Habakkuk 1:5 Look among the nations, and see; wonder and be astounded. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. -LORD God
Joel 3:4 “Moreover, what are you to Me, O Tyre, Sidon and all the regions of Philistia? Are you rendering Me a recompense? But if you do recompense Me, swiftly and speedily I will return your recompense on your head.
The context of the verse above is God’s judgment against the nations. Today in the 21st century, Tyre and Sidon are still port cities on the Mediterranean Sea in modern day Lebanon. Sidon is north of Tyre. The two cities are located about 30 miles west of Mount Hermon, Israel. Their ultimate future appears to be bleak according to the prophet.
Tyre and Sidon, Lebanon
Lebanon declares Economic State of Emergency. Lebanon is just the tip of the iceberg.
The Sovereign Debt problem is upon us. The US Dollar broke 99 on it’s way to 103+. The US 10 Year Treasury broke below 1.45%. The absolute bottom has been 1.36%. A new record is coming.
Deuteronomy 20:16-17 But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded…
The cultural and scientific experts and atheists have a field day with these verses. “God is a mean old vicious ogre who is committed to genocide. What kind of God is He? I don’t want anything to do with this kind of God.” And on and on and on…
The problem with God is He has the audacity to tell the human race that He is in charge. Culture and law are on His terms, not humanity’s. There is one way to do things, His way. God is authority. God will say “NO!” And God will define the consequences and execute accordingly. The peoples above were not interested in God’s law or worshipping the Hebrew God.
Exodus 20:3 You shall have no other gods before Me.
Proverbs 10:16 The wages of the righteous is life, the income of the wicked, punishment.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Who are we kidding? To this day, those who do not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could care less.
The Canaanite genome was sequenced from five buried bodies near the town of Sidon, Lebanon. This is the same ancient Sidon from the Bible. Canaan also happens to be the father of Sidon.
Genesis 10:15 Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth…
Sidon is located on the middle coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
Genesis 10:19a And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza…
Per the American Journal of Human Genetics, modern day Lebanese share 93% of their DNA with the ancient Canaanites. The 5 bodies were estimated to be buried approximately 3,700 years ago. If the dating of these 5 bodies is correct, this would place the Israelites in captivity in Egypt. The DNA was compared to 99 modern day Lebanese citizens. The timeline fits.
In a stunning turn of events, Scientists were wrong in their assumptions and expectations in comparisons of the two groups!
The following is an excerpt from National Geographic: While the researchers were surprised at the level of genetic continuity between ancient Canaanites and modern Lebanese after some 4,000 years of war, migration, and conquest in the area, they caution against drawing too many conclusions on ancient history based solely on genetic data.
With the DNA findings, scientific/cultural experts and atheists were quick to point out, “These disproves the Bible! The Canaanites were wiped out in the Bible. And they are still here in modern day Lebanon.”
A couple problems here… One, these “experts” have not read the Bible. Two, ancient Israel was disobedient to God’s command in Deuteronomy 20:16-17. Scripture bears witness to Israel’s disobedience to cleanse the land. Israel used the Canaanites as slave labor. After 400 years of bondage in Egypt, it was time for another group of people to work for Israel.
Joshua 17:12-13 Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. Now when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but did not utterly drive them out.
Judges 1:27-28 restates the above passages from Joshua.
The Canaanites of the Bible were real people. And they are significant genetic relatives to modern day citizens near Sidon, Lebanon.
Revelation 2:20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel…
Jezebel…Her name means chaste or unexalted.
This may have been a woman locally with the name Jezebel or it is a symbolic reference to the wife of King Ahab.
Jezebel the queen and wife of King Ahab of Israel was not a nice lady. King Ahab was not a good king and she was not a good influence.
1 Kings 21:25 Surely there was no one like Ahab who sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord, because Jezebel his wife incited him.
Jezebel was from Sidon. She was a Phoenician. This would be modern day Lebanon north of Israel. She worshipped Baal and was an idolatrous woman.
1 Kings 16:31 It came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him.
Jezebel surrounded herself with prophets of false gods.
1 Kings 18:19 Now then send and gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel, together with 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.
While she loved the false prophets, she was hostile to God’s prophets. She promised to kill Elijah.
1 Kings 18:13 Has it not been told to my master what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, that I hid a hundred prophets of the Lord by fifties in a cave, and provided them with bread and water?
1 Kings 19:2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.”
Jezebel had Naboth falsely accused and stoned. Naboth was the owner of a winery that King Ahab wanted. King Ahab offered to buy the winery and Naboth refused to sell. So Jezebel forged a letter in the name of king. She had two men bear false witness Naboth. As a result, Naboth was executed. Ahab got his winery. See 1 Kings 21.
Evil was allowed to run its course and eventually Jezebel got hers. Jezebel’s death was prophecy fulfilled. Where Jezebel colluded with two men to lie about a decent man, Scripture bears witness to her promised death two times.
1 Kings 21:23 Of Jezebel also has the Lord spoken, saying, “The dogs will eat Jezebel in the district of Jezreel.”
2 Kings 9:10 “The dogs shall eat Jezebel in the territory of Jezreel, and none shall bury her.” Then he opened the door and fled.
Jezebel could not manipulate her way out of death.
2 Kings 9:30 When Jehu came to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her eyes and adorned her head and looked out the window.
Her end was a violent death without burial as prophesied.
2 Kings 9:33 He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her under foot.
But there would be no burial for Jezebel…
2 Kings 9:35 They went to bury her, but they found nothing more of her than the skull and the feet and the palms of her hands.
And as a reminder…
2 Kings 9:36-37 Therefore they returned and told him. And he said, “This is the word of the Lord, which He spoke by His servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ‘In the property of Jezreel the dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel; and the corpse of Jezebel will be as dung on the face of the field in the property of Jezreel, so they cannot say, “This is Jezebel.” ‘ ”
