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fascinated with the probabilities of these Bible prophecies being
fulfilled
allaboutthejourney.org
I started a notebook and looked for "Bible prophecies fulfilled" in history...
The Decree of Cyrus
In about 700 BC, Isaiah names Cyrus as the king
who will allow the Israelites to return to Jerusalem and rebuild its
Temple.
At the time of this prophecy, there was no king
named Cyrus and the Temple in Jerusalem was totally built and in full
operation.
In 586 BC, more than 100 years later, the
Babylonian King "Nebuchadnezzar" sacked Jerusalem and
destroyed the temple.
The Jews living in Jerusalem were either killed
or taken captive to Babylon.
In about 539 BC, the Babylonian Empire was
conquered by the Persians. Shortly thereafter, a Persian king named Cyrus
issued a formal decree that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild
their temple.
This decree is confirmed by secular archaeology
in the form of a stone cylinder that details many events of Cyrus' reign,
including the decree to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
Remarkably, Isaiah predicted that a man named
Cyrus, who would not be born for about a hundred years, would give a decree to
rebuild a city and a temple, which were still standing and fully active at the
time!
I had to check more of these out…! Are there
more Bible prophecies fulfilled in history...?
The City of Tyre
In 586 BC (confirmed by secular sources as the
11th year of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah), "Ezekiel" predicts the fall of mainland Tyre
to the Babylonian armies of Nebuchadnezzar.
The text further describes the siege against the
island fortress of Tyre (a half mile off the coast of mainland Tyre) hundreds
of years later.
Ezekiel's prophecy describes how the future
invaders would tear down the ruins of mainland Tyre and throw them into the
sea.
They would "scrape her
dust from her and leave her as the top of a rock. They will lay your stones,
your timber, and your soil in the midst of the water. I will make you like the
top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets."
Secular history records that Nebuchadnezzar laid
siege to the great mainland city of Tyre about a year after Ezekiel's prophecy.
The Encyclopedia
Britannica says: "After a 13-year siege (585-573 BC) by
Nebuchadnezzar II, Tyre made terms and acknowledged Babylonian
suzerainty."
When Nebuchadnezzar broke through the city
gates, he found it nearly empty. Most of the people had moved by ship to an
island about a half mile off the coast and fortified a city there.
The mainland city was destroyed in 573 BC
(Ezekiel's first prediction), but the city of Tyre on the island remained a
powerful city for several hundred years.
Secular history next records that "Alexander the Great"
laid siege to the island fortress of Tyre in 332 BC. His army destroyed the
remains of mainland Tyre and threw them into the Mediterranean Sea.
As Alexander's army constructed a causeway to
the island, they scraped even the dust from the mainland city, leaving only
bare rock.
Historian Phillip Myers in his
history textbook, General History for Colleges and High Schools,
writes, "Alexander the Great reduced Tyre to ruins in 332 BC. Tyre
recovered in a measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had
previously held in the world. The larger part of the site of the once great
city is now as bare as the top of a rock -- a place where the fishermen that
still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry."
Wow, this was dramatic stuff - I had no idea…
The City of Samaria
The prophets Hosea (748 - 690 BC) and Micah (738
- 690 BC) each predicted the destruction of Samaria, the capital city of the
Northern Kingdom of Israel.
Not only did these prophets predict violence and
destruction, but they declared that this great city would become "as
a heap in the field," with its stones poured down into the
valley, and vineyards planted in place of its great walls, with even the
foundations being removed.
History tells us that Sargon took Samaria by the
sword in 722 BC.
Later, Alexander took the city violently in 331
BC, as did Hyrcanus in 120 BC.
What's remarkable is not the violent demise of
Samaria and its people, but rather, some of the historic specifics of what then
happened to that once great city.
Reactions upon visiting the ancient spot have
been recorded for centuries.
In 1697, Henry Maundrell declared: "This
great city is now wholly converted into gardens, and all the tokens that remain
to testify that there has ever been such a place, are only on the north
side…"
Floyd Hamilton continues: "To-day the
top of the hill where Samaria stood is a cultivated field with the foundations
of the columns marking the place where the palaces and mansions stood. At the
foot of the hill, in the valley, lie the foundation stones of the
city…"
Finally, from Van de
Velde: Her foundations discovered, her streets ploughed up, and covered
with corn fields and olive gardens… Samaria has been destroyed, but her rubbish
has been thrown down into the valley; her foundation stones, those grayish
ancient quadrangular stones of the time of Omri and Ahab, are discovered, and
lie scattered about on the slope of the hill.
I read prophecy after prophecy…
I read them closely and let them sink in…
I took notes and collected excerpts and
articles…
I was fascinated with the probabilities of these
Bible prophecies being fulfilled…
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We believe truth transforms lives. Therefore, we place our content on the first few pages of the most popular search engines in the world. That way, when people seek answers on the Web, we're there with the truth at the top!
We are followers of Jesus. Like Jesus, we reject many of the issues found in “organized religion” (man-made attempts to reach God through rules and rituals). We consider the personal pursuit of God as paramount in each of our personal life journeys. We also believe that ultimate, saving Truth is found only through God’s Son, Jesus Christ. (Read our Faith Statement here.) We believe that the authoritative and primary source of that truth is the Bible as illuminated by the power of the Holy Spirit. Further, we believe that spiritual growth occurs in combination with being in God’s Word consistently and dealing with the things we suffer in this fallen world while being in fellowship with other believers where there is an atmosphere of grace, love, and accountability.
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