Cyrus King of Persia Isaiah 44:28-45:1 “The Lord… who says of Cyrus, he is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will save Jerusalem, ‘Let it be rebuilt’, and of the temple, ‘Let it’s foundations be laid’. This is what the Lord says to His anointed, to Cyrus whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armor, to open doors before him, so that gates will not be shut. This very specific prediction was made some 150 years before Cyrus was ever born (See Isaiah, Deuteronomy). Since Isaiah lived between 740 and 690 B.C. (2Kings 25:21) and Cyrus did not make his proclamation for Israel to return from exile until about 536. (Ezra 1), there would have been no human way for him to know what Cyrus would be named or do. The attempts of critics to divide Isaiah and post-date the prophecy is without foundation and is a back-handed compliment to the detail and accuracy of the prediction. The Closing of The Golden Gate. “The Lord said to me, ‘This gate is to remain shut. It must not be opened; no one may enter through it. It is to remain shut because the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered through it.” (Ezekiel 44:2).
The Golden Gate is the eastern gate of Jerusalem through which Christ made his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday before His crucifixion (Matthew 21). Ezekiel predicted that it would be closed one day, and not re-opened until the Messiah returned; In 1543 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent closed the gate and walled it up as Ezekiel had predicted. He had no idea he was fulfilling prophecy. He simply sealed it because the road leading to it was no longer used for traffic. It remains sealed to this day exactly as the Bible predicted, waiting to be opened when the King returns. The Destruction of Tyre. “I am against you, O Tyre, and I will bring many nations against you, like the sea casting up its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and pull down her towers; I will scrape away her rubble and make her a bare rock. Out in the sea she will become a place to spread fishing nets… they will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones timber and rubble into the sea. I will make you a bare rock, and you will become a place to spread fishing nets. You will never be re-built, for I the Lord have spoken declares the Sovereign Lord”. (Ezekiel 26:3-14)
Tyre, an important seaport in the eastern Mediterranean, was one of the great cities of the ancient world. It was a heavily fortified and flourishing city. Yet, in the heyday of its power, the prophet Ezekiel had the audacity to predict for it a violent future and ultimate destruction. This downfall would be due to Tyre’s flagrant wickedness and arrogance, traits that were personified in its ruler, Ittobal II, who claimed to be God. Ezekiel predicted that many nations would come up against Tyre (Ezek. 26:3); that Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar would be the first to attack it (v. 7); that Tyre’s walls and towers would be broken down (vv. 4,9); that the stones, timbers, and debris of that great city would be thrown into the sea (v. 12); that its location would become a bare rock and a place for the drying of fishermens’ nets (vv. 4-5,14); and finally, that the city of Tyre would never be rebuilt (v.14). History bears eloquent testimony to the fact that all this is precisely what happened. Many nations did come up against Tyre — the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Muslims, and the Crusaders, to name a few. And Nebuchadnezzar was indeed the first of these invaders, who — after a thirteen year siege — broke down the walls and towers of mainland Tyre, thus fulfilling the first of Ezekiel’s prophecies. Nebuchadnezzar massacred all of Tyre’s inhabitants except for those who escaped to an island fortress a half mile out in the Mediterranean Sea. Centuries after Ezekiel’s body had decomposed in his grave, Alexander the Great fulfilled a major portion of the prophecy. In order to conquer the island fortress of Tyre (without the luxury of a navy), he and his celebrated architect Diades devised one of the most brilliant engineering feats of ancient warfare. They built a causeway from Tyre’s mainland to the island fortress, using the millions of cubic feet of rubble left over on mainland Tyre. Thus Tyre was scraped bare as a rock, just as Ezekiel predicted. The most astonishing of Ezekiel’s predictions was that Tyre would never be rebuilt. This is singularly incredible because Tyre is strategically located on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It also contains the Springs of Reselain, which pump ten million gallons of fresh water daily — enough to take care of the needs of a modern city. Yet, history records that after a succession of invasions, Tyre finally and irrevocably fell in A.D. 1291 — never to be rebuilt again. Today Tyre has been humbled to the point of becoming a place for the drying of fishermens’ nets — just as Ezekiel prophesied two-and-one-half millennia ago. The Doom of Edom (Petra). “The terror you inspire and the pride of your heart have deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks, who occupy the heights of the hill. Thought you build your nest as high as the eagles, from there I will bring you down declares the Lord. Edom will become a object of horror; all who pass will be appalled and will scoff because of all it’s wounds”. (Jeremiah 49: 16-17)
Unlike many Old Testament predictions of doom, Edom was not promised any restoration, only perpetual desolation. Given the virtual impregnable nature of the ancient city carved out of rock and protected by a narrow passageway, this was an incredible prediction. Yet in A.D. 636 it was conquered by Muslims and stands deserted but for tourists and passers-by. The Flourishing of The Desert In Palestine. “This is what the Sovereign Lord says; on the day that I cleanse you from all your sins I will re-settle your towns, and the ruins will be re-built. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate of all who pass through it. They will say, ‘This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are not fortified and inhabited’”. (Ezekiel 36: 33-35)
For centuries Palestine lay wasted and desolate, conditions that extended throughout the land. Today a visitor to Palestine would have a hard time believing that this land was ever desolate. Roads have been built, the land is being cultivated, and Israel agriculture is flourishing. This renovation came before the turn of the 20th century and continues a century later. Agricultural crops, including a large orange harvest, are part of the restoration, just as Ezekiel had predicted. The Succession of Great World Kingdoms. An amazing prediction in the Bible is the succession of the world empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome by Daniel. Interpreting the metallic man in the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, he told the king “You, O king are the king of kings… You are the head of gold. After you another kings will arise, inferior to ours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally there will be fourth kingdom, strong as iron-for iron breaks and smashes everything-and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others”. (Daniel 2: 37-42.) So precise and accurate is this prophecy that even negative critics agree that Daniel spoke in order of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. Critics try to avoid the supernatural nature of the prophecy by claiming these words were written after the fact in about 165 B.C. But there is not real substantiation for this claim. This prophecy is given in detail in
The Rise and Fall Of The Empires and The Dating of Daniel
The Return Of Israel To The Land. Given their long exile of some 19 centuries and the enmity of the occupants of Palestine against them, any prediction of the return, restoration and re-building of the nation of Israel was extremely unlikely. Yet predictions made some centuries and over two and a half millennia in advance about the two restorations of the Jews to their homeland and their restoration as a nation have been literally fulfilled. Regarding the 1948 restoration on Israel, Isaiah predicted that “In that day the Lord will reach out His hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of His people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Kush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea”. The first return was under Ezra and Nehemiah in the sixth century B.C. but Israel was sent again into exile in A.D. 70. When the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and leveled the temple. For nearly 2000 years the Jewish people remained in exile and the nation did not exist. Then, just as the Bible foretold they were re-established after WWII and a biter struggle with the Arab Palestinians. Millions have returned and re-built their country and in the 1967 six-day war Jerusalem again became a united Jewish city. No other nation in history has managed so successfully to keep a culture, identity, and language intact over hundreds of years, let alone against the genocidal hatred repeatedly encountered by the Jews. This Bible prediction is incredible evidence of the supernatural origin of the Scriptures. An Important Conclusion. A fact often overlooked by critics is that the only one real case of fulfilled prophecy would establish Scripture’s supernatural origin. Even if most Biblical predictions could be explained naturally even one clear case establishes the rest and confirms the prophetic event. Thus, if the critic is to make the case against prophecy all instances much be naturally explainable. | 
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