PNW STAFF
Israel goes to the polls on October 27 in an election that could reshape the country's government and determine the future direction of the Israeli right.
But buried beneath the familiar election issues is something few would have imagined becoming part of Israel's political conversation:
The Third Temple.
Moshe Feiglin, who has spent decades advocating Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount and the eventual rebuilding of the Temple, has just joined forces with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party. Feiglin is slated for the No. 2 position on their joint electoral list, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly welcomed the alliance.
Consider how dramatically Israel's circumstances have already changed.
For nearly 1,900 years there was no sovereign Jewish state. Jerusalem passed from empire to empire, while the Jewish people remained scattered throughout the nations.
Then came 1948.
Nineteen years later, Israeli soldiers captured Jerusalem's Old City and the Temple Mount during the Six-Day War.
Yet Israel left administration of the Islamic holy sites with the Muslim Waqf, and for decades Jews visiting the Temple Mount were forbidden from praying there.
Even that is now changing.
In January, police began permitting specially prepared Jewish prayer sheets on the Mount. Then in August, Jewish worshipers were reportedly permitted to bring actual siddurim — Jewish prayer books — onto the site and openly pray from them. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has himself openly prayed there.
The formal status quo has not been abolished. The Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque remain in place, and the Muslim Waqf continues administering Islamic religious activities.
But what happens on the ground has unquestionably changed.
Sacrifices Are No Longer Merely Theoretical
Something else is happening.
In May, Israeli police arrested 21 people suspected of trying to bring a young goat onto the Temple Mount for a sacrifice. Weeks later, another group was arrested attempting a Shavuot-related sacrifice.
These remain small activist movements, and police prevented the sacrifices.
But think about what that means.
Nearly 2,000 years after Temple sacrifices ceased, there are Jews not simply studying the sacrificial system but actively attempting to restore it.
For students of Bible prophecy, that deserves attention.
Three New Red Heifer Candidates
The red heifer story is also entering a new phase.
For several years, attention centered on red heifers imported from Texas. Now efforts are increasingly focused on producing qualifying animals inside Israel itself.
This year, reports have emerged of multiple red-heifer calves born in Israel and being examined as potential candidates.
A second calf was reported in July in the Golan Heights. Those raising it deliberately avoided attaching the normal ear tag because of concerns that doing so could affect its eligibility under the stringent requirements surrounding the Numbers 19 purification ceremony.
Subsequent reports have described a third candidate in the Jordan Valley.
None of these animals should yet be called "the red heifer." They must mature while continuing to satisfy demanding biblical and rabbinical requirements.
But that misses the larger development.
The significance isn't that Israel has found the red heifer.
It is that Israelis are increasingly building the infrastructure intended to make finding one less a matter of extraordinary chance.
Temple-oriented organizations have spent years researching vessels, priestly garments, ritual purity and the practical requirements of Temple worship.
Kohanim — men identified with the priestly line — have participated in training and study surrounding Temple service. Researchers and rabbis continue working through the practical and halachic questions that would arise if sacrifices were restored.
For centuries the question was theoretical: Could there ever be another Temple?
Increasingly, some Israelis are asking a different question:
What would actually be required to operate one?
Daniel 9:27 describes a coming ruler who, halfway through Daniel's seventieth week, causes sacrifice and offering to cease.
Jesus points back to Daniel when He warns in Matthew 24:15 about the "abomination of desolation" standing in the holy place.
Paul describes the man of lawlessness taking his seat in the Temple of God in 2 Thessalonians 2.
And Revelation 11 describes John being instructed to measure the Temple, the altar and those worshiping there.
Taken together, these passages point toward renewed Jewish worship and a future sanctuary during the Tribulation.
Which leaves us with an enormous question:
How does Israel get from here to there?
Today, renewed sacrifices on the Temple Mount appear capable of igniting the Middle East.
But Scripture indicates that sacrifices will eventually be taking place.
Something changes.
Perhaps a future regional crisis transforms the Middle East. Perhaps an extraordinary agreement alters control of the Temple Mount. Perhaps the coming world leader of Daniel 9 brokers an arrangement that today's governments would never contemplate.
What once seemed impossible is becoming conceivable.
A restored Israel once appeared impossible.
Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem appeared impossible.
Open Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount appeared impossible.
Yet here we are.
For generations, students of Bible prophecy asked:
"Could there really be another Temple?"
Perhaps we are entering an era when the more relevant question becomes:
"How will it happen?"
