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Thursday, September 12, 2019

Israel’s Right to Land


Mr William Federer would have us believe that a whole host of catastrophes visited upon cities, empires, rulers, etc. for the last 2,000 years are the result of efforts to take land away from the Jewish people in the Middle East.  Here is just one ensample (bold text in the original):

As part of a U.S. brokered "disengagement" deal, on Tisha B'Av, 2005, Jews began to be forcibly evacuated from Gaza.

The last Jewish residents were dragged out on August 22, 2005. The very next day, a tropical depression in the Atlantic turned into Hurricane Katrina and headed straight for New Orleans, forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.

Property damage in New Orleans exceeded $81 billion.

Nearly 2,000 people died. It was one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history.


However, if it could be shown that Israel according to the flesh had lost her right to the land she had dwelt in for so long, then we would have to re-evaluate the causes of those disasters listed by Mr Federer.  The Orthodox priest Fr Lawrence Farley has shown just that.  He writes,

 . . . Thinking about the catastrophe that befell Israel in 70 A.D. when the Temple was destroyed and the people of Judea scattered through all the world, I would like to make two points.

The first point involves the promises of God made to Israel through the prophets. The promise was made over and over again that God would bring Israel back from the lands of their captivity after the disaster of 586 B.C., and would raise up the Davidic Messiah under whom they would finally find peace and security.  . . .

The promise, plan, and progression are clear—after the return from the Babylonian exile Israel is regathered to the Promised Land, where the Davidic King Messiah reigns over them, and under his rule Israel is finally safe from future threat. Note: the return from the Babylonian exile forms the background for this regathering and Messianic safety. If Jesus was the promised Messiah and if the Kingdom of God was not of this world (as He taught), then all was fulfilled as the prophets foretold: after the Babylonian exile, Israel returned to their land, the Messiah came on time, and established a Kingdom of transcendent spiritual peace. But if Jesus was not the Messiah—if the Messiah is still yet to come—then the words of the prophets proved false, for the Messiah did not come on time after the Babylonian exile. After the Babylonian exile, Israel was indeed regathered after the catastrophe of 586 B.C. but then yet was again scattered after the even greater catastrophe of 70 A.D. This post-70 A.D. thus represents the terminus ad quem for the coming of the Messiah. For the prophets did not simply promise that God would send the Messiah, but them He would send the Messiah after the return from the Babylonian captivity.

The second point involves the cause of the catastrophe of 70 A.D. when the Temple was razed, Jewish nationhood lost, and its people led captive to all nations (Luke 21:23-24). The Law of Moses contains God’s covenant with Israel, and in this covenant God promised to bless His people with prosperity, security, victory, and peace if they would obey Him (Deuteronomy 28:1-14). He also promised that if they disobeyed Him and broke His covenant, He would curse them, sending upon them drought, famine, pestilence, and defeat, culminating in the scattering of the nation to the four corners of the earth (Deuteronomy 28:15-68)—indeed, God would “scatter them among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other” (v. 64). This theme and threat was the constant theme of the prophets: obedience would bring prosperity and security, while disobedience would bring disaster and exile.

The events of 586 B.C. proved the truth of the prophets’ words and the reality of the divine threat. Israel disobeyed God, filling the land with injustice and turning from God to idols, and for these sins God allowed the Babylonians to destroy the Temple, destroy their nation, and take the majority of the people into exile. This exile lasted until 538 B.C., when under Cyrus the Persian as many as wanted to could return home to begin to rebuild the shattered nation and its Temple.

Given this covenant with its cause-and-effect of obedience leading to victory, and disobedience leading to defeat the question arises regarding the cause of the unprecedented defeat of 70 A.D.—specifically what disobedience, rebellion, and sin could have caused that catastrophic defeat. A view of history which excludes the cause-and-effect promised in the Mosaic covenant will not seek any spiritual cause at all, but will root the disaster solely in political and military concerns. But as we have seen, Israel was not like the other nations, and its fortunes were determined by their obedience or disobedience to their covenant Lord. So, the question remains: what disobedience in Israel prior to 70 A.D. could have caused that disaster?

The Christian answer, based on the words of Jesus, is clear: Israel suffered such a disaster because it rejected its Messiah, both at the time of the crucifixion and in the generation following when Israel had a chance to repent of its national repudiation of Christ. The Lord said so plainly: “The days will come upon you when your enemies will cast up a bank about you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation” (Luke 19:43-44). If this Christian answer is rejected, what other answer is left? The disaster that befell Israel in 70 A.D. was much greater than the disaster of 586 B.C., for after the latter disaster the Temple was rebuilt within a hundred years, while even now the Temple which was destroyed in 70 A.D. has not been rebuilt. Accordingly, the sin which led to the disaster of 70 A.D. must have been much greater than Israel’s pre-exilic idolatry. If one takes seriously the words of the Mosaic Law then one must conclude that Israel did something of unprecedented enormity to warrant such a disaster. Only the Christian answer fits: Israel rejected its Messiah and paid the terrible penalty.

When one situates the disaster of 70 A.D. within the covenantal framework of the Law and the Prophets, the lessons of history are clear: Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah. He came on time as the prophets said, and His rejection caused the greatest disaster ever to befall the Jewish people.


Because of their disobedience, their rejection of the Christ, the Jewish people have indeed forfeited their right to their ancestral land, and there is nothing in the words of the Lord Jesus, the Holy Apostles, or the Holy Fathers that indicate they will ever recover them.  Enter the Church they may (and we hope they do), but a Jewish homeland in the Middle East is no longer promised to them.

We are left, then, with a great big bundle of false signs strung together by Mr Federer.  And this begs the question:  Why the obsession with signs proving the chosenness by God of both the Jewish people after Christ’s birth and Yankee America as the two exceptional, indispensable nations of the world?  Because deep down, both know they are not chosen by God, but rather stand condemned because of their apostasy from the Orthodox Church.  Therefore, they try to bury these thoughts by looking for, or making up, signs and prodigies everywhere.  But repentance would be a far more fruitful task for them, so that they may unite with the True Israel, the Orthodox Church:

Ver. 15, 16. For neither is circumcision any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

Observe the power of the Cross, to what a pitch it has raised him! not only has it put to death for him all mundane affairs, but has set him far above the Old Dispensation. What can be comparable to this power? For the Cross has persuaded him, who was willing to be slain and to slay others for the sake of circumcision, to leave it on a level with uncircumcision, and to seek for things strange and marvellous and above the heavens. This our rule of life he calls a new creature, both on account of what is past, and of what is to come; of what is past, because our soul, which had grown old with the oldness of sin, has been all at once renewed by baptism, as if it had been created again. Wherefore we require a new and heavenly rule of life. And of things to come, because both the heaven and the earth, and all the creation, shall with our bodies be translated into incorruption. Tell me not then, he says, of circumcision, which now avails nothing; (for how shall it appear, when all things have undergone such a change?) but seek the new things of grace. For they who pursue these things shall enjoy peace and amity, and may properly be called by the name of Israel. While they who hold contrary sentiments, although they be descended from him (Israel) and bear his appellation, have yet fallen away from all these things, both the relationship and the name itself. But it is in their power to be true Israelites, who keep this rule, who desist from the old ways, and follow after grace.

--St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Galatians (commenting on ch 6, vs 15 & 16; bolding added), http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/23106.htm

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

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