On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter. The LORD will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and his name the only name…But Jerusalem will be raised up and remain in its place (Zechariah 14:8-10).
Modern Israel’s 1st Prime Minister was David Ben
Gurion, whose monumental task it was to steer the fledgling nation onward from
their declaration of independence in May 1948.
Ben Gurion famously said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist, you must believe in miracles.”
In one of the greatest exceptions in history – unparalleled in all of human demography – the Jewish people have maintained their ethnicity without
a homeland for almost 2000 years. Never before has an ethnic people lost
their native land and continued to exist as an identifiable group for more than
4 or 5 generations.
But by this metric, the Jews are total outliers. Their survival as an identifiable ethnic community is unique, unequaled, and beyond comparison – ever.
Zionism was the political ideology longing for – and building towards – a Jewish homeland and nation in the Hebrew ancestral home.
The modern origins of the 20th century Zionist movement can be traced to the 2-decade period of 1870–1890, and the geographic roots of impetus to Russia. There, the Jewish group Hovevei Zion (Lovers of Zion) worked to establish
settlements in Palestine.
Around the same time Eliezer ben Yehuda, a linguist and journalist
formerly of Russia but now living in the Holy Land, worked to revive ancient Hebrew as a spoken modern language. Before this initiative, only a handful of rabbinic academics could competently read, write and speak the ancient language of Hebrew heritage.
Theodor Herzl founded the World Zionist Organization (WZO) in 1897, the purpose of which was to develop a global Zionist strategy to repatriate Jews to the traditional land of Israel. Ironically – given later developments under the Nazi regime – that original WZO executive office was in Germany
With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the conclusion of
WW1, the League of Nations (forerunner to the United Nations) mandated that
Palestine would be under British rule.
At times, the Brits appeared to be Israel’s greatest friend and protector; and at other times, Great Britain placed hurdles in the way of Zionist growth, aggressively prohibiting – and militarily restraining – ships of refugees from entering the Holy Land.
But the Zionist dream was
gaining traction. Consequently, a voracious appetite for capital was evident.
The Baron Abraham Edmond
James de Rothschild of the wealthy French banking family was willing
to finance the venture.
By the end of the
1930s, Jews numbering 1 million paid annual WZO membership dues as self-identified Zionists.
But while the Zionist dream was gaining
momentum, evidence of hatred of all things Jewish was rearing its ugly head
throughout Europe.
Then came the unspeakable, ghastly
horrors of The Holocaust during WW2. By any reasonable metric, it stands alone as the 20th century’s greatest calamity.
An intentional, cold-blooded and pre-meditated
disaster inflicted on the Jewish people of Europe between 1941 and 1945, this
genocide saw the systematic slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis and its
collaborators via mass shootings and poison gas in camps erected for the
purpose of temporarily housing and then exterminating two-thirds of European
Jewry.
It was only in the last half of the Second World War, that the enormous scope of the slaughter of Jewish civilians at the hands of the Nazis became fully apparent. Shimon Peres (former Israeli Prime Minister, and later President): “During the war, we didn’t know the facts…There wasn’t a full picture of concentration camps and gas chambers…I didn’t know what had happened to my family. Until after the war we didn’t have a full conception of the scope of the catastrophe.”
Before the Second World War, the global Jewish population was nearing 17 million. Due to the unprecedented enormity of the Holocaust, that population total has only again been reached in our present day – almost 8 decades after the war’s conclusion.
As the world began the task of post-war rebuilding, about one-quarter million European Jews were confined to “displaced persons” camps within the borders of Germany and Austria. And yet Britain, still reeling from the heavy physical toll on lives and infrastructure—and injury to its national psyche concomitant with the loss of world status that the War had inflicted – became weary of the tension and conflict that
Mandatory Palestine continued to represent.
As a result, Britain
continued to forcefully curtail Jewish immigration to Palestine.
One of the most
publicized episodes was the SS Exodus.
In 1947 the ship was commissioned to take Jewish immigrants from
France to Mandatory Palestine. Most of the passengers were Holocaust survivors
without documentation for entry. The British Royal Navy boarded the Exodus
in international waters, escorting the vessel to Haifa where the passengers
were forcibly removed to other ships awaiting to return the disappointed travellers
back to refugee camps in Europe.
But the Zionist movement – as predicted by the Lord God through the Hebrew prophet Zechariah 2500 years ago – was unstoppable.
I will
whistle for them to gather them together,
For I have
redeemed them;
And they
will be as numerous as they were before.
And I will
sow them among the peoples,
And they
will remember Me in far countries,
And they with their children will live and turn back (Zechariah 10:8,9).
In 1922, the British census showed 84,000 Jews living in Palestine. That figure had grown exponentially to 529,000 by the end of 1944.
And then, against all odds from a human perspective, David Ben Gurion declared Israel’s independence on May 14th,
1948. Within minutes, the USA formally recognized the Jewish State and other
key countries followed.
Canada did not officially recognize Israel until
over 18 months later.
As it declared itself an independent Jewish state,
the infant nation was immediately engaged in a multi-front war, being promptly
invaded by the armies of Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Historian Daniel Gordis
captures the essential grim and ominous flavour of that era in his book
entitled Israel: a Concise History of a Nation Reborn, when he observes
of the founding of the modern state:
The early years were desperately difficult. The new state, with no financial reserves and very little infrastructure, suddenly had to absorb masses of immigrants much larger than its own population. Jews from North Africa, Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere came to Israel by the hundreds of thousands when their host countries expelled them…another one hundred and fifty thousand refugees from the holocaust, bearing all the traumas of their horrific experience, also arrived at Israel’s borders. Formerly swamp-ridden and still uncultivated in some areas and largely barren desert in others, bereft of natural resources, and almost completely out of cash, the state had few options for feeding and offering shelter to all these people and began to ration food. Just a few years after its creation, the country was in danger of financial collapse.
Contrary to all human calculus, the Jewish State survived the multi-wave onslaught from enemies committed to its total annihilation. Israel – with a current population of 9.44 million (60% that of Ontario’s) – continues to grow, prosper and defend itself, punching well above its weight.
But the God of Scripture had foretold that the Chosen people – the descendants of Abraham through Isaac, the child of promise – would again possess the Holy Land.
This is simply one more global, historical evidence of the sovereign control of world affairs by the God of the Bible, Yahweh. He has predicted from centuries before the time of Christ that the state of Israel – long obliterated out of existence – would again stand at centre-stage in the unfolding drama at the end of this phase of human history.
Such assertions had been scorned as being
impossible; after all, for centuries there was no Jewish nation. The Jews of
the world were dispersed to the 4 corners of the globe.
But the Lord has spoken.
We are privileged to live in this era and to see
the fulfilment of some of these astonishing prophetic passages. The shifting of
geo-political events that credibly could usher in those last days including the
return of Christ, are almost daily occurrences.
I thought of those prophetic truths one day in
2005, as Pat and I stood atop Mt. Carmel located in northern Israel. It was a
beautiful clear autumn day.
Under such conditions, the visibility radius is as
much as 65 kms with a 260 degree panoramic view of the Jezreel Valley. The Mediterranean
is a mere 3 kms to the west.
As we observed the Valley below – also called the Valley of Megiddo – Israeli Defense Force (IDF) jets were landing and disappearing into the runway tarmac before our watching eyes!
Our guide explained that the IDF airstrips at this site were designed to “swallow” military jets, moments after they have landed, safely storing them in a massive complex of underground hangers.
Megiddo is
known by another name: Armageddon, that place associated with the battle of global armies at the time of Christ’s return.
They are spirits of demons
performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world,
to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty.
"Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed."
Then they gathered the
kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon (Revelation
16:14-16).
I conclude this post with another quote from Prime Minister Ben Gurion, citing this proclamation in 1949, less than one year after Israel’s declaration of independence:
“If a miracle happens and the Messiah comes, there will be peace in the world and all will be good. But it is our task to save the Jewish people by natural means, until the supernatural miracle happens.”
He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20).
