According to the Bible, the landscape around the Dead Sea changed with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which turned the fertile valley into a desert wasteland. However, Biblical prophecy promises that in the End of Days, God will reverse the curse, and freshwaters will flow east from the Dead Sea to Jerusalem.
What’s amazing, is that in recent years, many are claiming that Ezekiel’s prophecies are coming true with incredible reports of fish swimming in Dead Sea sinkholes and freshwater flowing into the Dead Sea from craters found on the seafloor. “A place that was once cursed in Biblical times, now you can come here to the Dead Sea, explore the sinkholes and see fish where the water has receded – fulfilling prophecies from Ezekiel who talked about the land flourishing and blooming when the Jews return,” said Noam Bedein of the Dead Sea Revival Project.
The Dead Sea is, as its name implies, dead. More than 400 meters below sea level, it is the lowest point on dry land. Almost ten times saltier than the ocean, nothing can live in the Dead Sea’s hypersaline environment – or so scientists thought until recently.
In 2016, a young woman on a nature hike was shocked when she discovered freshwater ponds with fish on the shores of the Dead Sea. Samantha Siegel, a Jewish woman living in Jerusalem, encountered an incongruous sight with powerful implications: a prophecy appearing before her eyes that seemed to contradict the laws of nature.
Signs of life emerging from the Dead Sea is a sign of the End of Days precisely as it is written in Ezekiel 47:8-9:
“This water,” he told me, “runs out to the eastern region, and flows into the Arabah; and when it comes into the sea, into the sea of foul waters, the water will become wholesome. Every living creature that swarms will be able to live wherever this stream goes; the fish will be very abundant once these waters have reached there. It will be wholesome, and everything will live wherever this stream goes.”
Fresh water at the Dead Sea is a clear example of how the prophets were able to see things that remained hidden from scientists for thousands of years. In 2011, a team of researchers from Ben Gurion University in the Negev sent divers to the floor of the Dead Sea. This endeavor posed serious technical difficulties as the super-saline environment renders regular scuba gear inoperable. It was the first time such a dive had ever been made, and what they discovered was astounding.
The researchers discovered huge craters on the seafloor, 15 meters across and 20 meters deep. Freshwater was flowing from these craters, which were carpeted with mats of microorganisms, showing that the Dead sea was not so dead after all. The beginnings of Ezekiel’s prophecy are in place, just waiting to spring forth.
Signs of life at the Dead Sea demonstrate that God is reversing the curse of Sodom and Gomorrah as promised by Ezekiel. This is just another example of the incredible miracles uncovered all the time with the restoration of the People of Israel to the Land of Israel.