Bible Prophesy - FALL OF DAMASCUS?

Could this be the end of Damascus as foretold?  The book of Isaiah and Jeremiah foretold the destruction of Damascus.

These two prophets talked extensively that this city would be a pile of rubble. The city of Damascus has been conquered by various armies but never was a time that it was a pile of rubble. This indicates that this prophesy is yet to be fulfilled. Another proof that it is yet to be fulfilled is that this city has always retained its name unlike when the bible talks about Persia you know it refers to Iran, this is not figurative and needs no calculation or analysis or special interpretation. It is a direct one.

 Could the on-going war in Syria lead to the fulfilment of the prophesy?
This cannot be ascertained because the description given can probably be achieved by if the city is nuked. 

In the very near future, Damascus will once again play a major role in human events. The prophet Isaiah provides us with God's commentary on a future conflict between Damascus and Israel, and in so doing, He reveals certain prophecies that have been partially fulfilled in the past. However, the ultimate fulfillment of Isaiah 17 remains in the future. The current existence of Damascus, which will one day cease to be a city, as well as the historical absence of the coalition of nations prophesied to attack Israel and be destroyed by God, is proof that Isaiah 17 prophesies events yet future. There has been alot of concerns from the media on this. I totally agree with Joel on this when he was interviewed by fox news.

( Click here to watch foxnews interview with Joel C. Rosenberg  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23i1_MzxYkA )

Damascus has been inhabited since prehistoric times and is reputedly the oldest continuously occupied city in the world. There was a city on its site even before the time (c.2000 B.C.) of Abraham. Damascus was probably held by the Egyptians before the Hittite period (2d millennium B.C.) and was later ruled by the Israelites and Aram. Tiglathpileser III made it (732 B.C.) a part of the Assyrian Empire. From the 6th to the 4th cent. B.C. it was a provincial capital of the Persian Empire until it passed (332 B.C.) without a struggle to the armies of Alexander the Great.

Damascus passed (64 B.C.) into the Roman Empire under Pompey. One of the cities of the Decapolis confederacy, it was generally under Roman influence until the breakup of the empire.

Damascus became a thriving commercial city, noted for its woolen cloth and grain, and was early converted to Christianity. It was on the road to Damascus that Paul (d. 67) experienced his dramatic conversion, and it was from Damascus that he escaped persecution by being lowered down the wall in a basket. The Roman emperor Theodosius I had a Christian church built there (A.D. 379) on the foundations of the Roman temple of Zeus (1st cent. A.D.)

Damascus at night

After the permanent split (395) of the Roman Empire, Damascus became a provincial capital of the Byzantine Empire. The Arabs, who had attacked and sporadically held the city since before the time of Paul, occupied it permanently in 635. The city was then gradually converted to Islam, and the Christian church built by Theodosius was rebuilt (705) as the Great Mosque. Damascus was the seat of the caliphate under the Umayyads from 661 until 750, when the Abbasids made Baghdad the center of the Muslim world. Damascus thereafter fell prey to new conquerors—the Egyptians, the Karmathians, and the Seljuk Turks (1076).



Syria before the war



Prophesies Against Syria

Isaiah 17: 1-3

1 The burden against Damascus.

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,

And it will be a ruinous heap.

 2 The cities of Aroer are forsaken;a

 They will be for flocks

 Which lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

3 The fortress also will cease from Ephraim,

The kingdom from Damascus,

And the remnant of Syria;

They will be as the glory of the children of Israel,” Says the Lord of hosts.

Jeremiah 49: 23 -27

23  Against Damascus.

“Hamath and Arpad are shamed,

For they have heard bad news.

They are fainthearted;

There is trouble on the sea;

It cannot be quiet.

24   Damascus has grown feeble;

 She turns to flee,

 And fear has seized her.

 Anguish and sorrows have taken her like a woman in labor.

 25  Why is the city of praise not deserted, the city of My joy?

 26 Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets,

 And all the men of war shall be cut off in that day,” says the Lord of hosts.

 27 “I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus,

 And it shall consume the palaces of Ben-Hadad.”e

 

Syria Today

The unrest began on 15 March 2011, with popular demonstrations that grew nationwide by April 2011. These demonstrations were part of the wider Middle Eastern protest movement known as the Arab Spring. Protesters demanded the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has held the presidency in Syria since 1971, as well as the end of Ba'ath Party rule, which began in 1963.

According to the United Nations, the death toll surpassed 100,000 in June 2013, and reached 120,000 by September 2013.

Over two million refugees have fled Syria, of which one million are children. According to the UN, this is the worst refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

What Should we do?

This is not the time to look at our check list of prophesies and tick "fulfiled!", niether is it a time to feel sorry for them, do nothing and continue with our everyday activities. We should be concerned. Things like this usually happen to a nation time whenever the nation is under judgement. The lesser light in a land, the darker it becomes and when the rivers are full, they overflow their banks. There are alot women and children caught up in the war they did not sign for. We should not judge but we must show compassion.

We can take the following steps:

·         Pray for them.

·         Show love where and when necessary

·         Make donations or send relief materials to them.