ARE THE MEDES MAKING A COMEBACK?
The ancient Medes (or their modern descendants, often identified as the Kurds) are seen as shadowed in the end-times destruction of "Babylon the Great"—a future symbol of global evil (Revelation 17–18).
Many Kurds proudly claim descent from the ancient Medes, an Iranian people who built a powerful empire in the 7th–6th centuries BCE in the Zagros region overlapping modern Kurdistan.
This belief is deeply embedded in Kurdish national identity and folklore: the Kurdish national anthem (Ey Reqîb) explicitly declares "We are the children of the Medes and Cyaxares" (referring to the Median king), and some Kurdish nationalists date their calendar from 612 BCE, the year the Medes helped topple the Assyrian Empire.
Today, the Kurds are the world's largest stateless ethnic group (roughly 30–45 million people), speaking Kurdish (a Northwest Iranian language) and proudly claiming ancient Median ancestry as a core part of their national identity and folklore.
Their homeland, Kurdistan, spans four countries, with a significant portion in northwestern Iran (Iranian Kurdistan, home to ~8–12 million Kurds, about 10% of Iran's population). This region holds strategic importance due to its mountainous Zagros border with Iraq, access to trade routes, natural resources (including water and arable land), and proximity to key geopolitical flashpoints.
In relation to Iran, the Kurds' location makes them a potential internal pressure point—especially amid recent tensions, where Iranian Kurdish opposition groups (with bases often in Iraqi Kurdistan) have been discussed in reports as possible levers for unrest, uprisings, or buffer zones along the western frontier, heightening Tehran's long-standing securitization and repression of Kurdish demands for rights and autonomy.
BIBLICAL ECHO
The Medes appear in several Old Testament prophecies, primarily linked to the judgment and destruction of ancient Babylon:
- Isaiah 13:17-19 states: "Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them [Babylon]... Their bows will strike down the young men... And Babylon... shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah."
- Jeremiah 51:11, 28 describes God arousing "the kings of the Medes" to destroy Babylon as vengeance for His temple, leading to its desolation.
These prophecies were partially fulfilled historically in 539 BCE when the Medo-Persian Empire (under Cyrus, with Median involvement) conquered Babylon without total destruction or eternal desolation.
In some interpretations of end-times prophecy, these passages are seen as having a dual fulfillment—a near-term historical one and a future eschatological one. They link to prophecies in Jeremiah 50–51 (Babylon's utter, permanent ruin) and Revelation 17–18 (the fall of "Babylon the Great," often interpreted as a future revived or symbolic Babylon as a center of evil). In this view, the Medes (or their descendants) will play a role in attacking and destroying this end-times Babylon.
WHAT AM I SAYING...
You're probably going to hear a lot about the Kurds over the next few days. Here's what that actually means, and I quote:
"The Kurds are the most organized, most battle-tested opposition force inside Iran. They have been fighting this regime since its first day. They are exactly the type of resource we need, boots on the ground that no amount of air power can replace. They will be one piece of a larger puzzle that decides whether what comes next is stability or chaos.
It is reasonable to assume that U.S. Special Operations personnel, most likely 5th Special Forces Group whose area of responsibility is the entire Middle East, along with CIA intelligence personnel on the ground, are already working alongside Kurdish networks in those provinces.
This is exactly how the U.S. operated in Afghanistan in 2001, advisors on the ground, the fireflies before the storm.
We have used the Kurds before, as many as eight times by some accounts. And each time we left them high and dry. When you heard about Saddam Hussein gassing his own people by the thousands, those were the Kurds. They have paid more than once for backing the wrong side of a promise made in Washington. More than one Green Beret that has left part of his body, heart, and soul with the Kurdish people."
Wars have a way of redrawing maps. If the Kurds are going to step up again in Iran, perhaps when this war is over there will be a place on the map for the Kurds. A real place on the map is long overdue.
The Biblical Connection
I have not worked out the prophetic connection to the Medes and current events. But I do find it intriguing that there are many of the old players and places on the scene in current conflicts. The past, present and possible future seen to be coming together somehow. In other words, things seem biblical. 🙏
