The Gathering of Israel to Their Own Land
By A. T. Robinson
GOD'S KINGDOM IN THIS WORLD.—NO. 4.
The Gathering of Israel to Their Own Land.
The restoration of Israel to their own land is a doctrine clearly taught in the Scriptures. There is no subject, however, upon which there is a wider misapprehension of truth than there is upon this one. In the minds of many people the idea prevails that God has made certain promises to the Israelitish nation, which He has not yet fulfilled, and which He is bound to fulfill by taking the Jews, who are now scattered in different portions of the earth, back to old Jerusalem, and there re-establishing David's throne and kingdom. It is the purpose of this article to show that every promise which the Lord ever made to the Jews as a nation, concerning their restoration to the literal land of Canaan, was completely fulfilled to them, as a nation, forty-two years this side of the latest Old Testament utterance concerning such a restoration. Just before the death of Joshua, about five hundred years after God had made the promises to Abraham and his seed, that servant of God bears the following testimony to God's faithfulness: “And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which He swore to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein. And the Lord gave them rest round about, according to all that He swore unto their fathers: and there stood not a man of all their enemies before them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass.” “And, behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth: and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord your God spake concerning you; all are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof.” Joshua 21:43–45; 23:14. This is unimpeachable testimony that at the end of four hundred and ninety-four years the Lord had faithfully performed all that He had promised to Israel. Under the decree of Cyrus, at the termination of the seventy years' captivity, we learn that 49,697 of the Jews returned to Jerusalem at that time. And be it noted, that royal proclamation made ample provision for every one who called himself a Jew or an Israelite in all the realm of Cyrus, which embraced the whole world, at once to return to his own land. The Lord even moved upon the heart of that heathen king to provide that those who might be too poor to move to their own land should be helped to do so. God's providence opened the door as wide as it ever could be opened, for every person in the whole world who belonged to the nation of Israel, to hasten his footsteps toward the promised land. Beyond this point, the Lord never goes. He always leaves His people free to choose or refuse the offers of His love and mercy. Seventeen years later, B. C. 519, the work having been hindered by enemies, Darius Hystaspes issued another decree (Ezra 6), enjoining that the work commanded by Cyrus be carried forward. Unbelief on the part of God's people caused the difficulties in their way to appear greater than His power to meet and overcome them, and the work was again brought to a standstill. Sixty-two years later, B. C. 457, the final decree, issued by Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:11–26), resulted in the completion of the work of rebuilding and restoration, as fully as the Lord could move upon His people to respond to the provision made for such restoration. Turning now to Neh. 7:73, we read as follows: “So the priests, and the Levites, and the porters, and the singers, and some of the people [all who would], and the Nethinims, and ALL ISRAEL, dwelt in their cities; and when the seventh month came, the children of Israel were in their cities.” This was twelve years after the decree of Artaxerxes, which would be the year B. C. 445. The latest prophecy concerning the return of the Jews to the literal land of Canaan, was given in B. C. 487. See the last chapters of Zechariah. B. C. 487, latest prophecy concerning the restoration. B. C. 445, all Israel fully restored. 42 years later than the latest prophecy concerning the restoration. No more sublime nonsense was ever made to do service in the cause of blinding the minds of men to the great and solemn events connected with the soon return of our Lord Jesus Christ in the clouds of heaven, than the notion, invented in some fertile brain, that sometime, somewhere, somehow, nobody can tell just when, how, or where, the ten tribes, the kingdom of Israel, became lost, strayed, or stolen,—never to be found again until these last days were reached, when, lo and behold, it is discovered that the people of England are the lineal descendants of Ephraim, and the people of the United States, those of Manasseh. We inquire, in all seriousness, Where were they lost? Certainly if they had been in existence anywhere on this planet, they would have been found by the decrees issued by the three Persian monarchs, Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes. Had they gone off on an excursion to that popular place described by the poet, “Beyond the bounds of time and space, the saints' secure abode”? The claim is put forward, in this ingenious Anglo-Israel theory, that all tribal distinction was lost with the ten tribes. As late as B. C. 270, Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, sent a royal greeting to Eleazar, the high priest, at Jerusalem, in which he made reference to the fact that a great number of the Jews, who had been carried there as captives, still remained in his kingdom. After stating that he had set free above a hundred thousand of them, who had been slaves, paying a ransom to their masters out of his own revenues, he continues: “And as I am desirous to do what will be grateful to these, and to all the other Jews in the habitable earth, I have determined to procure an interpretation of your law, and to have it translated out of Hebrew into Greek, and to be deposited in my library. Thou wilt therefore do well to choose out and send to me men of a good character, who are now elders in age, and six in number out of every tribe. These, by their age, must be skillful in the laws, and of abilities to make an accurate interpretation of them. And when this shall be finished, I shall think that I have done a work glorious to myself.” Did Eleazar send back word to the Egyptian king that, as all tribal distinction of his people had been lost, it would be impossible for him to comply with his request, at least so far as choosing six men from each tribe was concerned?—No; the high priest had evidently not learned of the Anglo-Israelitish theory; he had not learned the fact that ten of the tribes had been lost; in fact, he knew that nothing of the kind had happened, for in his lengthy communication, replying to the letter received from Ptolemy, after noting various points in the letter, he adds: “We have also chosen six elders out of every tribe, whom we have sent, and the law with them. It will be thy part out of thy piety and justice, to send back the law, when it hath been translated; and to return those to us that bring it in safety. Farewell.” Those seventy-two men went to the city of Alexandria, and it is said, in seventy-two days made their translation of the Scriptures. Thus originated the Septuagint. At the time of the birth of the Saviour it is said, “There was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser.” The Holy Spirit, who indited this statement, must have been ignorant of this latter-day wisdom, which has discovered that no tribal distinction was known for many hundred years before. In the eleventh chapter of Romans, Paul presents Israel as a tree with twelve branches, the natural branches of which, representing national Israel, having been broken off, the spiritual Israel were grafted in, in their stead. The twelve branches must have been in existence, in order to be broken off.