PREDICTIONS THAT ARE DIFFERENT

Does this suggest that there is no way for you to gain advance knowledge of important coming events? To the contrary, dependable predictions, wholly different from the type mentioned above, are available. They are found in the Holy Bible.

Simply open the Bible to the prophetic books, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel, and you will find predictions that are truly different. Rather than treating of trivialities in the lives of individuals, time and again Bible prophecies predict the future of entire nations. The rise and fall of empires, and their characteristics, along with specific details about their relations with God’s own people, are set forth​—and much of this centuries in advance.

Also, unlike predictions of fortunetellers that bear no relationship to one another, all the Bible’s prophecies are interrelated. For example, the Scriptures state: “The bearing witness to Jesus is what inspires [literally, the spirit of] prophesying.” (Rev. 19:10) All Bible prophecies center around the role of Jesus Christ as Abraham’s “seed,” or offspring, for the blessing of “all nations of the earth.”​—Gen. 3:15; 12:1-3; 22:18; Gal. 3:16.

Moreover, Bible prophets delivered moral messages of the highest value. They boldly reproved kings and high officials for breaches of God’s law, often putting their lives in danger by doing so.

Most impressively, however, Biblical predictions stand out as being truly different because of their fulfillment, even to the smallest of details. And they describe future events that will involve you, personally. We will consider some examples in the next two articles.

How History Was Written Centuries in Advance

WHAT do you think of the possibility of someone writing history in advance? Some insist that such a thing is impossible, and they dismiss the question without further investigation.

But think about it for a moment: Does mere denial by skeptical persons disprove the possibility of genuine predictions? Surely it would be unwise to draw such a conclusion hastily. Probably right in your own home you have evidence of history written centuries in advance. How so?

Likely you possess a copy of the Holy Bible, which hundreds of millions of persons throughout the world view as the inspired word of God. (2 Tim. 3:16) The Scriptures are filled with predictions of events that took place hundreds of years after they were foretold. Let us consider some examples.

‘TYRE WILL BECOME A DRYING YARD FOR DRAGNETS’

An example of the astonishing accuracy of Bible prophecy concerns the ancient Phoenician seaport city of Tyre. This city grew to be very great at the expense of other people. She was a manufacturer of metal objects, glassware and purple dyes, a trading center for overland caravans, a great import-export depot. Her merchants and tradesmen boasted of being princely and honorable. (Isa. 23:8) At one time friendly relations existed between Tyre and Israel. But this did not continue, for Tyre eventually allied herself with Israel’s enemies. Because of Tyre’s treachery toward Israel, God inspired his prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and others to predict that calamity would come upon this Phoenician seaport. We read, for example:

“This is what the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has said, ‘Here I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring up against you many nations, just as the sea brings up its waves. And they will certainly bring the walls of Tyre to ruin and tear down her towers, and I will scrape her dust away from her and make her a shining, bare surface of a crag. A drying yard for dragnets is what she will become in the midst of the sea. . . . Here I am bringing against Tyre Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon from the north, a king of kings, with horses and war chariots and cavalrymen and a congregation, even a multitudinous people. And I will make you a shining, bare surface of a crag. A drying yard for dragnets is what you will become. Never will you be rebuilt; for I myself, Jehovah, have spoken,’ is the utterance of the Sovereign Lord Jehovah.”​—Ezek. 26:3-5, 7, 14.

Secular history reports that Nebuchadnezzar began a siege of Tyre sometime after destroying Jerusalem and the temple of Jehovah’s worship in 607 B.C.E. The Jewish historian Josephus, drawing upon Phoenician annals and other previously written history, states that Nebuchadnezzar’s siege against Tyre lasted thirteen years. The Bible indicates that Nebuchadnezzar’s forces inflicted considerable damage upon Tyre.​—Ezek. 26:8-11.

Tyre recovered from this blow struck by Babylon. However, centuries later, Grecian forces under Alexander the Great moved against Tyre, which at that time was located on an island about half a mile (0.8 kilometer) from the mainland. When the inhabitants refused to capitulate to Alexander, he became enraged and had his men scrape up the ruins of the mainland city and throw them into the sea, thus building a causeway out to the island city. Then a sea battle took place in which Alexander’s forces prevailed. After a siege of seven months, Alexander’s men took the island city. When its inhabitants put up desperate resistance, the city was set on fire. It proved to be as another prophet, Zechariah, had foretold: “In the fire she herself will be devoured.”​—Zech. 9:4.

Though Tyre kept trying to make a comeback through the centuries, the city repeatedly fell before hostile forces, just as God’s prophet had foretold. (Ezek. 26:3) What is the present condition of Tyre, which was one of the great sea powers of the ancient world? Ruins and a small seaport, called Sour (Sur), mark the site. Nina Jidejian, in her book Tyre Through the Ages (1969), declares: “The port has become a haven today for fishing boats and a place for spreading nets,” exactly as prophesied through Ezekiel.​—Ezek. 26:5, 14.

MEDO-PERSIA AND GREECE TO SUCCEED BABYLON

During the sixth century B.C.E., when Babylon held sway as the dominant world power, the prophet Daniel received an amazing dream vision involving two symbolic animals. The first was a ram (a male sheep) having two horns. “And the two horns were tall, but the one was taller than the other, and the taller was the one that came up afterward.” (Dan. 8:3) What did this ram represent? An angel explained to Daniel: “The ram that you saw possessing the two horns stands for the kings of Media and Persia.”​—Dan. 8:20.

Daniel was here given by name the world power that would succeed Babylon. True to these details, Babylon fell to Medo-Persia. The Medes (the smaller horn) at first were the stronger and the Persians thereafter gained ascendancy (the taller horn that came up afterward).

What about the second animal of this vision? Daniel tells us that it was “a male of the goats coming from the sunset upon the surface of the whole earth, and it was not touching the earth. And as regards the he-goat, there was a conspicuous horn between its eyes.”​—Dan. 8:5.

The he-goat does battle with the ram, overcoming it. (Dan. 8:6, 7) Then something unusual takes place. Daniel continues: “As soon as [the goat] became mighty, the great horn was broken, and there proceeded to come up conspicuously four instead of it, toward the four winds of the heavens.”​—Dan. 8:8.

Upon inquiring of an angel as to the meaning of this part of his symbolic vision, Daniel received this reply:

“And the hairy he-goat stands for the king of Greece; and as for the great horn that was between its eyes, it stands for the first king. And that one having been broken, so that there were four that finally stood up instead of it, there are four kingdoms from his nation that will stand up, but not with his power.”​—Dan. 8:21, 22.

Here it is foretold that Medo-Persia would be followed as a world power by Greece.

What about the he-goat’s “great horn” that was broken and in place of which four other horns appeared? As noted in the angel’s explanation, the great horn represented the “first king” of Greece as a world power. That was Alexander the Great. Interestingly, after Alexander died, in time his empire was divided up four ways among four of his generals, “toward the four winds of the heavens,” as foretold.​—Dan. 8:8.

According to Josephus, this prophecy was shown to Alexander when he came near Jerusalem. We read: “When the book of Daniel was shown to him, in which he [Daniel] had declared that one of the Greeks would destroy the empire of the Persians, he believed himself to be the one indicated; and in his joy he dismissed the multitude for the time being, but on the following day he summoned them again and told them to ask for any gifts which they might desire.”​—Antiquities of the Jews, Book XI, chapter VIII, paragraph 5.

In just these few details of a prophetic vision, therefore, the Bible’s book of Daniel set forth history more than 200 years in advance. And the same Bible book reaches even farther into the future. How so?

HISTORY SIX CENTURIES IN ADVANCE

A unique prophecy found in Daniel, chapter 9, gives details of history more than six hundred years in advance. This prediction specifies that “Messiah the Leader” would appear sixty-nine “weeks of years . . . from the going forth of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem,” and that, shortly thereafter, Jerusalem and its temple would be destroyed. (Dan. 9:24-27; An American Translation) How was this fulfilled?

A decree for the restoration and the rebuilding at Jerusalem was given by Persian King Artaxerxes Longimanus during the twentieth year of his reign. The decree went into effect in the fall of that year, which was 455 B.C.E. Counting forward sixty-nine weeks of years (each “week” being seven years long), or 483 years, from 455 B.C.E., brings us to the year 29 C.E. According to the Scriptural record, that was precisely the year in which Jesus of Nazareth presented himself as Messiah, at his baptism in the Jordan River.​—Luke 3:21-23; 4:16-21.

This same prediction states that Messiah would be “cut off . . . at the half of the [seventieth] week.” (Dan. 9:26, 27) In precise conformity Jesus died on Passover Day in the spring of 33 C.E., exactly half a ‘week of years,’ or three and a half years, after his Messianic career began at baptism.​—Matt. 26:2; John 13:1, 2.

As for Jerusalem’s destruction, this prophecy states concerning the generation in which the Messiah would appear and be cut off in death: “And the city and the holy place the people of a leader that is coming will bring to their ruin. And the end of it will be by the flood. And until the end there will be war; what is decided upon is desolations.” (Dan. 9:26) Five days before his death Jesus provided further details about this, as we read:

“And when he got nearby [Jerusalem], he viewed the city and wept over it, saying: ‘If you, even you, had discerned in this day the things having to do with peace​—but now they have been hid from your eyes. Because the days will come upon you when your enemies will build around you a fortification with pointed stakes and will encircle you and distress you from every side, and they will dash you and your children within you to the ground, and they will not leave a stone upon a stone in you, because you did not discern the time of your being inspected.’”​—Luke 19:41-44.

Concerning the foretold “fortification with pointed stakes,” Josephus reports that, during the Jewish revolt, Roman General Titus urged the building of a wall around Jerusalem. His soldiers denuded the countryside of trees and erected in just three days an encircling fence of stakes nearly five miles (8 kilometers) long. In the holocaust that followed, 1,100,000 of Jerusalem’s “children” perished. As for the thoroughness with which these predictions of the city’s destruction were fulfilled, only three towers and a portion of the western wall remained standing. Josephus writes: “All the rest of the fortifications encircling the City were so completely levelled with the ground that no one visiting the spot would believe it had once been inhabited.”

This destruction of Jerusalem occurred in 70 C.E., some 605 years after Daniel wrote his Bible book (about 536 B.C.E.). How faith-inspiring it is to consider fulfillments of detailed Bible prophecies written centuries in advance! But Scriptural predictions do not deal merely with the distant past. Many are having a remarkable fulfillment today, and they indicate how you may enjoy a bright and happy future. The next article will consider some of these.

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455 B.C.E. 33 C.E. 70 C.E.

(spring)

29 C.E. 36 C.E.

69 Weeks of Years 70th

(=483 Yrs.) “Week”

Jesus

20th Anointed

Year of Jesus Jerusalem

Artaxerxes “Cut Off” Destroyed

From Ancient Babylon to the Twentieth Century in Bible Prophecy

BIBLICAL predictions have had remarkable fulfillments in ancient times. Did you know that the Scriptures also foretell matters concerning the twentieth century?

The Bible book of Daniel contains prophetic visions that span the rise and fall of major world powers from ancient Babylon down to the present generation. For example, during the sixth century B.C.E., Daniel had a dream of four symbolic beasts. According to Daniel’s description of these symbolic animals, they were:

(1) a lion, first having eagle’s wings, then losing them and taking on human qualities; (2) a bear devouring much flesh; (3) a leopard with four wings (adding to its great speed) and four heads; and (4) a “fearsome and terrible and unusually strong” wild beast not corresponding to any actual animal. This fourth beast had large iron teeth, ten horns and another, a “small” horn, developing with eyes and a “mouth speaking grandiose things.”​—Dan. 7:3-8.

FROM BABYLON TO RULERSHIP BY A “SON OF MAN”

What do these four beasts represent? The Scriptural account states that they symbolize “kings,” or kingdoms. (Dan. 7:17) The lion represents Babylon, which was the dominant power in the Middle East when the vision was received. (Jer. 4:5-7) The bear pictures the kingdom that followed Babylon as a world power, which proved to be Medo-Persia. The four-headed leopard with wings depicts the Grecian Empire. As for the leopard’s four heads, after Alexander the Great’s death, his generals struggled for control of the empire, four of them eventually gaining the rulership of different sections. The fourth symbolic beast of this vision refers to the world power that swallowed up the Grecian Empire, namely, Rome.

What about this fourth beast’s ten horns and the other horn with eyes and a “mouth speaking grandiose things”? (Dan. 7:8) At times the Scriptures use horns to symbolize rulers and ruling dynasties. (Dan. 8:2-10, 20-22; Zech. 1:18-21; Luke 1:69-71) The number ten denotes fullness, entirety, the sum of all that exists of something. (Matt. 25:1; Luke 15:8; 19:13, 16, 17) History shows that the Roman Empire eventually broke up into various nations. The ten horns of this fourth beast evidently represent all the kingdoms that resulted after Rome’s dissolution.

As for the “small” horn that appeared among the ten, during the eighteenth century C.E., Britain, a onetime minor imperial subject of Rome, rose to prominence as the foremost commercial and political power in the world. Because of close ties and general unity of action, Britain and the United States today are often referred to as the Anglo-American World Power. This power well fits the Biblical description of the “small” horn.

Since the Anglo-American World Power is still in existence, Daniel’s vision of the four beasts foretells developments of human history from the time of ancient Babylon down to our own day. But what follows as this series of human political kingdoms ends? Daniel adds:

“I kept on beholding in the visions of the night, and, see there! with the clouds of the heavens someone like a son of man happened to be coming; and to the Ancient of Days he gained access, and they brought him up close even before that One. And to him there were given rulership and dignity and kingdom, that the peoples, national groups and languages should all serve even him. His rulership is an indefinitely lasting rulership that will not pass away, and his kingdom one that will not be brought to ruin.”​—Dan. 7:13, 14.

How thrilling to think that the “son of man,” Jesus Christ, takes over rulership of ‘all peoples, national groups and languages,’ and that in our day! Persons living in this period of time have marvelous blessings to which they may look forward.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S DREAM IMAGE

Similar in meaning is a prophetic dream had by Nebuchadnezzar. This Babylonian king envisioned a colossal metallic image in human form. Daniel explains that the image’s “head was of good gold, its breasts and its arms were of silver, its belly and its thighs were of copper, its legs were of iron, its feet were partly of iron and partly of molded clay.”​—Dan. 2:31-33.

Daniel explained that the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar, or, by extension, the dynasty of Babylonian rulers that began with Nebuchadnezzar. (Dan. 2:37, 38) The silver breasts and arms pictured the succeeding world power of Medo-Persia. The copper belly and thighs depicted “another kingdom, a third one [counting from Babylon].” (Dan. 2:39) This was the Grecian World Power. The next part of the image, the iron legs, initially represented Rome. Yet Rome cannot fulfill all the requirements of the iron part of the image. Why not?

Because iron extended into the feet of the image, it being mixed there with molded clay. And concerning the feet of this image, the Bible goes on to state: “A stone was cut out not by hands, and it struck the image on its feet of iron and of molded clay and crushed them. At that time the iron, the molded clay, the copper, the silver and the gold were, all together, crushed.”​—Dan. 2:34, 35.

What did this part of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream mean? Daniel explains: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom itself will not be passed on to any other people. It will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms [represented by the entire image], and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”​—Dan. 2:44.

That crushing out of existence and replacing of all earthly kingdoms by divine rulership did not occur during the days of the Roman Empire. The ironlike feature of this image, therefore, extends on to the world power succeeding Rome, the Anglo-American. Thus, this vision parallels that of the four beasts in foretelling major developments in human history from ancient Babylon down to the take-over of earthly rulership by God’s kingdom in the hands of the “son of man,” Christ Jesus.

Can we expect that to happen soon?

THE “SIGN” OF CHRIST’S PRESENCE

Shortly before Jesus was put to death, his disciples asked him for a “sign” of his “presence and of the conclusion of the system of things.” (Matt. 24:3) By “presence” they meant his ruling in Kingdom power. How did Jesus answer their question? You will profit from reading the full reply as recorded in Matthew chapters 24, 25, and the parallel accounts at Mark 13 and Luke 21. Here we will give just a few highlights.

According to Luke’s Gospel account, Jesus included the following as part of the sign of his presence: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another pestilences and food shortages.” (Luke 21:10, 11) The book of Revelation sets forth the same evidences of Jesus’ presence as king, but in symbolic language. In a description of what happens on earth after Jesus Christ, as the rider on a symbolic “white horse,” receives the “crown” of active kingship over the world of mankind, we read:

“And another [horse and rider] came forth, a fiery-colored horse; and to the one seated upon it there was granted to take peace away from the earth so that they should slaughter one another; and a great sword was given him. (Compare Luke 21:10 regarding ‘nation rising against nation.’] . . .

“And I saw, and, look! a black horse; and the one seated upon it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard a voice as if in the midst of the four living creatures say: ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius [a full day’s wage at that time], and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not harm the olive oil and the wine.’ [Compare Luke 21:11 concerning famine.] . . .

“And I saw, and, look! a pale horse; and the one seated upon it had the name Death. And Hades [mankind’s common grave] was closely following him. And authority was given them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with a long sword and with food shortage and with deadly plague and by the wild beasts of the earth. [Note that Luke 21:11 includes pestilences.]”​—Rev. 6:1-8.

Have not you personally experienced these things? Has not the generation of people alive today suffered from unprecedented wars, food shortages and epidemic diseases, starting from World War I in 1914 C.E.? And these things are not all there is to the sign of Jesus’ presence in Kingdom power.

Jesus added as another feature of that sign: “And because of the increasing of lawlessness the love of the greater number will cool off.” (Matt. 24:12) Do not you agree that skyrocketing crime rates in many parts of the earth during this generation have led to a general cooling off in the love people have both for God and for their fellowman?​—Compare 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

However dismal these world conditions are, they constitute strong reason for Bible believers to rejoice, for Jesus further stated: “Truly I say to you that this generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.” That means that persons who saw the beginning of these distressing times will still be alive when God’s heavenly kingdom brings to its end the present system of things.​—Matt. 24:8, 34.

What will replace it? A new system of things under divine rule. Describing conditions on earth at that time, the Bible book of Revelation states: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”​—Rev. 21:3, 4.

Would you enjoy living in that new system of things? If so, fulfillment of the “sign” that Jesus gave can have special significance for you. Jesus pointed this out, saying: “As these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.”​—Luke 21:28.

What a grand hope! Yet God has requirements, which are not hard to meet, for all who will survive into that new system of things. (1 John 5:3, 4) Are you willing to study the Bible so as to learn God’s requirements? You should find real joy in doing so. Jehovah’s Witnesses will be happy to conduct a free home Bible study with you. Also, meetings at their Kingdom Halls are free and open to the public. Contact Jehovah’s Witnesses soon, and gain further insight into fulfillment of Bible prophecy in this twentieth century.

THE GREAT PANDEMIC

AS NOTED above, part of the “sign” of Christ’s presence and “the conclusion of the system of things” is “in one place after another pestilences.” (Matt. 24:3; Luke 21:11) Among these pestilences was the “Spanish flu” pandemic (global epidemic) of 1918 and 1919. Concerning it, Timothy Larkin writes: “When an American troop transport, the U.S.S. Otranto collided with another ship, 431 lives were lost, many of them because the Otranto’s crew was so weakened from the flu that it was unable to abandon ship; and while there were 50,000 American soldiers killed in battle in World War I, an additional 24,000 died from influenza or complications from it.” (FDA Consumer, May 1976) All together, some 20 million people died world wide during the “Spanish flu” of 1918 and 1919.