Christ Is the Owner of
Haaretz
A Palestinian Perspective
My Context
• I am a Palestinian Arab Christian
• I am living in the Middle East among Jews, Muslims, and
Christians. All are equally loved by the God I worship.
• I am an Evangelical Christian who attempts to promote
both biblical love and Justice as the means to biblical
shalom.
• I believe that both Old and New Testaments are God’s
inspired book.
My Challenge
• Cain and Abel
• Some Muslims see Palestine as an Islamic “waqf,” a sacred possession
given in perpetuity to Muslims.
• Some Jews claim that God gave to them all the Holy Land.
• Some Palestinian Christians and Muslims believe that the Holy Land is
their historic right.
• Many North American Evangelical Christians subscribe to certain forms of
dispensationalism. They assert that God gave Israel the Land.
Comments
• The Missiological View of the Middle East
• The Islamic View of Western Interest in Israel
Three Important Questions
What are the borders of Israel’s land?
Who is Israel?
How Did God give Israel the land?
The First Question:
What are the borders of Israel’s Land?
The Problem
• Defining modern Israel’s borders based on the
Bible is difficult because the Bible gives a variety
of different borders. In the Pentateuch alone, we
encounter at least three different borders (Gen
15:18-21, Num 34:1-12, and Deut 11:24, cf. Josh
1:3, 13-19). The Northern and Eastern
boundaries are strikingly different.
Kallai’s Answer
• Recognizing these territorial differences, Kallai
suggests three possibilities, namely,
HaaretzPatriarchal, HaaretzCanaan, and HaaretzIsrael.
Map
Townsend’s Answer
Jeffrey Townsend had earlier suggested that
there are general descriptions of Haaretz (Gen.
15:18/ Ex. 23: 31/ Num. 13: 21/ Deut. 11: 24/ 1Kg
8:65/ 2Kgs 14:25) and specific descriptions (Num.
34: 1-12/ Josh. 15: 1-12/ Ezek. 47: 15-20). He
adds that these two options are not contradictory
because the wider borders are only general and
variable approximations. There is a distinction
between Haaretz of the Israelites’ residence and
Haaretz where they exercise sovereignty.
Weinfeld’s Answer
• Moshe Weinfeld finds yet another explanation for
these territorial differences, based on the
documentary hypothesis. He believes that the
Transjordanian region is promised to Israel and
cites the following evidence. Chapters 1-3 of
Deuteronomy consider it a part of the land
promised to Israel; the Israelites implemented
the total ban or the utter destruction of every
creature in Transjordan (Deut 2:34-35; 3:6-7;
20:10), just as they did in the other parts they
occupied; and God showed it to Moses as part of
the promised land (Deut. 34:1-4).
Comments
Kallai lacks textual support
Townsend downplays huge territorial differences
Weinfeld ignores the final form of the text
What about the theological context?
The Second Question:
Who is Israel?
The Problem:
Anachronistic reading of the world “Israel”
and equivocality and confusion are common
problems.
Example 1
• John Walvoord described the return of
millions of Jews to their ancient land, the
restoration of national Israel in 1948, and its
expansion in 1967 as fulfillments of prophecy.
In his opinion, the establishment of the state
of Israel is one of the most remarkable
prophetic fulfillments since the destruction of
Jerusalem in 70 A.D. And its preservation is a
clear sign of divine blessing.
Example 2:
Many Evangelical Leaders in 1977
“We the undersigned evangelical Christians affirm
our belief in the right of Israel to exist … we,
along, with most evangelicals, understand the
Jewish homeland generally to include the
territory west of the Jordan River … [W]e would
view with grave concern any effort to carve out of
the historic Jewish homeland another nation or
political entity, particularly one which would be
governed by terrorists … The time has come for
Evangelical Christians to affirm their belief in
biblical prophecy and Israel’s Divine Right to the
Land by speaking now.”
Example 3:
Christian Zionist Congress in 1996
According to God’s distribution of nations, the
Land of Israel has been given to the Jewish
People by God as an everlasting possession by
an eternal covenant. The Jewish People have
the absolute right to possess and dwell in the
Land, including Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the
Golan.
Israel has more than one Meaning in
the Old Testament
• Jacob
– Jacob (Gen 32:28); his children (Gen 34:7); his tribe (Gen 47:27; 49:28);
• Moses
– Descendants of Jacob’s tribe (Ex 1: 7)
• Joshua and the Period of Judges
– Jacob’s descendants except the Reubenites,
– the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh (Josh 22:11);
– Jacob’s descendants except Benjamin (Judges 20:35).
• United Kingdom and before the fall of Samaria
– It may exclude the men of Judah (1Sam 17:52; 18:16);
– Absalom’s men who rebelled against David (2Sam 17:24);
– Northern Kingdom
• After the fall of the Northern Kingdom
– many prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel used it to refer to all the
follower of Yahweh.
Israel has more than one meaning in
the New Testament
The New Testament also includes a plurality of
meanings. “Israel” might designate God’s
people who are led by a shepherd from
Bethlehem (Matt 2:6), or a land (Matt 2:20),
or the twelve tribes judged by the twelve
apostles (Matt 19:12), or the Jews and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem (Acts 2:22), or an
ethnic group (Rom 9:4), or the followers of
God (Rom 9:6; cf. Eph 2:11-22; Gal 6: 16).
Hebrew, Israel, and Jew
• Hebrew: The word Hebrew occurs 47 times in the
Bible.
• The term Jew occurs 91 times in the Old Testament.
• the word “Jew” in the New Testament occurs 199 times
with a spectrum of nuances even within one epistle or
book.
• Abraham; Samuel; Antiochus the Macedonian (2 Mac
9:17); Achior the Ammonite (Judith 14:10)
Clarification
• A Person could be a Hebrew but not Jewish or
Israelite – for example Abraham.
• One could be a member of Israel and a Hebrew
without being Jewish – Samuel.
• One could be Jewish but not Israelite or Hebrew –
Antiochus the Macedonian King (2 Mac 9: 17)
• One could be enfranchised into the household of
Israel and could become Jewish but not be a
Hebrew of a descendant of Jacob – Achior the
Ammonite (Judith 14: 10)
Intermarriages
Men marrying Foreign Women
• Judah married a Canaanite wife (Gen 38; 1Chr
2:3).
• Joseph married an Egyptian (Gen 41:45).
• Simeon married a Canaanite (Gen 46:10).
• Moses married a Midianite (Ex 2:21-22).
• Solomon married many foreign wives (1Kgs 11:13).
• The Book of Judges that many of the
descendants of Jacob had foreign wives (Judges
3:6).
Intermarriages:
Women marrying foreign men
• Shelomith the Daughter of Dibri the Danite
(Lev 24:10-12)
• A Nephtalite woman (the mother of Hiram –
1Kgs 7:13-14)
Legal Sonship
• The Child of a Concubine Wife (Gen 16)
• The Child of a Dead Brother (Gen 38: 8-9)
• The Child of a Hebrew Slave (Ex 21:3-4; cf.
Deut 15:12; Jer 34:9, 14)
• The Child of a Foreign Slave (1Chr 2:34-35)
Foreigners
• Ruth whose grandchild David became one of
Israel’s greatest leaders?
• Rahab (Josh 6:25).
• The 32,000 Midianite virgins (Num 31:35).
Comments
• Israel’s DNA (cf. Matt 3:9 and John 8:37-39).
• What about Jesus?
• What about Rom 9:6?
The third Question:
How Did God Give Israel Haaretz?
The Problem:
• Israel Today is not a Repentant Israel
• The Biblical Pattern of Returning to the Land
– One Example Ezek 33:21-29
• What about the Dislocation of 50,000
Christian Palestinian Arabs
The Meanings of Haaretz
• Before Abraham
• Between Abraham and Christ
• In light of the Christ Event
The Meanings of Haaretz:
Before Abraham
•
•
•
Planet Earth (Gen 1:1);
Earth without the Waters (Gen 1:24-25);
The People of the World (Gen 11:1)
•
•
•
•
•
It was created (Gen 1)
It was given to Adam and Eve (Gen 1: 27-30)
It was cursed (Adamah is used Gen 3:17)
It was cursed with the flood
It was divided (Niflegah – Gen 10:25) into many lands among the descendants of
Noah Shem, Japheth, and Ham (Gen 10:5, 20, 31)
•
•
We learn the borders of Canaan son of Ham (Gen 10:19)
We learn that Nimrod a descendant of Ham established the first human kingdom
in Eretz Shinar (Gen 10:10)
The Plurality of lands is understood in light of what happens in Eretz Shinar (Gen
11)
•
The Meanings of Haaretz:
Between Abraham and Christ
• Gen 12:1-3
• Gen 22:17 (Abraham’s seed will inherit the
territories of their enemies)
- HaaretzAbrahamic will grow into HaaretzGlobal
• Psalm 2 captures the same vision
• Zion becomes the symbol of the Global
Perspective
- See Is 2:1-4
- See Ps 87
The Meanings of Haaretz:
After Christ
•
•
•
•
•
Jesus is the Second Adam (1Cor 15:45)
Jesus is also entrusted with Haaretz Global (Matt 28:18; 11:27)
Every knee will bow down to Him (Phil 2:10)
All things were created for him and by him (Col 1:16)
He is the heir of everything (Heb 1:2)
– Leon Morris: The Word “Heir” means the one who has lawful
possession.
– Elingworth: heir points to permanent possession usually of land.
• HaaretzAbrahamic became HaaretzGlobal through faith in Jesus (Rom
4:13)
• For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world (cosmos
not ge), was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but
through the righteousness of faith. (KJV)
Concluding Remarks
• The Proposition: God Gave Israel Haaretz
should be re-investigated in light of the
biblical data
• Promoting a Christological ownership of
Haaretz provide new bridges of dialogue with
Muslims.