Israeli people

“ Of the many strange paradoxes in the romantic history of Israel not the least strange is this, that the Jewish nation should have found a home and refuge in that desolate and remote corner of Eastern Europe once ruled by the Jesuits, and that the destiny of the Jews should have become so closely associated with the fate of a Catholic people, which, like the Jews, has only an ideal existence; which, like the Jews, has been oppressed and suppressed, and which, like the Jews, has asserted its vitality in the face of economic degradation and political martyrdom. ”

“ This does truly constitute for Israel a most extraordinary distinction. In spite of all which in them and in their character is unattractive, nay, repellent,—in spite of their shortcomings even in righteousness itself and their insignificance in everything else,—this petty, unsuccessful, un-amiable people, without politics, without science, without art, without charm, deserve their great place in the world's regard, and are likely to have it more, as the world goes on, rather than less. ”

“ How can we account for the repeated dispersions, and the continued, unceasing wanderings and strange restlessness of the Jew, apart from these ancient inspired utterances? That Palestine should be vanquished, and that Israel should be cast out of their own land, or even be dispersed among the nations, was within the range of human possibility, and mayhap within the power of a shrewd observer to forecast; but, that for centuries and centuries, a people, vanquished and scattered out of their own country, instead of becoming absorbed among the nations—as has been the case with other peoples ”

“ 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. ”

“ The perplexity of some even Christian people on witnessing the revival of the Jewish nationality is very natural, because they can find no place for a revived literal Israel in their political or theological programmes. ”

“ And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them out of all their dwelling-places, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them; so shall they be My people, and I will be their God. And David My servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd ”

“ Do you realize the present helplessness of poor Israel? We sometimes hear the Jews spoken of by Christians of a certain stamp, after this manner: "After all, they are not so badly off as the heathen. They are a moral, God-fearing people; they have the Old Testament Scriptures in their possession. They are intelligent, clever, influential, and certainly not so low and degraded as the heathen." ”

“ Now, however, she must permit emigration or perish by famine. Take the countries of Europe, and is it not strange that Israel’s fulness of land, people, and language is made the fuller by these nations contributing towards the same? The fulness of the Gentiles is made to flow into the fulness of Israel. These countries, outside of Israel-England, p. 74have no colonies to send their overflow to; hence, they are filling up the domain of Israel and so hastening on her fulness. The French, Germans, Italians, and Spaniards forsake their land and language, thus adding to Israel’s fulness ”

“ Some, indeed, persist in looking for God’s chosen seed—His people, His inheritance—among the bushmen of Africa, the Indians of America; indeed wherever they can find a people mean, and few, and very low in the scale of civilisation. They overlook the fact that Israel, not the Jews, were to be the most powerful and prolific people on the face of the earth, to be as sands of the sea, as the stars of heaven. ”

“ His chosen people, the Jews, will God bring by the agency of the resurrected Ancient Worthies to Palestine, where He will feed them upon the historic mountains of that hallowed land, in the then great cities of a realized Zionism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We know from the Word of God that it is God, the God of Israel, who keeps them together. Within the last twenty years the national consciousness of the Jews has been once more roused from its slumber, and now as was lately shown at the Zionist Congress it is more vigorous than ever before. They feel that they are a nation, and separate from the other nations. They feel they are still " a peculiar people," though dispersed among so many nations. They feel something of the peculiar position which God has assigned to them in the world, although they do not know exactly what it is. ”

“ Not only are the tribes of Israel to be re-assembled upon the lands of their inheritances, but the descendants of the children of Israel scattered through all the nations among which they have been "sifted," are also to be gathered. The Jews since the destruction of their city and nation by the Romans have been scattered among all nations, but they have succeeded in a remarkable manner in preserving their identity as a distinct people. ”

“ It is contrary to all analogy and to the Israelite tradition itself to suppose that they were all exterminated. They were obviously possessed of a higher civilization than their invaders, already, what the Israelites in time became, a settled people. Can it be thought that they exerted no influence on their conquerors? We cannot but expect that as the Israelites became settled they would adopt the customs of the settled population. ”

“ Now, there has been no second Restoration as yet; neither could the return from Babylon be said to be a gathering from the "four corners of the earth"; that captivity having been local in its character, and of short duration. Never before the dispersion inaugurated by Titus, could the scattering of the people be said to have been universal; hence they could never before have been gathered from the four corners of the earth.
IV. Israel has never yet in all its fulness possessed the land which God has promised them; and Palestine may still be said to be "the land of promise." ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the bulk of the race still is a people of wanderers; and their hope of restoration little more than a beautiful, melancholy dream. There are at the present hour upwards of ten million Jews, scattered to the four corners of the earth. Nine of these millions live in Europe: two-thirds of them in Russia, Roumania and Poland. In the Middle Ages persecution in the West had driven them Eastwards. Lately persecution in the East has turned the tide Westwards. There is no rest for Israel. ”

“ The capture of these six or seven outposts represents the first stage in the conquest and settlement of Palestine. It was significant because it meant that the people from the wilderness had gained a foothold in the land where they ultimately found their home. It inaugurated Israel's pioneer period. The Hebrews were no longer homeless wanderers in the desert, nor sojourners in a foreign land. At this point Israel's history as a nation properly begins, although the complete union of the tribes was not consummated until nearly a century later. ”

“ Now the carrying away the remains of Israel, who, till then, though their kingdom was destroyed forty-five years before, and though small in number, might yet keep up some form of being a people, by living according to their own laws, entirely put an end to the people of Israel, as a people separate from all others: for from this time they never returned to their own country in a body, but were confounded with the people of Judah in the captivity; and the whole people, the ten tribes included, were called Jews. ”

“ While traveling in Palestine I reflected a good deal on the fate of Israeli I asked myself, why they were persecuted, scattered, peeled and hidden from the face of men, and why were the tribes of Judah and Benjamin still scattered? Some of them can go to Jerusalem occasionally and visit, but only a very few thousand live, in a scattered condition, in the lard of their fathers, and they are in bondage, under tutors, governors, and rulers, and have in reality no power of themselves. ”

“ We are well aware, so great is the tendency of the races of the earth to mix and intermingle, that the Jews, as well as many Christians, point to their continued existence as a distinct people, as an unanswerable argument in favor of the divinity of their scriptures and the inspiration of their prophets. But their history, their exclusiveness, their dispersion, etc., do not fulfill a vast number of the prophecies uttered with regard to Israel. ”

“ Because of this human sentiment and this Divine purpose, the former maintained apparently by the pride of race, by genealogies, by traditions often singularly unspiritual, but really by the over-ruling providence of God, Israel became unique, and filled an extraordinary place among the nations. Many things co-operated to make her a people regarding whom it could be said: "Israel never stood quietly by to see the world badly governed, under the authority of a God reputed to be just. ”

“ A. The land of Israel is the historical homeland of the Jewish people, in which the State of Israel was established.
B. The State of Israel is the national home of the Jewish people, in which it fulfills its natural, cultural, religious and historical right to self-determination.
C. The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people. ”

“ Israel could never, according to Moses' idea, become a great people in the sense in which the nations of the world were great. Amongst them greatness was sought in despite of morality, in defiance of all that Jehovah commanded. Israel might never be great in wealth, territory, influence, but she was to be true. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though Israel has sunk low, like a tree once green and living, and has become petrified and blackened, there is stored-up sunlight in him. Our racial isolation is a mere superstition unless turned to great purposes. We have done nothing as Jews for centuries, though our Old Testament has always been an arsenal of texts for the European champions of civil and religious liberty. We have been unconsciously pioneers of modern commerce, diffusers of folk-lore and what not. ”

“ As a fact the people of Israel had experienced a peculiar fortune. Of the same origin as a part of the Arabian and Syrian tribes and closely allied to them, the Israelites had not followed the same path of development. Branching off from those nearest, and then from their older tribesmen, with whom they had previously pastured their flocks, they grew up into a nation on the borders of Egypt and under Egyptian supremacy; a nation in which nomadic simplicity met with certain influences due to Egyptian culture. ”

“ Where, in 1898, there were only a few thousands of Jews dwelling in feeble colonies, now there is a flourishing Jewish State--the nation of Israel--recognized by other great States of the world. The Jewish population of Palestine has now passed the million mark. ”