Image used with permission of Dan Richards. Facebook, Website

Most of the Old Testament is the story and history of a family. The first we learn of the patriarch of the family, Abram, (later changed to Abraham in Genesis 17:5) was in the lineage of Shem’s descendants in Genesis 11:10-26. In verse 26 of chapter 11, the writer names Terah as Abram’s father as well as naming Abram’s two brothers, Nahor, and Haran. Abram and his wife Sarai, along with others from Ur of the Chaldeans headed for Canaan at God’s direction. Along the way they stopped and stayed for a time in Haran. When  Abram was 75 years old God gave him a bit of a nudge and Abram and his family moved on to Canaan, where they settled.  This journey is recorded in Genesis 11:31-12:5. From there the rest of the Old Testament focuses on the history of Abraham’s family through his son Isaac and grandson, Jacob. Through that family, God promised, would come the promised Messiah. Not only is the Old Testament very “Jewish,” but if we do not understand the Jewishness of the New Testament, we miss a great deal of important information and understanding because these two are connected.

The choosing of Abram and the particular lineage of his descendants, the family’s blessings, trials and travails, and sometimes unfaithfulness and rebellion against God (and the punishment that resulted), are the story of the Old Testament. The Nation of Israel descended from Abraham, through his son Issac and then continued with his grandson, Jacob. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel (Genesis 32:28), after Jacob actually wrestled with the angel of the Lord. Then in Genesis 35:10, God appeared and confirmed the name change.

To backtrack a bit, it is in Genesis 12:1-3 that we read that God called Abraham to leave his father and extended family and travel to a land that God would show him and where he (God) would make him (Abraham) a great nation. In 12:7, as Abraham and his entourage were traveling we read:

Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

In Genesis 15:18 the land for this nation is given by a covenant to Abraham’s offspring with at least one of the boundary markers specified:

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates,

The covenantal land would be given to Abraham’s descendants through Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s descendants. As their offspring were later preparing to enter the land God had promised them, God recited the land boundaries through Moses in Deuteronomy 11:24:

Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 

The boundaries of the Nation of Isreal by covenant from YHWH were and still are “From the river to the sea.” From time to time in the nation’s history God removed them from the land due to disobedience, or idolatry, etc. but always had them return. The last time the Israelis were dispersed from the land was in A.D. 70.

The Second World War showcased the evil Adolf Hitler’s program of extermination of Jews as his “Final Solution” to the “Jewish problem.” The “problem” wasn’t just that Jews were living in Germany or other nations Hitler’s armies conquered, but that they were living at all. It was a spiritual pogrom. Hitler was not the first. In the Fourteenth Century the Jews were blamed for The Black Death plague:

The origin of the plague was that the drinking water wells were poisoned. Who were the poisoners? Naturally, the Jews. Why would they do that? Because they took delight in destroying the Christian world. They were the agents of Satan, the anti-Christ. Therefore, it was nothing for the Jews to poison the well.¹The Black Death, Jewish History.org

It wasn’t long before the pogroms against the “spiritually evil” Jews began and turned out to be quite effective. For example:

Of the 3,000 Jews in Erfurt, none survived the attack of the Christian mobs. By 1350, those Jews that survived the Black Death itself were destroyed by the ravages of the mobs. The Jewish communities in Antwerp and Brussels were entirely exterminated in 1350. There were almost no Jews left in Germany or the Low Countries by 1351.²The Black Death, Jewish History.org

After World War II, which saw the horrible torture and murder of millions of Jews, Israel was reestablished as a nation in 1948, where it was hoped they would find peace. The land allotted to them for this purpose by the UN was not as big as their original boundaries that had been set by God, but the Jews set about founding the nation that would bring them peace from pogroms and the genocidal hatred of nations and peoples in the world. Peace for Israel and Jewish people was short-lived, however. In 1967, a coalition of Islamic nations including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan were prepared to launch an assault on Israel. Israel launched a defensive strike, and the “Six Day War” ended with Israel taking Jerusalem and some other territory within the original covenantal boundaries. But for the Israelis, their “peace” has been often shaken by their neighboring nations as well as some terrorist groups within the nation.

Ironically, the expression “From the river to the sea” has become a very popular slogan for Israel’s surrounding nations. We have been hearing that slogan frequently even in our own nation, especially on college campuses – but with an ironic evil twist. The expression is not being voiced by the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Israel but rather from the enemies of Israel – who are demanding to rid the “promised land” of God’s covenant people, Israel.

How can people not see the evil irony of this demand?

The updated Hamas version, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has a sort of a ring to it and markets well, especially among those who know relatively little about history, and even less about biblical history or the dark spiritual nature of the conflict. The current version of this “from the river to the sea” chant of course does not come from the word of God. It is instead a modified version from the 2017 Hamas Charter (the original Hamas Charter was done in 1988). The first line of Article 2 begins:

Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west

Hamas does not recognize the reestablishment of the Nation of Israel in 1948 and in Article 5 claims:

The Palestinian identity is authentic and timeless; it is passed from generation to generation.

The evidence seems to demonstrate this claim is not true. “Palestine and the Palestinians (1948–67)” points out:

the idea that Palestinians form a distinct people is relatively recent. The Arabs living in Palestine had never had a separate state. Until the establishment of Israel, the term Palestinian was used by Jews and foreigners to describe the inhabitants of Palestine and had only begun to be used by the Arabs themselves at the turn of the 20th century.

To our knowledge, there is no archaeological history that would support the claim that any Palestinian identity existed and has been “passed from generation to generation.” On the other hand, there is a great deal of evidence that attests to Jewish history in the land dating back thousands of years. Biblical figures validated by archaeological finds is just one of the most recent examples.

Is the issue simply that Jews are living unfairly in the land that Hamas claims has for generations been recognized as its own? We don’t think that is the case at all. It seems again to be a spiritual battle. Certainly Jews and non-Jews can peacefully co-exist today in the land that is now and was historically Israel. There are many non-Jews living peacefully in Israel RIGHT NOW. Some of them, a record number currently, are even in the ruling body of the nation, the Knesset! Not everyone in Israel has Israeli citizenship of course, any more than having residency in the US automatically makes one an American citizen.  Yet, Israeli Citizens, Jews and non-Jews, have the right to vote. Even ancient Israel had non-Jews living in the nation peacefully. “Strangers and Gentiles” in the Virtual Jewish Library writes:

Ancient Israel was acquainted with two classes of strangers, resident aliens and foreigners who considered their sojourn in the land more or less temporary. The latter were referred to as zarim (זָרִים) or nokhrim (נָכְרִים), terms generally applied to anyone outside the circle the writer had in view (e.g., Ex. 21:8; 29:33).

Thie inexplicable hatred of the Jewish people down through the centuries, and the current drive to rid the world of Jews is a spiritual issue. It is evil and a slap of the face to the living God. The cleaning of the land “From the river to the sea,” is not simply to remove the Jews to other nations but is a call for the elimination of all Jews.

But as inexplicitly horrible as that is, there is another spiritual aspect of it that most people are unaware of. It is also in order to marshal in “The Hour,” a time that, according to Islam, that marks the end of the world as we know it and ushers in a new beginning. According to the Hadith, something needs to precede “The Hour””

Narrated Abu Huraira:
Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. “O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him.”³(94) Chapter: Fighting against the Jews; Sahih al-Bukhari 2926, Book 56, Hadith 139, USC-MSA web (English) reference : Vol. 4, Book 52, Hadith 177

It is unfortunate that western university students and others are swept up in and recruited into this dark spiritual battle that they likely have no true knowledge of, one in which they are not fighting on the side of God Almighty, but against Him.

Yet, one thing we know for sure is that God will not allow this horror to happen. There will be skirmishes and possibly wars ahead, but NO ONE will utterly destroy the Jews or chase them from their land again. Ever. If the entire world stands against Her, Her God (and as Christians, ours too, by the way) will be with her. He loves Israel and will miraculously save her. He has already shown His miraculous love of Israel from her very inception in 1948. In her extremity Israel will call upon Him and He will be there! The wondrous things He has promised her in the scriptures will all come to pass. Don’t for a minute doubt it.Ω

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