Isaiah on Babylon

I want to address the absurdity of thinking Isaiah 13 has already been fulfilled.

It's most annoying when I see people who think Isaiah's prophecies are about the fall to Cyrus, where no Battle even happened, nothing happened in the 530s BC that can remotely fit any Bible passages about Babylon besides Daniel who wrote about that history contemporary with it.  And defending the accuracy of Daniel on this is something I have done and may continue to do in other posts on this blog.

The informed intelligent people arguing for a Preterist interpretation of Isaiah's Prophecies about Babylon focus on the earlier destruction the city faced in Isaiah's own time, during the reign of Merodach-Baladan.

I indeed do think Isaiah 21 is about that piece of Babylonian History.  Chris White makes an argument for that, starting about 8 or 9 minutes into that podcast.  He expresses plenty else here I don't agree with concerning the 7 heads and so forth, and I've addressed his own Mystery Babylon view elsewhere.

The problem with applying any of these purely military falls of Babylon to Isaiah 13-14 or Jeremiah 50-51 is that while those include many military and political aspects, ultimately they are also divine Judgments comparable to what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Isaiah 13 includes a statement that the Sun, Moon and Stars will not give their light.  That did not happen in the days of Merodach-Baladan, or Belshazzar.  But it fits Isaiah 13 being the same as Revelation 17-18 since the effect of the Fifth Bowl of God's Wrath (Revelation 16) will probably not have been undone yet.

And I've talked about Isaiah 14 and the Fall of Lucifer extensively elsewhere, that happens in Revelation 12, at the midway point of the final Seven year period.

There is not a near and far fulfillment issue here, Isaiah 13 does not perfectly or even vaguely fit any past events.  All anyone can do is say "hey look, Babylon fell, that must be what Isaiah meant" but an analysis of the details will never hold up.

And for all the "there are no modern Medes" nonsense, I have earlier posts on the Medes and the Kurds.  But in Isaiah 21 the Medes (and Elam) are on Babylon's side, not enemies as they are in other prophecies.

People who want to make Isaiah 21 about the fall to Cyrus in addition to ignoring that the Medes are Babylon's ally here, want to make Elam a reference to Persia.  The Persians were not the same people as Elam, in fact the Persians were probably Japhetic like the Medes were, they may even be Medes themselves once traced all the way back to Genesis 10.

As far as Isaiah's additional Babylon references in chapters 43, 47 and 48.  Well I haven't delved into those too deeply yet.

About the theories of the Kurds descending from the Lost Tribes

I've written before on my belief that the Kurds are probably the eschatological Medes.

Some theories about the Lost Tribes speculate that they contributed to the Kurds ancestry.  I really don't want to get into all the usual arguments on that.

What I first want to say here is it shouldn't surprise us there might be a correlation between descendants of the Medes and descendants of the Lost Tribes.  II Kings 17:6 says many of the deported Northern Israelites were taken to the Cities of the Medes.  Some suggest Mountains of Media was the original text, I reject theories that say the text is corrupted, but the basic outcome is the same.

Jerome in his commentary on Hosea Chapter 1 said.

 "The Ten Tribes of Israel inhabit to this day the cities and mountains of the Medes, as their fathers did a thousand years before."

However I also want to comment on how the fact that some Kurds have the Y Chromosome that indicates descent from Aaron is used as evidence.  Descendants of Aaron did NOT exist among the Exiled Israelites.  We are told specifically in the account of the Kingdom's split in 1 Kings that the Levites fled South when Jeroboam fell into Idolatry and then he created a non Levitical Priesthood.

The reason the modern Samaritans have an Aaronic Priesthood (or one claimed to be Aaronic anyway) is because as Jospehus records a brother of the High-Priest in Jerusalem in the time of Alexander The Great married the daughter of the governor of Samaria and then with Alexander's support built his own Temple there.  Their local traditions later imagined a more distinct and ancient lineage for their Temple and it's Priesthood, but The Bible doesn't support that.

Two of the key Kurdish cities today are Nisibis and Irbil.  Irbil was Arbela in the First Century.  Both had large Jewish populations and were among the Mesopotamian cities where Jewish uprisings happened during the Kitos War in the reign of Trajan (Along with Edessa and Seleucia).  That is likely when Kohen families came there.

Arbela was the capital of Adiabene.  Adiabene in the Talmud is called Hadayb and is identified with Habor of II Kings 17:6 in Kddushin 17a.  Where some of the Northern Kingdom exiles were transported.

Josephus records how Helena the wife of Adiabene's king Monobaz I converted to Judaism, around the same time so did her son Izates.  A Jew named Ananias was their teacher in Judaism.  Izates and Monobaz II his older bother both ruled the Kingdom.  Izates died before 60 AD.  Monobaz II assisted the Jewish rebellion against Rome in 66-70 AD, we know nothing about his fate or history after 70 AD, or indeed the Kingdom at all till the reign of Trajan.  Helena and Izatez were buried in Jerusalem.

After both the 70 and 135 AD Diasporas I'm certain this was a place many fleeing Jews would have felt was a safe place to go.  I follow up on this and speculate on Lost Tribes connection for Adiabene here.

Modern DNA studies have shown that modern Jews are close cousins to the Armenians and Christian Kurds.  However Arabic Kurds are not so closely related, at least not as far as direct mater-lineal and pater-lineal lines of descent go.

Some researches through interpreting that DNA evidence see Kurdistan as the place of common origin and the Jews as the offshoot.

I believe the Ur that Abraham came from was Urkesh not the Sumerian Ur.  Urkesh, Haran, and and the City of Nachor were all in what is today Kurdistan.  Laban we are told had sons, so his daughters aren't his only descendants, Laban descended from a brother of Abraham.  Nachor was the name of both the Grandfather and a Brother of Abraham.  Another son of Abraham's brother Nachor was Chesed, I think possibly the ancestor of the Kasites who were also the Kasidim/Chaldeans.

Later these descendants of the siblings and cousins of Abraham mingled with deported Northern Israelites, and Jews who came there following the Captivities of Judah.  Also the Kingdom of Osroene who's capital was Edessa was founded by Nabateans, descendants of the firstborn son of Ishmael.

The Kurds have been in the News Today

I of course believe the view that they are the Eschatological Medes of Isaiah 13 and Jeremiah 50-51.  I'm going to share here some links on the subject.

I disagree with plenty of other Prophetic views in some of these articles. I've spoken elsewhere on why I reject Turkey being part of the Gog and Magog alliance. And Either way I see it as Post Millennial. And Because Isaiah 13-14 is relevant, the usual mistakes about Satan's fall which I've sought to correct elsewhere come up.

And sadly many I'm sure were written by typical Republican Evangelicals, who support Neo-Con foreign Policy. I find it amusing how Perry Stone talks about the huge mess in Iraq and how it might be paving the way for The Antichrist. But refusing to accept that Bush's foreign policy is what made that mess.

First is a link not bringing any Biblical Prophecy or modern Politics into it. Just about the reasons why The Kurds can claim to be the modern Medes.

http://www.kurdistanica.com/?q=node/78

I realize there are other scholars skeptical of the view. And they're not the only people who can claim some Medean descent, and more then just the Medes contributed to their ancestry. But they're the ones in The right Biblical place. The way the controversy brings Turkey and Iran into it also fits. Jeremiah also refers to locations in western Turkey and northern Iran when he speaks of Ashkenaz and Ararat and Minni in 51:27.

These Links are on the modern situation without bringing in Prophecy.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2...us-turkey.html#

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defe...remium-1.601997

http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la...0629-story.html

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-d...soon/1563466334

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2...7321568960.html
This last one is a liberal source critical of Israel supporting the Kurds. Ignoring that Jordan was created to be a state for The Muslims of the "Palestine" region.

The following links are on The Medes role in Isaiah and Jeremiah's prophecies.

http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2014...region-of-iraq/

http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n2150.cfm

http://blogs.christianpost.com/geopolitics...prophecy-14247/

http://gracethrufaith.com/end-times-prophe...n-of-the-medes/

I should add that I personally think this conflict involving The Kurds, Iraq, Turkey and Iran may be the crisis that is the "tidings out of the east and out of the north" that bother the Willful King in Daniel 11:44 after he conquers The King of The North (Syria) which looking at things right now may be I.S.I.S.

Some people speculate on The Kurds possibly having Lost Tribes ancestry, I talk about why that more here.  It makes sense because many of the deported northern Israelites were taken to the cities of the Medes.

Update: The Linguistic evidence is the main argument, the Kurds are pretty much the only speakers of the only surviving Northwestern Iranian Languages, meaning the languages that descend from the Median Kingdom of Isaiah and Jeremiah's times.