Lesson 9: The Jews in Prophecy
LESSON 9: THE JEWS IN PROPHECY
Darryl Nunnelley & David R. Reagan
FACT: The Bible's prophetic focus on Israel is second only to its prophecies concerning the Messiah.
Key Scripture: "For you
[the Jewish people] are a holy people to the LORD our God, and the LORD has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth"
(Deuteronomy 14:2).
God's Chosen People
The Jewish people are the Chosen People of God eternally. That does not mean they are saved. It means that God selected them to be a witness of Him to the world. And thus, it was through them that God gave the Scriptures and provided the Messiah.
They also serve as a witness of what it means to have a relationship with God. Accordingly, their history shows that when you are faithful to God and His Word, He blesses, and when you are unfaithful, He disciplines . But their history also demonstrates that when you repent, God forgives and forgets and begins to bless again.
This is true even to this day. The Jewish people are currently under discipline because of their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah, but Bible prophecy makes it clear that a great remnant of them are going to come to salvation in the end times by accepting Jesus as their Messiah (Zechariah 12:10).
Prophecies Fulfilled
The Hebrew Scriptures are full of prophecies about the Jewish people. Many of the prophecies were fulfilled in Old Testament times. These include prophecies that the northern nation of Israel would be destroyed by the Assyrians (Isaiah 8:1-10), and the southern nation of Judah would be taken into captivity by the Babylonians (Isaiah 39:6). Jeremiah also prophesied that the Babylonian captivity would last exactly 70 years (Jeremiah 25:8-12).
Throughout Old Testament times, significant prophecies were given to Jewish kings. The prophet Micaiah warned Ahab and Jehoshaphat that they would be defeated in battle (2 Chronicles 18:12-17). Isaiah assured King Hezekiah that Jerusalem would not fall to the Assyrians (Isaiah 37:6-7). The prophet Nathan told King David that because of his sin with Bathsheba, their baby would die and David would suffer rebellion within his own family (2 Samuel 12:7-15).
End Time Prophecies
Prophecies regarding the Jewish people in the end times can be found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. Four of them were fulfilled before the beginning of the 20th Century.
1) Dispersion
- The Jews were warned repeatedly that they would be dispersed worldwide if they were not faithful to their covenant with God. Consider the words of Moses: "The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other ..." (Deuteronomy 28:64; see also Leviticus 26:33).
2) Persecution
- The Lord also warned the Jews that they would be persecuted wherever they were dispersed. Again, the words of Moses are graphic in this regard: "Among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul" (Deuteronomy 28:65).
3) Desolation - God promised that after their dispersion, their land would become "desolate" and their cities would become "waste" (Leviticus 26:33). Moses put it more graphically when he said, "the foreigner who comes from a distant land ... will say, 'All its land is brimstone and salt, a burning waste, unsown and unproductive, and no grass grows in it'" (Deuteronomy 29:22-23).
4) Preservation - But God in His marvelous grace promised He would preserve the Jews as a separate people during their worldwide wanderings. (See Isaiah 66:22, Jeremiah 30:11 and Jeremiah 31:35-37). Isaiah puts it in a colorful way. He says the Lord could no more forget Israel than a mother could forget her nursing child (Isaiah 49:15). He then adds that God cannot forget Israel because He has them tatooed on the palms of His hands (Isaiah 49:16)!
Fulfillment
God has fulfilled all four of these prophecies during the past 2,000 years. In 70 A.D. the Romans destroyed the city of Jerusalem and took the Jewish nation into captivity, desolating the land and scattering the Jewish people across the face of the earth. As prophesied, everywhere the Jews went they were persecuted, with their persecution culminating in the Nazi Holocaust of world War II.
But God also preserved the Jews, and the fulfillment of this prophecy has been one of the most remarkable miracles of history. No other people have ever been so dispersed and yet been able to retain their identity as a nation.
Current Prophesies
We are privileged to live in an age when God is fulfilling many prophecies regarding the Jews. What a testimony this is to the fact that God is alive and well, that God is on His throne and in control, and that God is faithful to His promises.
1) Regathering of the People - The Old Testament prophets promised repeatedly that the day would come when God would regather the Jews to the land of Israel (see Isaiah 11:10-12 and Ezekiel 36:22-28). This remarkable regathering of the Jews from the four corners of the earth has occurred in our life time. World War I prepared the land for the people as the control of Palestine was transferred from a nation that hated the Jews (the Turks) to a nation that was sympathetic to their return (Britain). The Holocaust of World War II prepared the people for the land by motivating them to return.
2) Re-establishment of the State - The prophets stated that when the people were regathered, the nation of Israel would be re-established (see Isaiah 66:7-8 and Zechariah 12:3-6). This occurred on May 14, 1948. This is the cornerstone prophetic event of our age. It is an event that prophetic scholars have pointed to for 400 years amid much scoffing and ridicule by those who did not believe that Israel would ever exist again as a nation.
3) Reclamation of the Land - God promised that with the re-establishment of the nation, the land would bloom again (Isaiah 35:1-7 and Joel 2:21-26). As Ezekiel put it, people would one day exclaim: "This desolate land has become like the garden of Eden!" (Ezekiel 36:35). And that is exactly what people exclaim today when they visit Israel, for it is once again a land of milk and honey. Over 200 million trees were planted during the 20th Century. Rainfall during that century increased 450 percent. The former malaria infested swamps have been converted into cultivated land. Water from the Sea of Galilee has been channeled to the deserts causing them to bloom.
4) Revival of the Language - When the Jews were scattered worldwide in the First Century, they ceased speaking the Hebrew language. The Jews who settled in Europe developed a language called Yiddish (a combination of Hebrew and German). The Jews in the Mediterranean basin mixed Hebrew with Spanish to produce a language called Ladino. The prophet Zephaniah implied a time would come when the Hebrew language would be revived (Zephaniah 3:9). It has been. Today the Israelis speak biblical Hebrew. It is the only example in history of the resurrection of a dead language. The man God used to revive the language was Eliezer Ben Yehuda (1858-1922).
5) Re-occupation of Jerusalem
- Jesus said that one of the surest signs of His imminent return would be the re-occupation of Jerusalem by the Jews (Luke 21:24). This occurred during the Six Day War in June 1967.
6) Resurgence of Military Strength - Zechariah prophesied that when the Jews were re-established in the land, their military strength would be overwhelming - like "a flaming torch among sheaves" - and that they would "consume" all the peoples around them (Zechariah 12:3 and 14:1-9). This has been true since the Arab oil boycott in 1973. The West suddenly realized its dependence on Arab oil and began to line up behind the Arab obsession to annihilate Israel.
Future Prophesies
As we witness ancient promises before our eyes today, we can be assured that God will one day fulfill all the remaining prophesies concerning the fate of Israel.
1) Tribulation - God will put the Jewish people through an unparalleled period of tribulation (Deuteronomy 4:30), during which two thirds of the Jews will perish (Zechariah 13:8-9). The purpose will be to soften the hearts of a remnant so that they will accept Jesus as their Messiah.
2) Salvation - At the end of the Tribulation, a remnant of the Jews will "look upon Him whom they have pierced" and will accept Him as Lord and Savior (Zechariah 12:10 and Romans 11:1-6, 25-29). On that glorious day, the Bible says "a fountain of salvation will be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity" (Zechariah 13:1).
3) Primacy - At the Second Coming of Jesus, God will regather all the believing Jews to Israel where they will be established as the prime nation in the world during the Millennium. (See Deuteronomy 28:1, 13, 2 Samuel 7:9. Isaiah 60-62 and Micah 4:1-7). God's blessings to the world will once again flow through the Jewish people, and thus, when a Jew walks by, ten Gentiles will grab his robe and say, "Let us go with you for we have heard that God is with you" (Zechariah 8:23).
Lamb & Lion Ministries www.lamblion.com