Restoration Of Israel

INTRO

Isaiah 43—44 is a continuation of what Tom Schiefer taught yesterday. These chapters also discuss the servant mentality— and leave us wondering if the servant is Israel or Jesus. We chose to teach on Isaiah 43 because of the importance of the restoration of the nation of Israel. We don’t want people to lose sight of what God is doing in Israel.

TEACHING

Isaiah 43:1: In chapter 43, Israel is viewed as being in captivity, but God promises to redeem them. Because God had created them, He would take care of them. The Hebrew word for redeemed is the same Hebrew word used for kinsman redeemer. The kinsman redeemer ties back to the book of Ruth, when Boaz redeemed Ruth. A kinsman redeemer is a “near relative who could free family members and their property from bondage by paying their debts for them.”¹ This is significant because Israel was in Babylonian captivity. This is the big picture of what God wants to do for His people. God called them by name, which demonstrated His intimate relationship with His people. There’s two different ways to look at this. One, God revealed His name to these people (Exodus 6:2-8). Two, God claimed Israel as His firstborn son (Exodus 4:22). God knew them by name.

Isaiah 43:2: God promised to be with them when they walked through the waters and rivers. God had been with them when they left Egypt and crossed into the Promised Land. God was with them in the fire—bringing to mind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the book of Daniel. Though they are in captivity, God promises He has them just as He had them in the past. He’s bringing comfort to them.

Isaiah 43:3: God paid for their redemption by giving Egypt, Cush, and Seba as a ransom for them. God used these three countries to serve as a ransom payment to redeem Israel from Babylon.² In Matthew 20:28, Jesus said He “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life—a ransom for many.” This event served as a foreshadowing of Jesus giving His life as ransom during His first coming.³

Isaiah 43:4: The word precious brings to mind the word treasure. Psalm 135:4 describes Israel as God’s “treasured possession.” God obviously loves the Israelites, and He loves us as well. We need to hear this today. God redeemed Israel through the death of other people.

Isaiah 43:5-7: Clearly God’s people have been scattered. The Assyrians wiped out a lot of people from the northern kingdom. Those who weren’t killed were scattered to other areas. Then the southern kingdom was put into captivity. But God promised to bring them all back to reunite them as in the days of Solomon when they were all one nation. Some people say these verses have been fulfilled. When they were released from captivity, they came back to their land—to Jerusalem.

History.com gives a great timeline of Israel. King David ruled about 1000 BC. His son, Solomon, succeeded him and built the temple in Jerusalem. About 931 BC, Israel was divided into two kingdoms—the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. In 722 BC, Assyria invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom. In 586 BC, Babylon conquered Jerusalem. The original temple was replaced by a second temple in 516 BC.⁴

Over the next centuries, several groups conquered and ruled over Israel: Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamelukes, Islamists, and others. From 1517 to 1917, Israel was ruled by the Ottoman Empire. During WWI, the British foreign secretary, Arthur James Balfour, supported the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (the Balfour Declaration). When WWI ended in 1918, the rule of the Ottoman Empire ended, and Britain controlled Palestine. This was approved by the League of Nations in 1922 despite Arab opposition. Conflict continues today in many areas including the Gaza strip, Golan Heights, and West Bank.⁵

We are experiencing prophetic words coming to fruition in our lifetime that Isaiah the prophet could have been talking about. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Zionist movement worked to reestablish the Jewish homeland. Massive numbers of Jews immigrated to the ancient Holy Land. Between 1882 and 1903, about 35,000 Jews relocated to Palestine. Another 40,000 settled in Palestine between 1904 and 1914. During the Nazi reign, Jews facing persecution in European countries found refuge in Palestine. They embraced Zionism, which establishes a bordered homeland for those of the Jewish nation. This wasn’t a political move but rather paved the way for biblical prophecy to come to fruition. In 1947, the United Nations approved a plan to divide Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state, but the Arabs rejected the proposal. In May 1948, Israel was declared an official state when David Ben Gurion became their prime minister.⁶ This was when the actual border took shape. This happened because these people were precious to God. He loved them and gathered them together again (Isaiah 43:4-5).

According to demographics provided by Wikipedia, more than 890,000 Russians have come from the north. Romania has sent 199,000 to this little country. Poland sent 184,000. France sent 87,000. These tangible numbers show that God is bringing His people—the Jews—back to their land. In 2015 there were 6.2 million Jewish people. Today 8.9 million people have come to the land. In 2017, talking specifically about the Jews (not Muslims, Christians or Druze), there were 6.5 million Jews in the land. From the south, Ethiopia provided 133,000 Jews and Morocco provided 480,000 Jews. From Iran, 140,000 Jews returned. The United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have sent 181,000. The numbers continue to grow from 1.3 million in 1950 to an estimated 9 million people in 2019.⁷ Israel is the apple of God’s eye. Psalm 132:13-14 says Jerusalem is God’s home. God’s wants His family to be with Him. God loves His children, and He will do whatever it takes to bring them back.

Isaiah 43:19-20: They have been in captivity and the Lord says He is about to do something new. Do you see it? Isaiah now prophesies that the Jews would leave Babylon. God will make a way in the wilderness and later we see God used Cyrus to do this.

Isaiah 44:24-28: God promised to bring the Jews out of Babylonian captivity. God implied that everything would come back—the cities and the communities. God said He would use Cyrus, his shepherd, to do these things. But it’s important to know that at the time Isaiah wrote this, Cyrus was not even in the picture. One hundred and ninety years after Isaiah announced this prophecy, Cyrus finally enters the picture. Cyrus issued a decree to allow the Jews to return and rebuild Jerusalem in 538 BC.

CLOSING

When God says He has a plan for His people, He means it. This will be even more fun as we read about a Persian king whom God used to bring His people back to the land.