VIII Prophecy of the Jews: A Separate People
Numb. xxiii. 9.—Rom. ix. 4, 5.
I have heard children say carelessly:
“Oh, that is only an old Jew!”
And when my children were little, I used to tell them that we should love the Jews, and be kind to them, and pray for them. For they are God’s own dear people, and our Lord Jesus Christ was a Jew, when He came to earth and took our human nature.
It is true that the Jews are scattered all over the world now for their unbelief and disobedience; but by and by, God tells us, they will be gathered in their sows land, and Jesus will reign over them as King of kings, and Lord of lords.
In Numbers xxiii. 9 we find a prophecy about the Jews. Balaam prophesied: “The people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned among the nations.”
God separated them in various ways to be His own people. He promised to go with them; and He also gave them certain laws which they were to keep. They were not permitted to marry outside their own nation; they were only allowed to use certain animals for food, and the animals must be killed in a certain way, so that the blood was poured out. They were forbidden to worship idols, or to follow the practices of the nations round them.
They were to keep one a day week holy, and they were to go up to Jerusalem once a year to keep the Passover.
These rules kept them separate from all other peoples, and as long as they obeyed God they were abundantly prosperous.
Thus the prophecy spoken by Balaam so long ago, about the Jews being a people apart by themselves, is fulfilled to the very letter to-day.
PROPHECY OF DELIVERANCE FROM EGYPT.
Gen. l. 24.
—Josh. xxiv. 32.
Once when God was talking to Abraham, and promising to give the Land of Canaan to his children, He told him that they should be strangers in a land which was not theirs for four hundred years, and should be afflicted by those among whom they dwelt; but “also the nation whom they shall serve will I judge,” said God, “and afterwards shall they come out with great substance.”
The Children of Israel, who are now called the Jews, travelled from Canaan into Egypt to their brother Joseph, because, of the great famine, and lived in Egypt for four hundred and twenty years.
But when Joseph came to die, he called his brothers to his side and uttered this prophecy: “I die; and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” And Joseph took an oath of his brothers, saying: “God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence.”
So Joseph died at the age of a hundred and ten years, and they embalmed and put him in a coffin in Egypt.
But when the time came for the children of Israel to be delivered from Egypt, as they escaped from their cruel task-masters, in all their hurry and confusion, Moses remembered to take the bones of Joseph with him; and as the Children of Israel wandered in the Wilderness, they bore that coffin with them, till at last they reached the land of Canaan which God had promised to give them. Here Joshua, who led the people after Moses’ death, buried the bones of Joseph in Shechem, in a piece of ground which Jacob had bought before he was carried down into Egypt at the time of the famine.
Thus the prophecy uttered hundreds of years before was fulfilled to the very letter.
PROPHECY OF THE CAPTIVITY.
Jer. xxv. 12.—Dan. i. 1-3.—Ezra i. 1-6.
Many years had passed away, during which the Children of Israel had been governed by judges, and by the kings of Judah and Israel; but gradually the people got slack; they forgot the Lord that brought them out of the land of Egypt, and forsook His commandments and fell into idolatry and dreadful sin.
At length God told the Prophet Jeremiah that the sins of the people were so great that He must send Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, to carry them away captives, and that they would serve him for seventy years, while the land of Canaan should be a desolation, and enjoy her Sabbaths.
We read in the first chapters of Daniel about this captivity.
Meanwhile God was very pitiful to His people whom He had had to punish, and He sent them this message through Jeremiah:—
“For thus saith the Lord, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon, I will visit you, and perform My good work toward you, in causing you to return to this place.”
God told Jeremiah to tell them to build houses and make families during that seventy years; to pray for their enemies, and to ask God to send them peace. And God heard their prayers; and when the seventy years were accomplished, He fulfilled the prophecy in a very wonderful way, by raising up Cyrus, King of Persia, to send the Jews back to rebuild God’s Temple at Jerusalem. And Cyrus helped them in every way, even giving them back the sacred vessels of the House of God which Nebuchadnezzar had taken; and by encouraging his people to help the Jews by giving them silver and gold, and beasts to carry the treasures, and all that they needed.
Thus God fulfilled His own word, and the people returned at the end of the seventy years.