Bible Prophecy: What Do Israel's Mysterious Red Cows Have to Do with Middle East Tensions and End Times?
Red heifer cows brought to Israel from Texas in 2022 are making headlines as perhaps another indication the world is entering the end times described in the Bible.
CBS News reported last month that the cows, as potential candidates for use in a Jewish ceremonial purification ritual, may have been one of the factors prompting Hamas to launch its horrific Oct. 7 attacks on Israel.
It all has to do with the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which is now the location of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, both controlled by Muslims. Their faith teaches that Muhammad was taken up into heaven for an encounter with God at the location.
Hamas dubbed the Oct. 7 attacks the “Al-Aqsa Wave,” and the group’s emblem features the Dome of the Rock behind two crossed swords, CBS reported, noting increased activity by some Jews and their supporters regularly visiting the area that may have angered Muslims.
The Palestine Chronicle reported that on the 100-day mark of the Israel-Hamas war in January, Abu Obeida, a Hamas military spokesman, gave a televised speech during which he mentioned the “bringing of red cows” to Israel as an act of aggression.
Obeida said the move was an “application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity.”
But Yitshak Mamo — a rabbi and member of Uvne Jerusalem, a group committed to seeing a new Jewish temple built in Jerusalem and who helped bring the red heifers to Israel — discounted the notion that the cows’ presence prompted the Hamas assault.
“Terrorists have been attacking us before we ever dreamed of these cows,” he told CBS. “They don’t need them as an excuse to kill.”
Rebuilding the Temple
There are certain rabbinic movements, including the one that runs the Temple Institute in Jerusalem, that want to see the Third Temple built on the mount and believe it is a precursor to the arrival of the Jewish Messiah. (More on the history of the first two temples in a moment.)
However, doing so would require a ceremonial purification, as Mondo Gonzales, author of “The Red Heifer Ritual: The Last Piece of the Third Temple Puzzle,” told The Western Journal. And that is where the red heifers come in.
Numbers 19 lays out the rules for purification, stating, “Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come.”
It was to be slaughtered by a priest outside the camp. Then the priests were to sprinkle its blood to purify the tent of meeting, later replaced with the temple, where the Ark of the Covenant rested. The heifer was then to be burned and its ashes mixed with water and used to purify the people who sought to enter the temple to worship God.
“So that’s why it was important in the Old Testament, because it allowed the people of Israel to go and participate in the temple ceremonies,” Gonzales said.
The First Temple was built by King David’s son Solomon around 950 B.C. and later destroyed by Babylonian forces under King Nebuchadnezzar in about 586 B.C.
The Second Temple was built around 515 B.C., and Herod the Great, a Jewish king who ruled under the Roman Empire, greatly improved upon it starting in about 20 B.C. It was then destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. and the Jews were kicked out of their land.
All that remains of that temple is the Western Wall, which is in the area surrounding the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The mosque was first completed around 715 A.D., but it was rebuilt multiple times after being damaged or destroyed by earthquakes, most recently around 1033 A.D.
Since Israel recaptured Jerusalem in 1967 during the Six-Day War, the goal of some Jews has been to rebuild the temple and reinstitute the sacrificial system established by God through Moses.
“And so in order to do that, they realized, ‘OK, we could build the temple if the geopolitics allowed it,’ but they couldn’t use it because they’re ritually impure. And so they need the red heifer,” Gonzales said.
“That’s why the subtitle of my book is ‘The Last Piece of the Third Temple Puzzle,’ because they have everything else they need for the Third Temple,” he added.
“Everything’s ready to go, including some of the cornerstones. But even if they built it right now and had permission, they couldn’t use it because they need that red heifer to burn and to create the ashes … so that they can cleanse the people and cleanse the area of the Temple Mount.”
Hence the tension over the arrival of red heifers, which are currently being kept at an undisclosed location in Israel. In November, rabbis said at least four met the ceremonial requirements, Gonzales noted.
There had been buzz that rabbis from the Temple Institute planned to sacrifice at least one of the heifers on the Mount of Olives at Passover, which begins on Monday.
“But that seems to be put on hold. However, at the last minute if the government lets them, they could still perform the ceremony,” Gonzales said.
The Daily Wire’s Kassy Akiva posted on X that she traveled to Israel recently to find out what she could.
“There are no plans to sacrifice them right now. They’re being bred to create a herd that can live in an educational visitor center in ancient Shiloh,” she wrote.
Dispelling the falsehoods about the red heifers:
1. No, there are no plans to sacrifice them right now. They’re being bred to create a herd that can live in an educational visitor center in ancient Shiloh.
2. No, they’re not genetically modified. They’re Texas Red Angus.
3.… pic.twitter.com/B9wgihZlcC
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 4, 2024
Akiva added, “Also to be precise: the red heifer isn’t technically a sacrifice. It is slaughtered and burned on the Mt. of Olives but not on an altar.”
Also to be precise: the red heifer isn’t technically a sacrifice. It is slaughtered and burned on the Mt. of Olives but not on an altar. The ashes are used to make a mixture that is used in the purification process for entering the inner courtyard of the Temple Mount. Practical…
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 4, 2024
End Times Significance
So how does all this fit into the end times?
Jesus taught and the Apostle John wrote in the book of Revelation that a temple would be present in Jerusalem during the end times.
While preaching on the Mount of Olives, Jesus said the “abomination of desolation” would take place in the temple, a reference to the book of Daniel.
According to the biblical instruction site GotQuestions.org, Daniel appeared to state that the Antichrist would establish a seven-year peace treaty with Israel, but midway through it, he would enter Jerusalem with his forces and end sacrifices in the temple. The Antichrist would then desecrate the temple in some way.
There was a partial fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in 167 B.C. when the Greek ruler Antiochus IV entered the temple and desecrated the altar by sacrificing a pig on it.
But Jesus made his prophecy around 33 A.D. and appeared to refer to events that would happen both in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed the temple and in the end times.
Author Joel Rosenberg, who wrote the novel “The Copper Scroll” about the Third Temple, told CBN News last year that there are varying views among Christians about the significance of a rebuilt Jewish temple, with most not giving it much thought.
“But those who do [think about it] believe that it will be built before Jesus returns for the Second Coming — not necessarily before the rapture, but definitely before the Second Coming — and that the Antichrist will take over that Third Temple during the tribulation and try to rule the world from there,” he said.
Gonzales believes one scenario that could open the way to the building of the Third Temple will come in the aftermath of the end-times Battle of Gog and Magog.
The prophet Ezekiel wrote of a coalition of forces including Persia (modern-day Iran) and other nations — likely Russia and Turkey among them, Bible scholars believe — invading Israel from the north.
In Ezekiel’s prophecy, God intervenes on behalf of Israel, causing a massive earthquake, as well as using pestilence, flooding, hailstones and fire to decimate the invading armies.
The earthquake could knock down the Dome of Rock and otherwise destroy the structures on the Temple Mount and change the entire dynamic in the area, Gonzales contended.
He thinks the response of most would be to recognize that God was behind what happened, knowing “this wasn’t coincidental.” A certain deference toward Israel would follow, allowing the Third Temple to be built.
Another possibility is that the Jews could build their temple near the current Muslim sites.
“I actually saw some architectural plans that showed the temple just north of the Dome of the Rock. And then again, archeologically, there’s many views [as to where the temple was],” Gonzales said.
He further pointed out that this could all happen very quickly. The rabbis could start with a tent of meeting, as was used in ancient Israel, and build a temple around it.
Gonzales also noted that rabbis at the Temple Institute say they know where the Ark of the Covenant is. One theory is that it is located right below the Temple Mount in a place called Jeremiah’s grotto.
“They’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah, we know exactly where it is. When the time comes, no worries. We’ll bring it out.’ That’s what they say. I don’t know whether it’s true, but that’s what they claim,” Gonzales recounted.
Red heifers in Israel may well be another sign that the world is entering the end times.
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