GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 170

A Surprising Esther Moment

“We Got Haman, We’ll Get Sinwar”

As seen in an article in The Times Of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that just as Jews defeated Haman, the IDF will get Hamas leaders Sinwar:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marks the Jewish holiday of Purim with officers from the Military Police’s Erez Battalion, telling them, “We will enter Rafah and achieve absolute victory. We eliminated Haman and we will eliminate [Hamas leader in Gaza Yahye] Sinwar.”

His reiteration of the imperative for troops to tackle Hamas in Rafah comes soon after US Vice President Kamala Harris warned against such an operation.

We’ll get to Harris’ remarks later, but the Biblical reference was heard loud and clear:

In the Purim story, the king’s adviser Haman was plotting to kill the Jews of Persia and was ultimately hanged.

“Today we celebrate the holiday of Purim,” the prime minister says after a reading of the Book of Esther. “Over 2,000 years ago in ancient Persia, an antisemitic tyrant, the evil Haman, sought to exterminate the Jews from the face of the earth. The Jews rose up, united, fought and won a complete victory.”

“Today in modern Persia, a new oppressor has arisen — the Iranian regime, which seeks to exterminate the Jewish state. We have already seen what one of the messengers of this tyrant did. On October 7 Hamas committed what President Biden called “an act of sheer evil”.

“Sheer evil cannot be defeated by leaving it alone in Rafah,” he says.

As the Prime Minister delivered these words, the international community is still concerned about the Rafah operation:

Israel’s planned operation in Rafah, which it says is essential to destroy the Hamas terror group’s remaining battalions, has drawn international concerns as over a million displaced Palestinians are taking shelter there amid the ongoing war with Hamas.

“There’s Nowhere For These Folks To Go”

Kamala Harris went to a Sunday news show to condemn the Rafah offensive and apparently used maps of Gaza to support her assessment as we read in a report in The Jerusalem Post:

“Any major military operation in Gaza would be a huge mistake,” US Vice President Kamala Harris told ABC News in an interview aired Sunday.

“I have studied the maps, there’s nowhere for those folks to go, and we’re looking at about a million and a half people in Rafah who are there because they were told to go there,” Harris added.

Apparently she is looking at the maps differently than PM Netanyahu who said there’s plenty of places for the civilians to go. I’d trust someone who lives there rather than someone who has a hard time explaining the importance of school busses, but I digress. On the subject of Israeli elections, Harris was a little better when asked about recent comments by Senator Schumer:

On the topic of Israeli elections, Harris told ABC that it is “on the Israeli people to make a decision about when they will have an election and who they elect.”

Harris made the comment after being asked by ABC if US President Biden description of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s speech, in which he called for an election in Israel to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a “good speech” meant there should be elections in Israel.

When queried about hindrances to peace, she said this:

When then asked if Netanyahu was “an obstacle to peace,” Harris avoided answering the question directly, responding that the administration must “continue to enforce what we know to be and should be the priorities‌ in terms of what is happening in Gaza.”

She also added that “we have been very clear far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”

I’m sure these estimates are based on numbers given to them by Hamas which we’ve proved are not correct and leaving out that distribution of aid allowed into Gaza is being held up by Hamas and then sold to those who have the money to buy it. Please, will someone put pressure on Hamas?

800 Terrorists For 40 Hostages

According to a report from The Jerusalem Post Israel is proposing a release of 700-800 terrorist currently in prison, some serving life sentences for murdering Israelis to get back just 40 of the 100 hostages still in captivity:

Israel has agreed to release between 700-800 Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire and hostage release deal, Israeli media reported on Sunday evening, citing Israeli officials.

The terrorists agreed upon for release by Israel include hundreds who are serving life sentences for murdering Israelis in terror attacks, Walla's Barak Ravid further reported.

In return, 40 hostages will be released by Hamas, reports said.

Earlier reports showed the ratio of prisoners for one hostage was not agreed on:

It was reported on Saturday night that the Israeli delegation in Qatar has agreed to an American compromise on the issue of the number of Palestinian prisoners who will be swapped for each Israeli hostage.

According to the reports, major disagreements about this number initially prompted the American compromise proposal.

Another Jerusalem Post report from yesterday indicated that Israel accepted that US compromise and now Hamas needs to weigh in:

The Israeli delegation in Qatar has agreed to an American compromise on the issue of the number of Palestinian prisoners who will be swapped for each Israeli hostage and await a response from Hamas, Israeli media reported Saturday night.

According to the reports, there were originally major disagreements about this number, prompting the American compromise proposal.

Talks about Gazans returning to northern Gaza was also brought up:

The Israeli team in Qatar has been authorized to discuss the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza, according to N12, who also reported that a Hamas response will likely take a few days to receive due to the logistics of getting approval from Hamas leadership in Gaza.

Israel is prepared to allow 2,000 civilians back into north Gaza and rejected the Hamas demand for 30 prisoners for every one Israeli female soldier and countered with a 5 to 1 ratio. According to the article, no Israel information was confirmed by any official.

The Lesson Of Esther

And the king said to Queen Esther, “In Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the ten sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled.” 13 And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day’s edict. And let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.” (Esther 9:12-13, ESV))

As Israel celebrates the feast of Purim, there are those who see a prophecy in these words of Esther. If we read this correctly, the ten sons of Haman were already hung when she was granted a wish by the king. This is odd but could mean something more. People who believe in prophecy connected the dots to another hanging of Jew killers in 1946. In an article from israelbiblicalstudies.com we see this:

Now, fast forward to 1946 (around 2500 years), and you will see that when I wrote: “prophetic book”, it was not a typo – even though, as you probably know, the book of Esther is Part of the Ketuvim, or Writings, of the Hebrew Bible. On October 1st, 1946, after 216 court sessions, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg delivered its verdicts sentencing the leaders of the Nazi party to death. Ten Nazi leaders were to be hanged. One of them was Julius Streicher, a key Nazi propagandist and the publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer. Seconds before he was hanged, Streicher turned suddenly to face the witnesses and screamed: “Purim Fest 1946!”

Was it a coincidence that ten Nazis were hung just like the 10 sons of Haman? The author is this article, Julia Blum thinks that Esther’s wish is still in effect even now:

For generation, our sages have pondered this strange request: if Haman’s ten sons had already been killed, how could they be hanged? They found an answer in the word “tomorrow”: ‘There is a tomorrow that is now, and a tomorrow which is later.’ In other words, Esther was asking that the hanging of Haman’s ten sons should recur in the future, as well. Why? Because, even though in the days of Esther the genocide was avoided, Megillat Esther is telling us explicitly that the first decree was never nullified. The hateful plans and the cruel intentions of Haman—“to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews”—have been there ever since, and are still there. Therefore, Esther is asking for the same victories in the future. In this sense, the hanging of 10 Nazi leaders in 1946 was indeed—Purim 1946.

A Deeper Hidden Meaning

Blum showed us an even deeper meaning in this event and it is astounding:

But there is an even more amazing “hidden prophecy” in the text of Megillat Esther linking the story of Purim with this execution. If we read the original text, we see that four letters in the names of the 10 sons of Haman are written in a different font: three letters are smaller – tav, shin and zayin – while one letter is larger – vav. Jewish sages have always taught that any variation in the size of a letter in Scripture has a specific meaning. So, what is the meaning of these unusually sized letters?

The numerical value of a letter vav, (the big one), is 6; the small tav, shin and zayin together form 707 (400+300+7). Therefore, these numbers signify 707th year of the sixth millennium – in other words, the Jewish year 5707, which corresponds to… yes, your guess is correct, 1946, the year of the execution of these ten Nazi war criminals. Note that the original number of the Nazi leaders to be executed, was 11; however, following the Nuremberg Trials, Hermann Göring committed suicide and thus the number became 10 – exactly as in Esther’s request. Note also that since the trial was conducted by a military tribunal, the condemned should have been executed by a firing squad; however, the court’s verdict was “death by hanging” —again, exactly as in Esther’s request. Undoubtedly, the sovereign hand of God orchestrated these events – and apparently one of the condemned, Julius Streicher, was able to see this hand of God as he grasped this link to Purim in his final words: “Purim Fest 1946”. Now I think you will agree that the Book of Esther is a prophetic book indeed!

What about today’s war? Is there to be another hanging like in 1946? It wouldn’t surprise me at all.