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'The Eagles (double and single headed) will be gathered' Shortly before his death the Lord Jesus Christ was sitting with his disciples on the Mount of Olives, opposite the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The disciples had been in the Temple with Jesus, and were now questioning him about what was going to happen in the future. The record of Jesus’ reply is found in Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapter 13 and Luke chapters 17 and 21. It is now known as the Olivet Prophecy. This is a personal message from Jesus for his followers.  The setting would have been particularly significant for Jesus. The Temple they were overlooking had been rebuilt by Herod the Great, the king who had ordered the death of many Jewish babies in his attempt to kill Jesus soon after his birth. This temple had been adorned with a huge golden eagle, which Herod had dedicated to Caesar. Erecting an eagle in such a place was an abomination to the zealous Jews, and Josephus recorded the massacre that Herod ordered when the eagle was cut down(left).
(Antiquities of the Jews: Book XVII, chapter 6; Wars of the Jews: Book I, chapter 33) Jesus predicted that the state of the world would be “as it was” in the days of Noah and Lot before he returned at the end of the age. Noah’s days were significant for their violence, and Lot’s for immorality, including greed and homosexuality. “Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.” (Luke 17:30) And the disciples asked him (Luke 17:37), “Where, Lord?” And he said unto them, “Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.”
Matthew 24 makes that clearer: When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea (i.e. the land of Israel) flee into the mountains: … Matthew 24:15
21 -27: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. “For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” V.28.
Jesus continued to warn: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. Matthew 24: 29-31
Note: The time of tribulation for the Jews which Josephus recorded when the Romans sacked Jerusalem in AD 70 was nothing compared with the tribulation for millions of Jews in Europe during the Holocaust in World War II. Looking closer at the passages in the Bible we can learn that the word translated as ‘carcase’ in Matthew 24:28 is the Greek word ‘ptoma’. This Greek word was used in Mark 6:29 for ‘corpse’, when John the Baptist's headless body was collected by his disciples. (This word only occurs 4 times in the New Testament: in Revelation 11:8,9 it is translated as ‘dead bodies’) The word ‘body’ in Luke 17:37 is the Greek word ‘soma’ which is translated many times as ‘body”, and that body may be alive or dead. In the Greek version of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, Deuteronomy 28:26 has the word ‘nekroi’, meaning ‘the dead’, which is translated into English as ‘carcase’ in the KJV. In the Hebrew version of Deuteronomy 28:26 the word ‘nebelah’ occurs. “And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall frighten them away”.
This passage is part of the ‘Curses’ that the Jews will receive, the punishment for disobedience to God’s commandments. (Deuteronomy 28:15-68) The word ‘nebelah’ is also used in Deuteronomy 21:23 for dead bodies of men, and in Leviticus 11:11 for dead unclean animals, and Isaiah 26:19 for “my dead body”: Isaiah 26:19-21. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her bloodf, and shall no more cover her slain.
Note: This passage in Isaiah is associated with the messianic return of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth. It is not connected with AD 70 as some commentators have suggested. It involves resurrection of those who have lived obedient lives, including Jews and Gentiles! So the 'carcase' in Matthew 24:28 applies to 'dead' (headless) Jews. From AD70 the Jews have had no Temple, or High Priest, nor Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Their daily Temple sacrifices ceased, and they have had to rely on scattered rabbis and synagogues for their religious life. Note: the word 'wheresoever' in both Luke 17 and Matthew 24. The persecution by 'the eagles' will apply wheresoever the ‘dead’ (headless) Jews are: -In the land of Israel, or elsewhere in the world. This word ‘wheresoever’ explains why the Jews have been persecuted for millennia, particularly in those countries which use heraldic eagles. In AD70 the Roman, single headed-eagle, nation dispersed the by then ‘headless’ Jews throughout their empire. Historically the Jews were concentrated in greater Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals. The eagle nations of Europe have persecuted the Jews without mercy. The Spanish Inquisition forced Jews to convert to Roman Catholicism, and those who survived torture were forced to flee to other countries for refuge. Some of the mariners who sailed with Christopher Columbus were Jews who were refugees from persecution. The horrors of the pogroms in Russian, under the double-headed eagle of the Tsars are well documented. Books published by authors including Sir Martin Gilbert’s histories of the Holocaust and the Jews are a testimony to this. Adolf Hitler wrote his book promoting his idea of a ‘final solution’ for the Jews, ‘Mein Kampf’ when he lived in Vienna, Austria. Vienna was the capital city of the Habsburg emperors, and the double-headed eagle was their imperial emblem. The worst persecution of all was in Auschwitz, the Polish town of Oswiecim. More than a million Jews were killed there in 4 years during the German occupation. Poland’s emblem is a white eagle on a red background, but Oswiecim has a double-headed eagle, which was awarded to the town when it was part of the realm of the Habsburg Empress Marie Therese. They will do so again: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. Matthew 24:21
Their tribulation has not finished yet!
Another note: The NIV has Matthew 24:28 Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. This translation is WRONG. The Greek has the definite article 'the' connected to the word for carcass. It is a definite 'carcass', headless body, not just any dead body. The Greek word for eagles is 'aetoi'. In the English for Leviticus 11:13 and 14 13And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14And the vulture, and the kite after his kind; The Greek (Septuagint) for 'eagle' is 'aeton' and 'vulture' is 'gupa'. Totally different words. Eagles and vultures are both birds of prey, but eagles will capture prey that is alive, and kill it. Vultures wait for the prey to die. |