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Many deny that the scriptures explicitly prophesy a return of the physical descendants of the ancient nation of Israel to their ancient homeland. But the scriptures indeed teach this, and they teach it repeatedly, and in explicit words. The first such prophecy we should notice in this context is a prophecy unique among Gods prophecies, for it is addressed to neither a nation nor an individual, but to a piece of real estate.
Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and My fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I have raised My hand in an oath that surely the nations that are around you shall bear their own shame. But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come. For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. (Ezekiel 36:6-10)
The words the land of Israel, along with the words the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, leave no way to even imagine that this prophecy is addressed to anything other that the physical homeland of the ancient nation of Israel. But what does this prophecy say about this physical land? I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. The words all of it added to the words all the house of Israel (and yes, the word all is repeated in the Hebrew) makes it exceedingly clear that this means that absolutely all of the house of Israel Will again inhabit the land of Israel, along with the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys of that land. And there is absolutely no way to even pretend that absolutely all of the house of Israel has ever returned to their land. So we know this prophecy speaks of a time yet to come.
One clearly stated scripture is enough to convince anyone who is subject to the authority of the word of God, the Bible. But there are many other scriptures that say the same thing in other ways. A future revival of the physical ancient homeland of the physical ancient nation of Israel is made even more clear by a passage in Ezekiel 47, where we are given a precise definition of the borders of that future land, along with explicit instructions for how it is to be divided. That passage is:
Thus says the Lord GOD: These are the borders by which you shall divide the land as an inheritance among the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph shall have two portions. You shall inherit it equally with one another; for I raised My hand in an oath to give it to your fathers, and this land shall fall to you as your inheritance. This shall be the border of the land on the north: from the Great Sea, by the road to Hethlon, as one goes to Zedad, Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim (which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath), to Hazar Hatticon (which is on the border of Hauran). Thus the boundary shall be from the Sea to Hazar Enan, the border of Damascus; and as for the north, northward, it is the border of Hamath. This is the north side. On the east side you shall mark out the border from between Hauran and Damascus, and between Gilead and the land of Israel, along the Jordan, and along the eastern side of the sea. This is the east side. The south side, toward the South, shall be from Tamar to the waters of Meribah by Kadesh, along the brook to the Great Sea. This is the south side, toward the South. The west side shall be the Great Sea, from the southern boundary until one comes to a point opposite Hamath. This is the west side. Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance, says the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 47:13-23)
Now some very wrongly claim that this is part of a prophetic vision, and therefore its meaning is symbolic, rather than literal. But that is an error. The vision which Ezekiel saw ended in Ezekiel 47:12. From Ezekiel 47:13 to the end of the book of Ezekiel, every statement is explicitly couched in clear, simple language. This was also done in numerous comments interspersed with the vision as it progressed through chapters 43-47. Ezekiel was shown things in a vision, and then was told exactly what they meant. Then he was shown more, and then was again told exactly what the new material meant, often with explicit instructions for actions to be taken when the prophecy was fulfilled. This was done repeatedly as the vision progressed. But that is another subject.
The land is again explicitly mentioned in Isaiah 65:8-10, where we read, Thus says the Lord: As the new wine is found in the cluster, And one says, Do not destroy it, For a blessing is in it, So will I do for My servants sake, That I may not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, And from Judah an heir of My mountains; My elect shall inherit it, And My servants shall dwell there. Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, And the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, For My people who have sought Me. Here Jacob and Judah, two names which are never applied to the church, are said to be heirs of My Mountains. It goes on to say they shall dwell there, And explicitly names Sharon and the valley of Achor, two physical places in the land of Israel.
Again, we read, Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that they shall no longer say, As the Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but, As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them. And they shall dwell in their own land. (Jeremiah 23:7-8)
Thus far we have seen that the prophecies refer to the ancient homeland of Israel in explicit language, and also that they just as explicitly say that it will be inhabited by absolutely all of the descendants of this ancient nation. But the scriptures also very clearly state the sequence of events that will bring this to pass. The first of these is the one scripture that explicitly says when they will return. We read:
For behold, the Lord will come with fire And with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword The Lord will judge all flesh; And the slain of the Lord shall be many. Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, To go to the gardens After an idol in the midst, Eating swines flesh and the abomination and the mouse, Shall be consumed together, says the Lord. For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites, says the Lord. (Isaiah 66:20-21)
This passage begins with the Lord coming with fire, to render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire, and then says it shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations. So we see that the Lord here refers to Armageddon, and explicitly says that he will send those among them who escape to go and declare his glory. Then, it says, they shall bring all your brethren, to My holy Mountain Jerusalem. So we notice two critical things from this passage. The first of these is that all your brethren (and yes, the word all is in the Hebrew text) will be brought back after the Lord has come in power and glory, not before that time. And the second one is that they will be brought back to my holy mountain Jerusalem. So the scriptures explicitly tell us that all of them will be brought back at this time. But many among them are rebels, and God cannot have rebels in his presence. So the scriptures explicitly tell us how He will deal with that.
As I live, says the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you, says the Lord GOD. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 20:33-38)
So although there will be rebels among those that will be brought back to the land, God himself will meet them at the border as they arrive, and purge them from among the people. And it explicitly says of these rebels that, I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. But the explicit detail does not end there, for now we read:
I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves. (Zechariah 12:10-14)
So now we see that the spirit of grace and supplication will be poured upon the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and they will repent with grief bitter mourning. But what is it that they are repenting of? They will look on Me whom they pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son. So we see that they will repent of their rejection of Him in his first coming. For, although not even one of them had been there at that time, yet every one of them had participated in his rejection. For we must remember, they are Jews, and all true believers in Jesus have already been raptured at this time. This will be true, whether the rapture takes place pre-trib, mid-trib, pre-wrath, or post trib. For this is after the Lord has come in power and glory, and thus after all those times. The rapture is past and over when this repentance takes place. And the result of this repentance is that:
In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; And the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing For those of Israel who have escaped. And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holyeveryone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:2-5)
Again, we read of that time, But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34) This is so important that the Holy Spirit quoted it in Hebrews 8:10-11.
It is only in the light of these explicit statements of scripture that we can properly understand what the Holy Spirit was saying when He said through the Apostle Paul:
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins. Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-29)
These numerous prophecies also make our Lords meaning clear, where He said, See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! (Matthew 23:8-39 and Luke 13:35)
So we see that the scriptures do indeed tell us, both in explicit language and repeatedly, that the physical descendants of the ancient nation of Israel will be brought back to their physical ancient homeland. And when they are brought back, the rebels will be purged from their midst and all the rest will repent and turn to the Lord with their whole heart. This is not an interpretation of the meaning of the scriptures. The only interpretation here is that the scriptures actually mean what they explicitly say. And this is what they explicitly say, in clear, simple statements, rather than in apocalyptic symbols.
Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and My fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations. Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: I have raised My hand in an oath that surely the nations that are around you shall bear their own shame. But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come. For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown. I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. (Ezekiel 36:6-10)
The words the land of Israel, along with the words the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, leave no way to even imagine that this prophecy is addressed to anything other that the physical homeland of the ancient nation of Israel. But what does this prophecy say about this physical land? I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt. The words all of it added to the words all the house of Israel (and yes, the word all is repeated in the Hebrew) makes it exceedingly clear that this means that absolutely all of the house of Israel Will again inhabit the land of Israel, along with the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys of that land. And there is absolutely no way to even pretend that absolutely all of the house of Israel has ever returned to their land. So we know this prophecy speaks of a time yet to come.
One clearly stated scripture is enough to convince anyone who is subject to the authority of the word of God, the Bible. But there are many other scriptures that say the same thing in other ways. A future revival of the physical ancient homeland of the physical ancient nation of Israel is made even more clear by a passage in Ezekiel 47, where we are given a precise definition of the borders of that future land, along with explicit instructions for how it is to be divided. That passage is:
Thus says the Lord GOD: These are the borders by which you shall divide the land as an inheritance among the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph shall have two portions. You shall inherit it equally with one another; for I raised My hand in an oath to give it to your fathers, and this land shall fall to you as your inheritance. This shall be the border of the land on the north: from the Great Sea, by the road to Hethlon, as one goes to Zedad, Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim (which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath), to Hazar Hatticon (which is on the border of Hauran). Thus the boundary shall be from the Sea to Hazar Enan, the border of Damascus; and as for the north, northward, it is the border of Hamath. This is the north side. On the east side you shall mark out the border from between Hauran and Damascus, and between Gilead and the land of Israel, along the Jordan, and along the eastern side of the sea. This is the east side. The south side, toward the South, shall be from Tamar to the waters of Meribah by Kadesh, along the brook to the Great Sea. This is the south side, toward the South. The west side shall be the Great Sea, from the southern boundary until one comes to a point opposite Hamath. This is the west side. Thus you shall divide this land among yourselves according to the tribes of Israel. It shall be that you will divide it by lot as an inheritance for yourselves, and for the strangers who dwell among you and who bear children among you. They shall be to you as native-born among the children of Israel; they shall have an inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel. And it shall be that in whatever tribe the stranger dwells, there you shall give him his inheritance, says the Lord GOD. (Ezekiel 47:13-23)
Now some very wrongly claim that this is part of a prophetic vision, and therefore its meaning is symbolic, rather than literal. But that is an error. The vision which Ezekiel saw ended in Ezekiel 47:12. From Ezekiel 47:13 to the end of the book of Ezekiel, every statement is explicitly couched in clear, simple language. This was also done in numerous comments interspersed with the vision as it progressed through chapters 43-47. Ezekiel was shown things in a vision, and then was told exactly what they meant. Then he was shown more, and then was again told exactly what the new material meant, often with explicit instructions for actions to be taken when the prophecy was fulfilled. This was done repeatedly as the vision progressed. But that is another subject.
The land is again explicitly mentioned in Isaiah 65:8-10, where we read, Thus says the Lord: As the new wine is found in the cluster, And one says, Do not destroy it, For a blessing is in it, So will I do for My servants sake, That I may not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, And from Judah an heir of My mountains; My elect shall inherit it, And My servants shall dwell there. Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, And the Valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down, For My people who have sought Me. Here Jacob and Judah, two names which are never applied to the church, are said to be heirs of My Mountains. It goes on to say they shall dwell there, And explicitly names Sharon and the valley of Achor, two physical places in the land of Israel.
Again, we read, Therefore, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that they shall no longer say, As the Lord lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but, As the Lord lives who brought up and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the north country and from all the countries where I had driven them. And they shall dwell in their own land. (Jeremiah 23:7-8)
Thus far we have seen that the prophecies refer to the ancient homeland of Israel in explicit language, and also that they just as explicitly say that it will be inhabited by absolutely all of the descendants of this ancient nation. But the scriptures also very clearly state the sequence of events that will bring this to pass. The first of these is the one scripture that explicitly says when they will return. We read:
For behold, the Lord will come with fire And with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword The Lord will judge all flesh; And the slain of the Lord shall be many. Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, To go to the gardens After an idol in the midst, Eating swines flesh and the abomination and the mouse, Shall be consumed together, says the Lord. For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the Lord out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem, says the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord. And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites, says the Lord. (Isaiah 66:20-21)
This passage begins with the Lord coming with fire, to render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire, and then says it shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations. So we see that the Lord here refers to Armageddon, and explicitly says that he will send those among them who escape to go and declare his glory. Then, it says, they shall bring all your brethren, to My holy Mountain Jerusalem. So we notice two critical things from this passage. The first of these is that all your brethren (and yes, the word all is in the Hebrew text) will be brought back after the Lord has come in power and glory, not before that time. And the second one is that they will be brought back to my holy mountain Jerusalem. So the scriptures explicitly tell us that all of them will be brought back at this time. But many among them are rebels, and God cannot have rebels in his presence. So the scriptures explicitly tell us how He will deal with that.
As I live, says the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you, says the Lord GOD. I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 20:33-38)
So although there will be rebels among those that will be brought back to the land, God himself will meet them at the border as they arrive, and purge them from among the people. And it explicitly says of these rebels that, I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. But the explicit detail does not end there, for now we read:
I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves. (Zechariah 12:10-14)
So now we see that the spirit of grace and supplication will be poured upon the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and they will repent with grief bitter mourning. But what is it that they are repenting of? They will look on Me whom they pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son. So we see that they will repent of their rejection of Him in his first coming. For, although not even one of them had been there at that time, yet every one of them had participated in his rejection. For we must remember, they are Jews, and all true believers in Jesus have already been raptured at this time. This will be true, whether the rapture takes place pre-trib, mid-trib, pre-wrath, or post trib. For this is after the Lord has come in power and glory, and thus after all those times. The rapture is past and over when this repentance takes place. And the result of this repentance is that:
In that day the Branch of the Lord shall be beautiful and glorious; And the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing For those of Israel who have escaped. And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holyeveryone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning. (Isaiah 4:2-5)
Again, we read of that time, But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more. (Jeremiah 31:33-34) This is so important that the Holy Spirit quoted it in Hebrews 8:10-11.
It is only in the light of these explicit statements of scripture that we can properly understand what the Holy Spirit was saying when He said through the Apostle Paul:
For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins. Concerning the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but concerning the election they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:25-29)
These numerous prophecies also make our Lords meaning clear, where He said, See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! (Matthew 23:8-39 and Luke 13:35)
So we see that the scriptures do indeed tell us, both in explicit language and repeatedly, that the physical descendants of the ancient nation of Israel will be brought back to their physical ancient homeland. And when they are brought back, the rebels will be purged from their midst and all the rest will repent and turn to the Lord with their whole heart. This is not an interpretation of the meaning of the scriptures. The only interpretation here is that the scriptures actually mean what they explicitly say. And this is what they explicitly say, in clear, simple statements, rather than in apocalyptic symbols.