Israel’s Biblical Rights to the Land
Israel’s Biblical Rights
to the Land
With the breaking up of the Turkish Empire at the end of
World War 1, both Jews and Arabs requested independent states.
The world powers were generous in the extreme to the Arabs
by granting them twenty-two independent Arabs states—
encompassing 5,414,000 square miles. The Jews asked for less
than one percent of that vast territory. The Allies agreed to this
request.
In 1921 England reneged, lopped off 77 percent of the
Land promised in the Balfour Declaration and set up the
Arab Emirate of Transjordan. Then in 1922 the League of
Nations further qualified the Jewish National Home be
established in only 23 percent of Palestine, including
Samaria, Judea, Gaza, Golan Heights and Eastern
Jerusalem. (See Map I and Map II.)
Also many Christians believe “Replacement Theology.” That
is, the Jewish people because of unfaithfulness have forfeited any
right to the Land of Israel.
What Do the Scriptures Say?
Many Scriptures promise the permanent restoration of the
Jewish State as verified in one of the most awesome and
irrefutable promises in the Bible.
Jeremiah 31:31-37 NASB
Verse 31 — “Behold, days are coming,” declares the
LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house
of Israel and with the house of Judah,
Verse 32 — Not like the covenant which I made with
their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring
them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they
broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the
LORD.
Verse 33 — “But this is the covenant which I will make
with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the
LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart
I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be
My people.
Verse 34 — “And they shall not teach again, each man
his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the
LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them
to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will
forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no
more.”
Verse 35 — Thus says the LORD, Who gives the sun
for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and
the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that
its waves roar; The LORD of hosts is His name:
Verse 36 — “If this fixed order departs from before
Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of
Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me
forever.”
Verse 37 — Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens
above can be measured and the foundations of the
earth searched out below, then I will also cast off
all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,”
declares the LORD.
This prophecy together with its parallel in Jeremiah 33:25-26
devastate “Replacement Theology.” Only when the divinely
fixed orbiting of the sun, moon and stars of our solar system
cease to orbit according to God’s astronomical laws of the
Universe, then and only then, would Israel ever cease to exist
as God’s People. Even though Israel was unfaithful and was
taken captive to Babylon while the land was desolate for 70
years, the sun, moon, and stars continued to orbit according
to God’s symmetrical ordinances of the Universe. Therefore,
Israel was still in God’s favor and was restored to its Land
after 70 years.
But, Israel continued to sin and finally in CE 70 and CE 135
their polity was destroyed. Over a million were killed at the
hands of the vengeful Romans. Many were banished from their
sacred Land, while Jerusalem was ploughed over and renamed
Aelia Capitolina. However, some managed to escape to the north
and south of the Land.
Into whatever countries they fled, they tended to dwell in
their own little Jewish communities. Many kept the weekly
Sabbath and worshipped together and then, as now, at the
close of the Sabbath they watched the setting of the sun, the
emergence of the moon, and the sparkling stars roving the
heavens in celestial glory. No matter how distant from their
Promised Land, with tears in their eyes and hope in their
hearts, they knew some day, somehow, they or their children,
or their children’s children would yet return to Eretz Israel.
Why??? The celestial bodies of the heavens were still in
dazzling beauty and were orbiting according to God’s laws of
the Universe. Only when there is chaos in the heavens, then
and only then would Israel cease to be God’s People. Of
course, that will never happen and that is just the point of this
promise in Jeremiah 31:35-37. Israel as a nation will never be
cast off from God’s favor.
Then Jeremiah shows, that after their final regathering “the
city [Old Jerusalem] shall be built to the Lord” by the Jews and,
furthermore, “It shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down
any more forever” (Jeremiah 31:38-40). Despite the efforts of the
US and world powers, the descendants of Israel (Jacob)—not
Ishmael or Esau—will receive the city of Jerusalem (including
East Jerusalem) forever.
The Prophet Zechariah lived after the return of the 70
years’ desolation and during the building of the Second
Temple. He prophesied that Israel would again prove
waywar
d and again be punished with a second dispersion. As
noted above, the armies of the Roman Empire destroyed the
Second
Temple and scattered the Jewish People to the four
corners of the earth. But Zechariah also prophesied a final
regathering from which Israel would never again be separated
from its Land. All the prophecies, both those written before
and after the first dispersion from the Land, predicted a final
regathering of the Jewish people to their homeland that
would culminate in Jerusalem becoming the capital of God’s
Kingdom on earth.
Yes, Israel would be cast out of her land as a punishment. But
there would be an end-time regathering which we now see.
“No More Pulled Up”
The Scriptures, furthermore, speak of this final regathering as
culminating in joy and blessing that will never end.
Jeremiah 31:10-12
Verse 10 — Hear the word of the LORD, O ye
nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say,
He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep
him, as a shepherd doth his flock.
Verse 11 — For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob,
and ransomed him from the hand of him that was
stronger than he.
Verse 12 — Therefore they shall come and sing in the
height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of
the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the
young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be
as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more
at all.
This time is yet future when Israel, restored to its Land, will
experience an eternity of joy.
Amos 9:14-15
Verse 14 — And I will bring again the captivity [return
from exile] of my people of Israel, and they shall build the
waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant
vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also
make gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
Verse 15 — And I will plant them upon their land, and
they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which
I have given them, saith the LORD thy God
Such prophecies as these cannot be logically interpreted in
any symbolical sense. Israel is to be literally planted again “upon
their own land,” the Land of their fathers—Canaan. God had
given them the Land by divine promise to Abraham and his
seed—an “everlasting possession.” This promise is from God
Himself and must eventually be fulfilled.
The original promise to
Abraham stands forever
Genesis 13:14,15,17; 17:8
Verse 13:14 — Lift up now thine eyes and look from the
place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward,
and westward:
Verse 13:15 — For all the land which thou seest, to
thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever, ...
Verse 13:17 — Arise, walk through the land, in the
length of it, and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto
thee....
Verse 17:8 — I will give it unto thee, and to thy seed
after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land
of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”
“No more pulled up”… “give the Land forever”…“an
everlastin
g possession” — these phrases speak of Israel’s future
and eternal possession of the Land.
There are many thrilling prophetic details pertaining to the
conditions and circumstances connected with the regathering of
Israel. But our subject is Israel’s land rights. However, we will
briefly mention several.
Remember 4-7 million Jews were slaughtered or expelled
from the Land of Israel over a period of time. Much of the
land became an uninhabited barren wilderness.
Yet
prophecies like Ezekiel 36 and Amos 9:14-15 predicted how
Israel would and has excelled in agricultural technology to
the point that Israel is sending agricultural experts to assist
third world countries.
God foreknew the anti-Semitism that would develop in the
hearts of the Gentiles. Consequently, Jeremiah 16:14-16
describes the anti-Semitic hunters who would drive the Jewish
people to their Land, and the “fishers,” as the Zionist Movement
who would use the bait of Nationalism, a Jewish Homeland, to
“allure” them Hosea 2:14,15.
Wars with the Arab nations have repeatedly plagued the
fledgling Jewish State as prophesied in Psalm 83. Also, Israel’s
ultimate victory over her Arab neighbors was anticipated in
Isaiah 11:14 and Zephaniah 2:4-10. The rocket map across from
the
Table of Contents reveals the precarious situation of Israel if
it is forced to give the so-called
West Bank (Judea and Samaria)
to the Palestinians.
A discussion of Israel’s Biblical land rights would not be
complete without mentioning the Lord's ultimate purpose for
Israel in her Land, which is dramatically declared in Isaiah 2:2-4
ASV
Isaiah 2:2-4 ASV
Verse 2 — And it shall come to pass in the latter days,
that the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be established
on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above
the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
Verse 3 — And many peoples shall go and say, Come ye,
and let us go up to the mountain of Jehovah, to the house
of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and
we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth
the law, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem.
Verse 4 — And he will judge between the nations, and
will decide concerning many peoples; and they shall
beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into
pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
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