I read comments from another prophecy person that the giving up the West Bank to the Palestinians was part of the prophecy of Ezekiel 35 and I’m confused. My question is “What is Mt. Seir?” Is or was it a real Mountain or God’s description of the Edomites? Has Ezekiel 35 already been fulfilled or yet to be? Can you sort this chapter out for me, past and present. Does it show something future happening or is it already fulfilled?
Mount Sier is a real place in the vicinity of modern Petra. It’s used symbolically of Edom in Ezekiel 35 with whom God was angry for undercutting Israel in the time during the Babylonian conquest, thinking to steal the Promised Land. He promised complete destruction upon them, which came at the hands of the Nabateans as foretold in the Book of Obadiah. At that point the nation of Edom ceased to exist.
Some claim that the Palestinians are the modern equivalent of Edom, and since God sometimes used Edom to represent all Gentile nations, I suppose in that sense they may have a point. But you have to spiritualize a lot of Scripture to make a specific connection between Israel and the Palestinians through Edom. Unlike Edom, the Palestinians have never been a people, never had a language or a homeland or a king, have no cultural heritage or anything else to give them national standing. I’m not ready to buy into all of that just yet, and believe that Ezekiel’s references to Edom were prophetic to his time but historical to ours.