God has continued throughout the ages to use various signs to call nations to repentance. Our God is a God of grace, mercy, and love. But He is also a God of holiness, righteousness, and justice.
The prophet Nahum wrote: “The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knows those who take refuge in Him” (Nahum 1:7). But it was Nahum who warned that the same God is One who is righteous and holy and who will not tolerate sin (Nahum 1:2-3).
Recently archaeologists made an astonishing discovery of lost dead sea scroll fragments, and the remains of a child who lived about 6,000 years ago, at a legendary site in Israel known as the “Cave of Horror.”
The cave was the last place dozens of Jewish rebels took refuge in during the Bar Kokhba Revolt against Roman Emperor Hadrian from 132-136 AD. During the excavations in the 1960s, dozens of skeletons were found, which leads to the cave’s dark nickname.
The agency that discovered it found about 80 fragments of biblical texts, they were the first new Dead Sea Scrolls uncovered in more than half a century. Scholars were amazed by 1,900-year-old fragments. The child’s age was presumed to be between 6 and 12 years old and his skin, tendons, and even some hair were partially preserved.
“This is a historic discovery, on an international level at this time,” Raz Frohlich, the Ministry of Sports and Culture director, shared in a news release. Archaeologists also discovered a 10,000-year-old woven basket. This is believed to be the oldest of its kind.
The Dead Seas Scrolls are a colossal collection of ancient writings. The 972 scrolls contain the oldest known copy of the Hebrew Bible. “We found a textual difference that has no parallel with any other manuscript, either in Hebrew or Greek,” Oren Ableman, a Dead Sea Scroll researcher with the Israel Antiquities Authority shared.
“Another exciting aspect about this scroll is that despite most of the text being in Greek, the name of God appears in ancient Hebrew script, known from the times of the First Temple in Jerusalem,” the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a statement.
One of the fragments contained a passage from Zechariah 8:16-17, which said, “These are the things you are to do: Speak the truth to one another, render true and perfect justice in your gates. And do not contrive evil against one another, and do no love perjury, because all those are things that I hate – declares the Lord.”
Another included a passage from Nahum 1:5-6 which says, “The mountains quake because of Him, and the hills melt. The earth heaves before Him, the world and all that dwell therein. Who can stand before His wrath? Who can resist His fury? His anger pours out like fire, and rocks are shattered because of Him.”
Zechariah and Nahum were two of the Twelve Minor Prophets referenced in Hebrew Scripture and the Old Testament in the Christian Bible. We need to wake up to the Signs of Nature and all the other signs that God is giving us because we are living in the season of the Lord’s return, and we need to prepare ourselves and others for it.
We are, indeed, living in the times when we will see and hear the Lord’s return. Hallelujah!