Among the hills outside Bethlehem, parents' screams were heard - screams of agony, of unthinkable horror. A murderous attack, motivated by Jew hatred, resulted in heartbroken, grieving parents. Again.
Rachel weeping for her children. Again.
This sad description is equally applicable to today's terror attack, as well as the terror attack in the same area two thousand years ago.
Today, December 11, 2024, a twelve year old Jewish Israeli boy, Yehoshua Aharon Tuvia Simha, had his young life viciously terminated by Palestinian terrorists. In that very place, in the vicinity of Bethlehem, King Herod viciously ordered the killing of all boys ages 2 and under. The motivations of the killers were much the same.
Herod was not a Jew, but an Idumean (Edomite), a descendant of Esau. The Edomites are frequently denounced in the prophetic writings of the Bible because of their hatred of the Jews. When Herod was informed of a special Jewish baby being born in Bethlehem, rumored to be the Messiah (Micah 5:2), he perceived that child to be a threat to his maniacal rule. Herod did, after all, carry the ludicrous title of "King of the Jews", though his Jewish subjects despised him. That Edomite "King" was a complete fraud, with no valid claim to being ruler of the Jewish land.
And the Palestinian terrorists, the heirs of that same spiteful Edomite spirit, hate the Jews for much the same reasons. To them, the Jews are a threat. To them, the Jews are the usurpers, the threat to their rule of "Palestine". Their solution is the same as Herod's - murder. The prophet Obadiah denounced that Edomite hatred, equally applicable to Herod and today's terrorists. "Because of the slaughter and violence against your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever" (Obadiah 1:10) Jacob and Esau were twin brothers. But it is only Jacob who received the inheritance, which included the eternal covenant promise of the land of Israel. And Esau hates that, even today.
As I write this, IDF troops are encircling Bethlehem to apprehend the murderer. Bethlehem, of course, is the hometown of King David, and the site of holiday remembrances as the birthplace of Jesus. But the Palestinians even commit violence against that tradition, insisting that Jesus, the descendant of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David , was instead "Palestinian", not Jewish. No matter that any artificial construct of Palestinian identity was far in the future, because historical truth is of no concern to them. They have concocted an entirely fictitious mythology as the basis for their bogus claims to the Holy Land. Their hateful mythology has no basis in reality.
The Edomite King Herod, in his final days during which he perpetrated the slaughter of the innocent Jewish children, was increasingly criminally insane, a homicidal raving madman. His chronic evil led to his deterioration and destruction.
The Palestinian jihadists, today's Edomites, who exhibit the same criminally insane raging lunacy against Jews, are also near their end. Their chronic evil is leading to their ultimate destruction.