Hamas in Prophecy?
By Aaron Elby
Does this verse in Isaiah contain a prophecy about the defeat of Hamas?
[Hamas] shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. (Isaiah 60:18)
It’s a pun that writes itself. Hamas, the name of the genocidal terror organization that has governed the Gaza Strip since 2006, sounds like a Hebrew word.
The name of the terror group is an acronym for the Arabic words Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, or “Islamic Resistance Movement.” The resulting acronym spells the word Hamas, which means “enthusiasm” or “zeal” in Arabic. Clever!
Plot twist: The Arabic word has a Hebrew cousin that sounds the same: חָמָס, hamas.1 And rather than zeal or enthusiasm, it means violence, robbery, hatred, and brutality.
Hebrew speakers cannot help but notice this coincidence when reading the Torah. It first appears in Genesis 6:11, where the Torah explains the reason God had to destroy the earth with a flood: It was filled with hamas.
Forms of the word hamas appear a total of sixty-eight times in the Hebrew Scriptures; they are scattered across the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. The Bible uses hamas frequently to describe violent crime. Sometimes, foreign adversaries are the perpetrators; other times, the prophets point the finger at wicked individuals within the Jewish people.
In any case, a time will come when hamas will be no more.
Isaiah chapters 59–60 present us with a message of hope. It tells us of Israel’s repentance and the coming of the Messiah:
“A Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the LORD. (Isaiah 59:20)
It proclaims the new era of the Messianic Kingdom:
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1)
It teaches how the nations of the earth will flock to the Jewish people to learn the truth:
Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. (Isaiah 60:3)
It envisions the ingathering of Israel from all over the world:
Lift up your eyes all around, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. (Isaiah 60:4)
Some readers even see it as predicting the invention of air travel:
Who are these that fly like a cloud, and like doves to their windows? (Isaiah 60:8)
It describes the glorious rebuilding of God’s Temple:
The glory of Lebanon shall come to you, the cypress, the plane, and the pine, to beautify the place of my sanctuary, and I will make the place of my feet glorious. (Isaiah 60:13)
Ultimately, it describes an end to anti-Semitism:
The sons of those who afflicted you shall come bending low to you, and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the LORD, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 60:14)
In this context, it tells us that in this kingdom, hamas will no longer be a factor in our lives:
Violence [hamas] shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. (Isaiah 60:18)
Is this verse a prophecy about the Islamic Resistance Movement? Yes and no.
On one hand, this whole passage describes a world where Israel’s enemies are laid waste. There are no more terror groups. Certainly, Hamas will become a distant memory.
But the promise is greater than this. All hamas, all violence will be banished from the land and from our hearts. There will be no more fighting, no crime, and no fear. The whole world will finally be what it was meant to be.
This is the kingdom that Yeshua told us was near. In his day, the barbaric Roman Empire violently oppressed the Jewish nation. People longed for freedom and peace. He taught that this kingdom would come if people would repent. He urged us to seek this kingdom at all costs.
In our time, hamas has reared its ugly head throughout the world. But we should take hope in knowing that these are the birth pangs of redemption and that the days are coming when “the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended” (Isaiah 60:20).
A note on pronunciation: The H in Hamas represents the Arabic letter ح, which is related to the Hebrew letter ח. They both have a sound pronounced by constricting the back of the throat, unlike the soft sound of the English letter H. Hebrew speakers from Middle Eastern countries often pronounce the Hebrew and Arabic letters the same. However, many modern Hebrew speakers pronounce the Hebrew letter with a more scrapy sound than its Arabic counterpart.
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