You shall not flee to Azal - Zechariah 14:5

In bibles translated from the Masoretic Text, Zechariah 14:5 supposedly mentions fleeing east from Jerusalem through a split Mount of Olives to Azal. Azal was discovered in 1873-74, and Israel officially named it Nahal Azal (Azal River) in 1955.

A big problem for the "you shall flee" narrative is that Azal is located due south of Jerusalem rather than east of it. So my bet is that no one will be fleeing east to Azal through the Mount of Olives. Here's a Google map showing directions from the Temple Mount to Azal via the Mt of Olives. Notice that all I had to do is type in Nahal Azal, and it knows where it is.

Directions to Azal > Google Maps

So if no one is going to be fleeing through a split Mount of Olives to Azal, what does Zechariah 14:5 mean? For that answer we must turn to the Septuagint, which reads:

Josephus wrote in Antiquities of the Jews (9.10.4.225) that a great earthquake caused a landslide on the Mount of Olives that buried the kings' gardens when King Uzziah entered the holy place (2 Chronicles 26:16). A geologic map in a paper published by Israeli geologists shows the remnants of a large landslide in that location.

So in verse 14:5, Zechariah was predicting another landslide, like the one in Uzziah's day, that would bury the Kidron Valley all the way to Azal. On the map I provided earlier the mouth of Azal River/Valley is located at the little square label with a car that says "37 min 9.0 km". That is the southernmost point of the Mount of Olives. Cyril of Alexandria wrote in his commentary on Zechariah 14 that in his day Azal was known to be "a town situated at the far point of the mountain [of Olives]."

On the same map, the southern edge of the kings' gardens begins at the white dot on the route going northwest from the "37 min 9.0 km" label (if you hover your mouse over that white dot it will say "Turn left onto Abu Tor St"). This marks the southern edge of the landslide that occurred in Uzziah's day. Zechariah predicted that another landslide would fill in the valley from there all the way to Azal. Photos taken from the mid-1800s to the early 20th century show the remnant of a large landslide on the Mount of Olives extending from the kings' gardens all the way to Azal.

Biblewriter said:

All this commentary is based on an assumption that the Masoretic ext is wrong.

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A foolish statement. Every bit of it is verifiable. I have told you that and given you the tools to find the information, yet you persist in your dishonest denial.

Biblewriter said:

Even the logic you used was faulty. for you claimed, without citation, that Clement of Alexandria said that Azal was "on the far side of the Mount of Olives." But as the Mount of Olives is east of Jerusalem, its far side would be on the east side of the mountain, not the south side, as you claim is its location.

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No, I said Cyril wrote that Azal was known to be "a town situated at the far point of the mountain [of Olives]." The Mount of Olives is the entire 2.5 km ridge to the east of Jerusalem. It's southernmost point directly faces Azal Valley. Looking from Jerusalem that would be the far point of the mountain.

I didn't say Clement either. The name is Cyril. If this is the kind of attention you pay to what is written, no wonder you are confused.

And btw, Cyril's remark written in the early 5th century clearly shows what the Septuagint said in Zechariah 14:5 at that time, which is no different than what it says today.

Biblewriter said:

Every bit of what you said may indeed be verifiable. But what you did not say is critical. The hard truth is that all you have proved, even assuming that everything you said was correct, is that an earthquake produced a landslide in the Kidron valley.

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I've also stated that Azal is the river/valley at the southernmost point of the Mount of Olives. All of these concur:

Israeli government
"המועצה הרעה" בהר אצל

Israel Antiquities Authority
Volume 129 Year 2017 Jerusalem, Nahal Azal

Archaeologists
"This will be about my first field trip in Archaeology of Jerusalem class [at Hebrew University] that occurred last Wednesday October 20th... This is the Azel Valley mentioned in Zechariah 14:5 in reference to the earthquake that occurred during King Uzziah's reign around 760 B.C."
An American Girl in Jerusalem: Geography of Jerusalem

Israeli society
“At the foot of the ridge is the deep channel of Atzal [sic] River (Zechariah 14:5), which advances toward the Kidron Valley. Its Biblical name was preserved by the Arabs as Wadi Yasul.”

Google
Google Maps

seventysevens said:

verse 5
וְנַסְתֶּם גֵּיא-הָרַי, כִּי-יַגִּיעַ גֵּי-הָרִים אֶל-אָצַל, וְנַסְתֶּם
כַּאֲשֶׁר נַסְתֶּם מִפְּנֵי הָרַעַשׁ, בִּימֵי עֻזִּיָּה מֶלֶךְ-יְהוּדָה;
וּבָא יְהוָה אֱלֹהַי, כָּל-קְדֹשִׁים עִמָּךְ.

verse 5
And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azel; yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah; and the LORD my God shall come, and all the holy ones with Thee.

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verse 5
και εμφραχθήσεται η κοιλάς των ορέων μου και εγκολληθήσεται φάραγξ ορέων έως Ασαήλ και εμφραχθήσεται ον τρόπον ενεφράγη από προσώπου του σεισμού εν ταις ημέραις Οζίου βασιλέως Ιούδα

verse 5
The valley between the hills will be filled in, yes, it will be blocked as far as Jasol [Azal], it will be filled in as it was by the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah.

seventysevens said:

To suggest that the valley was filled in requires the valley to have exited to begin with , then consider a valley that goes as far as Azel - IF it were filled in ? Just exactly how was it filled in and who filled it in ?

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The Kidron Valley has existed like forever. The section from the king's gardens near En Rogel to Azal River was filled in by a landslide.

seventysevens said:

Consider - when in all of earths history has Jesus stood on Mt Olivet and caused an earthquake that would split a mountain and create a valley so big that it would reach Azel ?

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What is it about Jesus standing on the Mount of Olives (which definitely happened) requires its immediate splitting?

seventysevens said:

Consider that the Jews that reject Jesus as Messiah also reject the New Testament writings because the NT teaches that Jesus IS Messiah - so of course people who reject Jesus as Messiah will not accept the NT as valid teachings and of course they will create writings that speak of what the prefer to be taught instead of what the original writings actually say

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The OT quotes made by the apostles in the NT align far more with the LXX than they do with the Masoretic Text. The Jews at one point rejected the LXX because it was so effective as a witness of Christ.

seventysevens said:

Septuagint is a Greek translation of the original Hebrew - strange how it changes , .....reminds me of how the JW took the original writings and created their own bible from the original that results in it stating in some verses something much different than the original writings .

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The Septuagint (LXX) predates the Masoretic Text by about 1000 years. The pronunciations that the Masoretes introduced based on their traditions changed the original meanings of certain words in the original Hebrew text.

seventysevens said:

verse 4
And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleft in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, so that there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.

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Zechariah didn't include verse numbers when he penned that prophecy, so the first sentence could very well be, and probably is IMO, a separate thought and verse. Thus there is no requirement that Jesus walking on the Mt of Olives causes it to "split". That is simply a matter of interpretation, first by whoever put verse numbers in, later by those who accept those parsings.

seventysevens said:

NO Bible book had any verse numbers when they were originally written , but scripture was written as listed just as one continual writing just as writing a letter or a book of any other kind - the verse numbers are put there to make it easy to find any particular verse in a book , the chapter numbers are added as well but neither change or alter what the text actually says
the word cleave or cleft was actually there before the translation of and the word split being used but has the same meaning

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You don't know how any prophet penned his visions. He could have had a vision and written one sentence, then later had another vision and wrote it immediately after the previous vision with no indication that they were two separate visions.

The word schizo means to divide into parts. An earthquake caused the western half of the Mount of Olives to split/cleave/rend from its eastern half and landslide down the mountain. Photos show a tremendous amount of colluvium at the base of the Mt of Olives' western and southwestern slopes indicating that the entire mountain top probably dropped down the mountain.

The same word (schizo) is used in Matthew 27:51 to describe how the great earthquake at Jesus' death caused rock's to split. That very well could refer to a landslide.

seventysevens said:

View attachment 231717

the word is ...
..וְנִבְקַע֩

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3 comments

The phrase ונבקע הר הזיתים מחצין טזרחה literally means “and mountain of the olives is torn from his eastward half”. That is just how Josephus described the landslide that buried the kings' gardens:


The word בְקַע is used in 1 Kings 1:40 to describe the earth rending from the loud noise. This indicates either an earthquake or landslide.

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