The promise of the restoration of the nation of Israel is found in the old covenant:
Deuteronomy 30:1-5 When all these things come upon you—the blessings and curses I have set before you—and you call them to mind in all the nations to which the LORD your God has banished you, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey His voice with all your heart and all your soul according to everything I am giving you today, then He will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you from all the nations to which the LORD your God has scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the ends of the earth, He will gather you and return you from there. And the LORD your God will bring you into the land your fathers possessed, and you will take possession of it. He will cause you to prosper and multiply more than your fathers. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and all your soul, so that you may live.
The Old testament prophecies of the restoration of the land of Israel are rooted in the clause of Deuteronomy 30:1-5. Several examples include:
Jeremiah 29:10-14 For thus says the Lord: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.
Ezekiel 39:25-28 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and will have compassion on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for My holy name. They will forget their disgrace and all the treachery they committed against Me, when they dwell securely in their land, with no one to frighten them. When I bring them back from the peoples and gather them out of the lands of their enemies, I will show My holiness in them in the sight of many nations. Then they will know that I am the LORD their God, when I regather them to their own land, after exiling them among the nations, not leaving any of them behind
Amos 9:14-15 I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord your God.
This was found fulfilled once under the old covenant, when those from the southern kingdom and northern kingdom returned to the land after the Babylonian exile.
Ezra 1:5 Then rose up the heads of the fathers’ houses of Judah and Benjamin, and the priests and the Levites, everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord that is in Jerusalem.
1 Chronicles 9:1-4 So all Israel was recorded in genealogies, and these are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel. And Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their breach of faith. Now the first to dwell again in their possessions in their cities were Israel, the priests, the Levites, and the temple servants. And some of the people of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh lived in Jerusalem: Uthai the son of Ammihud, son of Omri, son of Imri, son of Bani, from the sons of Perez the son of Judah
However, the old covenant ended and was superseded by the new covenant through the blood of Christ.
Hebrews 10:9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second
Hebrews 9:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Additionally, the old covenant was only a shadow that was meant to point to Christ, and not the true reality.
Hebrews 10:1 For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities,
colossians 2:16-17 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
The old covenant is no longer in effect, as it was superseded by the new covenant. Thus, the promises of restoration to the land are no longer a valid.
an Earthly example to help understand:
I was single and created a will in which my best friend would inherit my estate in the event of my death. However, I later married and changed that will so that my wife, and not my friend, would inherit my estate in the event of my death. The new will cancels the old will, and thus my best friend would not inherit my estate.
So is the land restoration to the nation of Israel found in the new covenant?
