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His Mercy Endureth For Ever
God's Mercy Toward Israel For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.—Isaiah 14:1 Régis Liberda The entire Bible describes the basic purpose of God: to save and to restore man from Adamic sin and death. The most important role in this plan is played by his son Jesus, who came to earth to die and to be the redeemer of mankind (Hebrews 2:9).
Both the Old and New Testament show us that God had relationships with other
individuals, to whom he gave a special mission or with whom he made a covenant.
One of the first men he chose for a special destiny was Abraham, whose behavior
was so pleasing in God’s eyes that he was called a friend of God (James
2:23). The central role of Israel, the seed of Abraham, in the plan of God is
precisely due to God’s choice of Abraham. The Choice of Abraham Why did God choose Abraham, living in a pagan country, to be the father of the future nation of Israel? Although we have no answer for the choice of Abram when it first occurred, we do understand God’s reasons for it by the end of Abraham’s life, as we see the evidences of Abraham’s faith, patience, and obedience. His whole life shows God’s esteem for Abraham: “But thou, Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend, thou whom I have taken hold of from the ends of the earth, and called from the corners thereof” (Isaiah 41:8, 9, ASV). This promise of God to Israel testifies to Abraham’s high standing with God as the “friend of God.” Abraham was the twentieth generation from Adam and the tenth from Noah. Thus, God waited a long time before calling someone worthy of the unique mission—to be the father of a people with whom God would have a special relationship during the long process of man’s recovery. Why did God choose a people—the seed of Abraham—for this special relationship? Why not call individual prophets from time to time from different nations to preach the existence of God to humanity, to destroy idols, and to reward the nations willing to worship him while punishing the incorrigible pagan nations? Why choose this one nation? God chose the descendants of an exceptional father, Israel, fully knowing that they, during their history, would sometimes be a good example but many times be a bad example (1 Corinthians 10:1-11). The Israelite’s numerous acts of disobedience, as well as their magnificent moments of zeal and demonstrations of faith, are written in both the Old and New Testaments. Only the Bible so clearly describes the relationship between God and a particular nation. No other book reveals so clearly the will of God toward man as shown by both good and bad experiences. Not only is the will of God seen in these experiences, God’s love and mercy for the seed of Abraham are also seen. This same mercy will be shown by God to the entire human family (Luke 3:6). So let us therefore consider some of the mercies God has shown toward Israel.
Jacob’s trip from Canaan to Egypt with his family when there was famine in the land, is recorded in the last chapters of Genesis. However, the favorable conditions of life for Jacob’s descendants in Egypt changed when a new pharaoh came to power. The Israelites became slaves in Egypt with a bitter life: “Behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: moreover I have seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them” (Exodus 3:9, ASV). God had foreseen this captivity and revealed it to Abraham (Genesis 15:13). The children of Abraham probably remembered this and knew that Canaan was their promised land, and not Goshen in the northeastern part of Egypt. But at that time, Israel was not ready to return to Canaan, a land of uncertain climate and fertility, compared to the Egyptian prosperity thanks to the Nile River. Though Canaan was actually the promised land and not Egypt, God had to manage events to induce Abraham’s seed to leave Egypt and go to Canaan. The difficult conditions during the new Pharaoh’s reign could have been avoided had Israel voluntarily left Egypt earlier. God first called Moses from Midian to visit Pharaoh, to ask him to let his captive people go. Instead of being immediate, Israel’s liberation took long enough that nine plagues were brought against Egypt, without obtaining any liberation. Only after the tenth plague did Pharaoh agree to let the Israelites go.
This liberation, considered by Jewish people as the most important event of
their history, was a great sign of God’s mercy toward them. But it was an
even greater sign of God’s mercy for all mankind. Jesus came and died on
the cross to make this greater mercy possible (1 John 2:2). In Israel’s
liberation from Egyptian slavery, God’s mercy took place only after a necessary
time of trial, long enough to teach Israel some important lessons. God also
managed the events in such a way that Egypt, the power of that time, was
humiliated and weakened for a long time after its army died in the Red Sea. Murmuring in the Desert The joy of being delivered from Egypt was short-lived because Israel had to go through the desert to reach the promised land. For a successful journey, a nation of so many people traveling in the desert had to solve the important problems of security, food, and water. Was it logical for Israel to expect God to provide food and water in the same miraculous way he had used to deliver the nation? The Bible does not tell us about the patience of the Israelites but rather about their complaining, many times calling it murmuring. The recorded murmurings of Israel can be found in this table.
How quickly men forget yesterday’s blessings when encountering today’s difficulties! We see these incidents of Israel’s complaining, where God could have justifiably punished his people for their behavior. But after each of the first four times, God miraculously blessed them. The next murmurings were a “repetition” of previous sins and therefore should not have occurred. It was logical that God should punish them then for what they did.
However, even if the Israelites had to wait in the desert forty years before
entering Canaan, we can still say that God greatly helped them. God blessed them
after each case of murmuring until he gave them the Law Covenant. After
receiving God’s law at Mount Sinai, Israel had a greater knowledge of God’s will
and the responsibility to follow it. Thereafter, each sin had its punishment
according to the law. The Time of Judges and Kings Once the Israelites entered the promised land, could they expect it to be a paradise, a land flowing with milk and honey (Exodus 3:8)? It could have been according to the conditions expressed in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 if they had been obedient to God’s law. However, the temptation of idolatry overtook the true obedience they had sworn to render toward God. During the time of the judges, there were seven different periods of time when the following cycle of events was repeated: w Disobedience and idolatry; w Punishment by God through invasion and oppression by enemies; w Repentance and crying to God; w Deliverance from their oppressors by a new judge. Here are the recorded cycles:
However, God did not allow Israel to follow this pattern without consequences. Instead, God managed events to punish the Israelites for their behavior and, as a result, Israel prayed to God for mercy. Eight times God showed his mercy for his people. Once Israel had a king, this king had a pre-eminent role in the moral situation of the nation. Bad kings easily led the people into idolatry and good kings tried, but with more difficulty, to lead them back to God. There were eight kings of Judah and Israel recorded in the Book of Kings as “having done what is good in eyes of God” and thirty-one kings as “having done what is evil.” This sad statistic shows us the consequence for the people of Israel of rejecting the simple theocracy of the judges and wanting a king “like other nations.” During the time of the judges, the attraction of idolatry was not less, but God punished Israel for succumbing to it; then he forgave them and delivered them by a new judge. In the time of the kings, God focused first on the responsibility of the king, before that of the people. Whether or not Israel had a good king determined the severity of the punishment to come. The worst punishment for the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel was that of being deported to Assyria, and for the two-tribe kingdom of Judah, being deported to Babylon. The threat of punishment by deportation increased over time before it was finally accomplished. This demonstrated the patience of God, based on his mercy (cf., 2 Peter 3:9). He delayed the punishment though his justice could have implemented it more quickly, as in the time of the judges. After the Return from Babylon The deportation to Babylon was a national tragedy since the chosen people of God lost their identity as a nation. But the deserved deportation of Judah to Babylon came to an end when Persian King Cyrus allowed the people to return to Canaan. Because history tells us many other peoples completely lost their identity after going into captivity, the return of Israel after seventy years was an evidence of God’s mercy. The next difficult time for Israel took place during the Greek occupation under King Antiochus IV who persecuted the Jews who refused to worship Greek idols. The books of the Maccabees show the extreme cruelty of Antiochus. This affliction was allowed though their zeal to God was deeper than during the time of the kings. God’s mercy allowed the revolt of the Maccabees to give Israel some freedom for a time until the Roman occupation. These dramatic events preserved the identity of the people of Israel until the time of Jesus.
“When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4, ASV). An evidence of God’s mercy is the fact that Jesus came to the chosen nation of Israel and not to another nation. What would have happened if Jesus had come to a nation like Tyre? Though we know, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 18:15,18), that Messiah had to come to Israel, Jesus’ comparison of Israel’s acceptance of his teachings with the acceptance by the pagan nations raises the question, Would God’s mercy, as shown by the coming of his son, have been more successful elsewhere than in Israel? Nevertheless, due to Jesus’ ministry in Israel, God’s mercy blessed the whole nation. It was also a blessing to individual Jews. How many men and women received the grace of God by being miraculously fed, healed, or raised from the dead by Jesus? “But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on him” (John 12:37, ASV).
Because Israel as a nation did not accept Jesus as their Messiah, Jesus
prophesied about their terrible punishment to come (Matthew 23:37-39; Luke
13:34,35). He said: “They shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led
captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled” (Luke 21:24,
ASV). Yet, even this threat of punishment
is followed by a promise of mercy. After Jesus’ Death The Gospel age has been a time of tribulation for Israel as she had never experienced before. It is not easy to see the mercy of God toward Israel during this tribulation, which was an accomplishment of the Lord’s prophecy. The first trial of this punishment was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Flavius Josephus’ account in his War of the Jews fulfilled exactly what Jesus foretold in Luke 21: Destruction of Israel with all its murders and atrocities, and dispersion of the people throughout the nations. The Middle Ages was another difficult time for Jews who were dwelling among the nations. The Jews suffered from the Crusades and the Spanish Reconquista (Christian re-taking of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslim Moors) followed by the Inquisition. During this time the identity of many people was lost due to war, persecution, illness, or cultural assimilation. But this was not the case for Israel. Despite the many trials of the last two millennia, Israel has kept its identity as a special people. In this we see the mercy of God who throughout the centuries made possible the conservation of this identity, so that the promise Jesus expressed in Luke 21:24 would be accomplished. It was absolutely necessary for the final purpose of God to bring his people back to their land again, as numerous prophecies of the Old Testament said (e.g., Amos 9:14,15). However, a new trial occurred in the twentieth century that no one could have imagined: the shoah. The despair of the Jews, when six million were killed in the holocaust, reached a terrible peak that compares to the tragedy of Jerusalem’s fall in 70 A.D. Historians say this kind of tragedy was the only way to convince the Jews in all of the nations to return to Israel, and to convince the nations to vote for the creation of a country for the Jews. We see the operation of divine providence in this second birth of Israel as a nation. Historical studies show that creation of a nation is usually based on a geographically contiguous people who consider themselves different, and then secede from the nation to which they had formerly belonged. But it is historically unique for a people scattered throughout the world to obtain their own country. God’s Great Mercy in the Future If the state of Israel is the fulfillment of the many Old Testament prophecies about the return of the Jews to their ancient country; then establishing the New Covenant with them and allowing them to live without persecution should be considered a sign of God’s mercy. Israel’s current situation, however, has not as of yet fulfilled this promise. God has promised a world-wide kingdom in which Christ will lead Israel and the rest of mankind to a new life in harmony with God. The promise for Israel is to be the first to be blessed under this New Covenant, after having accepted Jesus Christ as the Messiah and to live in peace with the other nations. This has not happened yet (Matthew 6:10; Isaiah 40:4,5). Despite God’s gift of land to Israel, her rejection of Palestinian counter claims to the land has made the Jewish state odious in the eyes of other nations. The prophet refers to this: “In that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:3). The prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah describe the final trial that will threaten Israel’s existence: “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (Zechariah 14:2). But in the next verse, the prophet also says God will exercise his mercy to Israel once again by delivering it. The prophet wrote: “For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob” (Isaiah 14:1; see also Zechariah 8:20-23). This is a prophecy of a future time when God will exercise his mercy to Israel, and to all mankind. Israel’s role will not be to dominate other nations, but rather as the first to receive God’s blessing and to thus serve as an example to all mankind. All other nations will see Israel’s blessing and say, “Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3; Micah 4:2). Thus all nations will join themselves to Israel and become the offspring of Jacob as God prophesied: “And thy [Jacob’s] seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 28:14). God’s mercy to Israel will be the impetus for the blessing of all mankind. The kingdom of Christ will become a source of blessing for all. |