“Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession:
Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people:
Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God; Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are round about.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.
Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen: Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I have lifted up mine hand, Surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame” (Ezekiel 36:1-7).
Ezekiel 36 is a compliment to Ezekiel 6. In Ezekiel 6, a curse is pronounced on “the Mountains of Israel.” the very heart of biblical Israel, known as Judea and Samaria, but presently referred to by the kings of the earth, as the West Bank, or as “the occupied territory.”
The mountains which once teemed with Jewish life and with forests, streams and some farmland, would become desolate; the Jews would be taken out of it, all but a tiny remnant and the land would become a desert for the sins of the inhabitants thereof.
Ezekiel 36 is also a prophecy to the “mountains” of Israel. It comes in a series of chapters predicting the total restoration of Israel at the end of the Age. The mountains would once again be made lush and fertile and Jewish cities and villages would teem with people, and those who oppress and persecute the Jews would no more be seen there.
The prediction begins with a quotation of the enemy, that “Alas, even the Ancient high places are our possession.” A High Place is a Holy Site, a place of reverence to a given people. Later on the prophecy predicts that the Land of Judea would be “taken up in the lips of talkers.” These “talkers” have appointed God’s land as a possession to the “nations round about.”
This is an amazing prophetic description of the situation today on the Temple Mount. UNSECO has re-classified the Land of Judea and most of the sacred sites of Israel such as The tomb of the Patriarchs, the Temple Mount and the Tomb of Rachel as being Muslim sites and not Jewish.
The UN in particular, through the UNESCO (United Nations Science, Educational and Cultural Organization) have taken those “Holy places” and apportioned them as World Heritage sites of the Palestinian people, in spite of the fact that they were, are, and always have been known to be explicitly Jewish for centuries.
In the CAMERA article titled, “UNESCO and the Revision of the Jewish History,” Ricki Hollander writes:
For years there has been a concerted effort by Palestinians and Muslim states to rewrite history and eradicate any Jewish connection to Judaism’s holiest sites. The latest attempt takes the form of a UNESCO resolution sponsored by Arab states that essentially erases Judaism’s connection to the Temple Mount, calling it only by its Arab name.
This follows closely on the heels of a similar Palestinian-Jordanian draft resolution to UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee in July 2016 that similarly called for a return of the Temple Mount to its alleged “historic” status quo before 1967, as if history starts and ends with the 19 years of Jordanian domination over the site when Jews were barred from visiting.
These resolutions are clearly based on falsehood and distortion. But UNESCO has a history of siding with anti-Israel forces: In April 2016, it passed a very similar politically motivated resolution condemning Jewish visits to and policing of the Temple Mount, which it similarly referred to only by its Arab terms – al-Aksa Mosque/al-Haram al Sharif.
While France, a member that voted for the April resolution, subsequently apologized for this, Palestinians and Muslims were encouraged to step up their campaign. France did not vote against the latest resolution, but abstained from voting.
Despite negative reactions to the draft resolution by UNESCO’s director-general and others, the resolution passed by a vote of 24-6, with 26 abstentions. Media outlets reporting on such a historical, politically motivated actions should make sure to include the historical facts and implications of such moves.
Ezekiel saw it all and predicted it; the “Talkers” are the Arab States, the UN, UNESCO and the nations of the world, daring to presume the right to vote on the sovereignty of the Land God gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
The boast that Ezekiel heard, and now the world is hearing about “the Ancient High Places” now being the possession of the enemy, is seen in the Arab “outrage” and rioting over the Jewish State’s attempt to put metal detectors and cameras as a security measure over the Temple mount, in the wake of a recent terror attack on Two Druze police, by Muslims using the sanctity of the Mount as a refuge to carry out their perfidy.
The most High mentions “the rest of the nations and Edumea, as being complicit in the outrage of wrongfully taking possession of God’s land “with all of the joy of their hearts and despiteful minds.”
Edumea, the ancient name for southern Jordan is particularly mentioned. The Jordanian Waqf is the Muslim body which seized the mountain in 1948, and controls it to this very day. Ezekiel knew that by the Spirit of God. When Israel seized Jerusalem back in 1967, the world beheld hardened Jewish paratroopers weeping at the site of the Wailing Wall.
The Temple Mount was back in Jewish hands for the first time since 70 A.D. But curiously and immediately, Moshe Dayan, a secularist Jewish General, on behalf of a secularist Jewish Government, turned the Temple Mount back over to the Waqf, as a gesture of good will to the Arabs.
The King of Jordan, (reportedly a moderate, reasonable Muslim) is participating in the fiction that there is nothing Jewish about the Holy Sites, including the Temple Mountain: Excerpt from the article titled: “Jordan’s King Vows to Stop Judaization of Temple Mount”:
Today the Waqf has control and determines who can go on the mountain, how long they can stay, what they can say and not say on the Mount. When Jews are allowed to come up to MT Zion they are followed by Temple Mount Guards (Muslims) to make sure they do not utter so much as a prayer.
There is something so spiritually sensitive about this mountain, that the dark powers of the earth fear a change of status on it. Much of the final controversy and horrifying judgments of the last days are called by Isaiah, “The controversy of Zion.”
“For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever” (Isaiah 34:8-10).