The Hope of Israel, or, The Restoration of the Jews, Part of the Divine Scheme and an Element of the Gospel, continued

We further read in Ezekiel 37v 21:--

" Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, AND BRING THEM INTO THEIR OWN LAND. "

Again in Ezekiel 36v 24:--

" I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will BRING YOU INTO YOUR OWN LAND. "

There is no evading this language. It is too definitely worded to be spiritualised or misunderstood. As if to preclude such a thing, it is put in the following antithetical manner in Jeremiah 31v 10:--

" Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off. He that scattered Israel will GATHER him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock. "

In the sense therefore, in which the Jews were scattered, will they be gathered. They were driven from their own land, and dispersed among the nations; this was the scattering. They will be collected from the lands among which they are now distributed in disgrace, and re-settled in their' land as a great nation; this will be the gathering. Surely this is plain. The Jews are now a taunt and a proverb, according to the prediction of Moses; but in their restoration, it will just be the reverse. They will be supremely honoured in proportion as they are now despised. We read in Zeph. 3v 19, 20:--

" Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee, and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you; for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord. "

Again, Zechariah 8v 23:--

" Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold, out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. "

This honour is connected with political supremacy. The Jews--the meanest, the weakest, the most despised people on the face of the earth, are to become the most powerful and renowned among the nations, having all people in subjection. This is evident from the following testimony:--

" The Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising: . . . and the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee; for in my wrath I smote thee, but in my favour have I had mercy on thee. Therefore, thy gates shall be open continually; they shall not be shut day or night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought. For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee SHALL PERISH; yea, those nations SHALL BE UTTERLY WASTED The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and all they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel. Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, I will make thee an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations " (Isa. 60v 3, 10-12, 14-15).

When this shall come to pass, the enemies of Israel will be confounded. Those who now deride them, and mock at their national hope, will be overtaken by the retribution to which they are rendering themselves liable. The approaching noontide of Jewish prosperity will be their destruction. The preliminary symptoms of the change will fill them with panic. This is the testimony of the following Scripture:--

" The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might; they shall lay their hand upon their mouth; their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent; they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth; they shall be afraid of the Lord our God, and shall fear because of thee " (Mic. 7v 16, 17).

And the fate they dread will overtake them, as is evident from the words of Isaiah, chapter 49v 25-26:--

" I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children: and I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh' and they shall be drunken with their own blood as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that 1v the Lord, am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty one of Jacob. "

Again, in Isaiah 41v 11, 12, we read:--

" Behold all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded. THEY SHALL BE AS NOTHING; and they that strive with thee SHALL PERISH. Thou shalt seek them and shall not find them, even them that contended with thee. They that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. "

Here, then, is certain doom for all who now take part against Israel; but there is a blessing in store for those who befriend them. " Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee. " This was' the decree pronounced by Balaam under the influence of the spirit, and declared to Abraham centuries before. It is both individual and national in its application. Nations that have been least rigorous in their persecutions of the Jews will, in all probability, fare the best at the coming of Christ. England is first among this class. She was among the persecutors of the chosen nation in the early part of her history; but within recent centuries, she has loosened their bonds, and granted free protection to their persons and property, and latterly she has abolished their disabilities, and promoted them to the rank of citizenship, and even admitted them to Parliament. Individuals who have looked with interest and compassion upon the exiled race may expect a blessing when the scoffer's brazen voice is heard no more.

We look upon the Jews in their present condition, and find them destitute of much that is admirable. They seem the embodiments of sordidness and callousness. This is a difficulty in the case at which many honest minds stumble. They say, how is such a character to be reconciled with the coming blessing of Him who is no respecter of persons, and who gives to every man according to his work? There would be force in this inquiry if the restoration of the Jews were conditional upon the moral condition of the nation. That it is not is evident from Ezekiel 36v 22, 32:--

" I do not this for YOUR SAKES, O house of Israel, ,but for mine holy name's sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye went. "

" NOT FOR YOUR SAKES do I this, saith the Lord God, be it known unto you; BE ASHAMED AND CONFOUNDED FOR YOUR OWN WAYS, O house of Israel. "

At the same time, though national restoration as a purpose of God is not contingent upon national reformation, there will be a national purgation before that restoration is effected. Though they will be gathered from the countries irrespectively of moral condition, they will not necessarily obtain admission into the land. That admission is conditional with every individual of the nation. This is evident from Ezekiel 20v 34-38:--

" I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with stretched-out arm, and with fury poured out; and I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God, And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant, and I WILL PURGE OUT FROM AMONG YOU THE REBELS AND THEM THAT TRANSGRESS AGAINST ME. I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall NOT enter into the land of Israel. "

In this we recognise a parallel to what occurred to them after leaving Egypt under Moses. They were then a rabble of untutored, unbelieving slaves; and a whole generation, with the exception of two persons--Caleb and Joshua--perished in the wilderness. They " entered not in because of unbelief, " says Paul (Heb. 4v 6). So the Jews contemporary with the return of Christ, will be unfit to enter the land; the event will find them in their present degraded and perverse condition; and the purging described in the testimony above will be necessary. That purging will take place in the wilderness, as in the days of Moses, and may occupy the same period for its accomplishment, from what is stated in Micah 7v 15: " According to the days of thy coming out of the land of Egypt will I shew unto him marvellous things. " Possibly, however, this expression, " according to the days, " may not refer to length of the time, but to the character of the days. Be that as it may, the following testimonies will, after the process, be fulfilled:--

" Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good; and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations " (Ezek. 36v 31).

" Thy people also shall be ALL RIGHTEOUS; they shall inherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified " (Isa. 9v 21).