Jeremiah 49 Elam Destruction
Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, has perhaps framed my thinking in this commentary.
He says that US B-2 bombers “need to visit Yemen” after Houthis missile intercepted.
“We thought we were done with missiles coming to Israel, but Houthis just lit one up over us in Israel,” the ambassador noted after the first missile attack since the Iran war. “The law of Yemen is the law of Tehran,” he wrote. “After we strike the head of the serpent in Tehran, we will also strike the tail of the serpent in Yemen” (Rapture Ready News, July 2, 2025).
Huckabee’s words validate that the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran, as it has been termed, isn’t over. This is no surprise to any Bible student who is familiar with God’s prophetic Word. The war with Israel’s surrounding enemies has been waged for thousands of years, and we know from Bible prophecy that the conflict hasn’t come to an end with the B-2 bombers dropping multiple bunker-buster bombs down the center of the mountain hiding the Iranian Fordow nuclear facility.
The leak to CNN and others from out of the Department of Defense claiming that the huge ordnance sent into that facility three hundred feet beneath the mountain didn’t finish off the Iranian nuclear program, whether true or not, has created a strong sense that there’s more to be done to end the Iranian regime’s nuclear-weapons ambitions.
The leakers inside the DOD, who are being pursued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and by the Trump administration, are thought to be of the deep-state variety. These, it is charged, want never-ending war, particularly in the Middle East, to feed the greed of the so-called military-industrial complex. (That, plus the desire to bring down the presidency of Donald J. Trump.)
Some who study Bible prophecy from the pre-Trib perspective have suggested that this strike to rid Iran of its nuclear program was the fulfillment of the following Jeremiah 49 prophecy:
“The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet against Elam in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Behold, I will break the bow of Elam, the chief of their might. And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them even my fierce anger, saith the LORD; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them: And I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence the king and the princes, saith the LORD. But it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the LORD” (Jeremiah 49:34-39).
The prophecy certainly seems to fit, in some respects, with what the Israel’s IDF and America’s B-2 attacks wrought in Iran.
My good friend Bill Salus, whom I believe has a Holy Spirit-directed focus on the evil in the Middle East against God’s chosen nation, Israel, wrote several years ago with uncanny accuracy about the Jeremiah 49 prophecy.
In this prophecy, Jeremiah declares that a time would arrive when the Lord would be furious with the leadership of Iran. We know this because Jeremiah 49:38 says that the kings and the princes will be destroyed. This most likely represents the Iranian government in place when the prophecy occurs. The Lord would never destroy good kings and princes, so we can safely presume that bad Iranian leadership is the problem.
An example of good Iranian leadership was King Cyrus the Great of Persia, who lived between 600-529 BC. Isaiah 44-45 predicted his arrival on the world scene a century before Cyrus was even born. Isaiah called Cyrus by name and confirmed that he was anointed by the Lord. If Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, was a good leader like Cyrus, then Jeremiah 49:34-39 would not be a NOW prophecy. The Lord would be pleased with the Ayatollah rather than furious with him.
But why is the Lord fiercely angry with the government of Iran at the time of the prophecy? The reason is because Iran wants to launch something powerful somewhere. This is why the Lord will break the bow at the foremost of Iran’s might in order to prevent such a lethal launch.
But where does Iran want to launch something powerful? (The Now Prophecies by Bill Salus, Prophecy Depot Publishing, 2016)
Despite the Israeli Defense Force reportedly taking out almost all the Iranian regime’s leadership, and most of the nuclear scientists involved with the weapons program, and American bombers “totally obliterating” the Fordow facility, according to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, there is growing evidence that Iran is back at it. That is, enough of Iran’s nuclear program survived to begin anew the development of nuclear bombs, some sources say.
Satellite and other surveillance apparently observed a number of eighteen-wheeler-type trucks moving from the Fordow facility just before the attack by the B-2 bombers. This indicates, to those who are concerned, that the ninety-something canisters of enriched uranium were removed to another location or locations. That nuclear material, the sources say, was almost at the point of being usable to construct the nuclear weapons the regime is determined to affix onto the nose of their ballistic missiles.
Whatever the case, it’s obvious that the total destruction indicated in the Jeremiah 49 prophecy against Elam hasn’t yet been fulfilled. The inhabitants haven’t been totally dispatched from the area. The nuclear fallout that many of us think is part of this prophecy that will scatter the inhabitants of Elam far and wide hasn’t occurred. Not yet.
My thinking, as I wrote above, as framed by Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s words on the need perhaps for the B-2s to again be used, is that Iran will again be struck in powerful attacks. With the brilliance of Israeli intelligence and the sophisticated technologies to detect movement of assets, one must presume that if the canisters of enriched uranium or whatever were transported to safety, Israel—and America—know with precision where they now are.
I very strongly suspect that at the appropriate time, if these nuclear materials exist, they will be hit. Could this be when the full extent of this prophecy about Elam’s destruction reaches the beginning of its fulfillment?
—Terry
***Pakistani Christian Ministry Need***
The Pakistani minister that you, our RR family, have so generously supported in the past brought to my attention a need in his ministry work at this time.
Prophecy Power: Strength From God To Face Your Future, my Sunday School quarterly-size book, which the minister translated into his Urdo Language, has once again been reprinted thanks to the generosity of a wonderful Rapture Ready friend.
However, the distribution of that little book needs additional funding in order for the continuing delivery of God’s end times Message to take place throughout that spiritually dark region.
If you are able and willing to support this much needed distribution effort, please go to my blog website and see where to send your donation. Any help will be much appreciated.
Here is the link: Please donate to this Gospel witness effort in Pakistan « Terry James Prophecy Line
This is a vital Mission in reaching out with the Gospel, using God’s Prophetic Truth at the center of the Message. As always, I’m Thankful for you, my Sisters and Brothers, for your compassion and generosity. I know your Rewards will be Great when our Heavenly Crowns are handed out during that Time before the Throne.
Why Is Modern Israel Prophetically Significant?
Most churches today believe that Israel’s existence doesn’t matter in regard to Bible prophecy. The popular message is that the Church is now biblical Israel and that modern-day Israel is no different than any other nation with the same challenges and threats to its existence.
I can think of many reasons why such a dismissal of Israel’s prophetic significance is wholly unbiblical; here are a few of them:
The Lord’s Many Promises to Restore a Kingdom to Israel
The Old Testament prophets repeatedly predicted a future restoration of Israel with a descendant of David reigning over it. In Zephaniah 3:20, the Lord made this key promise to the nation:
“’At that time I will bring you in,
at the time when I gather you together;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes,’ says the Lord.”
At no time since the Lord spoke these words through the prophet have the Jewish people occupied such a place of honor among the “peoples of the earth.” It’s been exactly the opposite.
Notice the permanence of the restoration that the Lord promises Israel through the Prophet Amos:
“’I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,
and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,
and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit.
I will plant them on their land,
and they shall never again be uprooted
out of the land that I have given them,’
says the Lord your God” (Amos 9:14-15).
With words that can only apply to Jacob’s descendants, God promises a lasting restoration with many physical blessings. How can these words even remotely apply to the church today apart from doing great damage to the understanding Lord intended for them at the time He spoke them through Amos?
When the disciples asked Jesus if He intended to “at this time restore the kingdom to Israel,” He didn’t chide them for asking a foolish question or deny that it would happen someday. Instead, He told them that their timing was wrong and turned their attention to the task ahead for them (Acts 1:6-8).
The Bible Predicted the Israel that We See Today
What we see in modern Israel aligns perfectly with what the prophets wrote about the nation in the last days. God’s Word predicted that:
- Israel would become a nation again “in one day” (Isaiah 66:8).
- Israel would initially exist in a state of unbelief (Ezekiel 37:1-14).
- The nations would seek to divide the Land of Israel and mistreat the Jewish people (Joel 3:1-3).
- Jerusalem would attract the world’s attention (Zechariah 12:3).
- Israel would build a temple while still in a state of unbelief (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15).
- Rather than rely on God for protection, Israel would agree to a covenant with the antichrist (Daniel 9:26-27; Isaiah 28:14-18).
All of the above prophecies align perfectly with what we see today. Israel miraculously became a nation in one day on May 14, 1948, and while many believers live there, the majority of its people still reject Jesus as their Messiah. The passion for building a third temple grows by the day, which the Bible tells us will be in place by the midpoint of the seven-year Tribulation when the antichrist will desecrate it.
As I was working on this article, Israel announced that it had two red heifers that qualified for the purifying of the temple and practiced offering it upon an altar.
God’s Steadfast Love Guarantees a Future for Israel
Third, God’s “steadfast love” also verifies that He has not replaced Israel with the church. He cannot renege on the solemn promises He made to Jacob’s descendants.
The Hebrew word for “steadfast love” is chesed. Some Bible versions translate it as “lovingkindness” or simply “kindness.” The full meaning of the word is difficult to convey with just one word or phrase. It denotes the Lord’s enduring covenant relationship with His people, including His never-ending faithfulness and unfailing love for them.
The essence of chesed is a permanent and long-lasting covenant that depends on God’s faithfulness, not that of His people. The Lord never lets go of His own. In the Old Testament, it denoted the permanence of His relationship with the Jewish people. This does not imply that every descendant of Jacob will inherit eternal life, not at all, but that God will never forget His promises to the nation and its people. The Land belongs to them via an “everlasting covenant” (Psalm 105:7-11).
The Good News for Us
God’s steadfast love for His own is exceedingly good news for us. As saints redeemed by the blood of Jesus, we also have a covenant relationship with God. Hebrews 9:14-15 says that Christ “is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.”
As such, we also fall under the umbrella of chesed, God’s covenant love for His own. In our case, it’s not with a nation or particular race of people but with all who trust Jesus alone for eternal life.
Just as with Israel, God will never let us go; we are eternally secure. Ephesians 1:13-14 says we “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
Israel indeed matters to Bible prophecy. We dare not confuse it with the church because it matters in our understanding of Bible prophecy, God, the times in which we live, and our secure position in Christ as justified saints.
God’s love for us is permanent (chesed); He never lets go of His own. He never reneges on His promises to them. Never!
The words of David in Psalm 40:11 apply to all who belong to the Lord:
As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love [chesed] and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!
-Jonathan