Prophecies Fulfilled in Our Time (1) – Return to The Promised Land
In this new series we will focus in the upcoming period on Biblical prophecies of which we can conclude that have been fulfilled or are at present in the process of being fulfilled.
“Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’ and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’ Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.” Isaiah 43:5-6 (NIV).
From all over the world
The above-mentioned verses come from Isaiah 43:5-6. Isaiah prophesied in the eighth century Before Christ. After that, the Babylonian exile of the Israeli people took place (605 – 536 B.C.). Some therefore say that the fulfilment of the above prophecy was when the Lord brought His people back from the Babylonian exile.
Now it is certainly true that Isaiah has written down prophecies about this return. But the above prophecy is about the return from all over the globe. From where the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The Lord also speaks to the north and the south to call His children (the children of Israel) back to the Promised Land. The return from Babylon was a return from the east and maybe a bit from the north. But certainly not from the west and south.
Fulfilment
Precisely what happened to the Jewish people halfway the nineteenth century, shows us an entirely different fulfilment of the above prophecy. Jewish people began the return from all over the globe to the land of their forefathers. First, they came from Russia because of the pogroms in the east. But then they started to come from all over the globe and in the meanwhile, Jews have returned to Israel from more than one hundred countries worldwide!
From countries in the Far East, like China and India, from countries in North and South Africa, from North and South America, from all European countries and from all Arab countries in the Middle East. Also from Iran and Turkey. And by now more than one million Jews returned from the Land of the North, the former Soviet Union. The forefathers of the present Jewish population in Israel collectively spoke more than eighty different languages. Amazing it all is. It is the opposite of colonialism. Palestine as mandate area of a foreign nation is history. The land is inhabited by the people whose history began there already four thousand years ago.
