Restoration of the Jews by John Norton Loughborough

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 9, 1878

Restoration of the Jews.

By John Norton Loughborough

We are requested to explain Isaiah 11:14-16, Zech. 10:9-12, and Ezekiel 36:36-38, as to the time to which these Scriptures refer, and whether they have yet been fulfilled.

It should be borne in mind that the prophecies respecting Israel are of three classes, first, those prophecies relating to their restoration from the captivity, to Jerusalem. Of course all such have been fulfilled in the past.

Second, prophecies made on conditions. In this second class the Lord promised certain blessings on condition of thorough repentance and reform on the part of the Jews. Of this class of prophecies are the testimonies in Ezekiel 40 to 44th chapters. In chapter 43:10, 11, the conditions of the prophecy are plainly expressed: "Thou son of man, show the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and let them measure the pattern, and if they be ashamed of all that they have done, show them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof," &c. Of course if they did not comply with these conditions the Lord was under no obligation to fulfill the promise as it was a conditional one. The chronology of this prophecy of Ezekiel was 574 B. C.

As to how these conditions were treated we may learn by reading the prophecy of Malachi made 397 B. C., see chapter 2:8-9: "But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law."

In chapter 3:15 he says, "And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered." In verse 7 of this same chapter he says, "Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them."

This being the true description of the course of the Jewish people, it need be no marvel if we claim that these conditional promises to them, found in Ezekiel, chapters 40 to 44, were never fulfilled.

The third class of prophecies and promises to Israel are those which relate to the final gathering of all of God's people into the future immortal kingdom.

In reading these various prophecies care must be taken to "rightly divide the word of truth," and discern to which class of prophecies the peculiar text we may have under consideration may belong.

We will first notice Isaiah 11:10-16. In the first part of the chapter we have a prophecy respecting Christ, his mission and work, his character as a ruler, and the beauties and glories of his immortal kingdom. We quote as follows: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots; and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; and their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the

cockatrice' den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."

In verses 10-16 of the same chapter he seems to go back again to the first advent of Christ, presenting before us, as he passes over the grounds again, the work of the gospel of Christ among the Gentiles, and they presenting the final gathering of both Jews and Gentiles, of his people, into his immortal kingdom, at his second advent, we quote the words as follows: "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, 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. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off; Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the west; they shall spoil them of the east together; they shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them. And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt."

In Zechariah 10:9-12 we have a prophecy of the restoration of the Jews to the land of Canaan, after being scattered into various countries in the Babylonish captivity, the text reads: "And I will sow them among the people; and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again. I will bring them again 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 be found for them. And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up; and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart away; and I will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk up and down," &c.

This prophecy of Zechariah was made in 517 B. C., while the final decree that went forth which fully restored Jerusalem was made in 457 B. C., 60 years afterwards. At the time of the proclamation of this decree in the Persian Empire, that empire, according to Dan. 6:1, consisted of one hundred and twenty provinces, so that the people that had been scattered in "far countries" even in "Egypt," verses 9 and 10, could learn that favor was again shown to God's people, and they could return again to Palestine if they wished.

The words in Eze. 36:36-38, apply to the return from the captivity in Babylon. We read in the above verses, "Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate; I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it. Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men; and they shall know that I am the Lord."

Ezekiel's prophecy was made in the time of the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem. The chronology of this 36th chapter is 587 B. C., one year after Jerusalem was destroyed, and was 130 years before Jerusalem was fully restored under the decree of Artaxerxes, 457 B. C., as recorded in Ezra, chapter 7.

In Ezekiel, chapter 37, he introduces the resurrection of God's people to take place at Christ's second coming. It would be very natural, after contemplating the restoration of his people from their great distress in their captivity, for the prophet's mind to be carried over to the final gathering of God's people to the earth made new. So he there presents them as raised from the dead, and placed in their own land, the immortal kingdom.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.