Remembrance weekend saw the biggest pro-Hamas demonstration in London yet. It was at last opposed, not by the educated middle class, but by the working-class English Defence League. They were naturally described in the press as ‘far-right’, as if those glorifying the Holocaust, its 7th-century fore-runner the Khaybar massacre and the slaughter of innocents by Hamas last month are not ‘far-right’.
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Reports say Muslims have even been chanting in Arabic, ‘Khaybar! Khaybar! Ya Yahud, Jaish Mohammed Sauf Ya’ud’ which means ‘Khaybar! Khaybar! Oh Jews, the Army of Mohammed is returning’. And our police and politicians assure us Islam is a religion of peace.
According to the Jewish Chronicle, two men, Khaldoun Ahmad El-Ali, 27, and Mohammad Jihad Al Safi, 25, were actually charged after using the chant at an anti-Israel rally back in April 2021. But their trial has been delayed until May 2025.
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Police partiality
In Spiked-Online, Brendan O’Neill wrote: “Police in Northumbria interrogated a woman, a lesbian, under caution, for tweeting that ‘trans women are men’. ‘What did you mean by this?’, the Orwellian creeps asked the lady whose only speechcrime was to state biological facts every six-year-old knows. Meanwhile, in London, the Metropolitan Police ruled that ‘no offence’ was committed by an imam at the Greenwich Islamic Centre who, 13 days after Hamas’s 7 October pogrom, preached about ‘the usurper Jews’. ‘Curse the infidels’, he said. ‘Destroy their homes’.”
As I was writing this, news came in that Suella Braverman MP, the Home Secretary who had the courage to criticise the police for their obvious favouritism, mixed with cowardice perhaps, in the face of thousands of Muslim marchers, had been sacked.
Marche contre l’antisémitisme
The only good news comes from Paris, where more than 100,000 people, including senior politicians, marched against antisemitism amid a surge in anti-Jewish incidents across France. The speakers of the two houses of parliament called for the march which was joined by Rallye Nationale leader Marine Le-Pen, former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande and the current prime minister Élisabeth Borne. The far left, led by, Jean-Luc Mélenchon refused to take part. President Emmanuel Macron was also absent but said he was there “in heart and in thought”.
“Our order of the day today is … the total fight against antisemitism, which is the opposite of the values of the Republic,” said Gérard Larcher, the French senate speaker and a co-organiser of the largely peaceful demonstration, as it got under way.
His counterpart in the lower house and the march’s co-organiser, Yaël Braun-Pivet, said, as the march neared its end near the Luxembourg Garden: “In France, we are able to unite around our common base, our history and our future.”
Hamas: ‘Zeal’ or ‘Violence’?
So let us take a look at what the word ‘Hamas’ really stands for and how the 7th October atrocity fits in to a spiritual timeline.
‘HMS’ is an acronym of the official name, Harakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah meaning the ‘Islamic Resistance Movement’ (حركة المقاومة الإسلامية ). It is a Sunni Islamist political and military organization governing the Gaza Strip, but is supported by the Shia Islamist Iran. Clearly, hatred of Israel trumps dislike of heretical fellow-Muslims for the Mullahs of Iran. Iran also supports the Shia Islamist Hezbollah, based in Lebanon.
The acronym, HMS, was later expanded into the Arabic word amās (حماس) which means ‘zeal’, ‘strength’, or ‘bravery’. It is rendered that way and explained in the Hamas Covenant.
But if ‘Hamas’ refers to masculine virtues in Arabic, in Hebrew the word stands for something very different. The Hebrew word Chamas (pronounced ‘Hamas’ with long ‘A’s’) occurs sixty times in 59 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Strong’s Dictionary (2555) translates it as ‘violence’ ‘wrong’ and ‘oppression’. The King James translators rendered ‘hamas’ as ‘violence’ in 39 of those verses and ‘violent’ in four. It is translated as ‘cruelty’ in another four.
Uses of ‘chamas’ as ‘violence’
For example, all of these verses translate the word ‘chamas’ as ‘violence:
Gen 6:11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
Psa 11:5 The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
Psa 55:9 Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
Isa 60:18 Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders; but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.
Ezek 45:9 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord GOD.
Uses of ‘chamas’ as ‘cruelty’
Gen 49:5 Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations.
Jdg 9:24 That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them; and upon the men of Shechem, which aided him in the killing of his brethren.
Psa 27:12 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.
Psa 74:20 Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.
7th October was ‘happiest day’
The meaning of ‘hamas’ in Hebrew will be well-known to Jews, while the contrast with its meaning in Arabic is reflected on our streets. The events of 7th October, correctly viewed as violence and cruelty, as evil, to put it mildly, are seen by the supporters of Hamas as bravery and strength and as a good thing.
The Telegraph reported Suella Braverman, then Home Secretary, and immigration minister Robert Jenrick revoked earlier this month (November 2023) the visa of an already-exiled Egyptian television presenter who publicly backed Hamas and their actions. Moataz Matar is said to have taken part in pro-Palestinian protests in London. The Jewish Chronicle reported a video in which he described the 7th Oct attacks by Hamas as marking “the happiest day of my life”.
In April, Egypt Today reported the ‘Pro-Muslim Brotherhood T.V. anchorman Moataz Matar’ was ‘handed down a sentence of life imprisonment for charges with joining a terrorist group and publishing false news.’
‘Heroic Act’
The Egyptian has 4.22 million YouTube subscribers, lives in Turkey and is reportedly a millionaire. He conducted a live interview in October with Abdelhakim Hanini, a convicted terrorist who co-founded Hamas’s murderous Al Qassam brigade in the West Bank in the 1990s. In the 15-minute interview, Hanini said those who support the “neo-Nazi Zionist enemy” should be made to feel there is “no safety for them”.
He added that all Muslims were obliged to “take to the streets” in support of the 7th Oct atrocities, which he described as “a heroic act that our Muslim and Arab world has never seen before, and the enemy has never seen before since the Holocaust of Hitler”.
It may well be, as an interviewer from the Campaign Against Antisemitism discovered, that some young people on the pro-Gaza demonstrations in London are clueless about events, but others clearly know exactly why they are there. They view violence and cruelty against Jewish people as good things, as strength and bravery.
The Month of Tishrei
To understand more about the timing of the 7th October atrocity and its prophetic significance, we need first to look at the autumnal Biblical feasts.
We have now come to the end of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew civil year and the seventh month of their ecclesiastical year (which starts on 1st Nisan). Tishrei lasts 30 days and usually occurs in our September–October. It contains many feast days including the most solemn day of the whole calendar. These are all set out in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29.
The Feast of Trumpets, Rosh Hashanah, takes place on 1st Tishrei:
Numb 29:1 And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.
Days of reflection are followed by 10th Tishrei, the most solemn day called Yom Kippur, or the ‘Day of Atonement’:
Lev 23:27 Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. 28 And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God.
Day of Atonement and Jubliee
Jewish people believe the Day of Atonement is the only day of the year on which Satan may not come before the Lord to accuse Israel. A bullock was sacrificed for Israel in the Temple. The day holds yet another significance.
Every fifty years it was also the Day of Jubilee, a day of release and return:
Lev 25:8 And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. 9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. 10 And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family.
The period of fifty years has huge spiritual significance. It is spoken of as a year of total release and restoration which comes after seven groups of seven years. It is said that the Day of Jubilee is also Isaiah’s ‘Acceptable Year of the Lord’ in Isa 61:2, which the Lord Jesus said referred to him (in Luke 4:19). The Jubilee is a foreshadow of the reign of Christ.
Feast of Tabernacles
The seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, or Sukkot, begins every year on the 15th Tishrei and ends on the 21st:
Lev 23:34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
In Numbers 29 we discover that thirteen bullocks, together with two rams and fourteen lambs would be sacrificed on the first day of Sukkot. Twelve bullocks would be sacrificed on the second day, then eleven, then ten, decreasing to seven. In total, seventy bullocks were sacrificed during the feast of Tabernacles.
Seventy is the Hebrew number of the gentile nations, from Genesis 10. Having atoned for their own sin on 10th Tishrei, the people of Israel were now atoning, at great expense, for the sins of the Gentiles. The feast was also a time when the Levites were to teach the people from the Torah.
But greater mystery is to follow:
Num 29:35 On the eighth day ye shall have a solemn assembly: ye shall do no servile work therein: 36 But ye shall offer a burnt offering, a sacrifice made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD: one bullock, one ram, seven lambs of the first year without blemish.
Simchat Torah
The day is celebrated as Simchat (or Simhat) Torah. It is a celebration of God’s holy law or instruction for mankind. Scrolls are taken out of their cabinet in the synagogue, first read and then danced with. There is more to it than this, but suffice to say the celebration can last many hours. It is the ‘great day’ of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Given that a bullock was sacrificed for Israel on Yom Kippur, then seventy more for the nations during the seven days of Tabernacles, what or who is this seventy-second bullock sacrificed for or representing?
There is a clue in the Gospel of John. We read that Jesus had gone up to Jerusalem for the feast, and we gather he had used the occasion for teaching. On Simchat Torah he identified himself with the ‘great day’, and possibly with the sacrifice made on it:
John 7:37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
The Lord’s reference to thirst refers to a custom which had grown up of shaking the leaves of the trees mentioned in Lev 23:40 to simulate the coming rainfall of autumn. If it was a kind of ritual magic, that would explain the Lord’s apparent exasperation and his declaration of himself as the water of life.
Dancing turned to mourning
We can now address the prophetic parallels of the Hamas atrocity. It began at 6.30 am on Saturday 7th October 2023. It was the last day of Sukkot, and a sabbath. It was the day when the Jews would be preparing for the holy joy that evening of Simchat Torah. A day of looking forward to celebration would be turned into a day of mourning.
The words of Jeremiah’s lamentation over the fall of Jerusalem apply:
Lam 5:15 The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning.
That had to be the purpose of Hamas, and it was demonic:
John 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
The 1973 Yom Kippur War
Fifty years earlier was the start of the Yom Kippur war. The Arab nations, chiefly Egypt and Syria, began an offensive which they believed would destroy the young nation of Israel. Yom Kippur, the solemn Day of Atonement, happened in that year on another sabbath, on Saturday 6th October 1973. Israel was victorious.
Fifty years later, virtually to the day, Hamas started the latest war, not by attacking soldiers this time, but targeting defenceless civilians including women and children. It is not just God almighty who knows about the Jubilee year. Satan knows as well, and is able to subvert and twist it.
Hamas were clearly well aware of the twisted ‘jubilee’ significance. The question is, why weren’t the Israeli authorities on especially high alert over that weekend? Was no-one aware of the prophetic importance of that weekend? Come to that, were we?
Israel will outlast the nations
Many see the outcome of the Yom Kippur war as a miracle. May it please the Lord to work a similar miracle fifty years later. Whatever happens to them, whatever schemes Satan designs to destroy the Jews and their nation state of Israel, God always seems to preserve them.
Perhaps Hamas is coming in the spirit of Haman in the time of the Persian empire. We guess from the book of Esther he was a descendant of Agag the Amelekite (See 1Sam 15). The very survival of the Jews in Persia at that time was on the line. The law to destroy them was already signed and the date for it to happen had been settled.
Very late in the day did word come to Mordecai the Jew, leading to his conversation with his niece Esther the Queen and their pact that all the Jews would fast and pray for three days and that Esther would go in to the king.
Mordecai challenged the Queen:
Est 4:14 (Mordecia to Esther:) For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place;
Why was Mordecai so certain the Jews would somehow be saved? He was moved by the Holy Spirit. We know the prayer and fasting combined with Esther’s action moved the Lord to send the miracle which set the supernatural events of deliverance in motion:
Est 6:1 On that night could not the king sleep, …
(The chapter, indeed the whole book, is well worth reading in full.)
Jeremiah’s ordinances
In case we are tempted ever to think that God has finished with Israel, the words given to Jeremiah bring us back to our senses:
Jer 31:35 Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: 36 If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever. 37 Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
It is undeniable that the sun, the moon and the stars are still there. The word says the nation of Israel has the same permanence. Nor has anyone measured the heavens, so even despite their national sins, which are many, they may well be judged but they will never be cast off before the Lord.
The Prophet Joel wrote:
Joel 3:19 Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence (chamas) against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. 20 But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 21 For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion.
Prayer
PRAY: For the Lord to judge and confuse those preaching terror on our streets and those who side with them. May Israel defeat Hamas and may their leaders repent of their sins and seek the Lord, to walk in his ways and secure his blessing. Pray for British politicians to call for our own ‘March against antisemitism’. Pray for the Christians of the Middle East.
WRITE: To your MP at House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA or email him/her from the MP list at www.parliament.uk. Ask your MP to ask the Government to take action against those who stir up antisemitism, to defend our Jewish communities and to follow the example set by their French counterparts.
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