Does Israel belong to the Jews or Not? The Land of Israel and Judah (10 March 2017, 12 Ada, 5777)
Contents:
1. The Land Belongs to God
2. The Blessings were Unconditional in Some Respects
3. The Ten Tribes Suspended
4. Enjoyment of the Land was Contingent on Obedience
5. Disobedient Jews?
6. Jews Not Really Jews?
7. Laws Pertaining to the Land: A Projected Transfer of Palestinians.
8. Other Considerations
9. The Biblical Answer and a Theocratic State
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1. The Land Belongs to God
God gave the Land UNCONDITIONALLY to the Forefathers as part of the Covenant.
The Land belongs to God:
Leviticus 25:
23{4} The land must not be sold without reclaim because the land belongs to me, for you are foreigners and residents with me.
God promised the Land to the descendants of Abraham forever:
Genesis 13:
14 The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, 'Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; 15 for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever. 16 I will make your [m]descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.17 Arise, walk about the land through its length and breadth; for I will give it to you.'
Isaac received the Promise and this was passed onto Jacob (who was re-named Israel):
Genesis 48:
4 and He said to me, 'Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you a company of peoples, and will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession.'
Possession of the Land was included in the Covenant with the Forefathers which was everlasting:
1-Chronicles 16:
17 He also confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
Psalms 105:
8 He has remembered His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded to a thousand generations,
9 The covenant which He made with Abraham,
And His oath to Isaac.
10 Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute,
To Israel as an everlasting covenant,
11 Saying, 'To you I will give the land of Canaan
As the portion of your inheritance.'
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2. The Blessings were Unconditional in Some Respects:
The Blessings involved becoming a very numerous people, a great and mighty nation, civilizing humanity, etc, and also possessing the Land.
Aspects of the Promised Blessings were unconditional,
"By myself hath I sworn, saith the LORD...that in Blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed..." (Genesis 28:15).
"God is not a man neither the son of man that he should repent. He hath blessed and I cannot reverse it" (Numbers 23:19-20).
See Also:
Geneaology of the Blessings to Israel
http://www.britam.org/GeneaologyofBlessings.html
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3. The Ten Tribes Suspended
The Israelites became 13 Tribes though a quorum of 12 is usually given.
They divided into two separate sections.
In the north were Ten Tribes. In the south were three Tribes plus minority groupings from all the others. They were known collectively as Judah.
The Ten Tribes in the north were conquered by the Assyrians, exiled, and lost consciousness of their ancestry. Physically however they remained together and moved elsewhere.
We have shown how the Blessings were actually TEMPORARILY divided into TWO SEPARATE PORTIONS.
The task of possessing power and civilizing others was to go to the the Ten Tribes.
See:
To Rule the World
http://hebrewnations.com/publications/books/ruleworld.html
Possessing the Land went to Judah.
The Ten Tribes are sometimes referred to collectively as Josph or as Ephraim or, when juxtaposed with Judah, as Israel.
They were exiled for having worshipped foreign gods, intermixed with foreign peoples and earned their ways.
The identification of the Ten Tribes as Israelites in a spiritual sense was suspended (Jeremiah 3:8, Hosea 1:10, Talmud Yebamot 17).
In the future they will be accepted back and re-unite with Judah.
[Jeremiah 3:8] SHE SAW THAT FOR ALL THE ADULTERIES OF THAT FAITHLESS ONE, ISRAEL, I HAD SENT HER AWAY WITH A DECREE OF DIVORCE; YET HER FALSE SISTER JUDAH DID NOT FEAR, BUT SHE TOO WENT AND PLAYED THE HARLOT.
'YET THE NUMBER OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL SHALL BE AS THE SAND OF THE SEA, WHICH CANNOT BE MEASURED NOR NUMBERED; AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, THAT IN THE PLACE WHERE IT WAS SAID UNTO THEM, YE ARE NOT MY PEOPLE, THERE IT SHALL BE SAID UNTO THEM, YE ARE THE SONS OF THE LIVING GOD' [Hosea 1:10].
Isaiah 2:
5 Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.
6 For you have abandoned your people, the house of Jacob,
Because they are filled with influences from the east,
And they are soothsayers like the Philistines,
And with the children of foreigners take satisfaction.
The Commentator Rashi (option 2):
# The prophet reproves them and says to them, You have abandoned your people, O House of Jacob, abandoned the good deeds through which you were recognized as a people, i.e. stopped acting in a way that distinguished you as the House of Jacob #
Rashi is applying this verse to the Ten Tribes of Israel, who have stopped belong to "the House of Jacob". They have stopped acting as they should. They have abandoned being themselves. It is as if they no longer belong to their own people.
We find present-day descendants of the Ten Tribes of Israel among Western Peoples. They are distinct from Judah and have their own tasks to fulfill.
See:
http://hebrewnations.com
http://www.britam.org
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4. Enjoyment of the Land was Contingent on Obedience
The Israelites were warned that if they disobeyed God they would be exiled from the Land. Later they would be brought back to it.
Leviticus 26:
11 Moreover, I will make My dwelling among you, and My soul will not reject you. 12 I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people. 13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so that you would not be their slaves, and I broke the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.
14 But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments, 15 if, instead, you reject My statutes, and if your soul abhors My ordinances so as not to carry out all My commandments, and so break My covenant....
....
32 I will make the land desolate so that your enemies who settle in it will be appalled over it. 33 You, however, I will scatter among the nations and will draw out a sword after you, as your land becomes desolate and your cities become waste.
34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths all the days of the desolation, while you are in your enemies' land; then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. 35 All the days of its desolation it will observe the rest which it did not observe on your sabbaths, while you were living on it....
42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. 43 For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them. They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes. 44 Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. 45 But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD.
Deuteronomy 30:
3 then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. 4 If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. 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.
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5. Disobedient Jews?
The following claim has been made by Arabs in Israel and by others:
# The Jews claim that the Land belongs to them because God gave it to them. Most Jews however do not keep the laws of the Torah. How may they then appeal to the Torah as their justification for being here? #
Under the universal custom of mankind the Jews should not have to justify their existence anywhere to anyone.
Nevertheless since we are indeed appealing to the Bible the question deserves an answer in its own right.
All the laws need to be obeyed as much as possible. We should learn ourselves as well as going to the Rabbis to teach us and accepting their authority to do so. There are Laws and there are Laws. There is reward and punishment on both the individual and community levels. Some Laws may be more pertinent to being in the Land than others.
Most Jews in the State of Israel believe in One God.
Most Jews in Israel are circumcised.
A majority of Jews in Israel actually keep some degree of observance concerning Kosher food and other matters.
About 20% per cent would be considered quite observant by Gentile standards.
About 7% (or more) of the males learn Torah all day long at a very high level.
The Jews suffered much but in their own way they kept the Jewish Faith.
For whatever faults they may, or may not, have it could be that in Heaven exonerating circumstances have been taken note of.
The Almighty has HIS own reasons for doing things.
At all events,
The Land was given irrevocably to the Israelite Nation.
It could be temporarily lost possession of BUT the right to take it back was always there.
It remained their property.
The Jews are that portion of the Israelite People who remained identifiable.
They have come to take back that part of it their present level of population and inner fortitude enables them to do so.
If there exists a quarrel it is between the Almighty and HIS people.
Others are warned NOT to interfere (Zechariah 1:15).
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6. Jews Not Really Jews?
Arabs and haters of the Jewish people sometimes claim that the present-day Jews are not descended from the original Israelite inhabitants of the Land.
This may be argued on historical grounds. A core element probably a majority of the Jews do descend from the original Hebrews. Even if they did not the nation as a whole has a right to adopt others into itself.
Just as the USA and every other country accepts newcomers from outside into itself and gives them the full rights of citizens so can the Jews.
The Jews have a claim as a group to the Land of Israel. it is not necessary that all members of the group are physically descended from the membership that existed long ago.
Whatever the case these considerations are at most of only secondary importance.
The BIBLE defines the present-day Jewish People as JUDAH with all the rights and obligations of JUDAH IN SCRPTURE!
See:
23 Identifiers. Expanded Version. Proofs that the Jews of Today are Judah of the Bible
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/jew/25expanded.html
Why The Jews Are Judah! Proof that the Present-Day Jews are the Judah of Scripture.
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/jew/judah.html
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7. Laws Pertaining to the Land: A Projected Transfer of Palestinians.
In Principle ALL the laws of the Bible should be kept.
Belief in ONE God is especially important.
So too, learning the Torah is vital. Ultimately the learning will lead to observance.
Non-Israelites who do not keep the Torah, especially enemies of the Jewish People should be evacuated and re-settled in other lands.
This is what the Torah ITSELF requires.
In principle the Bible requires us to do this humanely and in stages.
The alien sojourners is to be honored and respected (Deuteronomy 10:19).
Nevertheless Scripture warns us that our survival in the LAND is dependent on moving the heathens out.
cf.
Numbers 33:
55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then those whom you let remain shall be as barbs in your eyes and thorns in your sides; they shall trouble you in the land where you are settling. 56 And I will do to you as I thought to do to them.
See:
Transfer the Palestinians. Send the Arabs of Gaza to Latin America
http://hebrewnations.com/articles/gaza.html
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8. Other Considerations
Mitchell Bard ("Pre-State Israel: Jewish Claim To The Land Of Israel")
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-claim-to-the-land-of-israel
reports:
The Jewish people base their claim to the land of Israel on at least four premises: 1) God promised the land to the patriarch Abraham; 2) the Jewish people settled and developed the land; 3) the international community granted political sovereignty in Palestine to the Jewish people and 4) the territory was captured in defensive wars.
In reply we may note that (1) as shown above,
God promised the Land to the Israelite Nation as a whole but for the moment Judah is enabled to activate that right on its own behalf and to a degree as a preparation for all the others.
(2) The Jewish People have settled and developed the Land. Possession is nine-tenths of the Law. Greater need and increased utilitarian benefit to themselves and to the world in general are also valid arguments.
(3) Historically the international community did want the Jews to do what they have done and perhaps even more so. From a moral point of view they cannot really change their mind.
Once you give a previous inferior equal rights you cannot take them back especially if he is doing as well as you are or better. The Jews needed a Land of their own and this is the one they know have.
(4) The Jews in Israel in building and developing the Land have been on the whole reacting to hostile aggression of others. On a practical level it is a matter of survival.
All the platitudinous talk by liberal Jews as to wanting to make peace with the Arabs is correct. They really mean it on the whole.
The Arabs however do not believe them and would not want to accept it even if they did.
Everyone knows this.
Gentile championship of the Arab cause is a cloak for hatred of the Jewish People.
For Jewish and Christian sources on these matters used in this article see:
See Also:
Five Key Biblical Arguments For Israel's Right to the Land{1} by John S. Kanter, M.A.
http://www.leaderu.com/theology/israelland.html
Israel's Right to the Land. A skillful presentation by U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) on the Senate floor, March 4, 2002.
http://www.aish.com/h/iid/48891682.html
The Land of Israel
http://www.jewfaq.org/israel.htm
The Land of Israel in Classical Jewish Sources
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-land-of-israel-in-classical-jewish-sources/
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9. The Biblical Answer and a Theocratic State
Since the Bible requires the Jews to be in the Land and to have a Theocratic State then they should do.
The strongest really valid rationale for the Jews being in Israel is the Biblical Imperative.
And what if one does not believe in the Bible?
They you have a problem.
That however is your problem more than that of others.
The Bible tells the story of the Hebrews who received the message of One God and transmitted it. The Bible is the one source of morality and relative humanity exterior to ourselves. The Bible speaks to us. People who learn the Bible come to understand that God is speaking to us through it. We in the west believe that relatively speaking we have more rights and have advanced morally more than others. This is due to the Bible. The impression is that anything good in Western Civilization ultimately derives from the Bible. If we are in trouble today it is because we have abandoned the Bible. The Bible is there to show us the way home.
Without the Bible there is no humanity and nothing left to discuss anyway.
Hear O Yisroel the LORD your God, the LORD is ONE!