month Bul. “And in the eleventh year, in the month Bul, which [is] the eighth month” Bul means ‘increase, produce’ from the root meaning ‘rain, showers’, referring to this being a month of showers.

Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass of 1938, falls on the 15^th of Cheshvan (11/11/11). This commemorates when the Nazis youth gangs roamed through Jewish neighborhoods breaking windows of business and homes and burning synagogues. The began the violence against the Jewish people in Germany. 75,000 businesses were destroyed, 26,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps for defending themselves & property. 91 Jews died and this began the Holocaust.

Letter- nun, (noon) the 14^th letter in the Aleph-Bet and has a numerical value of 50 (representing freedom and fullness of life). The pictograph of this letter is a fish and in ancient symbols it is seen as a fish darting through water. Nun is also seen as a sprout of vegetation. Both of these pictographs denote action and life. The word “please” is made up of the letter aleph & nun, aleph representing an ox and nun representing action. Asking please is an “sign of strength”.

• 3- In the year 1290, the last of the 16,000 Jews expelled by King Edward I left England. King Edward had banned usury and forced Jews over the age of seven to wear an identifying badge.
• 4-In 1483, Tomas de Torquemada was appointed as “Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition.” Jews of Spain had been forced to convert to Christianity, and the Inquisition was designed to uncover those who were continuing to practice their Judaism in secret (called Conversos or Marranos). Those who never confessed were burned at the stake; those who did confess were strangled first. Torquemada believed that as long as the Jews remained in Spain, they might influence the tens of thousands of Jews who had converted to Christianity. It was on his recommendation that the remainder of the Jewish community — 200,000 people — was expelled from Spain in 1492. An estimated 32,000 were burned at the stake, and Torquemada’s name became a byword for cruelty and fanaticism in the service of religion. The order of expulsion was not officially voided by the government of Spain until 1968.
• 5– In 1975, Israel signed the Sinai disengagement pact with Egypt. The agreement called for Israel to withdraw from the Sinai passes captured in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
• 7- “Deliver Dew and Rain” prayers are added for rain in Israel
• 10-On this date in 2105 BC, Noah and family entered the Ark. It wasn’t until seven days later, however, that the intense rains began for 40 days and 40 nights. The delay was to allow a proper mourning period for Methuselah, the righteous grandfather of Noah who had just died at the age of 969 years, history’s oldest human being.
• 11– Jewish Mother’s Day commemorating the death of Rachel, wife of Jacob (Israel). Rachel’s Tomb, located by Bethlehem,  is regarded as Judaism third-holiest site.
• 12– Assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1955), not a national memorial day
• 12- In 1975, the United Nations passed a resolution declaring that “Zionism is racism.” Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Chaim Herzog, noted the irony of the vote coming (on the English calendar) exactly 37 years after Kristallnacht. The UN Secretary General at the time was Kurt Waldheim, later accused of war crimes while serving as a Nazi officer. The “Zionism is racism” canard is easily refuted by Israel’s open and democratic character — with Arabs serving in parliament, as well as Israelis of all skin colors. Upon the airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, William Safire noted: “For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country — not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.” The UN General Assembly voted to repeal the resolution in 1991.
• 13– In 1938, Hank Greenberg of the Detroit Tigers narrowly missed breaking Babe Ruth’s single-season home-run record of 60 home runs. Greenberg hit his 58th homer with two weeks remaining in the season, but several pitchers then intentionally walked him rather than give a Jewish man a chance to break Babe Ruth’s record. (He led the league that year with 119 walks.) Though Greenberg disputes this motive, he did acknowledge being subject to the most vicious ethnic taunting seen in the sport since the days of Jackie Robinson in 1947. Greenberg testified: “During my first year in the big leagues, the remarks from the stands and the opposing bench about my Jewish faith made life for me a living hell.” Greenberg grew up in an observant Jewish household, and did not play on Yom Kippur. In 1954, he became the first Jewish player to be elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown
• 14- In 1917, the British government gave final approval for the Balfour Declaration, calling for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in historic Israel
• 15- Kristallnacht, Night of the Broken Glass 1938. The Nazis destroyed almost all of the 1,600 synagogues  in Germany, as well as thousands of Jewish businesses and homes.
• 17– If no rain has fallen yet in the month, special prayers are prayed this day for rain
• 17– Great flood began 1656 (2105 BC) and Noah and his family were the only survivors
• 17– 960 BC Solomon’s Temple completed, but dedicated the following year in Tishri, the month of Isaac’s birth. This month  is believed to be the future dedication of the Third Temple
• 17– On this date in 1919, a New York Times headline declared “Einstein Theory Triumphs.” In 1952 he turned down an offer to become President of the State of Israel. Einstein has been called one of the most influential figures in history, and Time magazine named him “Person of the Century.” Einstein was Jewish and born in Germany.
• 18- In 1938, Nazi leader Hermann Goering announced that in order to “solve the problem of the Jews,” the African island of Madagascar was being considered as a giant ghetto for 4 million European Jews. The Madagascar Plan was cancelled due to a British blockade. One year later, it was decided that the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” would mean extermination.
• 18– 1990, Assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, Jewish leader, founder of the American Jewish Defense League and former Knesset member, was assassinated in New York by an Egyptian terrorist
• 22- The deportation of Budapest Jews was resumed on this date in 1944. During this time, 20,000 Budapest Jews were shot by the banks of the Danube by Hungarian forces. Another 70,000 Jews were forced on a death march to Austria, of which the majority were either shot or died of starvation and exposure. Raoul Wallenberg was involved in saving some of Hungary’s Jews. Out of 750,000 Jews that lived in Hungary before the war, only 30 percent survived.
• 23- In 164 BC, following the victory of the Maccabees, the Holy Temple in Jerusalem was purified and rededicated. The stones of the Temple’s altar which had been defiled by the Greeks were removed and placed in a storage chamber on the Temple Mount. In Talmudic times, this day was celebrated as a holiday
• 23– 127 BC, according to Talmudic tradition, this was the date the stone of the altar was defiled by the Greeks and removed from the Holy Temple
• 27– 2104 BC, in the Jewish year 1657 the ‘earth dried’ (Genesis 8:14) after the great flood of Noah’s family 365 days on the Ark. On this day, God is said to have commanded Noah to “Come out of the ark” and repopulate, settle and civilize the earth.
• 30- In 1783, American forces recaptured New York City, clearing the way for the return of Jews who had been forced to flee when the British captured New York City in 1776. Jewish leaders were in danger due to their public support of the American Revolution. Perhaps the best-known was Haym Salomon, an immigrant from Poland, who worked as an undercover agent for George Washington. Salomon was arrested in 1778, accused of plotting to destroy British property in New York. Salomon was condemned to death for sabotage, but bribed his guard while awaiting execution, and escaped to Philadelphia. Salomon was an astute merchant and banker, and succeeded in accumulating a huge fortune which he used to finance the Revolution and later to save the new nation from financial collapse. When Salomon died at age 45 of tuberculosis, he was bankrupt and the U.S. government owed him $700,000 in unpaid loans.