Ammon
Ezekiel 252
Son of man, set thy face against the Ammonites, and
prophesy against them...
Ezekiel 257
Behold, therefore I will stretch out my hand upon thee,
and will deliver thee for a spoil to the nations; and I
will cut thee off from the people, and I will cause thee
to perish out of the countries: I will destroy thee;
and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
Ammon was to be destroyed from among the nations. This
happened when it was invaded by the Nabateans in the first
century BC.
Assyria
Nahum 11 The
burden of Nineveh...
Nahum 19 What
do ye imagine against the LORD? he will make an utter
end: affliction shall not rise up the second time...
Nahum 213
Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I
will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall
devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from
the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no
more be heard.
The Assyrian empire fell suddenly in 612 BC when Nineveh
was sacked by the Babylonians with the Medes and Scythians.
The river Tigris was diverted to cover the ruins of Nineveh.
The site was buried for many centuries until it was
discovered by archaeologists in the nineteenth century. The
Assyrian empire has never risen again.
Babylon
Isaiah 1319-20
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the
Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom
and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither
shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation:
neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall
the shepherds make their fold there.
The Babylonian empire was superseded by the Persians and
the glory of Babylon gradually faded away until the city
became a ruin in the desert. It has never been rebuilt,
although there have been several attempts to do so.
Edom
Obadiah 11
The vision of Obadiah. Thus saith the Lord GOD concerning
Edom; We have heard a rumour from the LORD, and an
ambassador is sent among the nations, Arise ye, and let us
rise up against her in battle.
Obadiah 19-10
And thy mighty men, O Teman, shall be dismayed, to the end
that every one of the mount of Esau may be cut off by
slaughter. For thy violence against thy brother Jacob
shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for
ever.
By 500 BC Edom had ceased to exist as a nation. The
Idumean tribes were pushed out by the Nabateans and many
Idumeans went to live in Judea. Edom has never been restored
as a nation.
Egypt
Ezekiel 2914-15
And I will bring again the captives of Egypt, and will
cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the
land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base
kingdom. It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither
shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I
will diminish them, that they shall no more rule over
the nations.
Egypt has declined in power and has never again reached
the superpower status it enjoyed in Bible times.
Moab
Zephaniah 29
Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of
Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of
Ammon as Gomorrah, even the possession of nettles, and
saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the remainder
of my people shall lay them waste, and the remnant of my
people shall possess them.
Moab was completely destroyed.
Philistia
Amos 18 And
I will cut off the inhabitant from Ashdod, and him that
holdeth the sceptre from Ashkelon, and I will turn my hand
against Ekron: and the remnant of the Philistines shall
perish, saith the Lord GOD.
After 165 BC the Philistine cities had become Greek and
the Philistines were no longer in them. The cities were
overrun by the Maccabees in the late second century BC.
Phoenicia
Zechariah 93-4
And Tyre built herself a strong hold, and heaped up
silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the
streets. Behold, the LORD will cast her out, and he will
smite her power in the sea; and she shall be devoured
with fire.
Tyre was finally destroyed by Alexander the Great, and
Sidon by the Persian Artaxerxes III.
Israel
Jeremiah 3011
For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee:
though I make a full end of all nations where I have
scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee:
but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave
thee altogether unpunished.
Jews have been scattered into all the world and
regathered in part twice since this prophecy was written.
They have endured 20 centuries of persecution and repression
but they still exist.
Conclusion
The Bible has predicted the fate of every one of the
nations surrounding Israel, and done so correctly. The
probability of predicting the survival or otherwise of these
nations by chance alone is 1 in 2 to the power of 9 (29),
or one in 512. In fact the predictions contain other
information and are therefore more unlikely to be fulfilled
by chance. This suggests that some intelligent power is
behind the prophecies of the Bible.