Students of the Bible will recognize the significant role the nation of Israel plays in the Scriptures, including a crucial role in biblical prophecy as well. In fact, understanding several of God’s key promises to Israel will greatly enhance how you understand what’s happening in Israel today, and even how you interpret the book of Revelation (the last book in the Bible). Therefore, I want to take a brief look at several of God’s major promises to the Jewish people, specifically the Abrahamic and Davidic Covenants, and discuss their implications today.
The Abrahamic Covenant
The history of the Jewish nation traces its lineage back to God’s promises to a single man named Abram. We first read of Abram and his wife, Sarai, at the end of Genesis chapter 11 when God told them to pack up and move from the land of Ur and head to a place called Canaan. Then, in Genesis 12:1-3, God makes several stunning promises to Abram. Read Genesis 12:1-3. This is often called the Abrahamic Covenant, and it identifies three things God said He would do for Abram and his descendants.
In the Bible, a covenant was similar to a contract or a binding agreement between God and humans, in this case Abraham and, later, David. In Genesis 12:1-3, Bible scholars believe that God essentially made a three-fold promise to Abram of LAND, DESCENDANTS, and BLESSINGS.
God said He would bless Abram, make his name great, and even bless those who bless Abram (not to mention cursing those who curse Abram). But God also promised to bless the world through Abram, too, and many believe that was a promise of the future Messiah through Abram’s descendants, the Jews. By the way, in Genesis 17 God changes both Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah, respectively, to match His future plans for them.
Now look up the following additional verses to read the specifics of these promises:
- Genesis 12:6-7; 15:18-21, and 17:8. How much land did God promise Abraham?
- Genesis 15:5. How many descendants did God promise?
God’s promise of land, descendants, and a world-wide blessing created an unconditional covenant with Abraham (meaning God would do all the work), and many believe these three promises were fulfilled by the end of the 1st century. At first glance, God did give the Israelites land (even though they lost it a time or two). And Abraham did have children and grandchildren and many descendants after him. And Jesus, the Messiah, was Jewish and was a blessing to the world once Christianity spread beyond Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, right? So, we can check off all three of those promises. Three for three. Or so it seems.
But is it really that simple? A closer examination reveals a different story.
Land — At no time did Israel ever occupy the entire land God promised from Egypt to the Euphrates. Never. Not even today. And since God always keeps His promises, we can say with certainty that this promise has not been completely fulfilled… yet.
Descendants — Yes, God made Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars. There have been millions and millions of Jews throughout history. Yet, in light of the antisemitism that has plague the Jews for thousands of years, it’s hard to say their name is considered “great” (from Gen. 12:2) around this world. Read Isaiah 61:9 and 62:6-7. Does the world currently call the Jews “blessed” or praise Jerusalem? Not so much. Which leads to the conclusion that this promise has not been completely fulfilled either.
Blessings to All — if the fulfillment of this promise is, in fact, the Jewish Messiah, it’s hard to look around today and say the entire world is blessed by Jesus. But near the end of the book of Revelation, when Jesus returns to reign and rule from Jerusalem, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord! It is safe to say the entire world will definitely be blessed at that point! So again, one can argue that this third aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant has also not been completely fulfilled.
The Davidic Covenant
The second important promise we need to consider is called the Davidic Covenant from the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 7. While God told King David that he was not the one to build a great Temple (his son Solomon would do that), God did tell David that his descendants would occupy the throne after him and that God would establish his throne forever (see 2 Sam. 7:12-16). In fact, even Isaiah mentions this great promise in his famous prophecy about the child to be born who will reign on David’s throne forever (Isaiah 9:6-7).
You have to ask yourself, has any human king ever reigned in Israel forever? Nope. Not yet. But when Jesus returns, He will! So, the only conclusion we can make about this promise to David is that it has yet to be fulfilled, as well. (Note: understanding this covenant helps us also understand why Satan has tried so hard to wipe out the Jews and the lineage to the Davidic Messiah. He does not want Jesus — a descendant from King David — to reign on the throne forever, as God promised.)
The point of all this is to show that if God can be completely trusted at His word (and I believe He can), and if the Lord always keeps His promises (and He does!), then there is still more good stuff in store for the Jewish people and the land of Israel in the future. Yes, God has been working in and through Abraham and his descendants (also called the Hebrews, or Israelites, or Jews) from the moment He made those promises in Genesis 12:1-3 thousands of years ago, and it would appear these promises have not been completely fulfilled yet. There is more to come in Israel’s future.
And that leads us to the second important aspect of Israel’s role in prophecy… the fact that Israel even exists today!
The Rebirth of Israel
Many scholars believe that all of the key prophetic End Time texts—including Ezekiel 38, Daniel 9, Zechariah 12, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, and several chapters in Revelation—require Israel to exist as a nation.
If you know your history, the nation of Israel existed almost three thousand years ago, even before the reigns of King Saul and David and Solomon. As we saw above, God promised them a specific area of land, and they occupied it for quite some time. However, God also punished the Jews and removed them from the land for their disobedience. He warned them many times that their disobedience would lead to exile from the land, and He was true to His word. Yet, the Lord also promised that it would be temporary. He would gather them back again in Israel one day. Again, God kept His word.
As Jesus predicted in Matthew 24:2, the Roman army attacked Jerusalem in AD 70, killed many of its inhabitants and destroyed the Temple. Then, around AD 130 (after more Jewish rebellions), the Roman army officially wiped Israel off the map… literally! The Romans were so fed up with the Jews that they destroyed Jerusalem and expelled the Jewish people from the region. In the process, the Romans renamed the entire region Philistia, a new name derived from the word “Philistines” and intended to insult to the Jews. This is where we get the modern term “Palestine.” So, there are two things you must know from this historic event: (1) Even though Israel ceased to exist for most of the last nineteen centuries, (2) they had lived in that land long before there was anything called Palestine!
Why is this important? Have you ever heard the pro-Palestinian slogan, From the River to the Sea? It is a decades-old rallying cry for Palestinian nationalist aspirations that literally means “drive the Jews from the Jordan River into the Mediterranean Sea.” It is a genocidal slogan to exterminate the Jews in Israel and is being chanted by liberal Americans who ironically think Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians (by protecting themselves) but probably have no idea what the slogan really means or the true history of the land. They believe Israel has no right to the land and therefore are the instigators of this conflict.
The evil logic behind this thinking is based on something called “Settler Colonialism,” an ideology taught in American universities that has fueled the antisemitism seen across our country (and world) today. It is a political theory that states colonialism brings settlers into an area who then displace the indigenous people of that land. This theory argues that the land is morally (not legally or politically) owned by the indigenous people – or in this case, the Palestinians. Never mind that Israel as a nation was legally created and established by the United Nations in 1948 or that Jews were living in that land thousands of years before anyone was ever called a “Palestinian.” The Settler Colonialism ideology is now being used against Israel as it claims the Palestinians own the land, not Israel. Therefore, the violent Hamas attack against Israel in October 2023 was acceptable because Israel is the oppressor and should not even exist.
I hope you can recognize the evil behind this thinking as well as the true source of evil behind Antisemitism. (If not, please read my previous blog and meditate on Revelation 12).
From AD 130 until 1948, Israel did not exist as a country. That changed on May 14, 1948, when Israel became a country again in a single day.We should not be surprised by this, of course, as biblical prophecy has never, ever, been wrong. God is still batting 1000%. If you want to do some reading on this, the rebirth of Israel is foretold in the following Old Testament verses: Isaiah 66:8; Ezekiel 36:24; Ezekiel 37:21-22; Isaiah 11:11; and Jeremiah 16:14-15.
The fact that Israel still exists today is proof that God has kept His promise to bless and protect His chosen people. The Jews flourish in a tiny strip of land surrounded by tens of millions of people sworn to their destruction. Their enemies continue to want them to give up more and more of their land for peace, but the truth is their enemies do not want peace. They want Israel gone! This fact was made very clear in 1967 when the Arab Leage Summit (consisting of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, and Iraq) voted to agree on three things that have become known as the “3 No’s” – NO Peace with Israel, NO Recognition of Israel, and NO Negotiations with Israel. This anti-Israel stance has been upheld numerous times by the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) and HAMAS ever since.
Fortunately, the God of the Bible has the final say in the matter. And He is very much Pro-Israel!
I believe the nation of Israel and the Jewish people still have an important role in God’s future plans and are paramount to any serious study of End Times or the book of Revelation. As I’ve said before, I do not agree with Replacement Theology, which says the Christian church has “replaced” Israel in all future events. On the contrary, the Jews are still God’s chosen people, and their future is still important to God.
