The name Saddam is in the Bible. There are seven trumpets that sound in the book of Revelation. The name Saddam is included in the description of events that happen under the sounding of the 5th Trumpet. Before we actually go there, let’s take a look at some of the preceding trumpets. This will help us to understand why anyone would make the preposterous assertion that Saddam Hussein is actually in the Bible.
By Irvin Baxter
The Third Trumpet
Under the 3rd Trumpet described in Revelation 8:10-11, a star by the name of Wormwood falls to the earth. The prophecy states that the waters would be made bitter by this event, and that many would die from these waters. Such was the case on April 26, 1986. This was the day of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant meltdown in the Ukraine, which was at that time a part of the Soviet Union. In brief, here is what happened:
The first explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear facility blew the two million pound concrete lid off of the reactor, exposing the atmosphere to a nuclear fire for the next three weeks. A second explosion blasted radioactive material a mile up into the sky. The wind caught the radiation carrying it into Sweden, Northern Italy, Germany, Great Britain and, in a diluted form, to the East Coast of the United States. It then rained incessantly for the next five days in Europe, transferring the radioactivity from the clouds, down into the soil, then into the rivers, and ultimately, into the drinking waters.
As a direct result of the meltdown itself, about 125,000 have died so far. Over 200 million are estimated to have experienced excess radiation exposure, 3.5 million seriously. Now, 16 years later, cancer rates in certain regions have gone through the roof. Most of the deaths so far have occurred because of the water being contaminated by the radiation from Chernobyl.
Revelation 8:10-11 reads,
And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
Yes, many died from the water.
But what of the name—Wormwood? There are about 500,000 words in an unabridged dictionary. Wormwood is one of those words. It’s also the English translation of the Russian word, Chernobyl. If you were reading a Ukrainian Bible, the prophecy would say, “…and the name of the star is called Chernobyl.”
Could it possibly be mere coincidence that a global disaster called wormwood (Chernobyl) made the waters bitter in 1986 resulting in such widespread death and destruction—just as prophesied in scripture? I suppose it could be coincidence, but it’s extremely unlikely.
After careful study, I have come to believe that the 3rd Trumpet sounded in 1986. Some might have difficulty even considering this possibility because they have been taught that all of the trumpets must sound during the final seven years immediately preceding Armageddon. However, I have been able to find no scriptural proof that the 7 Trumpets must be confined to this final seven-year time frame.
It is amazing enough that the name of the star called “Chernobyl” would match the events that happened at Chernobyl. We are likewise about to see the name “Saddam” in the Bible beside the events perpetrated by Saddam eleven years ago. But first, let’s take a look at one more trumpet, the 2nd Trumpet.
At the sounding of the 2nd Trumpet, one-third of the ships in the sea were to be destroyed, and “…as it were, a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea.” In World War II, one-third of the ships that participated in the war were sunk. There were 105,127 ships involved in that war, and 36,387 of them were destroyed.
What could the great mountain burning with fire refer to? The Apostle John, who wrote the book of Revelation, was describing events with which he was unfamiliar. He knew nothing of an atom bomb, and he had never seen the huge fiery mushroom cloud resulting from a nuclear explosion. Yet that is exactly what he described when he talked about “a great mountain burning with fire.” And why shouldn’t the apocalyptic events of World War II with its 52 million deaths be included in the prophecies of Revelation?
Are we to believe that it is coincidental that almost exactly one-third of the ships were destroyed in World War II? Was it simply coincidence that John almost perfectly described the first nuclear bomb in the history of the human race? The coincidences are certainly stacking up here!
Trumpets are Eras
Before we look at the 5th Trumpet, there is one more important thing we should understand. The trumpets of Revelation are not mere moments in time, but eras. The 2nd Trumpet, World War II, covered a period of six or seven years. John wrote in Revelation 10:7, “But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall beginto sound, the mystery of God should be finished.” Notice that this description of the 7th Trumpet is to cover “days.”
Understanding this, we are ready to consider the 5th Trumpet.
In the first three verses of the 5th Trumpet prophecy we read of an angel opening the bottomless pit. Here is Revelation 9:1-3:
And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
I will never forget the day I picked up Newsweek magazine, and saw a picture of the skies of Kuwait after Saddam Hussein had set 700 oil wells on fire. Because of the smoke from the oil wells, it was as dark at noon as it was at midnight. The sun was not seen in Kuwait for over three months.
The prophecy said that when this fifth angel sounded, smoke came up out of the pit, and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke. When else in the course of human history has such a thing occurred? My thought at that time was, “Lord, could the Gulf War have been the sounding of the 5th Trumpet?”
I continued to read through the prophecy. Verses 3, 9-10:
And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power…And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle. And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
If you lived 2,000 years ago, and were given a vision of a helicopter, how would you describe it? In your vision you are seeing billows of smoke, then emerging from the smoke come forth helicopters. John described what he saw as locusts,having breastplates of iron and the faces of men. The sting is in their tail, and the sound of their wings is as the sound of many chariots going to battle.
Saddam “The Destroyer”
Verse 11 is the most intriguing: “And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.”
The definition of the Greek word Apollyon is “a destroyer.” Abaddon, a Hebrew word, also means, “destroyer.” Many Bible versions translate this passage simply as “they had a king over them called the destroyer,” avoiding the words Apollyon and Abaddon altogether.
In 1991, I subscribed to the German Tribune. In an article on the Gulf Crisis Inoticed that it spoke of Saddam “thedestroyer” Hussein. “Why did they say‘the destroyer?’” I wondered. My mindimmediately went to Revelation 9:11.Not yet understanding the meaning ofthe trumpets, I wrote it off as coincidence.But I clipped the article anyway…just in case.
My turning point came in December 1997. I received in the mail my Jerusalem Post Weekly International Edition (December 13). In this particular edition, there was a human-interest story that caught my eye. It was about one of the very last Jewish families that had just escaped from Baghdad. One of the women told the story about when Saddam Hussein was being carried by his mother during the pregnancy. She was having horrible problems. The Iraqi doctors actually recommended an abortion. Saddam’s mother did not want that, so she moved into the Jewish sector of Baghdad where the finest doctors lived. They nursed her through the pregnancy.
When he was finally born, his mother decided to name him Saddam, since he had caused her so much pain. The article said that the name Saddam means “the destroyer.” I have since verified this with an Arabic-English dictionary, as well as a friend of mine who is an Egyptian national.
I said, “God, how can that be?” But then I thought, “How can it not be?” Here we have the sun being hidden by the smoke, attack helicopters described as locusts coming out of the smoke, and a king over them by the name of the destroyer — and Saddam’s name literally means “the destroyer.”
What are the odds that the Bible would call this king by his actual name? At what point can we no longer say, “This is a coincidence?” If we were reading an Iraqi Bible, it would say, “They had a king over them called Saddam.”
5th Trumpet may Still be Sounding
All of this having been said, I must hasten to point out that there are aspects of this 5th Trumpet prophecy that I am unable to explain at this time. I do not yet understand how verses 4-6 of the prophecy have come to pass—the command to not hurt the grass of the earth but only those not sealed of God in their foreheads, that they should be tormented five months, seeking death but not finding it.
I have explored many theories about how the Gulf War may have fulfilled these scriptures, but I’m not sure any of them fit. This is why I am not certain that the era of the 5th Trumpet is over. Furthermore, as we continue to see world events shaping up in light of the coming 6th Trumpet prophecy, I am now beginning to see a very real scenario of these two Trumpet era judgments coming back to back. We may not have seen the last of The Destroyer.
You may have noticed that Iraq has been in the news quite a bit recently…
Learn more about the Apocalypse and The Seven Seals by Irvin Baxter here.
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