It might surprise you to learn that the ancient emblem on Judah’s flag was not the Shield of David, as it is on the flag Zionists adopted 60 years ago for the Jewish state. It was a roaring lion. Over this image, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia, was an inscription taken from Numbers 10:35: “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee” (article “flag”).

Judah’s tribal symbol traces its origin all the way back to the book of Genesis and the great patriarch Jacob. In a fantastic prophecy, Jacob gathered his 12 sons to tell them “that which shall befall you in the last days” (Genesis 49:1). To Judah, he said, “[Y]our hand shall be on the neck of your enemies …. Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up?” (verses 8-9; Revised Standard Version). With these lion-like characteristics, Judah often assumed a lead position in marching against Israel’s enemies.

Moses also identified these warrior-like skills when, before he died, he bestowed similar blessings on the fourth son of Leah: Let Judah’s hands be sufficient in defending his cause, and may you, God, help against his enemies (Deuteronomy 33:7). Judah’s hands, with God’s help, were sufficient against his enemies.

Even in modern times, God has roused the warrior spirit of the lion of Judah to secure its independence in 1948 and to prevent its destruction in 1967 and again in 1973. God has done this not because the Jews are His favorites or because God takes sides in international disputes. God has helped them because of what He prophesied millennia ago!

The establishment of a Jewish state had to happen in our day because of what God said would occur in the latter days. The unification of Jerusalem under the lion of Judah in 1967 also had to happen because of what God has prophesied.

Yet, if all of this had to happen—and with God’s blessing and protection along the way—what in the world is happening to Judah now?

One Heavy Price

In 2006, in a raid carried out by three Palestinian terrorist groups—the military wing of Hamas and two other Hamas-linked groups—against an Israeli Army post on the Israel-Gaza border, two Israelis were killed, one was wounded and another, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, was captured. This was the first time an Israeli soldier had been taken alive by Palestinians since 1994—and it has proved to be a bonanza for Hamas.

It collected last week when a deal was finally reached with Israel giving Shalit freedom, after five years in captivity, in return for the release of 1,027 Palestinian terrorists. Two hundred and eighty of those had been jailed for life on murder charges—reportedly responsible for killing more than 500 Israelis.

Following last week’s deal, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal boasted that “those released will return to armed struggle.” One cold-blooded murderer has already signed up for another terror tour of duty. Wafa al-Bis, who was arrested in 2005 at a border crossing between Gaza and Israel with a bomb concealed in her clothing, was one of those terrorists released. She had intended on detonating the bomb in an Israeli hospital, but when stopped by Israeli soldiers unsuccessfully tried to blow them up instead. Bis now says she intends to give suicide bombing another go.

What is happening to Israel? How can its leaders be so blind to the obvious—that this exchange will only drive up the price in future negotiations; that it only puts Israeli soldiers and civilians at greater risk and will only lead to more abductions and murders?

“We will continue to abduct Israeli soldiers and officers as long as there are Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails,” Ahmed Jabari, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, was quoted as saying. Hamas’s Al-Aqsa television even aired a video clip saying that at current prices, only six more Israeli captives were needed to secure the release of the remaining 6,000 Palestinians sitting in Israeli prisons.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said that such a lopsided prisoner swap will not happen again—that Israel is going to craft a new, much tougher, policy on prisoner exchanges. Will Hamas and other terrorists buy that? Not likely.

Isi Leibler at the Jerusalem Post writes: “The exchange of 1,027 terrorists, including the most cruel and barbaric mass-murderers and masterminds of major terrorist attacks plus six Israeli Arab terrorists, in return for one Israeli soldier, is not merely a stunning victory for Hamas and global terrorism. It also conveys a number of other disconcerting messages that will undoubtedly return to haunt us.”

These “disconcerting messages” are, according to Leibler, as follows: 1) Terrorism is infinitely more effective than negotiation; 2) kidnapping more Israelis will pay off big time in the end; 3) recruiting terrorists just got a whole lot easier now that cold-blooded killers qualify for “get out of jail free” cards; 4) the Palestinian Authority has now officially been displaced by Hamas—the dominant face of the Palestinian people; and 5) the Muslim Brotherhood, which brokered the prisoner swap, strengthened an already prominent position in post-Mubarak Egypt.

Don’t Israel’s leaders see how this emboldens their enemies? Don’t they see that by choosing the path of least resistance now, they are guaranteeing catastrophic consequences in the long run?

The Age of Defeat

“The age of defeats is gone, and the era of victories has come,” Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah declared before cheering throngs of Lebanese after a prisoner swap in July 2008. That exchange—five terrorists for the remains of two dead Israelis—must now be seen, in the eyes of Israel’s current negotiators, as an absolute steal.

Nasrallah’s “era of victories” speech stood in stark contrast to Ehud Olmert’s “tired of winning” address back in 2005: “We are tired of fighting; we are tired of being courageous,” Olmert told the Israel Policy Forum. “We are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies.”

Now it is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has grown tired of fighting to win. In 1995, Netanyahu wrote that “prisoner releases only embolden terrorists by giving them the feeling that even if they are caught, their punishment will be brief.” Worse still, he wrote, lopsided swaps only encourage the “blackmail they are supposed to defuse.”

Last week, however, Netanyahu described the lopsided swap as one of the most significant accomplishments of his prime ministership. “It is difficult to see the miscreants who murdered their loved ones being released before serving out their full sentences,” Netanyahu confessed. But this was the “best agreement” Israel could achieve, he said. And there was no guarantee, he went on to say, that the deal would hold in the future.

If he was worried then that the price for Shalit would only go up, wait until he begins negotiations after the next round of kidnappings.

Israel is on the road to ruin with its foot pressed hard against the accelerator. The once proud, lion-like roar of the tribe of Judah now purrs like one of the many harmless stray cats that roam the streets of Jerusalem.

This too is prophesied. That’s right—the same God who helped establish the Jewish state in modern times also prophesied that Israel would be mortally wounded by an insoluble “peace” process (Hosea 5:13). Yes, the same God who arranged for Israel to gain full control of Jerusalem in 1967 also prophesied that the Jews would later lose that eastern half of their capital city (Zechariah 14:1-2).

These prophecies are sure. And they will soon impact every individual on Earth because Jerusalem is the powder keg that will set off the biblically prophesied Great Tribulation to occur just before the Messiah sets foot on the Mount of Olives. For much more about these many events, all of them prophesied in your Bible, read Jerusalem in Prophecy.