The Jews, a people without a country! Palestine, a country without a people! Here we have something without parallel in the history of the world. How is it that the Jews have not been tracelessly absorbed in the countries whither they have been scattered? No ordinary answer will satisfy this question. In no natural way can this phenomenon be accounted for. It is the finger of God! How is it that the land has not been absorbed by its conquerors, and all trace of its ancient people lost? Again there is no answer on natural grounds. It is the finger of God!
The Jews are an ancient people, a nation with a proud history long before the Babylonish Empire reared its proud head. Yet the Babylonish Empire has ceased to be, leaving no trace of its former glory but a few ruins. The Medo-Persian Empire has disappeared. The Grecian Empire has ceased. The wonderful Roman Empire is no more, though one day it will be revived. How is it that all these empires have disappeared, and yet the Jew, older than them all is with us today? Driven from country to country, the object of dislike, too often the subject of bitter persecution, the Jews are more numerous than ever. They are more vigorous than in the palmy days of king Solomon.
How is it that the Jewish nation is not absorbed among the nations, in which they find themselves strangers and sojourners? The answer can only be found in the abhorrence in which the Gentile nations hold them because of the murder of their Messiah, whom Christendom, at least nominally, reverences as the Saviour of mankind.
The Jew on the other hand, cordially dislikes the Gentile, especially as the Jew’s bitter hatred of Christ leads him to hate all those who revere Him as a divine Person and the promised Messiah of God. So much for the preservation of the people as distinct from the nations.
How, then, is the land preserved for the people? The answer comes from a quarter very unexpected to all but the student of Scripture. A friend told me that years ago when he was a boy his school teacher told him that the Bible was not reliable, for it stated that the Holy Land was “flowing with milk and honey,” whereas, as a matter of fact, it was practically a desert. This was true then, for the writer heard a traveller in Palestine describe how he rode from six in the morning till six at night, never seeing one human habitation, and as far as the eye could reach nothing meeting his gaze but thistles as high as his horse’s head. But the teacher only showed his ignorance of the Scriptures, and of the climatic variations of the country.
The reason why the land “flowing with milk and honey” became barren and sterile is found in Deuteronomy 11:17. God threatened the people that if they did not keep His commandments the latter rain would be withdrawn, and the land reduced to sterility. The threat was carried out, and for centuries there was no latter rain in Palestine, it is in this way that the land has been preserved for the people. There was no inducement to the Turk, the conqueror of the land for centuries, to populate a land that was practically desert, and unable to support its inhabitants. If the teacher had not been so ignorant he might have discovered that the Bible is reliable.
But God promised to Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish race, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. This promise will be carried out to the letter. Let us see how things are shaping to this end.
There is a wonderful verse in Isaiah 65:24, “And it shall come to pass, that BEFORE they call, I will answer: and while they are speaking, I will hear.” This Scripture is being fulfilled under our very eyes. The Jew is unaware how God is preparing the answer to their bitter importunate cry of the future day, when as a nation they will realize their awful sin in the refusal of their Messiah and the murder of the Son of God.
A most significant part of the fulfilment of this promise is the gradual return of the latter rain after having ceased for centuries. It may be explained that there are two rainy seasons in Palestine, the early rain and the latter rain. There are weeks of sunny rainless days between these seasons, and the land is absolutely dependent on them for successful agriculture. In 1869-70 the rainfall was 12½in. There was then no latter rain. The mean rainfall of Palestine, now the latter rain has returned, is over 26 in., considerably higher than that of London or Berlin. Surely this is the finger of God! No human hand could encompass this.
Then, again, see how the tide of emigration to Palestine has set in. When Sir Moses Montefiore, the great Jewish philanthropist, visited Palestine in 1827, he found only 500 Jews living in that land in abject poverty. In 1926 it was computed there were 180,000 Jews resident in Palestine, and the numbers have increased since then.
The advent of the latter rain encouraged agriculture, and with that the return of the Jew to their own land. Under the régime of the Turk this was slow work, yet before the Great War there were about fifty agricultural Colonies, some of them of great size, employing hundreds of settlers. Thus was fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of over 2600 years ago, that the day would come when the land should be planted with pleasant plants, and set with strange (that is foreign) slips The writer has a wine bottle label pasted in his Bible against this striking prophecy of Isaiah 17:10. It reads:
PALESTINE.
GUARANTEED TO BE THE PRODUCTION OF VINES,
TRANSPLANTED FROM PORTUGAL TO PALESTINE.
One colony—Rishon le Zion—planted 400,000 fruit trees and 3,000,000 vine slips imported from Spain. Thus startlingly do we see prophecy fulfilled under our very eyes.
In 1896 the great Zionist movement began for the founding of a Jewish state in the Holy Land. True the movement is infidel and anti-christian in character, but this is just what the Scriptures lead us to expect.
In 1914 the Great War broke out. Turkey blindly put herself on the side of Germany, invaded Egypt, which resulted in the British Expedition, which led to the capture of Jerusalem and the end of Turkish tyranny in that distressed land.
This is surely part of the answer that God is preparing for His ancient people, for the celebrated Balfour declaration in November, 1917, clearly stated that “The British Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours for the achievement of this purpose.” Thus the way was opened for the return of the Jew to his own land.
Towns are springing up. The Jews are going back in such numbers that immigration has to be regulated according as the opening up of the country agriculturally and commercially calls for fresh settlers. The vast chemical deposits of the Dead Sea are to be exploited. Good roads, railways, motor buses, electric light, the revival of the pure Hebrew language, in fulfilment of Zephaniah 3:9—all tell the tale of changed conditions.
Can the Christian be indifferent? If God’s hand is in this, and it is most undoubtedly, the Christian must be deeply interested.
But matters are taking a turn on other than material lines. Ethically and spiritually there is a great change coming over the Jew in his attitude to Christ. In many 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 Depot 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 their nation’s most wonderful prophet and to become acquainted with His life.
It is conceded that in this there is probably not more than what is ethical and national. The movement is not spiritual, as meaning the deep inward work of the Spirit of God leading to a true recognition of the Lord, carrying with it eternal blessing. That day will yet come as prophesied by Zechariah, but things are undoubtedly leading up to this.
This change of attitude has taken a very remarkable form. It is proposed to revive the ancient Jewish Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, and its first consideration is to be the examination of the trial and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, with a view to coming to a definite judgment as to whether He was rightly or wrongly condemned. If the verdict is that He was rightly condemned, they hope the evidence will be of such a nature as to convince the world of its justice, and lift the opprobrium the Jewish nation has been resting under in the minds of the Gentile world. On the other hand, if the verdict is that He was unjustly condemned, then it is proposed to confess the sin to God and the world.
Two men stand out prominently in connection with this movement. In Denver, Col., U.S.A., there lives a Jewish lawyer of outstanding ability, Solomon Shwayder by name, and he is devoting all his time to the great task of reviving the Jewish Sanhedrin for the purpose named. He is in touch with the leading Jewish Rabbis and Authorities in the world. He is a rich man, and has established an office, employing a secretary to cope with the work he is doing in this connection.
With him is closely connected a Gentile Christian, Dr. David L. Cooper, of Los Angeles, California, who has written a book, entitled, The Eternal God revealing Himself to Suffering Israel and to Lost Humanity. In it he quotes the astounding fact of twenty-six leading Jewish Authorities, writing and speaking in praise of the person and character of Christ. A hundred years ago that name would have been scorned. What a significant change! This does not necessarily mean the acknowledgment of Christ as Saviour. On the contrary, the Scriptures lead us to expect that the Jew will go back to his own land in unbelief, and not till the nation is purified by the terrible three and a half years of the Great Tribulation will it really awake to the acknowledgment of Christ as their Messiah.
How graphically and beautifully this is prophesied in the Scriptures: “I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zech. 12:10). Then shall the great day of atonement be kept rightly and truly for the first time since the death of Christ; not as anticipative 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.
In reconstituting the Sanhedrin it is proposed tentatively that it shall consist of twenty-three Rabbis of great learning and piety, twenty-four scholars and scientists of outstanding attainments, and twenty-four business men, hard-headed, practical, possessed of keen analytical brains—seventy-one members in all.
It is proposed to spend three years in the careful choice of the members of the Sanhedrin; four years in the collecting of evidence from leading representative Christian men, as well as from Jews of position and attainments and four to six years to prepare the results that shall be published to the world.
It may be pointed out that this means a very considerable stretch of time, and the question may be asked, Would it not be possible to come to a deliberate judgment in this matter in as many days, or even hours, as they propose to take in years?
This would be so if it were a personal decision, and it is hoped and believed that it will be so in the case of many who will take this matter in hand, and that their inquiry will end in their personal salvation.
But it must be borne in mind that this is an attempt to bring the Jewish nation and the Christian world at large to one mind in a matter in which there has been sharp and bitter divergence for centuries.
A little reflection will convince the reader that the time proposed is none too long for the task that lies before them. To write to Rabbis and leading Authorities all over the world, to get their replies, to answer their inquiries, will take considerable time. Many approached will decline the honour of serving on the Sanhedrin; others will have to be approached. Anyone with experience of organization will understand something of what this great scheme will involve.
Further, the fresh study of the subject and the putting together of evidence, will take lengthened periods of time, especially with busy men whose hours are filled up in attending to onerous duties, for the subject is an intensely serious one, and will need careful research and thought.
Surely this is a most significant sign of the times, and one of the deepest interest to the Christian today. We shall follow its development with deepest concern.
A recent writer speaks of the next ten years with great apprehension, and well he may. The world is surely and swiftly drifting down the rapids. Soon the headlong plunge must be made. The signs of the times, the things Scripture leads us to expect, are multiplying on every hand. The coming of the Lord is very, very nigh. How welcome will be His summoning shout!