“For my eyes are on all
their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from
my eyes. But first I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because
they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and
have filled my inheritance with their abominations."
(Jer 16:17-18)*
Thus ends
one of the more remarkable prophecies found in God’s word which reveals both
how the Jews would return to Israel, but when it would start. The two golden verses tell us when. More than 120 years ago a famous Pastor
figured out what was meant by those two verses, that Israel would endure a
period of rejection by him and scattering among the nations of equal length to
the time of favor they enjoyed when he began dealing with them more as a nation
with the death of Jacob.
1842 years later
that time of favor came to an end with the conversion of the Roman centurion Cornelius
and his family, as foretold by the prophecy of the seventy weeks in the book of
Daniel (9:24-27) and that favor didn’t return until another 1842 years passed. That period ended in 1878 when Jews were
permitted to own property in the holy land and began their return with the
founding of Petah Tikvah, the Gate of Hope.
I explained those two verses first because what follows in this study
will bear the explanation out.
“Then you shall say to
them: 'Because your fathers have forsaken me, declares the LORD, and have gone
after other gods and have served and worshiped them, and have forsaken me and
have not kept my law, and because you have done worse than your fathers, for
behold, every one of you follows his stubborn, evil will, refusing to listen to
me. Therefore I will hurl you out of this land into a land that neither you nor
your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods day and night,
for I will show you no favor.'
(Jer 16:11-13)
The entire
chapter mostly focuses on the Jews being thrown out of the land of Israel. The first 10 verses prophesy destruction on
an unprecedented scale and humiliation.
This passage tells us why, their unfaithfulness to God. However, this passage and the remarkable
prophecy we are examining both indicate that he wasn’t talking about their
exile to Babylon. They would be exiled “into a land that neither you nor your
fathers have known,” that is a land not within the realms they knew
of. That would prove to be all too true
after their exile by the Romans. They
ended up in the far-flung parts of the empire, but mostly in Eastern Europe, an
area only known as the realms of barbarians in Jeremiah’s day. Their dire situation there with its pogroms aptly
fit the last declaration in these verses “for I will show you no favor.”
What comes
next was so remarkable when it was pointed out to me by a book** first published
124 years ago that I was taken aback at how accurately it portrayed what
actually happened throughout the 20th century to the Jews:
“"Therefore,
behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it shall no longer be
said, 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of
Egypt,' but 'As the LORD lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the
north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.' For I
will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.
(Jer 16:14-15)
Think about
that prophecy for a moment. The exodus
to the land of Palestine, as it was known in 1878, began with a trickle out of
the North, Russia that is. But as time
went by the trickle increased. But it
wasn’t enough in God’s eyes. So he did
something about it as the next verse prophesied:
“"Behold, I am
sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And
afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every
mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks.
(Jer 16:16)
The first
part of verse 16 fits the Nazis under Hitler like a glove. Under his supervision the Jews were
imprisoned in concentration camps and during WWII his troops hunted the Jews
down to destroy them taking millions of Jewish lives in the process. That persecution provided the impetus for the
speeding up of the Jewish return to their homeland and then the creation of the
nation of Israel.
But it didn’t
end there. By returning to verse fifteen
we find that they would also be brought back from “all the countries where he
had driven them.” Once the Jews established
the nation of Israel the Jews started flooding into the nation, often prompted
by more persecution from other “hunters,” the Muslims of the Arab world which
did their work so thoroughly that there are Muslim lands with virtually no Jews
in them. However, the exodus would
continue when communism fell and Jews who’d been persecuted under that system
now became free to flee to Israel. So the
exodus from the “North” entered a second phase and the flood became such that
now, for the first time in almost 2000 years there are more Jews in Israel than
in the rest of the world combined.
But that’s
not the only jaw-dropping prophecy I plan to cover. Next will be a Psalm which I believe to be in
the process of being fulfilled right now as its being carried out over a longer
period of time than most prophecy scholars realize. I will see you then.
* All quotes from the English Standard Version (ESV)
** The Time Is At Hand by Charles Taze Russell pages 216-217.
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