Since the earliest days of the Israelite invasion into Canaan, the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) has remained the physical and spiritual life source in the Hebrew-Israelite economy. As Christians were reminded by the story of the Apostle Peter who walked on water, as he was going to meet his Rabbinic Master, the Sea of Galilee has had a bad reputation; a quiet serene lake could suddenly turn into a tempestuous sea. But life to the Israelis living around the Sea of Galilee has dramatically changed in the last decade. The once vibrant fishing and water resource economy is now in the last throes of a dying lake.
Known as the lowest fresh water sea in the world and Israel’s only freshwater sea, the Sea of Galilee provides over 25% of the fresh water consumption in Israel but today, the lake once brimming with fish is now exporting its fishing industry elsewhere for the fishing in Lake Kinneret called the Sea of Galilee has collapsed.
Here was the Sea that was popularized by the famous 1st century Jewish messiah called Rabbi Yahshua HaNotzri (Jesus the Nazarene), who once had to help his own disciple who had a fleet of fishing boats on Lake Kinneret, to learn how to catch fish more abundantly. Yet, if on that day, when the rabbi called out to his disciple, "Peter, throw the net on the other side of the boat", such admonitions may be to no avail today.
Over the last decade, between the years of 1999 and 2009, the fish stocks caught in the Sea of Galilee dropped from 2,144 tons to a mere 156.8 tons in 2009. This trend though was also noted not in just the Sea of Galilee, but in all fishing including along the Mediterranean Sea. In the year of 2000, the Ministry of Agriculture reported that almost 4,000 tons of fresh fish was recorded as caught in that year. It continued to decline about 20% per year as noted by the year 2006, when only 2,000 tons of fresh fish were caught.
A fishing ban was instituted in 2009, which may have been too late, according to some prognosticators, who see the entire industry of fishing collapsing. The ecological health of Lake Kinneret has been significantly harmed for the last several years it hovered just over the “Black Line” where no water can be pumped out of the lake without damaging all the pumps. The reason for such dire reports is that the water level of the lake is the lowest since 1920; almost a hundred years.
You might remember the childhood stories Jesus calmly napping in a boat during one of the Sea of Galilee’s famous tempestuous storms that are now part of your childhood memory. You also might mental imagery of thousands of peoples sitting on the hillside just to catch a few words of “The Galilean” made him the sensation of Jewish political and religious life between 27 – 30 CE. Now you can see that the contrasts along the shorelines of the Sea of Galilee between two thousand years are stark with potent apocalyptic realism.
During that ancient era, according to the recorded history by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, in the 1st century CE, there were 230 boats plying the waters of Lake Kinneret in days of plenty, with lush grassy slopes, bumbling streams, and raging waters of the Jordan River. Now instead of pastoral scenes surrounding the Nazarene, the visions of the future are filled with fear of the potential of having tens of thousands of Hizbullah and Hamas missiles flying overhead in one of several wars still not fulfilled in biblical history as we watch the reality before our eyes as one of apocalyptic doom as the Sea of Galilee, now in a drought of over a decade has consistently been receiving only 60% of its annual rainfall that could leave the once pristine Sea of Galilee into a giant parched mud puddle.
As Shaul Rokach, a 57 year old fishmonger from Jaffa on the Sea of Galilee spoke nostalgically to Arab News of the “good old days when the lake were plenty” as he was hosing down a load of imported sea bream from Greece;
Shaul Rokach – “When I was a kid, fishermen would toss out 150 hooks and haul in 100 kilos of fish. Today the fishermen toss out 3,000 hooks. He starts letting them out and doesn’t know when it will finish and in the end he hauls in 15 kilos, maybe. They can’t even cover the cost of thebait let alone the fuel. Once my smile spread from ear to ear,” he adds. “My pockets were full of money. We’d strut down the piers. Now, they’re just trying to kill off the profession.”
From the days of Peter the Fishman who also fished all day and his nets came up empty, to today, with a two-year fishing ban on the Sea of Galilee desperately hoping to replenish the depleted sea by overfishing by forcing 200 Israeli fishermen to seek new professions elsewhere. Yet today, even the Messiah’s invitation to fish on the other side (Luke 5:4), would cause one to question, how to you fish in a dying sea. Yet, today the world’s most popular fish, Tilapia, is called St. Peter’s Fish and was once celebrated for its abundance growing in this Sea; the lifeblood of Israel.
In this present Sabbatical Week of Years that started on Rosh Hashanah 2008, the 3½ year mark of the seven year prophecy by Rabbi Yochanan is facing us today. As Destination Yisra’el wrote on November 18, 2010, titled, “Rabbi Yochanan’s Sanhedrin Prophecy: Severe Drought and a Spiritual Famine will Grip Israel as many Torah Sages will die”,
Destination Yisra’el – “The Shmittah period (seven years) in which Ben Dovid (Messiah son of David) will come the following verse will be fulfilled:
Sanhedrin 97a – “Rebi Yochanan ben Zaccai of Yavnah said: In the generation that Ben Dovid (Messiah son of David) will come, talmidei chachamim, the “pupil of wisdom” known as the Torah sage or scholar, will decrease, and the eyes of the remainder will protrude from sighing and sorrow; many chastisements and many evil decrees will be renewed; one will not cease before another begins.”
Year One of the Messianic Sabbatical Cycle (2009)–
“In the first year”, Rosh Hashanah 5769 (Tuesday, September 30, 2008) to Rosh Hashanah 5770 (Saturday, September 19, 2009)
“The following prophecy in Amos 4:7 will be fulfilled
“I caused it to rain on one city, but, on another city, I did not cause it to rain.”
Year Two of the Messianic Sabbatical Cycle (2010) –
“In the second year”, Rosh Hashanah 5770 (Saturday, September 19, 2009) to Rosh Hashanah 5771 (Thursday, September 9, 2010)
“There will be a “slight famine” in which according to Rashi, “no place will be completely satisfied”.
Year Three of the Messianic Sabbatical Cycle (2011) –
“In the third year”, Rosh Hashanah 5771 (Thursday, September 9, 2010) to Rosh Hashanah 5772 (Thursday, September 29, 2011),
“The famine will be great, and men, women, children, pious people, and men of good deeds will die; Torah will be forgotten by those who learned it.”
For those who know prophecy well, the Holocaust of the Jews will not match the horrors of the coming tribulation, a Holocaust for the Whole World. It will be a tribulation that will be experienced by all peoples, on every continent and of every race and religion on the face of the earth. Yet the Holocaust of the Jews, an account missed by most biblical scholars was prophesied by Jeremiah the Prophet when he wrote:
Jeremiah 30:4-9: “This is what the Lord has said to Israel and Judah. These are the words of the Lord: “You shall hear a cry of terror, or fear without relief. Ask and see: can a man bear a child? Why then do I see every man gripping his sides like a woman in labor, every face changed, all turned pale? Awful is that day: when has there been its like? A “time of trouble for Jacob”, yet he shall come through it safely.
‘In that day’, says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will break their yoke off their necks and snap their cords; foreigners shall no longer use them as they please, they shall serve the Lord their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.”
Yet while those who fear the coming of the Messiah will be “gripping their sides with fear”, the prophetic message to both the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel and the Jews of the House of Judah is that during this era the “yoke” will be broken off their necks…foreigners will no longer use them… and they will serve the L-rd their G-d and David their king, whom G-d will raise up for them.”
The State of Israel, to their credit, has now accepted their negligence in not regulating the fishing in the Sea of Galilee. The two-year ban will include regulating overfishing in the lake, finally banning fishing during the three-four months of spawning and the season of reproduction of the fish, and prohibit the fishing of smaller females that prevents the fish populations from growing.
Yet, the drought in Israel is not regional but global according to Israeli authorities. As Hagay Noyberger, chief fishing ranger from the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture reported to The Media Line:
Hagay Noyberger - “In Israel it’s the same. It’s caused by pollution, overfishing, global warming and other phenomena.”
This is also collaborated by the testimony of Prof. Menachem Goren, an aquatic biologist from Tel Aviv University who links overfishing as the primary culprit:
Prof. Menachem Goren – “There are too many fishermen, too many boats, over fishing and no management. The situation has become very bad not just in the reduction in the numbers of fish, but also in thesize of those which remain.”
And if Rokach the Israeli fisherman is a dying breed and has now re-cloned himself by marketing salmon from Norway, grouper from Egypt, and cod and mackerel and sea bass from around the world, he is now left with his memories, but not necessarily the profession which he loves most.
The Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret)
Shaul Rokach - “People love fish a lot. All the fishermen I know are retiring and there are no new fishermen. I miss it, but let me remain with my good memories.”
As the Sea of Galilee is entering into the historic prophetic era of global famine and drought, we see that this once pristine lake is the prophetic “canary in the coal mine” for the whole world. If the dramatic decline in the fish population in Lake Kinneret, is not able to reverse its apocalyptic course in crashing fish populations, the spectrum of death will become exponentially larger. Soon millions of hungry migratory birds will be flying over Israel preparing to eat heavily on the remaining populations of fish? The death of the fish means death of the larger animal kingdom. But a new danger is quickly looming on the horizon; water wars?
You might want to read:
The Prophetic Implications of the Drought and the Sea of Galilee
Go to Part One – “Water Wars and a Dying Sea of Galilee – a New Apocalypse for Israel”
Go to Part Two – “Barry Chamish on “Water Wars” and the “Death of the Lake Kinneret”
Go to Part Three – “The Holiness of Kinneret (Sea of Galilee)”
If you have wondered how biblical prophecy fits into your life, and how it will affect the Return of the House of Israel, then the G-d of Israel is beginning his “call” to bring you home, too. You might desire to reconnect with the Biblical portrayals on what is and what not may be happening in your near future.
This Biblical portrayal includes Prophecies that the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel are about to return to the Land of their Biblical Inheritance. This will be Divine Destiny as you are preparing to fulfill your lost prophetic destiny when the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel return to their Homelands first in Shomron (Samaria), Israel and then onward to Greater Israel. If you want to learn more, Contact “Kol Ha Tor Vision”, the Voice of the Turtledove.
Here is a joint Orthodox Jewish and 10-Triber Mission to bring awareness of the imminent fulfillment of the Biblical Prophecies regarding the Redemption of all Israel (12 Tribes Re-conciled and Re-United). This super Event of all Times will entail Establishing the Shomron (the Ancient Bible Heartland of the Patriarchs) and the Judean Wilderness as part of the Land of Israel, and preparing the “Land” for the Return of the Lost Tribes of the House of Israel and then the Redemption of All Israel.
For inquiries about Kol Ha Tor Vision for the Lost Tribes of Israel, Visit – “Shomron Lives!”, a Spiritual Retreat and Guest House in Samaria, that hosts Shomron (Samaria) Tours to reacquaint the Returning Lost Tribers of the House of Israel.