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Understanding the Biblical Foundations of Israel through Messianic-Rabbinic Perspectives
Since the Hamas massacre of October 7th, Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, and their sympathizers have peddled a particular refrain: “History didn’t start on October 7th—this act comes after 75 years of struggle.” Setting the inane, false moral equivalence of the statement aside, it does contain a partial truth. People are correct to say that history did start on October 7th, 2023, but just as importantly, it didn’t begin on May 14th, 1948, either. If we want to think biblically about this issue, we must make the claim that, technically, history started “In the beginning” when God began His creation.There is no shortage of passionate opinions on the unfolding war in Israel. But believers with a heart for Israel are often hard-pressed to find wise voices that offer biblical insight and a Messianic-Rabbinic perspective on such current events. One of the members of our writing team is a Messianic Rabbi who is living in Israel, and I’ve asked him to create three articles to provide you with resources that will help you navigate the headlines with peace and understanding.
–Rabbi Jason Sobel
Rashi, the 11th-century Jewish commentator, noted regarding Genesis 1:1,
“It was not necessary to begin the Torah except from ‘This month is to you’ (Exodus 12:2), which is the first commandment that the Israelites were commanded.
Why then did He commence with ‘In the beginning?’ Because of ‘The strength of His works He related to His people, to give them the inheritance of the nations’ (Psalm 111:6). If the nations of the world should ever dare say to Israel, ‘You are robbers, for you conquered by force these lands,’ they can rightly reply, ‘The entire earth belongs to the Holy One, blessed be He; He created it and gave it to whomever He deemed proper When He wished, He gave it to them, and when He wished, He took it away from them and gave it to us.’”
Honestly, Rashi’s sentiment is the start and finish of this debate. God, the sovereign King of the Universe, created the earth. He owns it, and He gives it to whom He will when He will. Everything that comes after is commentary. Whether you believe, like Rabbi Nehuniah Ben HaKannah, that God started His creation sixteen billion years ago or you follow a more fundamental view that it was 5784 years ago, the same God who created the world with the prior intention of the crucified Messiah (see Revelation 13:8), did with the purpose of giving it to the people of Israel. Everything else is commentary.
Let’s fill in some of that commentary. In 2 Chronicles 16:9, we read, “For the eyes of Adonai range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are wholly His.” Four thousand years before the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, God found a person with that heart:
Then Adonai said to Abram, “Get going out from your land, and from your relatives, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. My heart’s desire is to make you into a great nation, to bless you, to make your name great so that you may be a blessing. My desire is to bless those who bless you, but whoever curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed…Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions that they had acquired, and the people that they acquired in Haran, and they left to go to the land of Canaan, and they entered the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the place of Shechem, as far as Moreh’s big tree. (The Canaanites were in the land then.) Then Adonai appeared to Abram, and said, “I will give this land to your seed.” –Genesis 12:1-3, 5-7a
God reiterated this promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac:
Then Adonai appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land about which I tell you. Live as an outsider in this land and I will be with you and bless you—for to you and to your seed I give all these lands—and I will confirm my pledge that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your seed like the stars of the sky and I will give your seed all these lands. And in your seed all the nations of the earth will continually be blessed, because Abraham listened to My voice and kept My charge, My mitzvot, My decrees, and My instructions.” –Genesis 26:2-5
Finally, the Lord spoke this promise to the third generation—Jacob.
Surprisingly, Adonai was standing on top of it and He said, “I am Adonai, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your seed. Your seed will be as the dust of the land, and you will burst forth to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed—and in your seed. Behold, I am with you, and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not forsake you until I have done what I promised you.” –Genesis 28:13-15
Do you see the pattern? Over and over again, God reaffirmed His original promise to Abraham. However, that isn’t the most crucial part. In Acts 2, Peter summarized the events of Good Friday by saying, “this Yeshua, given over by God’s predetermined plan and foreknowledge, nailed to the cross by the hand of lawless men” (v. 23 emphasis added). The Apostle Paul’s comments resonate with this claim of divine foreknowledge and intention: “But when the fullness of time came, God sent out His Son, born of a woman and born under law” (Galatians 4:4 emphasis added). It is critical that we understand what these two biblical and apostolic sources are telling us: Jesus wasn’t born by accident. The crucifixion wasn’t an accident. Let’s take a step back and consider that. It means that God had to orchestrate the rise and fall of empires, dynasties, and even family lines on a scale that boggles the mind to ensure the exact set of people would be at the exact place and time to fulfill His purpose.
Suppose the US government, the most powerful nation on the earth, wants to do something as simple as putting a communications satellite into space, facilitating the latest technology for our cell phones. In that case, the best they can do is arrange windows of time to launch to put a satellite somewhere within a few hundred miles of the desired space. In contrast, the biblical texts above claim that God sovereignly guided all of human history so that the entire world would have representation on a specific hilltop in Jerusalem.
Did God stop guiding human history once Yeshua ascended into heaven? Why would we, as beneficiaries of God’s sovereign work in human history, not believe that nations still rise and fall according to His will? I believe the words of Proverbs 21:1 are still valid, “A king’s heart is like a stream of water in the hand of Adonai; he directs it wherever He wants.” That means that the re-establishment of Israel in 1948 was also God’s will. We celebrate and defend that history as an expression of the sovereignty of God.
Shalom
by Rabbi Jason Sobel
