THOSE THAT GOD BLESSES AND THOSE THAT GOD CURSES

On 13 Apr 2024, Iran launched a massive air strike on Israel. It was the first direct attack by Iran on Israel in what was the biggest drone strike against any nation. Israel's air defence system, together with Jordanian and US forces, took out 99% of the drones. Eight Iranian missiles hit Israel's Nevatim Airbase which remained operational. On 18 April Israeli airforce retaliated with a limited strike deep inside Iran.

One month after ordering the attack on Israel, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi perished in a helicopter crash. Just as he brought terror and destruction to rain down on the nation of Israel from the air, death came to him in the horrors of an air crash. Raisi, known as the 'Butcher of Tehran' for his harsh treatment of protestors against the Islamic regime, is yet another casualty of divine predictability that enemies of Israel ignore at their peril.

Genesis 12:3:
And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

This was the covenant of God to the children of Abraham, one that seems to have been sustained through biblical, ancient and modern times.

Pharaoh of Egypt:

According to biblical account, Joseph's siblings sold him into slavery. He ended up in Egypt where he came into prominence due to his ability to interpret the King's dreams of an impending famine. Promoted to an administrative position of power, he helped the king to govern through seven years of famine. The Exodus story took place either in the Middle Kingdom or possibly during the Hyksos period. The Bible does not name the pharaoh at the time. It is believed to be Thutmose III, Amenhotep II or Ramesses II. By the time the new pharaoh came to the throne, the Hebrew tribes had gained substantial political power. To rebalance the power structure, the pharaoh ordered all new born Hebrews to be killed and threw the rest to hard labour. By the time Mosses came into leadership role, God demanded the pharaoh to release the Hebrews from slavery. When the pharaoh went against the wishes of God, the Eqyptians suffered 10 plagues which caused severe hardship and deaths before the pharaoh agreed to release Mosses and his people.

The Assyrian Empire:

After Exodus, Abraham's children had settled into the norther kingdom of Israel and southern kingdom of Judea. The 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin settled in Judea and were known as Jews. The other ten tribes settled in Israel and were known as Israelites.

In time the Israelites lost faith with God and went pagan worshipping. According to Biblical tradition, God used the Assyrians to punish Israel,  In 722 BC the Assyrians defeated the Israelites and took over the region of Samaria. The Assyrians displaced the Israelites into various locations of their empire and the ten tribes of Israel were lost to history. The Assyrians populated the Samaria region with other races of territories they  conquered. These newcomers intermarried with those Israelites who had remained behind. The new inhabitants became known as Samaritans. Some of the Israelites repented and moved south to Judea and were assimilated as Jews.

But Assyrian ambitions went beyond God's intention of punishing Israel. They assumed their conquest was due to their own capabilities. not God's design. In 701 BC, Assyrian King Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem but was unable to defeat King Hezekiah who had the counsel of prophet Isaiah. The story (2 Kings 19.35) tells of how God struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers during the night. Unable to continue his attack on Jerusalem, Sennacherib returned to Nineveh where he was later assassinated by his own sons. The Assyrian empire ended in 612 BC when they fell to the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II, as prophesied by Isaiah and Jeremiah..

Note: After I had completed writing thus far, I went to bed. Early next morning, as if by providence, I read a breaking news story of researchers finding what they believed to be the campsite of King Sennacherib's army.

"Proof of Bible story about angels killing 185,000 soldiers in a night is uncovered after 2,700 years" ...Daily Mail UK

The Babylonians:

After Israel was no more, Judea soon fall out of grace with God as moral decay and pagan practice returned. There was much social injustice. It was a time when great prophets Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah tried to persuade Jews back to the righteous path. Jeremiah prophesied the fall of Judea and captivity in Babylon as God's punishment. Biblical tradition is God raised Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II up and used him as a means to punish Judea. In the Bible, God refers to Nebuchadnezzar as "My Servant". Nebuchadnezzar's reign was the golden age of Babylon. Initially he made Judea a vassal state in 598 BC, but after a rebellion, Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem in 587 BC. He razed Solomon's Temple to the ground, carted off temple treasures, and took thousands of Jews into slavery. That was the First Temple destruction. Daniel was one of those taken away to Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar was a wise king who allowed the people whom he defeated to retain their culture and religion and he made use of their intelligentsia in his administration. Daniel gained the king's favours when he was able to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's famous dream of a statute with head of gold, breasts and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of iron mixed with clay. For that, the king praised Daniel's God Yahweh. Over time. Nebuchadnezzar fell away from and showed disrespect to the Hebrew God. The Bible account had it that God caused the king to go crazy and eat like a wild animal. He was made to suffer like a stray animal for 7 years as punishment. History actually records that Nebuchadnezzar II disappeared for a few years towards the end of his reign. After he repented, God restored him and he reigned till his death at 562 BC.

Four kings that came later were not capable, despotic, and had short reigns. In Bible account, the last king, Belshazzar, held a grand banquet for his nobles. For the occasion he did the unthinkable of arrogance and desecration of holy artifacts by having everyone drink from the golden and silver goblets Nebuchadnezzar had looted from Solomon's Temple. The fingers of a hand suddenly appeared and wrote these words on the wall :

MENE, MENE, TEKEL, PARSIN

None could interpret the meaning and finally Daniel was called for. Daniel explained the king had not learnt from the punishment Nebuchadnezzar suffered living as a wild animal for his arrogance towards Yahweh. The words meant 'number, number, weigh, Medes and Persia'. Daniel explained the inscription meant God had numbered the days of his reign, he had been weighed and found wanting, the empire will be taken over by Medes and Persia. That night, Belshazzar was assassinated and Cyrus The Great entered Babylon without resistance.

Cyrus The Great, the Medio-Persian king, added Babylonia to his Persian Empire in 539 BC as prophesied by Isaiah. The biblical account, Nabonidus Chronicle (cuneiform writings on clay tablet discovered in 1879), Cyrus Cylinder (cuneiform writings on clay artifact discovered in 1879) and Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophon, all 5 accounts are not corroborations. Modern historians discount the Greek versions. The cuneiform records have the last Babylonian king as Nabonidus, the Bible say it was Belshazzar. The cuneiform records have the Babylonian top god Marduk as the one that allowed Cyrus to take over, the Bible says it was Yahweh.

Nabonidus was indeed the last king. He had his interest elsewhere, in archaeology and construction of older architecture. He was in fact known as the First Archaeologist. He was a religious reformer who tried to install the sun god Sin to replace the Babylonian matron god Marduk. This background perhaps explains a few key points. Narbonidus' favour of the god Sin probably put him in conflict with the Marduk priesthood, thus palace conspiracy led to an easy victory for Cyrus The Great in the capture of Babylon without a fight. Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus who acted as Regent as his father was absent on the throne for long periods of time. Belshazzar was practically the king, that being so, the Bible's account is once again proven correct.

Cyrus The Great released the Jews from captivity. For that, he has special place of honour amongst Israelis of today.

Haman, the First Anti-Semite (Book of Esther):

During the neo-Persian empire in the court of King Ahasuerus, there was a prime minister called Haman the Agagite. Haman had grown so powerful that by decree all court officials had to bow to him. A Jew by the name of Mordecai, was advisor to the Queen Esther. Mordecai refused to bow before Haman which drew the wrath of the minister. He plotted to have Mordecai and all Jews in the empire killed. Haman managed to convince the King. Haman then cast a date and constructed a very high gallow to carry out the execution. Mordecai sought the help of Esther. The Queen, who had concealed her Jewish lineage, pleaded with the King who determined Haman's wickedness and had him hanged on the very gallows he had constructed.

The historicity of the characters are in doubt. Ahaseurus was thought to be King Xerxes I, but his wife was Queen Amertris. Haman is supposed to be descendants of Agag, king of Amalekites, ancient enemies of Israelites. The Hebrew Book of Esther has no mention of God throughout. The Greek version has additional verses which mentions God. The canonicity of the book is controversial. It is generally acknowledged the Book of Esther is just a story. Nevertheless the Book of Esther is canonised with protestants dismissing the Greek additions.

The Book of Esther is basically held to show God working out of view. The Jews practice to this day the Festival of Purim (the day of the proposed execution) when the Book of Esther is read.

The Seleucid Empire:

After the death of Alexander The Great, his empire was split into 4 parts under each of his generals. Seleucus Nicanor took the Mesopotamia region which includes the present day Palestine area.

Antiochios IV Epephanes ruled from 175-164 BC. He instituted the Helenisation of Judea and Samaria by wiping out Jewish cultural and religious practices. He stopped the practice of Jewish sacrifices at the Second Temple and installed the Greek god Zeus. This was the time of 'Abomination of Desolation' of the temple prophesied by Daniel. It triggered the Maccabean Revolt by the Maccabees who took control of Judea and ruled as the Hasmonean Dynasty from 167 BC to 34 BC. In trying to wipe out Jewish culture, Antiochios lost Judea to the Jews.

The Roman Empire:

There existed tensions between Romans and Jews which broke out into the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE). Rome sought to destroy Jewish identity by renaming the province from Judea to Syrian Palestina. In 70 AD Rome totally destroyed the Second Temple, leaving only the Western Wall standing. A temple dedicated to Zeus was constructed on the site of the temple. With the temple gone, Jewish sacrificial rites ceased. To this day Jews changed their religious practice to what is called Rabbinical Judaism.

After the death of Christ, Rome persecuted both Jews in Judea and Christians in the Roman Empire, especially under Emperor Nero. But what happened was the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. This culminated in the legalisation of Christianity with the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 312 AD.

The Christianisation of the Roman Empire is an incredible story of missionary activities by key figures like Paul and Peter, the presence of an existing Jewish community, the dedication of early converts, and the resilience of believers amidst persecution. There were no social media and internet. People met in secret in house churches under extreme threat of severe punishment, even death. If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is human resilience is impossible to stop when there is faith and conviction. The way Christianity grew in the Roman Empire is exactly what is taking place in Iran, China and Islamic countries in Africa and elsewhere. 

Nazi Germany:

Much has already been written on Hitler's Final Solution to the Jewish Question and the consequential holocaust where 6 million Jews were gassed in the concentration camps. Hitler tried to wipe out the Jews in Europe but ended up destroying the German Republic and indirectly helped create the condition that led to the Balfour Declaration and the return of the Jews to Palestine and creation of State of Israel in 1948.

Idi Amin of Uganda:

Idi Amin was a ruthless President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979. Initially he was pro-British and pro-West and pro-Israel but eventually switched allegiance to militant Islamist states,USSR and East Germany. In 1976, Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked an Air France plane at Athens airport. It was commandeered to Libya and then Uganda where Idi Amin personally welcomed the terrorists. The group enjoyed support from Idi Amin who placed more than 140 soldiers to guard the plane and hostages at Entebbe Airport.

Most of the non-Israeli passengers were released. The airline crew and Israeli passengers were kept hostage. Amin was uncooperative and attempts at diplomacy and negotiation via Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Palestinian Liberation Organisation failed. Amin refused to cooperate with an Israeli Mossad official he was on personal terms with. With time running out, Israel carried out a daring commando raid with Kenya opening airspace for them. In the rescue operation Israeli force commander Lt Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, the elder brother of Prime Minister Benjamin was fatally shot by Amin's soldiers. 102 hostages were rescued. 2 had been killed earlier. In retaliation, Ugandan authorities murdered Israeli hostage Dora Bloch who was at a hospital at the time of rescue. Amin went on a rampage against Kenyans in Uganda, killing 240 of them and causing thousands to flee Uganda.

In 1978 Idi Amin tried to annex a region of Tanzania. The Tanzanian army launched an offensive in 1979 and captured Kampala, forcing Amin to flee the country. The Ugandan dictator lived in exile in Saudi Arabia till his death in 2003.  

The Soviet Union:

Stalin held extreme hatred for the Jews. In 1939 when Stalin agreed to work with the Nazi axis, he threw out all Jewish workers in public service and was targetting Soviet nationals with Jewish names. Following WWII, Stalin pursued policies of anti-Semitism, including restrictions on Jewish religious practices and cultural expression. According to Nikita Kruschev, at the time of his death, Stalin was fomenting what was called 'Doctor's Plot'. It was a state-sponsored anti-semitic campaign built on a conspiracy theory that a group of mostly Jewish doctors were planning to assassinate Soviet political leaders. A lot of Jews were rounded up, tortured and jailed, and equally many others lost their jobs. A few weeks after his death, the campaign was discontinued and the government declared there was no evidence against the Jews.

The Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. Out of the ashes came many independent republics and greater freedom for Jewish communities within the former Soviet states.


And now in 2024, we had Iranian President Raisi. Oh when will they ever learn!

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