The Promised Land: An important part of the promise to Abraham was that he would be led to a land that God would show him. Canaan: At the time of Abraham’s journey, the land was occupied by various Canaanite tribes, and was therefore known as the land of Canaan. Canaan was the son of Ham, and the grandson of Noah. Following the flood, the descendants of Canaan traveled to the area and settled there. Canaan’s sons became the heads of what would become the tribes of Canaan. When Noah accidentally became drunk, his grandson Canaan had evidently participated in his father’s sin of mocking and dishonoring Noah (Genesis 9:21-26). Canaan manifested the same moral weakness his father had, but to a greater degree. His descendants, resisting God’s grace, became more and more decadent and ungodly as their history unfolded. Eventually these idolatrous peoples were to be deprived of their land (Deuteronomy 7:1-10)
Israel
Following a long series of conquests of the Canaanite tribes (See the Book of Joshua), the twelve tribes of Israel finally owned a large portion of the land originally promised to Abraham. In the days of David the land was renamed “Israel,” meaning Prince with God, This was the new name God had given the patriarch Jacob. Jacob’s twelve sons were the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. The tribes were united in one great kingdom until after the reign of David’s son Solomon. After Solomon died a power struggle ensued, resulting in a division of the people. The northern ten tribes were still called Israel, but the southern two tribes, and their land, was called Judea, after the name of the larger of the two tribes, Judah. This is the name from which the words “Jew” and “Jewish” were derived. Palestine: The name “Palestine” is not found in the Bible. It has had a variety of meanings. Nelson’s Bible Dictionary tells us how the word was first used: “The word itself originally identified the region as “the land of the Philistines,” a war-like tribe that inhabited much of the region alongside the Hebrew people. But the older name for Palestine was CANAAN, the term most frequently used in the Old Testament… “The term Palestine as a name for the entire land of Canaan, beyond the coastal plains of the Phoenicians, was first used by the fifth century B. C. historian Herodotus. After the Jewish revolt of A. D. 135, the Romans replaced the Latin name Judea with the Latin Palaestina as their name for this province.”8 As you can see, the name is actually an insult to the Jewish people, denying the name Israel, which it once had, and going back to the Philistines, their earlier opponents. Before the rebirth of the Nation of Israel in 1948, the name Palestine was virtually synonymous with “The Holy Land.” Most writers from the time printed books were first introduced until this generation used the term in a non-political sense for the entire region of the Bible lands. Palestine was a well defined area at the end of World War II. The modern nation of Jordan was carved out of the larger portion of Palestine, and the remainder was the area now known once again as the nation of Israel. Today the name “Palestine” has a different meaning with highly political connotations. This will be described later in the section on “Modern Israel.”
Conditional Nature of the Promise for the Land
Covenants can be conditional or unconditional. As it turns out, only one of the covenants applicable to Israel is conditional–the right of the Jews to live in the Promised Land. This partly conditional covenant has several elements: (1) dispersion of the Jews was to be a consequence of disobedience. (2) Future repentance will be accomplished by God. (3) God will regather his scattered people and restore them to the land. (4) The people of Israel will be brought to the Lord as a nation. (5) The enemies and oppressors of Israel will be punished. (6) Future national prosperity and preeminence is guaranteed (See also Deuteronomy, chapters 28, 29). Because of this covenant, the right of the Jews to live in the land is conditional upon their behavior. See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. – Deuteronomy 30:15-18
The Disobedience and Restoration of Israel Disobedience and Discipline
Second Kings, Chapter 17, documents God’s reasons for his temporarily removing the ten Northern tribes from the Land. The Lord indicates that the approaching 70 year Babylonian captivity would allow the Land to enjoy its seventh-year Sabbath rests that had been ignored by the Jews since their entry into the land under the leadership of Joshua. Moses had given Israel this warning about what would happen if they forsook the Lord: I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins. 34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate and you are in the country of your enemies; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the time that it lies desolate, the land will have the rest it did not have during the sabbaths you lived in it. -Leviticus 26:33-35 Second Chronicles records the result of their disobedience: He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant, who escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and his sons until the kingdom of Persia came to power. 21 The land enjoyed its sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, until the seventy years were completed in fulfillment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah. – 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 Repentance: Daniel, who had been among the young men taken captive to Babylon, expressed the repentance that the exiles felt after years of captivity. He had lived out a long and useful life in Babylon serving a succession of governments and administrations, but as an old man he realized the time of the captivity there was about to end when he happened to be reading the scroll of his immediate predecessor Jeremiah: I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. 7 “Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame—the men of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. 8 O LORD, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you.‖ -Daniel 9:4-8 (Also see Daniel 9:15-19). Rebuilding – Ezra, Nehemiah: The books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe the leadership of Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, who led small numbers of Jews back to the Land at the end of the appointed 70 years in Babylon. A modest Second Temple was constructed and the city walls were rebuilt in answer to Daniel’s prayer of intercession (Daniel 9:1-19). The land from that time until now was under Gentile dominion, however. Jesus would later affirm that Israel’s subservience to Gentile powers would continue until he returned (Luke 21:24). This did not change in 1948 when Israel achieved national independence–Jerusalem is to be overrun and destroyed by foreign armies at least one more time (Zechariah 14:1-3).
Coming of the Messiah
The Gospel of Matthew was written primarily for Jewish readers. It constantly refers to the Messianic prophecies fulfilled by Jesus as the rightful King of the Jews. Among these striking fulfillments, Matthew cited Jesus’ virgin birth (Matthew 1:22-23 / Isaiah 7:14), the place of his birth in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:5-6 / Micah 5:2), the flight of his parents to Egypt to spare him from Herod’s slaughter of children (Matthew 2:14-15 / Hosea 11:1), the beginnings of his public ministry in the area of Galilee (Matthew 4:13-16 / Isaiah 9:1-2), his miraculous healing ministry (Matthew 8:14-17; 12:17-21 / Isaiah 35:5-6), his rejection by non-believers (Matthew 13:13-15 / Isaiah 53;3), his entrance into Jerusalem on a donkey (Matthew 21:1-5 / Zechariah 9:9), and his betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 27:3-10 / Zechariah 11:12-13). His agony in the garden, illegal trial in the middle of the night, crucifixion, burial and resurrection are vividly described (Matthew chapters 26-28 / Psalm 22; Isaiah 53). The other three gospels give complementary details. Fulfillment of Prophecy: A comparison of all the Gospels with the Old Testament record results in over sixty different prophecies fulfilled in Jesus’ birth, life and death. The odds against any person coincidentally fulfilling these prophecies are astronomical! It was this fact that convinced his followers that he truly was the long-awaited Messiah. Here are some examples of this fact: The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). – John 1:41 When Jesus spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, he revealed to her that he was the Messiah. The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” – John 4:25-26 The Believing Minority: Apostles and Early Christians: It should always be remembered that the entire first church was Jewish. All of the Twelve Apostles were Jewish. Their first assignment was to preach to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). Jesus was reluctant at first to even share the Gospel with the Canaanite woman who asked for his help because his focus was on the Jewish people (Matthew 25:22-28). As the nation began to reject their promised King and Messiah (Matthew 12:14-21), Jesus began to conceal truth from the nation, by speaking in parables (Matthew 13). He focused on training his disciples for the age that would follow, and on his primary mission of arriving in Jerusalem at the time appointed for his crucifixion. God’s plan for ultimate blessings promised to the Gentiles came more into view. On the night of his betrayal at the “Last Supper,” after Judas had left to finalize his plot to betray the Lord, Jesus brought the 11 disciples, as representatives of true, believing Israel into the “New Covenant” that had been promised to Israel hundreds of years earlier by the prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah. This New Covenant was to be the basis of the spread of the gospel message of Jesus by these same men, after they were made Apostles of the Church. The nation of Israel was to be brought back to God under the terms of this New Covenant. For a period of time Israel would be set aside because of their rejection of Jesus as Messiah. Jesus‘ official rejection of Israel and his plan for the calling out of a church was announced at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:17-19). A few months later, during his final week in Jerusalem, he announced to the nation and its leaders, Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? 43″Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. 44He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.” – Matthew 21:42-44 Jesus wept over Jerusalem as he realized the terrible fate that would come upon the nation because of their rejection of him. For the second time the conditional provisions of the Covenant of the Land were to be enforced. This time their exile (“Diaspora”) was to last not 70 years but 2000! “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.‖ – Matthew 23:37 The resurrection of Jesus and his appearances to friends and disciples over the next 40 days, reassured them considerably–for they had all forsaken him when he died (Matthew 26:31). Promising to send them “Another Strengthener” (John 14:15-16), he told his followers to wait ten more days. Gathering in Jerusalem on the appointed day–the Feast of Pentecost following Passover– the Jewish followers of Jesus were empowered by the Spirit of God and baptized into a new community of believers known as the Church–the Body of Christ (Ephesians 3:1-21). All of those who first heard the Gospel on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) were Jewish (including converts and those dispersed to other countries). It was only after the persecution of the early church by the Jewish enemies of Jesus in Jerusalem that they were scattered from there, and began to take the message to the rest of Judea and Samaria, and eventually, to Gentiles living in Israel, and even to other nations (Acts 8:1; 10:1-48; 13:1-4). Even when Paul, the “Apostle to The Gentiles” would go to any new place, he would first seek out the Jewish people and proclaim the Gospel to them (Acts 13:5; 14; 14:1-5; 17:1-5; 18:1- 6). Typically, some of the Jews would believe and the rest would not. Only then would he begin to preach to the Gentiles. Here is an example from the visit to Antioch in Pisidia: As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath. 43When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God. 44On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. 45When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying. 46Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles. 47For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ” ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'” 48When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed. – Acts 13:42-48 Paul summarized his God-given method in Romans 1:16 where he stated, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.”
