The Fall and Rise of Israel, Part 6 - A Nation is Declared and the Dead Sea Scrolls are Found

My last post looked at the penning of the Partition Plan in the United Nations as the summer of 1947 came to a close.  Let's keep exploring!

Most nations were not in favor of Partition, including the main world powers.  The Soviet Union, an athiest communist country, certainly was not in favor of fulfilling biblical prophecy.  Additionally, the American State Department had positioned itself against it.  However, the American president was in favor of it.  How did that happen?

Here we see another case of world history melding together with God's ancient purposes.  Had the former US president been in power during that window of time, it is doubtful he would have sanctioned Israel's rebirth.  However, in Franklin D Roosevelt's last re-election, he chose a new vice president - Harry S. Truman.  Three months into his fourth term, FDR died, giving Truman a very sudden promotion.

Even Truman was nervous about supporting Partition in the face of worldwide hostility toward it.  However, his former business partner, a Jewish man named Eddie Jacobson, met with Truman and implored him to meet with Chaim Weizmann.  It is reported that Truman resisted, but in the end, he declared to Eddie, "You win, you bald-headed son-of-a-b$#%."  He met with Weizmann and walked away from that meeting in full support of a Jewish state.

Not a joke:  two Jews and a Baptist entered into a piece of history.

Even the Russian dictator Stalin began to see the value of a Jewish state in the Middle East that would oust the British and possibly increase their own influence in the area.

When the vote for Partition came up in the United Nations on November 29, 1947, the resolution passed with 33 votes for, 13 votes against, and 10 abstentions.

The date of the vote also happened to be the Sabbath.  The weekly Torah portion included Genesis 32:9, which includes the command, return to your native land.

The context of that scripture is Jacob returning to his land years after fleeing from his brother Esau.  It was during that return trip that Jacob wrestled with the LORD, and he would not give up until the LORD blessed him.

When the vote came up, no name had been assigned to to the resurrected Jewish state.  Several different names had been proposed, including Judah and Zion.  But on the day of the UN vote, the name would be revealed to the world:  Israel.

Remarkably, Genesis 32:28 was also included in that week's Torah portion, which stated You shall be called Israel.  This is the first appearance of Israel in scripture.  The Torah portion continued on that week to include Genesis 35:12, which says, To your descendants, I will assign this land.

All these details are so precise and exciting, but wait, there's more!

From the beginning, it has been God's word that initiates all things.  He spoke the universe into existence.  First the word, then the creation.  First the word, then the restoration.

Down by the Dead Sea, a Bedouin shepherd boy was passing the time by chucking rocks into holes in the cliff.  After one such launch, he heard a shattering sound.  What followed was the discovery of the most significant archaeological discovery of modern times - the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Bedouin boy and a friend brought their find to an Arab merchant in Bethlehem.

Dead Sea caves at Qumran

These scrolls had been hidden in the caves by a Jewish group called the Essenes almost two thousand years earlier, when Rome was driving the Jews from the land.  There is almost nowhere else in the world that these scrolls would have survived for that length of time, but the extra dry climate of the Dead Sea was an ideal hiding place.

The most celebrated of the scrolls was the scroll of Isaiah.  It was found in that very first cave and was preserved in its entirety.  Isaiah includes beautiful prophetic words of Israel's restoration, including 11:12, which declares, He will raise a signal for the nations and will assemble the banished of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

The head of Hebrew University's archaeology department, Eliezer Sukenik, was able to obtain the scrolls from the Bethlehem merchant and bring them back to his home.  As Eliezer carefully began unrolling the scrolls, his younger son Mati was listening to the radio in the next room.  Mati kept rushing back and forth to tell his father what he was hearing.  The UN vote was being broadcast to the world.  It was November 29, 1947.

UN Partition vote

The Word was being revealed at the same time that the new nation was being proclaimed.

The UN resolution set into motion what was to come next.  Click here to continue on.

The Fall and Rise of Israel, Part 5 - Theodor Herzl, Zionism, and the UN Partition Plan

So we arrive at the end of World War I, which came and went, and it would be wonderful to assume that everything then went smoothly for the return of the Jews to the land.  But alas, as scripture tells us, the devil knows his time is short.  He went into a rage, and the story of Israel's restoration was just getting started.

We have looked at the 50 year Jubilee cycle that was kicked off in 1867 and ended in 1917.  In an earlier post, I promised that we would come back to Theodor Herzl, and this post will explore another Jubilee cycle, taking place on its own timeline.

Herzl was a Hungarian journalist.  He had early leanings toward a Jewish state, having had a dream about  it at the age of 12.  But the event that spurred him into action was called the Dreyfus affair, in which a Jewish French man, Alfred Dreyfus, was wrongfully accused and convicted of treason in 1894. (Dreyfus was eventually exonerated twelve years later).  

Herzl had simply had it with Jews being blamed for anything and everything. His thoughts became, in my paraphrase, "we gotta think about getting our own place."

Herzl founded Zionism at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland.  The Oxford dictionary defines Zionism thusly:  A movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It was established as a political organization in 1897 under Theodor Herzl, and was later led by Chaim Weizmann.

A few days after that First Zionist Congress, Herzl penned these words:  At Basel, I founded the Jewish State.  If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter.  Perhaps in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.

Following World War I, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1917, the victors began carving up the lands in the Middle East. Various European nations were given control over chunks of the former Ottoman Empire.

The British, who occupied the Holy Land following WWI, were granted the British Mandate for Palestine at a conference in San Remo in 1920.  This event kicked off two decades of violent clashes between Jews and Arabs in the Holy Land.  And Britain, who had once championed the idea of a Jewish state, unfortunately began to change its policy and turn against the return of the Jews that it had once advocated.

There was a saying that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because there were territories and colonies of Britain on every continent.  As Britain withdrew its support for the Jewish state, its empire crumbled into near nothingness.  We would do well to heed the scriptures that tell us, in regard to Israel, I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who lightly esteem you.  Just saying.

British Empire, circa 1919

Back to Herzl's First Zionist Congress: it concluded on August 31, 1897.  Can we fast forward fifty years, as Herzl proclaimed, to see if anything took place then?  Why yes.  Yes we can.

On August 31, 1947, the United Nations would complete the writing of the Partition Plan.  This was a plan to help the Jewish-Arab skirmishes cease, and it attempted to divide the land and give a chunk to each side.  A few days later, the Partition Plan was officially received and recorded by the United Nations General Assembly.  That took place on September 3, 1947.  Herzl wrote his 50-year prediction on September 3, 1897.

(The Jews accepted the Partition Plan.  The Arabs did not.  War would be on the horizon. More on that later).

Partition Plan of 1947

The UN representatives had no idea they were part of a prophecy that is recorded in Leviticus 25:10, which says, And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.

Click here if you'd like to continue on.

The Fall and Rise of Israel, Part 4 - More World War I and Jerusalem

World War I gets its name because it was the first war that involved pretty much the whole globe.  But God used this conflict to change the face of a particular geographical area - the Middle East.  (Yeshua alluded to the concept of world war in Matthew 24 when he prophesied "kingdom against kingdom.")

Let's first look at a particular skirmish that took place in the war,  Beersheva.

Beersheva was the main stomping ground of Abraham after he had wandered through the land that God promised him.  And it was also the scene of battles and then a settlement between Abraham and Abimieech.  See Genesis 21 if you'd like to review it.

In the summer of 1917, a Christian man by the name of Edmund Allenby was chosen to replace General Archibald Murray as commander of the British forces in Egypt.  While Murray had focused on Gaza, Allenby directed his focus to Beersheva.  The battle to take Beersheva was Britain's first major victory in the Middle East. It was a breakthrough that would lead to the restoration of the Jews to the land.

Beersheva in 1917

Beersheva was regained on October 31, 1917.  The same day that the Balfour Declaration was penned.  

Another scripture that was read in synagogues around the world on the Sabbath of that same week was Genesis 21:31:  Therefore he called that place Beersheva, because the two of them swore an oath there.

Beersheva in modern times

The battle for the Holy Land pressed on, and the British engaged their air force as they set their eyes on Jerusalem.  Because of this focus on air warfare, Allenby's troops were able to prevent enemy aircraft from bombing missions.  Jerusalem was liberated and emerged from the war largely unscathed.  

Isaiah 31:5 gives a beautiful prophecy of what took place:

Like birds hovering, so the LORD of hosts

will protect Jerusalem;

he will protect and deliver it;

he will spare and rescue it.”

Was this passage read in synagogues that week?  Nope, sorry.

It was, however, in the Anglican Book of Common prayer (read daily by many British soldiers), and was appointed hundreds of years earlier to be read on the last day before Jerusalem's deliverance - December 8, 1917.

The reading in the Book of Common Prayer for next day, the day of Jerusalem's liberation on December 9, was Isaiah 33:20, which begins thusly:

Behold Zion, the city of our appointed feasts!

Your eyes will see Jerusalem

The following day, December 10, was a day of rejoicing and comfort for Jerusalem.  And the prayer for that day? Isaiah 40:1-2.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that her warfare is ended

In the book of Haggai, the prophet was speaking to the exiles returning from Babylon.  But is there a modern day application of this prophecy?  Could it be a near/far prophecy?

Chapter 2:18-19 says,
Consider from this day onward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month. Since the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid, consider:  Is the seed yet in the barn? Indeed, the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have yielded nothing. But from this day on I will bless you.

On the Hebrew calendar, the 24th day of the ninth month occurred on December 9, 1917.  The day of Jerusalem's liberation.  It is interesting to note that the biblical day begins at sundown the previous evening.  That is the exact time when the Ottoman soldiers gave up the city and fled through its gates.  

And as the sun set on December 9, 1917, the Hebrew calendar was ushering in yet another significant day:  the first day of Hanukkah, also called the Feast of Dedication.  People all over the world were lighting their first candle of the Hanukkah menorah.  And the appointed scripture to be read on the Sabbath of Hanukkah includes Zechariah 2:12, which says, And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

And so He did.

Modern Jerusalem

Part five is now ready.  Click here to continue.

The Fall and Rise of Israel, Part 3 - World War I and The Balfour Declaration

WWI.  It was to change our globe forever.

There is quite a back story how it started, but the simple version goes like this:

On June 28, 1914, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Ferdinand, was riding in a motorcade through the streets of Sarajevo, when he was shot by a Bosnian Serb nationalist.

Archduke Ferdinand
 Heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Many empires and countries, having previously made alliances with each other, began to be sucked into the conflict until the world was in uproar.  The British Empire was drawn in one one side, the Ottoman Empire on the other.

I need to back up at this point.  There was a man born in the Russian Empire in 1874, the third child in a Jewish family of 15 children.  He had a passion for chemistry and moved to Germany to study it.  But he had a deeper passion than science - the dream that his people would someday return to their ancient homeland.  His name was Chaim Weizmann. He attended Theodor Herzl's second Zionist Congress while still living in Germany.

Weizmann moved to Britain in 1904 and made the acquaintance of a man named Arthur Balfour, who was a deeply committed Christian. 

As the war drew nearer, Weizmann was appointed as an advisor to the British Ministry of Munitions under its head, David Lloyd George - another committed Christian.

Weizmann's passion for a Jewish homeland left a deep impression on both of those men.

During the war, Britain experienced a shortage of acetone - a substance used in warfare that was produced by the Germans.  Well, Germany was on the opposite side of the conflict, and they were not going to sell warfare chemicals to their enemies.  Duh.  Weizmann found a way to produce the chemical in mass quantities, which had a direct impact on the Allied victory.

As the war was drawing to a close, the British government collapsed in December of 1916. Prime Minister Asquith, who was against a Jewish homeland, was ousted.  He was succeeded by David Lloyd George, who appointed Arthur Balfour as his foreign secretary.

Two men in favor of a Jewish homeland.

Because of his successful war efforts, Weizmann was asked what the British government could do for him.  His response?  A Jewish homeland, por favor.

Chaim Weizmann

On October 31, 1917, a letter was penned by Arthur Balfour, and two days later was declared publicly.  The document became known as the Balfour Declaration  It included this statement:

His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object...

Fifty years after the release of the land, the release was fulfilled.  In that first jubilee, the land was measured.  In this subsequent jubilee, the land was transferred.

Interestingly, on the Sabbath just before the Balfour Declaration went forth, the reading in the synagogues around the world included Genesis 12, the scripture that established the ancestral right.

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you... Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.

The next post will back up and examine some war details.  I'll try not to make it boring (like school history class always was).  Click here to continue.

The Fall and Rise of Israel, Part 2 - The Ottoman Decline, The Return of the People

 The land.

The physical land of Israel was one of the three parts of the everlasting Abrahamic Covenant, which is outlined in Genesis 12, 15, and 17.  These parts are intertwined and inseparable:

• The Land - the physical land of Israel
• The Seed - the promised Seed of the woman, the coming Messiah Yeshua
• The Blessing - Salvation offered to the entire world

My last post examined two passages of scripture that were fulfilled in order to initiate the return of the land to their rightful owners - the Jews.  The first was the foreigner who declared the devastation of the land, and the second was the surveyor who measured the land.

This post looks at the circumstances regarding control of the land.

The last time the Jews had control of the land was around the time of the Maccabbees, starting in about 165 BC and lasting until they were overtaken by the Roman Empire in 63 BC.  In 70 AD (and again in 135 AD), Jewish uprisings against Rome took place that caused the Romans to expel the Jews from the land and destroy their temple.

Since that time, many foreign entities had taken control of the Holy Land, but the last great power to have that control was the Ottoman Empire.  The Ottoman conquest of the land happened around the time of Christopher Columbus, in the midst of worldwide exploration.  In a battle with the Egyptian Mamluks, the Ottomans seized control of the land - in the year 1517.

Let's pause for a moment and recall the jubilee cycle that I mentioned in the first post.  A biblical jubilee is 50 years.  It calls for the release of debts.   A reset button, so to speak.  It kicks off the next cycle.

Another very significant number used in scripture is the number 7, which signifies completeness.  So, did something noteworthy take place take place in the Holy Land after seven jubilee cycles?

Yes.

First, a brief history lesson, which shows that God's hand is all over history (I like to call it His Story).

In the mid 1800s, two entities were having a skirmish in the Holy Land - the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church - over who should have control of the holy places in the land.  The triggering factor was a missing star from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The fighting escalated, ultimately leading to war between the Russians and the Turkish Ottomans.

The Crimean War.

The Crimean War was a turning point for the declining Ottoman Empire. After the war, the devastated empire entered into massive loans with its European creditors - leading to financial disaster and bankruptcy.   

The Ottomans needed money.  

To raise this money, the Ottoman sultan enacted the Ottoman Land Code.  The law stipulated that no land could be sold to foreigners - those outside their empire.  So this first land code was enacted to raise taxes in order to pay debts.

The first land code did not solve the Ottomans' financial woes.  So nine years later, they enacted a new Ottoman Land Code.  The land could now be purchased by foreigners.

Guess who jumped on this opportunity?  

Jewish people began buying up land in what was then called Palestine.  One of the major buyers was the European banking family, the Rothchilds.  Historically, this family has been subject to vast conspiracy theories that center on the Jews taking over the world.  But in reality, the Jews were not allowed memberships in the trade guilds of the late Middle Ages, so they turned to banking.  And God used that historical reality to create a wealthy European Jewish family who would become key investors in the land of Israel.  

When the Ottomans realized that Jews were buying up the land, they tried to put a stop to it.  But one cannot stop God's prophecy from moving forward.

Jeremiah 32:44 says,
Fields shall be bought for money, and deeds shall be signed and sealed and witnessed, in the land of Benjamin, in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the hill country, in the cities of the Shephelah, and in the cities of the Negeb; for I will restore their fortunes, declares the Lord.”

Are you ready for the kicker?

The second Ottoman Land Code was signed into law on June 10, 1867, two days after Mark Twain began his epic journey toward the Holy Land, and during the same time that Warren was surveying the land. 

This official land release took place exactly 350 years after the Ottomans overtook the Holy Land in 1517.  

Seven jubilee cycles.

The stage was now set for what was to come.

When Twain and Warren were doing their work in Jerusalem and the surrounding land, the population of the Jewish people there constituted a minority. But within just a few years they became the majority.  

The prophecy-fulfilling work of the foreigner and the surveyor kicked off waves of Jews making aliyah - returning to the land.  That first decade saw the first Jewish agricultural settlements established since ancient times, as well as a school whose purpose was to teach Jewish people how to farm the land.  Additionally, massive persecution of Jews in the Russian Empire at that time caused Jewish people to seek refuge in the Promised Land (history at work again).  

These massive waves of returning exiles continued into the twentieth century.  These agricultural settlements (known as kibbutzes) would transform the land.  If you would like more detail on how these kibbutzes functioned and were organized, I recommend the book Exodus by Leon Uris. 

The next part of the story kicks off with a providential meeting in the city of Paris in 1894.  Two men converged in the city, met, and became good friends.

One of the two men was Mark Twain.  The other man was named Theodor Herzl.  That very year, Herzl was transformed from a playwright and European journalist into a visionary with a mission to see his people return to their land.  He became known as the founder of Zionism and the Father of the Jewish State.  I will come back to Herzl and his work later on.

Theodor Herzl, the Father of the Jewish State

In the meantime, there was a dark cloud forming on the horizon of history.  That cloud was World War 1.

My next post will look at that war's historical significance to Israel's return.  Click here if you'd like to read it.

The Fall and Rise of Israel, Part 1 - The Desolation, the Foreigner, and the Surveyor

I love discovering patterns in scripture. And there are oh so many to find. The patterns remind me just how precise and wise our God is. There is no way man could have come up with the many underlying  patterns on his own.

Some of of my favorite sources that help me to identify scriptural patterns are Chuck Missler of Koinonia House, Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s many writings, and the work of Tim Mackie and his Bible Project team.

Cahn has written a book that highlights the patterns of the restoration of Israel, called The Oracle. His book has many storytelling elements, but I would like to recap the patterns clearly and concisely in a short series of blog posts.

One of the most astounding biblical prophecies is the restoration of Israel, and it is being fulfilled right under our noses.  For me, this is a huge faith builder, especially after realizing that it was predicted over and over again in the scriptures.

Let’s jump in.

Moses’ words of warning in Deuteronomy 28:64 to Israel told them that they would be scattered from one end of the earth to the other. History has shown this to be true. 

But Moses didn’t stop with his warning in Deuteronomy 28. In chapter 30, you can read his prophecy that they would return. This is a near/far prophecy, meaning that it would have multiple fulfillments.

The Jews were kicked out of their land in 586 BC for their apostasy and rejection of the Sinai covenant. In His mercy, YHVH brought them back seventy years later, so that they would be present in the land when He sent His son to make a new covenant with them.

Once again, the Jews (most of them, anyway - but don’t forget that the first followers of Yeshua were all Jewish) rejected this new covenant, and they were once again kicked out of the land... this time for much longer.

Here we are, nearly two thousand years later, watching their long-awaited return to the Promised Land.  The return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland would be a sign of the last days.

In Deuteronomy 29:22-23, Moses describes the condition of the land of Israel after the Jews are scattered:

And the next generation, your children who rise about you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, will say, when they see the afflictions of that land and the sicknesses with which YHVH has made it sick- The whole land burned out with brimstone and salt, nothing sown and nothing growing, or no plant can sprout, an overthrow like that of Sodom and Gomorrah...

I think you get the picture. 

But what about that comment nestled in Moses’ prophecy about the foreigner? What is that about?

In the middle of the 19th century, Mark Twain visited the land of Israel. He came home and wrote the book, Innocents Abroad. In it, he described the desolation of the land of Israel. Here are some of his comments: 

Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, lepers, cripples, the blind… To see the numbers of maimed, malformed, and diseased humanity that throng the holy places… 

He colorfully continues on:

The whole land is brimstone, salt… 

All desolate and unpeopled... 

miles of desolate country, the far-reaching desolation, the waste of a limitless desolation... 

it is a scorching, arid, repulsive solitude. Such roasting heat, such oppressive solitude, and such a dismal desolation cannot surely exist elsewhere on earth. 

Nowhere in all the waste around with a foot of shade, and we were scorching to death. 

Valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation. A desert, paved with loose stones, vid of vegetation, laying in the fierce sun.

No spring of grass is visible.

Illustration from Twain's book,
Innocents Abroad

The words of Moses were declared by Mark Twain and sent throughout the world via the book he published.

Deuteronomy states that stranger must come before the return of the Jewish people, and he must come when the land is desolate and hopeless. Twain’s tour and subsequent declarations set the stage for God’s modern day miracle... the rebirth of Israel.

The year of his visit was 1867.

Twain's journey began in June of 1867.  His last day in Jerusalem was September 28, which happened to be the Sabbath.  The Torah portion that was read in synagogues all over the world that day included Deuteronomy 29:22-23 (see above).  As Twain walked through the streets of Jerusalem, perhaps he heard this scripture being read.  The very day the stranger finished his journey in the land, the prophecy regarding the stranger was read in Jerusalem and around the world.

Another portion of scripture that was appointed for that day was Isaiah 62:4, which says,
You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,
but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,
and your land Married;
for the Lord delights in you,
and your land shall be married.

Mark Twain's real name was Samuel, which is a Hebrew name meaning YHVH has heard.  For two thousand years, the children of Israel have prayed for God to have mercy and bring them back to their land.  Samuel's last name was Clemens, which means merciful.  

Samuel - God has heard their prayers

Clemens - He was about to show them mercy

Mark Twain departed the land having no idea the part he was to play in the restoration of Israel.

The prophet Zechariah made his own last days prophetic declaration in chapter 2:1-2.  He says,  Then I raised my eyes and looked, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, “where are you going?” And he said to me, “to measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.”  

In scripture, the original owner would return to his land in a jubilee year.   The jubilee years happened every 50 years.  Before this can happen, a title, deed, and survey would be needed. The land needed to be defined. And if there was no existing survey, then one had to be made.

Enter Charles Warren. He was sent to Israel by Britain, on a mission to survey and map out Jerusalem, to measure the holy city. Warren's work ushered in a new age of biblical archaeology.

In order to measure the holy city, Warren had to first dig it up.  He uncovered ancient gates, ancient walls, and ancient chambers.  But his most dramatic discovery was when he stumbled onto a water shaft.  

It was through Jerusalem's ancient water system that King David's soldiers first entered the city.  Warren's discovery renewed that ancient connection.

Warren's water shaft 

The year of the water shaft discovery was 1867.  Fall of that year, to be more specific.

The name Warren means a habitation, often used of rabbits (which are known for multiplying).  Jerusalem was being prepared to become a habitation of Jewish people returning to the land.

Look what Zechariah says in 8:4-5...

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets.

And here’s the kicker… Mark Twain and Charles Warren had no idea that the other existed. But the two of them would dwell inside walls of the aged city at the same time, the same month, the same week, the same days, and in the very same lodging place - the  Mediterranean Hotel.

Stay tuned!  We've only begun this journey.  If you would like more details set in a story format, I recommend reading The Oracle, which can be purchased here.

Part 2 is has been posted.  You can click here to read it.