Dear friends:
This is the first time I ran into such an article which connects the prophecy of Daniel with Holocaust. Read and double check the Book of Daniel ( especially, Daniel 8) for your own benefits. The match is fascinating!
The Holocaust Foretold in Scripture?
During the Second World War the Nazi government of Adolph Hitler carried out what it called “the Final Solution” for the Jewish problem, and what others have since called “the Holocaust.” Over a period of three and a half years Hitler operated death camps that he set up for the specific purpose of exterminating the Jewish people. Six million Jews were killed.
The camp at Chelmno, Poland—the first concentration camp built exclusively to kill everyone sent there—was established in November, 1941, and mass murder began there on December 8, 1941. The last death camp, Mauthausen, was liberated three and a half years later in May, 1945. (Concentration camps set up to house Jews existed before this, but camps set up specifically to carry out genocide were operational for just three and a half years.)
Centuries earlier the prophet Daniel had foretold that an exceptionally cruel foreign ruler would hurt and kill the Jewish people over a period of three and a half years. Did the Bible foretell the Holocaust?
Daniel lived around twenty-five centuries ago, but he received a series of visions and messages from angels sent by God to tell him about what would happen to his people, the Jews, in the distant future:
“‘Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.’”
—Daniel 10:14 NIV
He was told to
“‘seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.’”
—Daniel 8:26 NIV
God’s messengers told Daniel there would be “a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then” from which “your people . . . will be delivered.” (Daniel 12:1 NIV)
“‘When the end comes near for those kingdoms, a bold and cruel king who tells lies will come. This will happen when many people have turned against God. This king will be very powerful, but his power will not come from himself. He will cause terrible destruction and will be successful in everything he does. He will destroy powerful people and even God’s holy people. This king will succeed by using lies and force. He will think that he is very important. He will destroy many people without warning . . .’”
—Daniel 8:23-26 NCV
Does that description fit the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler that blitzkrieged its way across Europe and attempted to exterminate the prophet Daniel’s people?
In a related passage the angelic messenger God sent to Daniel told him,
“‘This king will speak against the Most High God, and he will hurt and kill God’s holy people. He will try to change times and laws that have already been set. The holy people that belong to God will be in that king’s power for three and one-half years.’”
—Daniel 7:25 NCV
The angel also indicated that shortly after those three and a half years, the Jewish people would have their own nation restored—they would receive power to rule themselves again. The cruel ruler who was killing the Jews would be
“making war against God’s holy people and was defeating them until God, who has been alive forever, came. He judged in favor of the holy people who belong to the Most High God; then the time came for them to receive the power to rule.”
—Daniel 7:21-22 NCV
Daniel does not speak of them first as a “nation,” but rather as a “people”—which would fit the circumstances of the Jews at the time of the Holocaust. In fact, it was shortly after the Holocaust that the nation of Israel was restored in 1948, and the holy people of the prophet Daniel were able to rule over the Promised Land for the first time in nearly two thousand years.
Was this what the prophet had been told would happen?
Demonic enemies of God tried to block their restoration to the Promised Land by annihilating the Jewish people. That attempt was implemented through what the Nazis called the “Final Solution” and what we today call the Holocaust. God, who sees the future, appears to have foretold this significant event through his inspired human prophets, and had those prophecies recorded in Scripture.
“Then another king will arise, more brutal than the other ten, and will destroy three of them. He will defy the Most High God, and wear down the saints [the Jews] with persecution, and try to change all laws, morals, and customs. God's people will be helpless in his hands for three and a half years.”
—Daniel 7:24-25 LB
The Nazi “Third Reich” fits this description, and its extermination camps operated for three and a half years. Old Testament writers used the term “saints” (Hebrew kodesh = ‘holy’ or ‘set apart’) to refer to the Jews. At Mount Sinai, according to Moses, God gave his law to the “saints.” (Deut. 33:2) King David called true-worshipping Jews of his day “the saints who are on the earth.” (Ps. 16:2 NKJV)
In this case the prophet Daniel was given visions of “what will happen to your people in the days to come” (Dan. 10:14 Jerusalem Bible), including “a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then” from which “your people . . . will be delivered.” (Dan 12:1 NIV) So, when Daniel used the term “saints,” he had in mind God’s ‘holy people’—Daniel’s own people, the Jews.
The New Testament book of Revelation seems to include a parallel of Daniel’s Old Testament prophecy. Consider this possible interpretation [in brackets] of Revelation, chapter 12, which also speaks of three and a half years:...
(Read the whole article by clicking the following link)
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