Five perfectly red heifers, required for the ritual purification of those who have touched a dead body, arrived in Israel from a ranch in Texas, as the Jewish Temple Institute continues preparations to lay the ground for the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem.

 The heifers are all under one year old and if they remain 100% red and avoid any blemishes which would disqualify them, they will each be eligible to be used to create the ashes required by Jewish law to purify those who have been in contact with a dead body, explained the Temple Institute. This level of purification would be needed in order to allow the priests to carry out their work in a future Temple.

 The prized cattle were immediately transported to Haifa where they will sit in quarantine for no less than seven days, in accordance with the regulations of the Israel Veterinary Authority. After the quarantine, they will be released to two separate locations in Israel, one of which will eventually be opened to the public. The heifers will be fed and cared for at these locations until they can be slaughtered and rendered into ashes from their third year onwards.

 The heifers were greeted by a ceremony at Ben-Gurion Airport. Temple Institute officials Rabbi Chanan Kupietzky, Rabbi Tzachi Mamo, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel and Rabbi Azaria Ariel participated in the ceremony, alongside Stinson and Jerusalem and Heritage Ministry director-general Netanel Isaac.

 The Jewish Temple Institute has been working for years on creating all the necessary elements to rebuild the Jewish Temple. Their website states that their goal is to educate, research, promote activism and to even prepare for actual rebuilding and dedication.

 What is a red heifer? The red heifer is first mentioned in the Book of Numbers 19:3, when God tells Moses and Aaron “This is the ritual law that God has commanded: Instruct the Israelite people to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.” The Bible goes on to explain how the heifer is processed and burnt and its ashes mixed into sanctified water. Those who became impure due to touching a human corpse would be purified by having the water mixed with the ashes sprinkled on them twice: once three days after they came in contact with the corpse and a second time seven days after contact. The Torah relates that a red heifer was brought to Elazar the Priest, the son of Aaron, and was processed for its ashes for the ritual.

 Biblical Connection: Why is the red heifer important to prophecy? 2 Thessalonians 2:4 says that the Antichrist will one day go the temple and claim to be God. Since the 2nd Jewish Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., this would require a 3rd temple to be built. Critics of eschatology have argued for centuries that this passage cannot be referring to a future time because there would be no temple for the Antichrist to go to or try to spiritualize the temple in some manner. However, these types of headlines show that it is clear that the orthodox Jews in Israel would not only like to rebuild the temple, but are actively creating elements and planning for a time when they can rebuild a future temple. Presumably, it will be this temple that will one day be rebuilt that the Antichrist will enter and declare himself God.

 PRAY: Pray that God’s timetable will continue to occur. While we as Christians should not necessarily cheer the construction of a temple, it does show that some of the prophetic elements that God promised could come to pass soon.