2008-05-10: Plague of Flies

This is the modern prophetic replay of the opening of the Plague of Flies. This plague runs into September, 2008. Fulfillment for this plague is properly something that begins on this date.

This particular plague is traditionally called the plague of flies, but the word "flies" is not in the original Hebrew text.

The easiest way to verify this is to find a KJV Bible that uses italics to indicate words added by the translators in 1611. The word "flies" is in italics as an inserted word. The text block quote of the plague account later in this article has a copy of the KJV for this plague that includes this italic convention. Click on KJV in the quote box to see it.

More precisely, this is a plague of things that densely swarm. Translators traditionally added the word flies but anything that swarms including hurricanes, tornados and perhaps even swarms of earthquakes are reasonable events that fit the original text. It is also important to note that the key word in Hebrew, the word usually translated swarm is (ערב) the Hebrew name usually transliterated into the English word "Arab," and specifically the modern country Saudi Arabia.

The first letter in the word is EYE and any storm with an eye in it, like a tornado or hurricane, is a match to this word. The second letter, HEAD, as in over, or authority, or strongest. The third letter is HOUSE or family or government.

The following is the precise theoretical timing for this plague, as well as the text that supplies the prophetic story for this date.

Note also that in researching this plague we found that modern textual tools, including NIV interlinears, hide the missing "flies" word by indicating the word for swarm has been translated as flies. This is stunning because the very system for getting past translator errors has been used to cover up this important detail for this plague. This specific detail delayed full understanding of the plague as we had to figure out which tools to trust. In this case the KJV translation teams were more trustworthy.

The previous plague, the plague of gnats really did involve things that fly when over 3000 airline flights were grounded. This particular plague deals with swarms, or storms.

Fulfillment

There were 3 large natural disasters in the week ahead and in the week after the exact expected prophetic time. Those disasters were 1) the Burma Cyclone, 2) a major volcanic eruption in Chile and then at the antipode of the volcano, 3) a massive earthquake in China.

All of these disasters fit the expected patterns for end-times plagues. The Burma cyclone was a "dense swarm," where an "eye" passed over the low river delta. The ash, lightning and flooding from the volcano was also a dense swarm. Finally, the quake in China included a "swarm" of quakes as well as a frightening cloud of dust that raised above devastated towns.

The numbers of people impacted in these events are far larger than any of the previous Exodus series plagues. The previous high total was roughly 250,000 people impacted by the grounding of airline flights in the Plague of Gnats.

This time, 4500+ were evacuated in Chile. Over 100,000 are expected to be found dead, and 1,000,000 are homeless in Burma. The numbers from China have an unknown number of dead, but probably worse than the 240,000 in a 1976 quake and and estimated 4,500,000 Chinese are now homeless from this series of quakes.

These natural disasters form a "straddle" across the prophetic May 10 date itself. Just like the Chilean volcano is antipodal to the earthquake in China, so too, are these events on opposite sides of the prophetic date.

In the United States the weather was also quite frightful, with EF-3 140 MPH storms in North Carolina on Friday Evening, May 9, and a huge area of storm and tornado activity across the eastern 1/2 of the country all across the May 10 prophetic date. 23 people were killed in tornado related damage seen across the Midwest on Saturday and Sunday. The Oklahoma town of Pritcher was wiped off the map in one tornado touchdown.

The political fulfillment for this prophetic event focused on a simple ceremony held at the Presidential ranch. Before getting to the large disasters we look at the events at Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Presidential Wedding

The primary political fulfillment for this prophetic event was the wedding in Crawford Texas between the President’s daughter, Jenna Bush and Henry Hager.

There are many points were details of the wedding match the expected story given in the Plague’s text.

• The prophetic story was looking for a beginning, a start, and a wedding ceremony is the classic starting event in a marriage. Weddings are modern religious ceremonies, and the prophetic passage is dealing with Moses asking Pharaoh for a religious ceremony in honor of Yahvah God. Since Yahvah in the Old Testament is Jesus in the New, this is a direct match.

• Henry Hager, the groom, had a last name that matches the Biblical matriarch Hagar. Hagar is the mother of Ishmael and eventually all of the Arab peoples. The Hebrew word for this plague is (ערב) or Arab when transliterated to English instead of being translated into swarm. This strongly matches the general Bible Time fulfillment pattern where the names of the people involved map to the text of the Bible. More on this follows below.

• The wedding and reception took place across Saturday afternoon and evening, at the expected theoretical time. This is an exact match.

• Surprisingly, the wedding took place in Crawford, Texas and not at the White House in Washington DC. This aspect alone had generated quite a bit of commentary in the entertainment media since the country did not get to witness a large formal public wedding at the White House as it did during the Nixon presidency. The story called for a sacrifice in the wilderness, and by holding this wedding outside of Washington DC it became yet another match.

• The White House released 11 photos of the wedding, and very few additional details. Moses made the comment to Pharaoh that this ceremony to Yahvah would be an abomination to the average Egyptian. Christian ceremonies are too, with typical modern US media rarely acknowledging traditional Christian values. The Bush family was indeed right to hide this wedding, within 1 week the State of California had legalized gay marriage. The hidden nature of this wedding is yet another match to the underlying plague story.

  (Note: The Bush family apparently has the same problem as Ban Ki-Moon at the UN, a fear of confessing Christian faith in public.)

• The flight from Washington DC to Waco took place on Thursday, May 8, 3 partial days ahead of the wedding. The passage called for a 3 day journey, but on a modern 747, the travel time from Washington DC to Waco is measured in hours. Instead the total time on the trip out, the rehearsal, wedding, reception and return trip was 3 full days, with final departure on Sunday, May 11, 2008, almost exactly 3 full days in Texas. This is an exact match.

• Friday night, a tornado ripped through the facility where the wedding was held, ripping the sides off the tent and damaging some of the catering equipment, causing trouble for the caterers. This was one small sliver of a massive wave of tornados that broke out across a major section of the central United States that night. By Monday morning the major news media were reporting on wide spread damage across the mid section of the country. This fulfills the aspect of the plague where it even reaches into Pharoah’s own house. Another exact match.

• The key feature of many of the wedding pictures was a stone cross brought to the ranch for the wedding. Fear of being stoned is another aspect of the prophetic story that shows up in this case in the backdrop of the ceremony itself. More on that cross below.

Several points made above deserve more attention...

Groom’s Name

On the morning of Saturday, May 10, 2008, President Bush gave his normal weekly radio address. In it he stressed that this was mother’s day weekend. As happens so often on prophetic stories, the people involved speak the clues that are needed to unravel the prophetic text. In this case Bush was saying that we need to pay attention to mothers.

The plague itself is the plague of the (ערב) transliterated ARaB and normally translated as swarm as done in this plague account.

Biblically, the mother of all the Arab peoples is Hagar the handmaid of Sarah the wife of Abraham. The handling of Hagar by Sarah leads all the way across the generations to the modern problems in Arab society where women are not handled very respectfully either...

The groom’s name is Henry Hager, the same name as the mother of the Arabs. This is no accident. In so many other prophetic fulfillments the names of the people involved map to the names in the underlying Biblical story.

By Jenna’s marriage to Henry, the Bush clan has prophetically given their daughter to Hagar, the mother of all the Arabs.

Recent bailouts given to major US banks by Arab sovereign wealth funds has turned many US citizens over to the Arab peoples in a very similar fashion. The big US banks, like Citi, have been given in marriage to the Arabs.

The Bush family has personally done the same.

Stone Cross

The BBC account of the wedding indicated that the stone cross and altar present in many of the wedding photos had been brought into the Crawford ranch for the wedding.

Many of the wedding photos released by the White House include this stone cross and matched altar as the backdrop for the ceremony itself.

The plague account mentions Moses’ fear of being stoned by the Egyptians and the inclusion of a set of large stones in the setting of the wedding plays to this specific aspect of the prophetic story.

In effect the wedding party took the "curse" of being stoned and turned it into at least decoration for the affair. It is hard to see how it could be a blessing, except perhaps for the symbolism of Golgotha.

Tornado At Crawford

Brian Williams, the anchor of the NBC evening news, reported on the wedding as part of his normal Monday Night show. After showing some of the White House photos from the wedding he made a passing comment about how there had been a tornado that had hit the ranch Friday night.

It is not clear in the single photo released by the white house if we’re looking at an intentional frame over part of the party, or if this is frame exposed by the storm. Either way, Williams’ report of a tornado picks up this aspect of the prophetic story.

This swarm came up even into Pharaoh’s house. The plague account uses the word "ruined" though nuances like this are the hardest to translate well. Damage could just as easily be contained in the meaning of the underlying word.

Ruined across the weekend was a small town in northeast Oklahoma, Pritcher. It was already a toxic hazard from a century of lead mining. The tornado brought a sudden end to a long slow process of getting the residents to flee the toxic lead that polluted the town. As one resident commented, "The Lord did in a moment what the government could not do in years."

Being ruined isn’t always a bad thing.

US Tornados

Across the weekend was a massive set of tornados. 20 people were killed by tornados. In a typical year 60 people are killed in the United States by Tornados. The weekend death toll was 1/3 of a typical year. So far in 2008 there have been 98 deaths, the 7th worst year on record.

The deaths, and the storm at Crawford, were caused by a massive storm that crossed the eastern half of the United States over the weekend. The storm was not a full forced hurricane, but it was a large circular storm. Click the image at right to see the Accuweather website’s view of the storm on Sunday morning.

The indication that something big was up for the Mother’s Day Eve 2008 date was posted on the Accuweather website a little after 5:00 AM. What was stunning to the people involved was the immense size of the area where severe weather could be seen.

There were also 140 mile per hour storms in central North Carolina on Friday night, May 9, 2008.

Trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia

There was an interesting typographical error in the Reuters news account of Bush’s planned trip to Israel and Saudi Arabia. In this account the dates for the trip were given as May 8 through the 13th instead of the actual dates posted by the White House of May 13th through the 18th.

This miss-quote of the original press release is playing to the prophetic story as well. The news agency said by their mistake that the trip was as though it happened across the prophetic plague date, even though it did not actually start until a few days later.

Bush’s first stop was in Israel, where he met with at least 20 other heads of state and other VIPs who had traveled to Israel to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel.

He was also one of the first to view the public display of the Isaiah scroll found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is the first time in 40 years the scroll has been displayed to the public.

He also made headlines with a comment purportedly directed at Presidential Candidate Obama over the issue of contact with terrorist organizations. He lit a firestorm in the US media from Democrats and the White House eventually said his comment was directed at Carter, not Obama. This comment, and the response, is one more example of this plague of Arabs unfolding in US presidential politics.

Bush then headed to Saudi Arabia in order to attempt to talk down the price of Oil. Arabia is the country name that derives directly form the Hebrew word for swarm (ערב). Instead of this plague coming to him, he went to it. Despite his polite request, the Saudi’s answered, "No," to the question of increasing oil production and bringing down the cost of gas for American consumers. The plague of Arabs in yet another form.

The prophetic stories suggest that both trouble with Arabs, as well as storms with eyes will plague the rest of Pharaoh’s people into September, 2008. It should be interesting to watch.

Outer Headlines

Like some sort of prophetic swirl, the ceremony in Crawford, Texas, was at a time-center for a prophetic event that had 2 wide wings. One, about a week earlier, in Burma and South America. Another, about a week later involved millions of people in China.

Burma Hurricane

On May 3, 2008, there was a category 4 Hurricane that crossed the Irrawaddy river delta in Burma. Immediate reports indicated that 22,000 people had died though later reports put the number confirmed dead at 78,000 and the number missing at 56,000. Given the incompetency of the Burma government these numbers are likely low and likely estimates.

Estimates also suggest that 1,000,000 people in Burma are currently without a place to live since so many houses were destroyed in the storm surge that struct with the Hurricane.

Curiously, the Burma government had an election planned for May 10, 2008, on the exact prophetic date. That election was not rescheduled as many across the world would have expected. By not rescheduling, and because of many other blunders in the broken government of Burma, the death toll from the Hurricane will likely soar higher than it otherwise would have been.

This is a storm with an eye, and it included an election dealing with the top or head of the government in Burma, another exact play to the spelling of the key plague word (ערב).

Discussion eventually turned to the question of intervening in the internal affairs of the Burma government. Time magazine suggested a preemptive invasion while the French suggested the Burma government’s actions were a crime against humanity. It remains to be seen how the UN or other national governments eventually deal with the problem. This disaster does provide a lucid example as to why governments like Burma’s should be removed.

It is also likely that the Burma response to the Cyclone helped the Chinese see that they needed to respond differently 10 days later when they had their own disaster to deal with.

Volcano in Chile

On Friday, May 2, 2008, a long dormant volcano in southern Chile suddenly sprang to life.

Chili has a considerable number of volcanos and after Indonesia it has more than any other country. Eruptions there are common.

Across the following week the eruption got considerably worse, eventually causing many areas around the volcano to be evacuated, including parts of southern Argentina. A 90 day ban on returning was put into effect in the second week of the eruption.

As many have observed, certain types of events, like Earthquakes, will often have a matched event on the exact other side of the planet. In this case there was such an event, but it was about a week later and across the prophetic expected time.

The earthquakes around the Chilean volcano appear to have triggered a massive M7.9 Quake in central China...

Earthquake in China

The earthquake in China was on Monday afternoon, May 12, 2008. Initial reports indicated 5000 dead, though these numbers turned out frightfully low. It took several days to even reach the epicenter of the quake because of severely damaged roads and weather that prevented helicopters from flying in.

The Chinese initially dispatched 50,000 troops, though this number was eventually raised to 130,000 government workers and in many areas they also drafted all able bodied men to help dig out survivors.

As the troops began reaching the center of the quake there were areas of massive destruction. Some towns lost nearly all their buildings.

Estimates now suggest a death toll worse that the 240,000 reported killed in a Chinese quake in 1976. 4,500,000 Chinese are also now without homes to live in.

This is by far the largest disaster so far on the Exodus series of Plague dates. We have not seen anything like those counts so far.

It is also important to note that this is 3 months before the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing on August 8, 2008. The "3 day" time references given in the text for this plague unfold across the modern era as 3 months, ending exactly on the 2008-08-08 date. This is not a good omen.

Obama Advisor Resigns Over Hamas

Barack Obama, who had said he would meet with anyone, but then not, got into a flap when, Rob Malley, a advisor for Middle East policy resigned over having met with Hamas. In effect the future Pharaoh was also mildly plagued by Arabs on this prophetic date. Details on Lynn Sweet's Blog.

Comments

This plague date marks the opening of 4 month season where this plague of swarms continues across time.

Previously the 7 month plague on the river of Egypt involved the financial markets of the United States and what is now called the Sub-prime mortgage crisis. Headlines from that plague continued nearly every day across that entire time.

This new plague series may see similar headlines continuing across the period too. There are 2 possible venues from those headlines. The first are "storms with eyes" basically tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes and the second are headlines dealing with the Arab world.

This season’s tornado’s are already well advanced from previous year’s rates and the prophetic story suggests there could also be a dramatic hurricane season as well.

In the political word, the same plague is a plague by Arabs. In this domain it is harder to predict what the expected headlines might be. Oil price hikes as well as financial activity by sovereign wealth funds are 2 easy categories. Other headlines out of the Arab world, where the west and/or the United States are plagued in various ways are also quite possible.

By Phil Stone
Posted Friday, Naphtali 20, 12999