Daniel’s Personal Study

Posted on July 20th, 2007 in Theocratic by abdallah

A couple of weeks ago in the Wt. study, one paragraph in particular captured my attention. The paragraph was talking about the prophet Daniel, who was still active and having a good bible study at the age of 90+
What captured my attention was this: the paragraph said there was indication (in what he wrote evidently) that he was studying parts of the bible we now know as Leviticus, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea and Amos! The paragraph then gives a (well known) example of Daniel quoting Jeremiah’s prophecy about the 70 years of captivity in Babel.
What I wanted to know is the rest of it, the other parts that Daniel was studying, and here’s what I found after some digging :) Article not complete!
Leviticus: We all know the famous stand that the 4 young friends took when taken to Babel. They refused to eat any foods that were forbidden by the law (Le 11:4, 13, 47; 17:12). A second look, however shows that Daniel was a true student of the law even at his old age. In his apologetic prayer noted in Daniel Chapter 9, he refers back to the Law several times as he confesses the errors made by the people of Israel.

(Daniel 9:13) . . .Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity—it has come upon us, and we have not softened the face of Jehovah our God by turning back from our error and by showing insight into your trueness. . .

Isaiah:

*** kl chap. 2 p. 18 par. 17 ***
The fall of Babylon. Isaiah and Jeremiah both foretold Babylon’s fall to the Medes and the Persians. Remarkably, Isaiah’s prophecy about this event was recorded some 200 years before Babylon was conquered! The following aspects of prophecy are now matters of historical record: the drying up of the Euphrates River by diverting its waters to an artificial lake (Isaiah 44:27; Jeremiah 50:38); a careless lack of security at Babylon’s river gates (Isaiah 45:1); and the conquest by a ruler named Cyrus.—Isaiah 44:28.

Jeremiah:

Hosea:

Amos:

How much time?

Posted on March 13th, 2007 in Mood, Theocratic by abdallah

Time has been on my mind for a while now. Not the distant notion of time/space continuum one struggles to understand (not that hard, just over-hyped!), but the simple fact that we’re at the end of what the Bible calls “the day of Our Lord”.

The fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses’ yearly scripture is taken from the verse in Zepheniah 1:14 must tell you something!

“The great day of Jehovah is near.”—Zeph. 1:14.

Please note the difference between the two “days”:

*** re chap. 5 p. 22 par. 2 John Beholds the Glorified Jesus ***
what is the Lord’s day? The apostle Paul refers to it as a time of judgment and of fulfillment of divine promises. (1 Corinthians 1:8; 2 Corinthians 1:14; Philippians 1:6, 10; 2:16) …
That “day” begins with the crowning of Jesus as heavenly King. Even after Jesus executes judgment on Satan’s world, the Lord’s day continues, with the restoration of Paradise and the perfecting of mankind, until Jesus finally “hands over the kingdom to his God and Father.”—1 Corinthians 15:24-26; Revelation 6:1, 2.

*** w06 12/15 p. 15 par. 3 “The Great Day of Jehovah Is Near” ***
What is “the great day of Jehovah”? Throughout the Scriptures, the expression “the day of Jehovah” refers to special times when Jehovah executed judgment on his enemies and glorified his great name…
However, the greatest “day of Jehovah” still lies ahead. It is the “day” when Jehovah’s judgment will be executed on those who have defamed his name. It will start with the destruction of “Babylon the Great,” the world empire of false religion, and culminate in the annihilation of the rest of the wicked system of things at the war of Armageddon.—Revelation 16:14, 16; 17:5, 15-17; 19:11-21.

Simply reading the 12 Prophets‘ renderings about the “day of Jehovah” is enough to put a sense of urgency in one’s heart. They talk about it with fear as if they could see it upon them. Zephaniah said that “it is near, and there is a hurrying [of it] very much …” compare that with the word of Peter, who said that “it will come as a thief …” (2 Peter 3:10).

Joel graphically described “the great and fear-inspiring day of Jehovah.” (Joel 1:15; 2:1, 2, 30-32) Amos told the Israelites to get ready to meet their God, for the day of Jehovah would be one of darkness. (Amos 4:12; 5:18) … And near the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, Obadiah warned: “The day of Jehovah against all the nations is near.”—Obadiah 15.

All that, and the recurring words of Jesus, Peter, Paul and others saying it will come “as a thief in the night” (Thessalonians 5:2) is making me wonder how exactly it will come! Recent history has showed us more than once that major earth shattering events do not come with an introduction. Those who remember the fall of the Soviet and the wall of Berlin (and the Iron Wall) understand what I mean, it simply happened when no one expected it! What about the more recent 9/11? Out of no where, a virtually unknown terrorist organization hits the great American Empire in the midst of its home land. Now, some would argue that it’s not entirely true: many knew what was happening in both occasions I mention, they told the world about it and warned people about what’s happening around them. And there were signs that foretold the events that shook the earth and its inhabitants: Gorbachev was obviously working on something when the mighty USSR fell, and I’m sure many in the homeland security forces in the United States knew or speculated about the attacks of 9/11/2001.
That’s entirely true. And it fits the profile of the upcoming great events, many know what will happen and are waiting for it, they are telling people about it, and they know (from the accounts of the 12 profits, among others) how the end will come! Yet, it will come as a thief, and even those expecting it will stand in awe as Jehovah’s Great Day arrives…

WTLib 2006 on iSilo

Posted on March 7th, 2007 in Theocratic by abdallah

It’s out! My iSilo is not working… However, I still got the files for my friends in Lebanon to use.

This version comes in different flavors, I guess the guys who made it worked really hard to make it accessible for almost everyone out there. So, I’m not going to make their efforts go to waste, and I won’t break any laws at the same time: Anyone who needs the files, please send me a note (comment) and I’ll try to deliver the files the best I can (SandalNet or otherwise :D).

Options include:

  • Small
  • Basic
  • Extended
  • Full
  • Index
  • Worldwide Report 2006 (Optional)

Extract Bible Verses

Posted on January 17th, 2007 in Theocratic by abdallah

I knew something like that existed, however I was too lazy to read the fine manual!
It’s that easy to extract the bible verses from an article in the Watchtower Library (2005, it should work with earlier versions)

  • Simply select the part where the verses/citations exist
  • Copy the part (CTRL-C)
  • Press CTRL-ALT-C, and watch as the citations are extracted. Note that it may take a long time if you’re extracting all the citations from a book for example.

Of course, I should have known that from the manual. So, returning to the manual I was happy to note that: (from the manual)

This feature allows you to select text in a word processor document, copy it to the Clipboard, then use Watchtower Library to extract the citations in that text. To do this:

  1. Open a document in your word processor.
  2. Select the text in the document containing one or more citations.

So basically you can get the text from anywhere, and the extraction would happen just the same! Cool stuff…