Syria

This blog deals with the fall of the government of Syria. This was a couple weeks earlier than expected because of a bad assumption in the original timeline work from 1998. The prophetic story for Syria is geographically precise. If this continues, Jordan is next. Finally, an update on shop work.

US Bombing Syria

The link here is to a Zero Hedge article dealing with B-52 strikes on Syria on Sunday, December 8, 2024. This is 1 day after the fall of Syria to Turkey. The US and Israel were destroying remaining military installations inside Syria with heavy bombing. At that date, there was serious fog of war over what was going on in Syria. Whomever would take over Syria will be without heavy weapons.

The fall of Syria's government is generally timed as having happened between Assad's November 29, 2024, visit to Moscow, where he left behind his family, and his Saturday departure from the country on December 7, 2024.

Across those 9 days Turkey's proxies in Syria were able to take most of the country, with 2 significant exceptions. The oil and grain growing region in the northeast of Syria remained under Kurdish control, who are proxies of the USA. Then another area in southern Syria, near Mount Hermon, was taken over by Israel.

Turkey is expected to move their international border south from current location to a line where it was about 100 years ago. They are also expected to retain control of Syria as their proxy. Evidence of this was seen December 12, 2024, when Turkish officials were touring Damascus, essentially surveying their prize. Nobody had expected the war to end so quickly, invaders basically drove into Damascus without resistance.

The fall of Syria was thought to have been planned by Israel, the USA and Turkey over the previous many months. There were various reports of more exploding pagers and radios, suggesting Israel's deep planning for this event.

Both Russia and Iran had strongly warned Assad that this was coming. Both nations had offered various degrees of support for Syria's defense. Assad turned down all such offers. He is said to have expected Arab support. I suspect his intention all along was to give up without a fight in order to save as many lives as possible. He is expected to return to his former practice of Ophthalmology after being granted humanitarian asylum in Russia.

The big geopolitical shift here was to break the overland supply route from Iran across Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Events in this war thus finish Israel's pacification of all her immediate neighbors. As long as Turkey can be trusted to cut the flow of weapons, Hezbollah is now seriously weakened. Iran no longer has an effective proxy in Lebanon.

Israel will likely increase their work to depopulate Gaza and the West Bank without fear of Hezbollah defending Gaza in any serious way. Perhaps Trump will help the depopulation of Gaza by finding those people new homes.

These events are all a good setup for Israel to begin temple work by the expected key prophetic date for that in early 2026.

Prophetic Timing

This event was the correct length of time for the next expected prophetic date, but it was not exactly on the dates that I previously charted. Either another 8 day event begins on 2024-12-13, the day this blog goes out, or there is an interesting issue with how the charts are drawn, given the text as found in the Book of Judges.

When this Judges era series of dates ran prophetically in 2000 and 2001, the headline pattern was weak for the replay of these Judges era wars.

There were quite a few interesting middle east headlines at the time. Assad himself came to power in July of 2000, after the death of his father. I recall identifying him as a possible eventual spy because of his training in Ophthalmology. Assad, Arafat, and many other notable figures of the time were running around and holding meetings. But nothing was as serious as what we have just seen, and none of those meetings seemed to hit expected dates. It was a mystery to me at the time.

Looking at headlines this past 2 weeks has caused me to see the problem. There is a misunderstanding in how I interpreted the text in 1998 when I first worked out the trunk timeline. I was pretty well read in the text itself, but I did not understand many of the textual tricks that exist across the text. These days I am much less trusting of simple reads of the text, which are usually wrong.

The problem is that the Bible story that dates events we just saw in Syria floats loose within a wider prophetic window.

This matter deserves immediate attention because there are several more such events coming in the weeks ahead which may also not be timed correctly, or which may only be timed with accurate prophetic lengths but landing loosely in wider prophetic windows.

I know we have readers here with their own time lines. I need to explain the issue so that none of us are tripped up on this later.

Let me start with a review of the text of Judges so readers here can understand the interpretive issue that was not obvious to me 25+ years ago when I first sketched out the timeline. Then, together, we can watch future dates with better understanding.

480 Years To The Temple

The timeline between the Exodus and the building of the Temple by Solomon in Jerusalem is established by 2 different timeline vectors. 1 Kings 6:1 sets up the goal, the 480th year after the Exodus is when the temple construction was started. This was a 20 year building project, they were trying to get it done by the year 500, so a 10 fold Jubilee, from the Exodus. This so they could dedicate the building at or near Passover in the year 501 FE (From Exodus). Solomon wanted the dedication at the 500th anniversary of the Exodus. The start of construction in 480 FE is the first, and most simple, of the timeline vectors that spans across all of the stories across the time of the Judges.

I expect a replay of modern Solomon's start at Temple Construction in January of 2026. Because so many in Israel are already working towards a temple rebuilding I have very high confidence we will see this in January of 2026. As I explained in a previous blog, Netanyahu's most recent time in office will be the same as the age of Solomon at that point.

The Slow Road To the Temple

The text from the Exodus to Solomon's temple building project is also established using a second timeline. This version of the timeline is much more difficult to work out because it is made up of a series of specific timed intervals that must be chained together to get to that same year for Solomon's temple building event.

Given that we are now moving towards a temple, perhaps we should see nearly all current headlines as related to getting a temple at least started. Remember, that Hamas indicated their reason for October 7, 2023, was because of the "red cows" that had arrived in Israel. They were trying to stop the temple, and by implication the clearing of Temple Mount. Israel's genocide is in part to rid the region of any threat to such a project. Clearing that site is going to make their region's public unhappy. So the public across the Middle East must not have any political voice, anywhere.

What we just saw in Syria certainly is related to being able to build a temple. It ends much trouble across Israel's northern border. It may now allow Israel to evacuate Gaza and the West Bank to help protect the temple.

This prophetic date series is special in that it is in the 2000th anniversary timeline of Joshua. The temple in Jerusalem was the backdrop for Passion Week, itself the culmination of the narrative of the text. The need for a temple as a backdrop for future NT headlines near the end of this series may be a driving theme for most headlines going on early in this same series.

OK, so this second timeline vector from the Exodus to Solomon is not 1 long time reference, but a series of short references that need to clock out to that same 4th year of Solomon's reign when he began to build the temple. Here it gets tricky because there are MORE years referenced across that interval than there are possible years in that interval. So, some of the time references, especially in the Book of Judges, are to year intervals that are NOT part of the trunk timeline.

To make sense of it we need to find the specific references that run IN PARALLEL to the time references that are clocking off the simple historical chronology of Judges. Those parallel references must then be placed in relation to the dates that actually do make up the timeline.

Outline Of Judges

Once across the Jordan, and once Caleb is given his land, the given year intervals between prophetic events are long, 40 years at Judges 3:11, and 80 years at Judges 3:30. Then it slows down, 40 years at Judges 5:31 and another 40 at Judges 8:28. After that, the structure of Judges changes to a successive list of Judges who rule for fixed numbers of years. Joshua god had stopped being king, and rule over the tribes by men would begin. Society was degenerating from the time of Moses across nearly this entire time, the final degeneration was the establishment of a false, Egypt based, religion at Jerusalem with Solomon's temple project.

By Judges 9:22 we get the first judge, Abimelek, who judges for 3 years. There are many others that follow in successive order. Those details do not concern us here. I will call them out in the blog as we get there. This procession of judges will morph into kings and eventually arrive at Solomon and his dedication of the temple.

To find the stories that belong in parallel requires playing with all the given time references and finding what type of references must be understood as running in parallel time.

When I first did this in 1998, I identified the 8 years of oppression in Judges 3:8, the 18 years of oppression in Judges 3:14, the 20 years of oppression in Judges 4:3 and the 7 years of oppression in Judges 6:1 as the troubled references.

With these references removed from the trunk timeline, and instead running in parallel, the math for all the other remaining time references in Judges will work out correctly and get Solomon's 4th year to overlay the 480th year from the Exodus.

By selecting these seasons of oppression as outside of the trunk timeline, an added feature should be noted. These time references are all of the same type. They are all times of oppression, so by pulling these out, this is removing some sort of special set of time intervals that must have similar author's intent, running in parallel to the basic chronology.

There is no other set of time references that are of the same type and which land Solomon in the 480th year out from Egypt. So this set is special in several ways.

What we just saw in Syria is the first of these times of oppression. The story is in Judges 3:8, which I will return to below.

Pinning Oppression to Historical Time

So when I first worked out the timeline I wanted all given time references to to sit on the charts in their correct chronological location. This so they could be seen and tracked from headlines.

This step is where I was not capturing the finesse of the text of these early Judges stories.

What I did was align the end of each time of oppression with the END of the longer interval going by at the same time. This agrees some with the English. But this chronological placement is not capturing the prophetic replay freedom implied by the text.

A better way to draw these intervals would be to float that time of oppression in parallel, and then indicate tolerance with arrows out either side to the ends of the time of oppression in which it lands. I will write up future watch date blogs using this approach for the oppression dates that are still to come. Should I live long enough to return to the timeline, I will draw them up this way too.

Now, let me turn to the text for this first prophetic replay of a time of oppression. By looking at the exact text we can see this is what just replayed in Syria.

Judges 3:1-11 (BRB)

The link here is to the start of Judges 3, but the story we are interested in here is vs. 1 through 11.

By vs. 3 we get a list of various rulers of cities. Sidon is a city on the coast, south of modern Beirut in Lebanon. Hamath is now called Hama, or perhaps Homs, both are north of Damascus. Google directs Hamath to Hama, but vowels do not count, so Homs may also be the ancient location.

Also referenced in this Judges story is Mount Hermon, which is in the high ground normally called the region of the Golan Heights today.

At this point you should see that the war in Syria was touching the places mentioned in this specific prophetic story. I cannot recall this ever happening before. Most of the time, prophetic headlines happen in far reaches of the earth. This prophetic timeline is starting to call out places in the region where these events happened in the historical record.

Once we are seeing place names match between the Bible and the headline, it is best to look at this on a map. As modern Homs is larger than Hama, and thus likely older. We start there.

Google Maps: Homs

The link here is to Google Maps and the Syrian city of Homs. To get oriented I suggest finding the M5 freeway. It runs north-south through Homs. Most of the recent headline events in Syria involve that freeway.

Scroll north along the M5 to find Hama. Then scroll farther north until the M5 ends at the belt line around Aleppo. Most of the fighting that has been going on for a long time has been at the north end of the M5 at Aleppo. Breaking through Aleppo and moving south is what triggered the collapse of the Syrian government itself.

The eventual victors in Damascus were a group now called the HTS, but formerly were named Al-Qaeda, better known for cutting off heads of people wearing orange jump suits. The 8 days to the fall of Damascus is best understood as the 8 days it took that rag tag army of probably Turkish mercenaries to follow the M5 from victory in Aleppo until victory in Damascus.

If you follow the M5 south from Homs, and find Damascus, if you are zoomed out just enough, you should see Google Maps put a pin on Mount Hermon, itself east of Beirut. This too is referenced in the Judges 3 story we are following here.

Crossing the Golan Heights at Mount Hermon is where the Israeli army entered Syria. That mountain has a good territorial view. There are listening posts that Israel runs there that were often bombed by Hezbollah. Israel is not likely to return this new Syrian land grab, advancing their greater Israel project.

For reference you can follow the M5 south of Damascus and eventually the road number changes as the road crosses into Jordan, headed for Ammon, Jordan.

Jebusites

Returning to Judges 3, note that there is a reference to the Jebusites at this location in the text. Remember, these are the people who merged with Benjamin in the last 3 chapters of Judges. This is a convoluted story. Modern Israel, itself, is not clean, but a Benjamin Jebusite merger.

Othniel

By the end of the story it turns to naming a deliver that eventually ends the oppression. Prophetic Othniel is either the local leader of the HTS army in Damascus, or more likely Erdogan of Turkey.

Much speculation centers around Erdogan as the mastermind of this because he has had long standing goals of returning Turkey's borders to what they were around 100 years ago. Defeating Syria allows him to carve up Northern Syria to that end. This may be the cost he extracted from Netanyahu for defeating Syria.

Peeking Ahead

The next prophetic interval is 80 days long. It begins 13015-11-23 (2024-12-21). It ends on 13016-02-12 (2025-03-10).

If there is any remaining point headline dates in December, that would be at December 21, 2024. But this is a transition date and we should not expect a heavy headline.

Before events this past week in Syria, I would have charted the next 18 years of oppression as rerunning and ending at March 10, 2024. This is wrong.

Instead of charting 18 days at the end of that interval, we should watch for an 18 day interval that can hit at any point within those 80 days, likely out towards the middle, so maybe starting in January, 2025.

With Judges 3 still open in your browser, you can scroll down into that next story and see that it mentions Ammon, the capital of modern Jordan. So the story is moving south, to the south end of that M5 freeway. Since this just completed Syria prophetic headline was hitting specific place names, this next prophetic date should do so too.

If the place names hold, and we stay in the region and countries near Israel, and not, say Ukraine, then something is likely to happen in those 80 days involving Jordan.

The king of Jordan has formal responsibility for Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Israel may want to get back formal control of that place in order to be ready for a new building there. The Jews may want a puppet king in Jordan who will sign off on whatever they may ask. The details are of course unclear, the headline will show us what is going on.

The king of Jordan is not likely to simply release his rule over Temple Mount. This is part of his social contract with his public. In some sense modern Israel is being oppressed by Ammon because of that king's control of Temple Mount.

Jordan's other problem is they have a large population of Palestinian refugees. Israeli leadership may look to them as another target for genocide. Their attitude is likely to be the fewer the better. So there are different aspects of their situation that may play out in this next major prophetic headline.

If this next headline follows the text closely, this next 18 day prophetic interval, currently untimed, but over by March 10, 2025, ends with a secret assassination of a king.

I will return to these topics as headlines warrant.

Print Farm Running, Computer Issues

The new setup in the shop with enclosed 3d printers is now up and running. For the first time I am able to wire them up to the network, so no need to carry around USB drives for loading designs. The enclosures are helping with bed adhesion issues, though not perfectly in a cool garage.

About 10 days ago my main laptop started making strange chirping noises. It would not return from suspend, but could be coaxed into rebooting after several tries. Long story short, one of the graphics processors in the laptop had failed. The laptop is now running again but only on the slow but battery efficient graphics unit.

The 3d design software that I am using was getting speedups from the failed Nvidia GPU. Time to render the Table item was 6 minutes. Now it is 25 minutes, strictly in software without the GPU, but still using all cores on the machine.

The laptop itself is over 4 years old, and has been running nearly continuously for those 4 years. In suspend mode at night, and then on and running all day every day. I normally plan 5 years of useful life for laptops, but in this case 4+ is good for a machine which has had such heavy use.

I intend to replace it, but only after our UNLB trip east in February. The budget will not allow both right now. Until then, design work is shifted to the new computer in the shop, purchased in September for manuscript recovery work. Fortuitous as it will make 3d design work much faster too.

That new machine came with an AMD GPU. I shifted 3d design work there this week and found strange artifacts in the 3d design app. After tracking down that bug I found that AMD GPUs are known not to work with the OpenSCAD software system that I use for 3d design.

Strangely, and also fortuitously, I had a spare Nvidia plugin style GPU that I could use to replace the new AMD GPU inside the new computer case. With a little futzing with the case, everything works well. The Nvidia replacement was old enough to have open source Linux drivers and so not need the proprietary Nvidia driver code. So the AMD specific flavor of the operating system runs on that Nvidia GPU, strange, but nice.

To render the Table item on that new machine only requires 1 minute 30 seconds, a better than 4 fold speedup over the now broken laptop. This matters because the website where these designs will live requires tuning the designs and repetitive rerunning so the artwork looks OK.

Use of that new machine in the shop allows me to keep an eye on the print farm, something I need to be doing when running all the 3d printers at the same time. They tend to be like herding cats, meowing when they need attention.

I will post some photos on Telegram with this week's models.

More Later,

Phil