EDWARD WHITTAKER

EVER SINCE THIS writer was first thrilled in the 1914-18 war by signs of the early prospect of the Lord’s return, the Brotherhood has suffered many disheartening setbacks. Israel’s smashing victory over the Arab forces in 1967 seemed so surely to portend the realisation of our hopes that the subsequent lull has only served to exacerbate the sense of frustration and disappointment. Even so since then there have been so many outstanding developments in and around Israel that it may be timely to attempt an appraisal of their place in the Divine scheme of things.

While it is widely recognised that the prophecies in Zechariah chapters 10 to 12 are of a fragmentary character it is possible to clearly detect in them two separate campaigns, the aggressors in one being “the nations round about”, and in the other “all nations”.

Already, Ezekiel had used the title “nations round about” (36:4-5,7; 28:24-26) for those powers on which he had previously pronounced a series of dooms (in chapters 25 to 32), namely Ammon (absorbed into Edom—see 25:10), Moab, Edom, Tyre, Sidon and Egypt.

Significantly, these lands are now occupied by the Arab States who have threatened the continued existence of Israel in these last days no less than did their typical counterparts at the time of the prophet. Of special interest is 28:24-26 :

Two important points emerge from this passage; firstly, that Israel has been appointed to execute God’s punishment on the Arabs, and secondly that only when this has been done can Israel “dwell safely” in the conditions of peace and unsuspecting security required by Ezekiel 38:8, 11, 14.

After this digression with Ezekiel, attention can now be concentrated on the references to “the nations round about” in Zechariah 10 to 12. Chapter 12:2 reads:

The recurrence here of Ezekiel’s phrase makes it extremely likely that the same Arab nations are being referred to; indeed, they can hardly be other by virtue of the geographical location implied in their title. The two metaphors of a sheaf ignited by a torch and a forest by a pan of fire describes a highly combustible situation in which Israel is the fuel of destruction. Occupation of Jerusalem “in her own place” (see also 14:10) was accomplished by the Israelis in less than two days when the old walled city was captured in hand-to-hand fighting in June 1967. Definitely it was a terminal date of “the Times of the Gentiles” during which the city would be “trodden down” (Lk. 21:24).

The “nations round about” appear again at Zechariah 14:14, which together with verse 13, seems to obtrude into the drift of the chapter. Obviously, the sense of verse 12 is carried over to verse 15, and the two verses intervening are in parenthesis. They read: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great tumult (or ‘discomfiture’) from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbour, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbour. And Judah shall also fight at Jerusalem; and the wealth of all the nations round about shall be gathered together, gold and silver, and apparel in great abundance”. However one chooses to explain it, without question the two verses concern the campaign of chapter 12 about “the nations round about” and not the later invasion involving “all nations” (14:1). This means that by some inexplicable turn of events the wealth of the Arab nations will be concentrated at Jerusalem. The northerner is to lured to his destruction on “the mountains of Israel” by a “spoil of silver and gold, ... cattle and goods”, the latter terms standing for merchandise (Ezek. 38:12-13).

But how is it possible for puny Israel to acquire economic wealth of whatever sort sufficient in the slightest degree to induce mighty communist Russia to risk global war by invading the Middle East? And yet Scripture says positively that the sole attraction will be “great spoil”. The problem is solved if Israel first acquires the wealth of the Arabs. It is here that Zechariah 14:1 assumes startling significance: “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil (Israel’s spoil recently robbed from the Arabs) shall be divided in the midst of thee”.

This interpretation was first advanced in the special number of this Magazine in May 1968 (pp. 206-8); reappraisal is now called for in the light of further developments in the western world. The Arab States have disturbed the equilibrium of the whole financial world of sterling and dollar by increasing the prices of petroleum oils fourfold to capitalise on their declining resources, an idea possibly conceived as an “evil thought” in the councils of the Kremlin. And the wealth amassed is being reinvested abroad on a scale which last year was many times greater than by the U.S.A. In any single year. A typical example, reported on December 3, is the order placed with France by Iraq for £600 million worth of industrial equipment. The tactic has also been employed to exert political pressure on the arms-producing nations to withhold supplies to Israel and weaken its defence potential. Probably no single strategical manoeuvre in modern political history has had such a devastating effect on the balance of power and the world’s monetary system.

It seems likely that the Jews will be driven to retaliate in some dramatic way to rob the Arabs of their fabulous wealth, possibly by occupation of the small oil-producing areas. The Israeli President is currently boasting that his country “has nuclear potential that should worry the world”.(Footnote 1) Alternatively, “the wealth of all the nations round about” could be “gathered together... at Jerusalem” by some ingenious manipulation by Jewish financiers in the world’s monetary exchanges. Movement of money by paper transfer and by bullion is the accepted procedure for the stabilizing of international currency, and misuse of it could as effectively unstabilize. It is not beyond the providence of God, nor the wit of the Jew, to fulfil the word of prophecy in this way if necessary. “The day shall declare it”.

But the repercussions of the Arab oil blackmail are having other and equally serious consequences for the nations of Europe. The Lord Jesus foretold that the Roman beast would be revived in the epoch contemporary with his return (Rev. 16-19), in the form of ten states represented by the ten horns. Although autonomous, they would identify themselves with the beast, so that “these have one mind, and they give their power and authority unto the beast” (Rev. 17:13). In no sense can it be said that there has ever been any hint of such an historic situation in modern Europe until the formation of the European Economic Community. But of course the alliance has to become military in the absolute sense, when “the kings of the earth set themselves . . . against the Lord” (Psa. 2).

In the meantime, before the papal harlot which sits astride the beast is judged by the Lord at his coming (2 Thess. 2:8), “the ten horns shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire” (Rev. 17:16). The language is taken from the law pertaining to the unfaithful daughter of a priest (Lev. 21:9) and also that of the punishment meted out to an apostate idolatrous city in Israel (Deut.13:11-16). The verbal links cannot be studied at present, since they would require the space of a separate article. J. Thomas believed that the prophecy was realised in the loss of the temporal power of the Pope in 1870, and the confiscations by the Napoleonic dynasty that led up to it (see Eureka vol. 3, p. 622f; ed. 1895). With the hindsight of 100 years it can now confidently be asserted that the fulfilment still lies in the near future.

The present inflation is moving at such an alarming rate that it is unlikely politicians and financiers can bring it under control without devaluation on a scale that cannot fail to bring with it unimaginable suffering through widespread unemployment.

But the Roman Catholic Church has accumulated such vast wealth (since the foundation of the Vatican State in 1929) that it is “the most formidable financial empire the world has ever seen and which is still in operation”. To attempt to describe the financial affairs of the Vatican would require a whole separate issue of our magazine. In briefest terms, it is “the world’s largest shareholder, with a portfolio of quoted securities totalling the equivalent of 5,600 million dollars” (The Economist, London, 1965), and 6,000 million dollars by 1970-71. Add to this the value of the intangible assets of the Church such as the priceless work’s of art, and the mind reels at the thought as to how it could have acquired such astronomical wealth in the Name and mission of Christ. Details of all the investments in industrial, commercial and financial concerns with all their global ramifications are given in The Vatican Billions by Avro Manhattan published by Parovision Books, London, 1972, to which the reader is referred, and from which the above quotations are made.

If, as other signs in Scripture lead us to expect, the economic situation in the territory of the beast continues to deteriorate, it will not be difficult to imagine how the stripping and burning of the Papal whore will be worked out in the near future. The governments of the ten horns including Italy, “the sick man of Europe”, will formulate a unified policy to appropriate the wealth of the Vatican, or otherwise write off its investments in the way some developing African and South American States have ruthlessly done in recent years in a desperate measure to balance payments and restore some semblance of financial and economic stability. Though impoverished by this unprecedented rape, the Harlot will continue her false Christian ministry until the Lord appears to judge her.

On the purely human plane it is likely that all this will emerge from the initiative first taken by the Arab oil sheiks to liquidate Israel. The Word of God moves in the realm of practical politics, because it is a Word of redemption for “the whole Creation that groaneth and travaileth in pain”. Truth becomes stranger than fiction. The infallible message of prophecy is fulfilled in bewildering quirks of history that seem to the uninformed observer to be only a chaotic conglomeration of misdirected human passions, but which in fact are part of the grand plan that advances toward all the order and peace and glory of the Kingdom of God.

1. Daily Telegraph, Dec. 3, 1974.