In Chapter 21 we observed how
God slowly formed a great valley over a very long period of time. In
this Chapter we shall observe how God forms another great valley in a
very short period of time.
[4] And his feet shall
stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on
the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof
toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great
valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half
of it toward the south. [5] And ye shall flee to the valley of the
mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea,
ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of
Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the
saints with thee. Zechariah 14:4-5
The word used for “cleave” is “baqa,” which
means to break, rend, rip up, make a breach, separate, split, cut out,
break through or into, or to divide. A valley itself is often referred
to as a cleft (baqa), such as the Beqa Valley in Lebanon. The context
of these verses leaves little doubt that the Lord intends to form a
great cleavage valley in the “midst” of the Mount of Olives. It is also
quite clear, from the linguistics of verse four, that it will not
merely be a narrow ravine, but rather “a very great valley.” It will be
sufficiently wide for multitudes of Jews to flee through it. The
Hebrew word used for “midst” in verse four, in this particular context,
means “to divide, to reach to the midst.” This word does not have to
mean dead center or exactly half way, as the following Scriptures, where
it is used, attest:
[24] I said, O my God, take me
not away in the MIDST of my days: thy years are throughout all
generations. Psalm 102:24
[11] As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth
them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them
in the MIDST of his days, and at his end shall be a fool. Jeremiah 17:11
The Bible indicates a normal lifespan of
seventy years for a human. You can see, from the preceding Scriptures,
that if a man were to die between thirty and forty, he would have left
the land of the living in the MIDST of his days. The word used for
“midst” does not require that the Mount of Olives cleave precisely in
the center. The Scripture merely indicates that a division will be
effected in the middle section of the mountain.
May I now direct your attention to Figure 31. The two dashed black
lines (oriented west to east and labeled “X” and “Y”) indicate normal
faults in the upper crust of the earth. As you can see, they pass north
and south of Jerusalem on a converging track toward the Mount of
Olives. These normal faults are not there by accident. I am persuaded
they have been created there by God and, at His command, will collapse
to fulfill Zechariah’s prophecy. Please note that fault X intersects
the northern flank of the Mount of Olives, while fault Y passes through
its southern end. That section of the Mount of Olives between X and Y
is the MIDST of the mountain, and is the section that will collapse and
sink downward when God issues His command. These two normal faults pass
through the Mount of Olives, and then make contact with a series of
north to south faults that exist along the eastern lee of the mountain.
In this zone, where the intersection of east-west & north-south
faults occurs, a structural weakness like the Afar Depression will be
generated in the earth’s crust when violent earthquakes are occurring in
the Jordan River Valley (See Birth Pang 19, Chapter 21 and associated
Figures). The center of this geological weakness zone is on the eastern
side of the mountain, approximately four thousand cubits (six thousand
feet) directly east of the Jerusalem Eastern Gate.
The old city of Jerusalem sets atop Cenomanian and Turonian limestone, a
rock strata that will safely support the largest structures. One might
naturally suppose, that just across the narrow Kidron Valley, you would
find the Mount of Olives composed of a duplicate rock strata.
However, its slope betrays its actual geological composition, for it is
made of Cenomanian chalk - the same type of chalk that crumbles into a
thousand pieces when it falls from a blackboard railing. I believe God
deliberately formed it of chalk. When its northern and southern ends
divide from its middle section, the entire middle section will sink
downward and crumble into billions of pieces of chalk. This geological
transformational process is shown in Parts A and B of Figure 32. Such a
downward slippage process has been used many times in the past by God
to form large fault block valleys around the globe.
When the critical force, holding the Arabah Fault together, is finally
exceeded by the force spreading apart the Red Sea, (See Figure 25), then
the Arabah fault will suddenly rip open from the Gulf of Aqaba
northward for about 185 miles. The resultant fantastic earthquakes
produced in Israel will cause: (1) A new triple point depression to be
formed with a center about four thousand cubits east of the Eastern Gate
of the old city of Jerusalem, (2) Everything between points X and Y on
Figure 32 to sink downward and crumble, (3) The remaining northern half
of the Mount of Olives (the section north of point X) to move northward
on a newly created Gaza Plate, (4) The remaining southern half of the
Mount of Olives (the section south of point Y) to move southward on the
newly created Sinai Plate, and (5) the Jericho Valley to rip open
southwestward from the Jordan River to the new triple point depression I
call Zechariah’s Triangle. Figure 32 (looking eastward from the old
city of Jerusalem) illustrates the horizontal sequence of events as they
affect the Mount of Olives before and after the cleavage. Figure 33
portrays the overall local area action as if you were viewing it from a
point about three miles above the ground thirty miles west of Jerusalem.
The spring and river system shown in Figure 33 will be discussed in
future chapters. Figure 34 shows the effect
TribulationPeriod1.com A Great Valley-Part #02
