Village Schools of the Bible

Middle East: THE LAND

The land...this is what gets very sticky for the Christian. The Bible makes it abundantly clear that the covenant God made with Abraham, and then reconfirmed with both Isaac and Jacob, focuses upon the land (read Genesis 12:7, Genesis 13:14-17; Genesis 15:12-21; Genesis 18:7-8; Genesis 26:2-6; and Genesis 28:13-15). Only once in its history has Israel ever possessed all that was promised to them by God, and that was during the days of kings David and Solomon. Since that time, Israel has only possessed limited portions of that land, and twice have been driven almost completely off the land - once during the Babylonian captivity in 586 BC and once during the Roman captivity in 70 AD. Even as Jesus walked the face of Galilee and Judea, the Jews were not in possession of the entire land mass promised to them.

In 1948, the United Nations recognized the existence of a state called Israel and assigned it a portion of that land known as Palestine to be their national homeland. In the months immediately following their birth, Israel fought a war to maintain their independence - a war that ended with a United Nations imposed cease-fire. As the Jews said then, "A little land is better than no land." Then, in 1967, when threatened by the imposing military presence of Egypt and Syria, Israel attacked in what is now known as the Six-Day War. Following the war Israel had increased its land mass, now including the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the West Bank area of Jordan, including the City of Jerusalem. These areas have become known as "the occupied territories," almost as if they did not belong to Israel. The land was the spoils of war. Israel had maintained and settled in those areas ever since, with the exception of the Sinai Peninsula which was returned to Egypt as part of the Camp David Accords signed in 1979. It is some of this land that Israel is now willing to give back to the Palestinians for the creation of their state in order to have peace in the region.

As a believer, should I encourage this giving of land for peace, even though the land is part of the "covenant land" that God has promised to Israel to be their eternal home. Or should I encourage and support those in Israel who rebel at the thought of giving even an inch of the "covenant land" to the Palestinians. Does the covenant of land that God made with Abraham so many millennias ago, and which Israel has only experienced once in its lifetime, refer to the present moment, or is it a promise yet to be realized? To answer that, one must ask the question of whether Israel's creation as a state in 1948 was the fulfillment of such passages as Ezekiel 37. Personally, I see those events of 1948 as a partial fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 - certainly God has gathered Israel from the four corners of the world, and a nation and language that were as good as dead has risen with life and power. I also believe that the promise of the "covenant of land" will only be fully realized during the days of Christ's eternal reign here on earth - known as the Millennium. I don't believe that necessarily detracts from the biblical promise of the land to Israel. But, I believe, it is saying that God is not finished with His working with Israel yet.

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