Watchman Report - The Mountains of Israel - The Spark that could start a war! Geoff Henstock

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Mountains of Israel

Many religious Jews in Israel regard the West Bank, which they refer to as Judah and Samaria, as an integral part of the land promised to Abraham. Some right-wing Israeli politicians advocate for the annexation of the West Bank and its integration into the state of Israel. In October 2025, an attempt was made in the Israeli Knesset to pass a law under which Israeli law would be applied in the West Bank. This was recognised as a precursor to the annexation of the territory. In response, the United States declared its strong opposition to any moves to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. Israeli interest in the West Bank is of great significance due to the prominence of this area in Bible prophecy about the latter-days. Ezekiel 38 and 39 are key chapters in latter-day prophecy. Four times in these chapters we read that the focal point of that invasion will be “the mountains of Israel”:

After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them. (38:8) And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee, and will cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel: (39:2) Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. (39:4) And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord GOD; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. (39:17)

Where are the mountains of Israel?

In his seminal work on the geography of the Holy Land, George Adam Smith comments on the importance of the mountains of Israel. He describes what he calls the Central Range in the heart of what is today Israel and the West Bank in these words:

South of Esdraelon it rises again, and sends forth a branch in Carmel to the sea, but the main range continues parallel to the Jordan Valley. Scattering through Samaria into separate groups, it consolidates towards Bethel on the narrow tableland of Judaea, with an average height of 2,400 feet (about 730 metres), continues so to the south of Hebron, where by broken and sloping strata it lets itself down, widening the while, on to the plateau of the Desert of the Wandering. This Western Range we call the Central Range, for it, and not the Jordan Valley, is historically the centre of the land.   (Image: Topographical map of the Mountains of Israel (with modern political boundaries) God promised Abraham and his seed a vast territory from Egypt to the Euphrates, but this tableland region which Smith calls the Central range was always the centre of the land and is the location of the cities which feature most in the Biblical record – Samaria, Shechem (modern Nablus), Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron. The last four of these, in particular Jerusalem, remain centres of conflict and tension between Israel and the Palestinians, and Shechem, Bethlehem and Hebron are all in the West Bank.

Can we be more specific?

The phrase “mountains of Israel” is used 19 times in the Bible: 17 of these are found in Ezekiel. Perhaps Ezekiel employed the term so frequently to evoke in the exiles a clear image of their mountainous homeland, in stark contrast to the plains of Shinar where they were then languishing. Moses did something similar, encouraging Israel in the exodus from Egypt by telling them that the promised land was “not as the land of Egypt”, but rather was “a land of hills and valleys” (Deuteronomy 11:10-11). The mountains of Israel were also significant to the exiles from a spiritual perspective. Jerusalem, the city of God and site of the Temple, is located in the mountains of Israel. So, too, are Shechem and Hebron. The promise of the land was first made to Abram at Shechem (Genesis 12:6-7). After his return from Egypt and his separation from Lot, that promise was repeated to Abram, who then went to dwell in Hebron (13:14-18). In contrast to Lot, who settled in the lower Jordan valley below sea level, Hebron where Abram settled is the highest settlement in the land. The only book outside Ezekiel where the phrase “mountains of Israel” is used suggests that the prophet may have had a specific part of this Central Range in mind when writing of the Gogian invasion. In a retrospective summary of the overall success of Joshua’s campaign of conquest of the land we read of the mountains of Israel twice: So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same; Even from the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them. … At that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. (Joshua 11:16-17 and 21) Verse 16 uses the singular “mountain”, but the Hebrew word is identical; many modern translations translate the phrase consistently as “hill country”. Verse 21 lists three distinct mountainous areas from south to north:

• mountains around Hebron (which includes Debir);
• the highlands of Judah (which includes Anab) further to the north, but still in the territory assigned to Judah; and
• mountains northward from Jerusalem (at the northern boundary of the territory assigned to Judah), which this verse calls “the mountains of Israel”.

While the phrase “mountains of Israel” could refer generally to all the highlands to the west of and parallel to the Jordan and the Dead Sea, it is possible that Ezekiel is directing our attention especially to the highlands that were not assigned to Judah, and which came to be occupied by the northern kingdom of Israel. Today, the West Bank occupies much of this territory and it is administered by the Palestinians. Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital, is located in these highlands in the West Bank. Ezekiel prophesied that the mountains of Israel would be occupied by Israel when the Lord Jesus Christ reigns as king on the throne of David: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. (Ezekiel 37:22-24) That prophecy looks forward to the kingdom age, but many Israelis believe they should be allowed to settle in the West Bank now, and as we have been reminded by moves in the Knesset in October 2025, some agitate for its annexation by Israel. After the capture of the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel annexed it and adjacent areas. Israel also annexed the strategic Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria in 1967, but it has so far not moved to annex the West Bank. When Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan in 1967 it imposed a ban on Jewish settlement in the area. A group of nationalistic Jewish militants defied the ban and sought to settle near Hebron. The Israeli government eventually relented and allowed a very limited number to settle there. Golda Meir became Israeli Prime Minister in 1969. Her government wrestled with the desires of zealous Jews who wished to colonize the West Bank. In her memoire she wrote: "Obviously, no Israeli government could ever obligate itself to a permanent banning of Jews from any part of the Holy Land. And Hebron was not an ordinary market town; it meant a lot to believing Jews." She went on to say that illegal settlements after this were more rigorously opposed, but that Jews still were allowed many settlements: "… only when such settlement was fully in accordance with our political and military interests." Israeli governments have continued to struggle with balancing the aspirations of zealous Jews who wish to settle in the West Bank while maintaining the security of the Jewish state and facilitating a peaceful resolution of the tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.

“The midst of the land”

Ezekiel 38 has a second geographical marker that suggests the area of Jerusalem and the West Bank are the particular focus of the invading host: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. (38:11-12) To what does “midst of the land” refer? Is it what George Adam Smith called “historically the centre of the land”? In Hebrew, the word translated midst has the idea of centre or the highest part. The Septuagint renders it as navel, and that is the meaning in modern Hebrew of the word used by Ezekiel. The term “midst of the land” occurs only twice in the Bible. The other use of the phrase is in the story of Abimelech: And Gaal spake again and said, See there come people down by the middle of the land, and another company come along by the plain of Meonenim. (Judges 9:37) In Judges 9, Gaal is in Shechem when he speaks these words. Shechem is in the valley between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerazim, but it is still in an elevated position being in the mountains north of Jerusalem. From Shechem, Gaal sees men coming from “the midst of the land”, which suggests the highlands adjacent to Shechem, which today are the heart of the West Bank. From the 1990’s, successive Israeli leaders expressed a willingness to negotiate with a view to granting the Palestinians autonomy and eventual sovereignty over much of the West Bank. Since the Hamas invasion of southern Israel in October 2023, Israeli attitudes towards the Palestinians have hardened and there is no longer any support for a Palestinian state within the Israeli government. Ezekiel 37:22-24 will be fulfilled when the kingdom is established. It does not, therefore, require that Israel claim the West Bank as its sovereign territory prior to the return of Christ, even though Israel currently exercises a degree of control over the area. Israel’s inability to reach an agreement with the Palestinians over the West Bank in the past was widely interpreted by the international community as due to stubbornness on the part of Israel. The fact that Israel is now implacably opposed to Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank is sure to antagonise the large number of nations who have publicly declared their support for an independent Palestinian state. Continued Israeli control of the West Bank to any degree may, therefore, become one of the pretexts Gog uses to justify his invasion. In that regard, it is interesting to note that the Palestinians strongly supported Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, very few world leaders have been willing to meet with Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders. Yet, in September 2022 Russia hosted a delegation from Hamas led by its leader, Ismail Haniyeh. A few weeks later, on 13 October 2022, eight months after Russia’s invasion, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas travelled to Astana in Kazakhstan, to meet personally with Vladimir Putin. During their meeting Mr Abbas was critical of the United States but he spoke glowingly of the actions of Russia. The Jewish Chronicle, 13 October 2022, reported him as telling Mr Putin:

We don’t trust America and you know our position … We know perfectly well that Russia stands for justice, for international law.

Palestinians and their supporters around the world frequently claim that continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank contravenes “international law”. By employing this term in his remarks to Mr Putin, the Palestinian President may have sought to lay the groundwork for possible Russian action to bring an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The recent surge in Israeli interest in annexing the West Bank could well be used by Russia as a one of the pretexts for military intervention such as the invasion described in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Geoff Henstock[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row] https://christadelphianvideo.org/watchman-report-the-mountains-of-israel-the-spark-that-could-start-a-war-geoff-henstock/?feed_id=103441&_unique_id=68fdbeded4e0c