Baruch Haba Gilad

My birthday usually occurs during the Fall festivals and I received some good books as gifts this year:

• Paris Encore by Bodie and Brock Thoene (Book 8 in the Zion Covenant series)
• Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas
• The Monster in the Hollows by Andrew Peterson (book 3 in the Wingfeather Saga series)

I was reading Churchill and the Jews by Martin Gilbert, when the new tomes arrived. It should prove to be a fitting companion to the Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel book that I’ve been critiquing (I’ll be completing my review of it in my next post)

There have been some interesting developments for the nation of Israel lately. One of those has been the release of the IDF prisoner Gilad Shalit. Our friend in Israel, Asher Intrater, commented on how Gilad’s release has caused the whole nation to come together. 

He also wrote: “On the same day that Gilad arrived home, the yearly "Jerusalem March" of the Feast of Tabernacles took place. Thousands of Christian pilgrims from around the world (led by the International Christian Embassy) marched through Jerusalem, singing praises to Jesus and expressing their solidarity with the Jewish people. 

The following day marked "Simchat Torah" (the last, great day of the Feast – John 7:37), in which thousands of Jews around the world dance with scrolls of the Torah. "Everyone who is left from all the nations who came against Jerusalem, will go up from year to year to worship the King YHVH of armies and celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles" – Zechariah 14:16.

The words in Hebrew Baruch Haba, "blessed is he who comes," have a double meaning. In modern Hebrew, it simply means "Welcome." In biblical Hebrew (Psalm 118:26, Matthew 21:9, 23:39), it is an end times prophecy, ushering in the coming of Messiah. The front page of the largest newspaper in Israel simply had a picture of Gilad's face and a giant headline, Baruch Haba.  "Welcome home, Gilad."