The Amazing Jew

Preface to the Fourth Edition

It is gratifying that a fourth edition of The Amazing Jew is being called for, as testifying to the deep interest taken in the people of God’s choice, and the land which He gave them in covenant with Abraham. Possibly historians in the day to come will realise that the greatest result of the Great War of 1914-1918 was the dramatic entry of Lord Allenby into Jerusalem without firing a shot, wresting Palestine from the supine domination of the Turk, setting the country free for the immigration of large numbers of Jews, and the country’s start on a new era of prosperity. God is behind the scenes working out His own plans, which have Jerusalem as the capital of the world. We believe the second great world war will eventuate in the importance of Palestine being recognised from a military, industrial and geographical point of view as never before. The rising prosperity of the country, the loyal support of the Jewish population of Palestine in the prosecution of the war will meet with a reward that will give an importance to that land far beyond anything yet granted.

Readers of The Amazing Jew will naturally ask the question, How does this second world war affect Palestine? Nothing has thrilled the writer more than to find its truly amazing reaction to the war has only resulted in a striking furtherance of its stability and prosperity. It is said that Palestine today is the only country that can balance its accounts with a credit on the right side.

We think it best to allow what has been written to stand as it is, with one exception. The position of Italy has altered so materially, that we have thought it best to rewrite what was written in the last edition concerning that country and Mussolini.

In this edition we have added a Postscript, in which we give details gathered as a result of our latest enquiry into Jewish affairs.

We now leave the reader to turn to this for a description of how things have progressed up to the present. All points forward most unmistakably to the very prominent place Palestine must have in the closing days.

Preface to the Fifth Edition

That a fifth edition is called for so soon after the appearance of the fourth is a striking proof of the deep interest the Christian public take in the Jewish question. There is no doubt that events are working up to the fulfilment of prophecy in a very striking way. We have thought well to leave the volume almost exactly as it was, but have added Postscript No. 2 to bring it up-to-date.

Preface to the Seventh Edition

It is highly gratifying that a seventh edition of The Amazing Jew has been called for, testifying to the deep interest the Christian community takes in the people of God's choice, and in the land which He gave them in covenant to Abraham, viz., that in his seed all nations should be blessed (Gen. 26:4).

Possibly in the days to come historians may realise that the greatest event in the first Great War — 1914-1918 — was the dramatic entry into Jerusalem of Lord Allenby without firing a shot, wresting Palestine from the supine domination of the Turk, setting it free for the immigration of large numbers of Jews, and the country's start on a new era of prosperity.

It must, however, not be necessarily supposed that the return of the Jews to the land of their fathers in large numbers is the direct hand of God. Such events are of course foreseen by God, and may and do work on the line of the fulfilment of prophecy. Scripture prophesies the return of the Jew to his own land in unbelief, and this is what is happening at the present time. It has indeed been a pathetic sight to see ship after ship, crowded to suffocation, packed with Jews, whose one consuming desire is to live in Palestine, running the gauntlet of prohibition to land, other than as part of the legal quota that was allowed.

From the study of Scripture one realises that they are coming back to a time, which they little expect, even when the second beast of Revelation 13, "the false prophet," "the antichrist," "the man of sin," is to rise up, and the judgment of God will fall on the land, leading to great tribulation, alluded to by our Lord in His Olivet address to His disciples. (Matthew 24:21).

Then the second Great World War, 1939-1945, came along, emphasising more than ever the importance of Palestine from a military, strategic and geographical standpoint. Meanwhile the Jews made good in a remarkable way. Many agricultural settlements sprang up, many factories and industries of varied kinds brought great prosperity to the country.

But Scripture is ever true. The prophet Zechariah prophesied 2,500 years ago that Jerusalem should be "a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it." (Zech. 12:3). This prophecy is undoubtedly coming true. The ancient feud between Jew and Arab is flaring up in an alarming fashion in these last days, but God has given the land to the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, and this is assured, for it is God's covenant, and must eventually stand.

As we write history is being made, and before the reader scans these lines surprising things may have happened. We need more than ever to take heed to the exhortation not to study prophecy by the newspaper, but to read the newspaper in the light of Scripture. The daily newspaper is out of date the morrow after its publication. The word of the Lord stands for ever.

Trouble for the land of Palestine will continue till the great day of the battle of Armageddon arrives, when the Lord shall succour His ancient people, giving them the spirit of grace and of supplications, when peace shall come in the only way it can come, that is through the intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

Do not the dark clouds, that threaten on every hand, tell us that the coming of our Lord draws very near? The Christian knows to his joy that before the judgments are poured out on the earth, as narrated in symbolic language so largely in Revelation 4-19, the hope of the Church shall be realised, and we shall hear the summoning shout of our Lord, the sleeping saints will be raised, and the living saints changed, and all caught up to be with the Lord.

We are living in very deeply interesting times, but it is only with the Bible in our hands that we have any key to the right understanding of present-day happenings.

The Amazing Jew

The Jew is absolutely amazing. Proud Empires—the Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, the Roman—have come, lived their little day, disappeared, and have left scarce a trace behind. The Jew, more ancient than they all, remains more vigorous than ever.

It has been well said that,

The past of the Jew is known as no other nation’s is known. Their history is found in the Bible, far and away the oldest history book in the world, whose beginnings were recorded by Moses some three thousand four hundred years ago, and preserved miraculously for us to this day. We only hear of Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, because of their connections with the children of Israel. Nor is the future of any nation known but that of the Jewish, and those nations, which have to do with them in the last days. And as for the present of the Jew, it is astounding, developing before our very eyes most dramatically.

The Jew constitutes a very small proportion of the human race. Today it is estimated there are 16,000,000 Jews in the world.* Roughly speaking the population of the world is 2,000,000,000. The Jew constitutes, therefore, less than one percent of the whole. A celebrated author—Mark Twain—draws attention to this in a striking way:
{*Since writing the above considerably reduced as the result of Hitler’s savage persecution of God’s ancient people.}

This brilliant author may well ask, What is the secret of the Jews’ persistence? But he will get no answer save that which the Bible furnishes. The history of the Jew is the finger of God.

Mr. Madison Peters writes:

{*In truth, it was a theocracy, and not a republic.
**More than a Jew; He was “God … manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16).
***With the exception of Luke’s Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, written by “Luke, the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14), a Gentile.}

There is a well-known story told of King Frederick the Great of Prussia. He was an infidel, the friend of the notorious Frenchman, Voltaire, who shared his views, and in his day was their most brilliant exponent. At the Prussian court was a General Von Ziethen. The King knowing him to be a Christian in more than name, one day said to him, “Defend your Christianity, if you can, in one word, General.”

The General bowed low before his monarch, and replied, “Sire, Israel.”

That was enough, and the reply is so striking that it has been kept fresh in the memory of Christian people to this day.

Why, then, has the Jew such a preponderating place on the pages of the Holy Writ? Why should far more powerful nations only be mentioned because of their relation to Israel? Why are we told what is to happen to the Jew in the future? To answer these questions is now our task. Scripture itself gives us the answer in a few words. We are told of the Jews that they are:

We must first take a bird’s-eye view of the whole before we seek to fill in the details.

The Scripture, just quoted, shows how, in view of the coming into the world of the Lord Jesus Christ, God chose the Jews—“to whom pertains the adoption.” But for God’s purposes in Christ there would have been no children of Israel, no Bible, no revelation of Himself, no blessing for mankind. And note, how careful the Spirit of God is to indicate that Christ came into this world as a true man—“concerning the flesh Christ came”—but equally careful to assert that He was God—“God blessed for ever”—God, with no diminution of His Deity, though He stooped so low, and came in the lowly guise of manhood.

To Israel pertains “the glory,” glory which will be seen in its fullness when the Lord Jesus Christ shall be her King, and Jerusalem the Metropolis of the whole earth.

God made “covenants” with Israel, but What had they in view? One verse tells us. God had a long look-out down the centuries. It is not a question of Abraham and his individual blessing, though that is, perforce, secured, but of the blessing of mankind. We read:

That blessing could only be secured by Christ. The same epistle emphasises this:

God gave “the law” to Israel, but why? Was it to educate Israel? Or was it to prove to them that there was no blessing that way? Surely, but there was a far wider implication than that. We read:

In that way God would prepare the Jew, and, through him, all the world, for the Gospel through Christ, by which alone blessing can come.

“The service of God,” specially given to Israel, refers to the ritual connected with the Tabernacle in the wilderness and the Temple in the land. That again was not complete in itself. It was at best but a “shadow of heavenly things” (Heb. 8:5)—awaiting the glorious substance. “The Tabernacle and all the vessels of the Ministry,” purified by blood, were but

They pointed on to the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Deity, His Manhood, His great efficacious atoning sacrifice on the cross, when all the types should be fulfilled in Him, the glorious Antitype.

Finally, there were “the promises,” the prophecies that went far beyond the narrow boundaries of Judaism, prophecies that will be seen in the full light and glory of their fulfilment when

Having clearly, then, in mind that we are following, however briefly, the unfolding of a great scheme worthy of God, leading to the revelation of Himself in Christ, to the great work of redemption without which man could not enter into blessing, to the grand finish of all God’s ways in His Government on the earth, we may now come to a few details. Where shall we begin?

The Call of Abraham
We have just read, “To whom pertains the adoption.” How then did God choose a nation, through whom He would work out His plans for the blessing of mankind? He chose an individual. His choice fell on Abraham. This choice was His sovereign pleasure.

Abraham lived in Ur of the Chaldees, a place of high culture, as recent excavations have proved. He was a worshipper of stocks and stones, when the great crisis in his life occurred. We read:

That vision altered the whole life of Abraham. Its effects can be seen in his descendants in every part of the world today. He was bidden to leave his country, and kindred, and father’s house, and get into a land that God would tell him of. He went forth,
“not knowing whither he went” (Heb. 11:8).

In the eyes of the world it was a step of the most absolute folly. But Abraham had got a sight of the invisible and eternal. He had an inward urge that responded to the call of God.

The importance of this is seen in the full account that is given in the Scriptures of the life of Abraham. No less than thirteen and a half chapters in the book of Genesis are devoted to the life of this wonderful man. Ten words,

suffice to tell us about the millions of the heavenly bodies, many of them larger by far than the sun of our solar system. Yet thirteen and a half chapters are devoted to Abraham. What does this teach us? Surely that God’s ways in blessing man are infinitely more important than the creation of material things, surpassingly wonderful as they are.

In view then of the vast scheme God had in mind, He chose Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the twelve sons of Jacob, and their families, till finally a mighty nation came into existence.

There is no nation in the world that is able to trace its origin to one man as the special choice of God save the Jewish nation. Moreover God has taken care to stamp the whole thing with the miraculous. It is HIS particular doing. It did not happen in the ordinary course of nature.

The birth of Isaac was a miracle. Abraham was one hundred years old when this event took place. Sarah, his wife, was ninety years old, long past the age for bearing children. We are told that it was by faith that she

Jacob’s birth was a miracle, for we are told that Rebekah, his mother, was barren, and that it was in answer to Isaac’s prayer that the sons—Esau and Jacob—were born (Gen. 25:20-21).

Then came the sons of Jacob, the twelve patriarchs, and finally we have

A Chosen Nation
We read:

Naturally, if God chose a nation, beginning with a single individual, it must necessarily be a people without a country at first. Hence it follows that the time would come when a chosen people must possess a country, likewise chosen of God, even as the people were chosen.

Let us see how this is worked out. Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan as an alien from another land, though Canaan was the land that God had promised he should possess. But as his descendants increased there would come a point when it would be impossible for them to continue as aliens. Their very number would render their presence a menace to a country in which they sojourned. To bestow on them a land for their own possession would become an absolute necessity. Let us follow this out step by step.

The History of Joseph
Little did Joseph, a lad of seventeen, imagine when he dreamed of his future eminence, as indicated by the sheaves of the field making obeisance to his sheaf, and the sun, moon and stars making obeisance to him, that it was a part of a plan, stretching out for centuries, which God was working out in connection with Christ and the blessing of man.

We may follow Joseph’s history as being connected with him individually, and learn many salutary lessons therefrom, but we shall miss the great point of it all, if we do not see God’s hand at work in connection with His own vast plan.

For thirteen long years Joseph knew what bitter bondage meant. Sold into Egypt by his envious brethren, flung into prison unjustly because he rightly resisted the blandishments of Potiphar’s wife, his was a truly fearful experience. The dreams of the chief butler and baker, and Joseph’s interpretations of them, were no accident, but all incidents in a scheme dovetailed with exactitude in all its parts. They were all links in the chain that went to fulfil Joseph’s dreams as a lad of seventeen, and, what is of far more importance, necessary parts of the great plan that God had in view, the end of which is not reached yet.

When the chief butler left the prison to be reinstated in his former position with Pharaoh, no doubt Joseph’s heart beat high with the hope of his own release as the result of the chief butler, in gratitude, bringing his case before the notice of Pharaoh. Bitter indeed must have been his disappointment as two long weary years went by, and no signs of his release were given. He might have lived and died in prison, but for the incident we are about to relate.

Pharaoh dreamed two dreams, both pointing in the same direction, and of such a nature as to make him most anxious to know what they presaged. The magicians and wise men could find no interpretation. Then the chief butler remembered Joseph as having interpreted his dream, and mentioned his experience to the king. It will be thus seen that the dreams of Pharaoh came in their right order. If the dream of the chief butler, with the interpretation that Joseph gave of it, had not preceded Pharaoh’s dreams, nothing would have happened. They would have been unrelated incidents, not affecting each other.

Then further, bitter as Joseph’s experience was, it was designed to test his character, form and strengthen it, to fit him for the task that lay before him. Just as steel is tempered by being subjected to fierce heat again and again, so he was being prepared in the furnace of affliction for the wonderful position that awaited him.

Brought into Pharaoh’s presence, interpreting his dreams, foretelling the years of great plenty to be followed by the years of biting famine, he made such an impression on the mind of that mighty monarch, but, with no previous knowledge of him, he appointed this young man of only thirty years of age to the amazing position of food controller of Egypt, giving him a position only second to his own.

Nay, further, it might not enter Joseph’s mind that the years of famine would be used of God to bring his brethren into his presence, and in the end to settle them in the best part of Egypt, the land of Goshen. Most unexpectedly and dramatically were Joseph’s dreams fulfilled as his brethren made obeisance to the great lord of Egypt. Yet so it was. The very famine that brought all this about was part of God’s plan.

The Training of Moses
We must hasten on with the story. Joseph died and all his brethren. Generations came and went. The children of Israel

The time had come when the increasing number of the Israelites became a menace to the country where they sojourned. Pharaoh was alarmed. He oppressed and afflicted the children of Israel, and gave orders that the male children should be put to death. Was God’s hand in all this? What object had He before Him in it?

Just as God raised up Joseph to bring the children of Israel into Egypt, so he raised up Moses to take them out. God used the daughter* of the very monarch who ordered the destruction of the male children of the people of Israel, to protect the infant Moses. A more powerful patron could not have been found. She adopted him, and trained him in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
{*From a recent book by Sir Charles Marston, F.S.A., entitled “The New Knowledge about the Old Testament,” we learn the name and some particulars about this lady, who adopted Moses. Her name was Princess Hatshepsut. She was one of the most remarkable women-rulers in the world’s history. Her patronage put Moses into a very brilliant position.}

But we must hasten on with the story. We all know how he espoused the cause of his down-trodden fellow-countrymen. He fled from Egypt, and for forty years kept the sheep of his Midianitish father-in-law at the backside of the desert. In this way, doubtless, God prepared him for the great task that lay before him. Spoken to by God out of the burning bush, he was commissioned to the task of taking the children of Israel out of the bondage under which they groaned. We remember how he stood before Pharaoh. The plagues of Egypt smote that land again and again at the bidding of Moses, until at last Pharaoh let the people go.

We recall the passover night, destined to be a constant reminder to the Israelites of the coming of One, who is now so well known to us as

For forty years the Israelites were miraculously sustained in the wilderness, a place of no natural resources. Their journey through the desert was one vast moving miracle. Such a vast body of people has not crossed the desert before nor since. Psalm 105 gives us the inspired record of the Divinely ordered sequence of events in connection with God’s plan for Israel.

Verse 9 speaks of Abraham and Isaac; verse 10 of Jacob; verses 12-15 how God protected the weak handful of his people, strangers in the land that was the lot of their inheritance. Apart from His protection they would have been destroyed again and again.

Verse 16 assures us that the terrible famine in Egypt and Canaan was not merely a providential happening, but God “called for a famine upon the land” to carry out His purpose. It was one ordered item in the great sequence of events.

Verse 17 tells us that Joseph was sent ON PURPOSE into Egypt. A lurid light here shines upon the cruel rigour of his dungeon. His feet were hurt with fetters, the iron entered into his soul. Thus was he prepared for the mighty role he was to fulfil. God sent the famine: God sent Joseph. Verses 20-22 describe his exaltation and power. Still the story moves on.

Verse 26 carries us on to the time when God sent Moses, His servant. Verses 27-28 graphically describe the plagues that fell on Egypt, bringing Pharaoh to the point of being glad when the children of Israel departed.

Verses 39-45 describe their miraculous support in the wilderness and entrance into the land.

A truly notable Psalm, showing God moving behind every event in connection with His chosen people and their destiny.

God Chose the Land
The time drew near when God would plant them in the land of His choice. We read:

Here is stated a second amazing fact. We have seen how God chose the people. We now see that God chose the land in which they were to dwell. Centuries before, God told Abraham to go into a land that He would show him. When in the land God said to him:

Which Land Did God Choose?
If you will look at the map of Palestine you will see what a wonderful position it occupies. Situated in Asia, it is within easy reach of Europe and Africa. It lies on the great trade routes between east and west. It has been well called, “The bridge between the nations.” Its frontiers are remarkable.

On the west we have the seaboard of the Mediterranean, some six hundred and fifty miles from the coast of Greece, two hundred miles from that of Asia Minor.

On the east there lie two hundred and fifty miles of the great Syrian desert to be traversed before Assyria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia are reached.

On the south we find the forbidding Sinaitic Desert,* stretching out its weary and burning wastes before Egypt is reached.
{*If the reader wishes to have a vivid description of the desert, and obtain some idea of the marvellous miracle, absolutely impossible save as a miracle of the Israelites being sustained in it for forty years, let him read that classic of travel, Eothen, by A.W.Kinglake, in which he gives a marvellous description of his journey over the wilderness of Sinai from Gaza to Cairo.}

On the north we meet the Lebanon range of mountains, some of the highest crowned with perpetual snow, with two or three difficult passes into Syria.

Was there ever a country so placed. Alien population is thrust back on every side. Although this is so, Palestine is the natural fighting ground of that part of the world, lying between Egypt and Assyria as it does, as the constant wars between the King of the North (Assyria) and the King of the South (Egypt) testify.

But now comes a question. By what right could the children of Israel occupy the land? It was the possession of the Canaanitish nations from time immemorial. We learn, however, from God’s Word, that these nations were extremely wicked, and that God in His righteous government saw fit to dispossess them of their land. God told Abraham that his descendants would be afflicted in a strange land for four hundred years, but that they would return to the land in the fourth generation. God in patience waited till the time was ripe, for he told Abraham that

The inhabitants of the land utterly forfeited their right of tenure by their terrible wickedness and pollution. They were rightly exterminated.

Thus after forty years of miraculous care in the desert, the children of Israel entered the promised land. They had to fight for possession, but failed to clear out all the former inhabitants of the land. Thus they began their history as a settled nation in their own land, a people chosen by God in a land chosen by God.

The Book of Judges
It begins with failure and ends with failure. We get good judges and bad judges. As we read through the Book we marvel at the long-suffering and patience of God with such a people. The wickedness of man is plumbed to its very depths. The Book ends with a terrible indictment,

There was nothing more terrible than that every man should do what is right in his own eyes. There was no reference to God, not even to delegated earthly authority. Fancy, each member of the solar system doing what it liked. There would be no system. Only black disaster could come out of such a condition of things. We wonder what could come after such a Book and such an ending. As one finishes reading the book of Judges, the hopelessness of man is borne in upon one with a feeling of despair.

The Book of Ruth
Traversing the Book of Judges is like travelling over an arid desert, scorched by the pitiless rays of the sun, shining day after day from a burnished sky. The Book of Ruth is like a grateful oasis with sparkling water, and the umbrageous shade of stately palms.

We read of obscure pious individuals—Naomi, Ruth, Boaz. The story is indeed delightful. If Israel has turned aside, we find God stretching out His hand over a Moabitish damsel, setting the stage for the line of David, and of course for “great David’s greater Son,” the Lord Jesus Christ. Hope revives in our hearts. We see that God can and will carry out His bright designs, spite of man’s utter failure. What a contrast to the Book of Judges is the sweet ending, in its implication, of the Book of Ruth.

We find the name of Ruth in the ancestry of our Lord in Matthew 1:5. The line is set for Christ, the King of Israel. No king in Israel in the Book of Judges. The best of Kings, the rightful King, is coming.

The Books of Samuel and Kings
Here we begin with the training of a man of God—Samuel. From childhood we see him marked out for service, just as we have seen with Joseph and Moses. Then we read how the people turned their backs upon Samuel, and in reality upon God, in choosing Saul, the son of Kish, to be their king. They wanted to be like the surrounding nations, and they chose by the sight of their eyes a man, head and shoulders above any of the people, as if inches meant moral worth. Again we find utter misery and failure, Saul dying by his own hand in despair on mount Gilboa.

Again God came in. David the son of Jesse is brought forward, trained in secret, slaying the lion and the bear and the giant Goliath, and tested by years of bitter persecution at the hands of Saul. He became the king of Israel by God’s own appointing.

Again, in the person of his son Solomon, came in breakdown. Endowed by God with wisdom beyond any, he demonstrated how wisdom, unless God’s help and guidance is continually sought, cannot keep. He loved many strange wives, and went after their gods, after Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Zidonians, after Milcom, the abomination of the Ammonites.

The judgment of God came in. In the reign of hs son Rehoboam, the kingdom was split in two—ten tribes forming the kingdom of Israel; two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, forming the kingdom of Judah, the Levites throwing in their lot with Judah, for the temple was at Jerusalem.

Thenceforth, we have the history of the two kingdoms, that of Israel unrelieved by any good king, until at last Assyrians, as the scourge of God, took Israel into captivity in 740 B.C.

Judah had good kings now and again, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, but alas! they had bad kings like Manasseh and Zedekiah, and Judah too fell under God’s chastening hand, and was taken captive to Babylon about 606 B.C. Such is man at his best estate.

The Times of the Gentiles
We now come to a great break in the history of God’s ancient people. An entirely new order of things sets in at this point. The understanding of this is necessary, if we are to follow intelligently how God carries out His purpose.

The reader may remember how the prophet Hosea prophesied when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were running their course, that the days would come when

This prophecy began to be fulfilled when king Zedekiah rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar in 599 B.C. For over two thousand five hundred years this has been true. It is remarkable that while Israel lapsed into idolatry again and again, since their dispersion they have been free of this snare. They have been without a sacrifice for centuries, for without a Temple they have no means of carrying on the ancient ritual. They have been without “teraphim,” that is, they have not been idolatrous. They have had no king for two and a half millenniums. Can this be explained apart from the finger of God?

The expression, The Times of the Gentiles, first fell from the lips of the Lord Jesus, as He foretold the destruction of Jerusalem. He said:

What then is the meaning of this expression? Hitherto we have seen God’s governmental ways centring in Israel. His people, a little flock, were safe under His protecting hand as long as they walked in His fear. But, as we have seen, utter failure came in. The time had now come when God in His wisdom transferred government to the Gentiles in a special way, and gave over the children of Israel into their power. Hitherto it had been the times of the Jews; henceforth it is to be “The Times of the Gentiles.” As we explain somewhat of the Book of Daniel, this will be made plain.

The Book of Daniel
This Book is largely taken up with the history of Daniel. At first we see him as a youth of tender years, and of royal blood, a captive in Babylon. From youth to extreme old age he served God amid many vicissitudes.

Nebuchadnezzar, in whose reign Daniel lived, had a remarkable God-given dream. The vision passed from him, but not the deep impression that it made on his mind. With the autocracy of the heathen monarch he ordered his soothsayers and magicians to tell him his forgotten dreams, and interpret it, on pain of death. Failing to perform the king’s unreasonable request, the decree went forth to slay all the wise men of the empire, including Daniel and his companions.

At this juncture Daniel came forward. He asked for time to wait on God. God revealed the dream to him, and gave him the interpretation.

Nebuchadnezzar dreamed that he saw a great image—head of fine gold; breast and arms of silver; belly and thighs of brass; legs of iron; feet and toes of mingled iron and clay. Then the monarch saw in his dream a stone, cut out without hands, strike the image upon its feet of mingled iron and clay.

In this dream we get a pictorial description of “The Times of the Gentiles,” Daniel told the king that the vision was prophetic of four great world empires. Nebuchadnezzar as King of Babylon was the head of gold. After him would appear another kingdom inferior to his, as silver is inferior to gold. A third kingdom likened to brass, and a fourth strong as iron would arise. These set forth the Babylonians, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, the Roman Empires.

Nebuchadnezzar died. In the first year of the reign of his successor, Belshazzar, who was a grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, and son of Nabonidus, Daniel had a dream, the salient points of which were similar to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the great image, though different imagery was employed.

He saw in his vision four beasts rise out of the sea. The first was like a lion with “eagle’s wings”; the second like a bear with “three ribs in its mouth”; the third like a leopard with “four wings of a fowl”; the fourth a beast “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly.”

This was supplemented two years later by a dream of a ram with two horns, being attacked by a he-goat with a notable horn between its eyes, and none could deliver the ram from the power of the he-goat. Daniel was told plainly that the ram with two horns set forth the kings of Media and Persia, the he-goat the king of Grecia.

Thus we have three kingdoms out of the four plainly indicated, the Babylonians, the Medo-Persian, the Grecian. It is not difficult to identify the fourth great world-power as that of the Roman. The Roman was the great power that overcame the Grecian Empire, and built on its ruins the mightiest empire the world had hitherto ever seen. Let us put these items together in a table to catch the eye readily.

Note the great accuracy of detail; the lessening value of the metals, the diminishing majesty of the beasts; the filling in of details, as for instance the predominant partnership of Persia as compared with Media; the great speed of the leopard and of the he-goat, both clearly setting forth the rapid conquests of Alexander the Great; the four wings of the leopard, and the four horns taking the place of the notable horn that was broken, setting forth Alexander’s Empire being divided at his death among his four generals; the little horn, arising out of the four, referring to the wicked Antiochus Epiphanes, only to give place to the all-conquering power of the Romans.

It is no wonder that some Modernists, desiring to get rid of this striking prophecy, manifesting undoubtedly the inspiration of Holy Scripture, have attempted to show that it was written after the events.*
{*They have attempted this on the flimsiest grounds as Sir Robert Anderson has shown in his book, “Daniel in the Critic’s Den.”}

But, even if they succeeded in proving that the Book was written in the times of the Maccabees, which they have not, that would not invalidate the striking prophecy of the coming of the Messiah in chapter 9.

We refer to the striking prophecy commonly. called “Daniel’s Seventy Weeks.” Two dates are given—the starting point, the date of the commandment to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Then we are given the closing date—that is at the end of sixty-nine weeks, or sixty-nine sevens—when Messiah should be cut off, but not for Himself; in other words, He should die a sacrificial death. Reckoning a year for a day, sixty-nine weeks, or sevens, equal four hundred and eighty-three years.

The commandment to rebuild Jerusalem is a date that can be fixed with exactitude. This is clearly stated in Nehemiah 2:1 as being in the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of the reign of king Artaxerxes. Four hundred and eighty-three years from then—counting three hundred and sixty days to the prophetic year, which is its established length, equalling 173,880 days—brings us to the tenth of the month Nisan in the eighteenth year of the reign of the Roman Emperor, Tiberius Caesar—the very time when Christ entered into Jerusalem riding on an ass’s colt, thus fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9.

Then we are told, at that time
  “shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself” (Dan. 9:26).
setting forth the sacrificial character of His death.

Then, further, the destruction of Jerusalem is foretold, which took place under Titus A.D.70. A big jump over the Christian era is taken, and the thread of prophecy resumed. This brings us up to the seventieth week, still future, when the Head of the revived Roman Empire will make a treaty with the Antichrist in Jerusalem for seven years, breaking it in the middle of the week, that is at the end of three-and-a-half years. The great tribulation described by our Lord in Matthew 24:21, will burst forth, bringing things to the stage when our Lord shall return to this earth, and set up His kingdom. Thus will be fulfilled the prophecy of the stone cut out without hands, striking the feet and toes of the great image (the revived Roman Empire). Christ, setting up His millennial kingdom, will answer to the stone becoming a great mountain, filling the whole earth.

Ezra and Nehemiah
We have followed the history of the Jews up to their captivity in Babylon and Assyria. The prophet Jeremiah foretold that the captivity of Judah would last seventy years. This began about 606 B.C., ending about 536 B.C. That a measure of return to the land was part of God’s scheme is evidenced by the extraordinary prophecy of the birth of Cyrus, king of Medo-Persia, even giving his name over one hundred and seventy years before his birth, indicating that he would be favourable to the Jews, and would assist them to return.

So the Book of Ezra begins with the proclamation that Cyrus made, that the LORD God of heaven had commissioned him to build Him a house at Jerusalem. He called upon all the Jews, who were in his kingdom, and wished to return to the land of Israel to do so, and enjoined those who remained behind to help their brethren with gifts of silver, and gold, and goods, and beasts, and freewill offerings.

That God can move hearts is evidenced by His raising up three kings—Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes—who were favourable to the Jews. Two prophets were raised up—Haggai and Zechariah—whose ministry heartened the people. Zerubbabel, an ancestor of our Lord (Matt. 1:12-13), and Joshua, the High Priest, were leaders in the return to the land. Ezra, the priestly scribe, joined later. Finally, Nehemiah, cup-bearer to King Artaxerxes, was moved to go to Jerusalem. Under his leadership the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt, as the Temple had been rebuilt under that of Zerubbabel and Joshua.

About 50,000 Jews returned with Zerubbabel, about 1,500 with Ezra. In this way the land was resettled with a view to the birth of Christ. We shall see the fitness of things later on in this connection.

By this time (445 B.C.) all the Old Testament writings with the exception of Malachi (397 B.C.) were written, taking the dates, given at the head of our Bibles, as approximately correct.

To review briefly, we have seen how everything was planned by God for the carrying out of His purpose of blessing for men in Christ. The call of Abraham; the choice of Isaac and then Jacob; all the troubles that happened to Joseph to fit him for the extraordinary part he had to play; the dream of the chief butler and its timely interpretation; the seven years’ plenty, followed by the seven years’ famine; the power of Joseph to settle his kinsmen in Goshen; the patronising Pharaoh who settled them in Egypt; after four hundred years, the rise of a persecuting Pharaoh to drive them out; the remarkable training and leadership of Moses; the miraculous sustainment of the children of Israel in the wilderness; the possession of Canaan; the history of the Bible; centring round Israel, whether under judges or kings; Israel and Judah’s captivity; the times of the Gentiles starting with Nebuchadnezzar; the resettling of the land as narrated by Ezra and Nehemiah—all was designed of God with a foreknowledge and exactitude that none but the All-wise could conceive and bring about.

Malachi, the last of the prophets, looked on to the final issue of all these things.

Four Hundred Years
Four hundred years were to elapse from the day that Malachi wrote the last inspired prophecy of the Old Testament, until the veil should be lifted at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, just prior to the birth of our Lord into this world. The prophecies of Daniel and their fulfilment help us to bridge over these four hundred years.

Daniel 8 narrates in symbolical language how the he-goat from the west (Greece) attacked the ram with two horns (Medo-Persia); and how the he-goat had a notable horn between his eyes (Alexander the Great); and how when the great horn was broken (the death of Alexander the Great), four notable horns came up towards the four winds of heaven, thus describing the division of Alexander’s empire among four of his generals.

Then we read of a little horn waxing exceeding great towards the south (Egypt), and the east (Syria), and the pleasant land (Palestine). This refers to the wicked Antiochus Epiphanes, who is a type in some ways of the Antichrist, for he profaned the Temple, just as the Antichrist will do in a future day.

The remarkable series of extraordinary and detailed prophecies given in Daniel 11, lead up to this king. In that chapter we have prophecies already fulfilled of the reigns of kings and queens, royal marriages and alliances, wars, victories, defeats, treaties, plots, assassinations, affording a very striking proof of divine inspiration.

After these many details we come to the point when Antiochus Epiphanes arrived on the scene. He secured the kingdom peaceably and by flatteries (v. 21), deposing his young nephew. We are here introduced to the great Roman power. It was beginning to make itself felt at this time.

The Great Roman Empire
Angered by the excesses of Antiochus Epiphanes, the Romans sent their navy (“ships of Chittim,” v. 30) against him. Caius Popilius, Laenas, and other leaders of the Roman army demanded that Antiochus should cease troubling the Jews and Egypt. Antiochus endeavouring to evade the demand, Caius Popilius swiftly drew a circle round him, sternly demanding an answer before he should step out of the ring. Unwilling, with outward complaisance but with inward rage, Antiochus agreed to the Roman conditions, but immediately broke his word, by wreaking his vengeance on the Jews in his northward march. In his blind hatred he ordered the Temple at Jerusalem to be dedicated to the Olympian Zeus. The statue of Zeus was set up, and a pig was sacrificed in his honour.

This horrible “abomination”* (Dan. 11:31) led to rebellion on the part of the people, and reprisals on the part of Antiochus.
{*This must not be confounded with Daniel 12:11, that speaks of “The abomination that makes desolate,” which refers to the setting up of the image of the head of the revived Roman Empire for divine worship by Antichrist, referred to by our Lord prophetically in Matthew 24:15. Doubtless Antiochus’ sacrilege is symbolical of what the Antichrist will do in a coming day.}

It is said that Hebrews 11:33-38 describes the state of things that ensued. Many hid themselves in caves, in the wilderness, in the mountains, in hiding places along the shores of the desolate Dead Sea, maintaining a guerilla warfare as opportunity offered.

Antiochus determined once and for all to suppress these efforts.

The Maccabees
At this juncture an extraordinary family of deep patriotism and remarkable ability appeared on the scene. The Hasmonean priestly family, headed by the priest, Mattathias, with his five gallant sons, gave the signal for open rebellion, and declared a holy war. The Maccabees (from Maccabeus, a name given to one of this remarkable family, meaning the Hammerer) performed wonderful feats of bravery. The father, Mattathias, his sons, Judas Maccabeus, Jonathan and Simon, proved to be able generals. At last the Greek yoke was cast off, only to be succeeded by the mightier Roman power. Palestine became tributary to Rome.

Herod the Great
In time, by a combination of great ability, immense energy, and wholesale bribery, a worthless Idumean, known to history as Herod the Great, was advanced to the throne of Judea, under the suzerainty of Caesar. It was in his reign that our Lord was born. In his private life he was a monster of lust and wickedness. He died a terrible death, a mass of loathsome disease beyond description.

He it was who rebuilt the Temple at Jerusalem, making it his boast that he had outdone Solomon in his magnificence.

Dr. Edersheim describes the Temple:

The sacred Temple covered thirty-five acres of ground, forming a gigantic platform, raised to the summit of Mount Moriah. It was this Temple with which our Lord was familiar.

The Birth of Christ *
{*Christ is a word derived from the Greek language meaning The Anointed; Messiah, its Hebrew equivalent.}

The birth of Christ occurred towards the reign of Herod the Great. The greatest event in the history of Israel—indeed of the whole world—then took place. Though a well attested historical fact, it is infinitely more than that, for all the blessing of the world is wrapped up in that birth. To fail to hold this wonderful event in its right proportions is to be entirely out of touch with the only thing that really matters. All else is subsidiary, and fleeting, and transient.

It was fitting that the birth of Christ should occur when it did. The land of Israel was in subjection to the Roman power. If Israel had possessed a reigning king of the line of David, one would have expected the future King to be born in a palace, and brought up in the luxury and pomp of a royal court. This would, indeed, have been a wondrous stoop for Him to take, who was from all eternity, and

But what an infinitely greater appeal is made to mankind when we learn that the sign was given of lowliest birth,

Yet, the glory of His Person, even in infancy, was guarded, for He was greeted by the myriad of the angelic hosts, as they swarmed into the lower heavens, exclaiming exultingly,

The contrast between the angelic choir—the massed orchestra of heaven—and the stable, the manger, the cattle in the stall, the surroundings of the Infant in swaddling clothes, none less than “the Word … made flesh”—makes an irresistible appeal to the heart.

For who was Christ? On the right answer to this question everything, in the way of divine blessing, hangs.

Firstly, He was from all eternity God. By Divine direction to Joseph, the husband of Mary, the Babe was named “Jesus,” which means Jehovah-Saviour—Jehovah (the name of God as the self-existent One, who was, who is, who ever will be, eternally the Same), Saviour (setting forth His atoning mission in this world). We are told,

Our Lord, according to the flesh, through His mother, traced His descent from David. Though born of a virgin, begotten of the Holy Ghost by Divine power, He was Joseph’s legal heir by virtue of the marriage of His mother to Joseph, the lawful heir to David’s throne. His miraculous birth marked Him out as the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy seven hundred years before.

The union of the Deity of the Lord Jesus and His true manhood was foretold by the same prophet:

What but Divine inspiration could have penned such a marvellous statement! The child of days is the everlasting Father; the Son given is the Mighty God and the Prince of Peace. Scripture reveals to us God as Father, Son, and Spirit—one God. We know from the four gospels, which of the three Persons of the Holy Trinity the Lord Jesus was, viz.: the Son, the eternal Son, the Son from all eternity. He Himself said,

To refuse to acknowledge this is the spirit of Antichrist. The writer well remembers the fervour of a man, who came to thank him for his deliverance from the anti-Christian system of Christadelphianism through reading a pamphlet of his on the subject. He exclaimed with beaming face, “It was that verse of Scripture that did it, ‘The glory which I had with Thee before the world was.’”

The Lord was truly Man, with the spirit of a Man, the soul of a Man, the body of a Man, a unique Man, One altogether by Himself in His perfection, yet united to Deity, the Son, one blessed Person. This is a mystery none can fathom.

As Man He was descended from Adam (Luke 3:38), but without taint of sin, born of a virgin, and begotten by the Holy Ghost descended from David, of the kingly line (Matt. 1:1).

Such was the unique Person of our Lord. We bow before Him in worship and adoration. The majesty of His Godhead stands in infinite contrast to the humble part He took in manhood.

We follow His life as recorded in the four gospels with deepest interest. He healed the sick. He unstopped the ears of the deaf. He gave sight to the blind. He cleansed the loathsome leper. He raised the dead. He preached the gospel to the poor. They wondered at the gracious words that fell from His lips. The common people heard Him gladly.

But we hasten on to the end of His life. Our Lord came into this world on purpose to die.

He could not be “Jesus” (Jehovah Saviour) apart from His sacrificial death. Behold Him again and again insisting that the Son of Man must be crucified, and rise the third day. See Him in the “large upper room furnished” at Jerusalem on the night of His betrayal, gathering His loved disciples round Him, breaking the bread, speaking of His body to be given for them on the cross; handing them the cup, speaking of His precious blood, that was about to be shed.

Follow Him thence into the garden of Gethsemane. Behold Him prostrate on the ground, the cry of anguish escaping His lips,

Sweat, as it were great drops of blood, fell to the ground, so intense was the anguish of His spirit in the contemplation of the dread ordeal that lay before Him. Words are utterly inadequate to describe such a scene. It is too sacred for words.

From the garden, as betrayed by Judas Iscariot, the Lord was brought before Caiaphas, the High Priest; the day after before Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor. The Chief Priests and elders of the people, who should have been the first to have acclaimed Jesus as their long-promised Messiah, were the foremost and loudest in calling for His death.

There are two very distinct sides to the death of our Lord. First on man’s side it was the greatest travesty of justice, the blackest crime in all the annals of the world. When Pilate washed his hands before the multitude, saying,

On man’s side the blood of Christ calls for vengeance from the ground, as Abel’s did long ago. Little did the Jews realise the awful reaping they and their children and descendants for long centuries would have to face, a reaping that will yet burst forth in its final bitterness in the great tribulation yet to come.

On God’s side the cross stands as the only hope of sinful man. The death of Christ was atoning, sacrificial, redemptive, vicarious. What was the meaning of the bitter cry,

Had He not always done the Father’s good pleasure? Were not every word and deed He had spoken and done entirely acceptable to God? Nay, was not His going to the cross distinctly doing God’s will? Why, then, was He forsaken? Why, then, was He abandoned to the fierce wrath of God against sin? Was ever a martyr of God forsaken? On the contrary they were visibly supported in the hour of their agony. Why, then was our Lord forsaken? Surely because He stood in the sinner’s stead, to bear the sinner’s judgment. This was the great purport of His death. So we read:

The Lord Jesus Christ finished the work that God gave Him to do. On the cross He cried with a loud voice, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The mighty work of redemption was accomplished. The way to God in blessing was made manifest. The veil of the Temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. The rocks rent. The earth did quake. The graves of the saints were opened. God thus publicly attested His satisfaction with and acceptance of the work His blessed Son had accomplished.

They buried Him. The third day He rose again. For forty days He was on this earth after His resurrection. His apostles saw Him three times. Peter saw Him. James saw Him. Five hundred brethren at once saw Him. He ate and drank with His disciples. He convinced them that He was indeed risen from the dead. From the Mount of Olives He ascended to heaven in a cloud. Angels testified that He would return to this earth in similar manner to His leaving it.

Brief and bald as this sketch of our Lord is, sufficient has been written to show the very unique and all-important place the Lord holds in history, especially in that of the Jews. May we ask, Is He your Saviour? He died for you, and desires your trust. If you have never taken Him as your personal Saviour, why not do so now? He says,

The Present Dispensation
There cannot be a right understanding of that which pertains to God’s chosen people, the children of Israel, unless we see that a new dispensation began with the Jews’ rejection nationally of their Messiah, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those who believed on Him on the day of Pentecost.

Romans 9, 10, and 11 tells us, that in the government of God Israel is set aside, that

On the one hand judicial blindness has settled upon the Jewish nation. The gospel goes out to them as to all. If a Jew is converted today he gives up Jewish earthly hopes for heavenly hopes connected with the Church of God, but nationally they are blinded. On the other hand, “the fullness of the Gentiles” (Rom. 11:25) means that the Gospel is going out to the Gentile nations, and the present dispensation is that of the church of God upon earth.

Some have thought that “the times of the Gentiles,” spoken of by our Lord in Luke 21:24, refer to the same thing as the expression, “fullness of the Gentiles.” The former expression is political, and speaks of the dominance of the Gentile power, God thus setting the Jew aside till those times should be fulfilled. The latter expression refers to spiritual blessing. The careful reading of Romans 11 shows how the Jew is set aside, their fall being the riches of the world, and their being diminished, the riches of the Gentiles, the national branches (the Jews) being broken off, and wild branches (the Gentiles) being grafted into the olive-tree, figure of God’s blessing to His earthly people. In this respect Paul magnified his office of being Apostle to the Gentiles.

The time will come when Israel will turn to the Lord, and the veil that is on their hearts will removed.

The Destruction of the Temple
As the result of the Jews’ rejection of their Messiah, Jeremiah’s prophecy was about to be fulfilled. We read:

Towards the end of our Lord’s life upon earth, on one occasion He was looking at the wonderful Temple. He told His disciples,

We shall see how this was fulfilled.

As the result of the harsh and provocative rule of the Romans, the fanaticism of the Jews broke out in rebellion. To cope with this, Titus, son of the newly appointed Emperor Vespasian, advanced on Jerusalem at the head of an army of 100,000 trained and seasoned troops.

The city, built on two hills, and surrounded by three walls, and well provisioned, was well-nigh impregnable. But for internal fanatical factions warring against each other, Titus would probably never have effected an entrance.

Titus was, however, very anxious that the Temple, because of its magnificence and sacred association, should be preserved. He gave strict orders to his troops to this effect. Whose word then was to stand? Christ definitely prophesied its utter destruction. Titus commanded its preservation. In the eyes of the world, Christ, a Galilean peasant, was dead, and of no account. Titus was the son of the Emperor, commander of a mighty army, who could punish severely any disobedience. Whose word then was to prevail?

Thus literally was our Lord’s prophecy fulfilled that not one stone should be left upon another.

The city fell and was raised to the ground, excepting three towers and part of the wall, that might stand as a witness how great a city had been captured.

The historian Josephus has preserved a very detailed account of the siege. No less a number than 1,100,000 inhabitants were slain by the sword. Only 97,000 survived. An immense number of Jews had flocked to the ill-fated city to celebrate the Feast of the Passover, hence the large numbers involved.

The forests round Jerusalem for miles were denuded of timber in order to make crosses on which to impale the captives. Forty short years before, the Jews had erected three crosses outside Jerusalem, and on the centre cross had crucified their Messiah. Now, outside Jerusalem, were seen thousands of crosses with Jews impaled thereon. Was there no connection between the two events? Does it not show that what is sown is reaped? Surely it does. Scripture says:

The Nation Scattered
The Lord further prophesied,

After the siege of Jerusalem under Titus many Jews were deported to other lands. Thirty thousand Jews, for instance, were taken to Rome, and used by him to build the Coliseum, capable of seating 80,000 spectators.

But it was not till A.D.135 that the final dispersion of the Jews took place under the Emperor Hadrian. Bar-cochba, or “Star of the East,” as he was called, headed a rebellion, giving out that he was the long-promised Messiah. The cost of subduing this rebellion was so enormous that the Emperor vowed no Jew should be allowed to remain in Palestine. So the final dispersion took place, which has lasted over eighteen long, weary centuries.

Jerusalem has indeed been trodden under foot since those days. The Romans, the Saracens, the Turks of the Seljukian race, Egyptians, Caliphs, Latin Christians, Mamelukes, Turks of the Ottoman race, have been among the oppressors.

The nation was to be scattered. The Jews today are, indeed,
  A People Without a Country

Modernists declare the impossibility of miracles. But here is a long, drawn-out miracle under their very eyes—a miracle that cannot be gainsaid, as remarkable, and more so, as any on record, a miracle that has run its course for centuries in many lands.

It is a matter of history that the Jews were driven from their own land, and scattered among the nations. The diaspora, as the scattering was called, was a grim reality. We stand amazed at the spectacle of a people without a country, scattered in many lands, without cohesion, without a centre, surviving in spite of cruel persecutions, resisting assimilation with the countries where they sojourned. By all the laws governing such situations the Jew should have been tracelessly absorbed centuries ago. Apart from the power of God and the light Scripture throws on the subject, the Jew presents an insoluble mystery. Disliked, despised, destroyed in vast numbers, the Jew has survived and increased, marked by indomitable will, physical endurance, and racial pride.

One can understand a small beginning, gathering force as it goes, becoming mighty and imposing. Take an example. A spring, high up in the highlands, begins as a trickle, pursues its way through the dense untrodden forests of a vast land, gathers volume and force as it pursues its course, becomes a river, tributary after tributary joining the parent stream.

At a thousand miles from its mouth it is navigable to mighty steamers. At its entrance into the ocean it measures the prodigious width of two hundred miles from shore to shore. So terrific is the impact of the fresh water upon the salt water of the ocean, that the fresh refuses to mingle with the salt till seventy miles out to sea. It is possible to understand this when we reflect that the River Amazon drains an area almost as extensive as all Europe.

But the case of the Jew was just the opposite. Comparatively a remnant was driven from the land. With high courage the people wandered here and there, some in one direction, some in another. They began with a sadly attenuated remnant; this remnant was divided again and again into mere driblets. These driblets secured a precarious foothold wherever they could. They were aliens in foreign lands. Jeremiah’s prophecy was fulfilled to the letter, when God said,

Where are the Babylonians, and their mighty empire? Where are the Medes and Persians? Their world-wide empire gone, their palaces destroyed, their hanging gardens no more. Where are the Greeks? Their world-wide empire gone. The scanty remains of their civilisation seen in the ruins of the Parthenon and the Acropolis at Athens. Where are the Romans? Gone! One may see their remains in the ruined Coliseum, and ancient forums of Rome. But the Jew, the eternal Jew, the amazing Jew, older than they all, has stood the test of the centuries. Scattered and persecuted though they have been and are, they are today more numerous than in the palmy days of king Solomon.

One cannot be sure of the nationality of a Persian or a Greek, or an Italian. One cannot be sure that one can distinguish a Briton or a German, or a Frenchman. But the Jew is readily distinguished. God has put His mark upon him. What is it that enables them to be so distinguished? An undefinable something, the set of the face, the shape of the nose, the slope of the shoulders, the make-up, the expression, point out unmistakably the Jew. Scripture declares this:

Wherever the Jew went he was disliked, persecuted, harried, robbed, tortured, done to death.

France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, Holland, all witnessed cruel persecutions of the Jew. Banishment on a large scale obtained in more than one Country.

England received its share of the Jews, but in 1020 King Canute banished them from the country. They were allowed to return at the time of the Norman Conquest.

They remained in comparative peace till the reign of Richard, the Lion. The Crusades were firing the imagination of the bolder spirits. Richard put himself at the head of the movement. The Jews, wishing to ingratiate themselves, overshot the mark. With rich clothes and costly gifts, they repaired to Westminster Abbey at the coronation of the king. Was not the king about to take his army to the Holy Land to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the defiling occupation of the infidels? Here were infidels at home.

The persecution broke out. It swept over London. Not a Jewish household escaped robbery, outrage and murder. The tide passed over the capital, and enveloped the provinces, where still greater enormities were perpetrated.

York Castle witnessed the worst scene of all. Five hundred Jews had taken refuge in this fortress. Seeing that resistance could not be successful, the Chief Rabbi of York counselled that, rather than yield to their enemies, who would torture and slay them to a man, they should yield up their lives to their Creator by taking each other’s lives. The advice was taken.

During the night flames burst forth. Inside the men had slain their wives and children, then fell by each other’s sword, the less distinguished dying first, till at last the Chief Rabbi stood alone. Around him in the stillness of death lay maid and greybeard; young and old. A self-inflicted stroke, and the brave old man had joined his compatriots. The fire blazed forth in a mighty conflagration. Entrance next day was easily effected by the besiegers, only to find a heap of ashes and five hundred charred skeletons.

For one hundred years a scattered remnant maintained a precarious footing, till Edward I. drove them from the land to the number of 16,500. For four hundred years there was no trace of a Jew left in the country. Cromwell gave them permission to return. Though long under heavy disabilities, their lot gradually ameliorated, till today they receive every protection and privilege that a Briton is entitled to.

France likewise ill-treated the Jews. In 1306 not only were the Jews driven out of the country to the number of 100,000, but their possessions were confiscated and taken by the crown. Shameless robbery was perpetrated on a gigantic scale.

The kingdom felt, however, the need of their commercial ability, and in ten years they were recalled. As soon as they returned, fresh persecution broke out. The “Pastoreaux” (fanatical shepherds and evil men) made the Jews their special target, and the Jews were swept away in their thousands. The spear, the cauldron, the flame, were the instruments used in their destruction. So thorough was their terrible work that victims failed, and exhaustion fell on the persecutors.

In Germany persecution broke out at the time of the Black Death, 1348-1350. One quarter of the population were carried off by the fearful plague. The Jews were falsely suspected of poisoning the wells and springs. Confessions were wrung out of perfectly innocent people by means of subjecting them to horrible torture. The people flew on the Jews. Whole communities were destroyed. Basle expelled them. Fribourg burned them. Spires drowned them. Strasbourg burned two thousand victims upon an immense scaffold. Many anticipated their fate, set their houses on fire, and perished in the flames.

In Spain terrible events happened. In 1492 a decree was passed exiling every Jew in the land. Abarbanel, a Jew of highest position and culture, offered King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella a sum of 300,000 ducats to recall the decree. Suddenly the chief Inquisitor, Torquemada, appeared carrying a crucifix.   “Judas Iscariot,” he cried, “sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver. You wish to sell him for 300,000 ducats. Here He is,” holding the crucifix aloft, “take Him and sell Him.” His appeal settled the matter. Their Majesties would not recall the decree, nor accept the bribe.

Then an awful exodus took place. Valuable lands were sold for a piece of cloth. Fine houses were exchanged for a pair of mules. Some found their way to Morocco and Algiers, only to be sold into slavery. They were starved. Many were ripped open in case they had swallowed valuable jewels.

This very fragmentary and partial description of the terrible times the Jews went through for centuries makes us wonder that they survived at all. We have said enough to give a sample of what happened during the long years of their dispersion among the nations.

Driven into horrible ghettoes, forbidden to own land, persecuted in every way, robbed, destroyed in vast numbers, the Jew has survived, increased, amassed money, in many instances arrived at positions of great eminence and power.

Wherein lay the powers of endurance, their wonderful adaptability to their difficult circumstances and winning through? There is no race on earth like them. Their very difficulties have quickened their powers. They may have produced unpleasant traits like craft, cunning, covetousness, secrecy and the like. Is that to be wondered at?

We mention a few Jewish names of great distinction. There is the Rothschild family, millionaire bankers and financiers, operating in the capitals—London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin. Meyer was the original name of this extraordinary family. They got the German-Anglicized name Rothschild from the sign—a red shield—outside their counting house in Frankfort.

Nathan Meyer, who did much to found the fortunes of the family, was watching anxiously the battle of Waterloo on 18th June, 1815, concealed in a shot-proof nook near Hougoumont, till he saw the French army routed, and in flight. Mounting a swift horse, saddled, bridled and in readiness, he rode at a furious pace to the coast, bribed heavily a fisherman to take him over the channel, spite of stormy weather, and then galloped to London.

On June 20th, the financier and his agents quietly bought consuls, which had dropped to a low figure, for no news of what had happened at Waterloo had filtered through, and the public feared the worst. On the evening of June 21st, the government courier arrived with the news of the victory. Next day the price of consuls soared up. Meyer and his agents as quietly sold consuls. By nightfall he had gained the sum of £2,000,000 by his shrewdness.

In Separated Nation, by S. Bonhomme, we read:

Rothschild, Montagu, Sassoon, Raphael and Stern operated from London; Camondo, Fould, Perier, Bischoffsheim, from Paris; Bleichroder, Warschauer, Mendelssohn were from Berlin; Kuhn Loeb & Co., Lazard Freres and Seligman from New York. All were Jewish firms.

Columbus, the discoverer of America, had Jewish blood in his veins. Two of his expeditions were financed by Jews. Luis de Porres, the first to set foot on American soil, was a Jew.

Spinoza of Amsterdam, descended from Portuguese Jews, was a philosopher of vast intellect. Moses Mendelssohn (born 1729), the sickly hunchback German Jew, made his mark as author and philanthropist. He translated the Old Testament Scriptures into pure German, and edited a commentary on them. His grandson was the great musician and composer.

Gambetta, the leader of the Republican party in France, Lasker, leader of the Liberal party in Germany, Benjamin Disraeli, afterward Earl Beaconsfield, that most wonderful politician, leader of the Conservative party in England—all in positions of great prominence at the same time—were Jews.

Sir George Jessels, a brilliant Master of the Rolls was a Jew; Earl Reading, Lord Chief Justice of England and Viceroy of India, was a Jew.

Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle, great leaders of Socialism in Germany, were Jews. Siegfreid Marcus, a Jew, built the first internal combustion automobile, which is preserved as a priceless treasure in the Industrial Museum of Vienna. Wertheimer, who devised kindergarten as a definite system of education, was a Jew. Dr. Zamenhof, who invented Esperanto, an attempt to coin a universal language, was a Jew. Albert Einstein, the great mathematician, whose theories in that realm are so amazing as to be beyond the grasp of any but the very highest intellects, is Jew. Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. Gordon Solomon, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the introducer of saccharine, was a Jew. Dr. Ehrlich, the discoverer of salvarsan, was a Jew. Ludwig Taube, who discovered the use of digitalis in heart disease, was a Jew. Solomon Stricker, who introduced the use of cocaine in dental work, was a Jew. Mikowsky, a Jew, had a hand in introducing insulin in combatting diabetes. Two Jews, Spiro and Eilege, discovered pyramidon and anti-pyris as remedies for megrim. Oscar Liebreich discovered the use of chloral hydrate in convulsions. The Duke of Windsor consulted an ear specialist in Vienna, Professor Heinrich Neumann, a Jew. Professor Franz Haber, who produced nitrogen from the air, without which Germany would have run short of high explosives, was a Jew. Jabez Wolfe, who swam the English Channel, was a Jew.

Adolf Saphir, the famous theologian, was a Jew. So also was David Baron of missionary fame. The mother of General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was a Jewess. The appearance of her distinguished son was that of a Jewish prophet.

When the Great War broke out in 1914 the following Jews were in positions of great importance. Sir E.Goschen was British Ambassador to Germany. Henry Morgenthau was United States Ambassador to Turkey. A.Ballin was responsible for the entire transportation system of Germany, demanding the moving of vast numbers from place to place. Walter Rathenau, who organised the supply of war materials in Germany during the Great War—a colossal task—was a Jew. M.Hymann was the Belgian Ambassador to Great Britain. Dr. Bernard Von Dernburg was special Ambassador from Germany to the United States. Signor Malvano and Baron Sonnino were prominent Italian statesmen. Trotsky, Zinovieff, Litvinoff and others of sinister fame in Russia, are names well known as Jewish.

The first High Commissioner for Palestine under the British Mandate was the Rt. Hon. Sir Herbert Samuel, now Lord Samuel, who is a Jew.

The list might be indefinitely lengthened. Enough has been enumerated to show the persistence and ability of the Jewish race out of all proportion to its numbers. Is Israel not a marked nation? Can we not see the finger of God in all this?

The Country Without a People
We now come to another astounding miracle, viz.: a country bereft of its people, yet the country preserved for them through long centuries. The miracle of the people without a country being preserved through the centuries in spite of cruel and persistent persecutions on the one hand, and the ordinary process of absorption by assimilation on the other, has its equally astounding counterpart in a land preserved for the absent people for centuries. The nation scattered and the land desolate present an example of God’s intervention, the like of which is unknown in the history of the world.

If Palestine had remained with fertile soil in a high degree of cultivation, the conquerors would have seized upon the land for permanent occupation. With such a colonizing power as Rome, vast improvements would, doubtless, have been made, order would have been preserved, security of life would have been maintained, cities would have sprung up, prosperity would have been established, and in the end, as generation succeeded generation in the tenure of the land, and century succeeded century, a firmly settled community would have been the result. In such a case the Jewish nation would have had no chance of ever again occupying its land.

If you turn to Deuteronomy 11:13-17, you will get light on the problem. There God promised the people that if they honoured Him, and kept His laws, He would give them a bountiful supply of early and latter rains, the early rains falling in autumn, the latter rains in spring. In a land dependent peculiarly on its rainfall, this was a necessity for its very existence. But if the people failed to obey God, turned aside from His laws and worshipped other gods, then the rain would be withdrawn. We read:

This threat of Divine judgment has been carried out. For centuries the land once “flowing with milk and honey” has lain barren and sterile. Its vineyards and olive-yards perished. The country lapsed into a condition of utter poverty. Its very conquerors neglected it. A barren soil did not evoke interest and energy in the mind of the lazy and indolent Turk.

A century ago Sir Moses Montefiore, the great Jewish banker, resident in England, paid a visit to the Holy Land, and found only five hundred Jews living in the land in abject poverty.

A traveller told his audience in the hearing of the writer, that some forty years before, he had visited Palestine. He described how he rode on horseback from six o’clock in the morning till six o’clock at night, and did not see one single inhabited dwelling. As far as his eye could reach on either side of the rough bridle paths he traversed, nothing was to be seen but thorns and thistles rising to the height of his horse’s bridle, a scene of sorrowful desolation.

Please note the two-fold implication of this condition of things. Firstly, it was doubtless God’s judgment upon the people, who had forsaken Him, and refused their Messiah. The government of God is a very serious matter, whether it be in the case of an individual or a nation. In the case of the Jewish nation we have here a truly remarkable instance of this.

Secondly, and please make a special note of this, the government of God, visiting the land with barrenness and sterility, was the way He chose to preserve the land for the people. The rightful inhabitants being scattered, among the nations, the way to preserve the land for them was to make it undesirable to its conquerors or surrounding nations. This the scantiness of the rainfall accomplished in a very remarkable way. Indeed, one cannot imagine any other way of accomplishing this end. It is indeed the finger of God.

The People Returning to the Land
If God made promise to Abraham,

Do the Old Testament Scriptures throw light upon this? They do assuredly, for in many a glowing prophecy is the return of Judah and Israel to their own land foretold.

Let us look at a few of these Scriptures. We read:

  “Hiss” is a sharp penetrating sound to call attention, and get immediate response. The speed of the return is indicated by the girdle of their loins not being loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes untied. It is a day and night journey, no sleep or slumber allowed to hinder their progress. It is a most picturesque and dramatic way of indicating the earnestness of the return of the Lord’s ancient people to their own land.

Again we read,

Whilst the Jews and Israel will be gathered from all parts of the earth, there is a special reference made to the North country. We read:

Please remember the North is specially mentioned in connection with the return of the Jew. We shall allude to this later on.

Further, it is clear that the return of the Jew to his own land will be in unbelief, and in rejection of their Messiah.

This is clearly indicated in the following Scriptures:

The “then.” proves that it will be after they are in the land that the Lord will establish with Israel the new covenant He promised to Abraham.

Another Scripture puts it very beautifully,

What a day of blessing that will be when Israel recognises her Messiah! We now ask the question, Are these Scriptures in process of fulfilment? We can give abundant and convincing proof that it is so. Let us seek to prove our statement.

The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones
In Ezekiel 37 we get the vision of the valley of dry bones. They are described as “very dry.” The Lord asked the prophet the question, “Son of man, can these bones live?” He answered, “O LORD GOD, Thou knowest.” Then the Lord GOD tells the prophet that the bones shall live, that sinew shall come upon them, that skin shall cover them, that He will put His breath into them, and they shall live.

In vision the prophet saw the whole process taking place. The bones lived, and stood upon their feet, “an exceeding great army.”

The prophet goes on with his narrative,

Is there anything answering to this today? Events are happening that leave us in no doubt that it is so.

Nationalism or Zionism lay dormant for centuries in Jewish breasts. The condition of Jewry seemed hopeless and depressing. They could only hang up their harps, as it were, on the willows by the rivers of Babylon, and refuse to sing their songs of Zion in a foreign land.

The writer visited a synagogue lately, and beheld the worship of 900 Jews. Their singing was dirge-like and plaintive, as if there were no hope and no faith, just a dead, lifeless ritual. The question came in renewed force, “Can these dry bones live?” Looking at them, the answer would certainly be a decided no. Remembering God’s word, the answer was a glad and emphatic yes.

It was that strong national feeling that led the Jews under Zerubbabel to leave Babylon and rebuild the Temple; that stirred Nehemiah to rebuild the wall round the defenceless city of Jerusalem. It was that strong national feeling that nerved the magnificent Maccabean family in their valorous but unavailing revolt against a vastly superior power.

Encouraged, however, by better climatic conditions, some years before the first Great War broke out, and whilst the land still languished under the control of the Turk, interest began to be aroused as to the possibility of the Jew returning to his own land; and thus, stimulated after long centuries, the national spirit began to revive.

In the return of the latter rain, God was fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy of over two thousand five hundred years ago:

Most evidently God is bringing to pass events, which will enable Him to answer the Jews’ earnest request for His blessing in the day to come. At present they are returning to their land in unbelief, as prophesied by the Word of God.

In 1897 the first International Zionist conference met at Basle under the presidency of Dr. Herzl, who was in Paris when the celebrated Dreyfus trial took place. Alfred Dreyfus, an officer in the French army, of Jewish nationality, was falsely accused of selling military secrets to a foreign power. The persecution was, in reality, directed against him because of his being a Jew. It was said that the trial was not of a Jew, but the Jew. Herzl was moved to his depths and produced a book Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State), which caught on. Zionism was set in motion.

The first Congress outlined its aims:
  1. The promotion on suitable lines of the colonization of Palestine by Jewish agricultural and industrial workers.
  2. The organization and the binding together of the whole of Jewry by means of appropriate institutions, local and international, in accordance with the laws of each country.
  3. The strengthening and fostering of Jewish national settlement and consciousness.
  4. Preparatory steps towards obtaining governmental consent, when necessary, to the aims of Zionism.

In this movement we see clearly the beginning of the sinew, flesh and skin coming upon the dry bones of the house of Israel. It is a portent that allows of only one meaning. It is the beginning of the end.

The first Jewish colony began in 1870, when Charles Netter founded an agricultural school for boys at Mikweh Israel, near Jaffa, on behalf of the Alliance Israelite Universelle of Paris.

The Keren Hayesod (Palestine Foundation Fund) collected £3,000,000 in more than 60 countries in six years. In seven years it introduced 100,000 immigrants, training them, taking care of them on their journey to Palestine, landing and maintaining them in camp till they obtained occupation.

In 1883 Baron Edmond de Rothschild interested himself in the founding of an agricultural colony in Palestine. It was founded by Russian Jews. Rishon le Zion (meaning “the beginning of Zion”), covers 3,180 acres, supported a population of 1,200 before the first Great War broke out, 400,000 fruit trees were planted, and 3,000,000 vine slips imported from Spain. It has huge wine vaults, capable of storing 1,650,000 gallons. It possesses hotels, good shops, synagogues, and up-to-date schools.

Vast as this colony is, it is much smaller than Petach-Tikyah (meaning, “The Door of Hope”) founded in 1878 by Russian Jews, which covers 8,000 acres. This colony supported a population of 3,000 in 1914. Today the number has risen to 15,000. It has great irrigating works, possesses numerous schools, including one for elementary agriculture, hotels, committee buildings, concert and other halls, pleasure gardens and synagogues.

It planted thousands of eucalyptus trees to combat malaria. The colony is now very healthy.

The colony of Rehoboth has increased from 3,150 to 7,500, while the smaller agricultural colonies have greatly increased.

Up to 1914 some 14,000,000 fruit trees and vine slips were imported from foreign countries.

Vines, oranges, lemons, grape-fruit, almonds, nuts, cereals, are grown, and dairy farming is given attention to. The land, worth in 1890, £3 12s an acre, when the first Great War broke out, rose to £36 per acre, and doubtless by now is worth considerably more.

Colonies of 1,270, 1,600, 1,360, 455, 3,570, 3,250, 500, 200, 625, 1,200, 435, 250, 700 acres—some forty colonies in all—sprang up before 1914. During 1934-35 twenty-five new settlements were founded, comprising 800 families, a total of 3,000 persons approximately.

In 1900 there were 24 agricultural settlements with a population of 3,000 settlers. In 1914 there were 43 settlements with a population of 7,500 settlers. In 1936 there were 203 settlements with an estimated population of 110,000 settlers.

You may remember that we just now quoted Scripture that spoke chiefly of the return of the Jew from the North country. Here we see the fulfilment starting in real earnest.

Jews, living in affluence and wealth are not attracted to leave their comfortable homes in such countries as Great Britain, her colonies, and U.S.A. At the beginning of the movement the Palestinian colonists were largely recruited from Russia, Poland and Romania, where they were ill-treated and poor in the main. Note how the North country bulks in this, for these countries are to the North and North West of Palestine.

A story is told of a Christian referring to the King of the North and King of the South, mentioned in Daniel 11. He told his friends it was plain that France was the King of the South, as France was south of England, but he was puzzled who the King of the North could be, seeing north of Great Britain there was no land up to the North Pole.

He had forgotten that whenever geography is mentioned in the Bible, it is in relation to the land of Israel. The King of the North in Daniel 11 is Assyria; the King of the South, Egypt.

Since the first world-war, and under the enlightened mandate of Great Britain* confidence has been engendered, and a large number of fresh colonies, and of manufacturing factories have sprung into existence.

{*See postscript for events after the Mandate.}

All this is in fulfilment of a remarkable prophecy of over 2,500 years ago. We read:

Do we not see before our very eyes the fulfilment of this Scripture? Less than a hundred years ago the land was desolate, and barren and hopeless. Today it is prosperous, bursting with activity, the one bright spot with few exceptions in a world of universal depression.

The native vines had perished. With the return of the latter rains, hopes of successful cultivation revived. Hence the activity in founding these numerous agricultural colonies.

The Friend’s Witness (1912) says,

In 1869-70 the rainfall in Palestine was 12.5 inches; in 1877-8 it was 42.95 inches. Both these were exceptional years, but the tendency is remarkable. The average rainfall over a number of years was 26.0629 inches. This is higher than that which obtains in London and Berlin.

When the latter rain first reappeared after centuries of omission, an aged Jew, nearing the end of life, patriarchal in appearance, was greatly moved. With the tears streaming down his furrowed cheeks he exclaimed with ecstasy, “Jehovah has not forgotten His ancient people.”

The nature of the Palestinian soil specially calls for water. The Organ of the British Palestine Committee says,

The Turks wantonly cut down the trees of Palestine, with the exception of the olive, preserved because of its market value, though they have been largely decimated.

During the year 1934, the Jewish National Fund afforested 540 dunums (a dunum is 1,099 square yards) of waste land, bringing the total of its forests up to 6,913 dunums, on which are planted 1,500,000 trees. This does not include the King George V. Jubilee Forest. Trees such as the pine, fir, cypress, eucalyptus have been planted.

Not long before his death H.M. King George V. presented a tree from Windsor Great Park for planting in the King George V. Jubilee Forest on the Hills of Nazareth. The forest will consist of Jerusalem pines, with cypress trees forming the border paths, and will eventually cover 1,500 acres, on which 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 trees will be planted. The trees are to be obtained from nurseries in Palestine.

When a few years roll by the effect of the country being well wooded will be seen in more abundant early and latter rains, and make for increased prosperity in agriculture.

The writer prizes a label pasted in his Bible opposite Isaiah 17:10-11, as indicating the fulfilment of the prosperity contained in those verses.

A little incident may interest the reader. A friend of the writer, in the little seaside town of Minehead, Somerset, was seeking to convince a man of the truth of the Bible. He invited him to come to the shop window of a wine merchant. He opened his Bible, and pointed to the prophecy (Isa. 17:10), over 2,500 years old, and then to the labels on a row of wine bottles, bearing an inscription that the wine contained in the bottles was made from grapes grown in Palestine, from vines raised from slips imported from Portugal. All those long centuries this verse awaited its fulfilment. It took centuries to bring this about, for the native vines had to die out before the necessity for importing vine slips from a foreign country arose.

This was brought about, first by the withdrawal of the latter rains, and then through their restoration by the hand of God.

The Great War breaking out in 1914 gave a big setback for the moment to the prosperity of Palestine. In the end it turned out to its great advantage, delivering the country from the thraldom of that backward country, Turkey. Under the mandate of Great Britain an opportunity for developing was given as never before.

Turkey sided with Germany in the war, and attacked Egypt. Her troops marched through Palestine and the Sinaitic desert, having for their objective the Suez Canal, a vital possession for Great Britain, this great highway to India and Australia. To secure this waterway, it was necessary to repel the attack, and to clear the Turk out of Palestine, and so erect a buffer state between hostile countries and the Suez Canal. Hence the Palestine campaign.

The whole story is amazing. Why should Great Britain have possession of India and an interest in the Suez Canal? Why should Turkey attack Egypt? Why should all these things fit in their place and order? As far as God’s scheme goes, put one event out of its place, and you have chaos. At the back of all these events we have God’s plan for the Jew, and for His beloved Son, and for the blessing of the world. The setting of the whole story is marvellous.

Never will the writer forget the solemn thrill of the moment when he heard one dark, rainy night, the newspaper boy crying out the news, “Capture of Jerusalem.” He turned to his companion and said, “Then the coming of the Lord must be very near.”

It is a very striking fact that before Jerusalem was captured, Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, later Earl Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, should write a letter to Lord Rothschild, in which he stated the decision of the British Government to do all that lay in its power for the settlement of the Jewish people as a nation in their own land.

To announce this decision before Palestine had been freed from the Turk seemed like counting chickens before they were hatched. But there was a remarkable reason for this. The British Army and Navy were dangerously deficient in high power explosives. Germany had a great advantage in this respect. Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a professor of chemistry connected with Owen’s College, Manchester, came to the Government, and offered to put them in possession of some wonderful formulas for the manufacture of high explosives. He was asked what reward he wished for this priceless help at a critical moment. His patriotic reply was, all he cared for was that the Jews might be allowed to have a national home in Palestine.

Hence Mr. Balfour’s announcement on behalf of the British Government. Since then Dr. Weizmann has been very influential at the head of a Zionist Committee in furthering the desire of his heart.

The Jew hailed this declaration with delirious delight. It was likened to that of Cyrus, King of Persia, which allowed the Jews to return under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Ezra. It was described as a new birth.

Then again it was British interest in certain oil fields being threatened that led to the Mesopotamian expedition. Britain received a mandate for Iraq as a result of that successful campaign. Recently, however, Iraq has been considered strong enough to manage her own affairs, and the Mandate has terminated. But one point should be carefully noted. The Turk no longer rules in that land.

The question is often asked as to how the little strip of country we call Palestine will be able to accommodate and sustain the large numbers which will flock to it in the last days, and the vast increase of population which will take place during the peaceful years of the Millennium. Palestine is a little country roughly about 150 miles long by 50 miles broad. The answer is that Palestine is only a small portion of

The Promised Land
Let Scripture tell us what its boundaries are. We read,

{*There appear to be two southern boundaries, called “The River of Egypt.” In apportioning Canaan on its conquest by Joshua, the southern boundary of Judah was ‘The River of Egypt.’ The word for river in Joshua 15:4 is “Nachal,” a dividing brook in a valley; and clearly indicates a little stream in the south of the land of Israel, which was so named. But in Genesis 15:18-21 is given the boundary, not of the territory actually occupied by the children of Israel, but of the Promised Land, a territory of much greater extent. Here the southern boundary is “the River of Egypt.” The word for river is “Nahar,” the ordinary word for river, and not “Nachal,” meaning a little stream, and evidently refers to the Nile, the great Egyptian river. So vast, it appears, will be the extent of the Promised Land.}

The Promised Land, never yet occupied, will form a magnificent country, covering an area of about 200,000 square miles, greater in area than any European country save Russia, and capable of supporting a population of 100,000,000 people. By way of comparison the area of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is 93,030 square miles; its population about 46,000,000.

The Palestine and Mesopotamia expeditions have done much to clear the way for the occupation of this vast territory when the time comes. The combination of the two expeditions is amazing as we look at them in the light of prophecy, and what is yet to take place.

The writer was shown in an English town the photograph of a young soldier, who fell in battle in Palestine, and was buried on the Mount of Olives. How vividly it brought before the mind the most extraordinary chain of events that is fulfilling Scripture.

When the Jews returned to their land from Babylon in 536 B.C., we are told in Ezra 2 that the number was little short of 50,000. Up to the end of 1936 there were 384,000 Jews in Palestine, forming 28 percent of the population. In addition there is the birthrate in Palestine to be reckoned with. We can see none other than the finger of God in all this. Some 200,000 Jews in addition are settled in Mesopotamia. It is significant seeing that Mesopotamia, right up to the Euphrates, is to be part of the Promised Land, that the Jews are already settling in large numbers in that region. They go back in unbelief, and little do they realize that these migrations have the hand of God behind them. This will be seen clearly in a future day. The whole thing is working out to plan.

What has led to large numbers of Jews wishing to return to their own land, is that
the unexpected has happened.

How true this is in this case! The extraordinary wave of anti-Semitism that has swept over Germany, having its repercussions all over the world is an example of this. There is some reason for this, as Rosanoff, a Russian writer, in Fallen Leaves, points out. He says:

The Jew’s very ability to get a stranglehold on finance, the professions, legal, medical and educational, the ordinary avenues of commerce, is his own undoing. The Jew is undoubtedly being very badly treated, but his great ability to get to the top of affairs, and thrust out the Gentile, is the secret in some measure of anti-Semitism.

Hitler’s harsh decrees against the Jews in a night altered the whole complexion of things. The world was staggered. Trains and steamers were packed with Jews fleeing from the country. Professional men, lawyers, doctors, professors, teachers, merchants, manufacturers, their only crime being that they were of Jewish blood, were ruined at a stroke. Many committed suicide.

The effect of Hitler’s action was seen, in that whilst 5,000 Jews immigrated in 1932, in the first half of 1933 no less than 15,000 Jews returned to Palestine, making 30,000 or more for the whole year. Six times as many Jews returned in 1933 as in 1932. Poland, which was outside the range of Hitler’s decrees, had three times as many return in 1932, as compared with 1931.

The misery and destitution of 3,000,000 Jews in Poland is even worse than used to be the case with their brethren in Germany, bad as that was. Since the British occupation 100,000 have emigrated to Palestine, and hundreds of thousands are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to follow them.

Just as Spain in the times of the Inquisition drove the Jews into Holland, to the impoverishment of Spain and the enrichment of Holland, so Germany and Poland are impoverishing themselves by their short-sighted policy of driving the Jews out of their lands into Palestine, the only spot on God’s earth they have a right to.

The following striking extract from a leading journal, shows the effect of Hitler’s action, and how it is assisting the fulfilment of Scripture prophecy of the return of the Jews to their own land. It also shows how no country can with impunity persecute God’s ancient people.

Indeed all over Europe Jews are unsettled. It is stated by a distinguished Jew, Dr. B.H.Shein, that no less than 3,000,000 Jews in Germany, Poland, Russia, Romania and other European countries are eager to settle in Palestine. But for Hitler’s decrees the return of the Jews might have continued at a comparatively slow rate. Now the numbers are greatly increased and will, doubtless, increase still more rapidly.

Since writing the above, things have greatly worsened. Blind unreasoning hatred of the Jew has burst forth in greater volume and violence than ever. One can scarcely believe it possible that the land of the glorious Reformation, the home of Martin Luther, could witness such frightful atrocities.

The Manchester Guardian Weekly (Nov. 25th, 1938), tells us that in the recent Nazi pogrom against the Jews, as the result of a young Nazi diplomat, Von Rath, being murdered by a young Jewish lad, driven mad by the tortures his parents endured, 9,000 to 10,000 Jews were arrested in Berlin alone. About 35,000 to 40,000 have been arrested in all Germany, not including Austria and Sudetenland. It is learned from a sure source that 70 Jews were executed in the Buchenwald camp on the night of Nov. 8th-9th, that is to say, before the death of Von Rath. Further executions followed to the number of 200 in that one camp.

Innumerable Jews wander about the forests, and wealthy Jews will spend all their time in the trains, wandering from place to place seeking to elude capture.

In Berlin alone 3,000 Jewish shops and stores were destroyed by organised gangs. Some 166 synagogues and temples have been destroyed. Jewish schools have shared the like fate. Homes and institutes for the poor, the aged and the sick have been destroyed. A large Jewish children’s home at Caputh, near Berlin, was demolished by an organised gang. Consumptive patients at Soden were driven out during the night, and their home demolished. Much more could be narrated, but this will suffice to indicate the horrible character of unreasonable hate against the Jews.

Not only so, the German Government imposed a fine of a thousand million marks upon the whole Jewish community, a sum amounting to £83,000,000. Field-Marshal Goering at the same time, with a refined cruelty, ordered the Jews to repair all their damaged property, and all insurance claimed by them to be confiscated by the State. After January 1st, 1939, no Jew is allowed to own or manage any business or pursue any handicraft. The sum total effect of such treatment will be to completely strip them of their money, property, and even personal jewellery, and deprive them of every means of livelihood. Little wonder that thousands of Jews have committed suicide. All this helps to drive Jews to Palestine.

And, thank God, many Jews are finding their Messiah in their utter misery.

Another very striking example of how God makes the wrath of man to praise Him is seen in the great exodus of Jews from Russia to the United States of America at the close of the nineteenth century, and beginning of the twentieth.

In 1881 in Russia, the good Czar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor sought to allay the revolutionary unrest at that time, by persecuting the Jews. Organised massacres or pogroms, as they were called, set in, especially between 1903-1906. The world was appalled, but the Czar and his counsellors took no notice of any expostulations. Between 1881-1906 hundreds of thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands fled the country, the most going to the United States of America. One million Jews found an asylum in that land. Over four million Jews live in the United States, 2,000,000 living in New York alone, the largest Jewish city in the world. It is said that one out of every three inhabitants in New York is a Jew. New York is satirically nick-named “Jew S.A.,” a play on the initials U.S.A.

Many prominent bankers, financiers, manufacturers are Jews. It is estimated that there are 250 Jewish millionaires in the States. Poor in Russia, they have amassed vast wealth in the States, and are now in a position to help their poorer brethren to settle in their own land, and are doing so. Vast sums of money have been subscribed to this end. God saw that the poor, persecuted, penniless Jews would need substantial funds wherewith to migrate and settle in Palestine, so He allowed persecution to drive them out of Russia to settle in a land where they could prosper. The time thus came when the rich Jews in America and elsewhere were able to help their poor oppressed brethren.

Perhaps it will be useful at this stage to show how the Jews were distributed over the world in 1938.   This list of countries is, of course, by no means a complete one.

Return of the Jews to Palestine
The official census in 1922 amounted to 757,000 persons, including Arabs and Jews.

Report of the Census of Palestine, 1931, a Government production, tells us that 4,000 enumerators were employed in taking it, and that the population that year was 1,036,000, including over 66,000 nomads. Of that number nearly 100,000 were Jews, and the number is rapidly increasing. The great majority of the inhabitants are Arabs, who are Moslems in their faith. Nearly 100,000 inhabitants profess the Christian faith. Every year the Jew is increasing much faster than any other section of the country.

The Government estimate of the population in December, 1936, was 1,367,000 persons. In fourteen years the Jewish population has grown from 84,000 to the amazing number of 384,000 persons. And before the printer’s ink is dry this number will be increased, rolling up like a mighty wave of the sea.

The following table will show how the population is increasing by leaps and bounds:

As to Tel-Aviv, the population is growing amazingly, showing an absolutely abnormal increase. It is a Hebrew city sprung up on the outskirts of Jaffa, the Joppa of the Bible. In 1909 some sixty Jewish families, living in Jaffa, decided to build a small residential suburb on the still clean dunes, where they could live under European conditions, not available in Jaffa. By 1914 the population numbered 2,000. Today it has risen to the amazing number of 150,000 souls. The building activity of this remarkable city is most strikingly exemplified by the fact that in 1929 it covered 28,710 square metres built upon, in 1933 the area covered had risen to 353,322 square metres, an enormous increase.

It has well-built houses, handsome promenades, numerous schools, synagogues, hospitals, clinics, hotels, 1,000 factories and workshops, all lit and run by electricity. It has a fine water supply. Its beach is the Margate of Palestine. It is administered wholly by Jews. Pure Hebrew is its language.

So far, Tel-Aviv has been dependent on the nearby port of Jaffa. However, when the Arab domination of Jaffa called for a strike lasting a considerable period, Tel-Aviv determined to have a port of its own. A magnificent port has been constructed. Breakwaters, docks, quays, wharves have been made. About 1,500 men were engaged, all Jewish labour.

In April, 1938, the new port came into operation when the first passengers were allowed to land from liners. Equipment necessary for disinfection, rigid health inspection under quarantine regulations have been prepared. Tel-Aviv is an outstanding miracle, a magnificent monument to the grit, energy and determination of the Jewish race.

Haifa, nestling at the foot of Mount Carmel, where Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal nearly three thousand years ago, has a great future before it. When the Turks left it in 1918 it had a population of 25,000. Today it has 100,000, and is still growing, climbing Mount Carmel, thrusting north towards Acre, and south toward the Plain of Sharon. It is expected to rival Alexandria. The warehouse accommodation of this new port is already too small. The place is bursting with energy. A wonderful harbour has been recently completed, consisting of a breakwater one and a half miles long, and a lee breakwater of half a mile long, with an entrance 600 feet wide and 40 feet deep, at a total cost of £1,257,270.

The area of sheltered water within the breakwaters is approximately 300 acres, and already it is not large enough to meet the demand made upon it.

Jewish doctors, lawyers, professors, driven out of Germany by Hitler’s refined cruelty, may be seen driving motor buses, taxicabs, working on the wharves, etc.

The Crown Colonist (an official organ) says under date of November, 1933,

During 1936 the Iraq Petroleum Co. poured 3,900,000 tons of crude oil through its pipeline from Kirkuk Oilfields, Iraq to Haifa; up to November of that year Haifa harbour consigned 1,760,396 tons of oil, valued at £1,458,312 (at an arbitrary value of 16/- a ton). The Iraq-Mediterranean pipe line is 1,150 miles in length, weighs 123,000 tons and cost £10,000,000, and was completed in the record period of two years. British, French, American and Dutch interests are concerned in this enterprise, which has its links in no less than five Eastern territories. It is a wonderful achievement. Aeroplanes guard the pipe from the hostile activities of the Arabs by constant patrolling.

An oil refinery is being constructed outside Haifa to handle the output of the Mosul oilfields. It will cover an area of 150 to 175 acres, and will handle 2,000,000 tens of crude oil per annum. Several million pounds will be expended on this enterprise.

A recent writer in one of our London papers pointed out that oil rules the world; that the Government which controls the oilfields of the world will control the nations.

Russia has her own oil-fields, but if she could control the pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq to Haifa she would be able to deprive the rest of Europe of its supply of oil, and consequently of its petrol, thus holding up the machinery of war. Moscow could cripple her enemies if she could seize Palestine.

This coupled with the immense wealth of the Dead Sea, and the prosperity and wealth the Jews will have in Palestine, will prove an irresistible appeal to the covetousness of Russia.

We find this prophesied of Gog and Magog (Russia) in Ezekiel 38.

The new Egyptian Air Lines (Misr Airwork) service has been introduced between Haifa and Jericho, and on to Cairo and Port Said, affording a considerable reduction in travelling distance and time between Palestine and Egypt.

To show how the country is advancing at a rate that cannot be kept pace with, the Jewish Agency for Palestine reports that during 1934-35:

A lover of Israel writes:

We venture to add an article culled from a leading London paper:

On June 10th, 1932, the first Jordan Hydro-Electric Power Station was inaugurated. Connected with it are two sub-stations at Haifa and Tel-Aviv, from which electric power is distributed to all parts of the country with the exception of Jerusalem, which is served by a different company.

The following table will show at a glance the way electricity is advancing in use by leaps and bounds:

A third power station has now been installed. A large dam is built across the Jordan at Degania, which regulates the height of the water in the sea of Galilee. Five million tons of water will be available every day throughout the wet and dry seasons.

In the first week of 1936 Jerusalem began to receive a much improved water supply from a newly-built reservoir at Ras-el-Ain, pumped through 38 miles of pipe.

The Palestinians have called Jerusalem “the city of the past,” Tel-Aviv “the city of the present,” and Haifa “the city of the future.”

Since the first great war, up to 1931, no less than 15,550 new buildings had been erected at Jerusalem.

A magnificent University, unique in its site, its language, its membership and its destiny, has been erected on Mount Scopus, a spur of the Mount of Olives. Its inauguration on April 1st, 1925, by Earl Balfour, in the presence of Lord Allenby, when Jews from all parts of the world gathered for the event, was a scene of indescribable enthusiasm. It is attracting a fine teaching staff and students from all over the world. The Hebrew National University Library contains 250,000 volumes. It has many valuable works on its shelves.

Mr. Norman Bentwich, in Overseas, writes of the University:

With the assistance of special funds placed at its disposal by various organisations and individuals, the University has been able to create a number of new posts in favour of Jewish scientists, driven out of Germany, among their number, we understand, being Albert Einstein, the famous mathematician.

It looks as if a School of Medicine were on the way. On October 14th, 1934, the foundation stone of a University Hospital was laid on Mount Scopus in close proximity to the University buildings.

It is intended to create in connection with it a Post-Graduate School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. In addition the University has received a large endowment for the establishment of a Cancer Research Institute.

Jerusalem boasts of a fine Government House, an imposing Y.M.C.A., the gift of an American Jew, and inaugurated by the late Lord Allenby, costing £400,000. Magnificent bank buildings, churches, imposing hotels, have transformed the whole place. The magnificent King David Hotel cost £250,000 to build and equip. The General Post Office cost £120,000. Jerusalem is the seat of an English bishopric. The Archaeological Museum, erected at a cost approximately of £400,000, on the site of the camp occupied by King Edward VII, when as Prince of Wales he visited Palestine, is the gift of John D. Rockfeller, junior.

Yet another city is arising on the shores of the blue Mediterranean between Haifa and ancient Acre. Its name is Emek Zebulun, and it has been designed by Professor Patrick Abercombie, the famous Scottish town-planner.

The patriarch Jacob gathered his sons to his dying bed and uttered this prophecy,

Behold, three-and-a-half millenniums pass by, and this prophecy is being fulfilled under our very eyes. Emek Zebulun may rival its older neighbours, Jaffa, Haifa, Tel-Aviv, and even Marseilles and Alexandria.

Louis Katin writes:

The well-known Barclays Bank has branches at Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tel-Aviv, Haifa, Acre, Nablus (the ancient Samaria), and Nazareth, where our Lord was brought up. The Anglo-Palestine Bank, and the Banco di Romi are also well represented. You can go into the Bank at Jerusalem and make your enquiries in English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Yiddish, Hebrew, and you will get a reply. Over a score of languages are spoken in Jerusalem.

The following extract is interesting:

The increasing development and prosperity of Palestine are so amazing; the number of Jews clamouring for admission to the only part of God’s earth they have a title to, is so great, that already eyes are looking across the insignificant but historical river of Jordan to Trans-Jordan, as a country into which, to overflow.

This is in keeping with prophecy, for the Promised Land stretches far in that direction.

At present Trans-Jordan is governed by a native Emir, assisted by a British Resident. It is practically an Arab country, covering about 90,000 square kilometres, backward, poor, the home of mostly nomadic Bedouins to the number of about 320,000.

Palestine is bursting with energy. Price of land is soaring. In Trans-Jordan land is plentiful and cheap and capable of great development, both agriculturally and in minerals.

In a recent letter to The Times, Lord Melchett, a very prominent Jewish financier, discussing the necessity of expansion, wrote:

Indeed, whichever way we look at things, one sees the most amazing fulfilment of Scripture, and everything pointing to the near coming of our Lord to reign upon the earth. The rapture must take place before that day comes, the bright Morning Star must appear for His heavenly people before the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings. Our Lord may shout His summoning shout at any moment. May that moment of glad surprise be hastened. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Rev. 22:20).

“A Flourishing and Expanding Agriculture”
We have already described how agricultural colonies began before the war, and have greatly extended since the war. Now there are over 200 colonies in this little land of Israel. We will now add a few statistics to show how the industry is progressing by leaps and bounds.

Less than a century ago there was not a single orange grove in the country, nor apparently likely to be one. The rainfall, after centuries of scantiness, became more bountiful, the direct hand of God.

In 1915 the area of orange groves in Palestine covered 30,000 dunums. At the close of 1935 they reached the amazing area of 295,000 dunums. Within four years the area had nearly trebled, and during two decades it had increased practically tenfold. Indeed it is impossible to keep pace with the speed with which things are going.

The following table gives a vivid idea of the progress of Palestine’s citrus exports of boxes, each weighing about 70lbs.

This last item is valued at £P3,873,230. Haifa handled 3,531,672 cases in 1936, as against 1,372,169 in, 1935.

Think of the wood needed for a million boxes and the tons of nails necessary. Reckoning that ten boxes require one pound of nails, 10,000,000 boxes would require more than 450 tons of nails. Think of the army of men, boys and women needed to handle such a huge output, the number of steamers required to carry it to foreign countries.

The cultivation of grape-fruit, though much smaller than that of the Jaffa orange, is showing signs of considerable increase. In 1928 there were exported 1,950 cases, in 1932 the number had risen to 150,000 cases; in 1934-35 the crop is estimated at 1,250,000 cases. Grapes, almonds, bananas, melons, cereals, linseed, sugar-cane, nuts, stone-fruit, vegetables, are all cultivated with varying degrees of success. The first shipment of 10,000 cases of wines and spirits to the United States since the war has just been made.

In 1935 45,000 tons of olives, 29,000 tons of grape, 11,000 tons of figs, 69,000 tons of melons were exported.

For the first time during 2,000 years, King David’s flag is flown on Jewish vessels. A steamer was berthed at Southampton, manned by an all-Jewish crew, flying the new national flag of Palestine at the stern. The vessel, The Emmanuel, belongs to Jaffa and is intended to trade along the coast of Palestine. The “Zebulon” Palestine Seafaring Society has lately been formed with schools at Haifa and Tel-Aviv, where youths are trained in seamanship, boat-building and life-saving.

A group of German Jews, under the leadership of Mr. Arnold Bernstein, a well-known shipowner of Hamburg, has formed the Palestine Shipping Co., Ltd., with a capital of £P60,000, to run a service between Palestine and Europe. Every two weeks the S.S. Tel-Aviv, a 10,000 ton vessel manned by a Jewish captain and crew runs between Haifa and Trieste.

Palestine is now served by American, French, Italian, Polish, Romanian and Russian passenger boats, which ply between Haifa and Jaffa and European and American ports.

Education
The number of pupils in Jewish schools in the year 1934-35 was 44,829, which represents an increase of 7,418 over the previous year. The total budget of the Jewish schools within the jurisdiction of the Va’ad Leumi (Jewish General Council) amounted to £194,242. The Jewish Agency contributed £20,000, the Government £26,632, the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association £4,988, and the Jewish community, in the form of tuition fees, contributions of town and village councils, and education rates, £142,622.

Things are advancing by leaps and bounds and speak for themselves.

Nothing so spectacular as the ordinary revival of Palestine has ever occurred in the history of the world. Surely none but the blind, and those who will not see, can fail to observe the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s God-given vision of “the valley of dry bones.” The history of the Jews is the unassailable proof of the inspiration of Scripture, the evidence that God is behind ten thousand things that are ordered by Him for the furtherance of His all-wise designs for the blessing of mankind. It requires the reader to sit down and think long and carefully over this matter. The whole affair is perfectly amazing. Scripture presents it in a plain, quiet manner, challenging our attention to it by the logic of facts. Things are rapidly moving to the finish. The rapture of the Church must surely be very imminent. The kingdom of our Lord as Messiah—the King of the Jews—and as King of kings and Lord of lords, as the Son of Man with universal reign, draws near.

The Dead Sea
Take any book dated a few years back, describing Palestine, and you will find the Dead Sea spoken of as a veritable sea of death. No fish swims in its super-salted and chemically impregnated water. No vegetation grows on its shores. Desolation reigns supreme. It lies in a deep cauldron, surrounded by high cliffs of bare and grim limestone rock, rising on its western shore to a height of 1,500 feet, and on its eastern shore to 2,000 feet.

A traveller, Lamartine, wrote concerning the Dead Sea:

The River Jordan (the name meaning Descender) flows down the deepest gash on the face of the earth, until its waters flow into the Dead Sea at a depth of 1,290 feet beneath the level of the sea. The distance from the Lake of Galilee to the Dead Sea as the crow flies is 60 miles, but the windings of the river increase its length to 200 miles. The Dead Sea has no outlet. It is a mysterious sea. It is believed that the city of Sodom, overwhelmed by a shower of fire and brimstone, was in this neighbourhood, and that the waters of the Dead Sea cover its site. The Arabs still call it “Bahar Lot” (the Sea of Lot) in remembrance of Lot, who lived in the neighbourhood. It is no mean sheet of water, being 47 miles long and 10 miles broad at its widest part, and a maximum depth of 7,300 feet. Its cliffs are of wonderful colours, pink and red predominating, and there are mountains of rock salt, containing awe-inspiring gorges.

Centuries roll by. The fabulous wealth of the Dead Sea lies imprisoned in its waters, unsuspected by the generations that have gone. But just when Palestine is in need of wealth to cope with the inrush of the new population that is clamouring for admission, the Dead Sea is discovered to be a veritable sea of life, containing untold wealth in the shape of fertilizing minerals.

Dr. Thomas H. Norton, Editor of Chemicals, computes the chemical value of the Dead Sea at the amazing figure of £253,000,000,000. This would be difficult to prove or calculate. That wealth has lain there undeveloped for long centuries. Now at the opportune moment it is discovered.

It is computed that its mineral wealth is as follows:

Under the heading
The Dead Sea Alive Again,
we read,

The Palestine Potash Company is operating a concession from the Government, situate on the north-west side of the Dead Sea, covering an area of some 500 acres. The concession expires in the year 2025. It has vast evaporating pans and dykes, factories for treating the salts, power-house, pumping station, dwellings for their work people, capable of accommodating 500 families. At present the company is producing potash salts for fertilizing, and bromide, which is used in the manufacture of dyes and drugs. These chemicals are being produced at the rate of 30,000 tons of potash and 1,300 tons of bromine a year. By their concession they are permitted to extract up to 100,000 tons of potash annually.

The brine is pumped into the evaporating pans by a suction pipe laid on the bottom of the sea to a depth of 175 feet. Soundings have proved that at this depth the water contains twice as much potash and bromine as on the surface. The pipe line is 2,500 feet long, 30 inches diameter, and the laying of it was no light task.

As the ground at the northern end of the lake is limited, the Palestine Potash Company acquired about 23 square miles of ground at the southern end of the lake. This settlement is at the base of Jebel Usdum, a mountain of rock-salt, six miles long, 500 feet high and from one to one-and-a-half miles wide.

At the end of two seasons’ toil, evaporating pans varying in extent from seven-and-a-half to 30 acres, were in operation, and potash was being sent in specially built barges to the northern end of the sea for shipment to Europe. The water is here taken from the surface. The company believe with their southern plant working at full capacity they will be able to export 100,000 tons of potash a year, and other salts in proportion.

These valuable salts are continually increasing. They are brought down by the Jordan from the hot springs of Tiberias, which Herod the Great patronised as recorded by Josephus, to the extent of approximately 40,000 tons of potassium chloride yearly. There are also hot chemical springs at the southern end of the Dead Sea. Can we not see the hand of God storing up all this wealth? The sea having no outlet, these chemical riches remain and have accumulated for centuries. Being about 1,300 feet beneath the level of the sea gives it a tropical climate. At the southern end of the sea the thermometer rises as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade in the summer months. During these months the workers are sent away for a week’s respite every fourth week.

The Company recently received a large order from one of the great Powers for the supply of bromides, which will keep the plant running at full capacity for a considerable length of time. The order is said to be connected with intensive armament preparations now being carried on by nearly every nation.

The Birmingham section of the British Industries Fair recently booked an order for a salt-extraction plant to be made by a Rotherham firm.

No living creature is found in the Dead Sea because of its intense saltness, which stands at 25 percent compared to 3½ percent in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Dead Sea to be Healed
We have a remarkable prophecy in Ezekiel 47:8-10, telling us what will happen by miraculous interposition. A river in the millennial age is to issue from the east threshold of the Temple, flowing south, breaking into two streams, one to the west finding its outlet in the Mediterranean, the other flowing eastward into the Dead Sea. We read:

Again we read:

We append an interesting extract from The Crown Colonist (April, 1934):

Indeed, this being so, a watering place Kallia by name, has risen on the shores of the Dead Sea. A modern Lido has sprung up. Two to three thousand visitors, have been catered for at one time. Pavilions, restaurants, concerts, entertainments, are found there of recent months. You may dine in the open under electric light, watching the bathers, as many as five or six hundred can be seen in the water at one time during the period of full moon. You may look upon Mount Nebo opposite, the towering mountain peak from which Moses viewed the Promised Land over fourteen centuries before our Lord was born. You may travel by motor bus or char-a-banc from Jerusalem, a matter of 23 miles each way, the homeward journey involving a steep uphill climb. The ancient and the modern are found side by side in a striking way.

The wealth of the Dead Sea undiscovered for centuries, now available at this particular moment when its vast possibilities can be utilised for the development of the country, is so striking that one can only see in it the finger of God.

We turn now to the ethical aspect of things. The important question is,

What is the Jewish Attitude to Christ Today?
Is there any change in the Jewish attitude to the Son of God? Is there any softening in the asperity that has marked the orthodox Jew for centuries? It is well-known that a Jew becoming a Christian generally means exciting the deadliest hatred on the part of his nearest relatives. His own mother would spit in his face, and pluck the hair off the cheek of her own son, if he dared to embrace the faith of the hated Nazarene. His name would be removed from the family register by the hand of his own father. Henceforth his name must not pass the lips of any member of his family. He would be treated as if he had never been born.

Is there any change in the Jewish attitude to Christ today? We believe there is to some extent and this is one of the promising signs of the present time. Whichever way we look, the signs all conspire to the fulfilling of Scripture, whether it be the return of the Jew in numbers to his ancient land, the wonderful development of the country, the wave of anti-semitism, centring for the moment in Germany, or the attitude of the Jew to Christ.

Ethically and spiritually there are signs, faint though they may be at the moment, that a change is coming over the Jew in his attitude to Christ. In some quarters there is no longer the rabid intolerance that existed for so many centuries. The Jewish schools in Palestine have begun to teach the scholars The Life of Jesus. One day recently the Haifa Bible sold over fifty Hebrew New Testaments and fifteen Greek New Testaments to Jewish lads. When asked why Greek New Testaments were required, they replied, “We must study these matters in the original.” There is a strong tendency to look upon Christ as the nation’s most wonderful prophet and to become acquainted with His life.

A.M.Boys writes:

A Temporary Setback
Things in Palestine have taken on a serious turn in the persistent terrorism the Arabs were indulging in. When the Jews first began to immigrate in numbers the Arabs were leaving the country in considerable numbers. The Jews, however, most heroically began to make the desert blossom like the rose, and prosperity began to return. This encouraged the Arabs to remain. The majority of Arabs wish to live peaceably with the Jews, but bands of terrorists roamed about the country, murdering, bomb-throwing, blowing up railways, and generally speaking throwing the country into disorder and stagnating trade, etc. The following table shows the effect of all this:

Till these disorders began revenue exceeded expenditure, but in 1937-38 expenditure exceeded revenue at approximately £P2,417,000, reducing the accumulated surplus balance to approximately £P2,418,000 at the end of March, 1938.

To cope with these disorders more and more contingents of British troops went to Palestine, and stern measures were taken to bring terrorism to an end.

We append an interesting extract from The Crown Colonist (August, 1938):

The idea of partitioning Palestine into three states—a Jewish, an Arab, and a Mandated Territory, the latter comprising Jerusalem and the sacred sites—has been found to be unworkable, and fresh plans are being formulated. One thing we are assured of, God’s plans for His ancient people will assuredly be carried out, and no Arab terrorism will frustrate His purposes.

The wonderful day of Israel’s blessing will surely come. God promised it to Abraham, and He never fails to fulfil His word. How graphically and beautifully this is prophesied in the Scriptures:

Then shall the great day of atonement be kept rightly and truly for the first time since the death of Christ; not anticipatively as in the Old Testament; but as commemorative of that wonderful redemptive death on Calvary’s cross, through which alone they will come into blessing.

The Coming Years
A recent writer speaks of the future with great apprehension, and well he may. The world is surely and swiftly heading for the rapids. Soon the headlong plunge will be made. The signs of the times, the events that Scripture leads us to expect, happening with bewildering rapidity before our very eyes, are multiplying on every hand. Surely the coming of the Lord is very near. How welcome will be the summoning shout of our Lord when He comes to take His Church out of the scene of coming earthly desolations and judgments.

The Future of the Jew
To rightly understand what the future of the Jew will be according to Scripture, it will be necessary to observe the setting of things as presented in the Bible.

There will be three great confederacies, foretold in Scripture, which will dominate the last days:
  1. The Revived Roman Empire (Western Confederacy). (Rev. 13:1-10).
  2. Gog and Magog and the King of the North. (Northern Confederacy). (Ezek. 38:1-7; 39:1-16; Dan. 8:23-25; 11:40-45).
  3. The Kings of the East. (Eastern Confederacy). (Rev. 16:12).

Our first enquiry must be concerning the revived Roman Empire. Seeing this Empire has such an intimate connection with the Jew, it will be well to show at some length how it will be revived, and come into prominence in the last days.

We have seen already that it answers to the fourth great world-empire, visualised in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as the legs of iron, and feet and toes of mingled iron and clay; and in Daniel’s dream as a fourth beast, “dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly.”

Revelation 13:1-10 gives us a brief sketch of this famous empire. It aroused the wonder of the world. Its legions subjugated and conquered vast tracts of territory. But pride, luxury, licentiousness, debauchery enervated and ruined this wonderful empire.

About A.D.476 the Huns and Goths, terrible and unalloyed savages, burst the bonds of their own lands, crossed the Alps, descended into the plains of Lombardy, reached Rome, captured and sacked it, and from that hour the Roman Empire ceased to exist. The head—imperial power—received its deadly wound.

For a millennium and a half the shattering of the Roman Empire was complete. The Jewish nation is scattered. The Christian era runs its course, soon, we believe, to be terminated by the rapture, by the summoning shout of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

But Scripture foretells that the deadly wound will be healed, and that the world will wonder after the beast. Are there any signs that this event is taking place? Let us indicate a few historical events pointing in this direction.

Belgium, originally in the Roman Empire, formed one kingdom with the Netherlands. In 1830 that country broke away from its partnership with the Netherlands. The latter country was not in the Roman Empire. It was allied to the Teutonic race, as the Belgians were to the Latin race. Mons, so well known in the first world war, was the winter quarters of Julius Caesar long centuries ago. The Netherlands aimed to bring the Belgians back to their allegiance. France, however, declared herself in sympathy with the aspirations of the Belgians, and unwillingly the Netherlands were obliged to acquiesce in the Belgians becoming a separate nation under a German prince, King Leopold, an uncle of Queen Victoria.

Italy broke up into little states and petty republics, within the last seventy years or so has been consolidated into a united kingdom.

Then the northern coast of Africa under the ancient names of Mauretania, Numidia, Africa, Libya and Egypt was all part of the Roman Empire, but relapsed to African rule with the break-up of that empire. Quietly and without much notice, even by Christian authors, these have again come under European influence. Whatever the result of present changes that influence is likely to remain.

Here we pause. In our last edition we spoke of Italy having acquired Tripoli, Libya and Abyssinia. All this has changed. Italy has been driven out of Abyssinia and Haille Selassie has been restored to his ancient throne. As to Libya and Tripoli, Italy has been driven out of these lands in a most ignominious fashion.

We spoke of Benito Mussolini, the erstwhile blacksmith, who headed the Blackshirts in their historic march on Rome, and was welcomed by the King. By this action he rescued his country from the collapse of communism and chaos. He established a dictatorship, and raised Italy to a height of power and prosperity it had not known since the days of the Caesars.

Ambitious and greedy of glory and expansion, Mussolini brought Italy into the great world war on the side of Germany at a time when he thought he could obtain cheaply all he wanted with great advantage to his country. He literally stabbed the Allies in the back.

Then began the downfall of Italy. They invaded Albania, and would have been flung out of that country by the valiant Greeks had not Germany come to their assistance. The British drove them headlong out of Abyssinia, Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. They proved poor fighters, and their generals poor strategists in the Libyan desert. Without German help their armies would have been annihilated. But even with German help they have been flung out of North Africa.

Mussolini has lived to see Italy manacled and enslaved by Germany. He has been called in derision the sawdust Caesar. His star has set, and he has passed into total eclipse. He has fallen from a giddy height to depths of impotency, shame and derision rarely seen.

We ask the question, Will the collapse of Italy and her strong man hinder the formation of a revived Roman Empire as prophesied in Scripture? Assuredly not. We were prepared from our careful study of Scripture for the downfall of Italy.

In our last edition, writing of an alternative, we said, “When Mussolini passes off the scene, the grander the edifice he rears, the worse will be the collapse, the greater the disaster, if there is no strong man to take up the reins.” Out of the very misery and loss of prestige Italy is in process of going through, there may come revolution and utter chaos. Out of that misery may arise a far greater than Mussolini, who will put new heart into the nation. He may well be “the beast,” as prophesied in Revelation 13:1-10, the great political and military Head of a revived Roman Empire.

Meanwhile the very weakness and misery of Rome, and the fear of a great northern confederation—Gog and Magog with his allies of Ezekiel 38 and 39—will drive Italy and surrounding nations into a great southern confederation. Absolute fear, we are assured, will be the cement that will bind together a revived Roman Empire, and when the great super-man arises he will change the whole complexion of things, and it will be clearly seen that Scripture is being fulfilled.

We must now turn back to Daniel to get the happenings in the future in this connection clear in our mind.

We have seen how 69 weeks of Daniel’s 70 weeks have run their course. The cutting off of Messiah arrested the time sequence of the final week. The present chastening of the Jew at the hand of God through the centuries, and the formation and rapture of the Church, must take place, before the sequence of events begins to take shape for the final denouement.

Daniel 9:26 prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman power, which occurred under Titus, A.D.70, but also indicates that a prince of that power will arise in the future, who will confirm a covenant* with the Jew for one week, that is for seven years. In the middle of the week, that is at the end of three-and-a-half years, he will break the covenant, treating it as “a scrap of paper.” Then the great tribulation will break out, called by our Lord, “great tribulation” (Matt. 24:21), and by Jeremiah, “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (chap. 30:7).
{*That the Roman power will make a treaty with the Antichrist leads us to believe that the day may not be far distant when Palestine will be recognised as a self-governing nation. No power is in the position to make a treaty with that country as long as Britain holds the Mandate. If Palestine were self-governing it would be possible for the Head of the Roman Empire to make a treaty with Antichrist as ruler in Palestine for a period of seven years.}

Till that covenant is made no one can tell how long it will be till the end. Once that treaty is made the godly Jew will know that seven years must run their course until “the end thereof.” He will not be deceived by the apparent friendship of the Roman power during the first half of the week, but will be prepared for the great upheaval when it comes.

The question may be asked, About when will this covenant be made? The answer is, Not till after the church is raptured to glory. We believe from a careful study of Revelation that the seals will have run their course. Most of the trumpets and vials, we judge, will have passed. “The hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth,” shall have pursued its way. We believe the breaking* of the treaty will be affected about the time of the sixth trumpet and sixth vial. These woes culminate in the seventh of each series, which, we are told, will close up the era of judgment and usher in the reign of Christ. They will, therefore, necessarily coalesce, and occur at the same moment, like two thunderclaps in one.
{*The covenant will run its course for three-and-a-half years before it is broken, then the great tribulation “will burst forth, completing the second half of Daniel’s seventieth week.}

At the end of the first half of the week we read,

The Antichrist will throw off all pretence of favouring the Jewish ritual of the Temple. It is fitting that the hand of God should be seen in all this judgment, for the sacrifices will be offered up by the Jews in unbelief, whilst the Lord Jesus, whose atoning death they typify, is rejected. The Temple ritual will be an utter offence to God. The image of the Roman Emperor will be set up, the image answering to the idols in our text. The Head of the Roman Empire will be the desolater. The fearful judgments of that hour will be poured upon him for his enormities and blasphemies, the like of which no human being has ever perpetrated.

The awful time that is coming is foretold in Isaiah 17:11. We have already seen in that prophecy that the time would come when the Jew would plant fruit trees and foreign vine slips in Palestine. We have seen how colonies have sprung up in that little land, making it look for the moment most prosperous. But this Scripture gives solemn warning as to what lies ahead.

We read:

Things are booming in Palestine today. This will doubtless continue for some time. The Jew will go back in ever-increasing numbers. The Temple will be rebuilt. We are informed that plans are already in existence, and that much of the material is now awaiting only to be collected and put together, so that when the time comes it will be reared quickly.

We understand young Jewish men are now being trained for the priesthood. On every hand the Jew is learning afresh the Hebrew language. We read the other day in the Daily Press that nearly 200 young Jews in a North of England city were attending classes for the acquiring of the Hebrew language, and that is finding its counterpart throughout the world wherever Jews are. Tel-Aviv is the first city where pure Hebrew is the prevalent language.

Is this not the foreshadowing of the glorious day when the Hebrew tongue shall swell the praises of Jehovah from multitudes of lips?

Yiddish is a bastard language, made up of mixture of Hebrew and German, but the day is already coming when the pure Hebrew will again be the language of the Jews. The awakening of the nation to the beauty and use of the Hebrew language at the present time is very full of significance.

Perhaps one of the dangerous things that can happen to a country is a super boom. It looks as if Palestine is to have a super super boom, which will accentuate the trouble when the bubble bursts. God’s hand in judgment will be felt. Seals, trumpets, vials, increase in violence till the end is reached. When the godly Jew sees the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place—as the Lord Himself, quoting from Daniel, warned His hearers—then he will know that things will be desperate, and his only safety lies in instant flight. Not a moment will have to be lost. The labourer in the field must not return for his clothes. The woman on the housetop must not even go into the house for any supplies. Instant flight will be their only safety. Words utterly fail to paint the horror of the Great Tribulation.

Not only will there be deadly persecution coming from the Roman Empire, but trouble will likewise arise from the North—Gog and Magog, one of the three confederacies. We gather from Ezekiel 38 and 39 its character. Russia is indicated as the enemy from this quarter. Germany, which was never part of the Roman Empire, will, we believe, cast in her lot with Russia in the last days, and there are indications in this direction at the present time.

We read,

Rosh reminds us of Russia in its etymology; Meshech, of Moscow, the capital of European Russia (transferred from Petrograd since the great war); and Tubal, of Tobolsk, the capital of Asiatic Russia. Russia is planning a new capital 1,500 miles east of Moscow. This city, Novosibirsk, a city of reinforced concrete, on the Trans-Siberian railway, is in contact with India and the Far East. It is equipped with an up-to-date system of wireless, and operators speak every dialect of India. Does this not sound sinister and ominous?

As we read down the prophecy we learn what is to happen:

An evil thought will come into the mind of Gog and Magog, i.e., Russia. They will see the prosperous, unwalled, defenceless villages, and determine to make a spoil and a prey of them (vv. 11-12). Russia has ever been a great persecutor of the Jew. This last fling at them will only lead to their dire punishment.

God in righteous anger says,

They will become so utterly demoralised and frightened that in their fear they will destroy each other. Brother will fight brother, reminding us of what happened to the Midianites in the days of Gideon. The very elements of nature will war against the enemies of the Lord. So terrible will be the slaughter that only a sixth part of the invading army will live to return. The Israelites will find enough wood in the instruments of war left behind to meet their need for seven years, without having recourse to the fields and forests for their supply. A body of men “of continual employment” will be allotted to bury the dead, and seven months will be spent in this gruesome occupation.

Disaster as it will be for Gog and Magog to be thus repulsed, it will prove an equally sad visitation for the land of Israel. The hand of God will be upon both countries in His righteous government.

Troubles will likewise come from the East. Few details are given of this. We read:

Who are “the kings of the east”? Evidently they dwell in lands east of the Euphrates. We have heard much of late years of “The Yellow Peril.” This is significant, and seems to point in the direction of our verse. The drying up of the Euphrates evidently means that the restraining influence that has checked the westward incursion of these “kings of the east” will be removed. In what way this will take place Scripture does not tell us.

Some think it is the actual drying-up of the river Euphrates. It is not a little remarkable that the Euphrates has been in literal process of being dried up by the construction of a dam across that river by Sir William Wilicocks for irrigation purposes.

Some think it is the waning power of the Turkish Empire, till it becomes no check to aggression from the further east. The Balkan States have obtained their independence at the expense of Turkey. Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, once belonged to that empire. At the close of the Great War she was left with a tiny strip of land round Constantinople, and her capital was removed to Angora in Asia Minor, and she became a Republic.

The kings of the east are often thought to refer to China, Japan, etc. Vast countries in the Far East are waking up, evidently foreshadowing what is to happen in the last days.

An astute observer of the times has declared that

What then will be the result of this fearful combination of inimical forces? We read:

None but Jehovah can extricate His people from such a time. We know how He will intervene. The great battle of Armageddon, possibly at the time of the sixth vial as seen in Revelation 16:16, will be fought on the plain of Esdraelon. The Lord himself will come out of heaven, and fight for His people. The Beast, that is the Head of the revived Roman Empire, and the Antichrist, that is the False Prophet, will be taken, and cast into the lake of fire. Just as of old when the breath of the Lord slew 185,000 of Sennacherib’s army, so we read:

We learn that Jerusalem will be besieged by the nations, captured, looted, half the inhabitants taken captive.

It was from the Mount of Olives that the glory departed in Ezekiel’s vision. It was from the Mount of Olives that our Lord ascended into heaven. It will be to the same Mount of Olives, as the two angels announced to our Lord’s disciples, that He will return. The glory will return.

The great earthquake, spoken of as taking place at the time of the seventh trumpet and seventh vial, is here referred to. We read:

Great physical changes will take place. Doubtless the Temple, erected in unbelief, and defiled by “the abomination of desolation,” that is, the worship of the image of the Head of the Roman Empire, will be destroyed.

We have often wondered what will happen to the Mosque of Omar, the Moslem place of worship, erected on the very site of the ancient Temple, if the Jews wish to erect their Temple on the same site. Not many months ago it was shaken by a slight earthquake, and the dome was cracked. One can see how simply such difficult matters can be settled by the hand of God.

Years ago an Inspector of Fortifications, and an accomplished geologist, Captain Hawes, were entrusted by the British Government with the task of investigating and reporting on the nature and condition of the frontiers of Palestine.

This latter gentleman was an earnest Bible student, well acquainted with the prophecies of Ezekiel 38 and Zechariah 14, foretelling the terrible earthquake of the last days. Whether the conditions were favourable or not, he knew that made no difference to God. He can carry out His will whatever the conditions. But he was so interested in these prophecies that he made a careful survey of the part to be affected. He wrote:

Wonderful as the physical changes of that time will be, the spiritual and moral changes will be still more wonderful. We read:

What a wonderful effect the intervention of the Lord will make! What a vivifying effect He will have, when the feeble shall be as David, a type of robustness, courage, character! What a nation He will make of it when it becomes a nation of Davids!

Further we read of the great spiritual change that will affect the nation. The days of oppression are over. The clouds are breaking. The Great Tribulation will have done its chastening and purifying work.

We read:

What a gracious visitation! What a fulfilment of the vision “of the valley, which was full of bones,” becoming “an exceeding great army.” The mourning and repentance of the people will be deep. Husband and wife will be apart in this, so deep will their repentance be that it cannot be shared by another. “The house of David apart, and their wives apart,” the Kingly line. “The house of Nathan, and their wives apart,” the Prophetic line. “The house of Levi apart, and their wives apart,” the Priestly line. “The family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart,” the Levitical line (see Numbers 3:18, 21). Deep and bitter as the mourning will be, it will be the prelude to the glorious reign of Christ for a thousand years. The Jewish nation will no longer be the tail, but the head of the nations, because their King will be the Lord Jesus Christ, even the One they crucified, but whose atoning death now brings them into these glorious blessings. The nation will keep the great day of atonement in knowledge and in truth as never before. The Lord will call before His judgment seat all nations to test how they stand in relation to “the gospel of the kingdom.” This good news that the Lord will come to take up His rights in this earth as King will have been diligently proclaimed by godly converted Jews, alluded to in Matthew 25:40, by our Lord as “My brethren.”

Those who accept this testimony will be among the sheep, who will pass into eternal life, that is into the Millennial reign of the Lord. Those who reject the testimony will be among the goats, who will go into everlasting punishment. For the description of this, read Matthew 25:31-46.

The Millennial reign will then begin.

The golden age will have at length dawned. The dream of the ages, universal peace upon earth, disarmament, amity among the nations, will have at last arrived. But not as men think. The right Man will at last take up the reigns of the Government. The sceptre will be in the pierced hand of our Lord at last. Men will be altered. The remedy for the troubles of mankind does not lie in Acts of Parliament, which effect the outside, but in the grace of God affecting the inside. A nation will be born in a day.

The Temple will be rebuilt according to Ezekiel’s vision. To understand its location and style Ezekiel 40-48 should be studied.

The Temple is to be built in the centre of the Holy Oblation, spoken of in Ezekiel 45:1-8. This will be territory carved out of the portion to be allotted to the tribe of Judah. It is to be 25,000 reeds square. The reed measures 10 feet 6 inches, so that 25,000 reeds roughly measure 50 miles, and 50 miles square equals 2,500 square miles.

The Holy Oblation* is to be divided as follows. Two-fifths, a portion covering about 1,000 square miles in its northern portion, is to be allotted to the Levites. The middle portion consisting of two-fifths of the whole, covering about 1,000 square miles, will be for the priests. The remaining one-fifth covering about 500 square miles, situated in the southern portion of the Holy Oblation, will be for Jerusalem and its environs.
{*The question has been raised as to whether the territory allotted to Judah will be sufficiently large to allow space for the Holy Oblation. This need cause no difficulty when we remember the tribes will extend eastward much further than they did, even as the Promised Land will be of much greater extent than Palestine of Old Testament times.}

The city is to be foursquare, measuring 4,500 reeds each way, with suburbs on every side of 250 reeds, that is a total square of 5,000 reeds, covering an area of about 100 square miles. (See Ezekiel 48:15-20).

It will be built upon the site of the present Jerusalem, the terrible earthquake of the last days preparing the ground for its erection. There is a lot of talk about clearing the slums of the great cities, and the task is to cover years. But this earthquake of the last days will do in an hour what man would take years to accomplish.

A marvellous city will arise, the capital of the Promised Land, the Metropolis of the whole earth, a city worthy of the Great King. The environs on each side of Jerusalem will cover an area of about 400 square miles for the raising of food for those who serve the city, are to be drawn out of all the Tribes of Israel.

A city covering 100 square miles and 40 miles in circumference, contrasts with the present Jerusalem, the circumference of whose walls is 2½ miles. The foregoing diagram will help to the understanding of what will happen in the last days in this respect.

The Temple will be erected in the exact centre of the Holy Oblation. It will thus be seen that it will be situated about 20 miles north of Jerusalem. That the old Temple site on Mount Moriah would be far too small and inadequate for the Sanctuary of the last days is evident when we remember that all the nations of the earth, and not merely the Jews as heretofore, are to come up to Jerusalem to worship.

The Temple area including courts and outer wall will be 500 reeds square, that is a little under one mile square, with suburbs round of 50 cubits.

In Herod’s Temple the area covered was an elongated square of about 1,000 feet. St. Peter’s in Rome is 613 feet in length. St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, 520½ feet in length. Ezekiel’s Temple will be more than eight times longer than Herod’s Temple, and over ten times the length of St Paul’s It will be the most magnificent building the world has ever seen, and devoted to the most sacred purposes.

A stream* will flow from the east gate of the Temple, travelling south to Jerusalem, where it will branch into two streams, one going into the great sea, the Mediterranean; the other, into the Dead Sea, curing it of its super saltness. Fish will again swim in its waters.

It may be asked, What is to become of the wonderful chemical riches of the Dead Sea of which we have heard so much? We answer, At a stroke these riches will vanish, and the healing of the Dead Sea will be the beneficent act of God. The curse will be largely lifted off the earth. The chemical riches, so valuable as fertilisers today, will then be no longer of use in a smiling world, when the soil will need no fertilisers, and vegetation will not be attacked by pests, or cut off by frosts or droughts, as our verse implies.   “The desert shall blossom as the rose.” The fabulous wealth of today will be a curse in that day, and its removal in an hour, when the healing waters come in contact with the bitter waters of the Dead Sea, will be a blessing.

A prince of the house of David is to be appointed as the special representative of the Lord during the Millennium. He will have for his possession the land east and west of the Holy Oblation, an immense tract of territory, bespeaking the greatness and glory of his position.

The prince is to give burnt offerings and meat offerings and drink offerings unto the Lord, both in the feasts and on the Sabbaths and in all the solemnities of the house of Israel. Evidently there will be more or less a revival of the system of sacrifices, not as typical of that which is to come, as in the Old Testament times, but in remembrance of that which has been accomplished by Him, who had inscribed upon His cross, “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37). He will be their Saviour-King.

What a scene of blessedness will the Millennium present! Satan bound in the bottomless pit, his baneful influence removed! Evil will not rear its head. Jerusalem, the greatest city ever known, the Metropolis of the whole earth, will have countless multitudes flocking to worship the Lord in His Temple. The Church, “the Bride, the Lamb’s wife,” will be associated with Christ in His glorious reign, as depicted in the wonderful imagery of “that great City, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God” (see Revelation 21:10-22:5).

It is man’s last chance. Never was there such an opportunity given to show if he would respond to his Creator. How will it end? We are given the answer in Scripture in a very few words. We read:

Of course, the population of the earth will have increased wonderfully during the Millennium, when the earth will be so prodigal of her gifts, and when death will be the exception. The birth rate will be high, the death rate very small. Multitudes alas! born under these ideal circumstances will have steeled their hearts against Christ, only waiting for the day when His hand shall be visibly removed, thus laying them open to the wiles of Satan released from the bottomless pit. Such alas! is man.

Satan’s last enmity will be directed against Jerusalem as being the capital of the Lord’s kingdom on earth. Shall it be that Gog and Magog will have nursed their revenge during the Millennium, because of the utter discomfiture on the mountains of Israel just before the glorious reign of the Lord began? The daring impiety of seeking to destroy such a city as Jerusalem is amazing. We need to sit down, and think it over carefully before we can realize in any measure the enormity of it all.

Never will there be got together such a revolt against God. All the terrible hatred against God, long pent-up during the Millennium by Satan in his prison, will blaze forth in one last supreme attempt. What will be the result of this vast frontal attack of the devil? We read:

It is interesting that Gog and Magog is the only power that is mentioned both before and after the Millennium. How simply and yet powerfully the end is described, “fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” (Rev. 20:9).

Here we come to the end of the story. The devil is cast into the lake of fire, where the Beast (the Head of the Roman Empire), and the False Prophet (the Antichrist) are. The earth and the heaven flee away. The great white throne is set up. The wicked dead are judged. The new heaven and the new earth will be created. The Tabernacle of God shall be with men. No more tears, no more death, no more sorrow, no more pain.

The end of God’s earthly ways is reached. Earthly distinctions cease. “In Christ” then, as now, there will be neither Jew nor Gentile. All trace of sin’s sad story will be gone for ever. God will rest in His love, and be satisfied. What a glorious prospect!

And everything around us today tells loudly that that day is hastening to its glad realisation.

Our task is now done. We have presented a very fragmentary outline of the amazing Jew. It is a story that is inexplicable apart from the Scriptures and the power of God The inspiration of the Scriptures shines brightly in the unfolding of the story. Above all, it redounds to the glory of the Son of God, of God Himself. What man is in all his wickedness and folly is but a dark, dark background on which shine forth the power, patience and glory of God.

May He deign to use these pages for His glory, and for the help of His beloved people.

Postscript No. 1
We found in our latest enquiry that Palestine, as the result of the second great world war, has been affected in a most remarkable way in the moral as well as in the material sphere: the former surely the more important.

When the war broke out Arab and Jew were bitterly opposed. Terrorism reigned in the country. No man’s life was safe. Jews went armed to their daily work. Powerful military forces were necessary to deal with this terrible state of affairs.

The war has altered all this. When Italy came into the conflict, and Greece fell stricken to the ground, Arab and Jew saw plainly what a blow had been struck at their chief industry, that of growing and exporting citrus fruits. Both Arab and Jew had largely sunk their money in orange-growing. The destruction of their chief export markets by the outbreak of war, and the consequent difficulty of shipping facilities, were alarmingly serious. Ruin stared them in the face. Something would have to be done, and that promptly. War is a forcible teacher. In this case it was a forcible healer. Common interests were not sufficiently strong to prevent the terrorism, which disgraced the country for years. What common interests failed to bring about, common peril has accomplished. A detente, that is a weakening of strained relations, took place between Arab and Jew. A miracle indeed happened. It was the finger of God. Let us hope that in time the detente will develop into an entente, that is hearty understanding and agreement.

A Citrus Control Board was set up, consisting of four Arab and four Jewish delegates. The area under citrus cultivation was limited. Government stepped in with a subsidy loan to enable growers to repay outstanding bank advances. A further loan was advanced enabling grove owners to acquire stock, poultry, the erection of fowl houses, the purchase of ploughs, seeds, fertilisers, and the extension of irrigation.

Arab-Jewish collaboration has been a signal success. The revision of agricultural policy has been most helpful. “Digging for victory” is being carried out on a large scale.

Meanwhile Dr. Weizmann in his Rehoboth Experimental and Research Laboratories has been busy evolving new uses for citrus fruits. He it was in the last Great War, who discovered a formula for the manufacture of acetone, so vitally necessary for the production of high explosives. When he presented, this so-badly-needed formula to the Government as a free gift, he was asked what reward would he like to suggest. His noble and patriotic answer was that the Jew should be reinstated in his own land. This led to the famous Balfour letter to Lord Rothschild, pledging the British Government to the furtherance of this movement.

Dr. Weizmann, so it is believed, reports that acetone through alcohol prepared from citrus fruits can be produced. It is reckoned that 3,000,000 boxes of citrus fruits each weighing about 70 lbs. can be utilised in this way. The maintenance of the citrus groves is being assisted by increasing the manufacture of fruit juice, of lemon and orange oils. Citrus oil fetches large prices, especially when produced by hand-manipulated machinery. This is expected to fetch £P150,000 in the year. It has likewise been proved that feeding cattle on oranges and grapefruit is equal in nutritive qualities to clover.

The swing-over to cereal production and horticulture has been expanded. Self-sufficiency in vegetables is well in sight. Groundnuts have been chosen by the Government as the solution to the problem caused by the shortage of edible fats. Soya beans are being cultivated to supply fats and high grade protein.

Let us now turn to the industrial side of the story. It is just as cheering. It is wonderful to relate that in Palestine, tiny country as it is, there are about 1,300 factories employing about 30,000 people. This is about double the number since the outbreak of war. Think of that! Indeed Palestine is rapidly becoming the industrial centre of the Middle East. This is enhanced by its geographical position. The Crown Colonist (October, 1942) says:

Much more doubtless will be heard of Palestine in the near future.

In the middle of the first year of the second great war Palestine underwent a period of depression. In the second year things began to recover. In the third year industries got into their stride, and striking advances were made. Sir Douglas Harris calls the improvement as indescribable.

The war brought new industries into the country. Diamond-cutting and polishing was one of these. The anti-semitic fury that has arisen in Europe has driven many Jews from Belgium, the world-centre of this industry. The number of firms in Palestine now engaged in this branch of industry number 30, employing 3,000 workers, as compared with 4 firms in 1940.

Again Jews from Dantzig and Austria have erected fine quality steel-casting works in Haifa Bay. Jewish refugees from Belgium have started a button factory.

The Palestine Sugar Co., Ltd., a new concern with a capital of £20,000, cultivates sugar beet in 17 settlements in the Valley of Jezreel, and has built refineries to deal with the crop. Yields are often twice as large as obtained in European countries, so great is the fertility of the Palestine soil.

The Naaman Clay Brick Factory produced 6,000,000 bricks in 1941. The Acre Match Factory is producing well on to 50,000,000 boxes of matches annually to supply the wants of the Middle East. This stands in sharp contrast to the sign, No Matches, often seen at the entrance of shops in Britain; such is war stringency in this country. The Rishon-le-Zion soap works have been considerably extended, and are now producing quantities of feeding cake as a by-product. The first tin factory has been set up in Emek Zebulun near Haifa. Increasing quantities of high quality cement are being produced at Haifa and Har Tuv. The launching of two cement fishing boats has aroused considerable interest in the fact that they can be built in a quarter of the time required to build corresponding steel vessels. Moreover they cost 40 percent. less. The longer they remain in the water the harder they become. This is likely to become a very great industry.

Spinning and weaving plants are being extended at Kfar Ata and at the premises of Jerushalmy Brothers. Nine firms employ 65 looms, weaving woollens. More than 100 looms by five firms work a full 24-hour day, producing rayon.

Since the outbreak of the second Great War there have been many new industrial enterprises started, comprising machinery, implements, steel constructions, electrical appliances, automobile parts, chemicals, dyes, pharmaceutical products, hospital and medical equipment, production of ceramics and irrigation pipes from local clay, wool for textiles, the development of a fruit and vegetable canning industry, paper manufacture.

The number of passengers carried by the Palestine Railways rose from 1,362,000 in 1940 to 2,161,500 in 1941. Tonnage of goods handled increased from 973,500 to 1,486,400 over the same period. Total gross receipts increased from £P895,300 to £P1,695,300, almost double. The figures speak for themselves.

During the last two decades the population of Palestine has more than doubled, amounting at the end of 1941 to 1,517,000, as compared with 649,000 when the first census was taken in 1922. The number of Jews in that period has increased from 83,790 to 473,881.

A remarkable Trans-Sinai Highway between Palestine and Egypt has been lately opened. Motor cars can accomplish the journey in ten hours. So marvellously is God opening out the land for His own purposes in fulfilling His promise to Abraham, that in his seed all nations of the earth should be blessed.

The Yorkshire Post (November 2nd, 1942) has a very striking article by Professor S. Brodetsky entitled Thoughts on the 25th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. He quotes some words of General Smuts, who was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, recorded in 1918. He said, “Great as are the changes wrought by this war, the great World War of justice and freedom, I doubt whether any of these changes surpass in interest the liberation of Palestine, and its recognition as the Home of Israel.” A year later General Smuts predicted “an ever-increasing stream of emigration towards Palestine; and in generations to come … a great Jewish State arising there once more.”

Professor Brodetsky says,

When the second great World War broke out, immediately 85,000 Jewish men and 50,000 Jewish women volunteered to Britain for national service. 17,000 male Jewish volunteers joined the British Army, Navy and Air Force; 2,000 to other Allied armies. Over 2,000 women volunteered to the Palestine A.T.S. Professor Brodetsky says,

No doubt the miseries of the tortured Jews in Europe will eventuate in masses returning to their own land. Palestine is becoming increasingly important to the Allied nations. To name but one thing, the naval base at Haifa is not only a splendid harbour and base for Allied shipping, but the terminal where the British Navy can obtain supplies of the oil carried along the six-hundred-mile-long oil pipe from Iraq. Palestine is coming into its own in increasing value to the Allied nations, and we believe all this remarkable development will mean when the war is over that the Jew will be generously treated, and their aspiration for a National Home may be realised.

A Jew dying in Palestine a century ago would close his eyes on a scene of desolation. A mere handful of Jews living in abject poverty, a few bands of wandering nomads, Bedouins, travelling with their flocks of sheep and goats, seeking scanty pasture here or there, the rule of the lazy Turk, impoverishing the country in every way, would be his remembrance of the scene he left. Could he return today he would rub his eyes in intense astonishment. He would wonder if he were dreaming. Was it a mirage he saw? Smiling orchards, miles and miles of orange groves, fields of waving wheat and barley, over two hundred agricultural colonies, some of very great size, numerous vineyards, busy and rapidly expanding cities, happy villages, prosperous factories, bustling seaports, prominent university at Jerusalem—Palestine, the one bright spot in a world of depression. This is what he would see.

He would be told to his great surprise that a great World War had raged from 1914-18, ending in the capture of Jerusalem by the British. The paralysing hand of the Turk was removed, and the beneficent rule of Britain as a Mandatory power over Palestine commenced.

Then he would be told how a great wave of Jewish emigration poured into the land, transforming it as he had seen; that a second great World War had broken out in 1939, and that what seemed at first to be a disaster of the first magnitude, as indeed it was to all the little countries of Europe, turned out to be quite the reverse to Palestine. Skilled Jewish workmen from oppressed European countries, driven from their homes and callings, had found a home in Palestine, carrying their skill and labour with them. He would be shown how even when the war was devastating the rest of the world, Palestine remained tranquil and stable, and even began a great forward march in prosperity and importance.

Further if our hypothetical Jew were pious, he could not fail to see that Scripture was being fulfilled in a remarkable way, and that this second great World War was helping to this end as nothing else could have done.

Is this not the hand of God? Blind indeed must the man or woman be, who cannot see this. Things are hastening on to God’s end. This is the period of the world’s great climacteric. The coming of the Lord draws near. Isaiah 17:10-11 will be literally fulfilled,

First we have a prophecy of abounding prosperity, which we can see today before our eyes, but in the last sentence we have the unerring prophecy of the woes that must fall upon the Jews, because of their sin in crucifying their Lord, and turning their back upon God, the culmination being the Great Tribulation, which our Lord alluded to in Matthew 24:21, and which was recorded as far back as in Daniel 1:1-3.

Then will come the glorious end when our Lord shall take His place of supremacy as King over His ancient people, and whose dominion as Son of Man will be world-wide, when

How deep will be the joy of Israel when of their holy city, Jerusalem, the place of constant wars and sieges all down the centuries, the place where our Lord was rejected and crucified, where the Temple was destroyed and its site desecrated by a Mohammedan mosque, and which is aptly described by Scripture as “a burdensome stone for all people” (Zech. 12:3), it can be said

Glorious consummation! Lord, hasten it, Thy people cry. Amen.

Postscript No. 2
The second Great War has detrimentally affected the citrus cultivation of Palestine. The withdrawal of export facilities, and the closing of markets commanded in peace time, have combined to bring this about. The Crown Colonist writes recently

The industry will doubtless revive, and we shall see the fruit shops once more bursting with Jaffa oranges and grapefruits.

The appointment of Viscount Lord Gort as High Commissioner is welcomed on every hand. He comes with all the prestige of high military experience. As a true Christian man he will doubtless have his mind favourably inclined to the Jews by the Bible teaching as to that chosen nation. We may expect a forward movement under his wise guiding hand.

The Jews, too, are looking ahead to the coming years. They anticipate great developments in their country. A great Hydro-Electric Scheme is contemplated, to cost, it is calculated, £37,500,000. The scheme is sponsored by the leaders of the Zionist Movement. They plan to construct a canal, 95 miles long, stretching from the Mediterranean in the neighbourhood of Haifa to Jordan, running parallel with that river to the Dead Sea. Jordan and its tributaries will be dammed and their waters diverted. Dams, reservoirs, concrete-lined canals of varying lengths will all fall into their useful places. A network of artificial streams will irrigate the country. Existing water resources in Palestine can irrigate an area of 4,000 dunums. Under the new scheme it is reckoned that an area of 400,000 dunums can be irrigated. This is the estimate of Dr. A. Granowsky of The Jewish National Fund.

It is evident, if this is effected, that Palestine will be well able to carry a much larger population than heretofore. The project will not be put into effect, save in peace time. It will take from five to ten years to complete.

The gradual descent* of the land from North to South will greatly facilitate the electrifying of the country, giving cheap power to many factories and mills that have sprung up these last few years.

In addition to this bold scheme there is ample testimony of the presence of an extended oil field in Palestine. In the opinion of Dr. D. P. Brown of The Oil Trust Ltd., the whole of the Yarmuk Valley lying south-west of Jerusalem and stretching to the Dead Sea area, is one large oil-field.
{*The River Jordan means the Descender.}

Dr. J. Julius Fobs, one of the most eminent oil geologists in the world, reports that 23 domes of more or less promise, covering 1,000 square miles are considered promising for oil; about 300 square miles for oil and gas, of which 100 square miles is exceptionally promising, a high percentage for a small country not the size of Wales.

The Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists writes:

This oil-field is situated about 75 miles from the nearest Mediterranean port, 10 miles from the Suez Canal, and 110 miles from Akaba, a seaport at the head of Akaba Gulf, leading to the Red Sea, probably the Ezion-Geber where King Solomon built his navy.

All this sounds very promising. But there is another side to the shield. As long as the natural wealth of a country is preserved, it is to the great advantage of that country. But Palestine is situated in a very remarkable and strategic position geographically. In addition it has the 600-mile-long oil-pipe line, running from Iraq to Haifa. It has the vast wealth of the Dead Sea, calculated at the amazing figure of £253,000,000,000. If in addition it has a vast oil-field on its own land with all the wealth it brings, we have the setting for a powerful neighbour with predatory instincts, suddenly overrunning the country for the sake of its position and wealth. We have the spectacle before using this second great World War of the ruthlessness with which a powerful military nation with no fear of God among its rulers can overrun weak, defenceless neighbours, stripping them without conscience of their possessions. Add to this the hatred that Satan has for any country that has in any way God’s favour resting on it, and his power of mass psychology, which can stir a nation to anti-semitic frenzy. No wonder the prophet described Jerusalem as “a burdensome stone for all nations” (Zech. 12:3).

Such a catastrophe, as we have been visualising, will assuredly come true. Read Ezekiel 38 and 39, especially Ezekiel 38:10-11.

We read the solemn prophetic warning:

During the last seven years 70 villages have been founded in Palestine, 20 of them during the time of the second great World War. In one month lately 2,000 Romanians were admitted, and another 2,000 immigrants from other parts.

Prosperity is coming to Palestine in a remarkable way, but we see the dark shadow of prophecy spreading over the fair land, telling of a great time of tribulation coming, culminating in the great tribulation our Lord foretold, bringing the nation in the mercy of God to deep repentance, and to the acknowledgment of their Messiah, whom they crucified, preparing them for the reception of our Lord Jesus Christ as their King, and Glory. Then will come the glory of Israel, when Jerusalem shall be the city of the great King, and the Metropolis of the millennial earth.

Lord, hasten that day. Amen.

Postscript to the Seventh Edition.
In adding a postscript to the seventh edition of The Amazing Jew, we find events in Palestine, crowding one upon another in such rapid and bewildering profusion, that one cannot hope to present more than a bird's-eye view of what is taking place. The progress that took place between the close of the first great world-war, and the beginning of the next, was described by a leading British official as inconceivable, and this was no exaggeration.

Whatever our attitude to the Jew may be, we cannot withhold our admiration, when we see how their strong national feeling has drawn them to the land of their forefathers in their hundreds of thousands from every part of the globe, where for many centuries, as aliens, they have been scattered. Bible students see in this wonderful movement an anticipation of the fulfilment of their Old Testament prophecy, when God said, "I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD: and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive" (Jer. 29 :14).

On November 29th 1947, the United Nations General Assembly by a vote of 33 to 13 with 11 abstentions resolved upon the partition of Palestine into a Jewish State, an Arab State, and an International Zone of Jerusalem; this settlement to come into force upon the termination of the British Mandate on May 15th 1948. The Arab State is now known as Transjordania. The International Zone saw Jerusalem divided into two parts. The old city within its ancient walls came under Arab control; the new city outside the ancient walls is under Jewish control, and is growing rapidly, and is now the capital of the Republic of Israeli. Inside the city walls the population numbers about 2,000; outside the city walls in 1947 it numbered a population of 164,000.

The midnight hour of May 14th 1948, saw the close of the British Mandate over Palestine. With amazing courage the next day the Jews proclaimed the establishment of the Republic of Israeli, and that in face of the bitter hatred of the Arabs, whose armies of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi-Arabia, Jordania, and Egypt, were about to invade the infant Republic from the north, east and south.

Many Arabs left the country in the expectation of returning in the course of a few days as victorious conquerors. Intercepted plans revealed what highly optimistic expectations the invading armies cherished. Haifa was to be captured on May 20th, Tel-Aviv, on May 25th and Abdulla, king of Jordania, was to enter Jerusalem in triumph as conqueror.

It looked as if the infant State would be strangled at its birth, that nothing less than a hasty capitulation would be their only chance of escaping wholesale massacre. To the immense surprise of the whole world, military experts included, the Jews were successful in beating off their enemies, the war of bitter fighting lasting about six months.

An American military observer, in summing up the War of Liberation, described the Jewish soldier, "The Israeli is a good soldier. He has courage, intelligence, initiative, resourcefulness, and endurance. He is alert enough to realize, that, if he loses the war, he loses everything that is most precious to him — his land, his liberty, the right to his spiritual, as well as his physical, independence.

On the other hand we read, "The Arab armies reflected the social structure of their countries — poverty and subjection in the ranks, wealth and tyranny in the officers. When that great patriot, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, was asked, Why did the Egyptian army fare so badly in the invasion? he replied, "The men are too lean, the officers too fat."

The Proclamation of the Israeli Republic was a matter of world-wide importance. The first country to acknowledge it was the United States of America, followed forty-eight hours later by the Soviet Republic, and then by the leading countries of the world.

The first President of the Israeli Republic was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a Russian Jew, formerly a professor of chemistry at Owen's College, Manchester, who laboured unsparingly for years in seeking to bring about the return of the Jews to Palestine, and there found a national home. It was surely fitting that he should be their first President. Associated with him as Prime Minister was David Ben-Gurion, a statesman of wise administrative qualities.

It would be well at this point to refer to Dr. Theodor Herzl, the Founder of the Zionist Organisation. The condition of the Jews moved him to the depths of his soul. He produced a book, setting forth his vision of a Jewish State, entitled Der Judenstatt, (The Jewish State). which produced a profound impression, and set Zionism in motion. He was President of the first International Zionist conference at Basle in 1897. He did not live to see the realisation of his vision. He died a comparatively young man, and was buried in Vienna.

In August 1949 thousands of visitors and the inhabitants of Jerusalem witnessed the re-interment of the remains of Theodor Herzl in a commanding hill in the north-western part of Jerusalem, which was named Mount Herzl in honour of his memory. He was a great patriot. His name stands high in the estimation of the Jewish nation.

During the period of the British mandate the immigration of the Jews to the land of their fore­fathers was regulated by the ability of Palestine to absorb them. When the Mandate gave place to the Republic all such restrictions were swept away. It was publicly announced, "The Law of Return enacted that every Jew had a right to return . . . that it was for this the Republic was founded and by virtue of this alone it would stand."

The immediate response was quickly seen. We read,

A population increase of over 100 per cent in so short a time is unparalleled.

We instance one particular case, illustrating how touchingly strong was the sentiment, that no Jews should be refused entrance to the land of their fore­fathers, even, if they were, as in this case, far from attractive.

"The settlement of the Yemenite Jews in Israel is one of the most remarkable happenings of recent history. In 1949-1951 45,000 people, men, women and children, were transported 1,600 miles by air-lift to a new country, after after having trekked hundreds of miles across the desert to the embarkation point.

"A primitive community of Jews, buried away in south Arabia, among equally primitive Arabs for well-nigh two thousand years, suddenly began to move. Messianic rumours, that a new David (David Ben-Gurion) had arisen in Zion, had reached them. Out of their miserable ghettoes they poured toward Aden, a debilitated diseased people, polygamous, given over to witchcraft, but preserving their ancient Judaic rites, speaking Arabic, the men having some knowledge of Hebrew. They had no knowledge of modern life — of sanitation, chairs, beds or forks. But they conformed in their custom to the Law of the Book.

"The men had curling side-locks, and wore long striped shirt-like robes: the women wore tight ankle trousers: the infants were wrapped in rags, tied with string. Israel, much to its credit, decided to take them, and the British at Aden did what they could to help them. It was a magnificent salvage operation, but it was costly. The rapacious Arab princelings had to be paid to give up their serfs, or to allow them to pass through their territory."
This was known as Operation Magic Carpet.

A little later a still greater exodus took place, when no less than 106,662 Iraqi Jews found entrance into the land of their forefathers. This was known as Operation Ali-Baba.

In October 1950 The National Planning Conference of American Jewry was held in Washington, the capital of the United States. A unanimous resolution was adopted for a three-year plan of immigration and economic development of Israel, involving the raising of 1,000,000,000 dollars in the United States. In addition to strengthening the United Jewish Appeal, it was resolved to stimulate private investment in Israel, and to support the decision of the Government of Israel to float a 500,000,000 dollar Independence Bond Issue in the United States. There are more Jews in the United States, than in any other country. There are 2,000,000 in New York city alone. Their help to their poor brethren has been, and is, most generous.

To show what a remarkable outburst of energetic development has marked the return of scattered Jews to Israel, it suffices to point out that since 1883 when Baron Edmond de Rothschild founded one of the earliest of the agricultural colonies, Rishon-le-Zion, to May 14th 1948, a period of 65 years, 277 colonies were established; whereas the colonies founded between May 15th 1948 to December 31st 1951, a period of only 31 years, reached the astounding number of 356, to which may now be added 70 colonies or more, recently started in the Negev desert.

The history of Tel-Aviv tells the same tale. In 1909 some sixty families living in Jaffa decided to start a new home to be all Jewish in the sand dunes near by. This venture prospered beyond all expectations. In 1922 it had a population of 15,185, by 1931 of 46,000, by 1937 of 150,000. It grew so enormously that the Knesset (the Jewish Parliament) incorporated it with Jaffa, renamed Yafo, its ancient name. To-day the twin city with its unified municipality now numbers over 400,000 and is known as Tel-Aviv-Yafo, by far the biggest city in Israel. It possesses a deep-sea port from which are exported citrus fruits, potash, minerals etc. in large quantities.

Haifa, a port at the foot of Mount Carmel, now numbers over 200,000 population. It is the largest port on the Mediterranean next to Marseilles, and boasts of a giant 100-ton floating crane, the largest in the near east. It is said to be the most beautiful city in the world.

In the far north of Palestine there is a small lake, Huleh the Merom of Bible history (Joshua 11:5, 7). Around its shores lies a swampy malaria-stricken valley of some 45,000 dunums, situate close to the Syrian border. When the work of reclamation was begun, the Syrians tried to hinder the work, having recourse to armed force. Fierce battles ensued, but the invaders were driven back. The work of reclamation was successfully completed, and hundreds of families are happily settled on the land in healthy surroundings.

Not only are there utilitarian schemes on hand, but future developments are being provided for. We have before us a striking picture, entitled, Sodom to Beersheba, a Remarkable Road. This road is 48 miles long. It connects the potash works at Sodom on the southern end of the Dead Sea with Beersheba, the capital of the Negev, which is rapidly becoming the centre of all activity in that district. It is shaping itself on the lines of a large industrial and agricultural city. It was where long centuries ago Abraham dug a well, and made a covenant with Abimelech, king of Gerar, and there he planted a grove. Now the wells are open again, and trees are planted in profusion.

This remarkable road drops from Beersheba, 1,400 feet above sea-level to almost 1,300 feet below sea-level at Sodom, and is acclaimed by experts to be one of the most successful engineering feats in the world. It is designed to facilitate the transport of the fabulous chemical wealth of the Dead Sea to the industrial centres of Israel, and to their sea-ports for exportation.

At the opening, where a thousand guests were assembled, the Prime Minister, (Ben-Gurion), said, "This is not one of the most extraordinary roads in the world: it is the most extraordinary road in the world, reaching down to the deepest gorge of the earth. It is the never-ending fight with nature." Large sections of the road were built out of solid rock. Unbelievable difficulties were triumphantly overcome.

Alongside of the agricultural development of the land of Israel, there has been a corresponding development on the industrial side. The following rough list shows the determination of the Jew to make good in the land of his forefathers — machinery implements, steel constructions, electrical appliances, motor cars, automobile parts, textiles, silk products, pharmaceutical products, paper manufacture, ceramics, chemicals, dyes, soap, matches, bricks, glass, precision instruments, clocks, watches etc. All this stands in vivid contrast to the backwardness of the Arabs living in the vicinity of the Jewish Republic, though Arabs and Jews are all descended from the same father, the patriarch Abraham.

The recent opening of the Negev desert is a story of thrilling interest. This desert stretches from the south of Israel for about 130 miles to Ezion-Geber, a port at the head of the Gulf of Akaba, which connects with the Red Sea. King Solomon long centuries ago built "a navy of ships" there (1 Kings 9:26). It consisted of a parched bleak and cheerless desert, a stunted shrub here and there, a mere handful of wandering Bedouins with their frail tents and a camel or two, no towns, no villages, no houses. For centuries it appeared quite hopeless to seek to develop it, seeing it lacked water, and without water the desert must remain desert.

The Jews however set to work with deep-drilling techniques and were well rewarded by the discovery of abundant water about ten feet below the surface of the soil. In addition to this, valuable mineral deposits were discovered — phosphates, sand for the glass industry, clays for pottery manufacture, manganese, copper and iron ores.

A start in agricultural colonies was made. Twelve sites were chosen, covering 100,000 dunums, that is about 25,000 acres. Each new settler was made acquainted with the special duty he or she was to perform. At daybreak 1,000 workers, including 300 girls, entered the chosen sites. By dusk the settlements were in being. We doubt if anything like this could be duplicated in any part of the world.

The success of this experiment was seen in a wonderful harvest as reported in 1952. Where nothing but grim desert was seen for long centuries, waving fields of wheat and barley met the eye. Lucerne grass knee-deep yielded crops three times a year. The soil is light and very fertile once water is available. Irrigation is producing fruits and vegetables. Is this not a fulfilment of the prophecy, which says, "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water? (Isa. 41:18).

Afforestation is playing a great part in this vast scheme to make the desert "rejoice and blossom as the rose" (Isa. 35:1). In the northern Negev no less than 185,000,000 saplings are being planted: of these on an area of 2,000,000 dunums, or 500,000 acres 20,000,000 saplings are planted. They form splendid wind-breaks round villages, fields and gardens. They protect the soil from erosion, and hinder the quick drying up of surface moisture.

Can we not see in this an indication of the fulfilment of an Old Testament prophecy? We read, "I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD has done this, and the Holy One of Israel has created it." (Isa. 41:19-20).

Only a hundred years ago there lived a pitiful handful of Jews in abject poverty under the harsh rule of their Turkish conquerors. In 1912 there were only 83,790 Jews, a small minority out of a total population of 752,048, mostly Arabs. In 1952, then the sovereign state of the Israel Republic, there were 1,450,000 Jews out of a total population of 1,629,000 an overwhelming majority.

To show the rapid progress that was made in the five years of Statehood, and that in all parts of the country from Dan to Elath on the shores of the Gulf of Akaba, some 350 settlements were established, as compared with 300 during the previous 70 years of colonisation.

On Mount Scopus, a spur of the Mount of Olives, stands the impressive University of Israel. It caters for five faculties—humanities, science, medicine, law, agriculture, and has over 2,600 students. It boasts of a very fine Library with over 250,000 volumes on its shelves. An ancient saying claims that "Eretz Israel [the Land of Israel] is in the middle of the world, and Jerusalem is in the midst of Eretz Israel." Does this not remind one of the Scripture, which says, "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam [Genesis 11:1-9], He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel" (Deut. 32:8), Israel the centre, and the nations set around the centre.

When our Lord was here on earth the common language of the Jews was Aramaic. When the Jews were scattered among the nations their Hebrew tongue was practically lost. In modern times a bastard language, Yiddish, became prominent. It was a strange combination of very corrupt Hebrew, and ancient and provincial German, spoken by the commoner Jews in Europe.

The return of the Jews in such large numbers, coming from all parts of the world, and speaking some 70 languages, imposed upon Israel the necessity that there should be one official language common to all. Obviously the revival of the pure Hebrew language was the best and happiest solvent of the difficulty. So we read, "The most vital factor in this new cultural integration is Hebrew, the tongue of Biblical Israel, which was revived as a modern language during the last decades of the nineteenth century, and became the spoken language of the Jewish community of Palestine during the last generation." Is this not a deeply interesting fulfilment of a prophecy, which reads, "Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one consent" (Zeph. 3:9)?

Since the Fall of Jerusalem in A.D.70 the Jewish Sanhedrim, the supreme ecclesiastical and judicial tribunal of the nation, has ceased to function. Rabbi J. L. Maimon, Minister for Religious Affairs, speaking at Tiberius recently, said, "I insist on a renewal of the Sanhedrim."

The next thing would be the erection of the Temple. There are rumours that there are parts of it in hiding in preparation for that day to come. We know the Temple will be erected for Scripture foretells that this will take place, but alas! it is to be erected in unbelief of their true Messiah, whom they crucified.

At the present time things are booming in Israel, but Scripture tells us there are very sad and evil days to come. Our Lord prophesied of these sad days coming, "Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matthew 24 : 21).

To gain a clear understanding of the prophesied happenings of the last days, we suggest that the reader turn back to the section: The People Returning to the Land, and with the Bible in hand study carefully the following few pages, that cover this ground.

Our space has been too limited to allow of our giving minute details of the activity, agricultural, and industrial, that is throbbing from end to end of this deeply interesting land. There is one single verse in Scripture, however, which sketches in very few words the experience of the Jews in returning to the land of their forefathers in two vivid and contrasting pictures, a verse to be pondered over, and most carefully considered. We read,

What an utterly startling contrast between the joyous sowing of the seed, and the reaping of a blasted harvest; between the morning of glad anticipation, and the realisation of utter failure; between the opening out of the morning of happy expectation, and the bitter evening of disillusioned hopes; between the now of prosperity, and a future of desperate sorrow.

And yet this is the end marked out by Divine love, for Israel can never be the head of the nations (see Deut. 28:13) unless that goal is reached by the hard road of repentance, and Israel shall recognize as her Sovereign and Lord, One whom they crucified. The glory and beneficence of Christ's rule shall stretch out to the ends of the earth. The nations will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks, and war shall no more be learned (see Isa. 2:4). "The Sun of Righteousness [shall] arise with healing in His wings," (Mal. 4:2) and "the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea" (Hab. 2: 14). Lord hasten that blissful day!

PALESTINE
Out of the seas of men
  The nations rise,
Conquer and fall again,
  And ever lies
Heavy on thee the hand
  Of those strange kings,
And in thy valleys, O unhappy Land,
  The alien trumpet rings.

Trouble and strife are thine;
  The Gentile rod
On a stiff-necked race, the sign
  Of a jealous God;
Till Israel seek the Lord
  And thou art blest,
No peace shall be, nor freedom from the sword,
  Nor the stricken earth find rest.
W. B. DOWNEY.