July 1-2

In doing a little 'google' work to sort out which nations are which in the text these last couple days, I found a lot of information about End Times. And of course, many prophesies do have two fulfullments, a 'near one' (which was fulfulled or partially fulfilled shortly after the time it was written and a later fulfillment, often in what we refer to as End Times or the time leading up to Christ's Second Coming). Even though I sit under the teaching of a good friend who is quite the End Time's expert, I will freely admit to you that my brain just does not retain this stuff. So for the most part, I'm not going to even attempt to explain any of the End Times implications of these passages, except to ask you to read it with that idea in mind: that much of it has already been fulfilled shortly after it was written, but much of it still has future implications for us.

I do think that we should be educated about which nations we are talking about, wheather we are talking about past fulfilled prophesy or future prophesy, it's good to know who the 'players' are (this is to the best of my understanding and googling- I'm not an expert)  Assyria (not to be confused with Syria) was an empire which had as it's capital Babylon. A lot of it would be in modern day Iraq. Damascas in Syria, not too far from the northern border of Israel and it has been a enemy to Israel for centuries. Edom is southern Jordon area (Jordon being east of the Jordon River and Dead Sea from Israel). Tyre is in Lebonon which, like Damascus Syria, is near Israel's northern border. According to Forerunner Commentary: Tyre was the New York City of its day, and here God is prophesying of its defeat. Though it would survive, it would be brought into line with God's purpose for Israel. He depicts the commercial merchandising system of this heathen city as harlotry. Tragically, Israel adopted these heathens' attitudes and ways of doing business. Israel has a proclivity for taking an idea or concept from others, refining it, and making it work better than it did for its originators—yet in so doing she rejects God's economic systems.
The ships of Tarshish may have been a 'generic term' for all distant sailing vessles around the Mediterainian. That's not every country/city mentioned, but I think you get the idea that it mostly refers to all who are physically surrounding Israel and the whole Middle East.

I'm not sure what the 'seventy years' (at the end of July 1's reading) refers to (near or distant prophesy or both?) but I know that 70 is an extremely important number in prophetic literature. For now, I am not going to get bogged down in End Times stuff....I'm just trying to get things straight and in order in my head so that I can study more deeply at another time.

A breath of fresh air at the end of July 2 reading- a King who followed the Lord!! Hezekiah. He removed the high places and ((finally)) tore down the Asherah Poles (the wooden poles to honor Asherah, the fertility goddess).