Israel At Sixty
In the Beginning
Audio MP3
Many reading these words were alive on May 14, 1948, when David Ben-Gurion began
to read the text declaring the establishment of the State of Israel (see p. 51). Those who knew of
the fierce opposition by the leaders of countries surrounding Israel probably expected this new
nation to last but a few days. Yet because of the providences of God and the commitment of the
early settlers in the land, Israel has not only survived, it has thrived.
Today more than six million Israelis living in an area roughly the size of the state of New
Jersey, enjoy a vibrant economy generating a per-capita Gross Domestic Product of $28,800
(2007 estimate).1 Israel’s impact on global affairs continues to be far greater than their small size
would suggest. Certainly God has blessed them as he said he would in Numbers 6:27.
Sixty years have now passed since Israel proclaimed itself an autonomous state. This
special issue looks at the history of the Jews and the nation of Israel, beginning with the faithful
founding fathers, progressing through the exodus from Egypt, the appointment by God of their
first kings, then their captivity under a succession of world empires. At the time of Christ the
religious leaders cooperated with the Roman authorities because it was to their advantage to do
so, an arrangement that ended with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in
70A.D. Worldwide persecution of Jews followed during the period called the “Dark Ages.”
Finally in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries hope sprung up for a regathering of Jews to a
land of their own, a hope that was realized in 1948. The final article in this issue looks at what
we can reasonably expect to happen in the near future based on Bible prophecies.
There is so much to say on this subject that we took the unprecedented step of adding
twenty pages to our usual length. We trust you will enjoy this overview of the significant events
associated with God’s “chosen people” (Deuteronomy 7:6).
__________
1. Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/is.html
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
The Founding Fathers
Audio MP3
And the LORD gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers;
and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.—Joshua 21:43
Aaron Kuehmichel
The nation of Israel is God’s chosen people with a heritage going back to the twelve
tribes, then to Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, the father of the faithful. The faith of Israel’s founding
fathers is quite amazing. Each was chosen by God to be the one through whom God’s promises
would be fulfilled. Genesis describes some of the events in their lives, events God deemed
necessary for us to learn more about them and their faith. As we examine the founding fathers of
Israel, we see that each grew in faith, going through three common stages: testing, trusting, and
reliance. Ultimately, they trusted God completely which is why they became founding fathers.
Abraham
Why did God choose Abraham? Abram was a descendant of Noah through Noah’s son
Shem. In fact Shem and Abraham probably interacted with each other since Shem died only
twenty-five years before Abraham died. The heritage of Abraham’s ancestry was one of faith.
Clearly there was something in Abraham’s character that made God realize that Abraham would
accept the blessings he had in store for him (Genesis 18:17-19).
God told Abram to leave his home and go to a land he would show him (Genesis 12:1;
Acts 7:2-4). Abram, Sarai, and Lot left for Canaan and arrived at Shechem where God converted
his earlier promise into a covenant by telling Abram that this land would be given to his
descendants. Abram built an altar and worshipped there. Then he travelled south some twenty
miles to an area between Bethel and Ai where he built another altar to the Lord. For the first time
we are told that Abram “called upon the name of the LORD.” Perhaps it took time and reflection,
but Abram was sure God was watching over him (Genesis 12:7,8).
Abram had many experiences in which he learned to trust God. Soon after arriving at
Shechem, there was a famine in the land and he travelled south to Egypt (Genesis 12:10). Abram
had good reason to move to greener pastures. He had family, servants, and flocks to care for and
that would be impossible during a famine in Canaan.
When Abram arrived in Egypt, Pharaoh took Sarai into his household to be his wife. God
protected Abram and Sarai by plaguing Pharaoh’s house. Through this Pharaoh learned that Sarai
was actually Abram’s wife, not just his sister. Pharaoh rebuked Abram for misleading him about
Sarai and forced Abram to leave. Abram returned to Bethel, and again he called upon the name
of the Lord (Genesis 13:4). Upon Abram’s separating from Lot, God confirmed the covenant
with Abram and said he would give all the land Abram could see to him and his descendants.
God used time to develop the faith of his people. Eleven years passed and Ishmael was
born to Hagar, Sarai’s maid. Thirteen years later God interacted with Abram again. He changed
Abram’s name to Abraham (father of a multitude), and confirmed his covenant (remembered
through circumcision) with Abraham and his seed. God changed Sarai’s name to Sarah
(Princess), and promised she would have a son to be named Isaac (he laughs), and that through
Isaac God would fulfill the covenant made with Abraham (Genesis chapters 16 and 17).
God continued to reveal himself to Abraham through the experiences of Sodom and
Abimelech. God revealed his plan for Sodom and Gomorrah. Though the Scriptures are not
specific about what God would do, Abraham correctly concluded that Sodom would be
destroyed and his thoughts went to his nephew Lot. Abraham asked for the cities to be spared if
there were but ten righteous living there. We can reasonably conclude that Lot’s family size
consisted of six if one includes Lot’s future sons-in-law. Abraham must have thought that there
would be at least four more in all of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But there were not ten
righteous and the cities were destroyed. In this experience Abraham learned of the severity of
God (punishment for sin), and of his mercy (willing to accommodate Abraham’s request to save
the cities if there were just ten righteous). Abraham, watching from a distance, probably
concluded that Lot and his family were also destroyed. He left the area and travelled south.
Departing from Hebron, he settled into the territory of Abimelech (Genesis 20:1).
Abimelech rebuked Abraham for letting him take Sarah as a wife, returned Sarah, compensated
Abraham, and allowed Abraham to dwell in the land. Time passed, Isaac was born and weaned,
Abraham made his way to Beersheba, and Ishmael was sent away. When Abimelech saw God’s
blessing upon Abraham, he made a covenant with him. For the third time we are told that
Abraham called upon the name of the Lord (Genesis 21:33). Abraham was learning to
acknowledge God’s hand in his affairs and to trust God. Upon reflecting on the providence of
God in his life, Abraham built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord. Would that we all
bow down in gratitude and thankfulness in worship of God for our experiences.
Abraham’s greatest test would involve the one through whom the covenant was
confirmed by God’s oath. Isaac was probably in his mid-teens. Forty years had passed since God
had called Abraham at the age of seventy-five. During that time Abraham had come to trust God
implicitly.
God asked Abraham to go to the land of Moriah to offer his son. Immediately Abraham
departed to give back to God the son God promised would be used to fulfill the promises God
had made to him: “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who
had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said
to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God
could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death” (Hebrews
11:17-19, NIV).
Because Abraham acted according to his belief, God promised him by oath that his seed
would bless all the nations of the earth: “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because
you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly
bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and as the sand which
is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. And in your seed all the
nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Genesis 22:16-
18, NASB). God did indeed provide himself a lamb, as Abraham said to Isaac, but it was
provided before the foundation of the world. In due time Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, the
promised seed through Abraham, offered himself willingly for the sins of the world. The
sacrifice offered by Abraham that day was a ram provided by God, showing that Abraham’s
offering of Isaac was accepted as if he had been slain on the altar.
Abraham had learned to trust God completely and that belief was accounted to him for
righteousness (Romans 4:3). Abraham’s faith and experiences impacted his household and those
around him. Even as a lad, Isaac knew what sacrifice was. He observed that they did not have a
lamb for the burnt offering and Abraham replied prophetically that God would provide one. Isaac
submitted to his father and permitted himself to be offered. God accepted Abraham’s offering as
though it were completed and confirmed his blessing to Abraham and, consequently, to Isaac as
well. Isaac continued under his father’s care and was prepared for his own relationship with God.
Abraham’s chief servant trusted in the God of Abraham to bless the selection of a wife for Isaac.
Isaac
Little is recorded about Isaac after his experience at Mount Moriah. Certainly he
benefitted and learned from his father’s experiences with God. Isaac manifested a great degree of
patience and trust in divine providence to guide his affairs as heir to his father, Abraham. Isaac,
as a type of Christ, was fully submissive to the will of his father even as Jesus submits to the
divine will in selecting the church to be his bride and joint-heir in the complete fulfillment of the
promise to Abraham. Apparently Isaac established residence in the Negev or south country
(Genesis 24:62) apart from Abraham, assuming Abraham was still dwelling around Beersheba
after returning from Mt. Moriah (Genesis 22:19). Perhaps Isaac timed his visit to his father in
conjunction with the expected return of Abraham’s servant who was sent to obtain a wife for
him. Rebekah sees Isaac in the fields, is welcomed by him, and becomes his wife.
Isaac, like the other founding fathers, needed to learn the sovereignty of God. Twenty
years pass before God does what is necessary to implement his promise to Abraham. In response
to Isaac’s intercessory prayer, Rebekah becomes pregnant and delivers twin sons, Jacob and
Esau. Perhaps the experiences of Abraham and Sarah gave Isaac and Rebekah the grace they
needed to be patient; there is no record of complaint from either of them.
Isaac is initially blessed because of his father’s faith, not his own. Abraham died and was
buried and another famine afflicted the land. Isaac headed east to Gerar near Abimelech, and
contemplated going south. God told Isaac not to go to Egypt, effectively keeping him in the
promised land, and that because of Abraham’s faith, God would perform the oath he swore to
Abraham with Isaac (Genesis 26:3-5). Isaac stayed in the land of the Philistines and because of
God’s blessing, became rich. Abimelech feared Isaac’s power and sent him away peacefully.
Isaac finally found a place over which the Philistines did not contend and said, “At last the
LORD has made room for us” (Genesis 26:22, NAS). Trusting God to give him the land in his
own due time and way, he relinquished his claim and returned to Beersheba. That night, God
assured Isaac of his blessing reaffirming the covenant made with his father, Abraham. Then the
Scriptures record the first time Isaac builds an altar and calls upon the name of the Lord. Isaac
establishes residency and permanency by digging a well.
God’s timing is amazing. Immediately after God’s affirmation to Isaac, Abimelech made
a peace agreement with Isaac and reminded Isaac of what he already knew: “You are now the
blessed of the LORD” (Genesis 26:29, NAS). Abimelech departed early in the morning, and that
same day God further blessed Isaac’s acknowledgment of God by making the well productive.
Isaac now unreservedly walked with the Lord.
Isaac eventually died at the age of 180. Although his two sons lived in different locations,
they came together to bury him (Genesis 35:29). Isaac never left the land promised to him; he
lived out his days in the areas of Beersheba and Hebron in the south. Though he never left,
neither did he receive the land as his inheritance. As with his father before him, Isaac was a man
of God.
Jacob
Isaac’s son Jacob bought his older brother Esau’s birthright with one hot meal; then he
obtained the blessing Isaac intended for Esau (Genesis 27:36). Isaac thought he did not have
much longer to live so he decided to pass his chief blessing to Esau. Rebekah overheard Isaac’s
intention and told Jacob to impersonate Esau and receive that blessing. But because Esau hated
him for what he had done, Jacob fled to his uncle Laban in Haran. He essentially relinquished his
earthly inheritance to Esau. Before he left, Isaac blessed him and confirmed to him the
Abrahamic blessing: “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that
you may become a company of peoples. May he also give you the blessing of Abraham, to you
and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God
gave to Abraham” (Genesis 28:3,4, NASB).
Appreciating Jacob’s character and respect for the blessing, God appeared to him in a
vision confirming the original promise made to Abraham and renewed to Isaac: “I am the LORD,
the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to
you and to your descendants … and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the
earth be blessed. And behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring
you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you”
(Genesis 28:13-15). Jacob vowed that if God would indeed keep him on this journey and bring
him back to his father’s house in safety, then Jehovah would be his God.
God’s blessing was on Jacob. He served Laban fourteen years for Laban’s daughters,
Leah and Rachel, followed by six years for his flocks. Laban’s attitude gradually changed to
jealousy because of Jacob’s prosperity. God told Jacob to go back home. Lest Jacob think the
increase of his flocks was because of his own ingenuity, God reminded him in a dream that it
happened because of God’s care over him. God also reminded Jacob of the vow Jacob made to
serve God when he first fled from Esau and, in effect, told him to honor it. In obedience, Jacob
left, Laban pursued, and God intervened so Laban would not harm him. God restored what Jacob
gave up when he fled Esau, namely the natural blessing that was associated with the birthright.
Jacob knew he must make peace with Esau, so he sent messengers to Esau asking for
favor in his sight. Esau was on his way to see Jacob accompanied with four hundred men. Jacob
was afraid and divided his possessions into two companies. Having done all he could, he prayed
for deliverance from Esau reminding God that he sent him this way, and that he, Jacob, was not
worthy of all the Lord had given him, and that God had promised to make his descendants too
great to be numbered. Jacob sent his family across the brook, and he stayed behind. That night,
Jacob wrestled with an angel to obtain God’s blessing through Abraham. His persistence in
obtaining the blessing revealed how much he desired it. The angel changed his name from Jacob
to Israel because “you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed” (Genesis
32:28, NAS). With the blessing, Jacob also received a reminder of his dependence upon God:
from that day forward Jacob limped.
Jacob still had to reconcile with Esau if he was to live peacefully in the land. So he gave
many gifts to Esau before meeting him. When they finally met, the two who greeted, embraced,
and wept in joy were not the same who separated twenty years earlier. God indeed had been with
Jacob, and Jacob knew it. He returned to Shechem, built an altar, and although the Scriptures do
not specifically say he called upon the name of the Lord, he called the altar “El-elohe-Israel”
(”the mighty God of Israel,” Genesis 33:20).
Jacob returned to the land of his fathers to where God had told Abram that “this land”
would be given to his descendants (Genesis 12:6,7). God sent Jacob to Bethel, the place where
Jacob had originally vowed to make God his God if he returned safely. Jacob departed for Bethel
and kept his word. He cleansed his house of idols and built an altar to the Lord. In response to
Jacob’s commitment, God reaffirmed the promise made to Abraham and Isaac before him: “And
the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I
give the land” (Genesis 35:12).
Jacob stayed in the land promised him until God told him to leave. At the age of one
hundred thirty Jacob began the journey to see his son Joseph in Egypt. He was determined to go,
but stopped first and worshipped at the altar Isaac had built in Beersheba. Evidently, as much as
he wanted to see his beloved Joseph, he did not want to leave the land God had promised him.
God affirmed that he should go and that he would make of him a great nation. Encouraged, Jacob
departed, never to return to the land he was promised. He went to Egypt under God’s direction
and died there at the age of one hundred forty seven (Genesis 47:28). Just before his death when
blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, Jacob spoke of God’s blessing: “God, before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day” (Genesis
48:14-16). Like Abraham and Isaac, Jacob was a man of God.
Legacy for Israel Today
In fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham, repeated to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob
a long time ago, the nation of Israel exists under God’s care today. This nation exists because of
the faith of these three men, Israel’s founding fathers. Each of them had many experiences
through which they learned to fully trust God, and to make Him sovereign in their lives.
Abraham had to prove that he trusted God even to the point of giving up his son. Isaac learned
the sovereignty of God and was willing to wait for God to work out his plan in his own way.
Jacob proved that he desired the spiritual blessing that came with the birthright more than the
natural blessing. Faith grew in stages in the lives of each of these faithful men until each reached
the point of complete reliance upon God.
The nation of Israel will also progress in faith until, like her founding fathers, she has
complete reliance on the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Though Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
never received the land God promised to give them, their offspring, the nation of Israel, now has
it. God will keep his promise to the founding fathers of Israel in the resurrection when they will
finally, personally, possess the land and realize the fullness of God’s promise.
The Exodus
Preparation for a Kingdom
Audio MP3
What hath God wrought!—Numbers 23:23
Donald Holliday
Back in the mists of time before the earth was formed, God was alone; the purpose of the
ages was in his mind. There in a vision of delight he viewed the wondrous end of his great work:
a family, a wonderful family of sentient beings, to live on various planes. Each family member
would be intelligent and reflect some likeness of God’s mind: creative, thoughtful, and endowed
with senses enabling fellowship with God. The common bond of love would unite all and
guarantee eternal harmony between Him and every member of that blessed family.
So wonderful a purpose called for wisdom, skill, and power beyond our dreams.
Achievement would entail much patient love, and would demand acceptance of great cost. That
cost, the Father knew, would have to include innumerable heartaches, countless tears, the misery
and sadness from a reign of sin which would be an essential step in developing that freewill
choice of holiness which would crown his work. The greatest cost of all would be a “lamb.”
Through many ages was the earth prepared. At last, the moment came and man was
formed, and heaven rejoiced. All seemed to be going well. Yet the wise Creator knew that time
would come for man’s free will to choose a course apart from him. And so death reigned from
Adam to Moses.
More than two and a half millennia passed from Adam’s fall with man enslaved and
trodden down by sin.1 Then was deliverance portrayed, and there began a thousand years in
which, in type, a kingdom was prepared. It was not yet the finished work of God, but it was full
of lessons pointing forth the nature of the preparatory work for the true kingdom.
From the whole lump of human clay one family was set apart from which would spring
the seed, foretold at Adam’s fall, who would be the deliverer from sin’s curse. Thus by the
Lord’s design it became Israel’s role to illustrate important features of His plan for all mankind.
Into the history of this chosen race God wove the story-line of human plight and showed,
in type, the answer to man’s needs. In Israel’s own preparation for its place the Lord portrays the
truths all men will learn, so they may one day enter and enjoy the blessings God prepared for
every family of this earth.
Blood of a Lamb (Exodus 12:3-13)
What graphic picture of mankind’s sad state was there depicted in Israel’s sighs and
groans, for they were slaves in Egypt with no prospect of relief from the misery of that bondage!
Their cries reached up to heaven, from whence at last deliverance would come in the blood of a
lamb. For three days and a half that lamb was taken into their homes to dwell among them. But
to achieve deliverance the hour came for that lamb to die, its life surrendered, and the doorposts
daubed with its blood.
That very night did terror spread throughout the land as cry upon cry went up from
Egyptian home to home. By light of dawn each first-born in the land lay dead, all but the first-
born of the Hebrew slaves, whose life was spared because of that lamb’s blood. They were
passed over from the scourge of death.
Each year thereafter Israel would recall the terror of that night, that lamb and its saving
blood: deliverance of their first-born seed and the dash for freedom following with the light of
day, providing deliverance of all the people from bondage by the servant whom God chose. Thus
was salvation for all people shown. But this was first preceded by deliverance of those who
would in a special sense become the Lord’s first-born. Two hopes are thus revealed, one for the
ones who by new-birth would be the first to taste the blessings of redeeming grace, the other for
all families of this earth. The Church of the Firstborn are the first to share and then become
dispenser
of
life’s
blessing
to mankind.
Song of Moses (Exodus 15:1-21)
Not without struggle would Pharaoh let them go. Nor will sin loose its hold on man
without a fight. This would forty desert years illustrate. Four and a half centuries more would
only bring the shadowy kingdom blessings of the type. Yet final victory for man will come, and
this we glimpse in that triumphant morn when those pursuing Egyptian chariots sank to rise no
more. The sea was lit as though by fire as it reflected the first hues of that new day, and wave
upon wave now flooded in to wash away all traces of that sinful enemy. First spell-bound at the
sight, then from that wondering throng rose wave on wave of praise as sheer delight replaced the
fears that had beset each soul that night. Then suddenly did all begin to sing! Oh what a blessed
glimpse is here portrayed of that triumphant hour of sweet release when all sin’s hold, its evils
and its woes, will fall like broken fetters at the feet of all that through sin mourn. With gladness
and rejoicing shall they come, the Lord’s redeemed, while God himself will sing (Zephaniah
3:17) and heaven’s joy will be shared by men.
Three cameos then show, in ways related to the needs of man, the cost of that salvation.
They also speak of blessings now enjoyed by simple trust, yet to be shared by all the ransomed
race.
One
theme
appears
through
each:
Sweetening the Waters (Exodus 15:23)
Messiah,
man’s
deliverer,
crucified.
Three days from that triumph at the sea the people marched, but gradual unease began to
show. Their water bottles soon drained dry and no source of replenishment was found. Then,
what relief at the sight of Marah’s pool! With quickening steps the pilgrim band approached
what seemed to be the answer to their sighs, and joyfully they stooped to take their fill. Then
with cries of grief and discontent they found the waters were unfit to drink. The bitterness of
Marah filled their souls, and angrily they turned upon their guide. How swiftly disappointment
changes mood. The Lord knew well the people’s need. He also knew the cost of its supply. The
tree that makes life’s bitter waters sweet would be the cruel cross of Calvary.
The Smitten Rock (Exodus 17:6)
The hot relentless sun beat down and wearily two million thirst-parched souls trudged on
in vain attempt to search for what alone would satisfy their desperate need. The little children
cried, tempers rose, and sight was lost of earlier victory and trust in heaven’s providence. Was
God asleep? Did He not care who brought them to this place so bare of life’s necessities? Their
anger turned upon that man God gave to lead them through this wilderness. “Why do you say, O
Jacob, and complain, O Israel, My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by
my God?” (Isaiah 40:27, NIV). When God in wisdom waits to bless, it is to test the faith He
seeks, that “though he slay me” (Job 13:15) will confess full confidence and trust. Such truths
Israel must yet learn who could not see that one who stood above on Horeb’s height (Exodus
17:6). At divine direction Moses smote the rock. Then sprang the waters forth, rivers of life’s
water from the rock that followed them along their desert way. With joy the people rushed to
drink and satisfy their thirst.
Thus will mankind one day enjoy life’s waters to the full, and each will know that rock
was Christ, that he was smitten, tasted death, that they might have abundant life.
Made a Sin-Offering for Us (Numbers 21:4)
Another answer to human need came in the graphic language of this further type. The
people were discouraged by the way. Their fortunes seemed so mixed and faith was tried, until
resentfully they cried against their God. The manna that God’s love supplied now failed to
satisfy the cravings of the flesh for a more varied fare. Perhaps we might admit, if we were there,
our own complaining flesh would test our trust. Then, as if adding to their plight, the Lord sent
fiery serpents to the camp, and death lay in their venomous fangs. The scene was set for another
glimpse of what redemption’s plan would yet entail. A serpent made of bronze was raised on
high for all to see, and those who looked thereon would find the remedy for that fierce serpent’s
bite that plagued mankind. One day the whole world will behold that man, and recognize in him
the perfect one once lifted up for them to bear that curse.
Thus did accounts of that long march from bondage to the kingdom form a treasure trail
of truth, a deep mine of embedded gems for man to search when eyes are opened and men see
this
history
that
speaks
prophecy.
The Upward Path (Isaiah 26:9,10)
Milestones of the desert march show stages in the way of holiness for Israel and mankind.
A righteous nation they were called to be, that bunch of slaves, a peculiar treasure of God’s
family on earth (Exodus 19:5,6). By sin enslaved, yet called to fellowship with him whose name
is holy. With wonder do we ask: “How can this be?”
Only in shadowy outline was the path there shown, the upward climb from the wilderness
of sin to Zion, the holy mount of God. First must God’s ways be known, that perfect law to be
engraved in every mind. There is a way that seemeth right to man, whose fallen judgment is long
warped by sin. The standards of the world around may seem sufficient for the day; just keep
one’s lusts concealed and cleanse the outside of the cup. But this is not God’s way, who seeks to
live within the temple of man’s heart and cannot dwell with sin. The blind must first be made to
see, then follow their Redeemer from the state of curse to taste the perfect liberty of sons of God
(Matthew
20:29-34).
Need of the Mediator (Exodus 20:18,19)
Moses stepped into the breach between the people and their God (Psalm 106:23, TLB).
Still with alarm do people back away and flee from God’s commands of holy walk, supposing
that his laws will so restrict and curb man’s lusts that life will turn to misery. What lessons must
be learned until men see that without law there can be no liberty. But law imposed is not enough.
No rules of conduct can release the captives from the power of sin (Mark 5:3-5). Nor can the
work of grace begin without a savior, one who knows man’s need, and who, for man, will plead
with God. The go-between of Sinai, the high priest offering in the holy court, and the Joshua who
will complete the journey that the Law began, wondrous roles fulfilled by the Son of God, and
Son
of
Man!
When All Mankind Will Know (Joshua 3:15-17; John 17:11)
The people wait at Jordan’s banks aware that they must shortly ford that river of death.
The living know that they will die, but can they with such certainty believe that they will rise
again beyond death’s waves? The Jordan floods today: more people die now every hour than at
any time in earth’s history. The gospel message only few receive, and many doubt that Jesus
really saves. But time is nearing for death’s tide to ebb, for far upstream we trace its flow back to
a place called “Adam,” and there by the ransom pledge that dreaded flood be stayed. The people
watch with awe as at the feet of priests death’s waters fail. With apprehension had they gathered
there, but with what blest relief they cross the Jordan, assured of life beyond that evil tide. Thus
did God mightily confirm that Joshua was the servant he had sent. So men will know that when
they come forth from death they now so fear, that Jesus is indeed God’s holy son: for every
ransomed
soul
a
Savior
dear.
Giants in the Land (Numbers 13:33)
The lamb of God once slain must first prepare men’s hearts before they own his reign.
There is no easy way, no magic wand to wave to instantly transform each sin-born slave. A
consecrated mind is first required before the spirit can each vessel fill and every pot be holiness.
The period of the judges shows how steep the climb and tough the way before man learns
obedience and trust.
The close besetting sin will oft return. One quarter of that age or more was spent in
frequent bondage. Each was correction for the nation’s lapse. Yet over and again a savior rose at
God’s command to stir afresh a zeal for righteousness. So much will mankind need the savior’s
aid to conquer giant enemies within their hearts of selfishness and lust that urge them down the
path
of
continued
disobedience.
Shout of a King (Numbers 23:21)
At last the old man, Adam (Edom), must submit that it no more may block the king’s
highways (Numbers 20:17,18; Isaiah chapter 34 must precede chapter 35). Then from the Mount
of Curses man will turn and to the Mount of Blessing make his way, with ears attuned to God,
and hearts that burn with deep desire their savior king to ever own and serve (Zephaniah 3:9).
Within each heart the struggle will go on. Each man must fight for victory to win. The stirring
aid of those God has prepared, the pastors given after his own heart, like shining stars will guide
men’s minds and lead them on to conquer every foe. The teachings of the word, once happily
ignored, will be the light to guide, and on the mount of God will saviors rise (Isaiah 1:26; 30:20;
Jeremiah 3:15; Obadiah 21). Thus will men learn those songs of triumph to sing as they ascribe
their victories to him, that “lamb” once slain.
The Test of Time (Exodus 32)
Impatiently they count the days, while Moses lingers on the mount, ’til anxiously his
brother seeks to pacify the restless throng. The voice from heaven is no longer heard, and
reverential fear of those who once faced the shaking mount has waned. How shall God’s worship
be maintained without some aid by man’s device, some thing of beauty that will complement the
act of obedient love required by God? No sordid object of base substance will suffice, only gold,
whatever be the cost. The golden jewels of Egyptian women given in fear to rid them of the
plagues are quickly gathered for the smiths to fashion into the form of beast man deems
appropriate.
We tell this ancient tale in the present tense for it has a warning for each age of man.
Time alone will test man’s intent to worship God. We daily ask the Lord to search and to
eradicate all human thought that would debase the home of our hearts in which he deigns to
dwell. The most ingenuous schemes to serve, if based on man’s wisdom, we are always wise to
doubt, or else a golden calf may come out.
_____________
1.According to the chronology in The Time Is at Hand seven times from the assumed date of Adam’s fall ends
within the first decade of the wilderness march. From that date began a thousand year millennial “evening-morning”
day of kingdom development. No sight of a tangible kingdom appeared during the first (or evening) half of this day.
That thousand years ended at the captivity where the next seven “Gentile times” sequence began.
From Saul to Zedekiah
The Kingdom of Israel
Audio MP3
If ye shall … do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.—1 Samuel
12:25
Aaron Marten
The account of the transition from the period of the judges to the kingdom of Israel is
found in 1 Samuel chapters 8 through 12. When the people of Israel witnessed the corruption and
perversions of justice committed by Samuel’s sons, the elders of the nation cried out for a king.
Samuel, knowing the potential dangers involved in appointing a king, went to the Lord in prayer
seeking his direction. After reassuring Samuel that the people’s rejection of the judges was
ultimately a rejection of the Lord and his arrangements, God commanded Samuel to warn the
people of the course they were taking. Although having a king would cost the people liberty,
property, and even life itself, they wanted so badly to be “like all nations” they still insisted on
having a king over them.
Saul, the First King
Samuel gathered the people together to witness the formal choosing of their king (1
Samuel 10:17-25). Before revealing the Lord’s choice, Samuel reminded the people that their
desire for having a human king meant their rejection of Jehovah God as their king. Saul came
from a humble family: “And Saul answered and said, Am not I a Benjamite, of the smallest of
the tribes of Israel? and my family the least of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin?
wherefore then speakest thou so to me?” (1 Samuel 9:21). In the selections of both Saul, and
later David, the Lord sought those of a meek spirit.
In the second year of his reign, Saul proceeded to organize an army to relieve Israel of the
oppression they were suffering at the hands of the Philistines. The people became fearful and
scattered when they witnessed the forces of the Philistines gathered against them. Saul, without
the authority to do so under the Law, sacrificed a burnt offering to the Lord (1 Samuel 13:9).
Despite his good intentions and desire to please the Lord, Saul was not authorized to do what he
did. There is a lesson for all the Lord’s people in this experience. Even if we have zeal for the
Lord, and an honest desire to please him, if we do not act according to his will and his
commandments, we will be displeasing to God. In Saul’s case, his carelessness cost him and his
progeny the kingdom: “And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept
the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the
LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel forever” (1 Samuel 13:13).
Saul was permitted to reign for a total of forty years (Acts 13:21), but instead of the
kingdom being continued through the tribe of Benjamin and his bloodline, God sought out “a
man after his own heart” (1 Samuel 13:14). The Lord “repented that he had made Saul king over
Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35) and much later instructed Samuel to seek out and anoint David as his
choice of successor.
David and a United Kingdom
After the death of Saul and three of his sons (1 Samuel 31), David was anointed in the
city of Hebron as king over the tribe of Judah (2 Samuel 2:3,4). At the same time, Abner, the
captain of Saul’s army and Saul’s first cousin, anointed Ish-bosheth, Saul’s son, as the king over
the other eleven tribes of Israel (2 Samuel 2:8,9). This division of the tribe of Judah from the
remainder of the nation caused a series of battles and wars between Judah and the remnants of
Saul’s house reigning over Israel (2 Samuel 3:1). After two years, both Abner and Ish-bosheth
had been killed. With no-one from the house of Saul available, the people of the eleven tribes
came to David in Hebron, and David was anointed as the king over all twelve tribes of Israel (2
Samuel 5:1-3).
Note some of the character aspects David demonstrated during this time. After Saul had
been mortally wounded in battle, he killed himself because his armor bearer refused to kill
him (1 Samuel 31:4). Afterward an Amalekite came to David with the news of Saul’s death,
lying that he had put him out of his misery (2 Samuel 1:8-10). Even though Saul had tried to kill
David on several occasions, David had such a reverence for the anointing of the Lord that Saul
had received, he ordered the Amalakite who “destroyed the Lord’s anointed” to be slain
(2 Samuel 1:14-16). After Ish-bosheth was murdered by two of his army captains, they brought
David his head (2 Samuel 4). David had them killed, even though Ish-boseth was David’s
enemy. These two events show us just how thoroughly the traits of justice and love, even for
one’s own enemies, were deeply embedded in David’s heart.
After being anointed as king over all Israel, David went up from Hebron to Jerusalem.
After taking the city from the Jebusites, David established Jerusalem as the new capital of
the nation of Israel, calling it the “city of David” (2 Samuel 5:6-10). Instead of boasting of
his great military and political achievements, David gave the credit for his success to Jehovah
(2 Samuel 5:12).
The firm establishment of the united kingdom of all twelve tribes at Jerusalem can
undoubtedly be attributed to David’s faithfulness in seeking the Lord’s will in all the affairs of
the nation from the beginning. However, David was not a perfect king. When he committed
adultery with Bathsheba and, in effect, murdered her husband Uriah, the prophet Nathan
delivered a message from the Lord that “the sword shall never depart from thine house; because
thou hast despised me … I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house” (2 Samuel
12:10,11).
David’s son Absalom spent much of his life trying to supplant David and cause the
people to rebel against him. Absalom’s rebellion became so serious, that David fled Jerusalem
to avoid a civil war. When a battle between David and Absalom eventually occurred, even under
incredibly difficult circumstances, David instructed his captains to not harm Absalom if they
came upon him in the battle (2 Samuel 18:5). Absalom was defeated, and the kingdom was
restored to David, although not without a great deal of heartache (2 Samuel 18:33).
As David neared the end of his life, Adonijah, another of David’s sons, attempted to
secure his presumed right to inherit the throne. Nevertheless, the Lord had chosen Solomon
as the next king. Upon his birth, the prophet Nathan even called Solomon by the name Jedidiah
meaning “beloved (or darling) of Jehovah” (2 Samuel 12:24,25).
Solomon, Idolatry, and a Divided Kingdom
David had long desired to build a temple for the Lord, but was prohibited from doing so
(2 Samuel 7). He was, however, permitted to begin gathering the materials for it. It was
prophesied that David’s son would build that temple (2 Samuel 7:13). Solomon, knowing this
prophecy and wishing to fulfill it, promptly began the construction of the temple (1 Kings 5:5).
Even though Solomon was granted great wisdom (1 Kings 3:5-14), and had for a time a
heart to follow the commandments of the Lord, he eventually fell into idolatry and worshipped
foreign gods. This was a direct result of the influence of his many foreign wives, a violation of a
direct commandment from God (1 Kings 11:1-4). As a penalty for Solomon’s disobedience, ten
of the tribes would be torn away from the tribe of Judah and Benjamin and given to another king
(1 Kings 11:13).
Jeroboam, a strong, industrious leader in Solomon’s government, was told by the Lord
through the prophet Ahijah that he would be king over ten tribes of Israel: “But I will take the
kingdom out of his [Solomon’s] son’s hand, and will give it unto thee, even ten tribes. And unto
his son will I give one tribe [Benjamin], that David my servant may have a light always before
me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen to put my name there. And I will take thee, and
thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel” (1 Kings
11:35-37). Knowing that this message had been delivered to Solomon, and fearing for his life,
Jeroboam fled to Egypt until Solomon’s death.
Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, took over the kingdom after Solomon’s death. The national
glory that Israel had attained and the opulence of Solomon’s court had come with a heavy price.
High taxes that had been levied on the people were overly burdensome. Upon hearing of
Solomon’s death, Jeroboam returned to Israel, and rallied the people to petition Rehoboam for
relief from taxation (1 Kings 12:2-6).
Instead of listening to the wise counsel that he received from the elders, Rehoboam not
only kept the existing taxes on the people, he pledged to increase them: “My father made your
yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke: my father also chastised you with whips, but I will
chastise you with scorpions” (1 Kings 12:14). Upon hearing this, the ten tribes declared
Jeroboam as their king, and the kingdom was divided as the Lord had foretold.
Seeking to keep the ten tribes under his authority, Rehoboam proceeded to gather an
army to fight against them. However, it was God’s will that the nation be divided: “Ye shall not
go up, nor fight against your brethren the children of Israel: return every man to his house;
for this thing is from me” (1 Kings 12:24). Because of Solomon’s disobedience in seeking
foreign gods, the Lord permitted the kingdom of Israel to be divided into a two-tribe southern
kingdom (Judah and Benjamin) whose capital was Jerusalem, and a ten-tribe northern kingdom
(called Israel) whose capital eventually was Samaria.
Shortly after the rebellion, Jeroboam removed the Levitical priesthood from their duties
and established “high places,” “devils,” and other abominations (2 Chronicles 11:14,15). It was
at this time that a minor religious revival occurred in Judah and Jerusalem. With no approved
way to properly honor the Lord, those from the ten tribes who remained faithful to the Lord fled
to Jerusalem: “And after them out of all the tribes of Israel such as set their hearts to seek the
LORD God of Israel came to Jerusalem, to sacrifice unto the LORD God of their fathers” (2
Chronicles 11:16).
The two kingdoms remained divided, although they were allied for brief periods of time.
During this period there were only a handful of kings who remained almost entirely faithful to
the Lord (e.g., Jehoshaphat, Uzziah, Jotham, Hezekiah, and Josiah). Many began their reign
faithful to the Lord and the prophets which he sent to them, but they often fell into idol worship
and other grievously sinful practices. Others were completely antagonistic to the God of their
fathers from the beginning.
The Lord was primarily working with his people through the warnings and admonitions
of the prophets. To the northern kingdom of Israel he sent such prophets as Elijah, Elisha, Jonah,
Amos, and Hosea. To the southern kingdom of Judah, he sent Joel, Obadiah, Isaiah, Micah,
Nahum, and finally Habbakuk and Jeremiah.
For the final forty years of the kingdom (Jeremiah 1:1-3), Jeremiah was sent to preach a
message of judgment, repentance, and warning to the people. Under Josiah, Jeremiah’s message
was largely received. However, by the time Zedekiah occupied the throne, the messages of
Jeremiah and the other prophets were being mocked and ignored by the people: “And the
LORD God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers … because he had compassion on
his people … but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his
prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against his people, till there was no remedy”
(2 Chronicles 36:15,16).
Because God saw there was no remedy for the nation, and because they had not kept the
years of Sabbath rest for the land (2 Chronicles 36:21), the Lord permitted the entire nation to
fall and the city of Jerusalem to be destroyed at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. All who had not
earlier been taken to Babylon were now killed or taken as captives. Zedekiah, the last king of
Judah, was captured, and met a horrific fate (2 Kings 25:7). It had become the due time for all in
Israel to be humbled and continue their national preparation to eventually receive the Messiah.
The Rightful King of Israel
“I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose
right it is; and I will give it him” (Ezekiel 21:27). As a penalty for Solomon’s sins, God said
unto him, “I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and will give it to thy servant” (1 Kings
11:11). Upon Solomon’s death, the kingdom was divided into the ten-tribe northern kingdom of
Israel and the two-tribe southern kingdom of Judah. The visible kingdom of Judah continued
until Zedekiah when it was seemingly broken; nevertheless, the true kingly line continuedfrom
David through Nathan and eventually to Jesus, the Lion of the tribe of Judah and the Root of
David (Revelation 5:5). Jesus is the one “whose right it is” to reign over Israel. This kingdom
will shortly be re-established on the earth in Jerusalem (Matthew 5:35), and will eventually
spread to, and bless all peoples of the earth (Isaiah 2:2-4; Jeremiah 3:17; Daniel 2:44; Zechariah
14; Acts 1:6).
Let us rejoice at the thought that we serve the true God of heaven, and his son, the
rightful king of Israel.
Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece
Israel's Exile, Captivity and Restoration
Audio MP3
We cannot sing songs about the LORD while we are in this foreign country!—Psalm
137:4, NCV
Jeff Mezera
The heart-rending words of Psalm 137 illustrate the treatment and hardness endured by
the people of God during the Babylonian invasion. While the Scriptural account of this period
describes many aspects of those who were involved and what happened to them, it is still
somewhat limited. The archeological record matches the biblical record and also provides
information about this time period we might not otherwise have.
The prophet Habakkuk questioned the use of the Babylonian nation to punish the people
of God, when he cried to the Lord asking, “Why dost Thou look with favor on those who deal
treacherously?” (Habakkuk 1:13, NAS). The Lord had said he would punish Israel due to their
sinfulness using the king of Babylon: “Therefore thus says the LORD, Behold, I am about to
give this city into the hand of ... Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon” (Jeremiah 32:28, NAS).
The Babylonian Chronicle says: “Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Akkad (Babylon), ... laid
siege to the city of Judah. He captured the city ... and carried away a great amount of plunder
from Judah to Babylon.”1
Similarly, the Scriptural account states that Nebuchadnezzar had also taken “the gold and
silver utensils of the house of God ... and brought them to the temple of Babylon” (Ezra
5:14,NAS). “He carried out from there all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the
treasures of the king’s house, ... just as the LORD had said” (2 Kings 24:13, NAS). The
Babylonians did not colonize. They took captives and depopulated the lands they conquered.
“Then he led away into exile all Jerusalem and all the captains and all the mighty men of valor,
ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths. None remained except the poorest
people of the land” (2 Kings 24:14, NAS).
After King Jehoiachin was taken captive, Scripture tells us that he was given rations
by the Babylonians until his death: “And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of
the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life” (2 Kings 25:27-30; see also Jeremiah
52:31-34).
“Confirmation of this aspect of Jehoiachin’s life was found on a clay tablet from
Babylon that lists the payment of rations of oil, barley, and other food, to captives and skilled
workmen around Babylon; it lists Youkin (Yokin), king in Judah, equivalent to Jehoiachin,
and his five sons as recipients of these issues of food.”2
The later king Zedekiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar appointed, made the same mistakes as
his predecessors: “Then the king of Babylon made his uncle Mattaniah king in his place, and
changed his name to Zedekiah” (2 Kings 24:17, NAS). The Chronicle of the Chaldean King also
states that “he appointed a new king to his liking ... He appointed there a king of his own choice
... received its heavy tribute and sent [them] to Babylon.”3
“The biblical accounts suggest that the Babylonians were very selective about those
they chose for exile and those they left behind (Jeremiah 40:7-12; 52:16; 2 Kings
25:12,22).”4
“But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had
nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time” (Jeremiah
39:10).
Not only do the “Babylonian Chronicles break off after Nebuchadnezzar’s eleventh year
of rule”5, but the archeological record for this period in Israel’s history is practically void. “The
strange thing is that above the remains left by these destructions, we find no evidence of
occupation until the Persian period, which began in about 538 B.C. For roughly half a century—
from 604 B.C. to 538 B.C.—there is a complete gap in evidence suggesting occupation. In all
that time, not a single town destroyed by the Babylonians was resettled ... They were reoccupied
only in the Persian period ... The only indications of a Babylonian presence in Palestine are the
massive destruction levels the Babylonians left behind.”6
During the subsequent invasions and captivity, the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “How
deserted lies the city, once so full of people! How like a widow is she, who once was great
among the nations! She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave ... The
roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to her appointed feasts. All her gateways are desolate, her
priests groan, her maidens grieve, and she is in bitter anguish.” (Lamentations 1:1,4, NIV).
Captivity
Even though it had been a fertile land, the remnant of those who were left behind in
Jerusalem before the destruction of the temple lived under harsh conditions. While hiding from
their
invaders
in
caves
surrounding
the
city,
“the
people’s
diets
reflected
privation.”7 Archeologists have found some of these hiding places. After an examination of the
vestiges of those left behind, incredibly, it is possible to know what they had eaten during this
period: “There were the remains of plants, the kind that grow wild in someone’s backyard. There
were no herbs and spices, few grains of wheat or barley, and no lentils or peas. People had been
forced to eat whatever they could find at hand. In addition, there was also a high number of
tapeworm and other parasite eggs, indicating overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, and the
fact that people were probably eating contaminated, poorly cooked beef.”8
“Why did the Jews of Judah survive whereas the Jews of Israel did not? The political and
economic interpreters of history give this answer:
“The Assyrian policy was to break up conquered nations into small segments, then to
disperse the segments throughout the empire in order to destroy national and ethnic unity, in
contrast to the Babylonian policy of keeping exiled peoples intact ... Other nations defeated by
Babylonia lost their national identities without being strewn all over the map ... The Israelites did
not have such a conscious will to remain Jews, whereas the captives of Judah carried with them
into captivity an implacable will to survive as Jews ... between the fall of Israel and the fall of
Judah a spiritual reawakening of the people of Judah took place. A new Jewish character ... was
forged.”9
Some of the Jews, such as Daniel the prophet and his three friends, had been chosen in
their youth to be raised and taught in the court of the king. They were first given Babylonian
names and while they had all the comforts of the king’s realm at their disposal, they still chose to
remain faithful to the Lord and not let the culture of the Babylonians encroach upon their
worship. They did this regardless of the threatened punishments of their oppressors.
Many of the Jews thrived under Babylonian rule: “In the libraries of Babylon the Jews
found a world treasure of manuscripts; they acquired a love for books and a taste for
learning.”10They made enough money in business and other ventures, that many chose not to
return to their homeland after the coming of their Persian conquerors: “Many of them, perhaps
the majority, preferred to remain in Babylon, which became a great center of Jewish culture for
1,500 years”11 while living in the many empires which arose after Babylon.
While many of the Jews had died in the original invasion and deportation to Babylon, the
second chapter of Ezra shows that they multiplied under their Babylonian rulers. It was during
this period that prophets such as Ezekiel, Daniel, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Habakkuk, and Malachi,
had been given prophecies of a return to Jerusalem, and a destruction of those who oppose
Jehovah. Ezekiel’s prophecy of the dry bones assembling, gathering flesh, and rising again gave
hope to the exiles.
The dreams recorded in Daniel of the four universal empires (Daniel 2), and the king’s
madness of seven years picturing 2,520 literal years of Gentile rule over Israel (Daniel 4), are
evidences we can see today of the startling fulfillments of prophecy given during this period. In
the Babylonian record of kings, the last several years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign are silent. This
is no mystery for those who trust the biblical account of his seven “times” of madness.
Restoration
“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to
subdue nations before him” (Isaiah 45:1).
The Persian period marked a turning point for the nation of Israel, yet their subjugation
to foreign powers was a necessary fact of life. When the Israelites returned to Jerusalem, it must
have looked quite different from when they had left several decades earlier.
Psalm 126 describes this return: “When the LORD brought back the captive ones of Zion,
we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with
joyful shouting; then they said among the nations, ‘The LORD has done great things for them.’
The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.” (NAS translation)
Ezra opens with the words of Cyrus: “The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all
the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is
in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go
up to Jerusalem which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is
the God who is in Jerusalem. And every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of
that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill
offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem. ... Also King Cyrus brought out the articles
of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put in
the house of his gods.” (Ezra 1:2-4,7, NAS).
A similar story by the new conqueror of Israel is told on a cylinder housed in the British
museum. On this artifact is written Cyrus’ own depiction of his overthrow of Babylon, and his
subsequent liberal and tolerant treatment of those nations which Babylon had conquered.
“Nabonidus turned the worship of Marduk, ruler of the divine assembly in Babylon, into
an abomination ... He also enslaved the people of Babylon to work for the state year round ...
Marduk ... searched all the lands for a righteous ruler ... He chose Cyrus, ... and appointed him as
the ruler of all the earth ... Because Marduk ... was pleased with Cyrus’ good deeds and upright
heart, he ordered him to march against Babylon ... Marduk allowed Cyrus to enter Babylon
without a battle ... and delivered Nabonidus, the king ... into the hands of Cyrus.”12
It was not a love for the Jews or the other nations that caused Cyrus to inaugurate this
policy. It was always better for the Persian rulers to have other nations paying tribute to them
rather than subjugating their people away from where they could produce goods of value. By
allowing each nation to return to its homeland, they would better take advantage of its natural
resources, and eliminate the need for Persia to stretch its own resources. Cyrus’ decree continues:
“I entered Babylon as a friend of Marduk and took my seat in the palace ... I ordered my
soldiers not to loot the streets of Babylon, ... I no longer enslaved the people of Babylon to work
for the state, and I helped them to rebuild their houses which had fallen into ruin ... I returned the
statues of the divine patrons of every land ... to their own sanctuaries. When I found their
sanctuaries in ruins, I rebuilt them. I also repatriated the people of these lands and rebuilt their
houses.”13
There were many obstacles and tensions to overcome in the Jewish return to the land.
Battles between the Jews who remained in Babylon and those who returned to Israel ensued.
Disagreements about whether to rebuild the temple or the wall, and even neighboring nations
interfered with the Jewish plans of rebuilding and rebirth. (See Ezra 4:4-6; 4:23-24; 5:17-6:5;
6:14-15; Nehemiah 1:1-3; 2:13-17; 4:16-21; 7:1-4.)
“The exiles and emigrants … preserved their warlike character even in their new
settlements in foreign lands. Jews began to figure prominently in armies and military settlements
both in Babylonia and in Egypt and their dependencies down to the Roman period. … These
martial qualities were also one of the main reasons why Cyrus, king of Persia, permitted and
actively promoted the return of the Babylonian exiles to Judah. After capturing Palestine in the
wake of the great Persian conquest that wrested supremacy from Babylonia … he wished to have
the country secured by a population at once warlike and loyal, but not strong enough to make
itself independent. What better way than to grant the Jews the right to return to a very curtailed
Judah, with hostile neighbors checking any attempt at throwing off benevolent Persian
overlordship?”14
While many of the Jews took advantage of Cyrus’ policy and chose to return to
Jerusalem, “the land had grown wild during their absence in exile; it would take years of backbreaking labor to restore its fruitfulness. As time went on and quarrels and hardships continued,
some openly regretted that they had left their comfortable homes in Babylonia. It was one thing
to dream hope; it was quite another to toil without promise of improvement.”15
Many Jews would not return until Ezra and Nehemiah reminded them about what it
meant to be Jewish and to seek the Lord again. Many of them would not return at all and it
would not be until “a second effort, with the full backing of … Darius”16 that a larger number of
them would return. There were a few attempts at rebuilding, but it was not accomplished until
Ezra and Nehemiah encouraged and inspired more of the Jews to return to rebuild the city, wall,
temple, and nation.
It was during the Babylonian and Persian period that the concept of the synagogue
developed as a means by which they could still worship God. After their return to Jerusalem the
synagogue survived side-by-side with the temple. It did not replace the temple completely until
the Roman destruction in 70 A.D. and the diaspora. It was through these regular meetings that
the nation and faith of the Jews survived: “The rabbi as teacher of Torah had now become more
important than the priest performing an ancient ritual.”17
It was also during this period that the development and finalization of the canon of the
Old Testament, as well as the reproduction of the Scriptures had begun. The scribes first made
their appearance in this period, gathering the Scriptures, and copiously transcribing them to
preserve their heritage and the words of God. “It is in the Persian period that coins make their
appearance in Palestine, making it possible from this time to date archaeological strata with a
precision hitherto seldom possible.”18 While Jewish culture refined and developed in this period,
the Persians “introduced no new concepts and exerted no new influence on world thinking.”19
Prophecy
Little is known of Jewish life between the Persian period until after the breakup of
Alexander the Great’s kingdom. Most of what we know about Alexander comes from five
historians who lived centuries afterward: Arrian a Greek author and statesman, Diodorus of
Sicily, Quintus Curtius of Rome, Plutarch the Greek philosopher, and Josephus, the Jewish
historian. While their manuscripts are not complete, they were based on journals of
contemporaries who lived and fought with the Grecian king. These journals no longer exist and
are not otherwise quoted in any ancient writing.
Instead of bringing the nations they subjected to Greece, Alexander had colonies planted
throughout his sprawling kingdom and encouraged them to spread Greek culture. Instead of
using the sword to subdue nations, he encouraged his officers and generals, and those in the
colonies, to intermarry among those they had conquered. A complete fusion of races was
Alexander’s objective. His desire was not only to conquer the world, but convert it to the Greek
way of thinking:
“Greek thought dominated the Near East for six hundred years ... though the Jews in the
main did resist the Greek philosophies, they mastered the Greek philosophers.”20
“Alexander was a noble, generous conqueror ... [who] in no way interfered with the
peculiar development, the customs, or religious rites of any nation under his sway. He did not
force the Grecian faith on any nation, and the favor which he granted to other nations he
certainly did not deny to the Judeans.”21
While the Jews were no longer isolated, in the wake of the Greeks “the economy
boomed; living standards rose.”22 “While almost all the ancient peoples whose names are
mentioned in the Bible disappeared completely, early in the Greek period, swept away by the
flood of Greek influence, the Jews remained steadfast in their own faith and their own manner of
living.”23
It was at this time that minor divisions within Judaism became strong disagreements.
New sects arose, pushing some extremists into the desert to escape what they considered
corruption by the Greeks. Through three Gentile empires—Babylonian, Persia, and Greece—
many Jews no longer spoke Hebrew; they spoke Greek. Both the Septuagint translation of the
Hebrew Bible into Greek and the earliest Dead Sea scrolls are from this period.
The prophecy of Daniel points to the Grecian empire as the belly and thighs of brass in
the image of chapter two; the exact name is given in Daniel 8:21 where Alexander is named as
the “first king” and “great horn.”
Other verses in Daniel refer to this king and some of his military exploits. History records
how Alexander pushed eastward in his several blows against Persian King Darius only to find he
had escaped:
“Alexander visited upon the Persian forces in a battle at the Granicus River in
334 B.C. With only thirty-five thousand men, Alexander’s forces plunged through the river
attacking Darius’ one hundred thousand footmen and ten thousand horsemen, reportedly killing
twenty thousand at a loss of only one hundred Greek troops. Complete victory was assured at the
battles of Issus the following year and at Guagamela in 331 B.C.”24
Daniel’s prophecy records these events by stating that “he came up to the ram that had
the two horns ... standing in front of the canal, and rushed at him in his mighty wrath ... [and]
struck the ram ... [and] hurled him to the ground” (Daniel 8:6,7, NAS). Upon finding the king,
Alexander gazed upon the lifeless body of Darius who had been stabbed and deserted by his own
soldiers.
The historian Josephus relates an interesting story concerning Alexander the Great. After
he had taken Gaza, he quickly made way to Jerusalem. As his caravan approached, a procession
of priests had been waiting for him to arrive. Alexander quickly expressed obeisance to the
priest. One of Alexander’s men asked why he had done this and his recorded answer was, “The
vision of this priest’s appearance once came to me, to lead me on to victory.”25
According to the Jewish historian, the priests then showed the Macedonian king
prophecies from Daniel showing how the first Grecian king, Alexander, would subdue the
Persian Empire. Many historians today either do not believe Josephus’ testimony about
Alexander’s entry into Jerusalem, or consider it grossly exaggerated: “When Alexander resettled
Samaria, it is probably true that he gave part to the Jews as a tax-free present ... Though
Alexander would have met the Jewish leaders, the story that he did obeisance before the Jewish
high priest is obviously a Jewish legend.”26 Other historians claim that “Alexander had never
visited the capital of Palestine.”27 Some find fragments of truth in the narrative:
“Strenuous efforts have been made to discredit this statement of Josephus, but without
good reason. It has been said that it is not based on reliable historical information, nor the
general belief of his time, but is merely a private opinion of his own. It is obvious, however, that
this cannot be the case. Josephus was a man of considerable learning, and had every facility for
acquainting himself with the history of his own nation, upon which he had written largely in his
‘Antiquities.’ His priestly origin afforded him special opportunities for becoming familiar with
the religious opinions of his countrymen ... he gives no intimation that what he here says is
simply his own opinion. It is stated as a certain and acknowledged fact.”28
Whether the events surrounding Alexander’s entry into Jerusalem are true or not, it is
considered quite possible by several historians that he had at least entered the holy city.
Alexander spent seven months in his siege of Tyre, and Jerusalem would have been close enough
to find provisions for his army.
A work of romantic fiction, called the Pseudo-Callisthenes, was written shortly after
Alexander’s death. While it contains many unbelievable concepts, approaching science fiction of
the era, it also suggests that Alexander visited Jerusalem. The fantasy expresses various exploits
of the king, claiming that “Alexander is the two-horned who flies on the back of an eagle to the
heights of Heaven ... the two-horned also travelled to Jerusalem ... Even the depths of the sea
were explored by the mighty King, who spent many days and nights in a glass diving cage.”29
The historian Arrian states that Alexander had subdued all of Syria, which was called
Palestine.30 Justin states that many princes of the east met Alexander with their mitres.31 He also
states that while the siege of Tyre was underway, Alexander left for Gaza and returned eleven
days later.32 Jerusalem is not that far from Gaza and none of the historians state how long
Alexander and his armies stayed in Gaza to refresh their supplies. Diodorus suggests that he
stayed in Gaza long enough to settle the affairs of the country in and around Gaza.33
Not only would Alexander likely have gone to Jerusalem to refresh supplies, but “he
might perhaps consider God as a local deity, and offer sacrifices to him at Jerusalem, as he did to
Hercules at Tyre, and to Jupiter Hammon in Egypt, and to Belus in Babylon.”34
Alexander’s journey to see the oracle at the temple in Egypt nearly killed him, but it
provided exactly the answer to a question that bothered him. He was trying to find out if he was
indeed a son of god. His entry into Jerusalem, and this event in Egypt were possibly the greatest
spiritual events in Alexander’s life:
“Alexander and his companions climbed up the steps into the temple ... and the priest
greeted Alexander with a slip of the tongue. He meant to say ‘Oh my son,’ but his Greek wasn’t
up to much, and what the Macedonians had heard him say was ‘son of Zeus.’ Now for Alexander
that was a good start.”35
While he considered himself to be a god, he died a mortal man at the age of thirty two.
Soon after his death, strenuous battles between four of his generals split the kingdom into
quarters, as predicted by Daniel (Daniel 8:8).
The centuries before the birth of Christ find Jewish history nearly silent within the
Scriptural record. Just as God protected his people through these periods of time, subsequent
articles illustrate this same providential power of God for his chosen ones.
God not only punished his chosen people in ages past through his providential power, but
he also preserved and protected them and their faith in preparation for the Jewish re-gathering,
forgiveness, and acquaintance with the Messiah in his millennial kingdom.
Endnotes
1. Annals of Nebuchadnezzar, 5, BM 21946: 11-3. Quoted in Matthews, Victor H.,
Don C. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels, p. 184.
2. Free, Joseph P., Vos, Howard F., Archaeology and Bible History, p.189.
3. Annals of Nebuchadnezzar, 5, BM 21946: 11-3. Quoted in Matthews, Victor H.,
Don C. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels, p. 184.
4. Cline, Eric H., Jerusalem Besieged, 2007, p. 65.
5. Ibid., p. 57.
6.
Editor,
Hershel
Shanks
(2004;
2004). Biblical
Archeology
Review 26:06
(Nov/Dec 2000). Biblical Archaeology Society.
7. Marcus, Amy Dockser, The View from Nebo, p. 157.
8. Ibid.
9. Dimont, Max I., Jews God and History, pp. 60-61.
10. Ibid., p. 65.
11. Johnson, Paul, A History of the Jews, p. 85.
12. Marcus, Amy Dockser, The View from Nebo, p. 193.
13. Ibid., pp. 194-195.
14. Herzog, Chaim and Gichon, Mordechai, Battles of the Bible, 1978, p. 262.
15. Grayzel, Solomon, A History of the Jews, p. 23.
16. Johnson, Paul, A History of the Jews, p. 86.
17. Trepp, Leo, A History of the Jewish Experience, p. 37.
18. Gray, John, Archaeology and the Old Testament World, p. 189.
19. Dimont, Max, I., The Indestructible Jews, p. 73.
20. Dimont, Max I., Jews, God and History, pp. 77,78.
21. Graetz, Henrich, History of the Jews, Volume I, p. 413.
22. Johnson, Paul, A History of the Jews, p. 97.
23. Grayzel, Solomon, A History of the Jews, p. 48.
24. Ferguson, Sinclair B., The Preacher's Commentary on Daniel.
25. Talmud; Yoma 69a, quoted in Trepp, Leo, A History of the Jewish Experience, p. 40.
26. Fox, Robin Lane, Alexander the Great, p. 222.
27. Savill, Agnes, Alexander the Great and His Time, p. 145.
28. Green, W.H., General Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon, p. 38.
29. Savill, Agnes, Alexander the Great and His Time, p. 205.
30. Arian. de Exped. Alex. 1.2., c. 25.
31. Justin. Hist. 1. 11, c. 10, 6.
32. Arian. de Exped. Alex. 1. 2., c. 20.
33. Diod, Sic, 1. 17, c. 49.
34. Newton, Bishop, On the Prophecies, Volume 1, p. 243.
35. The History Channel, The True Story of Alexander the Great, 2005.
The Maccabees to Herod
The Hasmonean Dynasty
Audio MP3
When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons,
O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.—Zechariah
9:13
David Rice
This text in Zechariah speaks prophetically of a conflict between the Israelites and the
“sons” of Greece. That conflict came about not during the time of Alexander—for he brought
peace to Jerusalem and allowed Israel many liberties—but six generations after the passing of
Alexander.
At that time, the two strongest fragments of the Grecian Empire were the Seleucid
Empire in Syria, north of Israel, and the Ptolemaic Empire in Egypt, south of Israel. The names
of these empires came from the first kings of each, Seleucus Nicator and Ptolemy Soter. These
were Greek leaders who had been in the retinue of Alexander, and subsequently rose to power in
their own spheres, Syria and Egypt.
Daniel chapter eleven refers to these powers as the “king of the north” and the “king of
the south” respectively, and touches upon the history of six generations of these kingdoms until
the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, king of the Seleucid Empire. In Egypt the rulers were:
Ptolemy
Soter
Ptolemy
Philadelphus
Ptolemy
Eugertes
Ptolemy
Philopator
Ptolemy
Epiphanes
Ptolemy Philometor
In Syria the rulers were:
Seleucus
Nicator
Antiochus
Soter
Antiochus
Theus
Seleucus
Seleucus
Callinicus
Ceraunus,
Antiochus
Magnus
(brothers)
Seleucus
Philopator,
Antiochus
Epiphanes (brothers)
The exploits of these six generations of rulers are described prophetically in Daniel 11:521 and following. Verse 21 introduces the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes who became the
infamously inhumane persecutor of the Jewish people. In revolt against his atrocities, a priest
named Mattathias, from the small Israelite town of Modin (thirty miles northwest of Jerusalem),
launched a popular uprising which God greatly prospered, even to the defeat of the Seleucid
armies sent against them. Mattathias himself died a year later and committed the leadership of
the army to Judas Maccabeus, one of his five sons. Judas was remarkably successful, and his
name endures in the term “Maccabees.”
After leading Israel for seven years, Judas was killed in battle. Israel greatly mourned
their fallen hero of faith. The leadership of the revolt fell to his brother Jonathan, who led Israel
until his capture through treachery in 143 B.C. He was killed not long after. His brotherSimon
Maccabeus, the last remaining of the five brothers, replaced him both as military leader and high
priest (for at some time during his leadership Jonathan had assumed the duties of high priest
also). Simon concluded an agreement with the Seleucid King Demetrius, and established a
period of peace for Israel.
“In the year 170 [142 B.C.], Israel was released from the Gentile yoke; the people began
to write on their contracts and agreements: ‘In the first year of Simon, the great high priest,
general, and leader of the Jews’ ” (1 Maccabees 13:41,42). “As long as Simon ruled, Judaea was
undisturbed. He sought his nation’s good, and they lived happily all through the glorious days of
his reign” (1 Maccabees 14:4).
The dynasty thus begun was known as the “Hasmonean Dynasty,” drawing from the
name of an ancestor, Hasmoneus. It was accorded recognition by the Roman Senate about the
year 139 B.C. Although Simon died in 135 B.C., the Hasmonean Dynasty endured.
The Next Generation
Simon, with two of his sons, was assassinated by the husband of his daughter, whereupon
the rule of Israel passed, for the first time, outside the original generation of the revolt. Simon’s
third son, John Hyrcanus, replaced him as ruler and high priest until his passing in
104 B.C.John was credited with the (forcible) conversion of the Idumeans, the stock from
whence later came King Herod. He destroyed the temple of the Samaritans at Mount Gerizim,
though many continued to worship among its ruins. Some think the apocryphal “Book of
Jubilees” was composed during his tenure. Some also hold that the division between Sadducees
and Pharisees congealed during this time, though others date this separation earlier.
John also took the name Hyrcanus, a Greek name, which evidenced a spirit of
compromise with his Gentile neighbors. Though his rule is considered by some as a political
high-water mark of the dynasty, seeds of decline and corruption had already taken root. These
blossomed
immediately
upon
his
passing.
Decline and Corruption
John Hyrcanus left the government to his wife, and the high priesthood to his
sonAristobulus. But his son soon seized power, had his mother arrested, and allowed her to
starve in prison. He was the first to take the title “king,” illicitly, to the objection of many of his
countrymen, inasmuch as he was not of the kingly line of David, nor even of Judah. (His
predecessors had had the title nasi, something like president.) His greed for power brought
corruption, family disloyalty, and intrigue which degenerated the moral fabric of the rulership.
Religious intolerance also surfaced, as John Hyrcanus oppressed the party of the Pharisees. He
reigned but a year.
Thereafter his imprisoned brother Alexander Jannaeus was released and assumed
authority. He ruled for twenty-seven years, to 76 B.C. He was brutal. Some estimate that 50,000
countrymen including women and children died in a civil war in which the Pharisees sided
against him, thus deepening the division between them and his Grecianized party of Sadducees.
Eight hundred Pharisees were crucified during his reign. After his death the rulership went to his
wife Salome Alexandra for nine years, and the priesthood to his sonJohn Hyrcanus II—who,
ironically, was partial to the Pharisees and reconstituted the Sanhedrin according to their wishes.
Salome died in 67 B.C., succeeded briefly by her son John Hyrcanus II, the high priest.
But soon his younger brother Aristobulus II rebelled and took the throne. A civil war erupted
which was ended by the conquest of Judea in 63 B.C. by the Roman General Pompey.
Aristobulus was taken to Rome and there assassinated in 50 B.C. In 63 B.C. John Hyrcanus II
was nominally restored as king, but did not exercise ultimate authority. His son Antigonus, with
the help of Parthian allies, asserted himself as king in 39 B.C., but that same year, the Romans
appointed Herod to be king of Judea. Herod took Jerusalem three years later in 36B.C.,
Antigonus was sent captive to Antony, and soon executed. Thus ceased the rule of the
Hasmoneans.
Here is a summary list of the generations of Maccabean leaders:
1. Mattathias, then his sons Judas, Jonathan, Simon.
2. John Hyrcanus.
3. Aristobulus, Alexander Jannaeus, Salome Alexandra.
4. John Hyrcanus II, Aristobulus II.
5. Antigonus.
The Books of Maccabees
The history of these times, at least through Simon, was written in the Book of Maccabees.
There are four books by this name, referred to as First, Second, Third, and Fourth Maccabees.
These are part of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. Though they are not included as part of
the inspired writings acknowledged by Jews or Protestant Christians, the first two are included in
the Catholic Bible. The Oxford Study Bible, Revised English Bible with the Apocrypha, contains
the first two books. The information in these is supplemented with information from the Jewish
historian Josephus of the first century A.D.
First Maccabees was written in Hebrew, but only a Greek translation has survived. It
is “a simple history written in the manner of the day by an unknown adherent of the Hasmonean
kings descended from Simon” (Oxford Study Bible, p. 1197).
Second Maccabees “is a shortened version of a five-volume historical work, now lost, by
Jason of Cyrene ... To this shortened version, the abbreviator prefixed two letters ... Second
Maccabees was written in Greek in Egypt about 124 B.C.” (Oxford Study Bible, p. 1233).
Both books date events in terms of the Seleucid Era, whose year one commenced in
311B.C.1 Thus the famous rededication of the temple in the time of Judas Maccabeus, which
began “early on the twenty-fifth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev, in the year 148” (1
Maccabees 4:52), would be December 13, 164 B.C., Julian calendar. This is celebrated today as
the Jewish festival “Hanukkah” (dedication, or consecration), which lasts for eight days in
commemoration of the eight-day rededication ceremonies. Jewish menorahs of eight branches,
customary in synagogues today, also commemorate these eight days. The “feast of the
dedication” of John 10:22 is this same celebration, as is the modern “festival of lights.”
Defiled Bread
This act of reformation and cleansing apparently was pointed to in the book of Ezekiel.
That prophet was told to eat defiled bread for 430 days, both to indicate so many years of mostly
past iniquity of Israel and Judah, and to signify so many years of future punishment during which
the Israelites would eat their spiritual “bread” with an admixture of defilement under the rule of
pagan governments. From the year in which Ezekiel received this command, until the year in
which the temple was rededicated under Judas Maccabeus, was a period of 430 years (Ezekiel
4:4-13).
Antiochus Epiphanes
This infamous king, Antiochus Epiphanes, had been a hostage in Rome before he
succeeded to the throne at the death of his brother in 175 B.C. About that time a movement of
Jews decided things would go better for them if they became more like the Gentiles: “This
proposal was widely approved, and some of the people in their enthusiasm went to the king
[Antiochus Epiphanes] and received authority to introduce pagan laws and customs. They built a
gymnasium in the Gentile style at Jerusalem; they removed their marks of circumcision and
repudiated the holy covenant; they intermarried with Gentiles and sold themselves to evil” (1
Maccabees 1:12-15).
Once Antiochus was established on his throne, he determined to take Egypt and rule both
kingdoms. King Ptolemy was routed and Antiochus, on his victorious return, marched against
Israel and Jerusalem in the year 169 B.C. He plundered the riches of the temple, killed
thousands, and boasted arrogantly of it all. Two years later he sent a governor to lay Judaea
under tribute, sacked and burned Jerusalem, killed many thousands more, and left a fortified
garrison as a “perpetual menace to Israel” (1 Maccabees 1:36).
Furthermore, Antiochus issued an edict to forbid the customary Jewish sacrifices, to
cease the practice of circumcision, to advance the sacrifice of swine, and to profane the sabbath.
The death penalty was imposed for disobedience to this wholesale derogation of the sacred
Jewish laws. Deputies went from town to town to enforce the orders.
“On the fifteenth day of the month of Kislev in the year 145 [167 B.C.], the abomination
of desolation was set up on the altar of the Lord. In the towns throughout Judaea pagan altars
were built; incense was offered at the doors of houses and in the streets. Every scroll of the law
that was found was torn up and consigned to the flames, and anyone discovered in possession of
a Book of the Covenant or conforming to the law was by sentence of the king condemned to die
... they put to death women who had had their children circumcised; their babies, their families,
and those who had performed the circumcisions were hanged by the neck ... Israel lay under a
reign of terror” (1 Maccabees 1:54-64). In one specially egregious episode the king roasted a
woman’s seven sons, one by one, as they refused to commit sacrilege, and she last of all.
Mattathias
It was against these travesties that Mattathias, a priest of the line of Joarib family from
Jerusalem, now settled at Modin, took a public stand. Mattathias had five sons: John Gaddis,
Simon Thassis, Judas Maccabeus, Eleazar Avaran, and Jonathan Apphus. When the king’s
officers came to Modin to enforce the sacrilege, Mattathias was called upon publicly, as a man of
influence, to lead the people into apostasy. There were promises of wealth and riches for his
service.
In a ringing voice, he publicly refused on behalf of himself and his sons: “We will not
obey the king’s command, nor will we deviate one step from our way of worship” (1 Maccabees
2:22). As an apostate proceeded to offer sacrifice on a pagan altar, Mattathias was aroused to
indignation. Shaking with passion, he slew the offender, also the officer of the king, demolished
the pagan altar, and roused the people to follow. He and his sons took to the hills, leaving behind
all they possessed. His band swelled. They went throughout the land violating the pagan altars,
upholding the Jewish laws, and defending the faithful. There were tragedies—the loss of a
thousand men, women and children who would not defend themselves against a Sabbath
attack—but
also
many
victories.
The Prophecy of Daniel
The persecutions brought by Antiochus, the stirring resistance by Mattathias and his sons
and followers, and the later defections from the movement, seem predicted in prophecy (Daniel
11:31-35 and onward). But the same passage was used by God to foreshadow even more
extensive persecutions of the Lord’s people to come in later times. Thus these very texts apply
again to the persecutions of Jews and Christians under Pagan Rome, and later the even more
extensive persecution of Papal Rome against Christians during the Gospel age.
Thus Daniel 11:31 refers not merely to the desecrations of the temple by Antiochus, but
also to the destruction of the temple under the Romans in 70 A.D. (compare Matthew 24:15), and
the corruption of the spiritual temple, the church, by Papacy. It is the latter application of the text
which Bible Students focus on primarily. It is also that application which is the basis for the
prophetic days in the twelfth chapter of Daniel, the 1,260, 1,290, and 1,335 years. These periods
of time commence with the establishment of Papal power in Rome and Italy upon the subjection
of
the
Ostrogoths
at
Ravenna
in
539 A.D.
Seventh Phase of Jewish History
From the time Israel was constituted as a nation, when Moses mediated the Law
Covenant,
one
can
1.
trace
seven
phases
of
Deliverance
2.
Conquest
of
history
of
the
under
Canaan
Jewish
people:
Moses.
under
Joshua.
3.
Judges.
4.
Kings.
5.
Dispersion
by
6.
Regathering
under
Babylon.
Persia.
7. Maccabean revolt and Hasmonean Dynasty.
This takes us to the time of Herod, under whom Jesus was born.
It is worthy of note that there are some parallels between the seventh phase, namely the
Maccabean revolt, and the seventh phase of the Gospel age commencing with the work of Pastor
Charles Russell. Mattathias was moved with indignation against the Grecian atrocities, in
particular the desecration of the altar, and called for those who were like-minded to follow him
in a separation to the mountains. There God gave him and the movement thus spawned
remarkable victories. Subsequently they took the temple again and rededicated it to the worship
of Jehovah.
Pastor Russell was moved to action by his appreciation of the ransom doctrine, and
concern for the pollutions of Christian doctrine which came from pagan influences, such as the
trinity, and the Grecian notion of inherent immortality. He called to those who were like-minded
to join him in a separation from the defiled Christian sects. In the words of Matthew 24:16, they
would “flee into the mountains,” away from “Judaea” (Christendom). There God gave him and
the movement thus spawned remarkable victories. The temple class was rededicated with an
appreciation of the ransom for all, and its meaning for God’s Plan of the Ages.
Corruption of the Movement
Daniel 11:32-35 describes a lengthy period mixed with victories, sufferings, triumphs,
defeats, flatteries, and backsliding. This describes the period of the Maccabees; on a wider scale
it also describes the exploits of early Christianity at the time of Pagan Rome; on a still wider
scale it describes the exploits of the saints during the time of Papal Rome.
In all of these cases, the Lord’s people were developed by the troubles which came their
way. The test was to maintain their faith in God, and the worship of God. The effect was “to try
them, and to purge, and to make them white” (Daniel 11:35).
In the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt, there was a time of backsliding. Two factions
emerged in the spiritual leadership of Israel, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The name
Sadducees derives from Zadok, the faithful priest in the days of David and Solomon. These
became the official leaders of the Temple, but their faith became diluted so that by New
Testament times “the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the
Pharisees confess both” (Acts 23:8).
The Pharisees maintained a closer adherence to the Law and respect for the spiritual
values and beliefs of the Jewish faith. The people came to look to them for leadership in spiritual
things, even though they were not officially in control of the Temple and its services. Thus there
was tension between the Sadducees and Pharisees. The former became more political, the latter
became more religious. But by the time of Christ the Pharisees’ adherence to the Law had
degenerated to an emphasis on details which had been added to the Law by the elders. Thus they
maintained an outward appearance of respectable worship, but failed to develop inwardly the
righteousness of the Law in their hearts.
Involvement with Rome
In its prime, the Seleucid Empire had been the most powerful empire of its day. But
Rome had been growing in status, influence, and power. Rome defeated Carthage in a series of
three Punic Wars, from 264 to 164 B.C. When Antiochus Magnus tried to expand the Seleucid
Empire westward, he was soundly defeated by Rome, and in his treaty with them in
188 B.C. agreed to a large monetary debt to Rome (Daniel 11:18).
His successor Seleucus Philopator struggled to pay this debt, and was later assassinated
by his minister Heliodorus in 175 B.C. (Daniel 11:20). The throne was taken by Philopator’s
brother Antiochus Epiphanes (Daniel 11:21), who had been a hostage in Rome.
In 170 B.C., Antiochus Epiphanes successfully invaded Egypt for the first time, leaving
the young Ptolemy Philometor on the throne as a puppet ruler, so as not to alarm the Romans.
Two years later in 168 B.C. he invaded again, but this time two Roman ambassadors compelled
him to leave (Daniel 11:30) and he did not invade a third time. On his way home he mounted a
specially grievous persecution of the Jews, including the massacre of 40,000 and the captivity of
a like number. This is recounted in 2 Maccabees chapter five.
Thus it was natural for Judas Maccabeus, after his preliminary victories, to seek an
alliance with Rome against his enemies in the north. The Roman-Jewish Treaty was contracted
in 161B.C., and was influential in stemming some of the campaigns of the Seleucids against the
Jews.
(See
1
Maccabees
chapter
eight
for
this
treaty.)
Lessons for Us
The Maccabean revolt was predicated upon Godly faith exercised by Godly leaders. God
blessed it as predicted in Zechariah 9:13 (and the remainder of chapters nine and ten), and in
Ezekiel 4:13. During this period, both the political and religious rulership of Israel was
consolidated in one leader, which foreshadowed the time of the true Messiah who would reign as
a king and a priest. Indeed, the very prophecy which speaks of the triumph of the Maccabees,
Zechariah 9:13, speaks also of the triumph of Christianity as it “conquered” the Greek world
through faith.
But as the Maccabean revolt became corrupted in later years, so Christianity became
corrupted in later years. The ideals of faith which blazed into a righteous revolt, later
degenerated into religious intolerance on one hand, and moral corruption through power on the
other. The parallels to Christendom are striking. The same lessons need our attention. Let the
faith which burned in our souls to launch our consecration, and which prospered under devoted
attention, not fade in the face of sin, lethargy, and worldliness. Nor let our supple ardor for truth
be replaced by set positions beyond the shaping influence of Scripture, evidence, and reason.
Do we suppose the dangers are all past?
_________________
There were two reckonings of the Seleucid Era, one following Babylonian years (beginning in
the spring with the month Nisanu), and a second following Macedonian years (beginning in late
summer or autumn). This subtle difference is the key to resolving some minor disparities.|
Pastoral
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Institute
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PBI Annual Report for 2007-2008
“Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive” (Matthew
20:7). So said the householder to his eleventh-hour workers. We at the Pastoral Bible Institute
are pleased to have completed another year of service in the Master’s vineyard.
The publication of this journal continues to be our main activity. Circulation remains
about the same as it was a year ago. We recently made available audio recordings of this journal
in the MP3 and CD formats, as well as cassette tape. About half the audio recordings being
distributed are now on CD. The MP3 format is also available for free downloading from our web
site: www.heraldmag.org This web site continues to be upgraded in different ways to stimulate
interest. We are grateful to the many volunteers who make our activities possible. No one
associated with the Institute receives a salary, a stipend, or remuneration of any kind.
At the end of last year the Institute cooperated with the Chicago Bible Students to send a
promotional packet to over seven thousand names and addresses obtained from Internet
advertising. A free three-issue subscription to The Herald was offered and 152 new trial
subscriptions were requested.
This year for the first time we increased the size of one issue by 60% to enable us to
thoroughly cover the topic. That issue is, of course, this one describing Israel in history and
prophecy.
Occasionally we bring new publications not produced by the PBI to the attention of our
subscribers. The “Life of Christ” workbook was one we publicized earlier this year.
Last year the U.S. Postal Service discontinued offering surface mail options for overseas
mail. That change significantly increased our mailing costs because now everything must go by
air. Approximately 60% of the press run of The Herald goes to non-U.S. addresses, and many of
the literature requests we receive come from overseas. In spite of these added costs, the financial
condition of the Institute remains strong.
At the end of this fiscal year, Carl Hagensick stepped down as a PBI director because of
ill health. Carl has been the managing editor of The Herald and a key individual for all of the
activities of the Institute for a long time. Although no longer a director, Carl remains an editor.
We are pleased to welcome back Dan Wesol to the PBI’s Board of Directors. Although new to
the incoming Board, Dan was a director in 2005 and 2006.
We do not know how much longer the Lord will grant us to labor in his vineyard, but we
pray we will apply ourselves with energy and enthusiasm to the work he gives us to do.
Directors
of the Pastoral Bible Institute
World News
and
Editors
Religious
About 1,267 Catholic schools in the U.S. have closed since 2000 and enrollment
nationwide has dropped by 382,125 students, or 14 percent, according to the National Catholic
Education Association. Catholic schools have been closing since their peak in the 1960s, when
there were 12,893 schools with about 5.25 million students. Today, there are 7,378 schools with
2.27 million students.
—Associated Press, 4/12/2008
Islam has now overtaken Roman Catholicism as the world’s largest religion, the Vatican
newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported on March 30. Roman Catholics now constitute
17.4% of the world’s population, while Muslims make up 19.2%. The number of Catholics has
not changed much, while the number of Muslims continues to rise. However, when combining
all Christian faiths, the number reached 33%.
—The Media Line, 3/31/2008
A thousand members who belong to Dalit Christian community will officially get
reconverted into Hinduism in the town of Tirunelveli. Depending on the success of this reconversion, Hindu Makkal Katchi also plans to re-convert 20,000 Christians in the Villupuram
district. India has a total 24 million Christian population. Of this Dalit Christians constitute 15
million while tribal Christians account for 3 million.
—Times of India, 4/13/2008
The Catholic Church in England and Wales is launching a campaign to replace its retiring
priests. The move comes as the church struggles to find replacements, despite a modest upturn in
the number of new recruits in the past five years. The numbers of those willing to enter the
Catholic priesthood has fallen steadily, to a low of 24 in 2003. The church says that due to the
low intake of new priests, many diocese are having to rationalise their deployment of priests as a
result.
—BBC, 4/13/2008
Social
With riots over food prices erupting around the globe, the United Nations said that the
world was on the brink of a rapidly escalating crisis of food availability. Secretary General BanKi Moon told finance and development ministers that the crisis could lead to wide-spread
starvation and could topple governments.
—Associated Press, 4/18/2008
The Texas Petawatt laser reached greater than one petawatt of laser power on Monday
morning, March 31, making it the highest powered laser in the world, Todd Ditmire, a physicist
at The University of Texas at Austin, said. The laser has the power output of more than 2,000
times the output of all power plants in the United States. (A petawatt is one quadrillion watts.)
The laser is brighter than sunlight on the surface of the sun, but it only lasts for an instant, a tenth
of a trillionth of a second The laser will be used to create and study matter at some of the most
extreme conditions in the universe.
—University of Texas press release, 4/8/2008
Drinking 8 glasses of water daily does not mean better health for the typical person, says
a new University of Pennsylvania study that contradicts a recommendation advanced by many
experts. The study looked at 4 health benefits attributed to drinking 8 glasses of water daily;
better toxin excretion, improved skin tone, reduced appetite and fewer headaches. It found no
scientific basis for those claims.
—University of Pennsylvania, 4/7/2008
48%—the proportion of U.S. teenagers who did not buy a single CD last year, up from
38% in 2006.
—TIME, 3/17/2008
Sprint Nextel Corp. and Verizon Wireless now have a feature that shows customers
where their friends are with colored marks on a map viewable on their cellphone screens.
Making this people-tracking possible is that cellphones today come embedded with Global
Positioning System technology. Now, increasingly, the wireless industry is deciding that location
tracking has so much sales potential that it’s worth the risks, so long as tight safeguards are in
place. It’s a result of the convergence of GPS with another digital phenomenon: a generation of
young people who are comfortable sharing a great deal of personal information on socialnetworking Web sites and eager for still more ways to stay connected.
—Wall Street Journal, 3/28/2008
In March, several drug experts testified at a congressional hearing called Generation Rx
about the rising abuse of prescription and over-the-counter drugs among America’s youth. In
2006, 2.2 million people ages 12 and older said they started abusing pain relievers within the past
year, with young adults ages 18-25 showing the greatest overall use of any age group, according
to Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
—Wall Street Journal, 3/25/2008
20%—the proportion of U.S. high school juniors who smoke cigarettes.
—State of New York Dept. of Health, 3/25/2008
More than 1 out of every 100 U.S. adults is behind bars, according to a new Pew report.
Violent crimes have dropped 25% since ’87, but harsher sentencing for lesser crimes has caused
overcrowding and fueled a thriving private-prisons industry.
—TIME, 3/17/2008
From 1948 to 1999, the percentage of U.S. women in the work force climbed from 32.7%
to 60%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since 1999, that five-decade increase has
leveled off, with the percentage of women in the work force down slightly at 59.2% in January,
2008.
—Wall Street Journal, 3/14/2008
As more and more people drop their landlines, the wireless industry faces a challenge:
poor cellular coverage within the home. To tackle it, they’re looking at selling customers boxes
that in essence give them cell towers within the home. The devices make cell phones work like
cordless phones, connecting to a home base station. Not only do these devices improve coverage
indoors but also reduce traffic on regular, outdoor cellular towers.
—Associated Press, 4/2/2008
Over the past 30 years, in survey after survey, [Leicester University’s scientific survey of
international happiness shows the Danes] consistently beat the rest of the world in the happiness
stakes. Professor Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark … thinks he isolated
the key to Danish anti-depression: “When we looked at [Danish] expectations, they were pretty
modest,” he says. By having low expectations, one is rarely disappointed.
—CBS 60 Minutes, 2/17/2008
Political
Zimbabwe’s education system, once the best in Africa, is being demolished teacher by
teacher. In 2007, 25,000 teachers fled the country, according to the Progressive Teachers Union
of Zimbabwe. In the first two months of this year, 8,000 more disappeared. A staggering 150,000
teaching vacancies can’t be filled. In a country where the official inflation rate is 100,000%,
teachers simply can’t afford to teach. The higher education system is equally troubled, starving
Zimbabwe’s hospitals of doctors and the mining sector of engineers.
—Los Angeles Times, 4/8/2008
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the
New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s. According
to the latest poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously
gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
—New York Times, 4/4/2008
The World Bank estimates that the Philippine government loses about P30 billion a year
in corruption. [41.755 Peso = 1 U.S. Dollar] “By one estimate, an average of 20 percent to 30
percent of the value of every contract is lost to corruption or inefficiency” a draft report of the
World Bank presented at the recent Philippine Development Forum 2008 revealed.
—Los Angeles Asian Journal, Vol. 18, 28; April 5-8, 2008
Governments across the developing world are scrambling in an attempt to forestall rising
food prices and social unrest. Saudi Arabia cut import taxes on food, India scrapped tariffs on
edible oil and maize, while Vietnam, the world’s third biggest rice exporter, said it would cut
rice exports by 11 percent. The moves mark a rapid shift away from protecting farmers. Global
rice prices have risen by a third this year and higher soybean costs have sparked protests in
countries such as Indonesia and Argentina.
—Financial Times, 4/2/2008
Financial
The federal deficit through the first half of this budget year is at an all-time high. The
Treasury Department reported Thursday that the deficit through the first six months of the budget
year totaled $311.4 billion, up 20.5 percent from the same period a year ago.
—Associated Press, 4/10/2008
Across the country, consumers are increasingly relying on credit cards to stay afloat. The
Federal Reserve reported that consumers had $951.7 billion in total revolving debt, most of it on
credit cards; an increase of 8 percent over year-ago levels. Average balances on home-equity
lines rose 9.5% in the first quarter of 2008 according to new data from Equifax and Moody’s.
Borrowing is climbing quickest in the regions where house prices plunged most sharply.
—Wall Street Journal, 4/10/2008
Of those taxpayers in the U.S. who filed income taxes totaling almost $1 trillion in 2005,
just half accounted for 97% of the Treasury’s total income tax revenue. The top 1% of taxpayers
paid almost 40% of all income tax, a proportion that has jumped dramatically since 1986.
—Fortune magazine, 4/14/2008
U.S. newspapers suffered their worst drop in print advertising sales since industry recordkeeping began 57 years ago, hammered by the housing-market slump and competition from the
Internet. Revenue plunged 9.4% to $42.2 billion, from $46.6 billion in 2006, the Newspaper
Assn. of America said.
—Los Angeles Times, 3/29/2008
Visa Inc., the largest payment-card network, set a record for U.S. initial public offerings
today by raising $17.9 billion, more than expected. The IPO ranks second in the world after the
$22 billion debut in 2006 of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. Visa and MasterCard
are insulated from rising defaults and late payments because they don’t extend credit to
cardholders. Banks that issue the cards take the credit risk.
—Bloomberg.com, 3/18/2008
For the first time since it began keeping track in 1945, the Federal Reserve said that
Americans last year owed more on their houses than they owned. About 35% of American
homeowners do not hold mortgages and so the remaining 65% owe significantly more than 50%
of their home’s value. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned that homeowners who
have little or no equity in their homes are more likely to default and “walk away” from their
mortgages.
—Associated Press, 3/6/2008
For the first time, the number of billionaires identified by Forbes magazine topped 1,000.
On February 11, the counting day, the combined net worth of all billionaires was $4.4 trillion, up
$900 billion from last year. The average billionaire is worth $3.9 billion. The average age is 61.
The 20 richest people on the planet are worth a total of $661.4 billion.
—Forbes, 3/24/2008
The government announced that it had closed the most lucrative government auction in
history as wireless companies bid more than $19 billion for the rights to radio spectrum licenses.
The spectrum licenses are being surrendered to the government by broadcasters as they complete
their conversion to digital television by early 2009. The auction was the largest in government
history and will yield nearly twice as much as budget officials in Congress and the
administration had estimated.
—New York Times, 3/19/2008
Israel
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will sign an
agreement abolishing visa requirements for Russian nationals visiting Israel, and for Israelis
traveling to Russia. The agreement is expected to come into effect 90 days after it is approved by
the Russian and Israeli governments. In Israel, the main push for eliminating the visa
requirement came from the Tourism Ministry, which estimates that abolishing visas would
increase Russian tourism to Israel by about 100,000 people a year.
—Haaretz.com, 3/20/2008
More than 10 million people could be living in Israel by 2030, according to a report from
the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics [CBS], and roughly 70% of them will be classified as
Jewish. According to the CBS population projection, which is broken down into low, medium
and high projections, between 9.6 million and 10.6 million people will be living in Israel by
2030, an increase of roughly 2–3 million on projections for 2010.
—BFP Israel Mosaic Radio, 3/25/2008
Iran announced they have started to install some 6,000 new centrifuges at their nuclear
facility in Natanz, according to the Iranian news agency IRNA, twice the number of centrifuges
reportedly running at Natanz in 2007 when they declared their capacity for industrial-scale
uranium enrichment. Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said their missile
capability, a concern to Israel, is entirely defensive in nature.
— BFP Israel Mosaic Radio, 4/8/2008
Hundreds of Israeli school children, some hailing from the rocket-battered town of
Sderot, attended a ceremony honoring the Righteous Among the Nations in Krakow, Poland on
April 17. The students were in Poland as part of a school-sponsored delegation to concentration
camps in Poland, and were able to meet with two women who had hidden Jewish families during
the Holocaust, effectively saving their lives. The trip to Auschwitz left them far more
appreciative of the State of Israel and its existence in spite of omnipresent security concerns.
—Ynetnews.com, 4/11/2008
Jesus to the Bar Kokhba Revolt
Israel in the Time of Christ
Audio MP3
You only have I known of all the families of the earth.—Amos 3:2
Sven Kruse
At the time of the first advent of our Lord the nation of Israel was under ..the grip of the
Roman Empire. Caesar Augustus had enacted a law “that all the world should be taxed” (Luke
2:1). This occurred in the year 2 B.C. and it was collected by the Jewish authorities. Every male
in Israel had to go to the city where he was born to be taxed (Luke 2:3).
The kings and governors who ruled Israel were appointed by Rome. During the time of
our Lord the powerful Herod family exercised political power over the nation. The Bible
mentions Herod the Great as the one who killed all “the children that were in Bethlehem, and in
all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had
diligently inquired of the wise men” (Matthew 2:16). Herod tried to gain the confidence of the
Jews by rebuilding the temple: “Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou
rear it up in three days?” (John 2:20).
Herod’s son Archelaus succeeded him (Matthew 2:22). He was later dismissed by the
Romans. In succeeding years new revolts arose against the Roman power. One was led by
Simon, a former slave of Herod, and another by Athronges and his four brothers. Because of
these revolts, crucifixion was implemented by the Romans for the first time in the Holy Land. It
seems this was overruled by God because it was prophesied that our Lord should die on a “tree.”
Crucifixion was only possible under the authority of the Romans: “Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth
on
a
tree”
(Galatians
3:13;
see
also
Deuteronomy
21:23).
The Sadducees and the Pharisees
The Sadducees and the Pharisees were the mighty ruling religious groups. But there were
also the Essenes and Zealots. Another group was the Herodians who were political followers and
supporters of the Herod family. Under Roman dominion the Jews were allowed to serve God in
the Temple.
The Sadducees provided the high priest and many other priests. They claimed to be the
direct descendants of Zadok, the high priest under King Solomon. We know that “the Sadducees
say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit” (Acts 23:8). In accordance with this
view Sadducees did not believe in a reward for good deeds or consequences for bad ones after
death. Josephus wrote that the teachings of the Sadducees appealed to the wealthy. They claimed
to cling only to the writings of Moses and they rejected all later writings of the prophets. The
Temple was under their control. The high priest was the head or president of the highest Jewish
court called the Sanhedrin; it consisted of seventy-one members drawn from the ranks of the
Scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees.
The Pharisees believed in a resurrection, in spirits and angels (Acts 23:8). The name
Pharisee means “a separatist” and the Pharisees tried to stay separated from the common people
and especially the publicans. They considered publicans as sinners, because they worked
together with the Roman power (Matthew 9:11) to collect taxes. The Pharisees strictly observed
the law and tried to keep it perfectly. They loved the oral traditions passed down through
generations and they believed both the writings of Moses and the writings of the prophets. Acts
23:9 describes a group of the “scribes that were of the Pharisees.” Because of that, the Bible
speaks often about “scribes and the Pharisees.”
The Gospels record the difficult situation of Israel in those days: “The people were in
expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not” (Luke
3:15). The oppression of the Roman Empire became worse and worse. We are told that Pilate
had mingled many Galilaeans’ blood with their sacrifices (Luke 13:1).
Galilee was an agricultural area where many common people lived, including farmers,
shepherds, and fishermen. The Pharisees and the Sadducees looked down on common people.
Jesus himself spent much of his life in Galilee and called his disciples from that area. This is why
those in Jerusalem said: “Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?” (Acts 2:7). When
Jesus ascended to his Father two angels said unto the disciples: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand
ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so
come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
The Sadducees, Pharisees, and scribes were afraid of revolts. They hated the thought of
losing their power and influence: “Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council,
and said, What do we? for this man [Jesus] doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all
men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye
know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the
people, and that the whole nation perish not. And this spake he not of himself: but being high
priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation.” (John 11:47-51).
“These Pharisees, posing as the leaders of religious thought in that day, were made very
angry by our Lord’s plainness of speech, and the fact that he pointed out to the common people
the general rules and principles by which a tree may be known by its fruits—that the Pharisees
were not to be esteemed according to their professions, but to be measured by their deeds. They
prided themselves upon their strict observances of the law, but he showed that many of the things
which they did were not really the law of God, but the commandments of men, and that the very
essence of the divine law, love, justice, they largely ignored, not only in their teachings but also
in their practices. The Pharisees feared, therefore, that the high station which they had previously
held in the estimation of non-professors was being shaken, and their pride antagonized this—
hence they hated him without a cause. … The improper spirit exemplified in the priests and
Pharisees and Scribes in our Lord’s day finds a parallel today in the anger, malice, hatred, bitter
words, which, like arrows, are shot forth at those who serve the truth, who seek to lift up the
standard to the people, who seek to show up the errors of the ‘dark ages’ and through the truth to
make known the real character of our heavenly Father and the real meaning of his Word.”—
Reprints,
p.
3786
The Trial Against Our Lord
In the trial against our Lord we see how the several groups with the power worked
together. Jesus was taken to Annas, and then to Caiaphas, after he was captured in Gethesemane:
“Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man
should die for the people” (John 18:14). In accordance with Matthew 26:57 the members of the
Sanhedrin were assembled in front of Caiaphas. It was against Jewish law that a man be
condemned in the night so the trial against our Lord was postponed to the early morning to
condemn him formally at day-break. After this Jesus was taken to Pilate’s hall of judgment. The
members of the Sanhedrin did not go in lest they should be defiled; they expected to eat the
Passover that night (John 18:28). This was hypocritical. Outwardly they seemed clean but
inwardly they were neither pure nor holy. “Pilate then went out unto them, and said, What
accusation bring ye against this man?” (John 18:29)
“Evidently from his previous custom they had expected that Pilate would receive any
culprit that they would bring to him, and be satisfied that if they had condemned one of their own
nation he must be indeed a bad man and worthy of condemnation and execution at the hands of
the Romans. Their surprise is indicated in their reply: ‘If he were not an evil-doer we would not
have delivered him up to thee’ … Pilate’s thrusting back the responsibility upon the Sanhedrin
was very proper. The context shows us that he discerned that it was because of malice and envy
that they were thus dealing with Jesus—that he was not an ordinary criminal, one whose liberty
would in any wise be calculated to disturb the peace of the Roman empire.”—Reprints, p. 3554
Then the members of the Sanhedrin said Jesus “stirreth up the people” (Luke 23:5) Pilate
knew such a charge would cause trouble with Caesar in Rome. Then when Pilate heard Jesus
“belonged unto Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem at
that time” (Luke 23:7). Herod ought to handle this matter.
Herod Antipas was the ruler over Galilee. In Luke 23 we read: “He [Herod] questioned
with him [Jesus] in many words; but he answered him nothing.” Then Herod with his men of war
“set him at nought, and mocked him, and arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to
Pilate” (Luke 23:11). In the meantime Pilate’s wife had had a dream: “[Pilate’s] wife sent unto
him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day
in a dream because of him” (Matthew 27:19). When Jesus returned, Pilate asked: “Ye have a
custom, that I should release unto you one at the Passover” (John 18:39). The multitude was
persuaded “that they should ask [for] Barabbas and destroy Jesus” (Matthew 27:20).
God’s Permission
The apostle Peter tells us why God permitted these events: “And now, brethren, I wot that
through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. But those things, which God before had
shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent ye
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall
come from the presence of the Lord; and he shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached
unto you: whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God
hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said
unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto
me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you.” (Acts 3:17-22).
Jesus’ sacrifice guarantees the forgiveness of sins and a full opportunity for reconciliation
with God during the Messianic kingdom. The apostle Paul asked: “Hath God cast away
his people?” Then he answered: “God forbid. … God hath not cast away his people which
he foreknew” (Romans 11:1,2). The rulers in Israel did it in ignorance. And Jesus himself said
about himself: “No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself” (John 10:18)
The time will come when all Israel will repent and be converted (Romans 11:26). The prophet
Zechariah prophesied about this time: “I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of favour and of supplications, and they will look unto me
whom they have pierced, and will wail over him, as one waileth over an only son, and will make
bitter outcry over him, as one maketh bitter outcry over a firstborn” (Zechariah
12:10, Rotherham). The apostle Paul explains: “For as ye in times past have not believed God,
yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: even so have these also now not believed,
that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in
unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! … To
whom
be
glory
for
ever.
Amen”
(Romans
11:30-33,36).
Christ’s Ascension and Pentecost
Paul also said: “I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the
third day according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). After his resurrection Jesus was
forty days with his disciples, even though he was invisible and only materialized a few times.
Then he ascended up on high “to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24),
presenting the merit of his sacrifice to make atonement for the Church class.
The same apostles who witnessed our Lord’s ascension were in the upper room waiting in
an attitude of prayer and expectation, ready to begin their mission. At Pentecost the holy spirit
was poured upon them as visible evidence that the merit of our Lord Jesus had been accepted by
God. At this time three thousand Jews “that gladly received his [Peter’s] word were baptized”
(Acts 2:41). Soon the number increased: “Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed;
and the number of the men was about five thousand” because “the Lord added to the church
daily such as should be saved” (Acts 4:4; 2:47). Even Pharisees believed and became followers
of the Lord (Acts 15:5).
Acts describes the beginning of the church and the miracles the apostles performed.
“Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the
kindred of the high priest” conferred among themselves “saying, What shall we do to these men
[the apostles]? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them
that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:6,16). The chief priest and elders
threatened them, then let them go (Acts 4:21). Later the high priest and the Sadducees “laid their
hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison” (Acts 5:18). God miraculously
delivered them and they were called again by the high priest and Sadducees, were beaten, and
were commanded not to speak in the name of Jesus: “They [the apostles] departed from the
presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his [Jesus’]
name” (Acts 5:41).
The Apostle Paul
Stephen was the first Christian martyr, put to death by stoning (Acts 7:58-60). Saul was a
leader in his prosecution and was influential in the Sanhedrin (Acts 8:1,3). This Saul became the
apostle Paul (Acts 9). Saul had been a bitter enemy of the Lord and his followers. He had trained
under Gamaliel, one of the great teachers of that time. In his heart Saul was honest, sincere, and
loyal to his understanding of the Law and God. This man became a chosen vessel unto the Lord
to bear his name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel (Acts 9:15). What a
great miracle in his transformation was observed by the brethren and people of Israel! He
suffered much for Christ’s sake. It is reasonable to assume he experienced the burning of the city
of Rome in 64 A.D. and the persecution of the Christians in Rome that followed.
In Israel a new revolt arose in the years 70-73 A. D. As a result the Roman army
destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. Many lost their lives and others were scattered throughout
the world. Only a few fled to Massada where they eventually killed themselves to prevent
becoming prisoners of Rome.
In 132 A. D. another revolt arose, the so-called Bar-Kokhba revolution. But it failed and
Jerusalem was trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled.
The lesson of the apostle Paul is that we must guard our words, motives, heart intentions,
feelings, actions, and deeds so they are a true reflection of a pure heart. We must be motivated by
a pure heart as was Paul. We must be perfect in our heart: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they
shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
If 144,000 faithful Jews would have been found to be Israelites indeed in whom there
is no guile (John 1:47), then only Jews would have constituted the body of Christ. Although
some were faithful, most did not take the opportunity offered to them. Consequently we Gentiles
have obtained this grace to “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians
1:24).
The lesson natural Israel teaches us is to be careful, humble, faithful, and obedient to the
word of God: “For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee
[us]” (Romans 11:21). The 144,000 are virgins, that “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth …
[They are] the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb … they are without fault” (Revelation
14:4,5).
From 132 to 1799 A.D.
The Great Jewish Diaspora
Audio MP3
And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall scatter them among the
nations, and disperse them in the countries.—Ezekiel 12:15
Richard Doctor
The last agonized moans of the crucified on Jerusalem’s walls fell still, drowned out by
the steady tramp of a heavy military occupation that followed the failed Great Jewish Revolt in
70-73 A.D. As prophesied, the temple lay in ruins and the site was salted as a further special
insult. After two generations Judea seemed sufficiently pacified that Emperor Hadrian paid a
personal visit in 130 A.D. and promised to rebuild. This hopeful promise quickly revealed its
dark character, for Hadrian’s vision was that on the ruins would rise a model city re-named Aelia
Capitolina, not a Jewish capital. The Roman sacred plough roughly bit through the salt-deadened
rubble of the temple mount to mark the site of the new pagan temple. The seeds of rebellion were
sown in 131 A.D.
With the temple’s destruction, a Sanhedrin composed solely of Pharisees had
reassembled on the coast. Citing a prophecy from Numbers 24:17—“There shall come a Star out
of Jacob” —they organized the impending revolt, proclaiming its commander Simon as the
Jewish Messiah and naming him “Bar Kokhba” meaning “son of a star.” The outbreak took the
Romans by surprise, but remembering the lessons of the earlier revolt, two full armies were
recalled from Britain and the Danube River to meet the rebellion with a more massive force than
in the earlier campaign. The desperate struggle lasted for three years before it was brutally
crushed on the fateful ninth of Av (135 A.D.).1
This second epic defeat marks the beginning of the Great Jewish Diaspora. Hadrian built
a wall around Jerusalem and expelled all Jews. It was only at a later period that they were
permitted to go to the Mount of Olives, to cast a mournful, sorrowing look toward the seat of
their ancient glory on the anniversary of its destruction. Vanquished Judea was renamed Syria
Palaestina (the origin of the present name Palestine) honoring Israel’s two most intractable
enemies,
the
Syrians
and
the
Philistines.
To 381 A.D.
Many Jews lived beyond Rome’s borders in Persia, Mesopotamia, Oman, Yemen, Aden,
and even as far distant as India and China where they had migrated since the Babylonian
captivity. Scholars in these communities continued to influence Judaism throughout the world.
Within the Roman Empire there were probably at least three million Jews in 312 A.D. They were
guaranteed freedom of religion and were allowed to practice Jewish law in disputes with fellow
Jews. Prosperous Jewish communities lived in Alexandria, Egypt, where about one-quarter of the
population was Jewish. There were also significant Jewish communities in Carthage (Tunisia)
and the major cities on the coast of North Africa, Asia Minor, and Greece. Within Italy itself,
most of the major urban areas from Genoa, Rome, and Sicily supported Jewish communities, as
did southern Spain and most of Gaul. Jews were settled into every part of the Roman Empire
except Britain, and served equally in agricultural and urban professions.
Christianity’s emergence challenged Rome in a way Judaism never had. Its radical
message of a “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” who was not the Roman emperor continued
to attract sporadic, but brutal, persecution, culminating with Diocletian’s edicts that sought
nothing less than the extermination of Christianity (303 A.D.). His sullied name forever is linked
to some of the severest and most inhumane of the persecutions devised by fallen human
imagination.
His successor Constantine then engaged in one of history’s most startling reversals of
state policy. He claimed two visions, the first of the sun emblazoned with the despised Christian
cross and reading, “By this sign shall you conquer,” followed by a vision of Christ himself the
next night. Heeding this, his armies now marched to victory bearing this new insignia on their
shields (312 A.D.). Constantine founded a new Christian capital called “Constantinople” on the
border between Asia and Europe (May 11, 330), thus ushering in an era of new challenge for
Christianity and unprecedented woes for the Jews. While localities such as Alexandria had
experienced sporadic anti-Jewish riots inspired by Christian mobs since the 200s, Constantine’s
rise meant that Jews were now the object of scorn throughout the empire. Joseph, a Jewish
convert to Christianity obtained Constantine’s permission to proselytize the Jews in Palestine.
Following his predictable lack of success an angry Constantine imposed heavy taxes and
executed many of the unrelenting Jewish leaders.
Not all Romans shared Constantine’s vision and a notable reactionary movement arose
when Julian, called the Apostate, became Emperor (361-363 A.D.). He was friendly to the Jews,
persecuted the Christians, and ordered the rebuilding of the temple of Jehovah in Jerusalem. The
brevity of his reign frustrated these plans and the course set by Constantine resumed. Theodosius
I (379-395 A.D.) then established the empire as “Christian” and Jews as outcasts without full
citizenship rights, something that persisted until 1791. During his reign, the Second Ecumenical
Church Council (381 A.D.) solidified Trinitarian “Orthodoxy,” further alienating Jews from
Church dogma. The Jewish Paschal week had marked the holiest week on the Church’s calendar
since apostolic times. Now these times and seasons were changed to the still current method of
predicting “Easter” so that it almost never coincides with the actual proper observance (Daniel
7:25).
The Fall of Rome to the Rise of Islam
Rome’s fall to Alaric the Vandal in 410 A.D. sent a shock through the civilized world and
initiated a new period of isolation and persecution for the Jews. For the European portion of the
empire in the west, Rome’s fall typically marks the beginning of the “Dark Ages.” From this
point forward the history of the Roman world follows two tracks: the impoverished European
portion in the west and the Greek-speaking “Byzantium” in the east with its capital in
Constantinople.
Byzantine emperor Theodosius II (412 A.D.) was inimical to the Jews; in the eighth year
of his reign he ordered all the Jews to be driven out of Alexandria and he confiscated their
religious contributions for the imperial treasury. In the city of Rome itself, the military, political,
and economic situation continued to deteriorate from the attack of the Vandals. While imperial
armies did repeatedly march in from the east to rescue Rome from many incursions, the east
could not be depended upon. Moving into this power vacuum in 539 A.D., the Bishop of Rome,
now Pope, saw his ambitions fulfilled.3 While migrating tribes swallowed up the Roman Europe,
the civilized “new Rome” of Byzantium was not much better off spiritually or intellectually.
Byzantium prided itself on being both anti-intellectual and eager to believe in everyday miracles.
Nazi-style library burnings took place during this era, and much knowledge from antiquity was
lost. These attitudes led to the spiritual famine promised in Revelation 6:5,6. During this famine,
a full day’s work would purchase barely enough on which to live. The true church, like Elijah,
moved to a place prepared for it by God in the wilderness (see Revelation 12 for the details).
A major reversal of Jewish fortune followed Byzantine emperor Heraclius’ war with the
Persian King, Chosroes II. The Jews of Palestine sided with Chosroes, who initially was
successful in capturing and spoiling Jerusalem (614 A.D.). Heraclius then successfully counterattacked, occupied Jerusalem, and expelled every Jew. Not content to stop there, he initiated a
general Jewish persecution heeding his court astrologer who predicted,supposedly from his false
arts, that the empire should soon fall to a circumcised nation. Heraclius interpreted this to be a
reference to the Jews. He did not realize that just beyond the border, Islamic Arabs also practiced
circumcision.
The Rise of Islam
Against the backdrop of a church and state spiritually sick, Islam’s sword came as a bolt
of lightning from a clear sky. Emerging from Arabia (622 A.D.), Islam conquered Syria, Iraq,
Israel, Egypt, Persia, North Africa, and Spain in less than ninety years. In short order Jerusalem
was lost to Islam (637 A.D.). Omar, the conquering Islamic general, visited the temple mount
which was alleged to be the site of two sacred acts in Islamic belief. Since Julian’s day the
temple mount had served as a garbage dump in an exhibition of disrespect, but after he
dismounted, Omar set an example by initiating a clean-up using his own best vestments to hold
the offal. His example was soon taken up by all his enthusiastic troops. He then vowed to
construct the most beautiful house of worship possible at the site, leading to the edifices that
today dominate Jerusalem.
Islam’s advance was welcomed by the persecuted Jews. Spain’s Visigoth kings from
500A.D. onward embraced Roman Catholicism and wished to convert all their subjects. Many
Jews yielded to compulsion, hoping that the severe measures would be of short duration. In this
they were wrong. When Islam’s cavalry overran the Spanish peninsula, the Jews flung open
Cordova’s gates to their conquerors (711 A.D.). A balanced view of history not caught up in the
events of today’s headlines recognizes that Islam in its “Golden Age” was both more
economically advanced, more tolerant than Christendom, and more compatible with Jewish
belief. Abraham I. Katsch, a Jewish scholar fluent in Hebrew and Arabic, wrote:
“The Shahadah, or affirmation that “there is no God but Allah,” is the Islamic counterpart
of the Jewish Shema Yisrael. Like Judaism, Islam does not recognize saints as mediators between
the individual and his Creator. Like the Jews, the Muslim believes in the immortality of the soul
and in personal accountability for his actions here on earth. Like Judaism, Islam denies the
doctrines of original sin and salvation. And like the Jews, Muslims believe that each individual
must follow a righteous path and secure atonement by improving his own conduct through
sincere repentance.”2
Jews living in Islamic Spain (Andalusia) found much-needed respite and this era saw the
flowering of Jewish scholarship in biblical, Talmudic, and scientific studies. Andalusian Jews
later would serve a critical role as the translators of classical works from the now forgotten
civilization of the Hebrews, Greece, and Rome when Europe was ready to awaken from its
slumber
in
the
Renaissance
during
the
mid-1400s.
Charles Martel to the Crusades
Charles Martel met Islam’s strength in conquest with equal ferocity and finally arrested
its advance in France at Tours near the Spanish border (732 A.D.). By then Islam had overrun
every church crucial to the advancement of Trinitarian doctrine.{FOOTNOTE: For further
discussion see “A Star called Wormwood,” Beauties of the Truth, 13(3), August 2002.} Within
Europe those Jews who still wished to remain true to the faith of their fathers were protected by
the Roman Catholic Church itself from compulsory conversion, a policy based on practical
motive. Christian rule left a privileged niche for Jews in the new order since Church Law forbade
Christians to loan money. Jews were deemed the most compatible non-Christians to meet this
need and thus were drawn into banking. This status inevitably led to conflicts and persecution by
desperate princes seeking a quick way out of debt, yet many Jews rose to prominence and
Judaism was usually practiced in private to avoid persecution. Their fate in each particular
country depended on the changing political conditions and they experienced dark days during the
endless wars waged on the continent.
On Christmas Day in 800 A.D. Charlemagne was crowned through trickery by the Pope.
Charlemagne was glad to use the Church for the purpose of welding together the loosely
connected elements of his kingdom, but after his death in 843 his empire fell apart, and the rulers
of Italy, France, and Germany left the Church free in her dealings with the Jews. By the turn of
the first Millennium the Slavs were newly part of Christendom and only the wildest regions of
Europe, such as Lithuania, were not under Christian rule.
The trials which the Jews had endured from time to time in the different kingdoms of the
Christian West were only intimations of the catastrophe which broke over them at the time of the
Crusades. As they prepared to take the cross to Jerusalem, wild throngs, enraged by fiery
preachers, fell fanatically upon the peaceful Jews. In the First Crusade in 1096 A.D.flourishing
Jewish communities on the Rhine and the Danube were utterly destroyed.
The first Papal bull protecting Jews was issued by Pope Calixtus II in 1120 A.D., after
the mayhem and slaughter of the First Crusade. This bull was reaffirmed by many popes, as late
as the fifteenth century. On pain of excommunication, the “Constitution for the Jews” forbade
Christians from coercing Jewish conversion, harming Jews, taking their property, disturbing their
festivals, or transgressing their cemeteries. Notwithstanding, in the Second Crusade the Jews in
France especially suffered in 1147. Preparations for the Third Crusade in 1188 proved disastrous
for English Jews who were attacked, as were Jews during the Shepherds’ Crusades (1251 and
1320).
Libels against the Jews and Expulsions
Outrageous libels were commonplace during the Middle Ages and Jews frequently were
accused of ritual murder and using Christian children’s blood to make unleavened bread
for Passover. The first of many ritual murder charges started in Norwich, England (1144).
Attempts to win the Jews to Christianity through religious disputations also were made during
this period. When these attempts failed, the Jews were ever more restricted in the exercise of
their civil rights. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, called by Pope Innocent III, decreed that
Jews must wear special dress, and badges or distinctive conical hats to distinguish them from
other people. In Germany, alleged Jewish profaning of the Host was an excuse for a series of
anti-Semitic massacres (1243). Europe suffered great devastation in the fourteenth century:
disastrous harvests, severe famine, and the Black Plague’s reappearance (1361). Superstition and
prejudice breed during dire times, and the Jews were blamed for these hardships. Expulsion of
Jews continued throughout the continent. During this era Jews were gradually confined to
ghettos, with the first compulsory ones established in Spain and Portugal at the end of the
fourteenth century.
Jews were driven out of England in 1290, out of France in 1394, and out of numerous
districts of Germany, Italy, and the Balkan Peninsula between 1350 and 1450. The Balkans
became more attractive when they came under Islam’s control in the Ottoman Turk advance into
Europe after their historic capture of Constantinople (1453). This conquest closes the history of
the Byzantine Roman Empire. Thenceforth the most preferred asylum for the Jews was the new
Slavic kingdoms. For a while the Jewish faith was tolerated there.
As early as the thirteenth century Islam could no longer offer a real resistance to the
advancing force of Christian kings on Andalusia (Spain), and Islamic culture began to decline.
As the Christian re-conquest advanced, thousands of Jews were thrown into prison, tortured, and
burned, until a project was formed to sweep all Spain clean of “unbelievers.” The plan matured
when the last Moorish fortress fell into the hands of the Christians in 1492. Several hundred
thousand Jews were forced from the country and resolved to flee to the Balkans. Sultan Bayazid
II of the Ottoman Empire, learning about their expulsion, dispatched the Ottoman Navy to bring
the Jews safely to his lands. A handful took refuge sailing into the unknown with an adventurer
named Christopher Columbus. Fugitives from Spain and Germany also came to Italy as teachers
of Hebrew, and became the leaders and guides of the humanists in what became known as the
Renaissance
(1454-1530).
The Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation in Germany in 1517 initially sympathized with the Jews, but
Martin Luther’s temper became inflamed when his proselytizing was rebuffed. His harsh antiSemitic invectives have echoed down the centuries. With the Reformation came civil war in
Europe that ravaged the continent for a hundred fifty years until the Peace of Westphalia
established the map of modern Europe (1648). Despite Luther’s setback, the Reformation
changed Europe, both socially and economically in ways advantageous to the Jews. The Catholic
feudal countries did not want Jewish settlement for religious reasons and, having no economic
need of them, kept them out. But the Protestant countries, having an economic need of the
merchant Jews, permitted them to settle. Holland allowed Jews to practice their religion freely,
and a thriving Jewish community began to develop (1579). Exiled Spanish Jews were allowed to
settle in England in 1655 and were never again expelled.
But against these positive developments, it must be noted that while Poland had served as
a safe haven for Jews and became the center for Jewish learning, a horrible reversal occurred in a
series of widespread massacres upon the Polish and Lithuanian Jews through the Ukrainian
Cossack Bogdan Chmielnicki (1648) followed by the Swedish wars (1655). Hundreds of
thousands of Jews were slaughtered in these few years in what was the worst persecution of the
Diaspora up until the twentieth century holocaust. Following this, Poland was pummeled by a
second Cossack uprising, a second invasion by Sweden, and a war with Turkey. In the 1790s,
Poland was divided three ways and fell under the rule of Russia, Germany, and Austria.
In 1780, in the Hapsburg territories of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia and Moravia,
Emperor Joseph II abolished the Jewish badge. Jews were free to leave the ghetto, learn any
trade, engage in commerce, and attend public schools and universities. But the first real liberty
came from across the sea, when the newly independent United States of America adopted its
present Constitution in 1791. Under this liberal rule Jews enjoyed full rights as citizens for the
first time since Theodosius I had taken away their citizenship rights in 381. Both Jews and their
host country prospered.
The French Revolution brought the winds of change for liberty, equality, and fraternity to
the heart of one of Europe’s most powerful monarchies. In 1799 the French Revolutionary
government was holding Pope Pius VI when he died in prison; Napoleon, the charismatic leader
of the army, was fighting with the Ottomans in Egypt and Palestine.
Through all this, Jews for the first time since their homeland was lost, were breathing the
air of a new era in World History: the divinely appointed “Time of the End” had arrived. There
would soon be stirrings for Jews to once again seize their divine appointment with destiny.
_________________
1. For further discussion see, “The 9th of Av,” Beauties of the Truth, 17(4), November 2006.
2. Katsh, A.I., Judaism in Islam, Sepher-Hermon Press, Inc. NY (1980) introduction.
3. For further discussion see, Studies in the Scriptures, vol. 2, p. 269.
Israel Reawakens
Audio MP3
And the bones came together, bone to his bone.—Ezekiel 37:7
Carl Hagensick
One of the time periods in the Bible is called “the day of his preparation” (Nahum 2:3).
This phrase is descriptive of the preliminary work necessary for the introduction of Messiah’s
kingdom. In this period the present political, economic, and social structures are weakened in
preparation for their final collapse in the Battle of Armageddon which closes this age. Most
Bible Students date this period from the capture and death of Pope Pius VI in 1799 or from the
French Revolution which began a decade earlier.
During this period, every step in the decline of nominal spiritual Israel is matched by a
corresponding step in the reestablishment of natural Israel in preparation for its kingdom role.
There were some preliminary stirrings in the dispersed Jewish community before 1799.
The first Hassidic aliyah (return) to Israel began in 1742 with the immigration of Rabbi Abraham
Gershorn of Kitob in today’s Uzbekistan.
In 1789, as a result of the French Revolution, Jews in France were granted full rights,
including that of conditional citizenship. In 1790, President George Washington wrote a letter to
the Jews of Rhode Island, envisioning a country “which gives bigotry no sanction, persecution
no assistance” and assured them of full rights under American law.
In 1796, the Netherlands granted citizenship and equal rights to the Jews. In 1830, Greece
granted citizenship to the Jews. In 1851, Norway allowed the Jews to enter, though they were not
granted full rights until 1891. England emancipated its Jewish population in 1858; Poland
followed
in
1862,
Hungary
in
1867,
Italy
in
1870,
and
Germany
in
1871.
Zionism
The underpinnings of Zionism had its roots in the Haskalah, or Jewish enlightenment
movement of the seventeenth century. Moses Mendelssohn (1726-1789), father of the noted
composer Felix Mendelssohn, is credited as the father of this movement. Because this movement
advocated the secularization of Judaism, it furthered the assimilation of the Jews with their
Gentile neighbors. This had the contrasting effects of a loss of Jewish identity, balanced with the
political muscle to advance Jewish causes, including equal rights and Zionism.
The Sephardic Jew, Judah ben Solomon Hai Alkalai (1798-1878), is considered a major
figure in the founding of modern Zionism. He believed that the return to the land of Israel was a
precondition for the redemption of the Jewish people. Incidentally, Alkalai was a close friend of
the grandfather of Theodore Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism.
While this period saw the declining use of the hybrid Yiddish language, it saw increased
interest in reviving the ancient Hebrew tongue. From 1783 to 1811, Chevrat Dorshei Leshon
Ever (“Society of Friends of the Hebrew Language”) published a quarterly journal in ancient
biblical Hebrew, entitled Ha-Me’assef (“The Gatherer”).
Immigration to Palestine by Jews began as early as 1700, but it was not until 1740 that a
large group of Lithuanian and Turkish Jews followed the Rabbis Luzatto and Ben-Attar to the
holy land. Most European or Eastern Jews, however, viewed the concept or a movement to settle
the holy land as unimaginable.
In 1799, in preparation for the siege of Acre, Napoleon drafted a proclamation declaring a
Jewish state in Palestine. However, as a result of the failure of the siege, the proclamation was
never issued. Soon after, the spiritual bonds between the Jews and their ancient homeland found
more tangible means of expression. In 1808 a group of Lithuanian Jews arrived in Palestine and
purchased land to start an agricultural settlement. In 1836, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer petitioned
Anschel Rothschild to buy Palestine, or at least the Temple Mount for the Jews. This was
followed by an unsuccessful attempt by Sir Moses Montefiore to seek permission for land
purchase and settlement by European Jews. Miqveh Yisrael, an agricultural school was founded
in 1870 by the French Alliance Universelle on a gift from the Turks of land southeast of today’s
Tel Aviv. The name of the school means “Hope of Israel” and is derived from Jeremiah 14:8 and
17:13 (Encyclopedic Dictionary, “Zionism and Israel”).
Moses Hess was the first to publicly advocate a Jewish state in Israel in his 1862
book,Rome and Jerusalem: The Last National Question. Each of these events was instrumental
in awakening world-wide Jewry to the necessity for having a land of their own, and that in their
ancestral homeland of Israel.
The first census of Jerusalem, taken in 1844, showed 7,120 Jews, 5,760 Muslims, and
3,390 Christians. Jewish settlement expanded beyond the Old City in 1860 when Montefiore
founded Mishkenot Sha’ananim, a small development on a nearby hill, still identifiable by a
gristmill erected in Montefiore’s honor.
Columbia University Professor Pierre Birnbaum wrote this in his synopsis of a course on
“Jews in Nineteenth Century France”:
“French Jews followed a unique path of emancipation. The very presence of a strong
state shaped their long-term history. Assimilation through regeneration was expected from them,
leading to a kind of ‘statization’ of Judaism. Jews nevertheless were able to face this specific
challenge, resisting even against Napoleon’s authoritarian attempt to destroy their culture and
sociability. While disappearing as a recognized nation or even a minority, threatened also by the
growing secularism, they protect their subculture and their solidarity within the nation. Being
citizens, they often became State Jews, climbing to the highest level of the state without
conversion, and played a crucial role in the public sphere, thus provoking a new form of political
anti-Semitism against their presence within the state. From the French Revolution to the Dreyfus
Affair, by many aspects, they were symbolically at the core of France’s nineteenth-century
history.”
A Great Shaking
Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37:7) begins with “a great shaking,”
which stirs up the bones and rekindles Jewish hopes for a homeland. The American Standard
Version translates this as “an earthquake.” Earthquakes in the Bible usually represent social or
political revolutions.
In the book of Revelation three “great earthquakes” are mentioned. One is during the
pouring out of the seventh vial (Revelation 16:18). A second precedes the sounding of the seven
trumpets (Revelation 8:5). The other occurs in connection with the opening of the sixth seal
(Revelation 6:12). We suggest that the first of these is still future and is associated with the
Battle of Armageddon, the second refers to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., and the third is
associated with the French Revolution. Here is the description of the third earthquake: “And I
beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun
became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell
unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind”
(Revelation 6:12,13).
These verses foretold the effect of the French Revolution upon the religious world. Not
only did the revolution spawn a growth in atheistic thinking, but the writings of Rousseau,
Voltaire, Carlyle, Locke, and others prompted a spurt in secular Deism. This, in turn, gave birth
to higher criticism, which darkens the gospel’s sunlight by denying the inspiration of the Bible. It
also turned the moonlight of the Old Testament law into the blood of meaningless sacrifices and
needless slaughters. The natural result was for the ecclesiastical stars to drop from their position
as spiritual leaders and become preachers of earthly reforms.
In his book, A Short Exposition on Revelation, T. E. Stracy notes a possible connection
between these effects on Christendom and parallel effects on Zionism:
“And the stars of heaven (not stars in any earthly calling, but ‘stars of heaven,’ bright
ones in the ecclesiastical firmament) fell unto the earth (came down from spiritual things as a
result of having their faith destroyed, to preach almost exclusively upon social, political and
ethical subjects—1 John 4:5), ‘even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of
a mighty wind.’ Just as a mighty wind will strip a tree of its fruit, so the winds of false doctrine
have denuded Churchianity (in some respects fore-shadowed by Israel; the fig tree) of her
spiritual fruit. Just as the immature fruits of Zionism were dashed to the ground by the Great
War, A.D. 1914-1918, so the great winds of false doctrine that have swept through Christendom
during the ‘time of the end’ have entirely bereft the Church nominal of her fruit. All her spiritual
riches have been brought to naught—Joel 1:16-20.”
In a letter to Pastor Russell, William Smith quotes a Rev. S. Manning’s observation on
the phrase “untimely figs”:
“In the early spring, when the first leaves appear, an immense number of small figs are
produced, which do not ripen, but fall from the branches, crude and immature, to the ground. To
these we find a reference in Rev. 6:13. The true crop is not produced till later in the year. This
first crude, ‘untimely’ growth, though of no commercial value, is yet plucked and eaten by the
peasantry, sometimes with a pinch of salt, sometimes with bread.”—Reprints, p. 4844
Similarly, these early fruits of Zionism, based on Nationalistic and Deistic values, failed
to reach their fruition. Nevertheless they were precursors of later developments under Theodor
Herzl, Chaim Weisman, and others.
A fourth passage appears to refer to two of these earthquakes: “And the same hour was
there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of
men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. The
second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly. ... And the temple of God was
opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament; and there were
lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail” (Revelation
11:13,14,19).
The first of these is the French Revolution in which France (a tenth part of the Holy
Roman Empire) fell and, according to Smith’s Bible Dictionary, seven thousand civil and
ecclesiastical titles were abolished. As both the civil and religious power of the Papacy was
diminished, there were corresponding advancements in the lot of the dispersed Jewish people.
The Day of His Preparation
The book of Nahum is a prophecy about Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. That nation had
defeated and taken captive the ten-tribe northern kingdom of Israel. This fact is somewhat
obscured by a faulty translation of Nahum 2:2. Here is a correct translation from theAmerican
Standard Version: “For Jehovah restoreth the excellency of Jacob, as the excellency of Israel; for
the emptiers have emptied them out, and destroyed their vine-branches.”
The next verse from Leeser reads: “The shields of his mighty men are made red, the
valiant men are (clothed) in scarlet: with the fire of the steel the chariots (glitter) on the day when
he prepareth himself (for battle), and the spears are shaken.”
This context has been variously interpreted as applying to railways (Thy Kingdom Come,
p. 272) or to the automobile (Question Book, p. 759), but more likely refers to battle
preparations. The period of “the day of his preparation” is generally applied to the period from
the Napoleonic era to the return of Christ, 1799-1874.
It has certainly been true that this period has seen the buildup of forces. One of the
byproducts has been to deliver God’s chosen people from nearly two millennia of bondage in
preparation for their return to their ancient homeland, and ultimately for their future role in
Christ’s Messianic kingdom.
The word for “preparation” in Nahum 2:3 is from the Hebrew word kuwn (#3559).
Strong’s Concordance defines this word as “to be erect (i.e., stand perpendicular).” This
meaning—to stand upright—reminds us of Daniel 12:1, which says “at that time shall Michael
stand up.” And the gap between Daniel 11:45 (1799) and Daniel 12:1 (1874) matches the “day of
preparation” in Nahum. So both the time periods indicated in these passages, and the concept of
“standing,” links these passages together.
“Michael [shall] stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:
and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same
time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the
book” (Daniel 12:1).
In this passage Michael (Jesus) stands “for the children of thy [Daniel’s] people,” the
Israelites of some generation future from that of the prophet. Though it is generally conceded
that Michael “stands up” at his return in 1874, there might also be a sense in which he stands up
during Israel’s reawakening from 1799 and onward. It behooves all true Christians to “Pray for
the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Psalm 122:6) for “Thou shalt arise,
and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time, is come” (Psalm 102:13).
1878-1948
Preparing for Statehood
Audio MP3
Todd Alexander
When David Ben-Gurion named “the six outstanding Jews who, in his view, had
contributed the most to the fulfillment of the Zionist ideal (the rebirth of the Jewish people in
their historical homeland),” three of the six he named were founders of Petah Tikvah, the first
Jewish farm village in the land in modern history.1 These men, along with many others from
1878 to 1948 did the heavy-lifting necessary to begin building a miraculous national
infrastructure of all time.
Today, with a meager 20% of its land arable (435,000 hectares), Israel competes globally
in the world’s agricultural and agro-technology markets by exporting 70% of its agricultural
products and by providing technologically mature solutions for water conservation worldwide.
Almost the entire agriculture sector in Israel uses science-based technology, a rich cultural
heritage—born through extreme adversity—and a fledgling national infrastructure that’s only
sixty years old.2
Of the three miraculous births in the Scriptures—Jesus, the Christian Church, and Israel
—Israel is the most visible to those watching today. Yet the significance of the birth of Israel is
invisible to today’s media-rich and self-absorbed world. The increase of knowledge that began in
1874 greatly accelerated in 1948 with the implementation of technological advances developed
during World War II. This frenetic pace of knowledge and specialization acted as a narcotic,
effectively keeping the world unaware of the divine workings of God. During the world’s state of
unawareness, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the returned Messiah, constructed a
body and breathed life into God’s son, the modern-day Nation of Israel. By 1948, a
comparatively small number felt constrained to leave their countries to stake their claim in this
improbable land. A faithful few wanted to become God’s holy nation, forever (Hosea 11:1;
Isaiah
11:11).
Ezekiel 37
The human body is the most complete infrastructure of any closed system. It has the
physical capacities to defend itself, provide shelter, make food, along with the spiritual capacities
to reason, love, create, and worship. God used this body as a fitting metaphor of the rebirth of the
Nation of Israel in Ezekiel 37. In this beautiful, self-interpreting Old Testament picture, the
“dead” nation of Israel is pictured as a field of scattered and dry human bones. The first eight
verses describe the bones coming together in a divine effort, forming a human body with joints,
muscles, and flesh to sustain life. Just so, from 1874 to 1948, Israel came together as a scattered
people to develop the physical infrastructure in the land of Israel (Eretz Yisrael), a platform for
the birth of the Nation of Israel. The “breath” of life (verses 9 and 10) came into this body and
animated it with political life and international recognition on the world’s stage. The vision of
the Zionist fathers was finally realized. The infrastructure they worked so hard to develop was
now crowned with the capacities of statehood. Israel had the ability, on the world’s stage, to
think and act as one with self determination.
“Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the
wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them,
and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”—Ezekiel 37:9,10
There are at least three important prophetic tracks in the study of the prophecies referring
to the 1874-1948 time period in Israel’s pre-national history. These are: 1) the restoration ofEretz
Yisrael, the land of Israel; 2) the restoration of the Jews to the land of Israel; and 3) the
restoration of the people of Israel to God. For the sake of brevity, we will look at just the
restoration of the Jews to Eretz Yisrael.
“I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in
them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I
will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them,
says the LORD your God.”—Amos 9:14,15, NIV
By 1948, the fulfillers of Zionism had reclaimed 165,000 hectares of arable land by
forming four hundred agricultural communities from the wasteland of the Jordan Valley, the
malarial marshes, and the Valley of Jezreel.4 It was a difficult task. The mosquito-infested
swamps and Arab marauders claimed the lives of several of Israel’s faithful pioneers. In the early
years, 9,260 Jewish Zionist pioneers began cooperative farming villages such as Petah Tikvah
founded in 1878, Rishon L’Zion and Zichron Jacob founded in 1882, Rehobot in 1890, and
others founded before 1893. They lost loved ones by the hundreds but they had the strength,
determination, and great faith in the prophecies of God to stay, and to build. This unusual faith
was exemplified by the father of an Israeli settler who, in 1914, when hearing of his son Moshe
Barsky’s death by six Arab attackers, replied: “We neither wail nor weep. The dear sons of our
people must strive hard to revive and strengthen our nation. We are sending you our second son,
Shalom, to take the place of his brother who has fallen. Moshe’s death brings us all to the Land
of Israel.”3
The rest of Moshe’s family including his parents eventually emigrated from Russia. The
same power of God that brought these fulfillers of Zionism together in the land of Israel also
provided an open door for them to colonize the land; they walked through that door with great
faith. One of the most remarkable prophecies was fulfilled by these faithful few who founded
Petah Tikvah, which in Hebrew means “Door of Hope.” They simply read Hosea’s prophecy,
stepped out on faith, and forever intertwined themselves with their foretold success by beginning
one of the most remarkable communities that still thrives today with 185,000 people.
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak
comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for
a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she
came up out of the land of Egypt.”—Hosea 2:14,15
Their efforts were augmented by the corresponding providences of our returned Lord.
One of Jesus’ first works upon his return was prophesied to be the restoration of Israel (Jeremiah
16:14,15; 30:3; Zechariah 8:7,8, 23; Romans 11:26,27).
Our returned Lord Jesus Christ began restoring Israel to her land shortly after his return
in 1874. Through his divine power, political and legal realities were instituted on the world’s
stage that allowed Israel to re-colonize Eretz Yisrael. First, in 1878 the Berlin Congress of
Nations gave full civil rights to Jews who were living in what was to be the future state of Israel.
Then in 1917 when Britain took over the land of Palestine after World War I, the Balfour
Declaration brought forth the legal right for the Jews to claim Palestine as their homeland.
Finally in 1948, the United Nations accepted the Nation of Israel into full membership after their
declaration of Statehood.
In 1870, the first Jewish agricultural settlement was established, Mikvah Israel, “the
Hope of Israel,” as the forerunner of agricultural research. An agronomist from Mikvah Israel
supervised many of the fruit and garden crops that were introduced in the cooperative farming
villages. In 1921, through the political realities in Great Britain’s Balfour Declaration of 1917,
the Agricultural Experiment Station was established to serve small farms with leading research
into intensive agriculture. It specialized in mixed farming of fruit trees, cattle, chicken,
vegetables, and cereals.5 By 1948, the agricultural success of Israel, in human terms, had been so
successful that one agricultural employee could feed seventeen people. Today that number has
reached ninety. This is an astounding fulfillment of Isaiah’s two prophecies:
“He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and
fill the face of the world with fruit.”—Isaiah 27:6
“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice,
and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing.”—
Isaiah 35:1,2
Since 1874 the Jubilee Trumpet has been sounding, the land of Israel is being returned
back to its rightful owner, and the Jewish people are being released from all nations of the earth
to return from captivity. This glorious event is still invisible to the world at large.
“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they
shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of
Egypt, and shall worship the LORD in the holy mount at Jerusalem.” —Isaiah 27:13
The Jubilee Trumpet is the same sound that the prophet Ezekiel heard that brought the
bones together: “There was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to
his bone” (Ezekiel 37:7). It is fitting that this great noise represents the work that is being
conducted and supervised by the resurrected Jesus Christ who was crucified by Israel’s religious
leaders 1,915 years earlier. It was this same Jesus who breathed life into the Nation of Israel in
1948, and it will be this same Jesus that the Jewish people will eventually look upon and mourn
for when God’s spirit of grace is poured out upon them (Zechariah 12:10). Accepting Jesus as
their Messiah will be the last step in removing the blindness from this returned people and
resurrected nation, but it is not to be just yet.
The re-gathered body that God prepared for the rebirth of the nation of Israel was
complete in every way and even included a head. These were the Jewish thought-leaders, the
directors who added unique and powerful contributions.
Howard Gardner, author of twenty books and professor of cognition and education at the
Harvard Graduate School of Education, postulates in his book Five Minds for the Futurethat
there are five different types of minds (thinking patterns) that will be required for future success.
An examination of the rebirth of Israel reveals that God handpicked returning Jewish people who
possessed them: Disciplined Minds, Synthesizing Minds, Creating Minds, Respectful Minds, and
Ethical Minds to build, organize, invent, inspire, govern, and galvanize a nation. By the time the
nation of Israel was born, it was already a full-grown “man” with mature cognitive abilities!
Albert Einstein was typical of the intellectual European Jewish community which had
been fully assimilated into host countries. This intellectual giant was born in 1879 and came on
the scene at just the right time to assist in the rebirth of Israel. At the age of 25 Einstein
developed his general theory of relativity, still recognized as the most profound scientific theory
of the universe. In the early 1920s Einstein’s scientific fame was useful to Israel beyond his
science—-he became a fundraiser and an icon for Israel at a critical stage in its regathering.
Albert Einstein helped raise much needed cash to power the economy of a struggling people in
the promised land. In addition, he helped establish the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
eventually leaving his intellectual property including his literary estate to the University which
now earns over a million dollars per year in royalties. Einstein’s secular work mastered a domain
and honed a discipline like many other Jewish intellectuals of his day. But his avocation was
developed through sharp disappointment with earthly governments and ruthless nationalism on
the one side, and his love for the concept of Israel in which he, like many others, found new life
in supporting the Zionist ideal. Late in his life, he said to Abba Eban, “My relationship to the
Jewish people has become my strongest human tie.”6
One of the things that made Albert Einstein great is that he realized his part of the whole
and he did not venture beyond the limitations of his mind. As brilliant as Albert Einstein was, he
turned down Abba Eban’s request to serve as Israel’s Prime Minister. He recognized that as an
intellectual, governing people was not his gift. Einstein went on to play an important part in
scuttling Adolf Hitler’s efforts to secure uranium to manufacture an atom bomb. Einstein’s
unique relationship with the Queen of Belgium and his influence with American President
Franklin D. Roosevelt provided him with many opportunities to guide and direct Israel and
become an early fulfiller of Zionism. He was indeed part of the head of the regathering body of
Ezekiel 37.
Several other visible leaders contributed as part of the head through their efforts to create
Israel from 1878 to 1948. These included David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Dr. Chaim Weizmann,
Moshe Dayan, and many others who directed Eretz Yisrael to greatness. They stood on the
shoulders of the founders of Petah Tikvah, and laid tracks for others to follow. They found
sluices of opportunity amongst the geopolitical realities and used their enlightened minds to
navigate the turbulent environment which witnessed the ending of the Gentile dominion of the
earth. In all that they did, perhaps their greatest accomplishment was their development of the
faith of others to follow them. They blew the “Jubilee trumpet” to hefty decibels, commanded
the world’s respect and even its admiration but, more importantly, through their efforts, they
brought the bones together with the muscles and skin that made Israel ready for 1948.
As much as 1948 was the beginning of this great nation, it was also the beginning of great
troubles. Since 1948, over 19,000 Israeli soldiers have died protecting the nation from those
trying to destroy it. The same resolve that inspired the early fulfillers of Zionism continues to be
required of those who followed after 1948 to keep the dream alive and stake their claim to
fulfilling prophecies dating back to ancient times.
In Israel’s rebirth, we see a template for the world during the Millennial age. Isaiah tells
us that Israel will lead the nations (Isaiah 2:2-4). Through their great faith and intense trials as a
regathered people from all over the world, they will lead people from all nations to rebuild one
nation of humanity to worship the Lord in Sion. The resurrected billions of mankind will look
back on this time period of Israel’s history and be in awe of God’s creating power. They will see
the faint tendrils of faith scratched out by the early fulfillers of Zionism in the 1870s, and they
will see those efforts of faith seconded by the providences of God. Through hindsight, the world
of mankind will see how God took a disorganized and disheartened people, organized them, and
breathed in them the breath of life. The world of mankind, at the beginning of their own
turbulent restitution, will see how the faith of this people resulted in a worthy purpose and an
enduring destiny. They will see it as a template for their own purpose and destiny.
As Christians, we have the miracles of Jesus to show us how, through faith, Jesus
multiplied even meager efforts such as the presentation of just two loaves and five fishes to feed
over five thousand people. The world in the Millennial age will look back on the miracle of the
faith of the early fulfillers of Zionism with the same inspiration that we now feel toward the
miracles of Jesus. They too will thus be constrained to worship God with a full and a contrite
heart.
__________________
1. Moshe Dayan, Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life, p. 440.}
2. JewishVirtualLibrary.com, Israeli Agriculture: Coping with Growth, John Fedler,
2007.
3. Moshe Dayan, Moshe Dayan: Story of My Life, p. 22.
4. JewishVirtualLibrary.com, Israeli Agriculture: Coping with Growth, John Fedler,
2007.
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_research_In_Israel
6 Walter Isaacson, Einstein, p. 291.
On the Other Hand
The preceding article suggests that Israel’s re-birth as a nation in 1948 completely
fulfilled the “Valley of Dry Bones” prophecy found in Ezekiel 37:1-14. It proposes that Israel’s
becoming a secular nation fulfilled the prophecy that God will breathe into the slain and bring
them back to life: “Then he said to me, Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to
it, This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into
these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them;
they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army” (Ezekiel 37:9,10, NIV).
Nearly all will agree that the re-birth of Israel is a modern-day miracle orchestrated by
the Lord. In fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy God brought many Israelites out of the land of
the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them: “But now I will send for many
fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters,
and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks”
(Jeremiah 16:16, NIV).
God sent the fisherman of the Zionist movement to lay the groundwork for and stimulate
the initial return of the Jews to Canaan. Then God sent the hunters who through the Holocaust
prompted a flood of Jews to return to the promised land and organize the current nation of Israel.
Their current stituation is reflected in Ezekiel 37:7-8 with the bones having come together with
tendons and flesh and covered with skin. However, from God’s standpoint there is no breath or
life in them. Modern-day Israel is not a holy nation. It is a secular nation with a prime minister as
their national leader and a parliament elected by the people as their government. They are not in
covenant relationship with God nor with our risen Lord. Most do not recognize God as their head
nor do they recognize God’s hand in their re-gathering. In fact there is no mention of God in
their Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel (see p. 51). The phrase “Rock of
Israel” in the final sentence is as close as it comes. Israel as a nation does not acknowledge Jesus
as Messiah nor accept his ransom sacrifice as atoning for their sins and providing for their
salvation.
From God’s standpoint, Israel remains dead. They are still in their sins as is the rest of
mankind. Blindness in part is still their national condition; their Deliverer has not yet come out
of Zion and turned away ungodliness from Jacob (Romans 11:25,26).
What brings life to the slain according to Ezekiel 37:9? Breath or life comes from the
four winds. Winds are often a symbol for war in the Scriptures and four winds would suggest a
world-wide conflagration. Was World War II the fulfillment of the four winds of this verse? A
better fulfillment would be “the battle of that great day of God Almighty,” called Armageddon
(Revelation 16:14,16). That battle revolves around Israel and their delivery by God from
destruction by Gog and his allies. By that deliverance, God will be sanctified in Israel’s sight.
Then will he pour his spirit upon the nation of Israel and then shall the nation live. The prophet
Ezekiel makes this plain: “Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open
your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will
settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done
it, declares the LORD” (Ezekiel 37:13,14, NIV).
Ezekiel links God putting his spirit into the Jews with their becoming alive. God has not
yet poured his spirit upon the Jewish people. That awaits the completion of the deliverer (Christ
and the church) and the application of Jesus’ blood on their behalf to release the Jews from
Adamic condemnation and seal the New Covenant. Then God will pour his spirit upon the
Jewish people and the vast army mentioned in Ezekiel 37:10 will live.
Ezekiel’s prophecy of Israel’s restoration in chapter 36 is consistent with this
interpretation. In Ezekiel 36:24 the current re-gathering to their own land is mentioned. Then
verses 25 to 27 say God will sprinkle clean water upon them, give them a new heart, and put a
new spirit within them. The sprinkling of the clean water of truth, giving a new heart, and putting
God’s spirit within their hearts is still future. It awaits their deliverance in the battle of
Armageddon and the second sprinkling of Jesus’ blood, on their behalf and on behalf of all
mankind. Then will the Jewish people be truly alive.
—Ernie Kuenzli
Since 1948
Israel Today
Audio MP3
Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, Our bones
are dried up, and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.—Ezekiel
37:11,NAS
Len Griehs
On November 29, 1947, Theodor Herzl’s dream came close to fruition when the
United Nations partitioned the land of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one
Jewish. The British evacuation on May 14, 1948, led the acting Israeli government to
declare its independence, about 2,500 years after it had been totally destroyed by the
Babylonian armies. That declaration initiated a period of trouble in the land that
continues today. Ezekiel 37 describes prophetically the bringing back to life of the
once-destroyed nation, a position not experienced since prior to the Babylonian
captivity
of
Ezekiel’s
own
day.
Ezekiel’s Prophecy Fulfilled
God asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel answered “O Lord GOD, thou
knowest”
(Ezekiel 37:3). Ezekiel knew it would take a miracle to revive the glory of
Israel. Only God could provide the answer: “Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto
them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!” (verse 4). As Ezekiel spoke
(verses 5 and 6) there was “a noise and … rattling, and the bones came together …
The sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above; but
there was no breath in them” (verses 7 and 8). The separated skeleton came together
reuniting the houses of Judah and Israel in a prophetic description of the restored
nation.
What began with a small gathering of Zionist Jews in Petah Tikvah in 1878
culminated seventy years later in the birth of a nation—Jewish people in a Jewish land
under Jewish rule. But independence did not come peacefully.
As British troops began to exit the land in March 1948 upon the expiration of the
mandate of 1917, they exposed the Jewish convoys bringing food into Jerusalem. An
Arab ambush killed many of those carrying supplies, and these Arab enemies went on
to attack Jews in Jerusalem. On April 9, members of the Irgun Zvai Leumi (the
National Military Organization) and the Lohamei Herut Yisrael (fighters for the
freedom of Israel) struck back, attacking the Arab village of Deir Yassin to the west of
Jerusalem. The struggle for Israel’s right to exist had begun.
Arabs hit Jerusalem again the next day. Three days later Arab mortar fire struck
kindergartners in the Jewish Quarter and hit a Jewish medical convoy bound for
Hadassah Hospital. The Arab Higher Committee proclaimed that no Jew would have
been spared had the remaining British troops not intervened. Fighting became so
intense in the five-month period between December 1947 and April 1948 that more
than 3,500 Arabs, 1,100 Jews and 150 Britons were killed. But that was only the
beginning.
The War of Independence
British rule over Palestine ended formally at midnight on May 14, 1948, the Jewish
Sabbath. David Ben-Gurion, head of the provisional government of Israel, read a
Declaration of Independence (see p. ) aloud on a live radio broadcast two hours prior
to the beginning of Sabbath. Israel would become an independent state at one second
after midnight. Although one third of the world’s population of Jews had been
annihilated by Nazi Germany, the 600,000 that now populated Israel were ready to
stand on their own.
Within hours the new nation was surrounded by armies of the Arab League. Many of
these new citizens had survived the Holocaust but none were prepared for this war.
Possessing only three tanks and without air force fighters or bombers, Israeli fighters
held off 74 Arab fighters and bombers. Six thousand Israelis were killed. In an eerie
similarity to the 70 A.D. siege of Jerusalem, food became so scarce that people
survived on dandelions and weeds. Severe rationing of water made proper sanitation
almost impossible.
Then a miracle happened. Jewish soldiers halted Egyptian tanks moving up from the
south and pushed back the Syrian army attacking from the north while carving out by
hand a three-mile stretch of road through rock and steep hillsides. The resulting
“Burma Road” brought convoys to Jerusalem with food, water, and supplies—a
hundred tons every twenty-four hours. A pipeline constructed over this road provided
the city with a water source once again.
The war ended on November 28, 1948, after several false armistices. Armistice
borders were set. Israel now possessed more land than it had been given in its original
partition. But one percent of the population had been lost in the war. And Jerusalem,
the most sacred city in all of the world, was divided into two parts, one Jewish and
one
Arab,
under
the
armistice
agreement
signed
on
April
3,
1949.
The Six-Day War
Two years later in July 1951 King Abdullah of Jordan was assassinated by a lone
gunman while regularly attending Friday prayers with his grandson at the al-Aqsa
Mosque in Jerusalem. Arab East Jerusalem erupted in violence. It began a hostile
fourteen-year period of fighting between Arabs and Arabs, and Arabs and Jews.
When attacks on Israeli citizens grew increasingly harsh, Syrian Defense Minister
Hafez al-Assad asked Egyptian president Gamal Nassar to sign a three-way treaty
with Jordan. Nassar agreed and also expelled the ten-year-old U.N. military
contingent from the Sinai Peninsula. Israeli Intelligence learned of an imminent attack
by the new trilateral alliance. It supervised a preemptive air strike on Egyptian
military bases on June 5, 1967.
Joshua conquered Jericho in seven days; Israel took just six to turn back the combined
forces of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. When the fighting was over, Israeli fighters had
captured the Sinai Peninsula (later returned to Egypt), the Gaza Strip, Judea and
Samaria (West Bank), the Jordan River, the Old City of Jerusalem, and the Golan
Heights.
Here is how Randolph S. Churchill and Winston S. Churchill described the
miraculous victory: “By a feat of arms unparalleled in modern times, the Israelis,
surrounded by enemies superior in quantity and quality of equipment and
overwhelming superiority in numbers, had fought a war on three fronts and not only
survived, but had won a resounding victory” (The Six Day War, p. 191).
In the early afternoon of June 7, the entire Old City fell into Israeli hands—868 years
to the day after the Crusaders first appeared there in 1099 A.D. It is said that when
soldiers reached the remains of the Western Wall of the temple compound, they burst
into tears and began to pray. For the first time in nineteen years, Jews had access to
their most sacred site. Rabbi Sholomo Goren, senior Israeli military chaplain, blew the
shofar and prayed on an Israeli radio broadcast from the wall. God had delivered the
temple site into Jewish hands once again. But peace would not last long.
The Yom Kippur War
In October 1968 two Arab girls entered the Zion Cinema in Jerusalem with a bomb.
Providentially, they had been observed and the bomb was removed. The following
month a dozen Israelis shopping at the Yahuda market were killed in the first of
multiple car bombings. Bombs also exploded at Hebrew University and at an Israeli
supermarket. Tension rose throughout the early seventies in Jerusalem as car
bombings, grenade launches and letter bombs introduced a new round of violence and
the use of terrorism on civilians. Finally, on October 6, 1973—the Great Day of
Atonement—all-out war broke out when Egypt and Syria once again attacked Israel.
Although Israel ultimately won that war and pushed Syria from the Golan Heights, it
discovered the vulnerability of defending multiple borders against multiple enemies.
When Egypt’s early victories gave it a new credibility among its Arab neighbors and
the Western world, Israeli leaders agreed to meet in 1978 with Egyptian leaders at
Camp David and to sign a formal peace treaty with Egypt in 1979.
Meanwhile a new enemy had arisen within Israel’s borders. On July 4, 1975, an
abandoned refrigerator in Zion Square exploded, killing fourteen people and
wounding seventy. An old organization, The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),
under its new head, Yasser Arafat, claimed responsibility. The dawn of the 1980s
brought the PLO to the forefront. Israel would still not be able to live in peace.
The Intifada
Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League, was arrested for plotting
to destroy the Dome of the Rock. Alan Goodman, an American volunteer in the Israeli
army, opened fire with a machine gun at the Dome of the Rock and killed two Muslim
guards. Eighteen Orthodox Jews were arrested while planning a bomb attack at the
Dome. Finally, a full confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians broke out in
December 1987.
What began innocently with a small group of Arabs quickly escalated into an
organized rebellion that lasted nearly a year. The PLO’s Arafat proclaimed an
independent state of Palestine with Jerusalem (Al Quds Ash-Sharif) as its capital. In a
speech on New Year’s Eve, Arafat later proclaimed that we “are the active volcano in
the Middle East which will only calm itself when one of the youths of the revolution
and the Intifada hoists the flag of your state over Jerusalem and our homeland
Palestine.”
Violence finally subdued when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo
Accords on September 9, 1993. Arafat pledged to recognize the right of Israel to exist
in both peace and safety. Israel, under pressure from the U.S., agreed to recognize
the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. When Israel signed a peace
treaty with Jordan a year later, fifty years of constant conflict were put to rest. Or so it
seemed at the time.
The Second Intifada
Militant Palestinians never gave up the goal of an independent Palestine without
Israel. To accomplish the task of wiping out Israel, they introduced a new style of
terrorism: the suicide bomber. On February 25, 1996, a Palestinian man boarded bus
#18 in Jerusalem and detonated a bomb strapped to his chest. Seventeen Israeli
civilians and nine Israeli soldiers died. Hamas (a word meaning “zeal”), claimed
responsibility. Since then, suicide bombings have become an integral part of terrorist
activity in Israel and throughout the world.
When Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in September 2000 Yasser Arafat and
thePLO used the event as an excuse to incite a new round of violence.
Although the Second Intifada has yet to be officially ended by a stable Palestinian
leadership, Israeli intelligence has managed to curb the level of violence against its
citizens. However, during the Intifada periods of 2000 through 2007, over a thousand
Israelis have been killed.
Israel’s Position Today
During the past sixty years as Israel has sought genuine peace with its neighbors and
the right to determine its own destiny, it continues to discover new enemies and
receive interference from the rest of the world. This is prophetically pictured by
Zechariah: “And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people:
all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the
earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:3). Under pressure from the West
and other countries, Israel has given up land it fought to defend since 1948. Today
even Jerusalem is being split and negotiated away.
God warned Moses: “I will fix your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the
Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the
inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. You
shall make no covenant with them or with their gods. They shall not live in your
land, because they will make you sin against Me; for if you serve their gods, it will
surely be a snare to you” (Exodus 23:31-33, NASB, emphasis added). Israel’s desire
for peace will not thwart God’s intention for the people: to occupy all the land which
he gave to Abraham and his heirs.
Jeremiah prophesied of a regathering of Israel in our day that would be more notable
than when Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt (Jeremiah 23:7,8). This
prophecy’s fulfillment is occurring today. The Jewish population in Israel has grown
from 600,000 in 1948 to 5.7 million today. Since 2006 and for the first time since
135 A.D., there are more Jews in Israel than in any other country in the world.
While much prophetically remains to be fulfilled for the nation, its history and growth
since 1948 is a tribute to God’s love and care for his chosen earthly people.
The Declaration of the Establishment ofthe State of Israel
ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew)—the Land of Israel, Palestine] was the birthplace of the Jewish
people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to
statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the
eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their
Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of
their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation
to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their
masses. Pioneers, ma’pilim [(Hebrew)—immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of
restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language,
built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and
culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all
the country’s inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore
Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to
national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and reaffirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international
sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of
the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in
Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its
homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of
the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully
privileged member of the comity of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world,
continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and
never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national
homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the
struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by
the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples
who founded the United Nations.
On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling
for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the
inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the
implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the
Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other
nations, in their own sovereign State.
ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE’S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT,
ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH
MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND
HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED
NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A
JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.
WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination of the Mandate being
tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the
elected, regular authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be
adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948, the People’s
Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and its executive organ, the People’s
Administration, shall be the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called “Israel”.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the
Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be
based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure
complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race
or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will
safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter
of the United Nations.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the
United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November,
1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the building-up of its State and
to receive the State of Israel into the comity of nations.
WE APPEAL—in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months—to the
Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the
State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and
permanent institutions.
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good
neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the
sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a
common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of EretzIsrael in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for
the realization of the age-old dream—the redemption of Israel.
PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE “ROCK OF ISRAEL”, WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES TO
THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF
STATE, ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS
SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY,1948).
Signed by David Ben-Gurion and thirty-six others.
Source: Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs web site.
The World vs. Jehovah and Israel
Israel's Near Future
Audio MP3
I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their
land which I have given them, saith Jehovah thy God.—Amos 9:15, ASV
James Parkinson
It is necessary to change our characters into the image of Christ to please the Lord our
God. It is also good to learn the prophecies of Israel’s future to then know what we
should do about them: Joshua’s encounter with Jericho shows us in type that the
Gospel age is divided into seven periods of time, and that the “last day”—the Harvest
of the Gospel age—is also divided into seven sections. These sections of the last day
are elaborated by the seven last plagues in Egypt (which fell only upon the Egyptians,
and which typify major world events), and by the seven last plagues of Revelation
(which show us the effects those world events are to have on Babylon).
These were the last three plagues in Egypt:
Plagues of
World Event
Exodus
(cf. Revelation 16)
#5 An east wind
Cold War: Struggle between western nations (democratic) and
brings locusts into eastern nations (communistic).
all the borders of
Egypt, they eat
the crops; then a
mighty west wind
blows them all out.
#6 Three days of
darkness that kept
Worldwide Depression: Especially severe in the West (for three
the Egyptians at
years?).
home.
#7 The midnight
Battle of Armageddon: Rev. 16:16-21
death of the heirs
of the Egyptian
kingdom (the
firstborn).
Today our world may be in the latter phase of the East vs. West struggle. We watch to
see if a worldwide depression might be next. But not many doubt that ultimately this
world will destroy itself in a worldwide war commonly called Armageddon
(Revelation 16:16-21). Yet the Lord promises Israel she will survive.
Israel is promised restoration to the land from all parts of the globe. Israel is promised
to survive strong and evil attempts against its existence. And the people of Israel will
survive even worldwide invasion in that last Battle of Armageddon (see Ezekiel 39).
Yet, Bible readers often wonder if Israel’s restoration includes all Jews.
How Many Will Return to the Land?
“Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, As
Jehovah liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, As
Jehovah liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and
from all the countries whither he had driven them. And I will bring them again into
their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith
Jehovah, and they shall fish them up; and afterward I will send for many hunters, and
they shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the clefts of
the rocks.”—Jeremiah 16:14-16, ASV.
While Zionism has fished Jews back to the land with the bait of God’s promise, the
hunting phase may have begun with Adolph Hitler, and it has since continued in the
East. We should be concerned about it coming to the Western countries as well.
It does not seem readily apparent how 100% of Jewry will return to Israel prior to the
Battle of Armageddon. But if the present exodus of Israel from all parts of the globe to
their land is to dwarf the exodus from Egypt, it would be unwise to rule it out. After
all, how many Israelites remained behind in Egypt after the exodus? None! Surely the
Egyptians would have been too frightened to allow any to stay!
Psalm 83
Ten nations say, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of
Israel may be no more in remembrance” (Psalm 83:4). Only two of these nations are
non-Semitic: Philistia, from Ham (from Egypt to Crete, and then to the Gaza strip), and
Tyre (ethnically related to Rome because both Tyre and Rome began as colonies of
Tiras/Thrace in Genesis 10:2) from Japheth. These ten peoples, not exclusively Arab
(though all are predominantly Muslim today), jointly conspire to annihilate Israel, but
they will be confused and destroyed in the effort. Various applications of Psalm 83
seem possible at this time:
1. There may be a battle, yet future but before the Battle of Armageddon, in which
Islamic nations will seek to drive Israel into the Mediterranean Sea, but it will be
disastrous for the invaders, and will likely lead to peace with Israel (perhaps as an
alliance against more-distant strong nations).
2. The reference may be to Arab attempts to drive Israel into the sea in 1948, 1956,
1967, 1973, and an as-yet-to-be-determined number of future wars (if any).
3. The entire psalm may use these ten nations to symbolize the Gentile world, which
will come against Israel in the Battle of Armageddon. Verses 9-12 refer to Deborah
and Barak’s victory over Sisera and his host, and to Gideon’s rout of Midian and their
two Semitic allies, both of which are types of the Battle of Armageddon (see Judges 47).
“I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling unto all the peoples round about, and
{FOOTNOTE: Or, against
Vulgate, Targum read “and Judah also shall be at the
besieging of Jerusalem.”}upon Judah also {FOOTNOTE: Or, shall it fall to be in the
siege}shall it be in the siege against Jerusalem. And it shall come to pass in that day,
that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples; all that burden
themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be
gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:2,3, ASV). Already we have seen that
whatever nation pressures Israel to give up parts of the Promised Land are then
wounded: Britain lost its empire, the Soviets lost their Union, New Orleans was
evacuated, and Arab armies are repeatedly overwhelmed, impelling Arabs to turn to
guerilla warfare.
The present Israel-Arab conflicts must eventually give way to Israel dwelling securely
with its immediate neighbors (Ezekiel 38:8, 11). How could that happen? One possible
scenario would be a coming worldwide depression:

Oil prices plummet in the Arab world.

Jews flee the West to immigrate to Israel.

Israel and the Arabs see a greater military threat from distant nations
and decide an economic alliance is to their mutual benefit.

The result is temporary peace in the Middle East.
Other scenarios, military or economic, might be hypothesized, but the assured outcome
will be Israel dwelling securely in the land. Yet the time will come afterwards when all
nations shall be gathered against Israel.
Gog and His Allies (Ezekiel 38 and 39)
Gog, commander-in-chief of Magog, and his allies will then come against Israel at a
time when the region seems too weak to defend itself. That Gog is described as chief
prince of Meshech and Tubal suggests a revival of a Soviet Union in which the Great
Russians, Armenians, and Georgians (Kartvelians) are prominent. (These three peoples
have in common that they are all predominantly Eastern Orthodox.) Their allies will
apparently be Iran, Black Africa, North Africa (west of Egypt), Germanic nations, and
Turkic peoples (including the Finns), but none of Israel’s immediate neighbors
(Ezekiel 38:2-6).
A substantially-weakened Western Bloc would appear to be headed by Arabia (Sheba
and Dedan), with allies of westernmost Europe and their former colonies (including the
Americas, and perhaps Australia and New Zealand) (Ezekiel 38:13). This alliance will
evidently have some prior involvement with Israel (and perhaps its immediate
neighbors), as they say, “Art thou come to take the spoil,” rather than, “Art thou gone
…” The invasion will not necessarily be limited to Israel, though Israel may be the
focal point.
Both Eastern- and Western-Bloc armies will perish. When Ezekiel 39:6 (ASV) says, “I
will send a fire on Magog, and on them that dwell securely in the isles [or:
coastlands],” it suggests that the Western response to the Northern/Eastern invasion
may be thermonuclear fire, and that the Eastern Bloc will respond in kind. Such a
scenario would almost certainly leave both sets of foreign troops in and around Israel
unsupported. Thus would Israel be delivered from both sides.
But what will happen to Jerusalem?
Jerusalem Taken, but not Forever
“I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the
houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity,
and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall Jehovah go
forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.”—
Zechariah 14:2,3, ASV.
There is a reasonable question whether Israel will be fully regathered before the Battle
of Armageddon. If they are, then how can Isaiah 66:20 (ASV) say, “They shall bring all
your brethren out of all the nations for an oblation unto Jehovah, upon horses, and in
chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon dromedaries, to my holy mountain
Jerusalem, saith Jehovah, as the children of Israel bring their oblation in a clean vessel
into the house of Jehovah”? The Zechariah text offers a potential solution: If half the
city goes into captivity (not into the captivity of death, but into the captivity of the
invading nations), then they could again be afar off to be brought back to Israel in the
early stage of Christ’s thousand-year kingdom.
Then what?
The Aftermath of Armageddon
“They that dwell in the cities of Israel shall go forth, and shall make fires of the
weapons and burn them, both the shields and the bucklers, the bows and the arrows,
and the handstaves, and the spears, and they shall make fires of them seven years; so
that they shall take no wood out of the field, neither cut down any out of the forests; for
they shall make fires of the weapons; and they shall plunder those that plundered them,
and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord Jehovah.”—Ezekiel 39:9,10, ASV.
The thought of burning the weapons may seem strange. Yet there is a change taking
place now in the world’s military technology. Rapid deployment requires light weight;
light weight promotes substituting plastics and filament-wound structures for steel.
These new flammable organic materials are preferred not only for light weight but also
for minimizing radar reflectance. And most military vehicles are fueled with petroleum
products. Hence, in the twenty-first century it is becoming progressively more
plausible that abandoned and captured caches could furnish Israel fuel for a long time,
even years.
Ezekiel 39 concludes the near-future for Israel. After that, chapters 40 through 48
which contain a description of Ezekiel’s Temple, provide us a symbolic view of the
thousand-year kingdom of Christ.
What Should Christians Do
About Israel Today?
Knowledge is to be used. The spiritual priesthood is in training now to bless the people
in the coming age. The following points are recommended for each of us now:

A Christian is to change himself from what he is to what he should be, a
living example of the Sermon on the Mount. Only in this way can he
consistently discern between right and wrong.

To the extent possible, get out of debt, and stay out of debt: “Owe no
man anything, save to love one another: for he that loveth his neighbor hath
fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8, ASV). Debt-free means one less avenue of
coercion against a Christian to violate conscience and to feel compelled to do
that which is wrong.

Encourage Jewish acquaintances with God’s promises of the land to
Abraham, and encourage especially the youth, to make aliya (to immigrate to
Israel). Aliya may become more difficult in future years. If safety is a concern,
remind them that at the time of the Gog-Magog invasion, only Israel is
guaranteed a future.

If vocal public opinion turns against the Jews (as, for example, in
Adolph Hitler’s Germany), have nothing to do with it.

Recognize that it is the Lord’s determination to bring back Israel to their
land, but the attempt to keep it from happening belongs to Satan. The Lord has
given the restoration of Israel as a concrete pledge that he will indeed establish
his kingdom on this earth (Ezekiel 37; Genesis 15:18; 22:18).