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.
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.
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.’ Each one of these Jewish fasts are memorial times, causing them to examine themselves so they would not repeat the sins of the past.
This year the 4th of July, our national Independence Day, coincides with the Hebrew fast day of Tammuz 17. Both have a connection of independence, one for the good, one for the bad. This past week, nine Supreme Court judges signed independence against God and the biblical view of marriage. This happened on the anniversary of the Jerusalem wall being breached by the Nebuchadnezzar’s troops. Four weeks later, Solomon’s Temple was destroyed and the Jews murdered or carried off to Babylon.
July 4, 1776, the leaders of the 13 colonies of America formed the Declaration of Independence with 27 grievances against the injustice of Britain and claimed their independence from King George and Britain. Each of the 56 signers were signing a death warrant as they stood for the freedom of this new nation. On the Hebrew calendar July 4, 1776 was also Tammuz 17. Ecclesiastes 1:9 in the NLT reads, “History merely repeats itself.
Exodus 32 records the sin of the Golden Calf as the new nation of Israel at Mount Sinai tired of waiting for Moses and ‘declared their independence’ from Moses and his God. Aaron formed their new god, a Golden Calf. This date was Tammuz 17.
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 2015 will be July 4th through July 25th. The teaching is lengthy but worth reading. Bob Jones visions of this spirit were 7/23/96 and 7/23/97- the vision of ‘97 was multiplied hundreds of times larger than the previous year.
That three week period of time cause great dread and fear in the hearts of the Jewish people. We understand that faith draws from the spiritual to the natural realm. Faith in the negative brings into reality what you fear or dread. Job 3:25, “For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.” Faith in God and His Word brings what we greatly desire to come to pass.
We must not forget that prayer changes things, that our God will give us songs 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
- 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 (1st 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 kidnapped 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 (now look what the US alliance with Hamas has caused Israel)
Isaiah 62:1, “For Israel’s Sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not hold my peace”