Syrian Strife Linked to Biblical Prophecy, Scholars Suggest
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Declares Assad's Government Will Crumble if Attacks Continue
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton predicted on Sunday the definitive fall of Syria amid the government's deadly crackdown on protesters, with some theologians arguing that current events may very well correlate with Isaiah's prophecy of the destruction of Damascus.
At a news conference in Morocco on Sunday, Clinton shared her convictions that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is due to fall, and called upon the army's soldiers to join the Free Syrian Army, which is leading the assault on the government on behalf of protesters who want to see Assad, who has ruled the country since 2000, removed from power.
"The longer you support the regime's campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honor," Clinton directly addressed Syrian soldiers.
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"If you refuse, however, to prop up the regime or take part in attacks on your fellow citizens, your countrymen and women will hail you as heroes," she continued. "You cannot continue to support this illegitimate regime because it is going to fall."
Civil war is fast becoming a reality in Syria, with a number of cities and villages in the country becoming a battleground for Assad's supporters and rebels hoping to end five decades of Arab Socialist Ba'athist rule in the country. Some cities with a large Christian presence, such as Homs, have been under shell and rocket fire for over two weeks.
Since August, the government crackdown on dissidents has progressively gotten worse, and with a recent Arab League pullout, some analysts have suggested that the country is on the brink of civil war.
It was revealed on Friday that Syrian Arab Red Crescent ambulances have been evacuating women and children from besieged parts of the area in what is truly a crisis situation, but it has been reported that another 100 people were killed in the city over the weekend – adding to the total of more the 8,500 in the country since the unrest began.
SEE VIDEO REPORT OF THE TROUBLES IN SYRIA
The turbulent situation in Syria has prompted some theologians to remind observers of the biblical writings of Isaiah, who scholars say prophesied that Damascus, Syria's capital, would be destroyed.
Bill Salus, author of Revelation Road, Hope Beyond the Horizon, who is also a researcher and lecturer focusing on the prophetic relevance of current Middle East and world events, shared with The Christian Post that many traditional commentaries that teach that the destruction of Damascus predicted by Isaiah was fulfilled around 732 B.C. during the rise of the second Assyrian Empire may have been incorrect.
In Revelation Road, he exposits upon a Jeremiah prophecy said to be written over a century after the Assyrian conquest of Damascus, and demonstrates how the Babylonian Empire did not accomplish the destruction of Damascus in the manner Isaiah 17 predicted.
Salus also postulates that Isaiah 17:14 predicts Damascus disappears into dust overnight, probably resulting from a nuclear attack.
Pastor Perry Stone, an international evangelist who directs one of America's fastest growing ministries, Voice of Evangelism in Cleveland, Tenn., has a similar prediction. In a recent blog post on his website, Stone suggests that the Isaiah prophecy has not yet been fulfilled, but might be in the near future.
"It has been noted that in the prophecy of the war of Gog of Magog in Ezekiel 38... Syria is missing from the list of nations that form an (Islamic) coalition and move like a violent storm cloud over the mountains of Israel," Stone writes. "It just may be that the destruction of Damascus – a city that houses an estimated 10,000 terrorists and is friends with the radical government in Iran – will serve as the trigger for the predicted Islamic coalition to make its move upon Israel in the future, as retaliation for a war that occurred prior to the war of Ezekiel 38 (which tells of an invasion of Israel)."
