These are the days appointed for the remembrance of the Holocaust. The reason given to remember is to prevent it from ever happening again. The truth is: it had happened before and it is happening again. The past is a shadow of the future.
“The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of the European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, around two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. The murders were carried out in pogroms and mass shootings; by a policy of extermination through work in concentration camps; and in gas chambers and gas vans in German extermination camps, chiefly Auschwitz, Bełżec, Chełmno, Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka in occupied Poland.
The segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question… The code number for extermination was ‘6’. The killing continued until the end of World War II in Europe in May 1945.”
Wikipedia
Inmates in the German camps were caused to receive an Identification number marked on clothing, or later, tattooed on the skin. These numbers were also used to schedule the trains and keep track of who was on them, where they went, and when they died. The Hollerith punch-card system was used to facilitate this mass deportation.
Remember the Babylonian Captivity
Similar scenarios had happened to the House of Israel many years earlier. The House of Israel was rounded up and taken captive into Assyria and the House of Judah was taken into Babylon. Their Temple, the center of life for them, was desecrated and burned to the ground.
Solomon’s Temple
Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple, was the House of God in Jerusalem built by King Solomon which he completed in 957 BCE. During the reign of Solomon, he was king over the whole House of Israel. After his death, the House was split into two houses because of idolatry.
That Temple was looted and destroyed in 586/587 BCE at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II, who also deported the Jews to Babylon.
The destruction of the Temple and the captivity of the people was a fulfillment of prophecy. Jeremiah along with other of the prophets warned the rulers and the people vehemently of the consequences of their disobedience and rebellion against God and for the shedding of innocent blood in that they killed the prophets sent to them by God.
The Book of Daniel
Daniel was one of the children of Judah taken captive. He also was prophet of God who interpreted dreams and visions for the kings of Babylon and the Medes. Jesus quoted him in relation to the end times.
“In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.”
Daniel 1
“In the first year of Darius, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes: And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said,
Daniel 9
The Prayer of Daniel
‘O Lord, the great and awesome God, keeping the Covenant and mercy to them that love Him and keep His Commandments. We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and from Your judgments.
Neither have we hearkened unto Your servants the prophets, which spoke in Your Name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
O Lord, righteousness belongs unto You, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far off, through all the countries where You have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against You.
O Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against You. To the Lord our God belongs mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him;
Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel have transgressed Your Law, even by departing, that they might not obey Your voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses the servant of God, because we have sinned against Him.
And He has confirmed His words, which He spoke against us, and against our judges that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under the whole heaven has not been done as has been done upon Jerusalem.
As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities, and understand Your truth. Therefore has the Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the Lord our God is righteous in all His works which He does: for we have not obeyed His voice.
And now, O Lord our God, that has brought Your people forth out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have gotten You renown, as at this day; we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all Your righteousness, I beseech You, let Your anger and Your fury be turned away from Your city Jerusalem, Your Holy Mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Your people have become a reproach to all that are about us.
Now therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications, and cause Your face to shine upon Your sanctuary that is desolate, for the Lord’s sake.
O my God, incline Your ear, and hear; open Your eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city which is called by Your Name: for we do not present our supplications before You for our righteousnesses, but for Your great mercies.
O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; do not defer, for Your own sake, O my God: for Your city and Your people are called by Your Name.”
Daniel 9
The Dedication of the Temple
Many years prior when Solomon had built the Temple unto God and dedicated it:
“The Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him, I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place to Myself for an house of sacrifice. If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people,
If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Now My eyes shall be open and My ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that My Name may be there for ever: and My eyes and My heart shall be there perpetually.
And as for you, if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you and shall observe My statutes and My judgments; Then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘There shall not fail you a man to be ruler in Israel.’
BUT if you turn away, and forsake My statutes and My commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; Then I will pluck them up by the roots out of My land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for My Name, will I cast out of My sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.”
2 Chronicles 7:12-20
In Returning, God will have Mercy
“Call unto Me and I will answer and show you great and hidden things… Behold, I will bring it health and cure and I will cure them… And I will cause the captivity of Judah and the captivity of Israel to return and will build them as at the first. And I will cleanse them from all their iniquity… all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: they shall reverence Me and stand in awe for all the goodness and prosperity that I procure unto it.”
Behold the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I promised to the House of Israel and to the House of Judah. In those days and at that time, I will cause the Branch of Righteousness to grow up unto David and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved and Israel shall dwell safely…
The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, “Do you not consider what this people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which the Lord has chosen, He has even cast them off? thus they have despised My people, that they should no more be a nation before them.
Thus saith the LORD; ‘If My covenant is not with day and night, and if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth; Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David My servant, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: for I will cause them to return from captivity and have mercy on them.”
Jeremiah 33:1-9, 14-16, 23-26
Remember This
“…It shall come to pass, if you hearken to these judgments, and keep, and do them, that the Lord your God shall keep unto you the Covenant and the mercy which He swore unto your fathers:
And He will love you and bless you… You shall be blessed above all people… The Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, upon you; but will lay them upon all them that hate you… You shall not be afraid of them: but shall well remember what the Lord your God did unto Pharaoh, and unto all Egypt;”
Deut 7:11-18
