FUTURE CHANGES IN THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ISRAEL

Some prophecy “experts” make a big deal concerning the way the topography of the Holy Land will be changed in the last days. Here are some possibly pertinent passages in the Bible (all quotes are from the RSV) and how various scholars have commented on them.

Isaiah 2:2b // Micah 4:1 – “It will come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.”

As Mobley says, “claims for Mt. Zion's height...were symbolic, not topographic.”

Blenkinsopp: “Similar passages in early Second Temple texts (e.g. Hag. 2:7-9; Zech 2:14-16; 8:20-23) help us to locate this kind of exalted 'Zionist' mythopoesis, which seems to have crystallized in the prophetic propaganda and cult of Judeo-Babylonian repatriates in the first half-century of Persian rule...”

“What is important is to evaluate the context to see how the phrase is being used. One that basis it cannot be said that this passage can only refer to the millennial age. In a more proximate sense it can relate to the Church age when the nations stream to Zion to learn the ways of her God through his incarnation in Christ. To be sure, we await Christ's second coming for the complete fulfillment of this promise, but the partial fulfillment began at Pentecost...What Isaiah was asserting was that one day it would become clear that the religion of Israel was the religion; that her God was the God. To say that his mountain would become the highest of all was a way of making that assertion in a figure which would be intelligible to people of that time.” (Oswalt)

Allen: “Whether we are to think of literal, miraculous elevation of the low mountain of Jerusalem, which stands a mere 2400 feet above sea level, or see here simply the language of poetic imagery and symbolic hyperbole, cannot be determined. Men are to look up to Jerusalem as superior to all other mountains, the sole place on earth where God reveals himself, the center of the world.”

Commenting on Micah 4:1, Andersen and Freedman state, “The first item in the Book of Visions is an apocalypse, a vision of the end and consummation of history...in this unit we float away into the dreamworld of apocalyptic vision and to the remotest boundary of conceivable time.”

“If this was a symbolic vision, Micah may have seen Mt. Moriah lifted up above all other mountains on earth, but the import of this symbol was surely the exaltation of the kingdom of God to a supreme position above all the kingdoms of the earth.” (Archer)

“It is sometimes suggested that Matthew 5:14 ('a city set on a mountain cannot be hid') has in view eschatological Zion or the new Jerusalem. It was expected that Zion would be raised to a great height and shed its light throughout the whole world (Is. 2:2-4; 60:1-22; Sib. Or. 5:420-23). But the reference is uncertain. The verse is perfectly understandable without it referring to any particular city...” (Allison)

Isaiah 40:3-5 – “A voice cries: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.'”

Whybray states that the normal route from Babylon to Judah lay round rather than across the desert. But now the heavenly beings are to build a road across the desert for a miraculous journey...That he expected this command to be literally carried out is quite certain...”

“The Hebrew text says that it is God who comes out of the wilderness for his people. Several understandings of this figure of speech are possible. The one that seems least likely is that this is a reference to the Lord bringing the exiles back across the wilderness from Babylon. As even those who prefer this understanding admit, the way back from Babylon did not come through the desert but went around it...The one thing the people can do is to prepare the way for the coming King. Ellinger may be right in seeing this as a reflection of the kind of road building engaged in prior to the triumphal tour of a conquering king. But in any case it speaks of an act of faith on the part of the people.” (Oswalt)

Wolf notes: “This highway imagery appeared in 35:8, and it occurs again in 57:14 and in 62:10-11. In the New Testament the highway is prepared for the coming of Christ, and the voice that calls out belongs to John the Baptist (Luke 3:4-6)...A comparison of all these 'prepare the way' passages shows that the fulfillment involves three different events: (1) the return from Babylon, (2) the first coming of Christ, and (3) His climatic second coming.”

“In Isa 40:3 mesilla ['highway'] occurs in parallel with derek ['way'], in a passage in which the call is for God's people ('my people,' v. 1) to prepare a highway for the Lord as he comes to deliver his people. Here the highway is not for the people but for the Lord...the picture in Isa 40 is of an eschatological coming of the Lord himself, when his glory will be universally revealed.” (Harman)

Blenkinsopp calls this “an oracle commanding that the way be prepared for return from exile, and therefore for the return of the glory of the LORD.”

Price says, “The figure in v. 4 is drawn from the engineering operations of roadmakers for kings of the East...Dishonesty must give way to sincerity, and pride of status must be given up. All this is involved in preparing a highway for our God...”

“Isaiah 40:3 harks back to the imagery of 26:7 with its teaching about God making the ways or paths of the righteous smooth. But even the land and its topography are metaphorically changed as 40:4 describes the leveling of the mountains, the elevation of the valleys, and the smoothing out of rugged places.”

And J.B. Payne declares, “Its fulfillment does not concern Judah's return from Babylon.”

David Payne's comment on this verse is that “God's glory would be seen, in other words, in His control of history, bringing in His own people back from exile to Judah (vv. 9ff. confirm that this is the meaning); but they must willingly cooperate, setting out in faith for the homeland. This call into the desert was not of course meant literally...We see its fulfillment reported in Mt 3.1ff [or its parallel in Luke 3:3-4], in John the Baptist's preparation for the advent of the Messiah.”

Fitzmyer comments on Luke 3:3-4, “The main purpose of this first passage in the Gospel proper is to present John as one called by God to prepare for the inauguration of the period of salvation and to present him as an itinerant preacher who makes 'ready the way of the Lord.' The quotation of Isaiah 40 serves to enhance his appearance with the note of fulfillment...John is in the desert, preparing the way of the Lord, not merely by a study and strict observance of the Law – as was the understanding of this Isaian passage among the Essenes of Qumran – but by a preaching of reform, of a salvation to come, and a baptism of repentance.”

Ezekiel 40-48 – This is another extended passage, the prophet's vision of a new temple, which may have a bearing on future topographical changes in the Holy Land. Walvoord realizes that, contrary to his expectations that the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem on the temple mount during the millennial period, there is a potential problem. He says, “Some been troubled by the dimensions of Ezekiel's temple. Though it is true that the dimensions of the future temple would not fit the temple site as used historically in previous temples, a changed topography of Palestine in the millennium predicted in many passages would permit a rearrangement of the amount of space assigned to the temple. Actually, other views do not provide any legitimate explanation of the size of the temple either, except to deny literal fulfillment.” But he fails to pinpoint which of the “many passages” indicates a widening of the mountain top.

Hoekema points out two additional reasons for not taking the details of Ezekiel 40-48 literally as a description of the millennial period: (1) even the New Scofield Bible backs down from the historic dispensational dogma that a temple will be needed at that time to resume animal sacrifices and (2) the fact that many of the details of Ezekiel 40-48 are used in Revelation 22 to describe the New Jerusalem instead of the millennium.

Zechariah 14:4-5 – “On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split into two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward. And the valley of my mountain shall be stopped up, for the valley of the mountain shall touch the side of it; and you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah...”

To start with, we must note along with Ellis, “The Heb. of this is notoriously ambiguous.”

Unger: “If the coming of Messiah is literal so must this catastrophe be literal...Even believing scholars frequently balk at a literal interpretation of the earthquake and the other marvels of this passage and either mysticalize them altogether or apply them to past events with which they only inexactly agree. The only true interpretation is to relate the chapter wholly to the still future 'day of the Lord.'”

Walvoord similarly takes a literal approach to interpreting this verse: “According to millennial prophecies, many topographical changes will take place in the land of Palestine in connection with the establishment of the millennial reign of Christ. While some of these may be due to the lifting of the curse upon the earth, the alterations seem to be more extensive than this. In connection with the return of Christ to the earth, Zechariah 14 pictures the battle for the possession of Jerusalem which in its early stages seems to be in favor of the Gentiles. This is reversed, however, by the return of Christ described in the following words [Zechariah 14:3-4 is quoted]. In view of the fact that the Mount of Olives nowhere in Scripture is given a spiritualized interpretation, it seems clear that this refers to the physical Mount of Olives to the east of Jerusalem.”

J.B. Payne states that “the place of Christ's return, Olivet, as the climax to His initial appearing in the clouds...the Mount of Olives to be divided by an east-west valley, allowing escape from Jerusalem: 'and ye shall flee by the valley...unto Azel,' an unknown locality but presumably at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Fulfillment: the rescue of converted Jews from Jerusalem, just having fallen to 'all nations' (v. 2).”

We should note the similarity between the above literal interpretations and Jesus' words clearly referring to the events of AD 70: “Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside depart the city, and let not those who are out in the country enter it.” (Luke 21:21)

Allison also weighs in on this subject: “There may...be an allusion to Zechariah's prophecy in Mark 11:23 according to which true belief can cast 'this mountain' into the sea. In its context, Mark 11:23 could allude to the Mount of Olives (cf. Mk 11:1) and so to Zechariah 14:4, which foresees the splitting of that mountain (alternatively, the verse...could also allude to the destruction of the Temple Mount upon which Jesus stands as he speaks).”

In commenting on the mention of the Mount of Olives in Matthew 21:1, Overman says, “A tradition within Second Temple Judaism held that a battle would take place there at the end of the age (Zech 14.4; Josephus, Ant. 20.167-172).”

And Beale and Carson add, “A more informal echo of Zech. 14:4, with its prophecy of a messianic appearance on the Mount of Olives, may be heard in Matt. 21:1...the reference to 'this mountain' in Matt. 21:21 refers to either the Mount of Olives or Mount Zion, depending on where Jesus and his disciples were as they journeyed 'from Bethany to Jerusalem.' If Jesus pointed to the Mount of Olives, then the disciples may have been meant to recall Zech 14:4, in which the Messiah's coming to that mountain triggers eschatological upheavals.”

Zechariah 14:10 – “The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rammon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft upon its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner, etc.”

Walvood also elaborates on this passage, putting it together with verses 7-8 as well as Ezekiel 47:1-12 in order to state: “Other phenomenal things will occur at the same time.” These include a flow of water from Jerusalem to the east and west, causing the deserts to bloom, in “preparation for other features of the millennial kingdom.” Some of these additional details obviously come from a strictly literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation.

Conclusion – As the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery states, “One of the most vexing problems for a student of the Bible is how to understand the varied images associated with the Day of the Lord. This puzzlement is at least partly due to the great flexibility and variety of uses to which the biblical authors put these images.”

And before one rejects some of the non-literal interpretations offered above as being too liberal, keep in mind that (1) even premillennial literalists are beginning to back down from some of their earlier woodenly-literal interpretations; (2) most of the figurative understanding above come from conservative evangelical scholars, not the liberal school of Christianity; and (3) the descriptions of these biblical passages are fully in line with all but the most dyed-in-wool dispensational premillennialists in accurately reflecting the most honest way to understand genres such as poetry, visions, and apocalyptic writings found in the Bible. That is why in many of the quotes above you will note the use of words such as theophany, imagery, figure, poetic, mythopoetic, eschatological, hyperbole, and symbolic.