(Reprinted with permission from Messianic Prayer)
Good Morning Friends and Family,
Tonight at sundown on the Jewish calendar begins the day of Tisha B’Av, which literally means the 9th of the month of Av. For approximately 3323 years, Tisha B’Av has been a day of mourning and tragedy for the Jewish people. Dating back to the days of Moses, tragic events have befallen the Jews on this day.
Try to imagine it, the children of Israel had just come through the miraculous Exodus. G-d had parted the Sea of Reeds and allowed them to walk through on dry land. They had now come up to the land of Canaan and had dispatched 12 spies, one from each tribe, to formulate a strategy on how they would take the land that HASHEM had already said He’d given them. Ten of the spies returned on the 8th of Av saying that the Canaanites were giants and that the land swallowed them whole. That night should have been a day of great celebration, but instead the children of Israel mourned and cried. They declared that it would be better to return to Egypt. It is because of this mourning and lack of faith that the Israelites didn’t enter the Holy Land for another 38 years, and why so many horrible things have occurred on the Tisha B’Av throughout history.
An overview of the bloody history of Tisha B’Av.
421 BC – King Nebuchadnezzar invades Jerusalem and destroys the Holy Temple, over 100,000 Jews killed, the rest were exiled to Babylon and Persia
70 AD – The second Holy Temple is destroyed by the Romans under Titus. Over 2.5 million Jews dies from war, famine, and disease. Over 1 million Jews exiled all over the Roman Empire. 100,000 Jews sold into slavery and many more tortured and killed in gladiatorial games and pagan celebrations.
132 AD – The Bar Kochba revolt against the Roman empire is crushed, over 100,000 Jews slaughtered.
133 AD – Roman governor Turnus Rufus ploughs the site of the Temple and salts the land. Builds the pagan city of Aelia Capitolina over Jerusalem.
1095 – First crusade declared by Pope Urban II. 10,000 Jews killed in the first month. Thousands more killed over the course of the crusades, entire communities obliterated in Rhineland and France.
1290 – Jews are expelled from England, accompanied by pogroms and confiscation of books and property.
1492 (That year ring a bell?) – The Inquisition in Spain and Portugal culminates in the expulsion of the Jews. Jewish families are separated and thousands are killed.
1914 – Britain and Russia declare war on Germany, WWI begins. 75% of all Jews are in war zones, over 120,000 Jews die in war. 400+ pogroms follow the war in Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia. Unresolved issues from WWI lead to WWII.
1942 – Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka death camp. The Holocaust begins, over 6 million Jews slaughtered.
1989 – Iraq walks out of peace talks with Kuwait. First Gulf War begins. Saddam Hussein fires rockets in Israel in an attempt to bring them into the war so that other Arab nations would unite to fight “the Infidels.”
1994 – The Jewish community center in Buenos Aires is bombed. 86 Jews killed and 300 others wounded.
Tisha B’Av is a day of fasting and mourning for the Jewish people. I ask that on this day, all of you pray that Tisha B’Av this year brings no new afflictions on the Jewish people. Anti-Semitism is growing all around the globe the same way it did in the 1930’s. Israel is constantly under attack from Hamas and Hezbollah. The Iranian government want to wipe Israel off the face of the map.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
