Rabbi Judah ben Samuel was born in 1140. He was known as Judah the Pious and was known
for his emphasis on studying the bible, prayer and righteous living. According to Wikipeida, Rabbi Judah ben
Samuel was “descended from an old family of Kabbalists from Northern Italy that
had settled in Germany. Side by side
with the official, dogmatic religion of the Church or the Synagogue there has
always been a mysticism dealing more largely and more intimately with the
personal relation of the individual to God, which at times was in opposition to
the religion of the Synagogue. Judah's mysticism was in such a stage of
opposition; he therefore undervalued the study of the Halakhah and indulged in
marked departures from the accepted religious practices. He endeavored to
deepen the feeling of devotion and piety and emphasized the importance of
studying the Bible rather than studying the Talmud. He deals mystically with prayer, regarding it
as more important than study.” In
essence, he was a very spiritual man who strove to follow God and live
righteously. He had a burning desire for
the coming for the messiah and according to legend, the prophet Elijah is said
to have participated in his Passover "Seder" meal and to have been
seen by him in a synagogue.
Dr. Robert Mock has an excellent write-up on his Destination Israel
Blog concerning Rabbi Judah’s prophecies that relate to the Jubilee Cycle and
the year that the messiah comes. Instead
of writing the details of the prophecies I am going to excerpt a portion from
Dr. Mock’s blog (shown in dark text) and refer the reader to his site for those
that want to read more about Rabbi Judah from his blog. Dr. Mock provides the following summary from
his blog:
Rabbi Judah
ben Samuel - “When the Ottomans (Turks) – who were already a power to be
reckoned with on the Bosporus in the time of Judah Ben Samuel – conquer
Jerusalem they will rule over Jerusalem for eight jubilees. Afterwards
Jerusalem will become no-man’s land for one jubilee, and then in the ninth
jubilee it will once again come back into the possession of the Jewish nation –
which would signify the beginning of the Messianic end time.”
According
to Leviticus 25, one Jubilee period is 50 years in which the 50th year, each
person will regain ownership of his or her tribal lands. As Rabbi Judah the
Pious looked into the future, he was postulating theoretical calculations,
which today are showing them to be amazingly accurate. It would be over 300
years after his death that his first prediction would become true.
During the
Roman Christian Crusades, the Mamluk began their reign in Jerusalem in the year
of 1250 CE when the last Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt, Turanshah was assassinated by
his Mamluk slave General Aibek. Aibek then founded the Mamluk Bahri dynasty.
They held power over Jerusalem until they were conquered by the Ottoman Turks
in the year of 1517, three hundred years after the death of Rabbi Judah ben
Samuel.
According
to Rabbi Judah he-Hasid, the Ottoman Turks would later wrestle power and
control over the Middle East and assume power and control over Jerusalem. They
would control the Land of Palestine and Jerusalem for eight Jubilees, according
to his predictive calculations.
Well, eight
Jubilees (50 years x 8 Jubilees) are 400 years. We know again by history that
the Ottoman Turks gained control of Jerusalem in the year 1517 and held power
over Jerusalem for 400 years, when they were conquered in 1917, by the British
military forces under the command of British military General Edmund Allenby on
Hanukkah, December 17, 1917. The Ottoman
Turks began to falter in 1918 after the defeat of the army at Jerusalem. The
city of Damascus fell on October 1, Homs on October 16, and Aleppo on October
25 and Turkey capitulated on October 30, 1918. After this date the League of
Nations conferred the Turkey, Syria, and Egypt to the British Mandate that
included the Land of Israel, then called Palestine, and Jerusalem to the
British.
Then the
prophecy continues when it states; “Afterwards Jerusalem will become no-man’s
land for one jubilee.” Is it not amazing that from the year of 1917 when the
British Mandate controlled the city of Jerusalem, Jerusalem did become under
international law a “no-man’s land for one jubilee”. It was fifty years after
that year in 1917, that the Israeli army captured the city of Jerusalem in the
Six Day War on June 17, 1967. Exactly one Jubilee, 50 years later, Jerusalem
returned for the first time to the control of the Jewish-Israeli ownership since
the day when Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE.
As Judah
ben Samuel predicted the years of 1217 and 1517 were recognized as the biblical
50 year Jubilee Years. Three hundred years of six Jubilees after 1217, the
Ottoman Turks took control of Jerusalem until its fading years when the Allied
Forces swept the last ruler of the Ottoman from power by the forces of the
British military troops under the command of General George Allenby in 1917.
Even after
the Declaration of Independence by Israel in May 15, 1948 and Israel’s War of
Independence against five Islamic nations, the city of Jerusalem still remained
a “divided city”. The Jordanian government controlled the eastern part of
Jerusalem including the Temple Mount and the Old City of Jerusalem. A strip of land
divided the State of Israel control of Western Jerusalem and the Jordanian
controlled East Jerusalem. This strip of land was called “The No-Man’s Land” by
both Israelis and Jordanians.
Then in the
year of 1967, Israel was once again attacked. After the Six Day War, on June
17, 1967, the entire region of the West Bank was conquered by the Israeli Army
and the entire city of Jerusalem returned back in possession of the Jewish
people. Seven hundred and fifty years after the prophecy was first made by Rabbi
Judah the Pious, from 1217 to 1967, all the conditions of the prophecy were
fulfilled to the letter of the prophetic oracle. Then Rabbi Judah heHasid
wrote:
Rabbi Judah
heHasid – “In the ninth jubilee Jerusalem will once again come back into the
possession of the Jewish nation – which will signify the beginning of the
Messianic end time.”
This leaves
one more Jubilee, the tenth Jubilee since the Ottoman Turks took control of Jerusalem
and the Land of Promise in the years of 1517. According to this Jewish sage,
the end of this tenth Jubilee will “signify the beginning of the Messianic end
time.”
The end of the 10th Jubilee would be the year 2017. Rabbinical teaching is that the messiah could
come anytime between now and then depending on our level of repentance. They teach that if enough people truly repent
and turn to God, then the coming judgments will not be as severe and the
messiah will return sooner. So instead
of focusing on the evil all around, we need to focus on God and implement true
repentance. The evil is only there to
remind us of God and His salvation!
