The Restoration of Israel in the New Testament

[nebula]

From the east - I don't see any of hte Babylonian Empire extending to the east of Israel. Do you?

Yes quite a ways, look at the map again.

Got my directioins mixed up again (don't ask).

OK, From the west!

That's what I meant.

So, where does the Babylonian Empire extend to the west of Israel?

[nebula]

Again I ask you Horizoneast -

What do you think of the land of Israel being in Muslim hands?

Oh, I forgot, you're not listening to me.

Someone else want to answer for him?

Edited July 26, 2006 by nebula

[Guest shiloh357]

Shiloh

God has throughout the Bible and in our day chosen the methods that would demonstrate His Hand in the matter. When the facts are examined regarding Israel's rebirth, it is unmistakably a work of God.

Of course the same thing can be said about the birth of the United States and myriad other nations throughout history? God always has and always will work in the affairs of men

[Guest shiloh357]

Horizoneast and KatyAnn -

Do you believe this prophecy has been fulfilled yet? If so, please explain when and how?

Isaiah 43:1-7

1 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you.

3 For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place.

4 Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you; Therefore I will give men for you, And people for your life.

5 Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your descendants from the east, And gather you from the west;

6 I will say to the north, 'Give them up!' And to the south, 'Do not keep them back!' Bring My sons from afar, And My daughters from the ends of the earth--

7 Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him."

The return from Babyonian capticity came only from the west, yet this prophecy refers to all directions - north, south, east and west.

The chapter is about the Babylonian captivity. Keep in mind that Babylon was a "superpower" with colonies and interests outside of Babylon proper, just as we have American interest around the world. Here is a map of the Babylonian Empire. You can see that is surrounds Israel.

http://www.bible-history.com/maps/maps/map...ire_550_bc.html

Between the time of the OT prophets and the begining of the NT it was necessary for the Jews to return to Israel so the temple could be rebuilt and the Messiah could come forth (sound familiar?). After the return to the land, the Messiah..Christ was born, had his ministry, and made the ultimate sacrifice for our salvation. Through Christ's sacrifice ALL NATIONS have been blessed because now salvation is also open to the Gentile.

This is what the OT prophets are speaking of when they foretell a return of the people to the land and the nations being blessed through Israel. All these prophesies point to our savior Jesus Christ.

Let's look at the whole chapter so that we can better put Isaiah 43 in context.

Isaiah 43

1 But now thus saith the LORD that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

2 When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

3 For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.

4 Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee: therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.

v. 1-4 Showing that he has saved Israel before.

5 Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west;

6 I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth;

7 Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

8 Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.

9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth.

v. 5-9 Showing that God will bring them out of their present captivity (from among the Babylonians and other areas where they were exiled at the time of the writing).

10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.

11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.

12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.

13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?

v.10-13 God is declaring that he is in fact God. v. 12 shows that God had shown himself to his people during the times that they WERE NOT worshiping strange Gods.

14 Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.

v. 14 Cyrus went into Babylon to conquer it..

15 I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King.

16 Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;

17 Which bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow.

v. 15 The people are being reminded that they were saved from the Egyptians whose chariots and horses are in the sea, and shall not rise.

18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old.

19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

20 The beast of the field shall honour me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.

21 This people have I formed for myself; they shall shew forth my praise.

v18-21 God will do a new thing. What is the new thing.....a new covenant..salvation through Christ.

22 But thou hast not called upon me, O Jacob; but thou hast been weary of me, O Israel.

23 Thou hast not brought me the small cattle of thy burnt offerings; neither hast thou honoured me with thy sacrifices. I have not caused thee to serve with an offering, nor wearied thee with incense.

24 Thou hast bought me no sweet cane with money, neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.

v. 22-24 Even though God has delivered the people before, they still did not serve him.

25 I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.

v. 25 God has overlooked their sins of the past for his own purposes.

26 Put me in remembrance: let us plead together: declare thou, that thou mayest be justified.

27 Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against me.

28 Therefore I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches.

v. 26 God is admonishing the people to return to him.

v- 27-28 Shows the sin of the people and the punishment received...a curse and reproaches.

There is no way to assign this passage to the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon. The verbiage defies such an interpretation. In verses 5-9, "North, South, East, and West" are not qualified. It is speaking of a global return, not return that is specific only to Babylon.

KatyAnn is adding a qualifier. She is saying that this is calling for a return from the four corners of the Babylonian Empire. That however, is not how the chapter reads. The fact that the Babylonian Empire does really extend South of Judah also makes it difficult to say that this is a reference to the return from Babylon. One last thing, this chapter is not addressed specifically to the Judean exiles into Babylon, who were the principle returnees from the 70 year exile.

That is not to say that modern Jews have not returned from that area in our day. Many Jews from Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries were thrown out at the start of 1947 Israeli war of independance. The modern regathering of Jews from the four corners of the globe better fits the natural interpretation of Isaiah 43:5-9

[Guest shiloh357]

What we are witnessing with Shiloh

[Guest shiloh357]

So why is that important? If it had been Orthodox Jews who founded Israel, then it would have been dismissed as self-fulfilling prophecy. This is also true if the Jews had been believers in Jesus. As is, the Jews who founded Israel did not believe in the Bible and had no interest in fulfilling prophecy, and yet were in very uncanny way fulfilling the very words of the Bible. Even the Land purchased by the Jews from the Arab Sarsuks is prophesied by Jeremiah, and where the Land would be bought. The Jews returning to Israel purchased the very tracks of Land that Jeremiah said that they would purchase upon their return!!

Okay Shiloh, I'm hooked...........keep going!

The only thing I can think of is Jeremiah 32

6 And Jeremiah said, "The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 7 'Behold, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle will come to you, saying, "Buy my field which is in Anathoth, for the right of redemption is yours to buy it." ' 8 Then Hanamel my uncle's son came to me in the court of the prison according to the word of the Lord, and said to me, 'Please buy my field that is in Anathoth, which is in the country of Benjamin; for the right of inheritance is yours, and the redemption yours; buy it for yourself.' Then I knew that this was the word of the Lord. 9 So I bought the field from Hanamel, the son of my uncle who was in Anathoth, and weighed out to him the money--seventeen shekels of silver. 10 And I signed the deed and sealed it, took witnesses, and weighed the money on the scales. 11 So I took the purchase deed, both that which was sealed according to the law and custom, and that which was open; 12 and I gave the purchase deed to Baruch the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, in the presence of Hanamel my uncle's son, and in the presence of the witnesses who signed the purchase deed, before all the Jews who sat in the court of the prison. 13 "Then I charged Baruch before them, saying, 14 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Take these deeds, both this purchase deed which is sealed and this deed which is open, and put them in an earthen vessel, that they may last many days." 15 For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: "Houses and fields and vineyards shall be possessed again in this land." '

Is this it, Shiloh?

You're in the right spot Neb!! The verse I was referring to is verses 37- 44; with the emphasis on verse 44:

Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely: And they shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them, and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Yea, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul. For thus saith the LORD; Like as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate without man or beast; it is given into the hand of the Chaldeans. Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences, and seal them, and take witnesses in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of the south: for I will cause their captivity to return, saith the LORD.

(Jeremiah 32:37-44)

This occurs after a worldwide regathering. In the text below please note that it aligns perfectly with the above verses. Verse 46 tells us that the Land would be desolate. The Land Israel purchased was worthless desert and malaria infested swamps!! One only needs to look at a map of modern Israel against this passage to see how accurate the prophet Jeremiah was. The skeptics can say what they want. God's word is true and 100% accurate! The nation of Israel proper sits on exactly the areas described above by the prophet Jeremiah.

This is what we learn from history:

Despite the growth in their population, the Arabs continued to assert they were being displaced. The truth is that from the beginning of World War I, part of Palestine's land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.18

Jews actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They sought land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants. In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as "the most important asset of the native population." Ben-Gurion said "under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to fellahs or worked by them." He advocated helping liberate them from their oppressors. "Only if a fellah leaves his place of settlement," Ben-Gurion added, "should we offer to buy his land, at an appropriate price."19

It was only after the Jews had bought all of the available uncultivated land that they began to purchase cultivated land. Many Arabs were willing to sell because of the migration to coastal towns and because they needed money to invest in the citrus industry.20

When John Hope Simpson arrived in Palestine in May 1930, he observed: "They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay."21

In 1931, Lewis French conducted a survey of landlessness and eventually offered new plots to any Arabs who had been "dispossessed." British officials received more than 3,000 applications, of which 80 percent were ruled invalid by the Government's legal adviser because the applicants were not landless Arabs. This left only about 600 landless Arabs, 100 of whom accepted the Government land offer.22

In April 1936, a new outbreak of Arab attacks on Jews was instigated by a Syrian guerrilla named Fawzi al

[Guest shiloh357]

QUOTE

Shiloh

Actually I have known about Progressive dispensationalism for the last several years.

Well you could have fooled me - if I had to guess I would say you ran across it only a few days ago.

Yeah...uh.. OK, whatever

Shiloh

[Guest shiloh357]

As I said you would do

[RebekahDavid]

I agree with silentprayer! Wonderful study Shiloh and Nebula your questions are to the point as well. (Even if you do get your directions mixed up )

Love your sister in Christ,

Rebekah David

[nebula]

I guess you will need to clarify your question nebula, i.e., what do you mean by