The Land of Israel

The Land of Israel

 Writter: Evangelos D. Kepenes (April 2, 2022, 20:10)

The Land of Israel

The Lord said to Abram: "Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing." (Gen. 12:1-2, 7, Acts ch. 7)

When God brought Israel according to the flesh into the land of promise, He set the boundaries of their dwelling and said to them:

"This shall be your LAND and its boundaries all around." (Num. 34:12)

God warned them:

"O land, land, hear the word of the Lord…" (Jer. 22:29)

"So you shall not defile the land in which you shall dwell, in the midst of which I dwell; for I the Lord am the one dwelling in the midst of the sons of Israel." (Num. 35:34)

"I said to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; you have no need of my goods.' As for the saints who are in His land, He has made all His will wonderful in them." (Psalm 15:2-3 LXX)

But they were disobedient and acted lawlessly:

"And you entered and defiled my land and made my inheritance an abomination; the priests did not say, 'Where is the Lord?'..." (Jer. 2:7-8, 3:2)

"And the land was defiled under its inhabitants; because they transgressed the laws, changed the decree, and broke the everlasting covenant." (Isa. 24:5)

And the Lord was angry with them:

"And he (the king of Babylon) carried away Jerusalem [...] and none remained except the poor of the land [...] and the mighty of the land he led away into captivity..." (2 Kings 24:10-15)

"And say to the people of the land, 'Thus says the Lord God concerning the inhabitants of Jerusalem and concerning the land of Israel: They shall eat their bread with anxiety and drink their water with astonishment; for its land shall be laid waste from its fullness, because of the lawlessness of all who dwell in it.'" (Ezek. 12:19)

"Declare to Judah and proclaim to Jerusalem; and say, and sound the trumpet in the land." (Jer. 4:5)

"Hear, O land; behold, I will bring evil upon this people, the fruit of their thoughts, because they did not heed my words and my law, but rejected it." (Jer. 6:19)

"For a nation has come up upon my land, strong and innumerable; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and its molars those of a lion's whelp." (Joel 1:6)

The Book of Revelation

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants [not to the whole world] things which must shortly take place. [The adverb of time meaning "quickly," "soon," "without delay"].

The book of Revelation refers to the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of the Land of Israel, which was the Land of God, as a consequence of God's wrath.

"And every shipmaster and all the crowd upon the ships, and sailors and as many as trade by sea, stood at a distance, and cried out seeing the smoke of her burning (Jerusalem), saying: 'What city was like the great city?' And they cast dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and mourning, saying: 'Woe, woe, the great city, in which all who had ships in the sea grew rich from her abundance; for in one hour she was laid waste.'" (Rev. 18:17-19)

"And I will cause to cease from the cities of Judah and from the streets of Jerusalem the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride; for the land shall become a desert." (Jer. 7:34, Rev. 18:23)

Conclusion

In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, the word "Eretz" (ארץ), translated as "Land" or "Earth," can mean both the "globe" and a specific "country" or "territory." In the context of the prophecies toward fleshly Israel, the "desolation of the land" concerned the Promised Land (the Holy Land) as a direct consequence of the violation of the Covenant. The definition in Genesis 1:10 ("dry land") shows that the term is broad, but the context of the Prophets (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah) locates the judgment in the place where God had placed His Name.

In the verses of Ezra 3:3 and Ezekiel 36:24, the plural "Γαιών = lands" is identified with the regions of the pagan nations. In Ezekiel, the word emphasizes the scattering into many and different countries, in contrast to the one and specific "your land" (the land of Israel).

The judgment was directed against the biological descendants who had a "form of godliness" but not obedience and faith. The desolation of the land was not a blind destruction of nature, but a judicial decision upon the inheritance of Abraham due to covenantal consequence, because of their apostasy from the Old Covenant and their rejection of the New.

Matt. 22:7: "But the king was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burned their city."

Many religious traditions tend to "globalize" these local eschatological crises, ignoring that for the ancient Israelite, the "Land" (Eretz) was their vital space defined by the Covenant.

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