Acre, Israel

“ When the dispensation of the wild olive, or Gentile, shall end, then, but not till then, shall the blessing and the glory return to the good olive—that is, to "all Israel."
Let us take the Word of God simply as we find it. Let us beware of fanciful identifications, which, even were they true, are not worth the stress laid upon them. Suppose I could prove, not by conjecture, but by registered genealogies, that I belong to the tribe of Ephraim or Issachar, what does it profit me? ”

“ Did not God tell Abraham, that He had constituted him a father of many nations? Then these nations are in effect his sons; for a father implies sons. But of this family of nation-sons, which of them is the first-born son? The testimony before us declares that Israel is. The nation of Israel then is the heir, and nearest to the throne in the empire of the world. But it is now, and will be for a few more years, as it was in the days of Pharaoh. Israel, God's first-born, is scattered, oppressed, and destroyed, by the tyrants of the nations, and a subject of reproach among the people. ”

“ He looked down on the open place and up to Moriah and Zion, to the mount of Olives, and on the vallies of Gihon and Kedron. “Wherever I look,” thought he, “hundreds of thousands of the children of Israel and the seed of Abraham reassembled 261to commemorate their deliverance from Egypt. They have come up to the hill where Jehovah hath made his name to dwell, and their minds are filled with the thought of their fathers, and the mighty works which the God of their fathers had done in their behalf. Well is it said, Israel is Israel only in the Holy Land.” ”

“ Though the mountains of Israel be ever so high and ever so strong, he must set his face against them, as having judgments to denounce that should shake their foundation. The mountains of Israel had been holy mountains, but now that they had polluted them with their high places God set his face against them and therefore the prophet must. Israel is here put, not, as sometimes, for the ten tribes, but for the whole land. The mountains are called upon to hear the word of the Lord, to shame the inhabitants that would not hear. ”

“ The Gentiles never hear the Lord's voice directly (3 Ne 15:23) . The house of Israel is like an olive tree, whose branches are broken off and scattered over the earth. Our journey to the promised land is the fulfilling of the Lord's word, spoken by Isaiah, that the house of Israel will be scattered.
Note: To know the complete past and future of the House of Israel, as compared to an olive tree, read Jacob 5. In the last days, after the Gentiles receive the fullness of the Gospel, the house of Israel, or natural branches, will be grafted back into their mother tree. ”

“ The picture of the scattered, lifeless bones, which at the word of the prophet unite, are clothed with flesh and skin, have new breath breathed into them, and again stand erect, also applies to Israel; it is a complete description of Israel in its despoiled and low condition. The dispersion of Israel is a miraculous, divine plan, devised to impart to the nations of336 the earth the spirit with which Israel is endowed. The race of Israel resembles a grain of seed which, placed in the ground, apparently rots away, and appears to have been absorbed into the elements of its surroundings. ”

“ Here, "I will be a God to them" stands first, because the restoration and perfection of Israel have their only foundation in the love of God and in the faithfulness with which He keeps His covenant, and it is only through this gracious act that Israel again becomes the people of God. "All the families of Israel" are the families of the whole twelve tribes - of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, separated since the death of Solomon. ”

“ In the application of the parable, the only thing to which prominence is given, is the fact that God will deal with the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the same manner as with the vine-wood, which cannot be used for any kind of work. This implies that Israel resembles the wood of a forest-vine. As this possesses no superiority to other wood, but, on the contrary, is utterly useless, so Israel has no superiority to other nations, but is even worse than they, and therefore is given up to the fire. ”

“ But no one who sees it can for a moment suppose that this rich soil is designed simply for the support of sheep and oxen. Those who hope for the return of Israel to the land of their fathers should turn their eyes rather to this rich and empty land than to the more populous and less kindly country west of Jordan. ”

“ The economy of the race is visible in their measure for the dead, and contrasts wonderfully with the roominess and delicate adornment of German churchyards in general. The hoar antiquity of the place is increased by a wilderness of alders which grow up around the walls and amidst the stones, twisted, tangled, stunted, desolately old and yet renewing their youth, a true type of the scattered, bruised, and peeled, yet ineradicable Israel itself. ”

“ And he said to Heli: I am he that came from the battle, and have fled out of the field this day. And he said to him: What is there done, my son?
4:17. And he that brought the news answered, and said: Israel is fled before the Philistines, and there has been a great slaughter of the people: moreover thy two sons, Ophni and Phinees, are dead: and the ark of God is taken.
4:18. And when he had named the ark of God, he fell from his stool backwards by the door, and broke his neck and died. For he was an old man, and far advanced in years: And he judged Israel forty years. ”

“ But neither in the wilderness, nor throughout the pre-exilic history, nor after the Babylonian affliction had purged the nation of idolatry, was Israel so holy that access to the sanctuary could be allowed to the men of the tribes. ”

“ This is the secret, "And shine upon Your sanctuary, which is desolate, for the sake of the Lord." If, heaven forbid, Israel does not do the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and violate the covenant of the Torah and its commandments, they separate the groom, the Assembly of Israel, and cause the departure of the Divine Presence from them, and the buildings are destroyed, and the worlds are in turmoil among them because each person is separated from his brother when the Divine Presence leaves them. ”

“ Oh, Israel! Israel! the wandering in the wilderness still goes on. The Promised Land still lies ahead, and wanderers in earth’s wilderness still seek it, panting and dying with none to strike a rock in Horeb. ”

“ Now, that it does prevail, the whole course of the world proves, and the fall of the actual Israel is of itself witness. Thus, therefore, the ideal Israel for ever lives and prospers; and its city is the city whereunto all nations and languages, after endless trials of everything else except conduct, after incessantly attempting to do without righteousness and failing, are slowly but surely gathered. ”

“ Now, note the force of this taunting reproach. "They," (the Gentiles) , "called thee Zion"—a barren desert, good for nothing, and which therefore, "no man seeketh after." Now, just because it is so unpromising a plot of ground, God is going to take it in hand, and once again "the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose." Blessed be God, it is just like Him! He always takes the most unpromising materials to accomplish most glorious ends.
Look at Israel in the past. ”

“ I shall show later on that it is not true to say that the word Israel stands "generally" for the Ten Tribes, and Judah for the Two Tribes. "Generally," the name Israel stands for all the descendants of Jacob, whose name was changed by God Himself to "Israel," though in the historical books, especially in 1 and 2 Kings, and 2 Chronicles, and in a few passages in the Prophets, it is used to describe the northern kingdom of the Ten Tribes in contradistinction to the southern kingdom of Judah. ”

“ Verses 18-20
The Assyrian has already received his punishment for that-the Assyrian kingdom has been destroyed; Babylon will meet with the same punishment, and then (Jer 50:19) Israel will be led back to his pasture-ground. נוה, pasture-ground, grass-plot, where sheep feed, is the land of Israel. Israel, led back thither, will feed on Carmel and Bashan, the most fertile tracts of the country, and the mountains of Ephraim and Gilead, which also furnish fodder in abundance for sheep. ”

“ Rather, I will share My great name with them, and they will live.' What is the reason? 'And the Canaanite and all the inhabitants of the land will surround us and cut off our name.' What will you do with Your great name that is shared with us up to this point? Israel is the key that is entrusted to them to open the treasury of the king or close it as they wish. It all depends on their actions. If they incline towards the good side, uphold the Torah and commandments, they open the fountain, continue the flow of light and abundance to all worlds, and the causes will be blessed. ”

“ Leaving the wild ridges of Carmel we must, however, descend to the plain beneath, to the thriving town of Haifa, which has gradually grown in size as Acre has sunk into decay, and which bids fair to be a place of much importance should the prosperity of Palestine ever become greater.
Napoleon is said to have held that Acre was the key to Syria. The natural advantages of the position are great. The bay is the only harbour of importance south of Tyre; from Acre roads lead into Upper Galilee, and southwards they ascend gradually to the watershed of Judea. ”

“ The "home" or house is taken to mean the land of Canaan, which the prophet Hosea had designated as Iahvah's "house" (Hosea ix. 15, cf. 3) ; and the "Israel" intended is supposed to be the existing generation born in the holy land. The double question of the prophet then amounts to this: If Israel be, as is generally admitted, the favourite bondservant of Iahvah, how comes it that his lord has not protected him against the spoiler? ”

“ Refreshing as springs in the desert to their long languishing eyes were the sight of his white cravat and his boots of Parisian polish.
‘It is one of our great national festivals,’ said Eva, slightly waving her palm branch; ‘the celebration of the Hebrew vintage, the Feast of Tabernacles.’
The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist, but the eternal law enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vintage. A race that persist in celebrating their vintage, although they have no fruits to gather, will regain their vineyards. What sublime inexorability in the law! ”

“ He thought of Israel and the little city of Samaria and the Jordan in a scornful way, comparing them with his splendid Damascus, and its green, beautiful plain, thirty miles wide, and the great river Abana, that gushed from the side of the mountain, and flowed through and all about the city, making the whole country one vast garden. He despised, too, the people of Israel. They were rude and poor and ignorant, while his own people were rich and cultivated. ”

“ Israel as a people arose amidst peculiar surroundings in the land of Goshen, a territory situated in the extreme north of Egypt, near the borders of Palestine. The Israelites were not at once moulded into a nation, but consisted of twelve loosely connected shepherd tribes. ”

“ The undeviating and uniform identity of the features and general character of countenance, which accompany the Jews, wherever they settle, is one of the most curious phenomena in nature; climate and all those physical circumstances belonging to localities, which work such wonderful changes in the physical character of man, appear to have no influence upon the tribe of Israel. ”

“ To their minds the kingdom was as yet bound up with Israel; "the twelve tribes of Israel" was as large a conception of it as their thoughts could then grasp; and it would certainly be no disappointment to them when they afterwards discovered that their relation as apostles of the Lord was to a much larger "Israel," embracing every kindred and nation and people and tribe ”

“ Seized upon is Gezer,
Yenoam [458] is made as a thing not existing.
Israel is desolated, his seed is not;
Palestine has become a widow for Egypt.
All lands are united, they are pacified;
Every one that is turbulent is bound by King Merneptah, who gives life like Rā every day.
This inscription contains the only mention of Israel in a document of this age outside the Bible. It is, for that reason, of great importance. It should be noted that Israel is mentioned along with peoples and places in Palestine and Phœnicia. The Israel here referred to was not, accordingly, in Egypt. ”

“ The same is again emphatically proclaimed by the prophet Amos:
"I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God" (Amos ix. 14, 15) . ”

“ He was succeeded by Archelaus, who was deposed by the Romans, and Judea reduced into the form of a province under a procurator; thus verifying, as is supposed, that the sceptre should depart from Judah when Shiloh came: and so it came to be when God called His Son Jesus out of Egypt. From that time to this, there has been no kingdom, or throne of Israel, in Canaan. The Hebrew commonwealth was broken up by the Romans about thirty years or so after the crucifixion; and it has been, and will be, no more, until the Lord Jesus come, who is the King of the Jews, and whose sole right it is to reign. ”

“ For it would be easier for one to go, not only beyond the limits of the province, but even from the East to the West, than from Alexandria to Alexandria itself.
4. For the very heart of the city is more intricate and impassable than that great and trackless desert which Israel traversed for two generations. And our smooth and waveless harbors have become like the sea, divided and walled up, through which Israel drove and in whose highway the Egyptians were overwhelmed. For often from the slaughters there committed they appear like the Red Sea. ”