continued
. . . What,
surely this can't be true? You're talking about an area
stretching from Egypt in the east to Iraq in the West
and Syria (arguably Turkey) in the north. Forget about
the narrow strip of land that modern-day Jews have been
forced into these days (and urged to give up), we're talking
about a much larger area. And it's in God's word. And
no amount of scriptural 'tongue-twisting' is going to
obscure the issue - the land that God speaks here about
has never at any time been seen as the 'Land of Israel',
even at the time of Solomon's empire. It is still in the
future and God does not lie.
So the Biblical account is quite clear and explicit, the
land belongs, by divine decree, to the descendants of
Abram. The only things that we need to get clear are
• who
are the descendants of Abram and
• what
are the conditions for this very generous offer?
To answer the first question we have to look at one of
Abram's very human failings, his impatience (and a nagging
wife). Sarai, the lady in question, talked him into sleeping
with Hagar, her Egyptian maidservant to 'hurry things
along' and give God a hand - after all, Abram was now
85 years old and Sarai wasn't far behind him. Out of this
union was born Ishmael, the 'father of the Arab nations'.
So surely, you may say, the Arab people can claim that
Abraham, the father of Ishmael, was their ancestor too
and so the biblical promises concerning the land could
be theirs as well as for the Jews? In fact God does give
them specific promises. We read them in Genesis 16:10-12.
They also will be too numerous to count and Ishmael will
" … live in hostility towards all his brothers". But as
far as the covenant promises are concerned, their claim
is null and void according to the Word of God, which we
will discover as the story unfolds.
God's relationship with Abram deepens in Genesis 17, when
the covenant is confirmed and some small print added.
Again the land is mentioned - Canaan is confirmed as an
everlasting possession (verse 8) for Abram and his descendants.
But also God confirms the everlasting nature of the covenant,
reminding Abram of the sheer numbers of his descendants
and also declaring that He, the God of Abram, will also
be the God of his descendants. And Abram also gets a name
change, to Abraham, meaning 'father of many nations'.
The next verse is where some may question the unconditional
nature of the covenant. But that's only if they read it
the wrong way. Here, in verse 9, God says, "As for you,
you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after
you, the covenant you are to keep ... ". Aha, they say,
so this covenant can be broken, so the Jews can break
the covenant and nullify it. It's true they can, but what
God's actually talking about here is the act of circumcision,
the sign of the covenant. This was the only condition
that God imposed. If Jews were to stop circumcising their
children, then they individually, will be cut off from
the covenant. But as far as the unconditional nature of
the covenant between God and Abraham and his descendants,
concerning the land, that's as 'safe as houses' (unless
you live on a cliff).
To return to our first question, about who are the descendants
of Abraham as far as the unconditional covenant is concerned,
it's all explained in Genesis 17:15-22. Firstly, Sarai's
name is changed to Sarah, then God blesses her, telling
her that she will be the 'mother of nations'. He tells
him that he will produce a son, Isaac, with the 90 year
old Sarah and "I will establish my covenant with him as
an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him".
Couldn't be clearer - Isaac inherits the blessings. And,
what about Ishmael? Well God repeats what he said earlier
about Ishmael's descendants being fruitful, but he also
adds these words, in verse 21, "but my covenant I will
establish with Isaac …". Again, couldn't be clearer.
If we fast-forward historically and Biblically, to Genesis
25, we witness the death of Abraham, at the grand old
age of 175 and we also see his son Isaac become an old
man. There's not much said about Isaac as an individual,
apart from his partiality to eating choice young goats,
but his son Jacob more than makes up for it. Jacob had
a twin brother called Esau, but God makes it clear, as
He did earlier with Isaac and Ishmael, that Jacob was
the covenant child. It was Jacob who received his father's
blessing in Genesis 27:27-29 and it was he who dreamed
of the "stairway to heaven" in Genesis 28:12-17, when
God repeated the contents of the covenant He made with
his grandfather Abraham, concerning the land - "I will
give you and your descendants the land on which you are
lying". And, of course, it was Jacob who was renamed Israel,
after wrestling with God at Peniel and it was his sons
who were to become the 'Children of Israel' and from whom
the Jewish nation sprung forth and who now, so me 4000
years later, are living proof of the covenant made to
Abraham by God. And the best is yet to come.
So, this has been a short Bible study to give you a background
to the current situation in Israel. Two key questions
were posed. Firstly, who are the descendants of Abraham
who would inherit the promises of the land? It is clear
from the Bible that physical descendants of Abraham, though
Isaac and Jacob, i.e. the Jews, are being referred to
here. Secondly, was there anything the Jews could do to
nullify, or ruin, this covenant? The answer is, quite
definitely, no. The covenant was and still is unconditional
and everlasting. There are no conditions, meaning that
the Jews could never 'mess it up' and the land belongs
to the Jews as an everlasting possession, meaning that
although they may not have lived in the land at all times
in their history, God holds the title deeds and they are
the only tenants in the contract. And if you disagree
with anything you may have read here, then pick up the
Bible and discuss it with the Author.
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