Revelation Six - When The Four Horsemen Ride
We will kill billions of people in the first four verses, but there’s also a blessing that cannot come without this horrifying event. Like Ezekiel 38 and 39, Zechariah 12 and 13 are a single vision. Stephen Langton, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, broke this vision into two pieces, and was very foolish in doing so. And, putting that artificial break in the middle made it harder to see that Zechariah 14 is not connected at all to the previous two chapters. Chapters 12 and 13 begin with an attack upon Jerusalem and the region of Judah. It continues with their repentance and the acceptance of Jesus as their savior. Zechariah 14 is a completely different story. ———————————— Keep this ministry alive with a donation. And, read my books and guides for free: https://revelationsix.com/books/ I created five Android Apps that will help you read through the Bible in a Year. You can find them here: https://revelationsix.com/android-apps/ If you miss my rantings about geopolitics, idiocy, resource collapse and incompetent globalism, follow me on Twitter. ———————————— Zechariah Part 12And, here are some interesting points that we will cover: God's love of a physical place called Zion. The Solar EMP. Woe unto us, if those are horses! The Generals and Jerusalem. Why this is NOT the defeat of the Antichrist. Modern idolatry in Jerusalem. Jacob's Trouble. A comparison with Zechariah 14. So, let's get into that. Zechariah 12So, let’s begin with Zechariah 12. Unfortunately, like so much of this effort to understand the timing of Jacob’s return, this chapter has numerous translation errors. Worse, these are very basic errors that no expert in Hebrew should make, which leaves me wondering about the competence (or laziness) of Bible translators. How is it possible that anyone would hire translators with such an awful understanding of Hebrew? Here are the first three verses of the best translation that I could find:
TRANSLATION NOTE: For verse two, most translations say ‘cup of trembling’ (KJV) or ‘cup of reeling’ (ASV). However, the 1599 Geneva Bible actually gets it right. The word is ‘poison‘ (רעל, pronounced: rah-ahl), and it also means ‘venom’ or ‘toxin’. Yes, a poison, venom or toxin can give you symptoms of ‘drunkenness’ or make you ‘reel’, but translators should stick to the original word and not corrupt our interpretation of the Bible with bad wording. In verse three, the words, ‘lift it up‘ is עמסיה (pronounced: ohm-sey-ha), mean ‘burden’ or ‘load’. If you want to load something onto a truck, you use a cognate of that word: עומס. The idea is that they want to carry it or even control it. Also in verse three, there is a lesser issue. The word ‘against‘ is עליה (pronounced: ah-leh-yah). It means to go up to. Yes, in the context of the verse, it means ‘against’, but translators should not be making these kinds of decisions for us. It’s less egregious in its error, but it’s still a misrepresentation of the word. God’s Love Of ZionWhen God talks about Israel, His primary focus is Jerusalem. Zion. It’s why it is entirely appropriate to call anyone who is pro-Israel, a Zionist. You simply do not have an ‘Israel’ without a ‘Zion’. Zion – Jerusalem – is the center and focus of Israel. It’s the center and focus of God. And, THAT is why I say that God is a Zionist. And, if God is a Zionist… …you should be one, too. He will one day rule from Zion, and He has made it abundantly clear that the tiny patch of ground where King David’s city stood, is more important than any other place on Earth. In fact, God says in verses two and three that He will claw apart anyone and everyone that causes trouble for Jerusalem and for Israel. If you mess with Zion, God will crush you. You will be damaged so thoroughly, that you will deeply regret ever thinking even negative thoughts about the Jewish ownership of Jerusalem. The Solar EMPAnd in this next verse, we see the Solar Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) that happens to those nations that come against Jerusalem:
Now, think carefully about what this means. Horses will be confused and blind. Riders – humans – will be driven mad. Most will think of this as something supernatural, and I’m sure that it will seem like that. But, we have scientific evidence that this really should be considered a natural phenomena from a single event – even though it is caused by God directly. Ezekiel’s Fire – The Biggest Solar Event in World History I’ve already mentioned some of the reasons why this is a micronova. Getting into all the details would require a book to explain it properly, which is why I wrote Ezekiel’s Fire. So, I’m going to avoid talking about most of the reasons for why this points directly to a massive solar event. It is more important to talk about the effects. And, let’s start doing that by considering a more literal interpretation of this passage. Are These Really Horses?Let’s assume that God really is talking about horses. How is it that horses could be struck with confusion or even blindness? How could human beings be struck with madness by such a powerful solar flare? Over the years, those who pay attention to solar flare activity have noticed that big solar flares tend to correspond with outbreaks of psychosis. And, if there was a really, Really, REALLY big solar flare or micronova, we could safely assume that there would be an even larger outbreak of psychotic events – i.e., madness. Would horses be struck with confusion? Well, I would assume that horses could get confused, in the same way that humans were struck mad. But, blindness is another thing altogether. Are these horses really being struck blind? Or, maybe we should ask this question: Are these really horses? Woe Unto Us, If These Are Horses!As I said in the chapters about Ezekiel, if our civilization has fallen so far that we are using wood and horses, billions of people will have already died, and our civilization would already have been crushed. It would mean that farm tractors no longer work and that up to six billion people had already starved to death. If these really were horses, medical care, entertainment, news media, and education would only exist at an early 19th century level - or worse. There would be no electricity. No running water. Big cities would collapse. Governments would shrink and fracture. Plagues would sweep through our societies. The suffering would be terrible. If these really were horses, we would not only lose the resources to create and maintain the machines and tools that our current civilization needs. We would also lose the knowledge of how to create those machines. It would be a billion times worse than the Dark Ages that Europe went through after the fall of the Roman Empire. That’s how bad the situation would be, if Zechariah is talking about real, honest-to-goodness horses. It would be just as bad as anything that I describe in Ezekiel's Fire. So yes, these COULD be horses, but you had better hope that they aren't. No matter how you slice this, you're going to get five to six billion people dying. And by the way, there are processes at work right now that are leading us to a complete collapse to bronze age conditions. I believe that we could avoid this worst-case scenario if we massively localized political power and commerce, but our politicians seem uninterested in doing so. However, discussing how our civilization could collapse into a new dark age would take a book to describe adequately. But, instead of a book, I built a website called RevelationSix.com. But, let's assume for now that our high tech civilization will continue up to the coming of Gog and Magog. And, we would understand this because we already know that God uses metaphors in prophecy. A quick read of the Book of Daniel would quickly demonstrate that our Lord does this routinely. So, let’s look at the thought that the reference to horses is metaphorical. And, let’s start by talking about WHY God would use metaphor. Why Refer To Horses?So, why did God refer to horses? People at the time of Zechariah could not have imagined any other form of transportation. Therefore, God referred to horses because that was what Zechariah – and everyone else living before the 1800s – could understand. Imagine the confusion if God had described people riding inside wheeled, metal and glass boxes that consume a nasty black goo that came from deep underground. It would be incomprehensible. Of course, a different kind of incomprehension may have been the goal here. God told Daniel to seal up the vision, and it has truly been sealed – since very few seem able to understand it. The bottom line is that we are forced to accept the fact that the mention of horses here as almost surely metaphorical. If it isn’t, we are in much worse trouble than what I describe in Ezekiel’s Fire. I shudder to think of that, but I also know that it's possible. Why The Reference To Blindness?So, if the mention of horses is symbolic… …what does it mean to strike them with blindness? Let’s think a bit about what the Lord is trying to say to us here. When you strike a horse with blindness, you aren’t killing the horse. However, you would be keeping it from ever doing anything useful. A blind horse won’t start. It won’t go anywhere on its own. To everyone looking at the horse, it would appear to be fine, except that the horse just wouldn’t move. You turn the key in the ignition and nothing happens. Everything looks okay, except for the fact that the car/tank/truck won’t go. Do we have any examples of something like this? We do. The Electromagnetic Pulse – EMPIn the 1960s, the Soviet Union exploded a nuclear weapon at extremely high altitude. When they did this, they found that the starters were burnt out in all the cars within a certain radius around the test site. The same kind of thing happened when America detonated a nuclear bomb at high altitude over the Pacific Ocean. We call this phenomenon a nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse, or a nuclear EMP. An EMP can come in many different forms. It can be man-made, by detonating a nuclear weapon at high altitude. It could be a short-range weapon, used to knock out nearby electronics. Or, it could come in the form of a massive solar event like Ezekiel’s Fire:
When Ezekiel’s Fire comes, your horses – planes, trains and automobiles – will go blind. They won’t start. They will cease to operate. They will look fine on the outside, but God will have turned them into useless hunks of metal and plastic that will quietly sit in your driveway or on your street – immobile. Forever. Just as bad will be the elimination of electricity networks across the globe. Everything electrical that was not directly destroyed by this EMP, will cease to work, because all the gigantic, custom-built transformers at every power station will be destroyed. This means that water will stop being distributed to buildings and homes. Manufacturing plants will not operate. Food will not be distributed. Water will not be purified. Sanitation will break down. Hospitals will close. In just a few days after this event, vast numbers of people will die – if they do not have access to free-standing, drinkable water. And, that’s due to the fact that electric water pumps are the number one way that water is distributed throughout the developed world, and even the less-developed world. A billion people could die of thirst alone, when Ezekiel’s Fire strikes. There might be places in the world where the effects of such a solar EMP would be reduced. Some have said that countries near the earth’s equator will suffer fewer effects than those farther north or south. This is due to the nature of Geomagnetically Induced Current (GIC), which is weaker near the equator, during solar storms. However, Ezekiel’s Fire will be so tremendous that it’s hard to think of any place that would truly be safe. And, let’s not forget the global earthquake! Whatever your location, you need to ask yourself this question: Can you survive without electricity, running water and transportation? If you can’t, then you had better start working on an alternative. You can live three days without water and thirty days without food. Think about it. The Generals And JerusalemSo, we’ve killed billions of people in just the first four verses of Zechariah 12. Let’s look at the next two verses:
TRANSLATION NOTE: The word for ‘governor’ in that verse is actually ‘general’ or ‘military leader’ – אלוף (pronounced: ah-loof). It actually comes from the word אלף (pronounced: eh-lef), meaning thousand – the implication being that a general in ancient times was a leader of a thousand soldiers. But, NOT a governor. Why the translators chose ‘governor’ is a mystery. Verses five and six mean that the Israeli military, called the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), will be fighting in the countryside around Jerusalem, and south of Jerusalem. The Palestinians and the leading elements of the Gog and Magog alliance will be attempting to kill the Jews, and the IDF will be doing its best to defend the settlements like Gush Etzion, Efrat, Har Adar, Giv’at Ze’ev, Ma’ale Adumim and a host of others. Including the Jerusalem neighborhood that I lived in for years – Gilo. At the same time, the main army of Gog and Magog will be advancing into Israel from the north. And, just as in 1967, the only soldiers defending Jerusalem itself will be reserve units, made up of Jerusalem residents. When it says ‘the inhabitants of Jerusalem’ in verse five, it means that the situation will be so bad that everyone will be issued some kind of weapon and asked to defend the city. When we get to chapter 13 of Zechariah, we’ll see that it will be a desperate time in which two thirds of everyone in the land of Israel will die. Most will die from the earthquake (Isaiah 30), but at least some will die in the fighting. Furthermore, I am dismayed by the reference to the ‘generals of Judah’ and not the ‘generals of Israel’. If so much of the IDF has been destroyed that only ‘IDF Southern Command’ (in Judah) survives as an organized force… well …that’s bad. Really bad. But, the next verse injects a bitter and ironic point:
God hates pride with a passion, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem have a history of incredible hubris. God is going to make sure that Jerusalem cannot claim the glory that she does not deserve. I really wish that we human beings were not so awful. But, we are, and it’s a very sad thing. NOT The Defeat Of The AntichristNow, notice a striking difference between verse seven and the result of the Battle of Armageddon in Zechariah 14. We’ve already looked at that chapter, but the issue is important enough for a little review:
That’s a HUGE difference, but we aren’t done yet. This next verse is where we see the average citizen engaged in fighting:
This is where some might want to jump in and say that Jesus returns with His armies and defends Jerusalem. But, that’s not what Zechariah says here. This verse clearly says that God will give strength to each inhabitant of Jerusalem, and that these inhabitants will fight and overcome their enemies. In Zechariah 14, we see the opposite – with Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives and splitting it in two. We will also see the armies of heaven in that chapter. But, we see none of that here, and it would be wrong to inject Zechariah 14 into this verse. In Zechariah 14, Jerusalem is conquered, the women raped and half the city flees into exile. In Zechariah 12:8, the inhabitants of Jerusalem successfully defend the city, with even the weakest being so incredibly strong that they will slay all their enemies, just like David did. In Zechariah 14, Jerusalem is rescued by God Himself. In Zechariah 12:8, God gives the inhabitants of Jerusalem the supernatural strength and ability to defend themselves. These are profound differences that we should NOT ignore. Gog and Magog is clearly NOT the time of the Antichrist. Even if you wished to argue that God waits until Jerusalem is conquered before giving the citizens of Jerusalem the power to fight back, you could not prove that in this passage or in Ezekiel. From this alone, you can confidently claim that Gog is NOT the Antichrist. Gog And Magog And Salvation Through FaithAnd as we continue through Zechariah 12, the next verse shows us Ezekiel’s Fire and Gog and Magog:
Those nations are the ones in the Gog and Magog alliance that attack Israel. And, as you look at the history Israel for the last century, the target has ALWAYS been Jerusalem – which makes no sense from a secular point of view. Then, those who sought to take Jerusalem are destroyed. That’s Ezekiel’s Fire. That’s the micronova that knocks down our civilization and throws us back to the pre-industrial era. Having said that, this gives me some hope that maybe… just maybe …those nations not in this alliance will suffer less damage. Now, why can I be so confident that this is the coming of Gog and Magog? Remember what we saw in Ezekiel 38 and 39, which directly describes Gog and Magog. The last nine verses includes this:
Then, compare that verse with the last five verses of Zechariah 12, which are just a more detailed retelling of what Ezekiel 39:22 says:
TRANSLATION NOTE: The word for ‘look’ in verse 10 is הביט (pronounced: hee-beet), and it’s not the same as ‘see’ רואה (pronounced: roh-eh). The word ‘look’ (הביט) would be more accurately translated as ‘regard’ or ‘consider’. It’s a seeing from the heart, not the eyes. The word for ‘see’ (רואה) is about the eyes, and you don’t find that here. Later, in Zechariah 14, the Lord will be visible. They will see Him with their eyes. This is in direct contrast with chapter 12, where God pours out His Holy Spirit upon them. Seeing with the eyes and regarding via the Holy Spirit are two very different things. Yet, that doesn’t stop false teachers from claiming that they are the same thing. What is happening here, in Zechariah 12, is salvation through faith. Most of you should know the following passage:
I could quote verse after verse about salvation coming through faith in Jesus Christ. If there was any other way, God would have told us. And, it is clear to me that salvation through faith and the indwelling – and baptism – of the Holy Spirit is what is happening here. In Zechariah 12:10-14, we see the realization that the One that they had been rejecting for 2000 years, was (and is) the Messiah that they were looking for. The veil on their heart that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 3:16 will be torn away, and they will see the truth clearly – as you and I see it. When you and I came to Christ, it was a deeply personal moment in time. We saw Jesus as the one and only true Savior. We asked God to forgive us of our sins and accept us as His children. We turned from sinful ways and embraced the salvation that can only come through Jesus Christ. We accepted the perfect gift of Jesus and entered into the kingdom of God. The Israelis will do the same thing. But for these Israelis, that acceptance will bring with it a crushing realization that all of their culture… all of their yearning and learning was in rebellion to God. They will discover that their rabbis and sages were worse than just wrong. They will realize that their great teachers had deceived and blinded them. And, they will understand that their proud deceptions sent all their ancestors into the eternal suffering and condemnation of Hell. This will be a crushing realization. But, their days of mourning will be only for a moment, as their joy in the Lord overflows. To paraphrase Charles Dickens in the Tale of Two Cities: It will be the best of times. It will be the worst of times. Those of us who survive that moment will be glad that we did, but it will be a very, very hard time. In fact, I believe that it will be the most difficult period of time since the Great Flood. The only thing worse than this, will be The Great Tribulation. One More Thing - Isaiah 30:25-26Do you remember how we talked about the salvation of Israel? Do you remember how there will be an Solar event just like an EMP attack? Then, this should be one of the scariest two verses you'll read:
That will be all over the world. Our civilization will be smashed flat. When you see Gog and Magog coming against Israel... get out of the cities and go camping. And, this vision given to Zechariah continues into chapter 13. (Remember that the chapter divisions were NOT inspired by God.) Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. ———————————— My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. ———————————— Keep this ministry alive with a donation. And, read my books and guides for free: https://revelationsix.com/books/ I created five Android Apps that will help you read through the Bible in a Year. You can find them here: https://revelationsix.com/android-apps/ If you miss my rantings about geopolitics, idiocy, resource collapse and incompetent globalism, follow me on Twitter. ————————————
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