Reading the headlines this week, it is hard not to feel the weight of history in the making.
At a press conference this week, Israel’s prime minister spoke with unusual bluntness.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is “crushing the terror regime in Iran” and degrading Hezbollah’s military infrastructure, warning that the Lebanese militia would pay a “very heavy price” for its aggression. His remarks came after days of missile strikes, including Iranian attacks that damaged buildings and vehicles in central Israel.
Some missiles were intercepted. Others were not.
Israelis have been killed in the barrages. In Beit Shemesh alone, nine people died when an Iranian missile struck a residential area, destroying a synagogue and damaging a nearby shelter. Across the country, families continue to run for safety when sirens sound, sometimes emerging shaken and alive, other times mourning neighbors and loved ones.
This is the reality of the war now unfolding: sirens, rubble, funerals, and families running for shelter.
And the tension surrounding Israel does not remain confined to the Middle East. This week, a man rammed his vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and opened fire while children were inside the building. No one inside was killed because security responded quickly, but the attack was a chilling reminder that hatred connected to Israel does not stay overseas. It reaches synagogue doors, children’s classrooms, and families far from Jerusalem.
The map may show military fronts, but not the spiritual war.
Scripture invites us to ask a deeper question.
Why does history keep circling the same land?
Why does a nation smaller than New Jersey repeatedly become the focal point of global attention, regional hostility, and ideological fury?
The psalmist asked the same question long before modern geopolitics existed.
“Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed.” Psalm 2:1–2
Those words were written nearly three thousand years ago.
Yet they read like a headline because the rage has never really gone away.
Iran’s leaders do not hide their intent. They speak openly of wiping Israel off the map. Hezbollah was created as a proxy army on Israel’s northern border. Militias across the region define themselves by opposition to the Jewish state.
The Islamic Republic has built a governing ideology that glorifies martyrdom and funds militias dedicated to Israel’s destruction. As Vice President J.D. Vance recently warned, “You can’t let the craziest and worst regime in the world have nuclear weapons.”
Scripture teaches us that this kind of hostility is never merely political.
The prophet Ezekiel describes a future moment when a coalition of nations rises against Israel.
“After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel.” Ezekiel 38:8
Later he writes:
“You will come up against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land.” Ezekiel 38:16
Ezekiel names several nations in this coalition, including Persia—the ancient name for modern Iran—along with peoples many scholars associate with regions of modern Turkey and areas farther north.
But the most remarkable detail in the prophecy is not the list of nations.
It is the reason God gives for the conflict itself.
“I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me when I am proved holy through you before their eyes.” Ezekiel 38:16
In Ezekiel’s vision, the gathering of hostile powers is not merely geopolitics.
It becomes the place where God reveals His holiness before a watching world drunk on power, threats, and bloodshed.
The war becomes revelation.
The prophecy concludes with a striking statement:
“Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.” Ezekiel 39:22
Christians have debated these passages for generations, and wise readers resist the temptation to turn every headline into a prophecy chart.
But the pattern Ezekiel describes is difficult to ignore.
Israel restored to the land.
Nations gathering around it.
A coalition forming against it.
And today, the geopolitical landscape around Israel increasingly reflects that pattern.
Iran—named in Ezekiel as Persia—stands at the center of the conflict. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has sharply condemned Israel’s military campaign. Russia has warned against Western escalation while maintaining deep human ties to Israel through the large Russian-speaking population living in the Jewish state.
These overlapping alliances create a striking picture: nations that compete with one another, distrust one another, and sometimes openly oppose one another still find themselves circling the same small country.
The prophet Zechariah offered another image.
“I will make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling…I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations.” Zechariah 12:2–3
Jerusalem, the prophet says, will become a weight the world cannot lift and cannot ignore.
Is that not what we see again and again?
Why do global movements organize around Israel’s existence?
Why do regimes thousands of miles away speak about its destruction?
Why do alliances form and reform around the same narrow strip of land?
Israel is not the largest country in the region.
It does not possess the largest army.
It does not control the largest reserves of oil.
And still history keeps circling back to it, as if the world cannot leave this land alone.
Modern analysis often stops at politics. Scripture does not.
The land is not incidental.
It is the place where God anchored promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is where the prophets spoke. It is where Jesus walked, taught, and wept.
When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, He did not erase the Jewish foundation of faith.
He said plainly:
“Salvation is from the Jews.” John 4:22
Christianity did not begin apart from this people or this land.
And the Jewish people were bound not only to covenant, but to land, history, and promise.
Which leaves us with another question.
When the nations rage against Israel, are they only confronting a state?
Or are they confronting a covenant they cannot erase?
The most important question for Christians today is not whether we can identify every prophetic detail in real time.
The question is whether we recognize the pattern Scripture has been showing us all along.
The nations rage.
Israel buries her dead, runs for shelter, and still stands.
And the God who spoke through the prophets has not abandoned the land they described.
So the psalmist’s instruction is not sentimental. It is urgent:
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
‘May those who love you be secure.’” Psalm 122:6
Today’s Prayer
Lord, You are the God of history and the keeper of Your promises.
Give us wisdom to see clearly, humility to trust Your Word, and compassion for those living in the shadow of war.
Protect the innocent, restrain evil, and bring peace to Jerusalem.
Amen.
