[3] For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. [4] And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. Micah 1:3-4

These verses of Micah figuratively picture melting topography and spreading valleys beneath the feet of the lord. The word used for “cleft” is “baqa,” which is the same word used for “cleave” in Zechariah 14:4 to describe the formation of a very great valley through the Mount of Olives at the end of the Tribulation Period. It means “to break, rend, rip up, make a breach, separate, split, cut out, break through or into, or to divide.” The same God who inspired this Scripture has, for a very long time, been bringing molten rock upward through a crack in the crust of southeastern Africa. And, as this molten rock has cooled to form new crust, it has caused the crack to spread apart into a very great valley, a valley that is cleaving apart “as wax before the fire.” This great rift valley is shown in Figure 25 (Click on “Figures” at the top of this Birth Pang). The same God who is spreading apart the Red Sea floor is also slowly spreading apart southeastern Africa at the same time.

Please note the great African Rift Valley in Figure 30. At times, God works very slowly, as He has to create this great valley. However, Peter informs us that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” The same God who has formed the great African Rift Valley of Figure 30 over a long period of time can, abruptly and without warning, create such a valley in less than a day. This is how a somewhat smaller, but similar, valley will be generated suddenly through the Mount of Olives in less than an hour.

Of particular interest in Figure 30 is the location of the Afar Triangle at the juncture of three rift valleys: the Red Sea, Aden, and African rift cracks in the earth’s crust. This juncture is called a “triple point” in geological jargon. These three large pieces of the earth’s crust (Identified as the African, Arabian, and Somalian Plates in Figure 30) are slowly spreading apart from one another and, in the wake of their movement, are leaving behind a sinking depression in the crust of the earth, a depression identified as the Afar Triangle or Depression. The Afar Depression has not always existed. At one time it was merely a structural weakness in the crust of the earth where converging intersections of faults were made at angles which approached the perpendicular. But a tremendous shaking and upheaval in the earth’s crust at these intersections caused the formation of an active triple point depression at their juncture, and the spreading, particularly northward toward Israel, has been the most active on the Red Sea floor. The geological history of this rift structure, in chronological sequence, is as follows: (1) First the Gulf of Aden begin to rip apart, (2) Then the African Rift began to spread, (3) Then the Red Sea Floor began to actively spread, (4) Then the Gulf of Suez torn apart from the Sinai, and finally, (5) The Gulf of Aqabah (Eilat) torn away from the Arabian Plate. The next section that will rip apart is the land of Israel from Eilat to the intersection of the Plain of Jezreel with the Jordan River Valley, a distance of some 1600 furlongs (185 miles). For a full exposition of this ripping of the Jordan River Valley go back to Birth Pang Numbers 15 and 16, along with all their associated Figures.

At the present time there exists a pattern of normal faults in the Jerusalem area similar to those that led to the initial formation of the Afar Depression. I believe that, when God rips open the Arabah fault northward for 185 miles, the associated shaking and upheaval in the earth’s crust will produce a small Afar like depression on the eastern lee of the Mount of Olives. For want of a better name, I will refer to it as the Zechariah Triangle or Depression. Lord willing, Birth Pang Number 20, Chapter 22, will be devoted to a description of this future depression and its relationship to the cleaving of the Mount of Olives.