Fulfilled Prophecies As Proof

PROPHECY FULFILLED OF NATIONS, CITIES AND INDIVIDUALS2. EDOM and its capital city, Petra.

350 years later in 1450 BC Edom refused to help Israel pass through her land (Numbers 20). Edom even delighted in persecuting Israel.

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Amos and Obadiah condemn Edom. Petra was Edom's strongly fortified capital built into a rock cliff, accessible only by a very narrow entrance. This made them feel invincible. Petra was captured by Mohammed in 636 AD, then became desolate. These events are prophesied for Edom.

Date Prophecy Made	Prophecy
713 BC	Edom to become a desolation. "Thorns shall come up in her palaces ...... " Isaiah 34:13.

713 BC	Wild animals will inhabit Edom. "It shall be a habitation of dragons." Isaiah 34:13-15.

713 BC	Commerce will cease in Edom. "None shall pass through it for ever and ever." Isaiah 34:10.

600 BC	Spectators will be astonished in Petra. "Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goes by it shall be astonished." Jeremiah 49:17.

600 BC	Never to be populated again. "No man shall abide there." Jer 49:18.

590 BC	Israel would conquer Edom. "I will lay my vengeance upon Edom by the hand of my people Israel." Ezekiel 25:14 This seemed a crazy prediction because Israel was then captive in Babylon, yet 400 years later Judas Maccabeus invaded and killed thousands of Edomites.

587 BC	Edom to have a bloody history. "Blood shall pursue thee." Ezek 35:6.

590 BC	Edom to become desolate as far as the city of Teman. "I will make it desolate from Teman." Ezekiel 25:13.

3. BABYLON

Babylon was the capital of the ancient world. It was a centre of trade, learning and culture. Babylon had four walls each 14 miles long, covering 196 square miles, surrounded by a 30 foot wide moat. The walls were 311 feet high, 87 feet wide, with 100 gates of solid brass. 250 watchtowers extended 100 feet higher than the walls. While the Babylonians were holding a drunken feast, Cyrus the Persian had diverted the Euphrates river away from its course underneath the walls of Babylon, and marched his troops along the dry riverbed. He then took the city in 536 BC.

Xerxes later plundered Babylon, as did Alexander the Great's troops. Trajan the Roman Emperor visited Babylon in 116 AD describing it as "mounds and legends of mounds." Layard writes of Babylon:

i) 713 BC: Babylon will be like Sodom and Gomorrah. Isaiah 13:19. "Babylon shall be as when God

God tells Daniel of a series of battles that would occur 220 years later between Medo-Persia and Greece. Alexander the Great of Greece, pictured by a He-goat with a great horn (Alexander himself) severely crushes Darius III army of Medo-Persia (pictured by a ram with two horns).

This occurred in three battles: Granicus (334 BC), Issus (333BC) and Guagamela (331 BC) beside a river.

"The ram .... having two horns are the kings of Media and Persia." Daniel 8:20

"The rough goat is the king of Grecia, and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. (Alexander) Daniel 8:21.

ii) One horn (Persia) was higher or stronger than the other (Medes). Dan 8:3. History proved Persia to be the stronger partner in the alliance.

v) The battle took place at a river. "He came to the ram which had two horns, which I had seen standing before the river .... " Daniel 8:6.

These events were predicted in 553 BC and fulfilled in 331 BC, 222 years later.

i) Alexander, after conquering Medo-Persia, went on to conquer all the ancient world across to India.

ii) Alexander, at the age of 32 drank himself to death at the peak of his strength. When he was strong, the great horn was broken. Dan 8:22

iii) After Alexander's death, the Greek empire was divided into four smaller powers, each ruled by one of his Generals.

"Now that being broken, whereas four stood up for it, four kingdoms shall stand up out of the nation, but not in his power." Daniel 8:8, 22.

The four empires into which Alexander's empire was divided were Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt.

iv) Alexander's kingdom was not given to his children but to his generals. "A mighty king shall stand up ...... his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided to the four winds of heaven, and not to his posterity ...." Daniel 11:3, 4.

"The fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron ..... it shall break in pieces and bruise .... the kingdom shall be divided." Daniel 2:40, 41.

i) Rome, the fourth kingdom was as strong as iron. Rome ruled from England to Babylon, bringing peace, roads and strong government like an iron rule.

ii) Rome was the Empire ruling when the Messiah Jesus Christ first came " ...... shall Messiah be cut off .......... and the people (Romans) ......" Daniel 9:26.

".....shall Messiah be cut off ...... and the people (Romans) of the prince that shall come (Antichrist) shall destroy the city (Jerusalem) and the sanctuary (Temple) ....." Daniel 9:26.

iv) Rome was divided in 395AD into the Western Empire ruled by Rome, and the Eastern Empire ruled by Byzantine (or Constantinople), pictured by the two legs of the image in Daniel 2.

God promised that he would punish Pharaoh of Egypt because he claimed to be a god and to have created the Nile river.

"Thus saith the Lord God: Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt ..... which hath said: `My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.'" Ezekiel 29:2, 9.

"I will make Egypt utterly waste and desolate from the tower of Syene to the border of Ethiopia ..... Neither shall it be inhabited forty years." Ezekiel 29:10-12. This prediction was made in 588 BC. In 579 BC, Nebuchadnezzar conquered Egypt then deported the Egyptians to other nations from 576 BC until they returned in 536 BC.

"At the end of forty years will I gather the Egyptians from the people where they were scattered ..... and will cause them to return to the land of Pathros (South Egypt) ..." Ezekiel 29:13, 14.

iii) Egypt will be a base kingdom "they shall be there a base kingdom." (Ezekiel 29:14) which they have always been since 536 BC.

iv) Egypt will be afraid of Israel. This is true today ever since Israel defeated Egypt in the six-day war in 1967.

Ezekiel 26 contains six prophesies for Tyre that have been fulfilled. If Ezekiel had looked at Tyre in his day and made these predictions in human wisdom, there would had been only one chance in 75,000,000 of them all coming true.

i) Nebuchadnezzar will destroy the mainland city of Tyre 26:7, 8-11. "I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon." (27:7) This was predicted in 590 BC. Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Tyre four years after the prophecy was made. After a 13 year siege (586-573 BC),

Nebuchadnezzar broke the gates down. He found the city empty because most people had moved by ship to an island half a mile off the coast and fortified a city there. The mainland city was destroyed in 573 BC as foretold, but the island city of Tyre still remained.

ii) "I will cause many nations to come against thee ........ as waves." Ezekiel 26:3 A succession of invaders came to attack Tyre over many years, such as Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Moslems, and Crusaders.

iii) "I will scrape her dust from her ..... like the top of a rock." 26:4 When island Tyre refused to submit to Alexander, he demolished the old city on the mainland. With the debris of the old city, he scraped it off the ground like you scrape dust off a rock, pushing it into the water. He thus built a causeway 60 metres wide by 800 metres long out to the island of Tyre, where he laid siege to it, conquered it, and destroyed the island city in 332 BC. The causeway still remains and old Tyre is as flat as a rock. This prediction was given 258 years before its fulfilment.

v) "They shall throw the city debris into the water." When Alexander's engineers built the causeway, they used the remains of old Tyre, laying the stones, timber and dust into the midst of the water.

vi) The city is never to be rebuilt. "Thou shalt be built no more." 26:14. Old Tyre has been bare as a rock for 2500 years as God said, even though 10 million gallons of fresh water supply the site daily with enough water for a city. The city has not been rebuilt even today.

i) Not one stone of Herod's temple would be left standing on another. "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." Matthew 24:1, 2.

The Roman army finally in September 70 AD stormed the walls of Jerusalem through the Antonia fortress. According to Josephus, they killed one million Jews and took 100,000 Jews captive as slaves. A soldier dropped a torch in the Temple setting it on fire. This melted the gold in the Temple, which flowed into the cracks in the Temple foundations, which the Romans dug up, destroying the Temple thus fulfilling Christ's prophecy of not one stone of the Temple to be left standing on another.

"When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh." Luke 21:20.

iii) The only way of safety was to flee Jerusalem when you see the armies. "Then let them which are in Judea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out, and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto." Luke 21:21.

The Roman army surrounded Jerusalem for five days and its troops battered at the walls. Had not Luke in 53AD recorded Jesus' warning to leave Jerusalem when armies surrounded it? How could they escape if armies were all around the walls? Josephus the historian writes that "The Roman army retired from the city, without any reason in the world." Josephus continues: "The Jews were greatly encouraged by this, but many of the most eminent Jews then left the city." Hegessippus, another historian tells us that those leaving were Christians who knew Christ's command to flee in Luke 21:20, 21. This proves that Luke wrote well before 66AD when the Roman army first came.

"And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations ...." Luke 21:24

"He shall besiege thee ..... thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters .... in the siege." Deut 28:52, 57.

vii) Jerusalem would be under Gentile control until Christ returns. "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Luke 21:24. This occurred 40 years after it was predicted, when Titus the Roman General conquered Jerusalem in 70AD. Jerusalem has been under Gentile (non Jewish) control since 70AD as predicted by Jesus Christ.

viii) Jerusalem shall be plowed as a field. In 135AD the Jews rebelled against Rome again. Hadrian the Roman General, in a three-and-a-half year war killed 580,000 Jews and ran a plough over Jerusalem, thus fulfilling the prophesy of Micah 3:12 written 885 years earlier in 730BC. "Therefore shall Zion for your sakes be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps." Micah 3:12.

ix) Jews will return to Jerusalem in the end days. We all know that the Jews occupy part of Jerusalem and Israel today since 1948. God predicts that Jerusalem in the end days, being occupied by Jews, will be invaded by all nation's armies. Jesus Christ will then return to rescue the Jews, defeat the invading armies, and rule on earth in peace for 1000 years.

Predicted in Joshua 6:26 (1451BC), and fulfilled in I Kings 16:34 (925BC). After the destruction of Jericho in Joshua's time, 1451BC, Joshua makes an amazing threefold prophecy about Jericho:

"Cursed be the man .... that builds this city Jericho: he shall lay the foundation thereof in his firstborn, and in his youngest son shall he set up the gates of it." Joshua 6:26.

iii) The builder's youngest son would die when the city and it's gates were finished.

I Kings 16:34 records that this prediction was fulfilled in Hiel the Bethelite. No one would intend to fulfil this prophecy.

"In his (Ahab's) days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates in his youngest son Segub according to the Word of the Lord which he spake by Joshua."

Unger writes: "The rebuilding of Jericho is confirmed by archaeological diggings ..... there are no occupational levels from Joshua's time to Ahab's era, when small ruins from the 10th century BC point to Hiel's rebuilding the site." [Ungers Bible Handbook, p.220]

God spared wicked Nineveh in 862BC at Jonah's preaching. At this time, archaeology reveals a change occurred from worshipping many gods to worshipping one god, called Nebo, the son in the Babylonian trinity.

Nineveh's wall was 100 feet tall, 50 feet thick, with 15 gates and 1200 towers each 200 feet high. Nineveh was 60 miles in circumference, with a 150 foot wide moat around it. Nahum in 3:8 writes just after Thebes (No) in Egypt was destroyed by King Ashurbanipal of Assyria in 663BC. Nineveh was destroyed in 612BC with ease after a three month siege. It fell like "first ripe figs falling if shaken." (3:12).

In 613BC the Assyrian army was away fighting Babylon, when heavy rains swelled the Euphrates River, flooding part of Nineveh and casting down four kilometres of wall length.

The King, believing an ancient prophecy of the river becoming their enemy, panicked and ordered he and his palace to be burned down. Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians attacked through this four kilometre gap, thus conquering Nineveh in 612BC. Twelve predictions about the destruction of Nineveh are given in Nahum 1-3.

III. INDIVIDUALS.

The Bible makes detailed predictions about five main individuals. Two are mentioned by name: Josiah was predicted 350 years before he lived, and Cyrus King of Persia was predicted 175 years before he lived. How can such detailed predictions be made? God wrote the Bible, is the only possible answer.

1. Josiah, King of Judah was prophesied by name in 975BC by an unnamed man of God in I Kings 13:1-3 that: "a future King Josiah by name would burn idolatrous priests' bones on the altar at Bethel." Those idolatrous priests burned incense on the same altar under evil King Jeroboam I of Israel.

350 years later in 624BC Josiah, a King of Judah, while cleansing Israel of pagan practices, broke down the altar and high place of King Jeroboam at Bethel. "Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were in the mount, and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them upon the altar and polluted it, according to the Word of the Lord, which the man of God proclaimed." II Kings 23:15, 16.

The two main predictions here are that:

i) Josiah's name is given 350 years before the event. I Kings 13:2.

ii) Josiah's action of burning the false prophets' bones is given.

2. CYRUS, King of Persia, was predicted by name and action in Isaiah 44:28-45:4 in 712BC and that he would conquer Babylon. "That saith of Cyrus. He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, thou shalt be built, and to the Temple, thy foundation shall be laid." Isaiah 44:28. "Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him ..... to open before him the two-leaved gates: and the gates shall not be shut." Isaiah 45:1.

Notice the following prophecies that have been fulfilled about Cyrus:

i) Cyrus of Persia is named as the man who would conquer Babylon. Isaiah 45:1 This prediction was made 176 years before the event occurred.

ii) The two leaved gates of Babylon shall not be shut. According to Heroditus (1:191), the double gates of Babylon were carelessly left open during the night of revelry when the city was taken.

iii) Cyrus gave permission for Jerusalem to be rebuilt and for the Temple foundation to be laid. II Chronicles 36:22, 23; Ezra 1:1-4.

iv) "I will give thee the treasures of darkness and the hidden riches of secret places." 45:3. God gave Cyrus possession of the treasures of darkness, the wealth of conquered nations, so called because the valuables taken from nations were hidden in dark, secretly concealed, subterranean vaults. These predictions given in 712BC were fulfilled in 536BC, 176 years later.

Question: What is the probability of guessing the exact name "Cyrus" of the man who would conquer Babylon?

Answer: It could not be guessed. This proves that the Bible is the Word of the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator/God.

3. ALEXANDER THE GREAT. Daniel 8:1-8, 20-22 and 11:1-4.

Although Daniel does not mention Alexander by name, he is clearly referred to in Daniel 8:21 as "the great horn that is between the He-goat's eyes is the first king." (Alexander). Alexander crushed the Persians at the Battle of Issus in 333BC. Josephus the historian who lived from 37 to 100AD, states that when Alexander approached Jerusalem to conquer it, he was met at the gates by Jaddua the High Priest who showed him in Daniel 8:1-8, 20-22 that he as the first king of the Greek empire, would conquer the Persians. This was predicted in 553BC, and was fulfilled in 333BC, 220 years later. Alexander was so impressed at this prediction of a Greek conquering the Persians, that he worshipped God, offered sacrifices and spared Jerusalem.

Note: Unbelieving critics who can't accept the Bible predicting the future, say that Daniel was written around 300-200BC which make it after the events, as history not prophecy. This is clearly disproven by Josephus quoting Jaddua who quotes Daniel 8:1-8, 20-22 to Alexander in 340BC. This proves that Daniel was written well before 340BC and is truly predictive prophecy of the supernatural God. (Antiques of the Jews, Josephus, par 244).

4. JOHN THE BAPTIST.

"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." Isaiah 40:3. John the Baptist is the one referred to here who prepared the way of Jesus Christ who is Jehovah God. This prediction was made in 712BC and fulfilled around 30AD.

5. JESUS CHRIST FORETOLD IN THE OLD TESTAMENT.

So much is predicted about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament that we can only give here a brief summary. We know that the Bible is the Word of God because it predicts so many details of Jesus Christ's life. Consider the following predictions:

1. Born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14; Genesis 3:15.

2. Tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10.

3. House of David. Jeremiah 23:5.

4. Born at Bethlehem. Micah 5:2.

5. Visited by wise men with gifts. Isaiah 60:3, 6, 9.

6. Would be in Egypt for a time. Hosea 11:1.

7. Infants killed at His birthplace. Jeremiah 31:5.

8. Preceded by a messenger (John the Baptist) Isaiah 40:3.

9. Ministry to begin in Galilee. Isaiah 9:1.

10. Perform miracles. Isaiah 35:5, 6.

11. Teach parables. Psalm 78:2.

12. Heal many. Isaiah 53:4, Matthew 8:16, 17.

13. His miracles not believed. Isaiah 53:1.

14. Enter Jerusalem on a donkey. Zechariah 9:9.

15. Betrayed by a friend for 30 pieces of silver. Zechariah 11:12.

16. Money thrown on the Temple floor. Psalm 35:11.

17. Money then used to buy a potter's field. Zechariah 11:13.

18. Forsaken by His disciples. Zechariah 13:7.

19. False witnesses accuse Him. Psalm 35:11.

20. Silent before His accusers. Isaiah 53:7.

21. Be scourged and spat on. Isaiah 50:6.

22. Crucified between two thieves. Isaiah 53:12.

23. Hands and feet pierced. Psalm 22:16.

24. His side pierced. Zechariah 12:10.

25. Given vinegar to drink. Psalm 69:21.

26. Garments gambled for. Psalm 22:18.

27. No bones broken. Psalm 34:20.

28. His forsaken cry. Psalm 22:1.

29. Darkness over the land from noon. Amos 8:9.

30. Buried in a rich man's tomb. Isaiah 53:9.

31. Raised from the dead. Psalm 16:10.

32. Ascend to heaven. Psalm 24:7-10.

33. Gentiles believe on him. Isaiah 60:3.

34. Messiah comes, is killed, then Jerusalem and the Temple are destroyed (fulfilled in 70AD). Daniel 9:26.

35. Jews to lose power to pass the death sentence 23 years before the trial of Christ. Genesis 49:10. This was confirmed by Josephus describing the Romans taking this power away from the Jews in 11AD.

36. Messiah would offer Himself as Prince to Israel 173,880 days after 5th March 444BC. Daniel 9:26, 27; Luke 19:41-44.