Meat When is a mountain not a mountain?

[rockfox]

The North American continent did have a few large cities, but they were waste by the time we got here and their mounds mostly used for construction fill. "Was always waste" would be a fair assessment of what most of the colonists found when they got here. From our settled perspective it's hard to appreciate how wild, untamed, and difficult to access the continent was. In the colonial period their Indian wars involved a great deal of time and effort simply into building roads through the tangled wilderness to access the interior.

Furthermore, I find the Israelisms dangerous. They are quite seductive to certain kinds of people and they will complete discredit the entire movement, and we don’t need anymore challenges on that front.

My goal with these interactions has been to make sure that every time something related to Israelism comes up that a countervailing voice is some where nearby for the casual readers and the infiltrators looking to harm us.

Says the Torah keeper, which is the single biggest poison pill to Christians there is.

I tend to doubt you'd care if this issue didn't involve questioning the mythology of those who shall not be criticized.

 

[Sons of Issachar]

The mud flood theorists are convinced that major cities in America were buried, and then dug up by the colonists, that the cities were discovered and excavated, more than they were built.

 

[The Revolting Man]

Says the Torah keeper, which is the single biggest poison pill to Christians there is.

I tend to doubt you'd care if this issue didn't involve questioning the mythology of those who shall not be criticized.

That’s an offensive and mean spirited comment and I don’t think it’s reflective of your best contributions to the forum.

 

[The Revolting Man]

So this was said of me.....



Yet no one has really offered a serious comment, or suggested any OTHER land. So where is it?

The revolting man said in the other thread that even Antarctica could be it... because he accused me of fixating on the large bodies of water. The scripture doesn't say large bodies of water....it says the East Sea, and Great Sea are the eastern and Western borders of this land.....wherever it is.

So, I can't say my view has not been influenced by ideas political or otherwise, but suggesting Antarctica, or Afghanistan, or Siberia smacks of affirming a land, um....as it wishes it was ....like if Siberia chose to "self identify" as the "Mountains of Israel."

It still boggles me. Europeans called Jews while rejecting Yeshua? They are Judah! Europeans accepting Yeshua? Gentiles....that can NOT "replace the Jews!!"

People from back east like my nephew in law from PA are literally uncomfortable with all the open space out here in the west.....and consider the land wasted because so much of it is untouched....unused except for running a few head of cattle.
And a couple hundred years ago this whole land was wilderness.

Too bad those political revisionists did a magic trick and vanished those former populations and civilizations. It woulda been so much easier crossing the prairie by road....stopping at quality inns along the way.

It’s Israel. The land spoken of in these passages is Israel. It fits all of the descriptors. The text says it’s Israel. It was made desolate several times. It has mountains. It has bodies of waters that fit. I said it was Antarctica in jest. The land is the Land of Israel. Where Jesus will return one day. I was explicit that I accept that Israel is the land we’re talking about.

 

[Joleneakamama]

It’s Israel. The land spoken of in these passages is Israel. It fits all of the descriptors. The text says it’s Israel. It was made desolate several times. It has mountains. It has bodies of waters that fit. I said it was Antarctica in jest. The land is the Land of Israel. Where Jesus will return one day. I was explicit that I accept that Israel is the land we’re talking about.

Yet in the other thread you also said you didn't have to explain your choice....going by name instead of description.

You have been clear that you hope or expect that land, because of the name, to change to fit the description.

Fine. Maybe some other pro Zionist individual that is not as fixated on the resurrected idol will be willing to discuss the verses indicating a different fulfillment.

 

[Keith Martin]

\Maybe some other pro Zionist individual that is not as fixated on the resurrected idol will be willing to discuss the verses indicating a different fulfillment.

As a spectator in the stands, I'm finding that my program doesn't provide me with sufficient information to follow the action; you defined Zionism, so I get that in general it is a movement that supports a nation-state in Israel, but please help me comprehend the following:

• Other than the fact that, currently, the modern-day nation-state of Israel is almost universally reviled around the world, what do you see as the distinction between Israel being a nation-state and what is described in chapter 21 of the Unveiling as a nation that all other nations will recognize as the world's leader? And aren't we still on this side of Gog and Magog, so couldn't Israel both redeem itself and go through what could reasonably be considered wasteland periods between now and then?
• Who or what is "the resurrected idol?"
• Which verses indicate a different fulfillment? Different from what? The "resurrected idol?"

I have my pen ready -- right next to my opera glasses (I couldn't afford the best seats) -- to make notes in the margins.

 

[Sons of Issachar]

Israel was once so lush that there was a battle where more people died from hitting tree branches than from weapons. Definitely a waste now compared to then.

 

[FollowingHim2]

Israel was once so lush that there was a battle where more people died from hitting tree branches than from weapons. Definitely a waste now compared to then.

I have friends that moved to Israel with their children when they were babies. Their kids were around 5 and 6 when they came back to New Zealand, and the first thing they did on exiting the airport here was to fall on the grass. Their children had never seen grass. They were rolling around on it and laughing and jumping. It was a beautiful sight but made me so sad. Israel is that bad now?

 

[FollowingHim]

Yet no one has really offered a serious comment, or suggested any OTHER land. So where is it?

It's the mountains within Palestine (a term I am using to explicitly refer to the land area, no political entity, as the land includes areas covered by several modern nation-states). As @The Revolting Man said, it's rather explicit.

My point is that you are arguing that it is not Palestine, and is the USA, based on the idea that the USA has historically been more desolate than Israel. I see too many flaws in that argument. And if that argument falls over, we're back to the default interpretation - that it is referring to the mountains within Palestine, the land originally given to Israel.

When God gave the land to Israel it was a lush paradise. But that land has now been desolate for many years, and largely still is. I was just watching a documentary which included footage of the Beduin in the mountainous areas of Jordan - they're a desert of rocks and sand. Israel is a world-leader in irrigation technology out of necessity. Israel is not really restoring the natural environment, due to high population density, but is managing to get agricultural production happening in a more synthetic / technologically driven fashion, so the land has greened up substantially. Jordan is making some advances in restoring the natural environment as the princess has taken an active interest in it and has been using regenerative management principles to get vegetation back, and that ultimately will allow higher agricultural production into the future, but that is a slower process than adding irrigation. Egypt and Saudi Arabia's parts are desert. Gaza's a slum. Ultimately there's a very long way to go for Palestine to be considered no longer desolate.

While the USA, even while there have been few people living in it, was not desolate at all. It was a lush land of forests and prairies with so much promise that people had to cut through the lushness to move in. And then managed to desolate parts of it which had once been lush (the dustbowl).

 

[The Revolting Man]

Yet in the other thread you also said you didn't have to explain your choice....going by name instead of description.

You have been clear that you hope or expect that land, because of the name, to change to fit the description.

Fine. Maybe some other pro Zionist individual that is not as fixated on the resurrected idol will be willing to discuss the verses indicating a different fulfillment.

I went point by point through why the description for the land of Israel. Point by point. I talked about all of the referenced landmarks, the adjacent lands that are NAMED. I didn’t have to explain what it is BECAUSE THE PASSAGE LAYS IT OUT! You have to explain why it’s not what it says it is.

So far the explanation is that there are no mountains in Israel and no seas, two claims I’ve refuted. So why isn’t it what it says it is. It says it’s Israel.

 

[Joleneakamama]

My point is that you are arguing that it is not Palestine, and is the USA, based on the idea that the USA has historically been more desolate than Israel.

The point of the whole thread is that prophetic speech is not literal. My argument is that the context of that passage in Ezekiel shows that the "mountains of Israel" are not literal mountains....as these mountains are "brought forth out of the nations." It is not dirt that moved, but people. The term used in that verse that says have been always waste can mean desolate as in uninhabited, which does fit the context but cannot be describing the modern state of Israel.

When God gave the land to Israel it was a lush paradise. But that land has now been desolate for many years, and largely still is.

Desolate as in dry and not very fertile, which is why I don't see how restoring them to that destroyed yet populated land would fulfill the prophesy in Isaiah of doing better to them then at their beginnings.

 

[Joleneakamama]

what do you see as the distinction between Israel being a nation-state and what is described in chapter 21 of the Unveiling as a nation that all other nations will recognize as the world's leader?

Israel is biblically defined as the posterity of Jacob/Israel along with those "strangers" who join themselves to them.
YHWH has said that these descendants (seed of Israel) will be a nation before Him forever.

Who or what is "the resurrected idol?"

Jeremiah 7 talks about them trusting in lying words. The people before trusted in the ark and sent for it when they were out of favor with YHWH because they mistakenly thought that the ark would save them. In like manner the people of Judea thought that living in proximity to the temple would save them. YHWH said He would do to Jerusalem and the land He gave their fathers what He did to Shiloh. When I refer to the resurrected idol, I mean Jerusalem, and by extension "the holy land" (so called) that has been used by enemies of Yeshua to gain a huge following of blind Christians. It is estimated that 1/3 of evangelical Christians support the state of Israel (the dragon's tail drew 1/3 of the stars of heaven)

Which verses indicate a different fulfillment? Different from what? The "resurrected idol?"

Many prophetic passages indicate a different fulfillment. I have mentioned some. Israel said blessing his sons that the gathering of the people would be to Shiloh (Yeshua), not a land. Prophesies say He would lead her (Israel) to the wilderness and speak comfortably to her. That He would do better to her then at her beginnings. Also it is written that the enemy has said "A hah, even the ancient high places are ours in possession." I'm sure many people are going to see things differently then we do. The real question that matters is why.

 

[Joleneakamama]

You have to explain why it’s not what it says it is.

I did. There are descriptors of this land that gets invaded that do not match that land.

So far the explanation is that there are no mountains in Israel and no seas, two claims I’ve refuted.

Those are two straw men you made.

I maintain that the "mountains" in the passage under discussion are "people groups" (see the first post in this thread) and the "East sea" and "Great sea" that borders the described land invaded by Gog and Magog are not found adjacent to the political "state of Israel" but are where the believing redeemed people are that were gathered out of the nations.

 

[The Revolting Man]

I did. There are descriptors of this land that gets invaded that do not match that land.

Those are two straw men you made.

I maintain that the "mountains" in the passage under discussion are "people groups" (see the first post in this thread) and the "East sea" and "Great sea" that borders the described land invaded by Gog and Magog are not found adjacent to the political "state of Israel" but are where the believing redeemed people are that were gathered out of the nations.

I’m reading in Jeremiah right now and I am running across numerous places where God says He will make Jerusalem and Judah desolate and a wasteland. The very foundational argument you make is that the prophesied land can’t be Israel because it was never desolate. It appears that it most certainly was, at least by God’s definition of the word. At every turn this idea just doesn’t hold up.

 

[The Revolting Man]

I did. There are descriptors of this land that gets invaded that do not match that land.

Those are two straw men you made.

I maintain that the "mountains" in the passage under discussion are "people groups" (see the first post in this thread) and the "East sea" and "Great sea" that borders the described land invaded by Gog and Magog are not found adjacent to the political "state of Israel" but are where the believing redeemed people are that were gathered out of the nations.

So the mountains aren’t literal but the seas are? Why the different treatments within the same passage? With the addition of the prophecies in Jeremiah of Judah and Jerusalem being made desolate what part of the description doesn’t fit? No one claims that the current borders of the nation of Israel are what they will be when prophecy starts being fulfilled, I think you can assume they will be close to what David ruled at least.
That notwithstanding, we now have a desolated land according to scripture, with mountains and seas and a bunch of cities with the same names as referenced in the passage. What is it exactly that doesn’t fit?

 

[Joleneakamama]

I’m reading in Jeremiah right now and I am running across numerous places where God says He will make Jerusalem and Judah desolate and a wasteland. The very foundational argument you make is that the prophesied land can’t be Israel because it was never desolate. It appears that it most certainly was, at least by God’s definition of the word. At every turn this idea just doesn’t hold up.

The word I'm talking about in Ezekiel 38:8


After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.

Now you all know and several have mentioned that Caanan land was a paradise before it was made desolate. America was also a lush and fertile place. )We have deserts, but we are not all desert)

I looked up the word that "waste" is translated and it can be rendered desolate, which can also mean uninhabited. Because this condition (whatever it is) is contrasted by the but to "is now brought forth out of the nations" I absolutely believe that it is describing a land that has been uninhabited.

I guess it all depends on how particular you want to be. One could argue if an individual was threatened by violence in a land it would no longer be the collective "dwelling safely," I think the fact that America has no real fear of invasion and is at peace with Canada and Mexico is sufficient to qualify. I try and keep in mind how the prophecy would look (vision) to someone who lived in Israel or Judah and had their land invaded and loved ones killed and taken captive.

 

[Joleneakamama]

So the mountains aren’t literal but the seas are? Why the different treatments within the same passage?

They are not in the same passage, they are maybe ten chapters apart. But look at the context. When are balls not balls? The context let's you know if they are the kind used for golf, or the kind that hurt like #@!! .....if you slip off the pedals on your bike n hit the frame wrong.

The "mountains of Israel" are who Gog and Magog come against, that are brought forth out of the nations. It wasn't dirt for making mighty mounds that came from those nations and Gog and Magog are not coming against raised areas of earth.

The context of the other passage is describing geographical features of the land they are dividing for inheritance.

I gave a couple examples in the first post of mountain being used to describe people groups. Babylon being called a destroying mountain was one of them. YHWH refers to His holy mountain. Also in the new testament believers are said to have come to "Mount Zion" which is the called out assembly/new Jerusalem not a literal mountain.

 

[FollowingHim]

against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste:

This appears to be stating that the mountains of Israel are what has been always waste. Assuming "waste" means "uninhabited":

If the "mountains of Israel" are people groups, how can they be "uninhabited"?

I assume you are arguing that Ezekiel 38:8 is NOT saying that the mountains of Israel have been always waste, but the word "waste" is to be applied to the land only. But that is not what the passage states.

After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land [singular] that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel [plural], which have [plural] been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.

Assuming the singulars and plurals have been accurately translated, it is very clear that whatever was waste is a plural. The land is singular, the mountains are plural. It is very clear that it is the "mountains" that were waste, and all translations that I can see render it that way.

 

[Joleneakamama]

I appreciate the input @FollowingHim!

Something I just noticed
"...but it is (not they are) brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them."

I have long believed the usa is the company of nations that was prophesied to come from Jacob/Israel. It ends up being a singular plural, kind of like the bride of christ is a singular plural, or a single family is at least three, dad mom n child. Goy is a singular term for many and often translated nations.

With fifty flags and laws that are different from state to state....and one national flag along with laws that apply to all states. If a nation is a geographically defined area of land with it's own name, flag, laws and people that those laws apply to, we are 50. But if the united (echad) elements are the focus we are one.

How one defines Israel is hugely important here. Biblically Israel is the descendants of the man Israel. The land over there was named after the man/people not the other way around. So mountains "of" Israel, whether people, nations, or hills are probably not restricted to the one place that is called Israel. Those disciples were told "you will not have gone over the cities of Israel... " indicating more was included then the immediate area.

Is a nation the land or the people? I think they are inseparable elements of what we think of as a nation. Just a land area like Antarctica is not a nation, and people without a land are refugees or wanderers.

Can Babylon the "destroying mountain" be just land area? Do those of Israel written about in Micah actually "go to" as in physically move to Babylon?

The land in that passage is gathered out of many people? (Land made out of humans... .or human waste?)

Those mountains in Ezekiel, and I know all the definitions say mountain equals hill, yes, those mountains (plural).... it is brought forth out of the nations.

So the question then is, what is it?

 

[Joleneakamama]

When you read down a bit further you find this.

10Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, that at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: 11And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, 12To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.