Written by Don West

My last effort in attempting to convey the interesting and significant concept that God is the giver of the land to Israel because He is the Owner of the land did not get very far. I was able to quote Leviticus 25:23 where God says: “...the land is Mine...”; and Joel 3:2 where God says, ... “My land”; but that would be the only two scriptures I was able to use in that article regarding what I believe to be is this extremely important aspect of modern Israel’s claim to the land: God’s ownership of the land, and hence His right to convey the land to His Chosen People, Israel.

 So what follows will be numerous other scriptures that reflect both God’s declarations and man’s understanding as to who is the ultimate owner of the land of Canaan, which today comprises the modern State of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and potentially other areas which we will not address at the present. And as you read these scriptures regarding ownership, you will also sense the numerous times of God’s great dissatisfaction, even anger and wrath, with Israel for her disobedience and rebellion against Him. All bold wording that follows is my emphasis.

Numbers 35:33: “So you shall not pollute the land where you are; for blood defiles the land, and no atonement can be made for the land, for the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of him who shed it. (34) Therefore do not defile The Land which you inhabit In The Midst Of Which I Dwell; For I The Lord Dwell Among The Children Of  Israel.”

2Chr. 7:19: “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I (God) have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, (20) then I will uproot them (dispersion) from My Land which I have given them; and this house (the temple in Jerusalem) which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight and will make it a proverb and a byword among all nations. (21) And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and say, ‘Why has the Lord done thus to this land and this house?’ (22) Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and embraced other gods, and worshipped them and served them; therefore He has brought all this calamity on them.’ ”

2Chr. 20:11: (prayer of King Jehoshaphat) “...here they (the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mt. Seir [Edom] ) are, “rewarding” (sarcasm) us (Israel) by coming to throw us out of Your Possession which You have given us to inherit.” (Have you also noticed the similarity in name between this ancient, biblical people of Ammon who, the biblical writers declared, were located in the area east of the Jordan River which now constitutes the nation of Jordan, and the name of the present Jordanian capital of Amman?  Ammon and Amman. So, is this a coincidence, or is this a correlation of biblical history and historical truth?)   

Jeremiah 2:7: “I (God) brought you (Israel) into a bountiful country (the land of Canaan) to eat its fruit and its goodness, but when you entered you defiled My Land and made My Heritage an abomination.”


Jeremiah 12:10: “Many rulers have destroyed My Vineyard, they have trodden My Portion under foot; they have made My Pleasant Portion a desolate wilderness.”

Jeremiah 16:18: “And first I (God) will repay double for their (Israel’s) iniquity and their sin because they have defiled My Land; they have filled My Inheritance with the carcasses of their detestable and abominable idols.”

1Kings 8:35 (a Solomonic prayer): “When the heavens are shut up and there is no rain because they (Israel) have sinned against You (God), when they pray toward this place (the temple in Jerusalem) and confess Your name, and turn from their sin because You afflict them, (36) then hear in heaven, and forgive the sin of Your servants, Your people Israel, that You may teach them the good way in which they should walk; and give rain on Your Land which You have given to Your people as an inheritance.”

2Samuel 7:22 (a Davidic prayer): “Therefore, You are great, O Lord God. For there is none like You, nor is there any God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears. (23) And who is like Your people, like Israel, the one nation on the earth whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people, to make for Himself a name—and to do for You great and awesome deeds for Your Land – before Your people whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? (24) For You have made Your people Israel Your very own people forever, and You Lord, have become their God... (26) So let Your name be magnified forever, saying, ‘The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel.’ ...”

Deut. 32:43: (a song of witness for God against Israel): “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His (God’s) people (Israel); For He will avenge the blood of His servants (Israel), and render vengeance to His adversaries; He will provide atonement for His Land and His People.”

Psalm 10:16: “The Lord is King forever and ever; the nations have perished out of His Land.”

Psalm 85:1: “Lord, You have been favorable to Your Land; You have brought back the captivity of Jacob”. (Out of Egypt, out of Babylon, out of the Holocaust, and out of the nations)

Psalm 95:10: “For forty years I (God) was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.’ (11) So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter (forty years wandering in the wilderness and the consequent death of a generation) My Rest” (the land of Canaan).

Joel 1:6: “For a nation has come up against My Land...”

Joel 2:18: “Then the Lord will be zealous for His Land, and pity His people.”

Hosea 9:1: “Do not rejoice, O Israel, with joy like other peoples, for you have played the harlot against your God... (3) They (Israel) shall not dwell in the Lord’s Land...”

Isaiah 14:1: “For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will still choose Israel, and settle them in their own land... (2) Then people (the nations) will take them (Israel) and bring them to their place (the land of Canaan/Israel), and the house of Israel will possess them for servants and maids in the Land of the Lord; ...”

Isaiah 14:25: “...I (God) will break the Assyrian in My Land, and on My Mountains tread him under foot, then his yoke shall be removed from them (Israel), and his (Assyria’s) burden  removed from their (Israel’s) shoulders. (26) THIS IS THE PURPOSE THAT IS PURPOSED AGAINST THE WHOLE EARTH, and this is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. (27) FOR THE LORD OF HOSTS HAS PURPOSED AND WHO WILL ANNUL IT? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back? ... (29) Do not rejoice, all you of Philistia... (31)... All you of Philistia are dissolved; ... (32)... the Lord has founded Zion (Israel), and the poor of His people shall take refuge in it.”

Ezekiel 36:5: “Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Surely I have spoken in My burning jealousy against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave My Land to themselves as a possession (seized it from Israel)...”

Ezekiel 36:20: “When they (Israel) came to the nations (dispersion), wherever they went, they profaned My holy name—when they (the nations) said of them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, and yet they have gone out of His Land.” (Why? Because God Himself had, due to Israel’s long-term sin and disobedience, expelled Israel from the land He had given to and intended for them to dwell in; leaving His people as He, in His anger and wrath now intended, dispersed and scattered throughout the world, in fearful  vulnerability as refugees, aliens, and exiles. Correspondingly, Israel’s enemies now appeared triumphant and were, naturally, dismissive and contemptuous of Israel’s God. As a result of this national tragedy, the nation of Israel, by not being where God had decreed they should be, was in fact, and on a daily basis, bringing odium and profanation upon their God. Hence, for roughly the last 2000 years, it has seemed to the skeptics, the doubters, the non-theists, and the atheists of the nations that the Bible is a fraud and a lie; and that the God of the Bible not only could not effect what and where He had intended Israel to be; but would not, since He was and is, according to their estimation, merely a configuration of the minds of those who “are too weak to live life without a crutch”: the Jews and Christians. But if the reconstitution of the nation of Israel in 1948, in nothing less than the land that God had given Israel 4000 years previously, has not dispelled some of the confidence and cockiness of this element of this world’s society; just read the next passage to know that God will fully, completely, dramatically, and ultimately accomplish all His purposes and plans for Israel, [including where He has declared Israel is to abide] and will confound, stun, and awe all doubters, naysayers, and nations, then and eternally.)

Ezekiel 38:16: “You (Gog) will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land (Israel). It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My Land so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes... Ezek. 39:7: So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel (their disbelief will be extinguished), and I WILL NOT LET THEM PROFANE MY HOLY NAME ANYMORE (they will ultimately be obedient to their God in the land their God gave them). THEN THE NATIONS SHALL KNOW THAT I AM THE HOLY ONE IN ISRAEL. (8) ‘SURELY IT IS COMING, AND IT SHALL BE DONE,’ SAYS THE LORD GOD. ‘THIS IS THE DAY OF WHICH I HAVE SPOKEN.’ ”

And that day is now approaching. May we all be prepared for it through God’s Son, Jesus, His Christ and Messiah. 
 
(adapted from The Boone County Spotlight; used with permission)

 

Don West is a new columnist and speaker for Prophecy Matters.  His passion for Israel and prophecy is instantly contagious.  He is a professor at North Arkansas College in Harrison Arkansas.  Dr. West holds a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas.