The Holocaust Foretold in Scripture?

During the Second World War the Nazi government of Adolph Hitler carried out what it called “the Final Solution” for the Jewish problem, and what others have since called “the Holocaust.”  Over a period of three and a half years Hitler operated death camps that he set up for the specific purpose of exterminating the Jewish people.  Six million Jews were killed. 

The camp at Chelmno, Poland—the first concentration camp built exclusively to kill everyone sent there—was established in November, 1941, and mass murder began there on December 8, 1941.  The last death camp, Mauthausen, was liberated three and a half years later in May, 1945.  (Concentration camps set up to house Jews existed before this, but camps set up specifically to carry out genocide were operational for just three and a half years.) 

Centuries earlier the prophet Daniel had foretold that an exceptionally cruel foreign ruler would hurt and kill the Jewish people over a period of three and a half years.  Did the Bible foretell the Holocaust?

Daniel lived around twenty-five centuries ago, but he received a series of visions and messages from angels sent by God to tell him about what would happen to his people, the Jews, in the distant future:

“‘Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.’”

—Daniel 10:14 NIV

He was told to

“‘seal up the vision, for it concerns the distant future.’”

—Daniel 8:26 NIV

God’s messengers told Daniel there would be “a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then” from which “your people . . . will be delivered.” (Daniel 12:1 NIV)

“‘When the end comes near for those kingdoms, a bold and cruel king who tells lies will come. This will happen when many people have turned against God. This king will be very powerful, but his power will not come from himself.  He will cause terrible destruction and will be successful in everything he does.  He will destroy powerful people and even God’s holy people.  This king will succeed by using lies and force.  He will think that he is very important.  He will destroy many people without warning . . .’”

—Daniel 8:23-26 NCV

Does that description fit the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler that blitzkrieged its way across Europe and attempted to exterminate the prophet Daniel’s people? 

In a related passage the angelic messenger God sent to Daniel told him,

“‘This king will speak against the Most High God, and he will hurt and kill God’s holy people.  He will try to change times and laws that have already been set.  The holy people that belong to God will be in that king’s power for three and one-half years.’”

—Daniel 7:25 NCV

The angel also indicated that shortly after those three and a half years, the Jewish people would have their own nation restored—they would receive power to rule themselves again.  The cruel ruler who was killing the Jews would be

“making war against God’s holy people and was defeating them until God, who has been alive forever, came.  He judged in favor of the holy people who belong to the Most High God; then the time came for them to receive the power to rule.”

—Daniel 7:21-22 NCV

Daniel does not speak of them first as a “nation,” but rather as a “people”—which would fit the circumstances of the Jews at the time of the Holocaust.  In fact, it was shortly after the Holocaust that the nation of Israel was restored in 1948, and the holy people of the prophet Daniel were able to rule over the Promised Land for the first time in nearly two thousand years.

Was this what the prophet had been told would happen?

Demonic enemies of God tried to block their restoration to the Promised Land by annihilating the Jewish people. That attempt was implemented through what the Nazis called the “Final Solution” and what we today call the Holocaust.  God, who sees the future, appears to have foretold this significant event though his inspired human prophets, and had those prophecies recorded in Scripture.

“Then another king will arise, more brutal than the other ten, and will destroy three of them. He will defy the Most High God, and wear down the saints [the Jews] with persecution, and try to change all laws, morals, and customs. God's people will be helpless in his hands for three and a half years.”

—Daniel 7:24-25 LB

The Nazi “Third Reich” fits this description, and its extermination camps operated for three and a half years.  Old Testament writers used the term “saints” (Hebrew kodesh = ‘holy’ or ‘set apart’) to refer to the Jews.  At Mount Sinai, according to Moses, God gave his law to the “saints.”  (Deut. 33:2)  King David called true-worshipping Jews of his day “the saints who are on the earth.” (Ps. 16:2 NKJV)

In this case the prophet Daniel was given visions of “what will happen to your people in the days to come” (Dan. 10:14 Jerusalem Bible), including “a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then” from which “your people . . . will be delivered.” (Dan 12:1 NIV)  So, when Daniel used the term “saints,” he had in mind God’s ‘holy people’—Daniel’s own people, the Jews.

The New Testament book of Revelation seems to include a parallel of Daniel’s Old Testament prophecy.  Consider this possible interpretation [in brackets] of Revelation, chapter 12, which also speaks of three and a half years:

¹And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman [ = Israel - Isa. 54:1,5,6; Jer. 3:14; 31:31,32] clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars [ = the twelve tribes - Rev. 7:4-8]:

²And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. ³ And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon [ = Satan the devil - Rev. 12:9], having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. ⁴ And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.

⁵ And she brought forth a man child [ = Christ, the Messiah - Rom. 9:3-5], who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. [ = After his death and resurrection, the Messiah ascended into heaven - Dan. 7:13]

⁶ And the woman fled into the wilderness [ = Israel was dispersed  among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, including the Americas, land that was an unknown wilderness to Bible writers. - Deut. 28:64], where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. [To preserve Israel from complete annihilation during the Holocaust.  1260 days = 3 ½ years]

⁷ And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, ⁸ And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. ⁹ And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. [Since this was invisible to human eyes, the timing would be uncertain, but apparently after Messiah's resurrection and before the Tribulation on Israel that began in 70 A.D.]

¹⁰ And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night. ¹¹ And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. ¹² Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea!  for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

¹³ And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman [ = Israel] which brought forth the man child. [The dragon Satan had the Roman Empire subdue a Jewish rebellion, killing more than a million Jews, and scattering the rest throughout the Empire.]

⁴ And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time [ =  3 1/2 years], from the face of the serpent. [The scattering of the Jews served to preserve Israel from complete annihilation then and during the Tribulation's climax later in the 3 1/2 year Holocaust.]

⁵ And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood [ = the evil Nazi regime; compare Isa. 57:20] after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. ¹⁶ And the earth helped the woman, [Britain/America came to the rescue of the Jewish people] and the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood [ = defeated the Nazi regime and stopped the Holocaust] which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

¹⁷ And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.  [ = persecution of Christians that has intensified worldwide.]

—Revelation 12 KJV

Does the interpretation in the brackets above truly show a parallel between the Revelation and Daniel’s prophecy?  Readers must judge for themselves, until the day when God makes all these things clear to everyone.

During the 1800’s and early 1900’s advocates of “substitution theology” applied many of the prophecies about “Israel” to the Church instead of to the Jews. So, when the Holocaust and the subsequent restoration of the state of Israel occurred, they missed any significance of these events as fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

But, if Daniel and the Revelation indeed foretold these events of recent history, then the remaining prophecies are well on track toward fulfillment—and all who are alive today do well to pay attention.