Saddam Hussein really wanted to be the new Nebuchadnezzar, the foreign conqueror who took it to the Jews. Saddam is now with the old Nebuchadnezzar, though. Hitler couldn't have taken out all the Jews in Europe, let alone the entire world. Haman, though, could have rubbed out all Jews for all practical purposes, since the Jews were confined within the boundaries of the Persian Empire.
The beginning of Satan's scheme to stop Genesis 3:15 come to fruition would come to its Old Testament climax in the book of Esther, when Haman, number two man in the Persian kingdom, concocted a plan to do in all the Jews. Never before has anyone tried to exterminate all God's chosen people. Not Pharaoh. Not Neb. Not Cyrus. Not Alexander the Great. Not Caesar. Haman, Satan's number one man at the time, went where no man had gone before.
Haman was an Agagite according to Esther 3:1. Agag was king of the Amalekites, a long standing enemy of the Jews, that King Saul was commissioned to destroy back in 1 Samuel 15, but Saul failed to do all God's command. Mordecai, Esther's cousin and guardian, was a descendant of King Saul. So Agag's descendant and Saul's descendant met in the capital city of Susa, where Haman would determine to kill all Mordecai's people scattered throughout the Persian empire.
So the book of Esther is no ordinary story. Considering this unique plot to kill all the Jewish seed, which would mean killing the seed from whom the Seed of woman and the Seed of Abraham would come, we would have to conclude that this earth-shattering event would have been prophesied for sure by some of God's mouthpieces prior to the book of Esther. Had Haman succeeded, there would be no Jesus, no one to squash Satan's own head, and Genesis 3:15 would be proven wrong, so this is not some minor footnote on the pages of human history.
Ezekiel lived many decades prior to Esther. He was a Jewish exile from the 597 B.C. captivity of Jerusalem. In chapters 38 and 39 of his book, God's people were forewarned of a future leader named Gog (Hebrew spelling very similar to Agag; remember Haman was an Agagite) from the land of Magog who would build a "united nations" army to destroy all of the Jews. Such was the case in the book of Esther. Gog is not Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Germany or any other modern nation. The list of nations with Persia heading the list in chapter 38 were nations that were in existence at the time of Ezekiel to Esther.
The type of military weaponry mentioned in chapter 38 does not belong to modern warfare. They belong to the era back then. Our brave soldiers in Afghanistan do not ride on horses with shields and bucklers and bows and arrows. Also we read that the time period when this confederacy of nations would come against all the Jewish people would be a time when the Jews lived in "unwalled villages." While Esther and Mordecai lived in the Persian capital, many Jews had returned to Israel years prior to repopulate the land, under the generous offer from King Cyrus. The temple had been rebuilt, but until Nehemiah came along in the mid 5th century B.C., which was years after Esther, all the Jews lived in unwalled villages with neither gates nor bars. Nehemiah came specifically to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem.
There are over 400 miles of walls around Jerusalem today. So much for Gog and Magog being a prediction of what would occur in the modern state of Israel! The walls today serve as a protective barrier from Palestinian terrorists who would drive cars and trucks laden with bombs. Walls today, though, can not prevent bombs from being dropped from planes or from missiles being fired from long range destinations. But walls back in the Old Testament days were essential for protection because the type of warfare then was totally different than what they are today.
We are told in Ezekiel 38-39 that God would come to the rescue of the Jews, which was the case in Esther 8-9. Haman's plot was foiled, God's promise in Genesis 3:15 would stand, and the enemies of God would be destroyed. Israel would take seven years to burn all the confiscated weaponry for fuel purposes, something that would be unnecessary in today's "natural gas/oil" world but it would be something very practical and useful for the days back then. It would take seven months for the house of Israel to bury all the dead. It would not take that long today, but it would take that long during the days of the Old Testament with all the ceremonial restrictions placed upon the Jews and with the lack of modern equipment.
The mass burial place for these arch enemies of the Jews would be called Hamon-Gog or Hamonah. Does anybody see a remarkable similarity in the spelling of that burial site with Haman, the villain in the book of Esther?
All of the events of Gog and Magog in Ezekiel 38-39 would be for the express purpose of God setting His glory among the nations, and that all nations would come to know that Israel went into exile because of their iniquity, and that is why God led them into captivity in the first place. Israel would come to recognize the Lord is God, and that Israel would put away their false gods. All of this places the events of Gog and Magog in the days then and not in the days now.
I don't have to wait for the NY Times or Fox News or CNN to report what may seem to be a non-literal fulfillment of Ezekiel 38-39. All I need to do is read the Bible, the book of Esther, and there I find literally the end of the beginning of Satan's plot to thwart Genesis 3:15 in the chronology of Old Testament events.
In Esther 8:17 we discover that the nations did come to acknowledge the Lord God, for many of the Gentiles within the Persian empire became God-fearing Jews, monotheists in a polytheistic world. Never before had this happened in the pages of the Old Testament, when a massive number of Gentiles from various ethnic groups became believers in the one true Yahweh God. (The book of Esther has many unique historical/providential features.) Would not that also in all likelihood be prophesied in the pages of Scripture?
Haggai and Zechariah were two prophets God used in the time of the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. This is post-Ezekiel, but pre-Esther. In Zechariah 2, God says that Jerusalem would be inhabited without walls (Ezekiel 38!), but God would protect her by being a wall of fire around her. The Jews would flee from the land of Babylon (which they did in three separate returns), and that He would protect them from the nations who would seek to destroy Israel (Ezekiel 38-39, Haman's confederacy of nations in Esther!). Like in Esther 9, the tables are turned, and the victims become the victors. The Feast of Purim today celebrates this wondrous miraculous deliverance. And in Zechariah 2:11, many nations would join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become His people (sounds like Esther 8:17 to me!).
Esther was her Persian name. Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, which means "myrtle", as in myrtle trees. How convenient that in Zechariah 1, God enables Zechariah to see a vision of a man among the hadassahs, the myrtle trees.
All of this is not as scintillating as the modern prophecy experts who have mapped out all types of scenarios of an incoming invasion of foreign forces against modern day Israel. There is another difference too. Modern prophecy experts have all been proven wrong over time, and the Bible has been proven right all throughout time.
"All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord abides forever." 1 Peter 1:24-25
Yours in Christ,
Bro. Chris
