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Hamas, the Temple & the Red Heifer

April 14, 2024

(5 minute read)

On April 9 at 8:14 p.m., three days after God inspired my visit to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, He brought Auschwitz to mind for a 57th time, and I was led to August 28, 2024 as the date to visit it. That meant I would leave Israel that day, and visit Auschwitz that same day in Poland, leaving Israel on my 18th day.

This visit to Auschwitz was inspired 2 hours and 9 minutes after sunset at 6:05 p.m., or at the start of the 3rd hour of the Jewish night. This was now the third visit to Auschwitz that God had inspired for this trip, being inspired exactly one Hebrew month since the first (2 Adar II – 2 Nisan, 5784). Interestingly, the first visit was inspired on March 12 at 1:29 p.m., and this visit was inspired on April 9, 129 minutes after sunset, echoing the time of the original visit, 28 days earlier! So, quite an unusual coincidence there, although I assume that was intentional on God’s behalf, to prove that He was behind it.

It was inspired exactly four months to the day prior to the start of my trip on August 9, and would occur on day 20 of my trip (August 9–28, 2024).

Just as my visit to the Dead Sea was marked by the number 20, so too it seems was this visit to Auschwitz. It was inspired exactly 20 weeks to the day since this trip was inspired on November 21, 2023, and would occur exactly 20 weeks later in the Hebrew calendar on the 24th of Av (20 weeks and 1 day in the Gregorian).

Because this visit was inspired after nightfall on April 9, it was already the start of the new Jewish day, which in this case was the 2nd of Nisan – the second day of the Jewish religious year, and one day after the Tabernacle was inaugurated in the desert at Mt. Sinai in Jewish tradition.

As it happens, I was due to be visiting Auschwitz on my 11th chronological trip on the 2nd of Nisan, 5782, exactly two Hebrew years earlier, and this visit was to be my 31st – exactly 20 visits apart! That visit was inspired on January 30, 2022 – the 89th anniversary of Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and was due to occur on April 3, 2022 – the potential date of Jesus’s crucifixion in 33 A.D.!

As previously mentioned, the number 20 plays a significant part in the construction of Moses’s Tabernacle in the desert, and is also a significant number in terms of moral, spiritual, and militaristic service within Judaism.

Interestingly, it also plays a part in the history of rabbinical Judaism, with well-known Rabbi Moshe (Moses) ben Maimon’s work, the Sefer Hamitzvot (Book of Commandments). Maimonides (or Rambam), was a Jewish scholar, author, physician and philosopher, who lived in the 12th–13th centuries A.D. He was influential in medieval as well as modern Judaism.

In the Sefer Hamitzvot, Maimonides lists all 613 commandments of the Torah, divided into 248 positive, and 365 negative commandments. The Sefer Hamitzvot served as an introduction to his main body of work, the Mishneh Torah (“Repetition of the Torah”).

Thirty-seven days earlier, God inspired a fifth potential baptism for me on March 3rd, exactly 613 minutes after sunrise at 7:10 a.m.! This baptism was to take place on November 2, 2028 – the 111th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, expressing the British government’s support for a Jewish state in Palestine. It was about to come under their control, following various battles with the Ottoman Empire during World War One.

As it happened, the daily Catholic reading for Sunday, March 3, 2024 was Exodus 20:1–17 – the 10 Commandments, and the gospel reading came from John 2:13–25, where Jesus talked about destroying the temple, and in three days He would raise it up (referring to His body – John 2:19).

Thus, it seemed the theme of this visit to Auschwitz was set – it would be about the Tabernacle and Holy Temple of God in both the desert, and later in Jerusalem as Solomon’s Temple, and King Herod’s expanded Second Temple.

And that’s where Maimonides came into it.

Maimonides 20th positive commandment out of the 248 is, “To build God’s chosen house” – the Temple or Sanctuary, as commanded in Exodus 25:8: “And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them”. (This is #301 in the full list).

And so the theme of the number 20 continued in this visit to Auschwitz, along the lines of the Holy Temple of God.

But that’s not where the references to the Holy Temple ended. Both the date this visit was inspired, and the date the visit is due to occur also contain links and references to the Tabernacle and First and Second Jewish Temples.

According to Chabad.org, on the 2nd of Nisan – the day after the Tabernacle was inaugurated, Moses prepared the first red heifer. This was the day my visit to Auschwitz was inspired, two hours and nine minutes after sunset on April 9.

The red heifer was used to ritually purify the people of Israel, as well as the Tabernacle and later the Temple, by sprinkling the blood of it towards the Tabernacle seven times, and using the ashes thereof to mix with water and purify those who have become ritually unclean; particularly those who have come into contact with a dead body. To this day, this commandment remains a mystery to the Jews, even to wise King Solomon according to tradition!

According to Numbers 19:4–12, the priest was to sprinkle the blood of the heifer seven times towards the front of the Tabernacle, and then burn it with cedar wood, hyssop (plant) and scarlet material, and use the ashes to create water used for purification purposes. This water was to be sprinkled on people on the third and seventh day, and after that they would be ritually clean.

The red heifer was to be unblemished and without defect, never yoked, and slaughtered outside the camp.

To Christians, this is a perfect model of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross – perfect and without blemish or defect (sin), crucified outside the Old City Walls of Jerusalem, raised from the dead on the third day, and able to cleanse people from their sin through “living water”. In so doing, Jesus conquered death once and for all for all people who believe on Him. What remains a mystery to the Jews until this day, was revealed in the crucifixion of Jesus on the Cross, as the eternal sacrifice for sin. Something that the ritual sacrifices of the Jews were but a foreshadow of Jesus’s atoning work on the Cross.

As it happens, the day this visit to Auschwitz was inspired (April 9), is the day that some people believe Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day, following His crucifixion on Friday, April 7, 30 A.D. There are of course different opinions on this, but I couldn’t overlook this fact in relation to this story – and perhaps that’s the point God wants to make – not whether the dates are accurate or not, but the message He wants them to convey!

This is purely the work and story of God, I am just trying to interpret it for you to the best of my ability! Auschwitz, of course, represents the ultimate symbol of death – what was essentially a factory of death, built for that purpose. The question is, what was the sin that sent people there?

Being Jewish is not a sin, but according to Jesus, “…they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” – Luke 19:44. The destruction of Jerusalem and its Second Temple ultimately led to the wide-scale diaspora, which ultimately culminated in the Holocaust. Had the Jews in authority accepted Jesus (Yeshua) as the Messiah, Jerusalem and its Temple would not have been destroyed, and it would have known peace!

“…If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” – Luke 19:42

But that wasn’t what happened, and neither was it God’s plan. God used the unbelief and hardness of heart of some of the Jewish leaders against them, sending Jesus to His death on the Cross. God is not responsible for people’s individual decisions, but He can use them to achieve a particular purpose.

In this case, it was for the salvation of all mankind through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross! The eternal propitiation for sin.

It was through the death on the Cross that all mankind was reconciled to God through Jesus’s atoning sacrifice, making people ritually clean – just like the blood and ashes (water) of the red heifer were designed to do and pointed towards. That is the mystery of the red heifer – revealed to us in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross.

The fact that this visit to Auschwitz was inspired on the day that Moses prepared the first red heifer, and the day of Jesus’s potential resurrection, all seem to point towards this fact. You may not like the way that God is designing this story, nor even its message, but I can guarantee you with my life that it came directly from God! I am just here to deliver it to you as best I can!

One of the interesting Jewish traditions surrounding the red heifer, is that only nine of them have been sacrificed since the time of Moses, aligning with the theme of the number nine in this story! Maimonides believes that the tenth red heifer will only be found when the Messiah is ready to appear. This is due to the difficulty in finding a perfect, unblemished red heifer.

Fascinatingly, at the time God inspired this story, the red heifer was again in the news, as a portent of the Jewish desire to rebuild a third Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount, where the current Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque currently stands. These are both Muslim shrines and buildings.

Whenever the media reports that a red heifer may have been found, people assume that the coming of the Messiah may be near. In this case, however, Hamas military spokesman, Abu Ubaida, revealed that the true reason why Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, was because five red heifers had been imported from Texas, USA on September 15, 2022, that could potentially upend the status quo on the Temple Mount. It should be noted that Hamas’s military operation for the terrorist attack on October 7 was called “Al-Aqsa Flood”.

If that statement is correct, then you have political, religious and military considerations all coming together to cause the terrorist event and subsequent war in Gaza and its aftermath.

This is essentially a spiritual war – one between the forces of God and Satan. And we all know who is going to win that one!

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