Israel's Sufferings & Her Glorious Future Foretold
Written by A.D.H. Thomas
Brethren Of Christ Articles - Israel
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That the people of Israel have suffered is one of those incontrovertible facts of history. The nation was born out of suffering. Abraham, the father of the nation, was told that his offspring would experience a period of travail for 400 years,(Genesis 15:13), which culminated in their oppression by Egyptian taskmasters. And it was in answer to their cry for help in this desperate situation that God sent Moses to lead them out of that land of bondage, from which they eventually emerged as the newly born nation of Israel 3,500 years ago.
And this great deliverance was to be recalled and remembered as a vital part of their history, as it has been until the present day, in their annual Passover celebrations.
Their history since that time has been frequently punctuated by periods of trouble and suffering, of which the destruction of the city and captivity of the people by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and the Romans stand out as particularly dramatic episodes, and more recently of course the European Holocaust.
Since the time of Christ and their expulsion from the land of their inheritance by the Roman power, they have experienced enmity in all countries where they have fled for refuge, including England.
Much of this enmity emanated from the Papal power that dominated Europe during the 1,000 year period of the so-called Holy Roman Empire. And it is only 60 years since the end of the 2nd World War, during which those European powers sympathetic with Hitler’s hatred of the Jews, were complicit in the murder of 6 million of them, many of which perished in the concentration camp gas chambers and crematoriums.
In a remarkable prophecy of the events which took place during the pogroms throughout Europe we read of the hostility of their enemies who “said in their hearts, let us destroy them together. They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land,” Psalm 74:8.
Yet three years after the Second World War and the attempted genocide of the Jewish people, there arose from the ashes of the Holocaust a nation capable of withstanding the combined and vastly more numerical armies of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, who were bent on finishing what Hitler started.
The animosity of Israel’s neighbours towards the Jews in Israel erupted again in 1956, 1967, and 1973, resulting in hostilities and wars which Israel realized they could not afford to lose, if the nation was to survive.
Our purpose is not to deal with the politics of the Israeli Arab conflict, but to show that their sufferings and the animosity they experience has been foretold.
So that the accurate fulfilment of the prophecies concerning these things are the grounds for believing that the prophecies concerning their future peaceful and glorious state will likewise be fulfilled.
And when we speak of Israel we are referring to that people descended from Abraham, who we identify as the Jewish people.
The animosity of the Arab nations towards the Jews living in the land of Israel, manifested itself in the invasion by the 6 Arab nations on the 15th May 1948, the day after the state of Israel was set up. This animosity which caused them to try and destroy the fledgling state at its birth, had been foreseen by the prophet David, in Psalm 83:3-7
“They have taken crafty counsel against thy people (Israel). They have said, Come and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: the tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites: of Moab, and the Hagarenes,” (the modern counterparts to these countries and peoples are the Arab nations which seek Israel’s destruction).