‘Western Wall’s Fallen Stone: Seed to Grow Third Temple?’
Western Wall (photo by Bob Thiel)
Breaking Israel News reported the following:
Western Wall’s Fallen Stone: Seed to Grow Third Temple?
The rabbi of the Western Wall put out a call for soul-searching after a massive stone fell from the structure on Monday. One kabbalist (mystic) answered the call, bringing esoteric clues that the event signalled a permanent end to the Jewish exile and the beginning of the supernatural regeneration of the Third Temple. …
“This is an unusual and most rare incident that has not occurred for decades,” Rabbi Rabinovitch said Monday. “The fact that this powerful incident happened a day after the 9th of Av fast, in which we mourned the destruction of our temples, raises doubts and questions which the human soul is too small to contain, and requires soul-searching.”
Rabbi Yekutiel Fish, author of the Hebrew Torah blog, Sod HaChashmal, did some soul-searching and discovered the stone falling from the Kotel (Western Wall) had amazing Torah significance. Rabbi Fish noted that the term “kotel ma’aravi” (Western Wall) in gematria (Hebrew numerology) is equal to the current Hebrew year, 5778.
“This is a hint that the time for the true end of the exile has arrived,” Fish wrote. “The stone fell from the ninth level of stones that are visible and it also happened the day after the Ninth of Av fast.”
“Pinchas was the ninth generation after Abraham,” Rabbi Fish wrote. “Nine signifies permanent existence, since any number multiplied by nine gives a result that has a sum of nine. Elijah the prophet, a reincarnation of Pinchas, ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot and never died so he also represents permanence. Both Pinchas and Elijah were men of truth. The gematria of emet (truth) is 441, whose numerals when added together equal nine. And the essence of truth is that it is permanent, like the number nine.”
Rabbi Fish then cited a verse in Habakkuk that he believed referred to the incident.
For a stone shall cry out from the wall, And a rafter shall answer it from the woodwork. Habakkuk 2:11
“In Hebrew, the first letters of the first three words of the verse spell ‘emet’, which is truth, which is nine, which is permanence,” Rabbi Fish explained.
Even though the Western Wall is an external element of the Temple, it will have an essential role in the appearance to the Third Temple, said Fish. …
He named that site Beit El; but previously the name of the city had been Luz. Genesis 28:19
According to Rabbi Fish, the location of Luz is the even shtiya, the foundation stone that lay under the Holy of Holies inside the Temple.
“The even shtiya is the universal Luz bone since all of creation grew out from it,” Rabbi Fish wrote. “But the Western Wall is the Luz inside of the Luz, that is to say, the Luz that is specifically for the Temple, and the template for the entire Temple is contained within it.”
Fish noted that the ha’even ha’shtiya (the foundation stone) equals 778 in gematria, equal to Kotel Ma’aravi (Western Wall), meaning that the Western Wall is to the Temple as the even shtiya is for all of creation.
Fish explained that all the end-of-days aspects of Luz (even shtiya, cranial bone, and the Temple) came together to create Jacob’s vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder.
Early in the morning, Yaakov took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on the top of it.He named that site Beit El; but previously the name of the city had been Luz. Genesis 28:19
“Jacob’s Luz bone was resting on the even shtiya, creating his vision of the end of days,” Rabbi Fish concluded. 07/27/18 https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/111405/kabbalist-stone-falling-western-wall/
The stone weighed about 220 pounds and there are concerns that other incidents could happen in the future (https://www.timesofisrael.com/ancient-boulder-dislodges-from-western-wall-crashes-onto-egalitarian-plaza/).
That being said, no the number 778 in the Gemara (Jewish writings of oral tradition) nor the year 5778 are relevant.
Despite the current claim of the year being 5778, many Jewish scholars are aware that the calculation is off by 200 or so years (see Does God Have a 6,000 Year Plan? What Year Does the 6,000 Years End?), so that number is irrelevant.
Additionally, the Western Wall was NOT part of the Temple.
The stones of the Temple all came down in 70 A.D. consistent with something Jesus told His disciples around 30 A.D.:
1 Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple, and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
2 “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matthew 24:1-2)
The first century Jewish historian Josephus wrote about this related to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple:
1 … But when Titus perceived that his endeavors to spare a foreign temple turned to the damage of his soldiers, and then be killed, he gave order to set the gates on fire. (Wars of the Jews, Book VI, Chapter 4, section 1)
1. NOW as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury, (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done,) Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as were of the greatest eminency; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall as enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison, as were the towers also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall, it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind. (Josephus. Wars of the Jews, Book VII, Chapter 1, verse 1)
So, there was not one stone left upon the other for the Temple and the related buildings (more on the destruction of Jerusalem can be found in the article Why is a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem Not Required?
Notice something from the Jewish Babylonian Talmud about what happened to the Temple:
“Desolate lay Zion, in ruins moldered Jerusalem; the temple was but a heap of stones. Where once stood the sanctuary now grew weeds, and jackals howled in the Temple court where once David the Psalmist and his vast choir of Levites plucked the harp strings and raised their voices in songs of praise to the Eternal.” (Staiman M. Waiting for the Messiah: Stories to Inspire Jews with Hope. Jason Aronson, 1997, p. 29)
So, while all the stones came down, some Temple stones were left.
Some of its stones were seemingly used as the foundation stones as well as the original walls of what seems to have been the first Christian church building. Here is a report from the late Catholic archaeologist Bargil Pixner:
The Judeo-Christians probably built their church, at that time called a synagogue, sometime in the decade after 73 A.D. For its construction, they could have used some of the magnificent ashlars from Herod’s destroyed citadel, not far away. Or perhaps they used the stones from the ruins of the Temple itself…with the intention of transferring some elements of the Holy Temple to a site becoming a new Mt. Zion (Zion III).
If that is so, the event may in fact be referred to in one of the apocryphal Odes of Solomon composed about 100 A.D. by a rival sectarian Judeo-Christian group. The fourth ode begins:
“No man can pervert your holy place, 0 God, nor can he change it, and put it in another place, because [he has] no power over it. Your sanctuary you designed before you made special places.” (Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, p. 736.)
Was this passage in condemnation of the effort of the Judeo-Christians who built the synagogue on Mt. Zion to transfer some of the holiness of the destroyed Temple to their place of worship on the new Mt. Zion by constructing it in part with stones from that Temple?
From this time on, the western hill of Jerusalem was referred to by Christians as Mt. Zion (Zion III). Very few places in Jerusalem can point to such an enduring tradition as Zion’s claim to be the seat of the primitive church. No other place has raised a serious rival claim…
By this time the Judeo-Christian synagogue on Mt. Zion had become known as the Church of the Apostles. It became known as the Church of the Apostles not only because the apostles returned there after witnessing Christ’s post-resurrection ascent to heaven, but also because the building was built, as we have seen, under the leadership of Simon son of Kleophas. Kleophas was known as a brother of Joseph of Nazareth, therefore Simon was a cousin of Jesus. Simon was later considered one of the apostles, outside the circle of the 12. For this reason, the house of worship built by Simon could rightfully be called the Church of the Apostles.
(Pixner B. Church of the Apostles Found on Mt. Zion. Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1990: 16-35,60)
Details about that building, including some photographs I took related to it, are found in the article Church of God on Jerusalem’s Western Hill.
But the point I would like to make is that after the Temple was destroyed, some of its actual stones were apparently used to build the first Christian church in Jerusalem.
The foundation stones and some of the original wall with those stones still exist.
In the New Testament, Christians are called the temple of God:
16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
17 If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. (1 Corinthians 3:16-17)
19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (2 Corinthians 6:16)
Yet, I suspect that it is not a coincidence that God seems to have allowed early Christians to use the ashlars (large hewed stones) from the Temple to build a Church of God building in Jerusalem.
And yes, Catholic historians referred to it as the Church of God or the Church of the Apostles. Here is something from the late 4th century Catholic historian Epiphanius:
{Hadrian} found the temple of God trodden down and the whole city devastated save for a few houses and the church of God, which was small, where the disciples, when they had returned after the Savior had ascended from the Mount of Olives, went to the upper room. For there it had been built, that is, in that portion of Zion which escaped destruction, together with blocks of houses in the neighborhood of Zion and the seven synagogues which alone remained standing in Zion, like solitary huts, one of which remained until the time of Maximona the bishop and Constantine the king. (The Epiphanius of Salamis, Weights and Measures, chapter 14. (1935), pp.11-83. English translation transcribed by Roger Pearse. www.tertullian.org viewed 01/03/13)
That building may have been the first Christian building, at least in Jerusalem.
The “church of God” Epiphanius mentioned is believed to have been the building which has sometimes been called the Cenacle or Coenaculum. It was located on a Jerusalem western hill that some have called Zion/Sion.
When citing Acts 1:12, Eusebius also wrote about the building and he called it the “Holy Church of God”:
“Then they returned from the mount called the Mount of Olives, which is opposite to Jerusalem.” The Mount of Olives is therefore literally opposite to Jerusalem and to the east of it, but also the Holy Church of God, and the mount upon which it is founded…(Eusebius. The Proof of the Gospel: Being the Demonstratio Evangelica of Eusebius of Cæsarea, Book IV, Chapter 18. John W. Ferrar, editor. Society for promoting Christian knowledge, 1920. Original from the University of Michigan, Digitized July 2, 2009, p. 30)
Although the Greco-Romans have built their type of church around it, some few of the original bricks, also called ashlars, continue to be part of it.
Here is a photograph I personally took of it:
In 333 A.D. this building was observed by someone called the “Bordeaux pilgrim.” Here is an account by a Catholic priest and scholar:
Precisely from the topographical aspects, the Bordeaux pilgrim in 333 wrote, “Within the wall of Sion appears to be a place where David had his place. And of the seven synagogues that were there, there remains only one, the remains of the others they plough and sow as the prophet Isaiah said” (E 729)…
As a positive fact we have it that the Bordeaux pilgrim saw on Sion only one synagogue. To explain the silence on the mother church which certainly was on Sion, we can only identify this synagogue as mentioned by the Bordeaux pilgrim with the church adapted by use by the Judeao-Christians, and therefore called, according to their usage, a synagogue. This is confirmed by St. Cyril, who some half a score of years later…calls the place “a church of the Apostles”…
(Bagatti, Bellarmino. Translated by Eugene Hoade. The Church from the Gentiles in Palestine. Nihil obstat: Ignatius Mancini, 1 Februari 1970. Imprimi potest: Herminius Roncari, 26 Februari 1970. Imprimatur: +Albertus Gori, die 28 Februarii 1970. Franciscan Printing Press, Jerusalem, 1971, p. 64)
Cyril of Jerusalem called it the “Church of the Apostles” and believed that the upper portion is where the Holy Spirit came in Acts 2 (Cyril. Catechetical Lecture 16, Chapter 4: On the Article, And in One Holy Ghost, the Comforter, Which Spoke in the Prophets. Translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7. Edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1894.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310116.htm>).
A late fourth century female pilgrim named Egeria (sometimes spelled as Etheria) referred to the location and claimed that it was mentioned in the New Testament:
the Lord, on the same day, and in the same place where the church now stands in Sion, came in to His disciples when the doors were shut. That is, when one of His disciples, Thomas, was absent, and when he returned and the other Apostles told him that they had seen the Lord…(THE PILGRIMAGE OF ETHERIA M.L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe, ed. and trans. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1919, p. 85)
While the event above and Acts 2 most certainly did happen, and the remains of a wall “in Sion” is still there, biblically the New Testament locations may have been in place(s) different than that of the Church of God on Jerusalem’s Western Hill.
As far as the ‘third temple’ for the Jews go, no I do not believe that a falling stone is a sign from God.
Biblically, the Jews do NOT need a massive Temple for animal sacrifices. According to Jewish understandings and scriptures like Ezra , it is clear that Jews only need an altar for such sacrifices, and they already have that (see Why is a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem Not Required?).
Related to the destruction of the old Temple, we recently put out the following video on our Bible News Prophecy YouTube channel:
Jerusalem Temple Destruction and the Messiah
Was there any connection between prophesies of the Messiah and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D? On the 9th day of the fifth month on the Hebrew calendar, Jews fast because of the destruction of that Temple and other events that have befell the Jews. Did you know that the Jews tie the birth of the Messiah in with the month of Av? They also tie positive events from then to ‘Rosh Hoshana’ in the month of Tishri. Is there any relationship to Jesus and the first feast in Tishri? Did Jesus’ prophesies related to the Temple come to pass? What do Jewish and non-Jewish sources report about what happened to Jerusalem and the Temple? Did Jesus come when the Messiah was prophesied to start His ministry in Daniel 9? What happened when Jesus was killed? Was there a time of transition until the Temple was to be destroyed on August 30, 70 A.D.? What should Jews and others do related to the Messiah and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem? What seems to have happened to some of the ashlar stones that were part of that Temple? Dr. Thiel addresses these issues and more.
Here is a link to our video: Jerusalem Temple Destruction and the Messiah.
Anyway, if there were stones that were from the old Temple that became the ‘seed’ for another building to worship God in, that would have been the Church of God on Jerusalem’s Western Hill. The stone that fell from the Western Wall is not in the same category.
Some items of possibly related interest may include:
Why is a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem Not Required? Although people like Timothy LaHaye teach a third Jewish temple is required, who is ‘the temple of God” in the New Testament? Does the Bible require a rebuilt Jewish Temple? Here is a related item in the Spanish language ¿Por qué no se requiere un templo judío en Jerusalén? Here is a link to a sermon titled The Temple, Prophecy, and the Work.
The Red Heifer, Jewish Beliefs, and the End of the World The Temple Institute is watching a ‘red heifer.’ Why might this be important in the sequence of end time events? Here is a related link in the Spanish language Novilla roja descubierta en EE.UU. e Instituto del Templo está interesado en ella. Here is a related video in English The Red Heifer and the End of the World.
Church of God on Jerusalem’s Western Hill Could this building, often referred to as the Cenacle, which is located on a Mount Zion, possibly have been the oldest actual Christian church building?
Does the ‘Cenacle’ deal have prophetic ramifications? After a 20 year negotiation, the Church of Rome has negotiated the right to have Catholic mass in the building known as the Cenacle. It is in the area where the Church of God on Jerusalem’s Western Hill once stood. This is believed to be the location of the earliest Christian church building. How does the Bible define the ‘temple of God’ in the New Testament? Could this be the area where the ‘man of sin’ will sit in the “temple of God’ that Bible prophecy discusses in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4? This is a YouTube video.
The ‘Peace Deal’ of Daniel 9:27 This prophecy could give up to 3 1/2 years advance notice of the coming Great Tribulation. Will most ignore or misunderstand its fulfillment? Here is a link to a related sermon video Daniel 9:27 and the Start of the Great Tribulation.
Jerusalem: Past, Present, and Future What does the Bible say about Jerusalem and its future? Is Jerusalem going to be divided and eliminated? Is Jesus returning to the area of Jerusalem? There is also a related YouTube video you can watch titled Jerusalem To be divided and eliminated.
Who is the Man of Sin of 2 Thessalonians 2? Is this the King of the North, the ten-horned beast of Revelation 13:1-11, or the two-horned Beast of Revelation 13:12-16? Some rely on traditions, but what does the Bible teach? Here is a related link in Spanish/español: ¿Quién es el Hombre de Pecado de 2 Tesalonicenses 2? Here is a version in Mandarin: 主编： 谁是’大罪人’？Here is a link to a related YouTube video, in English, titled Who is the Man of Sin?
Continuing Church of God The group striving to be most faithful amongst all real Christian groups to the word of God.
Anglo – America in Prophecy & the Lost Tribes of Israel Are the Americans, Canadians, English, Scottish, Welsh, Australians, Anglo (non-Dutch) Southern Africans, and New Zealanders descendants of Joseph? Where are the lost ten-tribes of Israel? Who are the lost tribes of Israel? What will happen to Jerusalem and the Jews in Israel? Will God punish the U.S.A., Canada, United Kingdom, and other Anglo nations? Why might God allow them to be punished first? Here is a link to the Spanish version of this article: Anglo-América & las Tribus Perdidas de Israel.
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