Not written much in a long time, will try and catch up with some writings of what I have been doing.
Next week I’m studying for a theology course I am doing with Bridges for Peace to be a better advocate for Israel and all things biblical.
Please pray for this to go well, its going to be hard work as its likely I will be in class from about 8am till 9pm at night.
I have all visa paper work from now until February 2014 which is a huge blessing. Thanks for your prayers.
Jonathan
After a day of cycling past workman set up decorations and security arrangements for the US President visit, go to work, read in a coffee shop (normally do this from 5pm to 7pm on certain days) then go to a bible study, then head to a bar and have a beer with some friends afterwards, I grab my bike and head back past David HaMelech Street, I see a bat fly in the street in big circle, quite different from a bird.
I then saw it disappear into a small tree, thinking to myself there was no way I can ever spot this creature in the branches, I walk my bike underneath it, I quickly grab my camera and shoot directly up above me, as I am right under the tree, thinking it would probably get spooked by the flash.
Can you see him?
There is plenty of old buildings they can roost in as well as a trees. I have seen them hover around palm trees, not sure if they are attracted to palm dates or insects there.
Lately I have been getting back into reading Isaiah, the book with highest amount of prophetic value in the scriptures. I haven’t been to Egypt but been curious about the past and present in the surrounding middle east nations.
Isaiah 19 : 4 I will hand the Egyptians over
to the power of a cruel master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,”
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
Although Egypt’s previous government run by Mumbarak and folks trashing museums in Cairo seems horrible, things sound like they could be a lot worse with the Muslim Brotherhood running the place. I was talking to some people in my bible study, and they pointed out this passage. Until recently Egypt has a just about ok relationship with Israel, but with this new leadership they could be as dangerous as Syria or Iran.
Isaiah 19 : 16 In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the Lord Almighty raises against them. 17 And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the Lord Almighty is planning against them.
18 In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty. One of them will be called the City of the Sun.[a]
(a) – Isaiah 19:18 Some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Symmachus and Vulgate; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text City of Destruction
Looking at this Hebrew version of this passage on www.bible.cc, it says this also. My regular NIV people says Destruction, with message at the bottom, about it also being ‘City of the sun’.
“Speak the language of Canaan..”, how about this article?
Here is a jar of Marmalade I bought from an Arab shop near my house here in Jerusalem. Its labelled as “Orange Jam” and its made in Egypt, this is a city just outside Cairo.
After I looked in Wikipedia about 6th October City:-
1973 – Egypt launches a coordinated attack with Syria against Israel leading to the Yom Kippur War.
The city was established in 1979 by the 504th presidential decree of president Anwar El Sadat. It is 17 km from the great pyramids of Giza and 32 km from downtown Cairo.[4] The city has a total area of 97.4 thousand feddans (400 km2) and is expected to eventually have 3.7 million inhabitants.[5] It was announced as the capital of the 6th of October Governorate in April 2008. Following the governorate’s dissolution in April 2011, it was reincorporated into the Giza Governorate, to which it had originally belonged.
The city’s name commemorates the commencement of the October War on 6th October 1973 to liberate Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. For this reason, the date was also chosen as Egypt’s Armed Forces Day.
My primitive knowledge of Hebrew tells me that שמש – Shemesh is sun. There is a city outside of Jerusalem called Beit Shemesh.
Just out of curiousity, in case there was another definition, I did some translating. This other word “Chamah” which I don’t recognise, could be sun, or heat, rage, fury or wrath. Now I think I know there is two different English biblical interpretations of this.
Funny, I only went out to get something to spread on some pita bread, interesting what inspires me to see what Isaiah is talking about regarding what will prophetically happen to Egypt one day….
Is revival heading toward Egypt one day, yes, check out this link for 70,000 Egyptian believers in Jesus got together at the end of 2011.
http://www.tyndale.ca/news/egypts-remarkable-prayer-gathering
Some friends of mine from my church back at home run a writing club from a bar in Southsea, Portsmouth.
Rosie’s wine bar in Portsmouth is a well known place often for live music.
When I was back in the UK during Christmas, I wrote a story for this event on a fictional Roman couple on holiday in the Middle East. Its short – the rules state it should be under 5 minutes when I stood up to read.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gVMZYCVj7FTYocYoJ8Mx7uUPdoKVhCD0t8pcbzEzszM/edit
If you would like to write or just listen to locally produced short fiction in a small friendly group, please visit Write Invite here:-
The competitions are done in Portsmouth, but you can also do them online anywhere in the world.
Whilst I was at church on my first weekend back in Israel, after the service I noticed something amazing;
There was an Arab family in the hallway as I was leaving, I had not seen this couple and their daughter who was only about 4 years old or so. I introduced myself to the man but didn’t think he spoke much English. I was just leaving and I noticed the little girl tugging on the sleeve of her friend another girl the same age, who had blonde hair and Jewish.
It took me back to see this, with all these attempts at meetings between nations on peace, when you realise any kind of prejudice in human beings is not preinstalled in us but is sadly picked up around us. For all the problems that exist between Arabs, Jews and Christians, its us needing to be like children as Jesus mentions here:-
Matthew 18
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. 3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
Few days ago, before the first rocket went in Jerusalem, I was walking along King George Street after visiting a friend to see people with banners and posters being waved and beating a drum. These Israelis are anti-war protesters that don’t want a ground invasion of Gaza. Almost everyone here doesn’t want a war. Those called for duty in the army having a willingness to defend their nation though.
However most people don’t want to be a doormat to terrorists so making sure all traces of terrorist infrastructure are gone from Gaza seems the right idea.
I am not sure how these people propose to fix the issues of rockets coming 20, 40 or 75Km away from Gaza into your own communities though.
Maybe they could protest through the streets of Beer Sheva or Ashdod which is Hamas’s favourite target practice at the moment.
Pray for peace. This needs to happen by completely paralyzing Hamas’s infrastructure in Gaza.
The last few days things have been heating up with bigger rockets coming out of Gaza.
Until recently cities in the more south of Israel, like Sderot, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Beer Sheva, were being hit with around 1 million people needing to regularly go into bomb shelters.
Now, longer range missiles hit Tel Aviv yesterday, landed on grass, no damage. This is unusual as the regular GRAD missiles can reach a maximum of 40Km, so these are a different breed of weapon.
Today after I went home from work, an alarm sounded at about 16:45 – Jerusalem just had its first rocket attack in a long time.
After just getting on my shoes, coat and keys, me and my room mate ran downstairs to see most people hovering on the stairs that go into the basement where a large heavy door that has our bomb shelter is.
Having a bomb shelter is a legal requirement for all homes and businesses here.
Not many of my neighbours came in actually. There were Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, one British lady and the rest of our block I think are sabra Israelis. I have not seen on my neighbours together so this brought out a community spirit. The elderly Ethiopian lady in her traditional clothing look noticeably in tears.
Across the road are two houses with Arab families which will having to deal this threat as well. Something the mainstream news never really mentions.
This large room has some of other peoples stuff here, and someone painted some cartoon pictures on the wall, which actually makes the place look worse, like some kind of communist era prison. This is an awful place to be, it feels like a prison and the toilets are grim, and a water tank is empty. Actually I have to bring back some bottles of water which have to keep handy for disaster planning reasons.
I didn’t hear any explosions but there were some (maybe 2 or 3) from the west part of the city which friends told me online.
As today is Shabbat, the holiest day for Jewish people, this is a deliberate effort to frighten and worry people in the most holy city on earth. There is a worry more attacks could happen (Saturday, the remaining part of Shabbat) but we need to keep praying for safety and for a swift end to this war. I know civilians in Gaza are no doubt going to be also stuck in the middle of this with possibly tragic consequences.
I have no desire to leave back to the UK, nor does anyone I know out of the three dozen Christian ministries I know that is here, we will continue to help this nation by prayer and in physical assistance.
There been quite a few Jewish holidays happen in the last few weeks, one of them is new year.
We are now in the year 5773. At my work, the food bank was working hard with not only regular food deliveries but also to provide apples and honey which is popular during Jewish new year to some of Israel’s most disadvantaged families here. I got a jar of honey and some apples which I tend to stick on my cereal in the mornings.
Whilst I was staying the Galilee city of Tiberias which is on the coast of the Kinneret, the famous lake where Jesus did many of his ministry, I tried doing some walking around the edge of the lake. Not that close to the lake mind you, only small part of it has beaches open for public use.
But, this path on the side of the road I thought was public, but led to a dead end:
I came across this, no less than 40 hives on this hill next to the main road, I didn’t get too close there are actual bees here.
The Galilee area is quite famous for its vibrant active agricultural industry here. On the direct opposite part of the lake I see many banana plantations there. Close to here there were many orchards of oranges here too. I am not quite sure what flowers the bees get to pollinate though.
After traveling this part of northern Israel before in the Jezreel Valley, famous for where the end of the world will happen, I got a chance after I finished working for a few days in nearby Karmiel to actually have a proper visit of this historical site.
I came not to speculate at the very place the book of revelation says the last battle will happen, but to make sense of a particular scripture I have read that I have been trying to make sense of:
Zechariah 12:10-12
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as great as the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves: the clan of the house of David and their wives, the clan of the house of Nathan and their wives
Question; this future prophesied repentance and revival is parallel with a place and/or event in history of the “Hadad Rimmon”, I am curious what this is, and why it is after some searching, no one knows what it is.
My primitive knowledge of Hebrew tells me that Rimmon is a pomegranate, but thats all I know. By going to the Megiddo historical centre I thought maybe I could shed light on this.
I had to ask the manager of my youth hostel how to get to Megiddo,which advised getting the bus to Tel Aviv. Megiddo is not mentioned on the bus stop schedules, I had to ask the bus driver to let me off at the right time. Actually I had to get off at a bus stop at the side of the highway and walk for a mile, along this junction to the visitor centre.
By the main road is a large prison. There has been some talk of tearing it down and rebuilding elsewhere as more significant archeological discoveries were found not long ago – possibly the oldest Christian church ever found.
The end of the world welcomes careful drivers….
I had my iPod with me and I was in the mood for some 80s rock, so I had this apt track from Def Leppard’s ‘Armageddon it’ its funny that Armageddon which is derived from Ha Megiddo, has become quite common in language as a modern phrase for any big impending war.
Anyway, once at the outside of the visitor centre I just paid 28 shekels to go in.
I found out that Megiddo became an Israelite city sometime between the 10th and 9th centuries BC and functioned as an administrator centre for the fertile Jezreel Valley, many parts were added later.
These drawings on the walls I think are from Canaanite period. The drawing of a giraffe is quite interesting, didn’t think there was those here in Israel, but then again there were lions in the bible which aren’t there now, there are a small number of wild cats, leopards in Negev but they are very rare. On the right is a picture of the Pope which someone has scratched on graffiti in Hebrew.
From the top of the site you can see all across the Jezreel valley, the plain of Megiddo, a wide open space with a busy main road that goes to Afula. There is two petrol stations and a McDonalds along the fields of Megiddo!!
There were mostly people in one big group here, so I was a bit cheeky and stood close to the historian who was speaking, as I think it costs extra to hire him to guide you.
Like a lot of other ancient parts of Israel like Masada, there is a complex underground system built to provide fresh water. I went down the steps to see the tunnels.
>>> More on Megiddo on the next chapter…..
