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The Assyrian in Messianic Prophecy
Anthony Buzzard
Isaiah had a vision about Judah
and Jerusalem in which the Assyrian came against the land to destroy it.
However, historically, Assyria never defeated either one. The golden age which
he spoke of has never yet followed the defeat of Assyria. From the Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, p.
315, we read this: “The prophet Isaiah is convinced that the Assyrians, the
instruments of God’s punishment, will overthrow not only Samaria but Jerusalem. As a state Judah will be destroyed.”
In an article titled “II Thessalonians,” the dictionary declares, “The very earliest
messianic prophesies of the OT represent the golden age [the millennium, the
first stage of the worldwide Kingdom of God] as preceded by a time of
conflict—the conflict which will destroy the particular oppression of Israel at
the time, and wipe out the ungodly in Israel itself. The power to be overcome
is in each case an actually existing empire—Assyria, Babylon, and Persia—whose
downfall will immediately usher in the
glorious reign of peace” (p. 372).
5
Again the LORD spoke to me
further, saying, 6 “Inasmuch as these people have rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah And
rejoice in Rezin and the son of Remaliah; 7 “Now
therefore, behold, the Lord is about to bring on them the strong and abundant
waters of the Euphrates, Even the king of Assyria and all his glory; And
it will rise up over all its channels and go over all its banks. 8 “Then
it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass through, It will reach
even to the neck; and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your
land, O Immanuel (Isa. 8:5).
Notice in
v. 8 that the flood will “overflow and pass through.” This is reminiscent of
Dan. 11: 40 where it refers to the King of the North, aka Antiochus Epiphenes,
or in the latter days, the antichrist who comes in to devastate the Beautiful
Land, i.e., Palestine. However, he will not be successful to the end for the
armies of Messiah will defeat and destroy him. Before that, however, the time
of Jacob’s trouble, that time that we know popularly as the Great Tribulation.
Let’s read about it in Isa. 7:17-20.
17 “The LORD will bring on
you, on your people, and on your father’s house such days as have never come
since the day that Ephraim separated from Judah, the king of Assyria.” 18 In that day the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in
the remotest part of the rivers of Egypt and for the bee that is in the land of
Assyria. 19They will all come and settle on the steep ravines, on the
ledges of the cliffs, on all the thorn bushes and on all the watering places. 20 In that day the Lord will shave with a razor, hired from
regions beyond the Euphrates (that is, with the king of Assyria), the
head and the hair of the legs; and it will also remove the beard.
Now, what
is verse 18 all about? How do we explain the fly in the remotest parts of Egypt
and the bee that is in the land of Assyria? Is this verse to be taken literally
or figuratively? Let’s see what Kiel and Delitzsch have to say.
“The prophet has already stated,
in Isaiah 5:26,
that Jehovah would hiss for distant nations; and how he is able to describe
them by name. The Egyptian nation, with its vast and unparalleled numbers, is
compared to the swarming fly; and the Assyrian nation, with its love of war and
conquest, to the stinging bee which is so hard to keep off (Deut 1:44; Ps
118:12). The emblems also correspond to the nature of the two countries: the
fly to slimy Egypt with its swarms of insects (see Isaiah 18:1),
(Note: Egypt abounds in gnats, etc., more especially in flies (muscariae),
including a species of small fly (nemath), which is a great
plague to men throughout all the country of the Nile (see Hartmann, Natur-geschichtlich-medicinische
Skizze der Nilländer, 1865, pp. 204- 5).) and the bee to the more
mountainous and woody Assyria, where the keeping of bees is still one of the
principal branches of trade . . . The end of the Nile-arms of Egypt, from a
Palestinian point of view, was the extreme corner of the land. The military
force of Egypt would march out of the whole compass of the land, and meet the
Assyrian force in the Holy Land; and both together would cover the land in such
a way that the valleys of steep precipitous heights (nachalee habbattoth), and
clefts of the rocks (nekike‛im),
and all the thorn-hedges (na‛azuzım)
and pastures (nahalolim, from nihel, to lead to
pasture), would be covered with these swarms. The fact that just such places
are named, as afforded a suitable shelter and abundance of food for flies and
bees, is a filling up of the figure in simple truthfulness to nature. And if we
look at the historical fulfilment, it does not answer even in this respect to
the actual letter of the prophecy; for in the time of Hezekiah no collision
really took place between the Assyrian and Egyptian forces; and it was not till
the days of Josiah that a collision took place between the Chaldean and
Egyptian powers in the eventful battle fought between Pharaoh-Necho and
Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish (Circesium), which decided the fate of Judah. That
the spirit of prophecy points to this eventful occurrence is evident from v. 20, where no further allusion
is made to Egypt, because of its having succumbed to the imperial power of
Eastern Asia.”̂̄ hasselâ̂̄̄̄
The razor of verse 20 is the king of
Assyria and the fact that the hair of the head and the legs will be shorn
signifies that the inhabitants of the land will be stripped bare. The removal
of the beard is the ultimate humiliation that will be thrust upon the people.
Again, from Kiel and Delitzsch,
“The nation
of Judah is regarded here, as in Isaiah 1:6, as a man stript naked, and not only with all the hair of
his head and feet shaved off (raglaim, a euphemism), but what was regarded
as the most shameful of all, with the hair of his beard shaved off as well. To
this end the Almighty would make use of a razor, which is more distinctly
defined as hired on the shore of the Euphrates (Conductitia in litoribus
Euphratis: nahar stands here
for hannahar), and still more
precisely as the king of Asshur . . .”
̂̂̂̂
From
Barton—Payne Encyclopedia of Biblical
Prophecy, p. 81, comes this:
“Micah 5:6 states that the armies of the
Messiah will waste the land of Assyria . . . the important fact to maintain in
the still unfulfilled Micah passage is that whatever be the particular weapons,
there will be a conflict at the time and place identified, and with the results
that are indicated.”
Let’s read Micah 5: 1-6
in order to get the full story.
1 “Now muster
yourselves in troops, daughter of troops; they have laid siege against
us; with a rod they will smite the judge of
Israel on the cheek 2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too
little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me
to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long
ago, From the days of eternity.” 3
Therefore He will give them up
until the time When she who is in labor has borne a child. Then the
remainder of His brethren Will return to the sons of Israel. 4
And He will arise and shepherd His
flock In the strength of the LORD, In the majesty of the name of the
LORD His God. And they will remain, Because at that time He will be
great To the ends of the earth. 5
This One will be our
peace. When the Assyrian invades our land, When he tramples on our
citadels, Then we will raise against him Seven shepherds and eight
leaders of men. 6 They will shepherd
[devour] the land of Assyria with the sword, The land of Nimrod at its
entrances; And He will deliver us from the Assyrian When
he attacks our land And when he tramples our territory.”
Barton—Payne goes on,
“A. B.
Davidson grants that ‘the Scriptures represented the Assyrian as existing in
the time of the Messiah’ (O.T. Prophecy, pp.
164-166) . . .’”
Higher
criticism of the Bible has led some to believe that anyone who thinks that the
Bible predicts anything is suspect! The result is that it has prevented the
simple predictions of the prophets from being heard. However, among
conservative scholars such as Barton—Payne, it is admitted that Assyria is to
be on the scene when Jesus returns.
Anthony
Buzzard agrees with Barton and Payne that “the New Testament along with the Old
speaks of and eschatological military campaign in the same area east of the
Euphrates (Rev. 16:12).”
“The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the
great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would
be prepared for the kings from the east.”
The Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy, p.
81, says this, “ It would appear best to recognize that while the particular
people, the Sargonid dynasty of the 8th-7th century BC
has come to an end, the land still remains: and it is the land (i.e. of
Assyria) which will experience precisely the events which Scripture forecasts
in its regard.”
It would
be hard to imagine a more obviously Messianic end-time prophecy than the verses
in Micah 5:5ff.
We would have to agree with Barton-Payne, then, that “Such a Messianic deliverance
has never been accomplished in the past. It is indeed a still unfulfilled
passage.”
Numbers 24:23-24
says of the King of Assyria—“But ships shall come from the coast of
Kittim, And they shall afflict Asshur and will afflict Eber; So they also will
come to destruction.” This prophecy is elaborated in Dan. 11:30. “For ships
of Kittim will come against him; therefore he will be disheartened and will
return and become enraged at the holy covenant and take action; so he will come
back and show regard for those who forsake the holy covenant.” Assyria represents
the Mesopotamian power, and in Ezra 6:22, the king of Assyria
designates the King of Persia or modern day Iran. It is important to remember
here that Rome was not a Mesopotamian power. It main geographical theater was
Europe, not western Asia. Prophecy focuses on the “northern,” Mesopotamian
power.
The Assyrian in Isaiah
In the book
of Isaiah we find that the Assyrian power receives full treatment. In Isa. 11:4
we find a description of his destruction, and in II Thess. 2:8 as Paul’s
picture of the Antichrist. Paul quotes directly from Isa. 11:4 when he
describes the destruction of the Antichrist in II Thess. 2:8. He says this.
“Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will
slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the
appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose
coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and
false wonders.”
Paul here refers to the
Assyrian material presented by Isaiah. In this “evil one” he sees the final
Antichristian figure (note “slay the evil one, LXX of Isa. 11:4). Let’s look at
the material in Isaiah concerning Assyria. We must keep in mind, of course,
that the Assyrian attacked Judah in 701 BC. His army was supernaturally dealt
with. 185,000 died at the hands of an angel and the king escaped to Nineveh,
where twenty years later he was murdered by his two sons (Isa. 37:36-38).
Is this
the end of the story of the Assyrian? No! There are several passages that point
to the contrary. In Isaiah
11:4 the king of Assyria is to be
punished in a way hardly compatible with the death of the historical king of
Assyria. Let’s pick up the story in Isaiah 10:16:
Therefore the Lord, the GOD of hosts, will send a wasting
disease among his stout warriors; And under his glory a fire will be
kindled like a burning flame. 17
And the light of Israel will become a
fire and his Holy One a flame, And it will burn and devour his thorns and his
briars in a single day. 18 And He will destroy the glory of his forest and of his
fruitful garden, both soul and body, And it will be as when a sick man
wastes away. 19 And the rest of the trees of his forest will be so small in
number That a child could write them down. 20 Now in that day
the remnant of Israel, and those of the house of Jacob who have escaped, will
never again rely on the one who struck them, but will truly rely on the LORD,
the Holy One of Israel. 21 A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty
God. 22 For though your people, O Israel, may be like the sand of
the sea, Only a remnant within them will return; A destruction is
determined, overflowing with righteousness. 23
For a complete destruction, one that is
decreed, the Lord GOD of hosts will execute in the midst of the whole land. 24 Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, “O My people who
dwell in Zion, do not fear the Assyrian who strikes you with the rod and lifts
up his staff against you, the way Egypt did. 25 “For in a very little while My indignation against
you will be spent and My anger will be directed to their
destruction.”
Isaiah
then describes the same Assyrian approaching Jerusalem from the north (10:
28-32)
“He has come against Aiath, He has passed through
Migron; At Michmash he deposited his baggage. 29
They have gone through the pass, saying, “Geba
will be our lodging place.” Ramah is terrified, and Gibeah of Saul has
fled away. 30 Cry aloud with your voice, O daughter of Gallim! Pay
attention, Laishah and wretched Anathoth! 31
Madmenah has fled. The inhabitants
of Gebim have sought refuge. 32
Yet today he will halt at Nob; He
shakes his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem.”
There is
some embarrassment among commentators due to Isaiah’s description of the
attack. All the cities he mentions are north of Jerusalem but the attack came
from Lachish, south-west of Jerusalem (Isaiah 36:2). According to 10:32 the
Assyrian will “shake his fist at the mountain of the daughter of Zion, the hill
of Jerusalem. Then, in chapter 11 he says, “a shoot will spring from the stem
of Jesse (v. 1). A clear millennial scene follows, initiated by the destruction
of the Assyrian when “he (the Messiah) will strike the earth with the rod of
his mouth and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked (one)” (Heb.
rasha, LXX asebe = “wicked one,” singular, Isa. 11:4, II Thess. 2:8. Cp. The
masculine participle in Mk. 13:14 designating a single individual—“the
abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to stand.” See the Greek
original, and cp. NEB, usurping a place which is not his.” Also Weymouth:
“standing where he ought not to”).
Connections With Daniel, And II Thessalonians
Paul
cites the text from II Thess. from Isaiah in describing the death of the
Antichrist at the hands of the returning Messiah. Paul’s conclusion is that the
evil Assyrian of Isaiah 10-11 is
the final antichristian tyrant. There should be no difficulty in recognizing
that Paul’s quotation of Isaiah 10: 22-23
in Romans 9: 27-28—“the remnant
will return”—is a prophecy of the future restoration of Israel. The “114—228
connection” (Isa. 11:4; II Thess. 2:8) deserves careful examination. Most
mistakes made in Bible study are made because we don’t discover the links between
the Old and New Testaments especially if we reject or neglect the Old
Testament. Too many churches today base their teachings on Greek philosophical
ideas. Jesus, on the other hand, “began with Moses and with all the prophets,
expounding the Scriptures” (Lk. 24:27).
There is another remarkable fact that
emerges from Isa. 10: 23—“a complete
destruction, one that is decreed, the Lord will execute.” On close
examination we find that this prediction is almost word for word identical with
an end-time statement in Daniel 9:7b
where the Abomination of Desolation (identified as “he” in Mark 13:14, NEB, Weymouth, and GNB) will cause
desolation until “a complete destruction,
one that is decreed, is poured out on the desolator.” The connection is
made very well. Paul sees the destruction of Assyrian as the destruction of the
Antichrist (Isa. 11:4; II Thess. 2:8). The same destruction is seen by Daniel
as the Destruction of the final desolator.
Further Material In Isaiah
Let’s look at Isa. 30: 25ff. It is
difficult to see how this material has been accomplished historically.
Therefore, it must lie ahead of us.
25 On every lofty mountain
and on every high hill there will be streams running with water on the day of
the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 The light of the moon will
be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times brighter,
like the light of seven days, on the day the LORD binds up the fracture of His
people and heals the bruise He has inflicted.
27 Behold, the name of the LORD comes from a remote
place; Burning is His anger and dense is His smoke; His lips are
filled with indignation And His tongue is like a consuming fire; 28 His breath is
like an overflowing torrent, Which reaches to the neck, To shake the nations
back and forth in a sieve, And to put in the jaws of the peoples
the bridle which leads to ruin . . .
30 And the LORD will cause His voice of authority to be heard, And
the descending of His arm to be seen in fierce anger, And in the
flame of a consuming fire In cloudburst, downpour and hailstones. 31 For at the voice of the LORD Assyria will be
terrified, When He strikes with the rod. 32 And every blow of the rod of punishment, Which the
LORD will lay on him, Will be with the music of tambourines and
lyres; And in battles, brandishing weapons, He will fight them. 33 For Topheth
[the place of human sacrifice to Molech, Jer. 7:31] has long been ready, Indeed,
it has been prepared for the king [of Assyria]. He [the Lord] has made it deep
and large, a pyre of fire with plenty of wood; the breath of the LORD, like a torrent of brimstone, sets it afire”
(cp. “the beast and false prophet were thrown into the lake of fire which burns
with brimstone,” (Rev. 19:20).
Then in
the same context:
Isa.
31:4-32:4:
So will the
LORD of hosts come down to wage war on Mount Zion and on its hill.” 5 Like flying birds so the LORD of hosts will protect
Jerusalem. He will protect and deliver it; He will pass over
and rescue it. 6 Return to Him from
whom you have deeply defected, O sons
of Israel [cp. The Apostasy of II
Thess. 2:3]. 7 For in that day
every man will cast away his silver idols and his gold idols, which your sinful
hands have made for you as a sin. 8 And the Assyrian will fall by a sword not of man [cp. Dan. 8:25, “the little
horn will be broken without human agency”]. And a sword not of man will devour
him. So he will not escape the sword, and his young men will become forced
laborers. 9 “His rock will pass away because of panic, And his
princes will be terrified at the standard,” Declares the LORD, whose fire is in Zion and whose furnace [lake of fire] is in Jerusalem. [Then
follows the Kingdom of God] . . . 1 Behold, a king will reign
righteously And princes will rule justly [cp. Rev. 20: “the saints began to
reign with Christ for a thousand years”]. 2 Each will be
like a refuge from the wind And a shelter from the storm, Like streams of water
in a dry country, Like the shade of a huge rock in a parched land. 3 Then the eyes of those who see will not be blinded, And
the ears of those who hear will listen. 4 The mind of
the hasty will discern the truth, And the tongue of the stammerers will hasten
to speak clearly.”
It is
ludicrous to seriously doubt that the Assyrian will be active in the punishment
of Israel shortly before the second coming of the Messiah, or that he will be
supernaturally destroyed by fire in Messianic times.
Seeing
that Paul takes his Antichrist material from Isa. 11:4 as well as from Daniel 11:36, we can reasonably conclude that the
final “Beast” is not only the Assyrian but also the King of the North of Daniel 11:21ff. Of the Antichrist Paul says, “he
will exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he
takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself a being God” (II Thess.
2:4). Paul quotes directly from Dan. 11:36. Jesus, not surprisingly, elaborates
his end-time prophecy in Matt. 24 by working from the same text-plot, Daniel 11.
It is a
serious weakness of prophetic study to overlook the directed link, authorized
by Jesus himself, between Matt. 24:15—“when you see the Abomination of
Desolation spoken of by Daniel. . .”—and Daniel
11:31—“they will set up the Abomination of Desolation.”
Commentators seem to be determined to find an Abomination of Desolation other than the one to which Jesus
directs us in Daniel 11:31,
where a final King of the North terrorizes
God’s people and Jerusalem. However, Jesus is an infallible commentator who
sees in Daniel 11:31 (with the
additional chronological information of 12:11) the Abomination which will
trigger the Great Tribulation (Matt. 24:15-21). Daniel 11:31; 12:11 lock us
into a terrible period of 1290 days, or its approximate equivalent of 3 ½ “times” which in Daniel appears to mean 3 ½
years, this being half as long as Nebuchadnezzar’s seven-year madness (Dan.
4:16, 25, 32). If we synthesize this data we may safely say that the Assyrian
(Isa. 11:4 = II Thess. 2:8; Dan. 11:36 = II Thess. 2:4) will go on the rampage
for 3 ½ years just before the return of Christ.
Additional
Evidence
It
is not surprising, then, that Micah promises deliverance from the Assyrian
through the Messiah at his coming (Micah 5:5) and that Zechariah predicts that
God “will bring back [His people] from the land of Egypt and gather them from
Assyria . . . and the pride of Assyria will be brought down” (Zech. 10:10, 11).
Zechariah uttered this prediction in 520 BC. But the ancient Assyrian empire
had fallen in 612 BC, a hundred years earlier! Its fulfillment must therefore
lie in the future.
We find a similar prediction about the fate of
Assyria in Zephaniah 3:13, but
its Messianic context suggests an eschatological fulfillment; moreover, it is
parallel to the prophecy in Zechariah which has never been fulfilled. Zephaniah
equates the north with the area belonging to Assyria.
Parallel
also to the data we have collected so far is the remarkable prophecy in Zechariah 5:8-11 where “Wickedness” (Gk. anomia, cp. “Man of Wickedness” in II
Thess. 2:3, 8) is sent back to Babylon and “set on her own pedestal” (5:11).
This prediction of Babylon active at the end-time is confirmed by the reference
in Rev. 16:10-13 to the River Euphrates in connection with the kingdom of the
“Beast.” The parallel between the plagues which ravaged Egypt and those which
strike the Beast’s kingdom at Babylon on the Euphrates (Rev. 16) is obvious. We
should also remember that the prophecies of Babylon never being inhabited again
have not been fulfilled in the way demanded by Jer. 50, 51, etc. This might
also be the moment to question the commonly held view that the seven-hilled
city of Rev. 17:9 is really Rome. The “mountains” are defined as “seven rulers”
(v. 10); similarly the waters “where the harlot sits” (v. 15) are not to be
taken literally, but are symbolic—so we are told—of multitudes and nations and
tongues (v. 15) [cp. Keil, Commentary on
Daniel, p.278: “The reference of the mountains to the seven hills of Rome
is to be rejected, because it is difficult to understand how the heads can
represent at one and the same time both mountains and kings. Mountains are,
according to the prophetic view, symbols of world government (cp. Ps. 68:17;
76:5; Jer. 51:25; Ezek. 35:2)].”
Zephaniah
describes the Assyrian as the King of the North (2:13). Daniel 11 similarly describes the king of the
north at war with the king of the south, until the king of the North finally
places the Abomination of Desolation in the temple (11:31). Jesus understood Daniel 11:31 (against many commentators) to be an
event of the future in Messianic times (Matt. 24:15-31), and Paul found the
same Antichrist in Daniel 11:36.
The King of the North of that verse is the wicked king whose career begins in Daniel 11:21. In Daniel
11:40 we discover that “at the time of the end” the king of
the South will collide with him (i.e., the King of the North—the only antecedent
of vv. 36-39) will storm against him (the king of the South). The same wicked
king of the North “comes to his end” in Daniel
11:45 as does the wicked prince of Daniel
9:26. Neither reference can be to Titus in AD 70. He died
naturally, and he was not “king of the North.”
The final king of the North meets
his death at the time of the Great Tribulation and the resurrection (Dan. 12:1,
2). A quite specific piece of time- information tells us that “from the time
that the regular sacrifice is abolished and the Abomination of Desolation is
set up [11:31], there will be 1290 days” (Dan. 12:11). And the Abomination was
set up by the wicked king of the North who does away with the daily sacrifice
and desecrates the sanctuary in Daniel 11:31.
When we gather all the facts the whole picture seems coherent and the
all-important Assyrian material is not omitted. What is crucially important are
Jesus’ instruction for understanding the Abomination to which Daniel refers.
Both Francis Burnett and Roy
Johnson, as well as expositors outside the Church of God (Abrahamic Faith),
have published material on the Assyrian Antichrist. Johnson sums up his
findings as follows:
Thus will be
born a super world-government, a composite of Babylon, Persia, and Greece,
ruling the whole world—truly a diverse “beast” called Babylon, being located on
the Euphrates river (Rev. 9:14). The ruler will be called the Assyrian because
this ruler of Babylon, like Nebuchadnezzar of old, is Assyrian by birth. Isaiah 10:5, 25;
13; 14:23; 47, and Micah 5:5 confirm the fact that the super
world-government will be located on the Euphrates and will be ruled over by a
man of Assyrian birth. The “beast” will have authority over the human race for
42 months and will spend his time making war with the saints.
Conclusion
So far we have dealt with only a
fraction of the biblical material relating to the great end-time tyrant. (There
is another remarkable prophecy of Assyria in Ps. 83:8. A confederation of ten
Middle Eastern nations is here attacking Israel. Commentators have not
identified this block of nations in history. The conspiring together “with one
mind” reminds us of the ten kings of Revelation
17:12-14, who have “one purpose,” give their allegiance to
the Beast and wage war with the Lamb at his coming). The books of Nahum and Habbakuk
contain references to an end-time Babylon/Assyrian tyrant also. The sheer
volume of the biblical data suggests that the subject is of the utmost
importance. We should remember that during the awful reign of the Antichrist
“those who have insight will give understanding to many” (Dan. 11:33; cp. Dan.
12:3 and Isa. 53:11, where knowledge is indispensable for “making righteous the
many”). Many Bible expositors play their vital role in giving insight in every
area of Christian teaching (including the important area of prophecy) to the
many now and to many more in those terrible times which lie ahead. Our
struggles to proclaim the Truth in the present evil age will be rewarded when
we receive our “rest, when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven in
flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God” (2 Thess. 1:7), and
when the Assyrian Antichrist will be eliminated by the brightness of Messiah’s
glorious advent. Prophecy is part of the “every word” by which man is to live.
Its place in the doctrinal system of the Church can serve as a stimulus to holy
loving now in preparation for entrance into the Kingdom of the Age to Come,
when the Messiah returns in glory. The chronology of such predictions is not
given in Scripture and any applications to contemporary events are speculative
only. At least one can say that the political shape of the Middle East in 2006
makes possible a fulfillment in reality. Who would have believed until recently
that a small cadre of Middle Eastern origin could have so profoundly shaken the
West?
Appendix: Views from the Church Fathers
It is interesting to note that the
distinguished premillenialist, Theodore Zahn (c. 1900), states that the final
evil ruler in Revelation (much of which is based on Daniel) is “without
question” derived from “the Greco-Macedonian [kingdom] and its typical
pre-Christian antichrist, Antiochus Epiphanes” (Introduction to the New Testament, Vol. III, p. 441). In Daniel 11 and 12 it seems clear that Antiochus is
a “type” of the yet future tyrant. Antiochus was a Syrian king. A Latin Church
father, Lactantius (c. 250-330 AD), clearly expected the Beast (antichrist) to
arise in Syria: “Another king shall arise out of Syria, born from and evil
spirit . . . and he will call himself God, and will order himself to be
worshipped as the Son of God, and power will be given him to do signs and
wonders. Then he will attempt to destroy the temple of God and persecute the
righteous people, and there will be distress and tribulations such as there
never has been since the beginning of the world” (Divine Institutes, Book 7, ch. 17). In ch. 16 Lactantius speaks of
the tyrant arising “from the extreme boundaries of the northern region.”
Another ante-Nicene father, Victorinus (c. 280 AD) refers Micah 5:5 to the antichrist: “There shall be peace
for our land . . . and they shall encircle Assur [Assyria] that is antichrist,
in the trench of Nimrod” (Commentary on
the Apocalypse, ch. 7). Assyria is the approximate equivalent of modern
Iraq. (Victorinus speaks also speaks of Babylon as the Roman state).
It
is not always recognized that the seventieth week of Daniel
9:24-27 is taken by Jesus to be a period just before his return. Jesus places the
Abomination shortly before his Second Coming (Matt. 24:15ff). Matthew 24:29 says that “immediately after” the
tribulation initiated by the Abomination, he will come back in power and glory.
This fact is crucial to a fair reading of prophecy. Daniel expects the
Abomination to appear in the seventieth “week” (Dan. 9:27). Jesus expects the
Abomination (and therefore the seventieth week) just before his return. That
the seventieth “week” was future and close to the end of the age was understood
in 243 AD by Hippolytus (De Pascha
Computus). This fact is noted in the Encyclopedia
of Religion and Ethics, Vol. III, p. 606: “The one ‘week’ [of Daniel 9:24-27] is taken off as belonging to the
eschatological period in the future.” Irenaeus also expected a 3 ½ year
tribulation and a rebuilt temple (Against
Heresies, Book 5, chs. 25, 26). “For three and a half years, during which
time, when he [antichrist] comes, he will reign over the earth.” Irenaeus sees
the antichrist, not just Antiochus, in the eighth chapter of Daniel and quotes Daniel 9:27 as a prophecy of the final reign of
the antichrist “for three years and six months.”
The seventieth week of Daniel 9 was seen as future and close up to the
Second Coming by the earliest Church fathers who wrote in detail on prophecy.
Montgomery (International Critical
Commentary on Daniel, p. 394) notes that this “apocalyptic” reading of the
last period of seven years is the one found in the gospels, and it is adopted
by Irenaeus and Hippolytus. Commodianus refers to a future and final antichrist
in these words: “Isaiah said, ‘this is the man who moves the world and so many
kings and under whom the land will become a desert’ . . . Then, doubtless the
world will be finished when he appears. He himself will divide the globe into
three ruling powers, when however, Nero will be raised up from Hell, Elijah
will first come to seal the beloved ones; at which things the region of Africa
(King of the South?) and the northern nations (King of the North?), the whole
earth on all sides will tremble for seven years. But Elijah will occupy half of
the time, and Nero the other half. Then the whore Babylon, being reduced to
ashes, its embers will then advance to Jerusalem; and the Latin conqueror will
then say, ‘I am Christ whom you always pray to.’ And indeed the original ones
who were deceived combine to praise him. He does many wonders since he is the
false prophet. Especially that they may believe him his image will speak. The
Almighty has given it power to appear such. The Jews recapitulating Scriptures
from him, exclaim at the same time to the Highest that they have been
deceived . . . Moreover, when the
tyrant will dash himself against the army of God, his soldiery are overthrown
by the celestial terror, the false prophet himself is seized with the wicked
one, by the decree of the Lord. They are handed over alive to Gehenna” (The Instructions of Commodianus, chs.
41, 42).
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