Israel

“ Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants, which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, which delighted in thee, to set thee on the throne of Israel: because the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore he made thee king, to do justice and righteousness. ”

“ Then Israel, as a nation, in relation to the civil and the ecclesiastical government of the world, will be, as Moses declared, the head and not the tail, the highest of all nations; the forces of the Gentiles shall be brought unto them, and the dark night which has obtained since Israel’s sun went down will be dispelled by the morning of an unclouded dawn when the "sun of righteousness" will illuminate and bless the world, and "fill the earth with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." ”

“ What has been the history of the Bible has been the history of the nation, and we might add that, to some extent, it has been the history of Israel’s King, the man of the Bible, the essence of the Bible, the subject of it from Alpha to Omega, the beginning and end--Christ. The nation has suffered at the hands of every nation, and every attempt possible has been put forth to destroy it, yet it has been providentially preserved. ”

“ O my God, we, Israel, know thee.
3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good, the enemy shall pursue him.
4 They have reigned, but not by me: they have been princes, and I knew not: of their silver, and their gold they have made idols to themselves, that they might perish.
5 Thy calf, O Samaria, is cast off, my wrath is kindled against them. How long will they be incapable of being cleansed?
6 For itself also is the invention of Israel: a workman made it, and it is no god: for the calf of Samaria shall be turned to spiders’ webs. ”

“ But it is different with Israel. There is always hope in his end.
Not only shall the sceptre of governmental rule and the kingdom come back to the daughter of Jerusalem, after the long centuries of subjugation and oppression, but her candlestick, too, shall be restored after the long period of Israel's spiritual darkness and blindness, to shine in more resplendent glory than even in the past. ”

“ There shall not fail a man of thy race upon the throne of Israel.
6 But if you and your children revolting shall turn away from following me, and will not keep my commandments, and my ceremonies, which I have set before you, but will go and worship strange gods, and adore them:
7 I will take away Israel from the face of the land which I have given them; and the temple which I have sanctified to my name, I will cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb, and a byword among all people. ”

“ To be a nation without a fatherland, yet with a mother-tongue, Hebrew—there is the spiritual originality, the miracle of history. Such has been the real kingdom of Israel in the past—we have been 'sons of the Law' as other men have been sons of France, of Italy, of Germany. ”

“ Jehudah ha Levi, the lofty poet of medieval Jewry,1523 speaks of Israel as the “heart of humanity,” because it has supplied the spiritual and moral life-blood of the civilized world. Israel provides continually the rejuvenating influence of society. Israel's history is the history of the world in miniature. ”

“ Happy art thou, O Israel, a people whose God is the Lord, on that account truly happy, and none like unto thee. If Israel honour God as a non-such God, he will favour them so as to make them a non-such people, the envy of all their neighbours and the joy of all their well-wishers. Who is like unto thee, O people? Behold, thou art fair, my love, says Christ of his spouse. To which she presently returns, Behold thou art fair, my beloved. What one nation (no, not all the nations together) is like thy people Israel? 2 Sam. ”

“ All the nations trampled Israel under their feet. Here has been the battleground of the world and Israel has suffered under the oppression of all. Even this temple, built by Herod, suffers in the presence of Roman sold- iers, strange customs, and foreign sports and spectacles that win our youth. See how few young people are yonder praying ! When this generation has passed what will become of Israel? (He kneels with uplifted face begins to pray.) Yahweh, Lord of our fathers, how long shall we have to wait? ”

“ And here we might say that there is nothing in the world that is a more powerful proof of the divinity of the Bible than Israel's history and present existence. The Bible is a book of miracles. Israel is a nation of miracles. Its history is a standing miracle before an astonished world. Its survival of all the persecutions and oppressions which have been heaped upon it is a greater miracle still. No great statesman or philosopher will ever attempt to account for Israel’s history and present existence by ordinary natural laws anymore than it is possible to account for the Bible by such laws. ”

“ And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and said unto them, "Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness! And wherefore doth the Lord bring us unto this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones shall be a prey: were it not better for us to return into Egypt?" ”

“ Israel's genius flowered in this strange soil. Her literary life centres in Babylonia. The second Isaiah wrote there his immortal pages. The unknown authors of the noble histories, whose charm never stales, fashioned there the traditions and records of the past into their present shape. There the great legal codification was carried out, and the institutional system of Israel perfected. A new circle of ideas show themselves at work in the mind of the people while in exile. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chapter 5
1 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel.
2 The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise: she is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.
3 For thus saith the Lord GOD; The city that went out by a thousand shall leave an hundred, and that which went forth by an hundred shall leave ten, to the house of Israel. ”

“ But it is a greater power than " our enemies " who is keeping Israel distinct " in their own despite," and who, all through the ages, has continued to stir up the Jewish nest, whenever they have wanted to assimilate with the nations. It is the power of God, who swore, that " as long as sun and moon endure, Israel would abide a nation before Him for ever" of the irresistible Ruler among the nations, who has warned them long in advance that " that which cometh into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say we will be as the nations, as the families of the countries. ”

“ But in the presence of the Holy One—blessed be He!—Israel is more beloved than the ministering angels; for Israel reiterates the song every hour, while the ministering angels repeat it only once a day, some say once a week, others once a month, others once a year, others once in seven years, others once in a jubilee, and others only once in eternity. ”

“ Thus saith the Lord God: Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his mind, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet—I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols; 5that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all turned away from Me through their idols.
6Therefore say unto the house of Israel: Thus saith the Lord God: Return ye, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations. ”

“ Why do the angels not sing before Israel? Because they have no permission until Israel opens the way by singing first. When Israel sings, the angels join in, as it says in the verse, "Lift up your heads, O gates, and raise them, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in." "Gates" refer to Israel, and "ancient doors" refer to the angels. When the lower beings sing, the upper beings follow their lead.
Thus, it becomes evident that even in the realm of holiness, Israel has a prominent role to play, as does the principle of unity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The enlightened seer's-eye of the patriarch surveyed, “as though upon a canvas painted without perspective,” the entire development of Israel from its first foundation as the nation and kingdom of God till its completion under the rule of the Prince of Peace, whom the nations would serve in willing obedience; and beheld the twelve tribes spreading themselves out, each in his inheritance, successfully resisting their enemies, and finding rest and full satisfaction in the enjoyment of the blessings of Canaan. ”

“ But now, in the person of the Servant of Jehovah, we see Israel itself in personal self-manifestation: the idea of Israel is fully realized, and the true nature of Israel shines forth in all its brilliancy. ”

“ 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 ”

“ A blessing was to be upon the labors, the possessions, and the persons of the tribes; all Israel a holy nation in the highest sense of the word—a sovereign race to which the world should pay a willing and happy homage. ”

“ And Pharaoh said, "Who is the Lord, that I should hearken unto his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, and moreover I will not let Israel go."
And they said, "The God of the Hebrews hath met with us: let us go, we pray thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice unto the Lord our God."
And the king of Egypt said unto them, "Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, loose the people from their work? get you unto your burdens. Behold, the people of the land are now many, and ye make them rest from their burdens." ”

“ The diversified authorship of the Siddur, embracing prophets and psalmists, legalists and poets, proclaims that all Israel has a share in its making. ”

“ Now, she said, "Mine eyes have seen it; and, behold, the one-half of the greatness of thy wisdom was not told me." 2 Chronicles 9.
After the days of Solomon, Israel was ruled by many kings. Some of them were good, and their rule brought the blessing of God to their people. But many were wicked men who led Israel into sin and idolatry. Then the Lord could not protect them, and their enemies would afflict them.
The history of Israel is a sorrowful story. God wanted to bless them and make them the light of the world. ”

“ It would, of course, be an absurd exaggeration to assert that the life of Israel through the Middle Ages was an unbroken horror of carnage and rapine. There were spells of respite, some of them fairly long, during which the Jew was permitted to live and grow fat. But these Sabbaths of rest can be likened not inaptly to the periods during which a prudent husbandman suffers his land to lie fallow, in the hope of a richer harvest. They are only intervals between the acts of a tedious and bloody tragedy, with a continent for its stage and seven centuries for its night. ”

“ Certainly I can say for myself that I never realized Israel as a nation and had not half my present appreciation of the wisdom and wonder of the deliverance and training of Israel by Jehovah till I had learned to interpret the miracles as being nothing more than man's inadequate attempt to set forth in visible shape the unique redemption of the Chosen People. ”

“ These books, therefore, do not contain a general history of the natural development of the Israelitish nation from a political point of view, but trace the history of the people of God, or Israel, in its theocratic development as a covenant nation, and as the channel of that salvation which was to be manifested to all nations in the fulness of time. ”

“ Israel must know their own and keep to it, and may not, under pretence of their being God's peculiar people, encroach upon their neighbours, and invade their rights and properties, to which they had a good and firm title by providence, though not, as Israel, a title by promise. [2.] An exception of one part of this country from Israel's possession, though it was in their grant, namely, the Geshurites and the Maachathites, v. 13. They had not leisure to reduce all the remote and obscure corners of the country in Moses's time, and afterwards they had no mind to it, being easy with what they had. ”

“ The Chronicler does not hesitate to use the term “Israel” in speaking of Judah. Thus the princes of the Southern Kingdom are called “the princes of Israel” (xii. 6, xxi. 4) , the populace as a whole is called “Israel” (xii. 1, xv. 17) , Jehoshaphat and Ahaz are each called “king of Israel” (xxi. 2, xxviii. 19) , and the sepulchres of the kings at Jerusalem are called the “sepulchres of the kings of Israel” (xxviii. 27) . Israel in Chronicles then = the covenant-people. In Kings, on the contrary, Israel generally means the Northern Kingdom. ”