I.
THE PROPHETS AND THE IDEA OF A NATIONAL RESTORATION
THE first prophet who has left any definite revelation concerning the Dispersion of the Jews and their ultimate restoration in Palestine was Moses, our Law-giver.
“And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it.” (Leviticus xxvi. 32.)
“And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.” ( _Ibid._ 33.)
“And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.” (_Ibid._ 44.)
“But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.” (_Ibid._ 45.)
Here we have a promise not to abhor or utterly destroy the Jewish people, but to remember the covenant which God made with their ancestors. We find the purport of this covenant in an early chapter of the Pentateuch:――
“And the Lord said unto Abram, ... ‘Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward;’” (Genesis xiii. 14.)
“for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever:” (_Ibid._ 15.)
It is impossible to understand how it can be said that this covenant will be remembered, if the Jewish people is to continue dispersed, and is to be _for ever_ excluded from the land here spoken of. As to the return from Babylonian captivity, that will not answer the intention of the covenant at all. For to restore a small part of the Jewish people to its own land for a few centuries, and afterwards disperse it among all nations for many times as long, without any hope of return, cannot be the meaning of giving that land to the seed of Abram _for ever_.
Again we read:――
“And the Lord shall scatter you among the peoples,...” (Deuteronomy iv. 27.)
“But from thence ye will seek the Lord thy God; and thou shalt find Him, if thou search after Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” (_Ibid._ 29.)
“In thy distress, when all these things are come upon thee, in the end of days, thou wilt return to the Lord thy God, and hearken unto His voice;” (_Ibid._ 30.)
“for the Lord thy God is a merciful God; He will not fail thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He swore unto them.” (_Ibid._ 31.)
This prophecy refers to the thirteenth chapter of Genesis, as is shown by this thirty-first verse; and confirms again the return to the Holy Land, and its possession for ever:――
“And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt bethink thyself among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee,” (Deuteronomy xxx. 1.)
“and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and hearken to His voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul;” (_Ibid._ 2.)
“that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the peoples, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.” (_Ibid._ 3.)
“If any of thine that are dispersed be in the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will He fetch thee.” (_Ibid._ 4.)
“And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.” (_Ibid._ 5.)
Amongst the “things which should come upon them,” which are described at large in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters of Deuteronomy, it is particularly said:――
“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;...” (_Ibid._ xxviii. 64.)
But observe that subsequently we are told:――
“And the Lord thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.” (_Ibid._ xxx. 5.)
which promises do not appear to have been fulfilled during the time of the Babylonian captivity, or after the return from Babylon.
Here we have in plain words, simple and clear, the fundamental idea of Moses: the Jewish national future and the possession of the land for ever. This cannot be explained away by sophistry. In vain some Jews declare: We are not nationalist Jews, we are religious Jews! What is the Jewish religion if the Bible is not accepted as an Inspired Revelation? It is strange and sadly amusing that some Jews, adherents of the monotheistic principle, describe themselves as Germans, Magyars, and so on, “of the persuasion of Moses.” If this is not blasphemy, it is irony. The real Moses, the Moses of the Pentateuch, brands Dispersion as a curse, and his whole religious conception, with all the laws, ceremonies, feasts, etc., is built up on the basis of the covenant with the ancestors, a covenant immovable and unalterable. No matter whether Jews call themselves religious or nationalist: the Jewish religion cannot be separated from nationalism, unless another Bible is invented.
Judaism, or the Jewish religion, is based first upon the teaching of Moses, and next upon that of the prophets, and it is a favourite claim of the modern school of Jewish reform that their Judaism is “Prophetic Judaism,” in opposition to the Judaism of orthodox Jews, who lay
## particular stress upon the Talmud. But what do the prophets teach?
The next revelation in chronological order after the inspired predictions of Moses, is that of Joel the son of Pethuel, who began to prophesy to the Kingdom of Judah about eight hundred years before the civil era:――
“Then was the Lord jealous for His land, And had pity on His people.” (Joel ii. 18.)
“And the Lord answered and said unto His people: Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, And ye shall be satisfied therewith; And I will no more make you a reproach among the nations;” (_Ibid._ 19.)
“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, When I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,” (_Ibid._ iv. 1.)
“So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, Dwelling in Zion My holy mountain; Then shall Jerusalem be holy,...” (_Ibid._ 17.)
“But Judah shall be inhabited for ever, And Jerusalem from generation to generation.” (_Ibid._ 20.)
Amos, who was among the herdmen of Tekoa, lived in the days of Jeroboam, the son of Joash, King of Israel, and prophesied to the Kingdom of Israel from eight hundred and eight, to seven hundred and eighty-three years before the civil era:――
“And I will turn the captivity of My people Israel, And they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them;...” (Amos ix. 14.)
“And I will plant them upon their land, And they shall no more be plucked up Out of their land which I have given them, Saith the Lord thy God.” (_Ibid._ 15.)
Hosea, the son of Beeri, prophesied to the Kingdom of Israel, in the days of the same Jeroboam from about seven hundred and eighty-five, to seven hundred and twenty-five years before the civil era:――
“For the children of Israel shall sit solitary many days without king, and without prince,...” (Hosea iii. 4.)
“afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king;...” (_Ibid._ 5.)
This prophecy, being given to the Kingdom of Israel in particular, cannot be applied to the return of Judah from Babylon.
Isaiah the son of Amoz (The First Isaiah) was the foremost of the four who are called the greater prophets. He lived in the time of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, Kings of Judah, and prophesied about seven hundred and sixty, to six hundred and ninety-eight years before the civil era:――
“And it shall come to pass in that day, That the Lord will set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people, That shall remain from Assyria, and from Egypt, And from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, And from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.” (Isaiah xi. 11.)
“And he will set up an ensign for the nations, And will assemble the dispersed of Israel, And gather together the scattered of Judah From the four corners of the earth.” (_Ibid._ 12.)
“The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, And they that harass Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, And Judah shall not vex Ephraim.” (_Ibid._ 13.)
This prophecy, alone, is sufficiently definite with regard to a second restoration of Israel, as appears from the eleventh verse, even if there were no other to be found.
As to the second Isaiah, his prophecies may be called the “Song of Songs” of the restoration of Israel:――
“Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: They all are gathered together, and come to thee; Thy sons come from far, And thy daughters are borne on the side.” (Isaiah lx. 4.)
“Who are these that fly as a cloud, And as the doves to their cotes?” (_Ibid._ 8.)
“Surely the isles shall wait for Me, And the ships of Tarshish first, To bring thy sons from far, Their silver and their gold with them, For the name of the Lord thy God, And for the Holy One of Israel, because He hath glorified thee.” (_Ibid._ 9.)
“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, said the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain.” (_Ibid._ lxvi. 22.)
Micah the Morashtite prophesied in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, about 750 years before the civil era:――
“I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of thee; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; ...” (Micah ii. 12.)
“In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth, And I will gather her that is driven away, And her that I have afflicted;” (_Ibid._ iv. 6.)
“And I will make her that halted a remnant, And her that was cast far off a mighty nation; And the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from thenceforth even for ever.” (_Ibid._ 7.)
“Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, As Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.” (_Ibid._ vii. 20.)
Here we again meet the covenant of Truth and Mercy sworn unto Abraham, that the land Abraham then stood upon should be given to him and to his seed for ever.
Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, prophesied in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, about six hundred and thirty years before the ♦civil era:――
“At that time will I bring you in, And at that time will I gather you; For I will make you to be a name and a praise Among all the peoples of the earth, When I turn your captivity before your eyes, Saith the Lord.” (Zephaniah iii. 20.)
♦ “cvil” replaced with “civil”
Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin, also prophesied in the days of Josiah, about six hundred and twenty-nine to five hundred and eighty-eight years before the civil era:――
“In those days the house of Judah shall walk with the house of Israel, and they shall come together out of the land of the north to the land that I have given for an inheritance unto your fathers.” (Jeremiah iii. 18.)
“In his days Judah shall be saved, And Israel shall dwell safely;...” (_Ibid._ xxiii. 6.)
“Thus saith the Lord, Who giveth the sun for a light by day, And the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, Who stirreth up the sea, that the waves thereof roar, The Lord of hosts is His name:” (_Ibid._ xxxi. 35.)
“If these ordinances depart from before Me, Saith the Lord, Then the seed of Israel also shall cease From being a nation before Me for ever.” (_Ibid._ 36.)
“Considerest thou not what this people have spoken, saying: The two families which the Lord did choose, He hath cast them off? and they contemn My people, that they should be no more a nation before them.” (_Ibid._ xxxiii. 24.)
“Thus saith the Lord: If My covenant be not with day and night, if I have not appointed the ordinances of heaven and earth;” (_Ibid._ 25.)
“then will I also cast away the seed of Jacob, and of David My servant,...” (_Ibid._ 26.)
“But fear not thou, O Jacob My servant, Neither be dismayed, O Israel; For, lo, I will save thee from afar, And thy seed from the land of their captivity; And Jacob shall again be quiet and at ease, And none shall make him afraid.” (_Ibid._ xlvi. 27.)
Ezekiel the Priest, the son of Buzi, prophesied in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Cebar, about five hundred and ninety-five, to five hundred and seventy-four years before the civil era. In the thirty-sixth chapter he describes the restoration of Judah and Israel in words so plain and clear that nobody could possibly mistake them, and in the next chapter, by the wonderful vision of dry bones reviving, he shows that, however unpromising the state of Israel may seem, while they are dispersed through the world, yet will God most certainly effect the reunion of the tribes which is here foretold:――
“Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them――it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will establish them, and multiply them, and will set My sanctuary in the midst of them for ever.” (_Ibid._ xxxvii. 26.)
Chapters thirty-eight and thirty-nine give a most circumstantial description of the return, which excluded the possibility of an allegorical explanation.
Obadiah prophesied about five hundred and eighty-seven years before the civil era:――
“But in Mount Zion there shall be those that escape, And it shall be holy; And the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.” (Obadiah i. 17.)
“And the captivity of this host of the children of Israel, That are among the Canaanites, even unto Zarephath, And the captivity of Jerusalem, that is in Sepharad, Shall possess the cities of the South.” (_Ibid._ 20.)
Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, prophesied about five hundred and twenty years before the civil era, to those that had returned from captivity. He had the idea of a great future restoration.
“And it shall come to pass that, as ye were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing; fear not, but let your hands be strong.” (Zechariah viii. 13.)
“I will bring them back also out of the land of Egypt, And gather them out of Assyria; And I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon, And place shall not suffice them.” (_Ibid._ x. 10.)
Malachi prophesied about four hundred and twenty years before the civil era:――
“And all nations shall call you happy; For ye shall be a delightsome land, Saith the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi iii. 12.)
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming Of the great and terrible day of the Lord.” (_Ibid. _ 23.)
Daniel’s (Belteshazzar) prophecies from about five hundred and thirty-four, to five hundred and seven years before the civil era relate not only to the affairs of Judah and Israel, but also to the various monarchies and kingdoms that are to arise successively in the world. In the following verses he foretells the national future of his own people:――
“And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; nor shall the kingdom be left to another people; ..., but it shall stand for ever.” (Daniel ii. 44.)
“And the kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High; their kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them.” (_Ibid._ vii. 27.)
“... and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was seen since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered,...” (_Ibid._ xii. 1.)
These predictions undoubtedly signify that the Children of Israel shall _enjoy a kingdom and dominion under the whole heaven_, i.e. upon the earth, which shall _never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people_.¹
¹ The most notable _Talmudic_ and _Rabbinical_ passages referring to the future of the Jewish nation are: _Talm. Bab. Berachoth_ 28b, 34b; _Shabb._ 118a; _Menahoth_ 45a; _Baba Mezia_ 3a; _Eduyoth_ VIII. 7; _Kiddushin_ 71a; Gen. _Rabba_ LXXXV. 2; _Hagigah_ 14a; _Sanhedrin_ 38b; 98a, 99a, 110b, 111a; _Erubin_ 43b; Cant. _Rabba_ VII. 10; _Sifri_ on Deut. 1: 1; _Baba Bathra_ 76a. For the views of the _Gaon_ Saadia _ben_ Joseph (892‒942) see Guttman, _Religionsphilosophie des Saadia_, Göttingen, 1882, _p._ 236; for Hai _ben_ Sherira _Gaon_ (939‒1038) see _Taam Zekenim_, Frankfort on the Main, 1854, _pp._ 58‒61; for Abraham _ben_ Chiya Albargeloni _Ha’nasi_ (called Abraham Judæus and Savasorda) (1065‒1136) see _Hegion Ha’nefesh_, Leipzig, 1860, _p._ 40 ff.; for Judah Halevi, see his Poems and Kuzari in Cassel’s edition, Leipzig, 1869, ii. 36‒44, _pp._ 143‒7, p. iv. 23; pt. i. 115; for Maimonides, see _Hilchoth Melachim_ in his _Yad Ha’chazakah_, Chs. XI. XII. and _Hilchoth Teshubah_, Ch. IX. 2; for Nachmanides, see his Comment. to Gen. 2: 3, and to Exodus 17: 9; for ♦Abrabanel, his books _Yeshuat Meshicho_, _Mashmia Yeshuah_, _Maeyenai Ha’yeshua_, and Klausner: Die Messianischen Vorstellungen ... Berlin, 1904, and also Greenstone: _The Messiah Idea in Jewish History_, Philadelphia, 1906.
♦ “Abarbanel” replaced with “Abrabanel” for consistency