THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL
"In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close
up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it
as in the days of old. And I will bring again the captivity of my people of
Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; and they shall
plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens,
and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they
shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith
the Lord thy God." `Amos 9:11,14,15`
AMONG the relics of antiquity that have come down to our day, there is no
other object of so great interest as the Jewish people. The searchers after
ancient lore have untiringly questioned every inanimate object that could
give a mite of historic or scientific information. Monuments, altars, tombs,
relics of public and private edifices, paintings, sculptures, hieroglyphics
and dead languages have all been appealed to; and some have even endeavored
patiently to discover the line of actual truth which probably inspired the
many fanciful traditions, legends, songs, etc., that have come floating down
the centuries, in order to learn all that it is possible to know of human
origin, history and destiny. But the most interesting relic, and the one whose
history can be most easily deciphered and understood is the Jewish people.
In them we have a monument of antiquity of inestimable value, upon which are
recorded, in clearly legible characters, the origin, progress and final destiny
of the whole human race--a living and intelligent witness of the gradual outworking
of a wonderful purpose in human affairs, in exact conformity with the predictions
of their divinely inspired prophets and seers.
As a people, they are marked as distinct and peculiar by every circumstance
of their history and by their common religious faith, as well as by every
element of their national character, and even by their physiognomy and their
manners and customs. The national characteristics of many centuries ago are
still prominent, even to their fondness for the leeks and onions and garlic
of Egypt, and their stiffnecked obstinacy. As a people, they truly had much
advantage every way, in having committed unto them the oracles of God, developing
among them poets, lawyers, statesmen and philosophers, and leading them up
step by step from being a nation of slaves to be--as in the time of Solomon,
the zenith of their glory--a people distinguished and honored among the nations,
attracting the wonder and admiration of the world. `Rom. 3:1,2`; `1 Kings
4:30-34; 10:1-29`
That the re-establishment of Israel in the land of Palestine is one of the
events to be expected in this Day of the Lord, we are fully assured by the
above expression of the prophet. Notice, particularly, that the prophecy cannot
be interpreted in any symbolic sense. It is not a Canaan in heaven to which
they are appointed, but a Canaan on earth. They are to be planted upon "their
land," the land which God says he had given them, the land which he promised
It is a land into which they were once privileged to enter, and in which they dwelt for centuries. But during that time they were many times plucked up and carried into captivity in other lands, while strangers wasted their cities, drank the wine of their vineyards, and ate the fruit of their gardens. And finally they were completely rooted out, their cities laid waste and desolate, and they were driven as wanderers and exiles from country to country the world over. But when replanted in their land according to this promise, "they shall no more be pulled up out of their land," which God gave them; and "they shall build the waste cities [cities in which they had formerly lived], and inhabit them." A scattered, homeless, desolate and persecuted people, they are still a distinct and homogeneous people. United by the strong ties of blood relationship, by common hopes inspired by a common faith in the wonderful promises of God, though they have but dimly comprehended those promises, and still further bound together by the bond of sympathy growing out of their common sufferings and privations as exiles, they, to this day, look and long for the hope of Israel.
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