The great river Euphrates . . . was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. (Revelation16:12)
It’s symbolic language: “Hell freezes over and the Euphrates runs dry.“
Readers of this website will understand what I mean by that. A great astrophysical cataclysm awaits us in the not too distant future, but it is not the Second Coming of Christ.
You were attracted to this article because you are trying to make sense out of the current craze over the drought in the Levant and its effects on the Euphrates River. It’s running dry, as is the Mississippi, the Danube, the Rhine and other rivers affected by current stresses in the climate.
Rivers are natural boundaries. Historically, they have been used in place of expensive fortifications.
The Rhine worked well for the Romans until 406 AD, when it froze over so that the starving barbarians could cross over unmolested. (See “The Coming Ice Age”).
For thousands of years, the Euphrates has served as a natural boundary to keep out the Eastern hordes (the nomadic tribes between the Tigris and the Indus) ever lusting for the abundance of what was once called “the Fertile Crescent.” This fact was known to John the Revelator, and in fact, he predicted that the Euphrates would dry up for that very purpose: the effect of allowing the Eastern armies to cross and make their way to the Valley of Megiddo for the great Battle of Armageddon. More below.
Evangelical Christians think that the current drought is a sign of this looming Great Tribulation and the 2nd Coming of Christ, as if it has never happened before. They believe that it proves the Bible is true and that Jesus is coming back “any day.”
They say, “You better repent and be born again so that you don’t miss the Rapture.”
But if you are a Preterist in your interpretation of the Book of Revelation (e.g. David Chilton, Days of Vengeance, Dominion Press, 1987), you probably would recognize this text as a reference to the Roman general Titus, who recruited a substantial number of his troops from beyond the Euphrates to fight in the first Jewish-Roman War circa. 66-73 AD, that saw the destruction of the Temple and city of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and then the fall of Masada in 73 AD. Fighting a protracted war of attrition on short notice created a logistical problem of moving troops from Britain and Gaul to the theater in Palestine. It made more sense to hire mercenaries from the vassal kingdoms of the East. This was possible because of the three “frogs” (or unclean spirits: Revelation 16:13), which emerged from the Euphrates, representing the Radhanites of Babylonian Jewry (ref. American Intelligence Media, YouTube productions). These Jews hated the Edomite Jews of the Zealot faction, whose acts of terrorism interrupted trade.
If you are an Historicist, you might follow Isaac Newton’s elucidation in his Observations of Daniel’s prophecies into the Islamic era of the Middle East and the later attempts by the Khans of the Mongol kingdoms. Through the centuries, the empires of both East and West have tried to dominate the lands of the trade routes and eliminate the cost of “the middle man.”
It is hard for nonchristians to follow the nuance of Evangelical doctrinal tradition.
These very Evangelicals of our day are predated by a theological tradition which did not interpret Bible prophecy as Futurists. But you would never know it listening to them. Evangelicals are the great censors of recent history; they have thoroughly removed any traces of the old school from their libraries and seminaries. If you listen to them, you would think that Christians have always believed their peculiar views on Bible prophecy. And should the rare challenge be made that such views are only of recent adoption, they will give you an existentialist argument: one cannot know the true interpretation of Bible prophecy until you get closer to the time of its fulfillment. In other words, history is of no value in understanding prophecy. To them, our age is more enlightened because we are “walking in the Spirit” and benefit from a “deeper” knowledge than previous ones.
The Protestant Reformers and their immediate theological heirs (e.g. Jonathan Edwards, et al) were Historicists. Later, benefiting from the three-volume Works of Josephus (newly translated into English by Isaac Newton’s assistant, William Whiston), 19th Century Evangelical Divines became Preterists (e.g. Moses Stuart) when they recognized the fulfillment of prophecy in these historical records.
Futurism arose in the 20th Century from the manipulation of illiterate Evangelical preachers by Zionists who want to revive world hegemony from a restored capital in Jerusalem. Not all Jews have this aspiration but are brow-beaten by their more militant partisans to support this dubious quest.
Futurists believe that Jews who currently occupy Palestine are “God’s chosen people.” They praise the plan to rebuild Solomon’s Temple (which St. Stephen condemned as “Satan’s seat” – Pesher for St. Stephen’s Day, 2021), never mind that a revival of the sacrificial system would be a direct repudiation of the work of Christ. Only a severely deficient mind could succumb to such doctrinal apostasy.
As a representative of the Soteriological Model, I would argue that this Euphrates River prophecy in Revelation is ecbatic: meaning it is a biblical type for repeated fulfillments in human history. Kublai Khan fulfilled it a thousand years ago, just as Darius the Mede did over a thousand years before that in the time of Daniel, when he dammed the flow of the Euphrates so his army could cross and conquer the city of Babylon – and just as Titus did as mentioned above.
Ecbatic prophecies are not meaningless symbolisms. They bear witness to the timeless workings of God’s providential government over the nations of the Earth. Unlike the Futurists who believe that these past historical events are mere proto-types with no real prophetic significance, I believe they are valid anti-types. I believe these prophecies will be fulfilled again in our time today. But it is a prelude to God’s Great Eschaton, not the 2nd Coming of Christ, a thing which can happen only once.
As to what the reference to imprisoned angels (9:14) might mean or what the “three frogs” (16:13) are referring to, we would suggest a different interpretation than the “ghost and goblin” fascination currently being promulgated on the internet. But an elucidation must be saved for another time.
The bottom line is that whatever we might want to imagine these prophecies portend, they anticipate the Armageddon of Revelation 19 . . . and Armageddon is not the 2nd Coming of Christ.
Let me say it again: Armageddon is not the Second Coming of Christ.
If you read the text carefully, Christ and His armies on white horses never descend to the Earth. They remain in Heaven. The “seizing” of the “Beast” and “False Prophet” is the work of “angels” and the “fowls” which have gathered to “the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.” Or as Newton would say, “the saints” will do the dirty work of the vultures to cleanse the land of the dead and their wickedness (see our Pesher of the Seven Trumpets, 2022).
The notion of 200 million soldiers who have gathered in the tiny Valley of Megiddo (9:16) – as expected by the Futurists – cannot ever be literally fulfilled. It is physically impossible. If China, as represented by these Futuristic interpreters, were to attempt to destroy the tiny State of Israel and its proposed Temple, why would it need to send a vast army? The detonation of a thermonuclear weapon would suffice.
Of course, the old school argues that “double the myriads upon myriads” in the Greek does not mean 200 million, as it does not in other applications (Chilton, p. 11-12, cf. Psalm 68:17), or in Jude 14 (“ten thousands of his saints”), etc. But Revelation might have been written in Aramaic, or at least first read to the Diaspora Christian Jews of the Asian Minor refugee encampments during this time period in which it was written (Pesher of the Presentation, 2022).
Regardless, if this “Gog and Magog” intends to gather to fight Jesus Christ and His heavenly army, why do so when He has clear air superiority? Clearly, a fool’s stratagem. Are they going to shoot arrows into the sky? Or RPGs? The literal scenario is as absurd as the credulous demand that “the Lamb of God” is a literal four-legged sheep. Too many Christians have based their hermeneutics on Jack Chick comic books.
This current fad too will pass from public view, but the permanent damage it has caused will be to further entrench the Futuristic heresy in Evangelical thinking. Our efforts to mobilize the world’s population for the next solar nova/geomagnetic reversal/ice age – or what the Scriptures call “The Day of the LORD” and what we call “God’s Great Eschaton” – are hampered by this still very powerful delusion.
— JWS, Thanksgiving, 2022
