The Significant Story of Purim
This weekend marks the Jewish celebration of Purim. It is a time when the biblical book of Esther comes to mind. It is a story of faithfulness and heroism by a Jewish girl named Esther who bravely stood up to protect her nation against annihilation. God honoured her faithfulness and through her a whole nation, the Jewish people, was saved and the enemy of her people faced destruction.
Ironically, this biblical narrative played out in a land called Persia, the modern day Iran. And, yet again we see the spirit of Haman arising against the Jewish people. From Iran and almost on a daily basis, we hear hateful rhetoric against Israel. On Tuesday, the Air Force commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, was quoted by Iran’s Fars news agency as saying that Iran’s military has its finger on the trigger to destroy Israel as soon as it receives the order to do so.
Last month, Iranian state TV ran a documentary featuring a computerized video. Set to dramatic music, the video showed Iranian drones and missiles carrying out strikes against Tel Aviv’s Kikar Hamedina square, the Azrieli Towers, and the IDF’s Kirya central command complex, as well as Ben Gurion International Airport, Haifa’s Technion, several army and air force bases, and the nuclear reactor in Dimona.
It is thus no coincidence that the ship with Iranian weapons which was intercepted by the Israeli navy happened so close to Purim. Just two days after the interception of the ship and the displaying of the weapons to the media by the Israeli navy, terrorist groups fired more than 60 rockets on the south of Israel. The spirit of Haman raised its ugly head again.
In terms of land, Iran is 79 times bigger than Israel, and there are 9.5 times more people living there than in the Jewish state. Some 98 percent of Iranians are Muslim. Of that number 90 percent are Shiites and only 8 percent are Sunnis; the rest are Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews and Bahais.
Iran is the fourth largest oil producing country in the world after Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US. But only Iran belongs to the Fertile Crescent, which is how this area of the Middle East was known in biblical times. The end time visions of the biblical prophets only mentioned the countries in the area surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, those that opposed Israel and Jerusalem. Incidentally, crude oil in Arabic is “spirit from the abyss,” generally known as “spirit.”
The Fertile Crescent was under the influence of Babylon, the opponent of Jerusalem. Jerusalem was Ariel, the Lion of God, as its traditional emblem, while Babylon has the Dragon-Lion Sirush.
From the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD and the exile of the Jews from Zion until the recapture of Jerusalem in 1967, 1,897 years passed. That is exactly 70 generations according to the biblical measure. Ludwig Schneider, a well known messianic Jewish writer, explained it this way: “One generation is 27 years because by the age of 27 at the latest, a new family has been established.”
At the end of these 70 generations, Israel’s archenemy Babylon has reappeared on the scene as Iran. It starts with Babylon living up to its name, which means confusion. Babylon’s confusing influence on nations, politicians and even churches (South African Council of Churches opposition to Israel), is evident because they are more willing to believe anti-Israel rhetoric than the words of the Bible.
Seventy-five years ago, the “Aryans” (pure blooded Germans) were taken in by this anti-Jewish spirit of Babylon. Now once again, a nation of Aryans (Iran means “land of the Aryans”) is stupefying the world.