The Last Trumpet
Interrupting the Program
Back in the 1980s, broadcasters would occasionally break into a television program with the startling words, “We interrupt this broadcast to bring you the following important announcement.” On other occasions, the jarring buzz of the Emergency Broadcast System intruded with a test to evoke fears of an imminent nuclear holocaust. The broadcast interruptions not only startled the viewer, but they also shattered the comfortable entertainment illusion the viewer was trying to enjoy.
That's sort of what it was like when God stepped down onto Mount Sinai and spoke the Ten Commandments. He interrupted the regularly scheduled program of reality in which the presence of God remains concealed from human perception, and life proceeds normally along predictable lines of natural cause and effect. The blast of the shofar-trumpet at Mount Sinai went off like the alert of the emergency broadcast system, jolting humanity out of the illusion that God is remote, disinterested, or non-existent. His self-disclosure at Mount Sinai before an entire nation brought an unprecedented level of revelation that, to this day, remains unrepeated. It was the biggest moment in human history, and it is the foundation on which the authority of the Torah and the whole Bible rests.
There's a bigger revelation coming in the future when God will once again interrupt the program with the jarring klaxon of heaven's emergency broadcast system. That future interruption of our regularly scheduled reality is called the Day of the LORD:
Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; surely it is near. (Joel 2:1)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Two Theophanies
Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever. (Exodus 19:9)
The future Day of the LORD not only parallels the revelation at Mount Sinai, but it also goes far beyond it by many scales of magnitude. The writer of the book of Hebrews compares the two events (Hebrews 12:18-29). His argument runs like this: If the theophany at Mount Sinai was fearsome, how much more so the theophany of the Day of the LORD! The shaking that took place at Mount Sinai when God's "voice shook the earth" will seem insignificant compared with the shaking of all things in the Day of the LORD.
Theophany = A visible manifestation of an otherwise unseen deity's pres- ence in tangible or perceivable form.
The word theophany refers to the appearance of a deity. In the biblical context, that deity is the LORD. We also use the term to describe a specific trope found in biblical literature, especially in the Psalms and Prophets. In theophanic texts, the LORD's entrance into the world comes with cata-clysm, storm, natural disaster, and a shattering of the natural order. Start watching for the patterns, and you will start recognizing theophanies when they pop up. God enters the scene with thick storm clouds, thunder, light-ning, whirlwinds, torrential bursts, hailstones, flash floods, earthquakes, and fire. He descends on the wings of the wind, on the clouds, on the cherubim, in His chariot. The heavens are dismayed at His passage, bent low, and shaken; the heavenly bodies are disarrayed. The mountains shake before Him, the hills melt away in terror, whole forests shatter, and the nations cringe in terror. Devastation and destruction trail in His wake. The LORD strikes His enemies as a warrior, as a ravaging beast, as a pouncing lion, but He redeems His people. The world is filled with His glory. Read through the third chapter of Habakkuk. It's a classic theophany. Then start to pay attention when you encounter the pattern.
The Bible's theophanies typically allude back to the event at Mount Sinai or to the future revelation on the Day of the LORD. At Mount Sinai, a thick, dark cloud covered the mountain. The mountain shook and trembled as the voice of a loud ram's horn (shofar) trumpet split the air. The LORD descended on the mountain amid fire and smoke. The summit seemed ablaze; smoke rose from the mountain like that of a furnace. God's voice spoke, and the whole nation heard His utterance. On the Day of the LORD, the whole world will shake. The whole world will hear the voice of the shofar. Wonders in heaven and on earth will appear in blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The moon will redden, and the sun will don sackcloth "before the great and awesome day of the LORD" (Joel 3:4[2:31]).
That future theophany occurs not at Mount Sinai but at Mount Zion (i.e., Jerusalem). At Mount Sinai, the LORD appeared in the midst of the cloud of glory that covered the mountain. At Mount Zion, "they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory" (Mark 13:26). From Sinai, the nation heard the sound of the trumpet; from Zion, the whole world will hear the sound of the trumpet. At Mount Sinai, God's feet stood on the mountain and "under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself" (Exodus 24:10), but "in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east" (Zechariah 14:4).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Two Trumpets
So it came about on the third day, when it was morning, that there were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain and a very loud trumpet sound, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. (Exodus 19:16)
The sound of a shofar announced the descent of the LORD on Mount Sinai. In the future, "it will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown" (Isaiah 27:13). The Midrash associates the two trumpets with the two horns of the ram that Abraham offered in the place of his son Isaac (Genesis 22). The Holy One, blessed be He, blew the first ram's horn (shofar) at Mount Sinai on the occasion of the giving of the Torah. He will sound the second to herald the coming of Messiah. The shofar of Messiah is called "the great shofar" because it was the larger of the pair:
The shofar blown at Mount Sinai, when the Torah was given, came from the ram which had been sacrificed in place of Isaac. The left horn was blown for a shofar at Mount Sinai, and its right horn will be blown to herald the coming of Messiah. The right horn was larger than the left, and thus concerning the days of Messiah it is written [in Isaiah 27:13], "On that day, a great shofar will be blown." (Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer 31)
At that time Michael, the great prince, will arise and blow the shotar three times, as it is said, "On that day that a great shofar will be blown" (Isaiah 27:13). This shofar is the right horn of the ram of Isaac, and the Holy One-blessed be He-will extend it to a length of one thousand cubits. He will sound a blast, and Messiah son of David will be revealed, together with Elijah. (Midrash Rabbi Shimon bar lochai)
Sequentially, we should understand the shofar at Sinai as the "first trum-pet" and the "great shofar" announcing the coming of the Messiah as "the last trumpet" (I Corinthians 15:52). The last trumpet is the "great trumpet" of Isaiah 27:13 that signals the ingathering: "He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet" (Matthew 24:31). At that time, "The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God" (I Thessalonians 4:16).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Trumpet of the Resurrection
When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. (Exodus 19:19)
English translators supply the word "sound," but the Hebrew of Exodus 19:19 speaks literally of "the voice of the shofar." One could translate it to read, "The voice of the shofar going exceedingly strong." Paul preserves that Hebraism when he refers to the Messiah coming "with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God" (I Thessalonians 4:16); in other words, the voice of the archangel is the trumpet of God. The book of Revelation also plays with that double meaning when John describes Yeshua speaking with a voice as a trumpet (Revelation I:1O, 4:1). Yeshua says that His voice will awaken the dead: "An hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (John 5:25). The voice of the shofar says, "Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Messiah will shine on you" (Ephesians 5:14). At the sound of that voice, "the dead in Messiah will rise first" (I Thessalonians 4:16). Then "we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" (I Thessalonians 4:17):
We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. (I Corinthians 15:51-53)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Seven Trumpets
Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Messiah; and He will reign forever and ever." (Revelation II: 15)
When the Lamb breaks the seventh seal on the scroll with seven seals, seven archangels take up seven trumpets to create a sequence of seven blasts (Revelation 8). Each trumpet initiates some heightening calamity or plague on the earth. The sounding of the seventh and last trumpet heralds the coming of the Messiah, the kingdom on earth, and the day of wrath:
The nations were enraged [in the War of Gog and Magogl, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the land of Israel]. (Revelation 11: 18)
The seventh trumpet signals a grand theophany. The gates of the heavenly Sanctuary swing open, exposing the ark of the covenant (Revelation II:19). The appearance of the ark indicates that the LORD goes forth to war. The Torah says that whenever the ark set out, Moses said, "Rise up, O LORD! And let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You" (Numbers 10:35).
The LORD goes forth to war in a storm that shakes the earth: "There were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder and an earthquake and a great hailstorm" (Revelation II:19). The seventh trumpet cues the seven angels to pour out seven bowls of God's wrath on the world. The seventh and last bowl delivers a cocktail of theophanic elements (Revelation 16:18-21).
Meanwhile, back on earth, our scenario of a potential future that fulfills the prophecies of Gog and Magog is still playing out. Let's back up the clock to a few seconds before dawn, just before the sound of the seventh trumpet splits the sky.
Gog still controls Jerusalem, and the armies of Magog still occupy the land of Israel, ready to make war on the Messiah and His hosts should He arrive. This is the real reason for the invasion: "An innumerable multitude shall be gathered together, as you saw, desiring to come and conquer him" (2 Ezra 13:34). The Apostle John sees "the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army" (Revelation 19:19):
Armilus…. will gather the armies of all the nations of the world, and they will come to King Messiah and to Israel. And the Holy One, blessed be He, will fight for Israel and will say to the Messiah: "Sit at my right." And the Messiah will say to Israel: "Gather together and stand and see the salvation of the LORD." (Midrash Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, Psalm 110)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Great Earthquake
"It will come about on that day, when Gog comes against the land of Israel," declares the Lord GOD, "that My fury will mount up in My anger." (Ezekiel 38:18)
Accompanied by the blare of the seventh trumpet, the Messiah arrives atop the Mount of Olives. He stands as a banner unfurled aloft on the mountains, and all the inhabitants of the land will see Him. Beneath His feet, the earth reels. The rocks split. The seventh angel pours out the seventh bowl of wrath. The contents of the bowl include "a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty" (Revelation 16:18). Tall cities of the world crumble and fall. Islands flee, and mountains prostrate themselves low before the LORD, as it says, "Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found" (Revelation 16:20). The great city of "Babylon" shatters into three pieces (Revelation 16:19). It collapses with the heaving of the earth. A heavenly messenger declares, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who has made all the nations drink of the wine of the passion of her immorality" (Revelation 14:8).
The quake also strikes the forces of Gog and Magog occupying the land of Israel: "In My zeal and in My blazing wrath I declare that on that day there will surely be a great earthquake in the land of Israel" (Ezekiel 38:19). The fish in the sea shake. The birds in the air shake. The beasts in the field shake. Every living creature shakes. Every human being shakes at the presence of God. "The mountains also will be thrown down, the steep pathways will collapse and every wall will fall to the ground" (Ezekiel 38:20). "In that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city [of Jerusalem] fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven" (Revelation II:13):
Mountains quake because of Him and the hills dissolve; indeed the earth is upheaved by His presence, the world and all the inhabitants in it. Who can stand before His indignation? Who can endure the burning of His anger? His wrath is poured out like fire and the rocks are broken up by Him. (Nahum 1:5-6)
The Lord God of Israel will descend upon the Mount of Olives, and the Mount of Olives will split open at His rebuke. He will blow a great trumpet, and every foreign deity and mosque will crumble to the ground, and every wall and steep place will collapse. The LORD will slay all the plunderers, and He will battle those nations. "Like a warrior, He will arouse His zeal like a man of war." (Sefer Zerubbabel, Isaiah 42:13)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Mountain Splits
In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. (Zechariah 14:4)
Zechariah attributes the earthquake to the tread of the LORD's feet on the Mount of Olives. The mountain splits beneath His feet. Half moves to the north, the other half moves toward the south. The survivors of Jerusalem flee from the occupied city through the newly formed valley. The canyon extends to Azel, an otherwise unknown place name, presumably in the Judean wilderness east of Jerusalem.
Zechariah compares the flight of the refugees to a similar displacement of Jerusalem's population after an earthquake that occurred in the days of King Uzziah and the Prophet Isaiah (cf., Amos I:1). The Jewish historian Josephus relates a first-century tradition about that event. According to Josephus, the earthquake took place when King Uzziah wrongfully usurped priestly privileges and entered the holy place to offer incense (2 Chronicles 26:16). A portion of Jerusalem's hill collapsed near the junction of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys:
A great earthquake shook the ground, and a rent was made in the temple, and the bright rays of the sun shone through it, and fell upon the king's face, insomuch that the leprosy seized upon him immediately; and before the city, at a place called Enrogel, half the mountain broke off from the rest on the west, and rolled itself half a mile, and stood still at the east mountain, till the roads, as well as the king's gardens, were spoiled by the obstruction. (Antiquities 9:225/x.4, cf. 2 Chronicles 26:16)
The memory of that historical event informs the prophecy in Zechariah 14. It also accords with the antichrist traditions. Like King Uzziah, who wrongfully entered the Sanctuary to offer incense, the false Messiah wrongfully enters the holy place in defiance of God. He exalts himself above all gods and declares himself to be God. He seeks to dethrone God so that he can succeed in the extermination of the Jewish people.
The rabbis offer various opinions about the splitting of the Mount of Olives. The midrashic legend on the level of folktale suggests that the splitting of the mountain is the messianic equivalent of Moses splitting the sea. The people of Jerusalem escape between the two halves of the mountain, but when their enemies attempt to pursue through the valley, the LORD snaps the mountain shut and crushes them in the rock.
Another opinion explains the split as the beginning of the resurrection of the dead. The opening in the mountain creates the portal through which the righteous will rise. This tradition explains why Jewish cemeteries dominate the western face of the Mount of Olives, and it adds eschatological context to the otherwise cryptic passage in Matthew about the resurrection of Jerusalem's holy men:
The earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. (Matthew 27:51-52)
Rashi says the new valley will serve as the riverbed through which the stream of "living waters" will flow on their way out to the Dead Sea in the Days of the Messiah. Others steer away from a literal reading of Zechariah 14, preferring a figurative explanation. Radak suggests an allegorical description of the breakup of the enemy army encamped in that location. Abarbanel suggests a split between the forces of Gog and Magog as the Muslims and Christians go to war with each other for control of Jerusalem.
In 1999, the State of Israel began construction of a tunnel through the shoulder of Mount Scopus where it abuts the Mount of Olives to provide a passage in and out of Jerusalem to the east. Like the thoroughfare described in Zechariah, Highway 4177 now passes through the mountain.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Apocalypse of Nathan
After the three and a half days, the breath of life from God came into them, and they stood on their feet. (Revelation II:I1)
In 2015, a secular Israeli teenager named Natan fell ill during the Festival of Sukkot. He slipped into a Near-Death Experience (NDE) that could be described as a modern apocalypse. He felt himself leave his body and ascend into heaven, where he received a tour of Paradise, stood before the heavenly tribunal, met the Messiah, saw the Accuser, and ultimately beheld visions of a potential end-times scenario. His story was considered remarkable since, as a secular Israeli teen with no religious training, he had never been exposed to such ideas.
An Israeli rabbi interviewed him in a live class. A recording of the interview circulated widely on the internet. Although the young man was unfamiliar with the Bible and had never studied Jewish mysticism or eschatology, he astonished the learned with descriptions that sounded similar to what might be derived from Bible prophecy and Jewish texts. For example, without knowing the prophecies of Zechariah and Ezekiel or the text of the New Testament, he foresaw the Mount of Olives split:
Now, what I also saw is that the Mount of Olives next to Jerusalem ... will split in two. In that second, the Mashiach will be revealed to everyone. Meaning, before everyone, before everyone! Everyone will simply see that it's the Mashiach and will understand that he's the Mashiach. Here he is! Revealed to everyone.
And he will stand at the entrance there to the Mount of Olives. And he will say who can enter and who cannot. Anyone who does not have the merit to enter will stay outside and die. And anyone who has the merit to enter will be saved. You have to understand what he will be saved from!
So the mountain simply opens, it splits in two, [not from an earthquake] ... No, they will rise up! You know how on the Mount of Olives there are tombs? Two of the dead people will arise. Two dead people will come back to life. One from here, and one from here, and it will split in two. That's how it will happen. (Apocalypse of Nathan)
Similarly, in the book of Revelation, the resurrection of the two witnesses triggers the earthquake in Jerusalem (Revelation II: II- 13). In Nathan's vision, the mountain splits beneath two resurrected ones who act as the feet of the Messiah. We should never feel compelled to take NDE visions or their predictions of the future too seriously. The unbodied soul in the spiritual world beholds a shifting collage of timelines and potentials past, present, and future, which may or may not always have bearing on the real course of events. Nevertheless ...
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Battle of Armageddon
With pestilence and with blood I will enter into judgment with him; and I will rain on him and on his troops, and on the many peoples who are with him, a torrential rain, with hailstones, fire and brimstone. (Ezekiel 38:22)
In that hour, the LORD Himself steps forward as a warrior goes to war, "as when He fights on a day of battle" (Zechariah 14:3). The LORD boasts over the armies of Gog and Magog:
I will strike your bow from your left hand and dash down your arrows from your right hand. You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you. (Ezekiel 39:3-4)
The seventh and last bowl of wrath pours out on the hosts of Gog and Magog. The contents of that bowl include the great earthquake with which God splits the Mount of Olives, smites the invaders, and topples Babylon. It also includes the tempest of giant hailstones with which the LORD decimates the armies of Magog, where they are gathered in the Jezreel Valley for the Battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16-17, 21, cf. Ezekiel 38:19-22):
Then the Holy One, blessed be He, will say to Gog, "Wicked one! Do you seek to wage war against Me? As sure as you live, I will bring destruction upon you!" Immediately, He will rain down upon him stones of hail stored in the heavens and strike them with a great plague. (Vayosha)
The LORD unleashes plagues on the armies of Gog and Magog throughout the land of Israel as He unleashed plagues on Egypt and as He punished Sodom and Gomorrah. The fire and brimstone of Sodom fall on them. The pestilence, blood, storm, and hail of Egypt fall on them. The storm on Egypt brought "hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation" (Exodus 9:24). Some of that same hail has been reserved for judgment against Gog and Magog (Exodus Rabbah 12:2; Job 38:22-23).
The Battle of Armageddon is only one of many battlefields upon which the LORD strikes the invaders. He declares, "I will call for a sword against him on all My mountains" (Ezekiel 38:21). He boasts, "You will fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples who are with you" (Ezekiel 39:4). A tradition in Sefer Zerubbabel mentions a battle in the Valley of Arbel near Lake Galilee: "He will fight the battle of Gog and Magog and against the army of Armilus, and all of them will fall dead in the Valley of Arbel."
Nor is the destruction of Magog confined to the borders of the land of Israel. The LORD says, "I will send fire upon [the land of] Magog and those who inhabit the coastlands in safety" (Ezekiel 39:6). One tradition holds that "the judgment of Magog will last twelve months" (Lamentations Rabbah 12:40). The LORD will punish the cities of all those nations that sent their armies against Jerusalem. He will "execute judgment by fire and by His sword on all flesh, and those slain by the LORD will be many" (Isaiah 66:16). An angel will take a censer and fill it with coals from the heavenly altar and cast the fire upon the earth (Revelation 18:18). The great city of Babylon "will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong" (Revelation 18:8).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Horse of a Different Color
I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. (Revelation 19:11)
John sees the Messiah ride forth from heaven mounted on a white horse. He arrives to wage war against the Beast and the nations that serve him. Elsewhere, the Messiah is depicted lowly and riding on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9), but in this hour, He comes in wrath and triumph mounted on the white horse of conquest.
An amusing conversation in the Talmud discusses the Messiah's choice of steed. When the heathen king of Persia learned that the Jews expected their Messiah to come lowly and riding on a donkey, he mocked them, "You say that the Messiah will come on a donkey? I will send him my white horse to use." The great sage Shmuel replied, "Do you have a horse of one thousand colors?" (b.Sanhedrin 98a).
The cryptic reply seems to engage with some subtle wordplay on the Aramaic version of Zechariah 9:9, but the larger point is that the Messiah's white steed is actually a horse of a thousand colors, far exceeding the value of any steed a mortal king might possess. The color white contains the full spectrum of color. Like the refraction of white light that creates the rainbow, the Talmud suggests that the coat of the Messiah's white horse scintillates in all colors. To put it another way, the Messiah comes riding on the clouds, mounted on a rainbow steed. "Does the king of Persia have a horse like that? Didn't think so."
In 2003, four-year-old Colton Burpo experienced a Near-Death Experience (NDE) while undergoing emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix. On recovering, the four-year-old described a typical NDE including a visit to heaven, conversations with deceased relatives in Paradise, and an encounter with Jesus. His story became the best-selling 2010 book Heaven Is for Real, which was further popularized with Christian audiences by a film adaptation in 2014. Religious skeptics and Bible experts, however, objected to the four-year-old's sensational claims. They derided his cartoonish descriptions of the transcendent world. They particularly ridiculed his story about Jesus riding on a rainbow-colored horse: a clear contradiction of the Bible. The Bible says He rides a white horse! Several skeptics cited that particular story as evidence that the entire experience was merely the fabrication of a childish imagination:
"Hey, Dad, did you know Jesus has a horse?"
"A horse?"
"Yeah, a rainbow horse. I got to pet him." (Heaven Is for Real, 63)
"When Israel goes forth from exile, the rainbow will be adorned with its colors like a bride who adorns herself for her husband." The Judean man replied, "My father told me, when he was about to depart from this world, 'Do not expect the coming of the Messiah until the rainbow is seen in the world (or, in the clouds) adorned with such radiant colors that they illuminate the world. Then, look for the Messiah." (Zohar I:72b on Noach)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Holy Ones With Him
The armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. (Revelation 19:14)
When God stepped down onto Mount Sinai, He arrived with myriads of angels, "from the midst of ten thousand holy ones" (Deuteronomy 33:2). The psalmist exclaims, "The chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands; the Lord is among them as at Sinai, in holiness" (Psalm 68:18[17]). "With Him were thousands twice-fold of chariots, even twenty thousand of holy angels" (Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer 41).
Likewise, at the time of the War of Gog and Magog, "the LORD, my God, will come, and all the holy ones with Him" (Zechariah I4:5). The generic term "holy ones" should be understood as angelic beings. For example, the apocalyptic book of I Enoch uses the term "holy ones" synonymously with angels. Enoch predicts that, on the Day of the LORD, the LORD will come with multitudes of His holy ones to execute judgment (I Enoch I:9; Jude 14-15). He "makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire" (Hebrews 1:7):
Behold, the LORD will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. (Isaiah 66:15)
Yeshua also describes the coming of the Son of Man "in His glory, and all the angels with Him" (Matthew 25:3I). He has "more than twelve legions" of angels at His disposal (Matthew 26:53). He comes "with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds" (Matthew 16:27):
In that hour the Messiah will come forth from Jerusalem to make war with them, and all the pious will be with him, a great multitude... in that hour the Holy One, blessed be He, will descend from the highest heaven above, and the ministering angels with Him ….. and they will make war against Gog and Magog. (Midrash Alpha Betot, Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts, [Wayne State University Press, 1988], 154)
Among the angelic beings accompanying the Messiah are the righteous resurrected who have been made "like angels" through the power of the resurrection (Matthew 22:30). "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake... to everlasting life" (Daniel 12:2). Roused from sleep by the voice of the shofar, they have been "raised imperishable" and "put on immortality." They are "clothed in fine linen, white and clean," which are "the righteous acts of the saints" (Revelation 19:8, 14). Some "shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven," and others "like the stars" (Daniel 12:3). On rising from their slumber, they meet the Messiah in the air, falling in with His entourage.
Trailing behind the righteous resurrected are those who did not sleep but remained alive, awaiting His arrival at the time of His coming. They too have been transformed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, from the perishable to imperishable, from mortal to immortal (I Corinthians 15:52-53), and now, they "fly like the clouds and like doves to their lattices" in Jerusalem (Isaiah 60:8). "He will come in the manner of a covey of doves with the crown of doves surrounding Him" (Apocalypse of Elijah 3). The "great trumpet" gathers them together along with "His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other" (Matthew 24:31).
The fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, arrive from Hebron to see the fulfillment of the promises given to them. The holy prophets rise to see the final redemption that they had predicted (Song of Songs Rabbah 4:23; Ecclesiastes Rabbah I:30). As our Master told His disciples, "Many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (Matthew 13:17). In this hour, those same prophets and righteous men see and hear:
The signs of the truth will appear: the first sign, an expansion in the heavens; next, the sign of the sound of the trumpet; and the third sign, the resurrection of the dead. However, not the resurrection of everyone but rather as it is said [in Zechariah 14:5], "The Lord will come and all the righteous along with him." (Didache 16.6-7)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Why Are Your Garmets Red?
He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. (Revelation 19:13)
The Messiah arrives in Jerusalem from the east, appareled in red, like the rising of a blood red sunrise before the break of a storm. "In the morning, there will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening" (Matthew 16:3). To the righteous, the rising sun over the Mount of Olives is "the sun of righteousness with healing in [His] wings," but to the wicked, He is "burning like a furnace" to "set them ablaze (Malachi 3:19-20[4:1-2]).
The Prophet Isaiah observes the Messiah's red garments and inquires, "Why is Your apparel red, and Your garments like the one who treads the winepress?" (Isaiah 63:2).
The Messiah explains that He arrives from Edom, where He has trodden the great wine press of the wrath of God alone:
I also trod them in My anger and trampled them in My wrath, and their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, and I stained all My raiment. (Isaiah 63:3; cf. Revelation 14:19)
The treading of the winepress took place in the battle for the now fallen city of Babylon. Babylon represents the center of world power. In the symbolic language of the Apostle John, Babylon meant Rome, but the rabbis used the code word Edom. They read Isaiah 63 according to that symbolism:
Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, this One who is majestic in His apparel, marching in the greatness of His strength? (Isaiah 63:1)
The prophecy indicates that, before the Messiah even arrives to liberate Jerusalem, He has already dealt with Jerusalem's chief contender.
"Outside the city [of Babylon,], blood came out from the winepress, up to the horses' bridles, for a distance of two hundred miles" (Revelation 14:20). The hyperbolic language about the depth of the river of blood flowing out from the fallen Babylon is common apocalyptic language, not meant to be taken literally but rather to impress on us the magnitude of the slaughter. For example, the Talmud describes the Roman slaughter of the citizens of Betar with a similar analogy: "The blood flowed until it reached the nostrils of the horses" (b.Gittin 57b). The same type of language appears in 2 Ezra and I Enoch as those texts describe the carnage ensuing when the nations turn their weapons against one another in the chaos of the Day of the LORD:
They shall throw themselves against one another and shall pour out a heavy tempest upon the earth, and their own tempest; and there shall be blood from the sword as high as a horse's belly and a man's thigh and a camel's hock. And there shall be fear and great trembling upon the earth; and those who see that wrath shall be horror-stricken, and they shall be seized with trembling. (2 Ezra 15:35-36)
In those days, in a single place, fathers and their sons will be struck down together; brothers will fall side by side until the streams run with their blood. People will not hold back their hands from killing their own children or their grandchildren, and sinners will not spare even their honored brothers. From morning until evening they will slaughter one another. The horse will wade up to its chest in the blood of the wicked, and chariots will sink to their axles in it. (I Enoch 100:1-3)
The LORD will place a spirit of confusion upon them, and they will kill one another, each slaying his companion or his countryman ... The LORD will place each man's sword on the neck of his companion and their dead bodies shall fall there. (Sefer Zerubbabel)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Sword of His Mouth
The LORD roars from Zion and utters His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth tremble. But the LORD is a refuge for His people and a stronghold to the sons of Israel. (Joel 3:16)
The Messiah meets His adversaries on the field of battle, but the weapon He wields against them is the authority of the word spoken from His mouth:
From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. (Revelation 19:15)
He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked. (Isaiah II:4)
The sword of His mouth, the rod of His mouth, and the breath of His lips are all terms for the power of speech. "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18:21), and the Messiah will speak "death" over the hosts of Gog and Magog: "The Messiah will issue decrees over them, and in that hour a thousand thousands and a myriad myriads of them will die" (Midrash Alpha Betot), as it says in Revelation 19:21: "The rest were killed with the sword which came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse":
Whenever his voice issued from his mouth, all who heard his voice melted as wax melts when it feels the fire ... When he saw the onrush of the approaching multitude, he neither lifted his hand nor held a spear or any weapon of war... he sent forth from his mouth as it were a stream of fire and from his lips a flaming breath, and from his tongue he shot forth a storm of fiery coals. All these were mingled together, the stream of fire and the flaming breath and the great storm, and fell on the onrushing multitude that was prepared to fight and burned them all up, so that suddenly nothing was seen of the innumerable multitude but only the dust of ashes and the smell of smoke. (2 Ezra 13:4, 9-10)
The Messiah "will shatter kings in the day of His wrath. He will judge among the nations, He will fill them with corpses, He will shatter the chief men over a broad country" (Psalm 110:5-6). He breaks them with a rod of iron and dashes them in pieces like a clay pot (Psalm 2:9). His spoken word unleashes a horrific plague against Gog's hosts akin to radiation poisoning from a nuclear blast. Like walking corpses, they decompose alive, disintegrating on their feet (Zechariah 14:12).
At the same time, He unleashes a spirit of discomfiture on their armies. They turn their weapons against one another in panic and confusion (Zecha-riah 14:13; Ezekiel 38:21). The Jewish people join the fight, as it says, "Judah also will fight at Jerusalem." They purge Jerusalem of the invaders. They gather the plunder left behind, "gold and silver and garments in great abundance" (Zechariah 14:14).
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Fate of the Beast
I kept looking until the beast was slain, and its body was destroyed and given to the burning fire. (Daniel 7:11)
The righteous resurrected receive the privilege of binding kings with chains and fetters of iron (Psalm 149:5-9). (In Apocalypse of Elijah, Enoch and Elijah receive the privilege.) They drag them into the presence of that King who does not judge by what His eyes see nor make decisions by what His ears hear, but judges with righteousness and fairness, "and with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked" (Isaiah II:3-4). Among the prisoners are the chief culprits: "The beast was seized, and with him the false prophet" (Revelation 19:20). "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" (2 Thessalonians 2:8).
By the word of His mouth, the Messiah pronounces an immediate sentence of final judgment over the Beast and the False Prophet, consigning both to the second death. They will not stand again with the dead on the last day. Their sentencing is irrevocable. "These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone" (Revelation 19:20).
The Lord's Messiah ... will come and breathe in the face of Armilus and thereby slay him. (Sefer Zerubbabel)
Elijah and Enoch will come down. They will lay down the flesh of the world, and they will receive their spiritual flesh. They will pursue the son of lawlessness and kill him since he is not able to speak. On that day, he will dissolve in their presence like ice which was dissolved by a fire. He will perish like a serpent which has no breath in it. They will say to him, "Your time has passed by for you. Now therefore you and those who believe you will perish." They will be cast into the bottom of the abyss and it will be closed for them. (Apocalypse of Elijah 5)
The last leader of that time will be left alive ... he will be bound, and they will take him up to Mount Zion, and My Messiah will convict him of all his crimes... he will put him to death, and protect the rest of My people which shall be found in the place which I have chosen. His kingdom will endure forever, until the age of decay is at an end, until the times are fulfilled. This is your vision, and this is its interpretation. (2 Baruch 40)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The End of Days, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.