IRAN IN THE BIBLE

Is the word “Iran” in the Bible? No, it is not. Is the nation of “Iran” in the Bible? Yes, it definitely plays a role in many chapters of the Bible. So, how can that be?

In 1935, influenced by the Persian ambassador to Germany who was influenced by the Nazis, the Persian government requested the nations to which it had diplomatic ties begin calling Persia, Iran.  Persia had been freed from their ties to Britain and Russia and a new name helped signify a new beginning for the nation. 

 

But, why the name Iran?

Sadly, the name “Iran” is a cognate of “Aryan” and derived from it.  The Germans were strengthening their relationships with nations that had Aryan blood.  The corrupt nature of German thinking at that time was what led to the murder of millions of  Jews throughout the next decade.
So, one cannot find  “Iran” in the bible; but, we can find “Persia”, and Persia has a rich and important heritage with G-d and his people.

Between 605 B.C. and 582 B.C. thousands of  Jews living in Judah were exiled to Babylon due to the serious moral and spiritual decay of the people of Judah.  During the period of their exile, the kingdom of Babylon was conquered and became the Medo-Persian Empire.  There is much biblical Jewish history recorded during this time.

The prophet Daniel was exiled as a teenager in 605 BC and spent the rest of his life in ministry in both kingdoms, serving 4 kings!  He witnessed one of the most evil kings, Nebuchadnezzar, humble himself and exalt the Lord.  This is recorded in chapter 4 of the Book of Daniel.

Daniel also lived to serve King Belshazzar, King Darius and King Cyrus!
Many people visit Daniel’s tomb today in Iran.

Another godly leader, Nehemiah, begins his Book in the city of Shushan where the ancient kings of Persia spent the winter. It is located in what today is southwestern Iran.  Nehemiah began writing around 446 B.C.  He was cupbearer to King Artaxerxes.  The king actually asked Nehemiah why he looked so sad! When Nehemiah told him he desired to return to Judah and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, the king gave him permission and had letters written  on his behalf to all the governors of the region!

Ezra, a priest, was also part of the rebuilding of Judah with Nehemiah. The word spoken by Isaiah the prophet more than 200 years earlier is fulfilled with Ezra!
Isaiah prophesied :
Who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and he shall perform  all my pleasure,
Saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built,” and to the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.”   Isaiah 44:28

In 538 B.C. King Cyrus, King of Persia, had his heart stirred by the Lord (Ezra chapter 1, verse 1) He gave permission for the exiles of Judah to return home. The people of Persia encouraged them and willingly gave them their silver, gold, goods and livestock.  King Cyrus brought out the articles of the Temple that Nebuchadnezzar had taken and gave them back to Ezra and the Jews.

Now there’s another very famous person in Jewish history that grew up in Persia and did not return with the exiles. Her name was Hadassah, also known as Esther.  Esther was an orphan, a minority, and an alien living in the city of Shushan.  She was raised by her uncle Mordecai and through a series of events, was ushered into a position of royalty with the King. Esther became his queen!

 Just like Daniel, Nehemiah and Ezra, Esther was positioned by God in the land of Persia to have influence that would affect history.   A wicked man named Haman was given great authority buy the King of Persia. Haman wanted to be honored, and when Esther’s uncle would not honor him, he became enraged.

Haman was so full of anger and hate that he sought to destroy all of Mordecai’s people, the Jews! Haman went before the King and said that “a certain group of people” was a threat to the King’s kingdom. It would be best to destroy them. The King, Esther’s husband, told Haman to do whatever he thought was good.  So, he built a gallows to hang Mordecai, and he planned the destruction of the Jews living in the Persian Empire.

However, unbeknownst to Haman this plan not only included Mordecai, but Esther as well!  The King sealed his edict with his ring which meant it could not be changed! Things looked pretty dark for Queen Esther and for the Jews in Persia!

 Mordecai finds out about the plan and is able to get the information to Esther with the words:
Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
Esther, Queen of Persia, goes 3 days without food or water. She seeks the G-d of the Jews for wisdom and a plan.  She is willing to give all for the sake of her people. She risks going to the King without an invitation.

The Lord gives Esther a plan during her fast, and she has 2 dinners for the King and Haman.  In between the 2 dinners the King finds out that Mordecai saved his life and asks Haman to honor him! Isn’t G-d awesome!?.....especially since Haman had already built a gallows to hang Mordecai!

 

During the second dinner, Queen Esther reveals her identity as a Jew and reveals Haman’s plot to destroy her people. G-d turns the tables and Haman is hung, the Jews are given permission by the king to destroy those who sought their harm. Many of the people in the land chose to follow the G-d of the Jews, (Esther 8:17) and  Mordecai became second in authority to the King!

So much of the testimony of G-d’s faithfulness takes place in the land of Persia (what is known today as Iran).  Ahmadinejad, Iran’s President, has an identity card which proves he too, is a Jew! You say, “that’s impossible! He sounds like Haman!” Yet, his identity card shows his family name is “Sabourjian” which is a Jewish name that means “cloth weaver”. This is not just any “cloth weaver”, it is the name for the Jewish Tallit shawl in Persia!  Sometime after he was born, his family converted to Islam.So why the rage and hate against the Jews and against Israel?

In Oct. 2005, Ahmadinejad said Israel must be wiped off the map which can be interpreted as Israel must be destroyed.

 

In Feb. 2008, Ahmadinejad said Israel is a black and filthy microbe

In March 2008, Ahmadenijad said, "They have invented a myth that the Jews were massacred and place this above God, religions and the prophets.

In Oct. 2009, Ahmadenijad said the uniform shout of the Iranian nation is forever "Death to Israel".

 

In Sept. 2012, Ahmadinejad said, “We don’t even count them (Israel) as any part of any equation for Iran. During a historical phase, they represent minimal disturbances that come into the picture and are then eliminated.”
In support of President Ahmadenijad, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is calling for the death of all Jews and the destruction of Israel.  On the Web site, called Alef, Khamenei says the opportunity must not be lost to remove "this corrupting material. It is a "'jurisprudential justification' to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm."

So are we back in the time of Esther?  Will G-d remember all the Persians who chose to follow him? Will He remember King Cyrus?  Or the King who married Esther and spared her people total destruction?  Will the G-d of Israel once again intervene on behalf of His people and provide supernatural deliverance before the spirit of Haman prevails?

 

King David answers these questions best. He wrote this while fleeing from his son Absalom:
But you are a shield around me O Lord;
you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.
To the Lord I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy hill.
I lie down and sleep;
I wake up again , because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear the tens of thousands drawn up against me on every side.
Arise  O Lord!  Deliver me O my G-d!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
Break the teeth of the wicked.
From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people!     Psalm 3:3-8

ISRAEL CAN HAVE PEACE WITH HAMAS ?

The name “Hamas” shows up in the news every day.  Who is Hamas? What do they believe? Who do they represent? The Avalon Project: Hamas Covenant 1988, translated the Hamas charter so that those not familiar with Arabic could better understand who Hamas is and what they believe. Here are some articles directly from the Hamas charter:

 ARTICLE 1:  The Islamic Resistance Movement:  The movement’s program is Islam. From it, it draws its ideas, ways of thinking and understanding of the universe, life and man.  It resorts to it for judgment in all its conduct, and it is inspired by it for guidance of its steps.

 

 

ARTICLE 2:  The Islamic Resistance Movement {Hamas} is one of the wings of the Moslem Brotherhood in Palestine. Moslem Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterized by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice, and judgment, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam.

 

 

 

ARTICLE 6:  The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.

 

 

ARTICLE 7:  The Islamic resistance Movement is one of the links in the chain of the struggle against the Zionist invaders.  The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

ARTICLE 8: Allah is its target; the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.

Article 9:  As for the objectives:  They are fighting against the false, defeating it, vanquishing it so that justice can prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu’azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam.

 

 ARTICLE 11:  The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf, consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day.  This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia, and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of conquest, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgment. Any procedure in contradiction to Islamic Sharia, where Palestine is concerned, is null and void.

 

ARTICLE 13: Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitrators. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?  There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

ARTICLE 15: The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.  It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on that basis.

ARTICE 22: You may speak as much as you want about regional and world wars. They (referring to the Jews) were behind World War I, when they were able to destroy the Islamic Caliphate, making financial gains and controlling resources.  They obtained the Balfour Declaration, formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world.  They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains by trading armaments, and paved the way for the establishment of their state. It was they who instigated the replacement of the League of Nations with the United Nations and the Security Council to enable them to rule the world through them. There is no war going on anywhere, without their finger on it.

 

The imperialistic forces in the Capitalist West and Communist East, support the enemy (the Jews) with all their might, in money and in men. These forces take turns in doing that. The day Islam appears, the forces of infidelity would unite to challenge it, for the infidels are of one nation.

 

ARTICLE 27: The Palestinian Liberation Organization is the closest to the heart of the Islamic Resistance Movement. It contains the father and the brother, the next of kin and  the friend. Our homeland is one, our situation is one, and the enemy is joint enemy to all of us.

 

Secularism completely contradicts religious ideology. Attitudes, conduct and decisions stem from ideologies.  That is why, with all appreciation for the Palestinian Liberation Organization - and what it can develop into – and without belittling its role in the Arab-Israeli conflict, we are unable to exchange the present or future Islamic Palestine with the secular idea.  The Islamic nature of Palestine is part of our religion and whoever takes his religion lightly is a loser.

 

The day the Palestinian Liberation Organization adopts Islam as its way of life, we will become its soldiers, and fuel for its fire that will burn the enemies.

ARTICLE 28: The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion. It does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end. It relies greatly on its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs and other sabotage groups. All these organizations whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions. They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam.  It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion.

Israel, Judaism, and Jews, challenge Islam and the Moslem people.  “May the cowards never sleep.”

ARTICLE 31: Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions – Islam, Christianity, and Judaism – to coexist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. Past and present history is the best witness to that. It is the duty of the followers of other religions to stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region, because the day these followers should take over there will be nothing but carnage, displacement and terror.

 

ARTICLE 32: The Zionist plan is limitless. After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.  “Leaving the circle of struggle with Zionism is high treason, and cursed is he that does it.”

 

ARTICLE 36:  The Islamic resistance Movement adopts Islam as its way of life. Islam is its creed and religion. Whoever takes Islam as his way of life, be it an organization, a grouping, a country or any other body, the Islamic Resistance Movement considers itself as their soldiers and nothing more.