As missiles streaked across Middle Eastern skies and the world braced for wider war, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn says something far older than modern geopolitics was stirring beneath the surface.
On a recent episode of The Jonathan Cahn Podcast, Cahn described Iran’s direct missile attack on Israel as the visible eruption of a mystery embedded in biblical prophecy for millennia.
“It was the first time ever that Iran directly launched an attack on the nation of Israel,” Cahn said, calling the moment unprecedented and deeply significant.
Cahn framed the sudden global fixation on Israel as a signal long anticipated by Scripture.
“The Bible says that at the end of the age, the world will be focused on Israel,” he said. “Israel will be the center of controversy. It’s going to be attacked.”
According to Cahn, the events unfolding today align with a prophecy recorded in Ezekiel 38 and 39, describing a future invasion of Israel by a coalition of nations in the “latter years,” after the Jewish people are regathered to their land. One of those nations, he emphasized, is named outright. “Verse 5 says, ‘Paras, Cush and Put are with them,’” Cahn said. “Paras is Persia.”
Persia, Cahn explained, is modern-day Iran, a connection that transforms current headlines into prophetic markers. “When Ezekiel wrote this, Persia had not even come into its world empire,” he said. “Yet it names it.”
That alone, Cahn suggested, should give pause. But the mystery deepens.
Iran was not always Israel’s enemy. In fact, Cahn noted, Iran once maintained close ties with the Jewish state and became the second Muslim nation to recognize Israel. “Israel saw Iran as a natural ally,” he said. But Scripture, Cahn argued, indicated that the relationship could not endure. “According to Ezekiel, Iran could not remain an ally of Israel.”
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The turning point came in 1979, when the Iranian Revolution overthrew the shah and installed a radical Islamic regime. “That’s when everything changed,” Cahn said.
Since then, Cahn said Iran has waged a covert war against Israel through a web of proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen. He tied the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre directly to Tehran. “Iran funded Hamas. Iran trained Hamas. Iran encouraged Hamas,” he said.
Yet Cahn warned that focusing solely on politics misses the deeper reality. To understand what is happening now, he turned to the book of Daniel.
In Daniel 10, an angel sent to deliver a revelation is mysteriously delayed. “The angel says he was stopped,” Cahn explained. “The angel calls the entity the Sar Malchut Paras.” Translated, he said, it means “the prince of Persia.”
Cahn described this figure not as a human ruler but as a demonic power assigned to Persia, now Iran. “Spirits do not die,” he said. “So the prince of Persia did not perish in ancient times but still exists.”
According to Cahn, that entity’s mission is singular: to oppose God’s purposes for Israel in the end times. “This demonic entity is particularly focused on the Jewish people, on Israel,” he said.
Standing in opposition, Cahn said, is Michael the archangel. “Behind the nation of Persia or Iran is the Sar Paras,” he said. “And behind the nation of Israel is Michael, the prince of your people.”
The result, Cahn argued, is that an ancient spiritual war is now manifesting in the physical world. “It’s the spiritual realm that determines the physical realm,” he said. “And it’s all here in the Word of God.”
Cahn linked Daniel’s vision to the book of Revelation, where Michael again appears in battle. “In Daniel, Michael wars against the prince of Persia,” he said. “In Revelation, he wars against the dragon.”
For Cahn, the implications are staggering. “What does this tell you?” he asked. “God is real. His Word is true. What He foretold thousands of years ago is coming true in our own day before our very eyes.”
While the revelations point to escalating conflict, Cahn ended on a reassuring note rather than a fearful one. “Do not fear the darkness,” he said. “Much, much greater is He who is in you.”
And as the mystery continues to unfold on the world stage, Cahn offered a final reminder. “For He who keeps Israel,” he said, “will keep you.”
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine.
