Destruction is determined for the Jews
“When you are in distress, and all these things are come on you, in the latter days you shall return to Yahweh your God, and listen to his voice:”
Deut 4:30 nf
“For though your people, Israel, be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them shall return: a destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness.”
Isa 10:22 WEB
Many destructions have pursued the Jews, but one that overflows with righteousness is yet to come.
Zechariah says two-thirds of the Jews will perish
Zechariah speaks about when sin will be purged from Israel. Zechariah says,
“It shall happen that in all the land,” says Yahweh,
Two parts in it will be cut off and die;
But the third will be left in it. ”
Zech 13:8 WEB
That hasn’t happened yet! This is evidently after the first regathering of Israel, in the time of Ezra when Zechariah was prophesying (around 520 BC). And it is after the second scattering of Israel in 70 AD, and the second regathering which is going on in our times, for Zechariah says.
“I will scatter them among the peoples;
And they will remember me in far countries;
And they will live with their children, and will return. ”
Zech 10:9 nf
But there is a difference when this destruction overflowing with righteousness happens, when evidently it is two-thirds of the Jews who die world-wide. Of the third that is left it says,
God will refine that third that is left
“I will bring the third part into the fire,
And will refine them as silver is refined,
And will test them like gold is tested.
They will call on my name, and I will hear them.
I will say, ‘It is my people;’
And they will say, ‘Yahweh is my God.’””
Zech 10:9 WEB
My big surprise in writing “Jewish Chronicles.”
My big surprise in researching was to discover that this time stress on the Jews begins with a world-wide severe persecution of Christians, described in Zechariah 12. It will be the Jewish survivors of the time of great stress who will make the big difference world-wide!
They are called “all the families which remain,” in Zech 12:14. Jeremiah says it is the people who were “left.”
“Thus says Yahweh, The people who were left of the sword found favor in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest”
Jer 31:2
They are called those who escape in Isaiah 66.
“I will set a sign among them, and I will send such as escape of them to the nations, … who have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.”
Isa 66:19
The Jews will lead the completion of the Great Commission of preaching the gospel to the entire world.
“This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world for a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
Mtt 24:14
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are the WEB World English Bible, a copyright free revision of the original ASV American Standard Version 1901
nf is my own translation based on the WEB.