The Book of Psalms As A Prophetic Book - Part 1

For a very long time, history has it that the rabbis, in the 1800s, felt something was very special about the Book of Psalms in the Bible. Because it is the 19th book in the Bible, they felt whatever had been written in that psalm could be linked with events that would happen in the year that corresponds with the number of the psalms; e.g. they said that Psalm 1 would correspond with the year 1901, Psalm 18 would correspond with 1918, etc. Based on that alignment, those psalms that are above 100 would speak about events in the 2000s; Psalm 105 would tie in with the year 2005 and Psalm 109 would point us therefore to the year 2009 which is this current year.

And so I did some comparisons, after the fact, and managed to find some associations: -

Psalm 17:12 - "As a lion is eager to tear his prey, and like a young lion lurking in secret places". In November 1917, a young British general by the name of Allenby rode into Jerusalem and freed the land from the Ottoman Turks and made Palestine a territory of the British Empire. Incidentally, the national symbol of Britain is the lion.

Psalm 38:6-8, 11-12, 21-22 - here the Psalmist prophetically seemed to be crying aloud to the Lord for deliverance; believe it or not that was the year that Hitler started to round up the Jews in Poland and Austria and put them in concentration camps.

Psalm 42:11 - In 1942, Hitler started to send the Jews to the gas chambers; initially in small numbers but as you read on from Psalm 43 and Psalm 44, the cry went up louder and more fervently - that was between 1943 and 1945.

Psalm 45:5 - "Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the King's enemies; the peoples fall under You." Notice that the arrows in this verse is in the plural and because the two atomic bombs landed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima like arrows and they struck the heart of the enemies of the Lord and the war ended immediately with the two bombs and Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 while Germany had surrendered earlier on April 29, 1945.

Psalm 48- A lot of praise and worship as the people rejoice when they see the hand of God crafting out a place for Himself. On May 15, 1948 the tiny nation of Israel was birthed almost overnight. Verse 4 talks about the kings assembling and they passed by together. The UN Security Council met and decided to set up the nation after much deliberation. And the psalm went further to talk about the pangs of child-birth and we remember that the young nation was persecuted by her neighbors.

Psalm 67- In this psalm, the first two verses recorded for us a special prayer to God to be merciful to them. Prior to June 1967, three armies gathered in three different directions ready to attack Israel - Egypt was in the south, Jordan was on the east and Syria was poised on the north and Israel was hemmed in and the only place they could turn was the Mediterranean Sea on its west. The Six-Day War was decisive and Israel triumphed and won more land than they started with and so the rest of the psalm recorded the celebration of joy unto the Lord.

Psalm 73:25-26- "Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever". Once again Israel was attacked and on the most holy of their feast days - Yom Kippor or Day of Atonement - and they were almost wiped off except by the hand of God on their behalf. Through a miracle the Syrian army was driven back in the north and Israel conquered the Golan Heights.

Now are these coincidences or is the hand of God really at work here? You have to judge them for yourself. I have more to share but that will be on another day.