Question
Who did God give the land of Israel to?
Answer
In light of what is happening today, this is an excellent question. Much confusion has occurred regarding God’s relationship with the nation of Israel and how this impacts upon the questions surrounding who has the God-given right to possess the land of Palestine. For our answer, we will turn to the Bible. First we will focus on God’s promise to give the land of Canaan to Israel and its fulfillment found in the Old Testament. Then, we will answer the question, “Does God have a special relationship with Israel today?’ And, if He does not, then what does this say about any affirmation of a God-given claim to the land of Palestine by the Jews or anyone else.
Approximately 2100 years before Jesus, God made a promise to Abraham stating that He would make of his descendants a great nation and give them the land of Canaan where He had called Abraham to wander for a period of 100 years. Besides promising the land, God also promised that Abraham would be blessed with a son through whom the nation would be established, Isaac. Further, through Isaac’s descendant (Jesus) all the nations of the earth would be blessed.
GEN 12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you;
GEN 12:2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing;
GEN 12:3 And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
GEN 12:4 ¶ So Abram went forth as the Lord had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.
GEN 12:7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.
Later, this land promise was repeated to Abraham.
GEN 13:14 ¶ The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward;
GEN 13:15 for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.
GEN 13:16 “I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth, so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered.
Note the word “forever” in verse 15 that may give some the idea that God intended for the Jews to live in this land until the end of earthly time but we will return to this later in the second part of our answer when we examine whether God still has a special relationship with Israel today as He did in Old Testament times.
Later God spoke to Abraham (Abram at this time) and told him that his descendants would have to wait approximately four hundred years before He would give them the land of Canaan. During that time, they would be enslaved in Egypt and the wickedness of the nations of Canaan would continue to increase.
GEN 15:13 God said to Abram, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years.
GEN 15:14 “But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.
GEN 15:15 “As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
GEN 15:16 “Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
Under the leadership of Moses, God rescued Israel from Egyptian slavery. But before they were given the land of Canaan as promised, Moses warred the people that it was not because of their inherent goodness that they were receiving the land but God was judging the idolatrous nations in the land and also fulfilling that part of His promise to Abraham. Further, Moses warned them that if they were to remain in the land and prosper, they MUST obey God by keeping the Law of Moses! Therefore, remaining in the land was conditional not unconditional! Besides this, Moses predicted that the nation would be carried away into captivity but that God would bring some of them back to the promised land. The rest of the Old Testament is about the unfolding of Moses’ inspired words.
DEU 9:4 ¶ “Do not say in your heart when the Lord your God has driven them out before you, ‘Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord is dispossessing them before you.
DEU 9:5 “It is not for your righteousness or for the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm the oath which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
DEU 9:6 ¶ “Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people.
DEU 28:58 ¶ “If you are not careful to observe all the words of this law which are written in this book, to fear this honored and awesome name, the Lord your God,
DEU 28:59 then the Lord will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses.
DEU 28:63 “It shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you; and you will be torn from the land where you are entering to possess it.
DEU 28:64 “Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.
DEU 30:1 “So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the Lord your God has banished you,
DEU 30:2 and you return to the Lord your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons,
DEU 30:3 then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you.
Key Point – Around 1385 BC, under the leadership of Joshua, Israel, with God’s help, conquered the land of Canaan, displacing the wicked nations and the land was divided among the people. It is at this time that God fulfilled His promise to Abraham and Israel concerning the land which He swore He would give them!
JOS 21:43 ¶ So the Lord gave Israel all the land which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they possessed it and lived in it.
JOS 21:44 And the Lord gave them rest on every side, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers, and no one of all their enemies stood before them; the Lord gave all their enemies into their hand.
JOS 21:45 Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.
However, as Moses had foretold, the people became disobedient to God and suffered Assyrian and Babylonian captivity. Then, as Moses also had said, God brought, through the Persian King Cyrus in 539 BC, a remnant (small number) of Jews back to the land to rebuild the Temple and Jerusalem. At this point, God had fulfilled His word concerning the land of Israel!
2CH 36:22 ¶ Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia — in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah — the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying,
2CH 36:23 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up!'”
Now, to the next part of our answer, “Does God have a special relationship with the nation of Israel today in which He is obligated to maintain them in the land of Palestine?” No, He does not! Since the land promise was tied to their obedience to the Law of Moses and the Law of Moses has been abolished through the death of Jesus, God no longer has any special relationship with any nation including Israel! Therefore, the word “forever” attached to the promise in Gen. 13 must be taken to be a limited period of time that would end. It did end when Jesus brought the gospel into effect so that all Jews and Gentiles would be saved through Him, not by the Law of Moses.
EPH 2:11 ¶ Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands —
EPH 2:12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
EPH 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
EPH 2:14 For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,
EPH 2:15 by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace,
EPH 2:16 and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.
Whether we are Jewish or not, we must follow Jesus and keep His commandments in order to be saved. God has a relationship with all Christians in whatever nations they may reside.
By Gary Hunt
