SLIDES

The History and Future of Israel and the Middle East

Part 6

Introduction

To review, the five major events that are causing Israel and the Middle East to be in turmoil are:

1.  God put enmity between Satan and Israel.
(Genesis 3:15)

2.  Ishmaels’ descendants, the Ishmaelites, were prophesied to constantly cause Israel problems, do not exist today as a nation or people. However, their descendants continue to cause problems as they were absorbed into the Arab nations.

3.  Israel’s title deed to the land promised by God to Abraham and His descendants forever is found in Genesis 15 continues to demonstrate that the land belongs exclusively to Isarel and the Jewish people. In the Old Testament God reiterated to Isarel at least 18 times that In the Old Testament that He gave the land to them as an everlasting possession.

4.  Jacob received the promises of the Abrahamic Covenant instead of Esau. The descendants of Esau, the Edomites, have constantly caused Israel problems along with the Ishmaelites. In Psalm 83:5-8 we find that the Ishmaelites and the Edomites made a covenant with other peoples and nations at that time to destroy Isarel.

5.  God changing Jacob’s name to Israel. From him, the first Jew, came the 12 tribes and the nation of Israel.

I.   The History of Israel and the Middle East

B. From the Birth of the Messiah to the Birth of Israel

Remember there are four prophesied distinct periods in God’s plan for Israel during the diaspora as part of the Leviticus 26 and Land Covenant found in Deuteronomy 28 - 30. They are dispersion, preservation, restoration, and reconciliation. These distinct periods cover a period of approximately 2000 years. These periods prophesied by Moses in Deuteronomy and fleshed out in secular history contributed to Israel History and her becoming a nation after 1900 years. We have discussed the dispersion and the preservation aspect of God’s plan for Israel in the diaspora. Now, we are going to continue our discussion lesson on the restoration aspect of God’s plan for Israel in the diaspora from our last lesson.

Restoration

In our last lesson we discussed the restoration or the regathering of Isarel to the Promised Land that would be two segments. The first regathering from the Diaspora would begin after God’s judgment on the Jewish people. The first segment of the regathering to the Promised Land began in earnest in 1945 after the judgement of the Holocaust. In the first aspect of the regathering, the Jewish people would return to the Promise Land in unbelief.

Ezekiel prophesied that God would bring another judgment while they were in the land before the second aspect of the regathering would occur. This will be the future Tribulation Period.

During our last lesson, we also learned from Joel 3:1-2 that God will judge the nations that had anything of scattering the Jewish people from one country to another and for dividing the land He gave to Israel as an everlasting possession.

Now, let’s discuss some of the people God raised up and some of the events God orchestrated that shaped the first aspect of the return of the Jews to their homeland, the rebirth of a nation on May 14, 1948, and the revival of a language that had not been spoken for 1900 years.

Theodor Herzl

Theodor Hertzl is the father of modern Zionism. Zionism is a term that describes a Jewish nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine.  A Zionist, then, is one that had a Zeal for the Jewish people to return the land of their forefathers. Hertzl was born in Budapest on May 2, 1860, but grew up in Vienna. He was trained as a lawyer but became a correspondent for the New Free Press in Paris. In 1896 he became the leader of the World Zionist Movement. In August 1897 they had the first Zionist Congress in which a mandate was made to establish a Jewish state within fifty years.

The Zionists tried to deal with the Ottoman Turks who controlled the land called Palestine at that time about the Jews having an independent state there, but they would not allow it.  North America and Argentina were also considered. The British government even offered land for a Jewish state in British East Africa. All of these suggestions were rejected. Israel had a homeland called Eretz Isarel. After all, the Lord said in Deuteronomy 30:5.

The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.

Hertzl officiated in several other Zionist Congresses. Hertzl died a young man at age 44 on July 3, 1903, without seeing his dream of a Jewish state being established. The prediction of fifty years was missed by six months.

Chaim Weizmann

The next person who contributed to the formation of the nation of Israel was Professor Chaim Weizmann who became the first President of Israel, he was among the leaders who were instrumental in the establishment of the State of Israel.

Born in 1874 in a small town in Russia, Chaim Weizmann immigrated to Great Britain in 1904 and began his scientific career as a research chemist at Manchester University. During World War I he was acclaimed for his discovery of a method to produce synthetic acetone and came into contact with the "movers and shakers" of British society, among them Lord Balfour and Winston Churchill. He agreed to give Great Britain the formula for synthetic acetone if they would agree to give support to Israel becoming an independent nation.

Throughout his life, Weizmann combined scientific endeavor with intensive involvement in Zionist activities. As a leader of the World Zionist Movement for many years, he was highly influential in formulating Zionist strategy and succeeded in broadening support for the Zionist movement and in mobilizing Jewish capital to further Zionist endeavors in Palestine, then under British mandate.

Balfour Declaration

In 1917 Great Britain through the Balfour Declaration stated that they were in favor of the Jew having a homeland in Palestine.  Palestine was then under the control of Great Britain.  Great Britain took it from the Turks. In 1922 Great Britain divided the land into two sections – Palestine and Jordan. Great Britain did not take the land from the Palestinians because there was never a Palestinian state as some would have you believe.  All Jews and Arabs living in the land at that time until 1948 were called Palestinians.

White Papers

By 1936 Great Britian had not helped the Jewish people obtain a homeland in Palestine as promised. In 1936 something called the White Papers moved things in the opposite direction. The Papers were largely a response to Arab pressure over increased Jewish immigration to the area. On the eve of World War II and the Holocaust, the White Paper recommended a five-year plan for limited Jewish immigration of 15,000 a year, including a requirement of Arab consent to immigration after the plan expired. When the five years ended, no Jews were allowed into Palestine. This helped to contribute to the Holocaust. 

The Holocaust changed everything. With six million Jews dead because of the Holocaust, the Jews began to work toward returning to the land of their forefathers. They began to put pressure on Britian. There were several Jewish freedom fighter groups that were formed to put pressure on Great Britain to give part of the land they controlled for an independent Jewish nation.  The main Jewish freedom fighter groups were Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) - ultimately led by future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Another freedom fighter organization was Lohamey Heruth Israel (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) or LHI.

The British administrative headquarters for Palestine were housed in the southern wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel was the site of the central offices of the British Mandatory authorities of Palestine, principally the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and the Headquarters of the British Armed Forces in Palestine and Transjordan. It was bombed on July 22, 1946 by the  Zionist underground organization Irgun during the Jewish insurgency. Ninety-one people of various nationalities were killed, including Arabs, Britons, and Jews.  Forty-six were injured.

When planned, the attack had the approval of the Hagenah, the principal Jewish paramilitary group in Palestine which became the Israel Defense Force (IDF), though, unbeknownst to the Irgun, this had been cancelled by the time the operation was carried out. It was the deadliest attack directed at the British during the Mandate era (1920–1948).

On 31 March 1947, Irgun set light to the oil refinery at Haifa, starting a fire which blazed for three weeks. In May, it attacked the prison at Acre, freeing a large number of Jewish inmates.

On July 29, in retaliation for the Jewish execution of three of their members, LHI kidnapped and hanged two British Army sergeants. They then booby-trapped the bodies so that the officer who cut them down was badly injured.

Great Britan had had enough and turned the problem over to the United Nations in 1947. In 1900 Great Britain was the most power and influential nation on the earth. After reneging on their promise to help the Jews secure an independent nation, Great Britain became a third-class nation because of the blessing - curse principle found in Genesis 12:3.  Every nation in history that has blessed Israel, and the Jew has been blessed and every nation that has persecuted Israel and the Jew has been cursed.

The White Papers were still in force In November 1947. The United Nations recommended the partition of Palestine and the establishment of separate Arab and Jewish states. The Arab nations were of course against this. In this historic event seemed to be a victory for Jews, it also marked the beginning of more violence with the Arabs.

President Harry Truman & Eddie Jacobson

Originally President Truman was against Israel becoming an independent nation. The person who made the deepest impact on President to vote “yes” in the United Nations Eddie Jacobson who Truman fought alongside of in WWI. After the war, they went into business together in a Haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri. Jacobson visited Truman at the Whitehouse and asked him to support Israel becoming to become an independent nation. He persuaded him to see Chaim Weizmann. Even though the state department was against Israel becoming an independent nation, Truman changed his mind and told US representative to the UN to vote “yes” to Israel becoming an independent nation. The rest is history.

David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion was born October 16, 1886, in Płońsk, Poland He worked tirelessly most of his life for the Zionist movement and became a Zionist statesman and political leader. He was the first prime minister and defense minister (1948–53; 1955–63) of Israel. It was Ben Gurion who, on May 14, 1948, at Tel Aviv, delivered Israel’s declaration of independence. His charismatic personality won him the adoration of the masses, and, after his retirement from the government and, later, from the Knesset, he was revered as the “Father of the Nation.”

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda                                  

How many of you have been to the Scroll of the Book in Jerusalem to see the Dead Sea Scrolls? The most prominent scroll is the scroll of Isaiah that is displayed in a circular glass case.  One of the significant places is the Israeli Museum and Dead Sea Scrolls Museum in Jerusalem.

After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and killed thousands of Jews, they began to lead them into captivity in other countries.  As the Jews were scattered into other countries, they gradually stopped speaking their native language during the centuries that followed. Those in Europe took German and mixed it with Hebrew, producing a hybrid tongue called Yiddish. The Jews who settled in the Mediterranean basin mixed Hebrew with Spanish and developed a language called Ladino.

Hebrew became confined to the synagogues where it was used for Torah readings. For many decades after AD 70, most Jews could not understand the Torah readings. But at the beginning of the 20th century another end time prophecy began to unfold. 

The prophecy about the revival of the Hebrew language is found in Zephaniah 3:9. In the NASB95 it reads.

For then I will give to the peoples purified lips, that all of

them may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him.

shoulder to shoulder.

The ESV reads:

For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples

to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.

NKJV

For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one accord.

The Living Bible paraphrases the verse to read: “At that time I will change the speech of my returning people to pure Hebrew so that all can worship the Lord together.”

The term “lips” is the literal translation, but it is a figure of speech that means language. The phrase shoulder to shoulder refers to the people worshipping in once accord or in unison. The clear implication that the ultimate fulfillment of this prophecy will occur when all the peoples of the world are once again unified in their language, likely speaking Hebrew, of course, in the Messianic Kingdom.

Many see the revival of biblical Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jewish people today as a miracle of God and at least a partial fulfillment of Zephaniah 3:9. There is no other example in world history of an ancient language being revived as the spoken language of a modern nation. The restoration of biblical Hebrew to a modern day spoken language is a unique historical phenomenon.

The key person God used to revive the Hebrew language was Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. God raised up Ben Yahuda to be the spearhead for the revival of spoken Hebrew.  He was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in 1858 in Lithuania, which at that time was part of Russia.

When Eliezer Ben-Yehuda arrived in Palestine in 1881, Hebrew had not been the spoken language of the Jewish people since the time of the Bible. Yet, thanks to Ben-Yehuda, by 1922 enough Jewish pioneers were speaking Hebrew that the British Mandate authorities recognized it as the official language of Jews in Palestine.

Ben-Yehuda conceived of Jewish nationalism as both the return to the historical homeland in the land of Israel, as well as the revival of the Hebrew language. To accomplish the latter, Ben-Yehuda needed to inspire a near impossible feat: transform Hebrew, which for centuries had been used only in study, into a modern spoken language. He accomplished that almost impossible task. For apart from Hebrew, we have no example of a “dead” language which ceased to be spoken and was again restored to life. If a linguistic expert had been asked whether Hebrew could be revived, he probably would have replied that it was highly unlikely.

During our next lesson, we will focus on Israel being reborn as a nation after 1900 years and the prophecies it fulfilled and others that either began to be fulfilled or have been fulfilled since May 14, 1948.