By Ted M. Vanlandeghem
· This morning we awoke to the news of last night’s collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, which occurred 24 hours after the conclusion of Purim. This came on the heels of the United States’ abstention rather than veto of the United Nations Security Council’s passage Monday of a cease-fire resolution in the Israel-Hamas war and 24 hours after news broke of Vice President Kamala Harris threatening Israel in a speech with dire consequences: https://www.foxnews.com/media/harris-shameful-warning-israel-crashes-burns-online-kick-rocks-kamala
· This has additional weighty significance since Francis Scott Key was the author of our national anthem, penned during the War of 1812 in the British battle for Fort McHenry in the inner harbor of Baltimore on September 14, 1814 (the day before Yom Kippur of 1814 and the last day of Yomim Nora’im 1814).
· The fort where the battle took place that inspired Key to write the national anthem is right there in the inner harbor where the bridge collapsed.
· Another prophetic layer is that a lunar eclipse occurred on Purim this year―and will be repeated the next two years:
· 2024 also a Jewish leap year, so Purim occurs twice this year. During a Jewish leap year there are two months of Adar―Adar 1 and Adar 2―so Purim occurs twice: Purim Katan (February 23–24, 2024) and Purim (March 23–24, 2024). The point is that there is a double portion of Purim this year. Adding weight to this is the lunar eclipse pattern that started on Purim this year and continues for the next three years. Additionally, this speaks of God dealing with Iran. It’s no coincidence that Israel is currently locked in a war against Iran and her proxies―Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
· But there are other pieces to this:
· This year’s total solar eclipse is on April 8, which is the 1st of Nisan on the biblical calendar, or the biblical new year, coming two weeks before Passover, which takes place on the 14th of Nisan.
· April 8 is also the end of Ramadan on the Islamic calendar―a prophetic convergence.
· This eclipse comes seven years after the last total solar eclipse.
· The two eclipses or 2017 and 2024 make an X over New Madrid, Missouri.
· New Madrid is the site of two major earthquakes in the United States, in 1811 and again in 1812 (about three months before the beginning of the war of 1812).
· George H. W. Bush started the peace process to divide the land of Israel in Madrid, Spain. Will judgment come upon America at New Madrid, Missouri?
· The eclipse seven years ago passed over seven United States cities named “Salem,” which means “peace”―
· Salem, Oregon
· Salem, Idaho
· Salem, Wyoming
· Salem, Nebraska
· Salem, Missouri
· Salem, Kentucky
· Salem, South Carolina
· This year’s eclipse on the 1st of Nissan passes over and will be visible from seven cities named “Nineveh” in the United States and an additional one in Nova Scotia, Canada:
· In the story of Jonah, God gave the city of Nineveh 40 days to repent: Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4 NIV).
· So if this is a prophetic pattern for the United States and we are being given a 40-day window to repent as a nation, then the next question is “What day comes 40 days after the first of Nissan?” That happens to be a day called “Passover Sheni.”
· Passover Sheni is the biblically mandated second Passover or “make-up” Passover that was given in Numbers: “Tell the Israelites: 'When any of you or your descendants are unclean because of a dead body or are away on a journey, they are still to celebrate the Lord's Passover, but they are to do it on the fourteenth day of the second month at twilight’” (Numbers 9:9–11).
· This second Passover was mandated by God for any of the people who were unclean or unfit to celebrate the first Passover, one month prior. If the people of God were not clean or fit to partake in the first Passover, he mandated this one―a second chance. It’s on this “second-chance Passover” that the 40-day window from the 1st of Nisan, April 8, ends!
· Four days after Passover Sheni comes a Jewish traditional holiday called “Lag Ba'Omer,” or the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer, in which the Jewish people in Israel make large bonfires all across the land of Israel.
· Lag Ba'Omer is marked by fire . A day marked by fire follows the “second-chance Passover.”
· Could it be that God is giving the United States a 40-day window to repent that concludes on the second Passover, or the “second chance Passover”? And if we do not repent as a nation―will we reap fire?