The Location of the Coming of the Messiah According to the Hebrew Scriptures
The purpose of this study is to show where the Second Coming of the Messiah will take place. This subject is often misunderstood by even the most noted scholars. There is much confusion concerning the timing of the Second Coming and the Rapture of the Church, and the term Battle of Armageddon is also an event that is often misunderstood. This will detail the scriptures indicating the return of the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua (Hebrew for Jesus).
The main error about the Valley of Armageddon is that it is incorrectly named. From the Hebrew Har-Meggido or Mount Meggido. Meggido is an ancient city near the Valley of Jezreel. There is no battle here only a gathering of the Gentile armies of the Anti-Messiah against the nation of Israel. This gathering is very much like the gathering of the Allied Forces in Ryad, Saudi-Arabia in Operation Desert Storm 1 in the early 1990's. Bozrah is not the same Bosera in southern Iraq. (Both meaning sheep pen but are different locations.)
The armies are gathered, and Israel will learn of the passage:
Matthew 24:15-16, "Therefore when you see the 'abomination of desolation,' spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place" (whoever reads, let him understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."
They heed this prophesy and flee to the mountainous wilderness in Southern Jordan (Edom) to a city called Bozrah. Bozrah is an Old Testament city in Edom whose name translates as sheep pen. The city that closely resembles a sheep pen in Southern Jordan is the ancient Roman city called Petra. A rock fortress that is highly defendable with the surrounding mountains. The remnant of Israel flees Jerusalem as foretold in Isaiah.
The allure of the Nabatean city of Petra in Jordan tempted young Israelis to sneak across the border for a visit in the 1950s and 1960s, some loosing with their lives for the attempt. Several were killed by Bedouin Nomads or Jordanian Military. There was no peace with Jordan at the time. The Hebrew song Ha-Selah Ha-Adom, the Red Rock, referring to mysterious Petra, was even banned from the radio for a time for fear that it would incite young men to make the hazardous journey. Click here to listen to a version of this alluring song.
Today, this monument marks the place of their attempted crossing. Perhaps during the Great Tribulation, the monument will mark the way to Petra for the Jews of Jerusalem who will flee from the advancing armies of the antichrist.
Isaiah 33:16-17 "He will dwell on high; His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks; Bread will be given him, His water will be sure. Your eyes will see the King in His beauty; They will see the land that is very far off."
The LORD will provide for the remnant just as He did for the Israelites during the Exodus from Egypt. A clear passage of the remnants gathering as prophesied by Micah.
Micah 2:12-13 "I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob, I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together (in Bozrah) like sheep of the fold, Like a flock in the midst of their pasture; They shall make a loud noise because of so many people. The one who breaks open will come up before them; They will break out, Pass through the gate, And go out by it; Their king will pass before them, With the LORD at their head."
One way in and one way out of the city.
The term sheep of the fold is the Hebrew name for the city of Bozrah. The phrase should read ...I will put them together in Bozrah... when a city is not well known the translators often usually translate the meaning of the name instead of the name itself. For example Jerusalem is well known and is usually never "the city of peace" which is what the name translates. The passage that clearly shows the battle which is to take place is clearly written in Isaiah 34:6 " The sword of the LORD is filled with blood, It is made overflowing with fatness, With the blood of lambs and goats, With the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, And a great slaughter in the land of Edom."
Isaiah 34
Judgment on the Nations
The LORD's Wrath upon the Nations
1 Come near, you nations, to hear;
And heed, you people!
Let the earth hear, and all that is in it,
The world and all things that come forth from it.
2For the indignation of the LORD is against all nations,
And His fury against all their armies;
He has utterly destroyed them,
He has given them over to the slaughter.
3Also their slain shall be thrown out;
Their stench shall rise from their corpses,
And the mountains shall be melted with their blood.
4All the host of heaven shall be dissolved,
And the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll;
All their host shall fall down
As the leaf falls from the vine,
And as fruit falling from a fig tree.
5"For My sword shall be bathed in heaven;
Indeed it shall come down on Edom,
And on the people of My curse, for judgment.
6The sword of the LORD is filled with blood,
It is made overflowing with fatness,
With the blood of lambs and goats,
With the fat of the kidneys of rams.
For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah,
And a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
7The wild oxen shall come down with them,
And the young bulls with the mighty bulls;
Their land shall be soaked with blood,
And their dust saturated with fatness."
8For it is the day of the LORD's vengeance,
The year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
Isaiah 62
11Indeed the LORD has proclaimed
To the end of the world:
"Say to the daughter of Zion,
"Surely your salvation is coming;
Behold, His reward is with Him,
And His work before Him."'
12And they shall call them The Holy People,
The Redeemed of the LORD;
And you shall be called Sought Out,
A City Not Forsaken.
Isaiah 63
1 Who is this who comes from Edom,
With dyed garments from Bozrah,
This One who is glorious in His apparel,
Traveling in the greatness of His strength?--
"I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save."
2Why is Your apparel red,
And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress?
3"I have trodden the winepress alone,
And from the peoples no one was with Me.
For I have trodden them in My anger,
And trampled them in My fury;
Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments,
And I have stained all My robes.
4For the day of vengeance is in My heart,
And the year of My redeemed has come.
"Who could this be? Only the Messianic Person, the only one who is capable to save. The garments are dyed with blood, and not His blood. The blood is from the war with the armies of the Anti-Messiah who have chased the Jewish people from Jerusalem to Bozrah or Petra. The following passage is often thought to be the Messiah's blood, but it is clear that the Messiah was given glorified clothing at the resurrection.
Revelation 19:11-13 Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.
Something happens in this city to cause such judgment that it will like that of Babylon a perpetual wasteland. Jeremiah 49:13-16 "For I have sworn by Myself," says the LORD, "that Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse. And all its cities shall be perpetual wastes." I have heard a message from the LORD, And an ambassador has been sent to the nations: "Gather together, come against her, And rise up to battle! "For indeed, I will make you small among nations, Despised among men. Your fierceness has deceived you, The pride of your heart, O you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, Who hold the height of the hill! Though you make your nest as high as the eagle, I will bring you down from there," says the LORD.
Jeremiah 49:22 Behold, He shall come up and fly like the eagle, And spread His wings over Bozrah; The heart of the mighty men of Edom in that day shall be Like the heart of a woman in birth pangs.
These passages collectively show that something takes place at the Second Coming of the Messiah. The initial return will not be in Armageddon, or on the Mount of Olives. A summary sequence of the events are as follows:
At the close of the tribulation all Gentile nations gather in the Valley of Jezreel near the Mountain of Meggido.
The Jewish remnant will flee Jerusalem and run south because the armies of the Anti-Messiah are in the north in Meggido.
They will flee the land of Israel and somehow end up in Southern Jordan (Edom) in the city of Petra or ancient Bozrah.
Out of desperation the Jewish remnant will call upon the Messiah while in Petra or Bozrah. They will say;"Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD." All of Israel will be Saved (Romans 11).
The Messiah will return with the great sacrifice of the Gentile armies in Bozrah. Bozrah will be made into a total burning wasteland through out the millennial kingdom.
The Sword of the Lord will smite the Gentile Armies until there is blood up to the horses neck for 200 miles back to Jerusalem.
The movement will be northward to Jerusalem where He will make the victory assent to the Mount of Olives.
There will be a gathering of all surviving Gentiles where the Messiah will divide them according to their helping Jesus' brethren the Jews. The pro-Semitic sheep gentiles will be allowed into the Kingdom and the anti-Semitic goat gentiles go into everlasting punishment.
The Davidic throne will be established in Jerusalem and the earth will be renovated for the Messianic Kingdom that will last one thousand years.
Bozrah is the locations of Messiah's initial Second Coming in Petra, Jordan
Messiah will then make His way to Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, then to the Temple Mount.
Bozrah is also called Sela (Rock)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sela (from
Se'lah, rock) was the capital of Edom, situated in the great valley extending from the
Dead Sea to the Red Sea (2 Kings 14:7). It was near Mount Hor, close by the desert of Zin. It is called "the rock" (Judg. 1:36). When Amaziah took it he called it Joktheel(q.v.) It is mentioned by the prophets (Isa. 16:1; Obad. 1:3) as doomed to destruction.
Sela is identified with the ruins of Sela, east to Tafileh in Jordan (identified as biblicalTophel) and near Bostra, all Edomite cities in the mount of Edom.
Sela appears in later history and in the Vulgate Version of the Bible under the name of
Petra. "The caravans from all ages, from the interior of
Arabia and from the Gulf of Persia, from Hadramaut on the ocean, and even from Sabea or Yemen, appear to have pointed to Petra as a common centre; and from Petra the tide seems again to have branched out in every direction, to Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, through Arsinoe, Gaza, Tyre, Jerusalem, and Damascus, and by other routes, terminating at the Mediterranean." (See
Edom [2].)
Sela in Saudi Arabia is also an abandoned Jewish city, just north of Medina, the city of Prophet Mohammad north of Mecca.
