ZIONISM in PROPHECY

THE RETURN OF ISRAEL TO PALESTINE

A Fulfillment of Biblical Promises

With Introduction by

CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL

and

DR. HIRSCH LOEB GORDON

(Copyright 1936)

Distributed by

PRO-PALESTINE FEDERATION OF AMERICA

307 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y.

_______

Printed in U.S.A.

The eminent scholars and writers: the one a Gentile, the other a Jew: were asked to critically study this booklet before publication, then briefly set forth their conclusions. Charles Edward Russell certainly needs no introduction.

‘See ‘Who’s Who in America.’

The other reviewer was Dr. Hirsch Loeb Gordon, the well known Jewish writer, Hebraic scholar and Talmudist, who holds degrees from Yale, Columbia, Jewish Theological Seminary, Catholic University of American, and the University of Rome. The Pro-Palestine Federation of America is glad to be able to present these sympathetic forewords by two outstanding men of letter:

Charles Edward Russell writes:

IN THE midst of the night of gloom that settled upon the world after 1929, one spot remained that glowed with light and resounded with human activities.

In Jewish Palestine there was no unemployment, but a demand for labor beyond the supply. In Jewish Palestine there was no want, no bread lines, no relief work at public expense; but, with the joyful impetus of a new hope, men were redeeming a wilderness. In but a little more than a decade of effort a transformation had been wrought that seemed almost magical.

We have been accustomed to assume that when men put forth their great efforts, undergo severe hardships, battle valiantly with the forces of nature, practice self-denials, their one purpose is eventual personal aggrandizement. Here was an instance where an impulse much stronger than profits led men and women to vast labors upon a deliberated plan of betterment, wiser, more enlightened, more pertinent to human welfare and happiness than had ever before been known.

A circle of thoughtful men watched, applauded a little and wondered more. To build a state upon the basis of atonement for centuries of hideous wrong’with principles of justice, freedom, safeguarded opportunity for all’here was something so new in human history and experience that it seemed unread or unattainable. This novel method of state-building in Palestine involved no marching armies, no battling of hosts, no devastation and horror, but only peaceable purchase and friendly development. If it succeeds, it should strike the soul of imperialism into shame-faced retreat.

That such an innovation in state-building should come from the Jews, to whom the world is already indebted for so many civilizing influences, seems singularly apt and appropriate. The Jews throughout the centuries have been consistent opponents of the insanity of war, the steadfast champions of even-handed justice.

In the succeeding pages the author has set forth, convincingly and accurately, the remarkable achievements in this peaceful transformation of Palestine by the Zionists. What he has written deserves to be noted and remembered for its careful additions to the sum of general knowledge concerning this significant peaceful revolution.

But he has gone further; he has gathered for us the very sources of the immeasurably spiritual inspiration that has made possible this greatly memorable excursion. He has assembled from the revered Jewish prophets the ancient forecasts of this Jewish vindication which has begun so promisingly in the Palestine of today.

His handling of these prophecies shows this author to be a profound Biblical scholar, and equally profound in his understanding of and sympathy for the people who have suffered such vast historic injustice. The reading of these prophecies will startle into keen interest all reflective minds, some of whom perhaps may here come upon such an array of forecastings for the first time.

The number of prophecies that already have come true, and the number that now seem on the eve of fulfilment, assail skepticism and justify the query whether this people, who, through dispersion, persecution and tyranny at the hands of majorities which they have suffered so long and so patiently, have not been justified in their unshaken faith in the beneficence and infinite support of the Divine Power.

We are all indebted to the author for his lucid treatment of both phases of the Palestine question in this admirable little book. He has made the Biblical prophecies clear and the Jewish achievements in Palestine luminous.

CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL

Dr. Hirsch Loeb Gordon writes:

In addition to those great prophets of Israel who were chosen mouthpieces of Jehova, there also were some ancient Gentile sages with prophetic visions, among whom was Balaam, also the faithful Job.

Now, after a lapse of thirty-three centuries, there arises another Gentile’one to expound the prophets, and to encourage the tribes is Israel in their present fervent quest for the holy land.

The author here pleads Israel’s cause before the bar of world opinion. In this booklet, ‘Zionism in Prophecy,’ he vividly recalls the many divine assurances made to this people, that they would be regathered to the land from which they were plucked, and then shows that the present day Zionist movement for the rehabilitation of our homeland is in fulfillment of those Biblical promises.

‘Gentile prophets,’ said one of our ancient sages, ‘see their visions in the darkness of the night.’ Certainly this Gentile voice from America is now being raised in the midst of darkness’at a time when beastly persecutions are being heaped upon Jewry in various parts of the world.

In his affectionate approach to this Jewish agony of the present time, our author wisely abstains from justifying it in the name of misunderstood Biblical admonitions. He sees Israel as ‘a scattered, homeless and oft persecuted people...distinct and homogenous...bound together by suffering and oft-deferred hopes”a people that cannot regain their former spiritual heights while in diaspora.

Any true believer in the inspired Scriptures, whether he be Jew or Gentile, cannot fail to become enthused by this author’s scholarly proofs that the divinely, ‘set time’ for Jacob’s final return to his homeland coincides with the events of today’all pointing to the fulfillment of the covenant made by God to Abraham, {Ge 15:18} to the termination of the era of ‘seven times’ of chastisement foretold by Moses, {Le 26} to the culmination of the four World Empires shown to Nebuchadnezzar in the dream that troubled his spirit, and to the fulfillment of the prophetic writing upon the wall of Belshazzar’s palace when he made a great feast to a thousand of his lords.

The discouraged Jew will find in this author’s interpretation of the prophecies emboldment, reassurance, confirmation of his millennial hope of rebuilding the ruins of Jerusalem, replanting the arid fields of Judah, and relighting on Mt. Moriah the glorious and everlasting torch of peace and truth.

The Gentile reader will find herein the conviction that in helping the Jew, his fellowman, to reestablish his home in the holy land, he thereby becomes an instrument in God’s hand for speeding the realization of the divine promises. Everyone, Jew and Gentile, should wish this valiant author, in whose unusual thesis deep scholarship and true religion vie with each other, shall have the greatest success in his noble mission, and that of him if may be said, in the words of that great Gentile prophet of old: ‘Unto me men gave ear and waited....After my words they spoke not in indifference....They open their mouth wide as for the latter rain.”Job 29,22, 23.

HIRSCH LOEB GORDON

’Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come.’’Psa. 102:13.

THE modern Zionist movement, which began as a dream in the mind of Theodor Herzl and started to take definite form as an organized Jewish effort over forty years ago, in now a permanently established entity and a compelling force in the life of Jewry the world over. Even non-Jewish statesmen of many countries are equally interested with Israel in this national Zionist movement, which is now being selfishly opposed by great Arab land owners and paid agitators.

Today the need for a Jewish National Home is more acutely recognized than every before; by reason of the fact that within the past few years more than 300,000 Jews have been forced to flee from Germany, Poland, Russia and elsewhere and take again the wanderer’s staff, or seek a definite haven in lands overseas. More than half of these emigrants have already found their way to Palestine.

There are countless reasons why Israel should be interested in Palestine as a Jewish Homeland. The economic advantages of such an undertaking have been stressed, and these properly constitute a great attraction to pioneers. A latent nationalistic pride or patriotism has actuated others. Purely sentimental reasons have constituted the primary incentive for many. Persecutions have literally driven others there in spite of themselves. And faith in the predictions of the ancient prophets, and in the hitherto unfulfilled promises of God to His chosen people, has been a stimulus and a compelling force in not a few instances. All these reasons are substantial; but perhaps the one of greatest importance, and yet the one heretofore least emphasized and appreciated, is the religious reason last mentioned.

The purpose of this discussion, therefore, is to direct anew the attention of Jewry to various prophecies of the Sacred Scriptures which undoubtedly are being fulfilled today in the National Zionist Movement. These prophecies indicate that it is God’ purpose that the faithful of Israel shall again be regathered to this ancient holy land, and there eventually become the nucleus of an important nation which shall exert a mighty force for good in all the world; and shall literally fulfil, on a hitherto unprecedented scale, the original oath-bound promise to the patriarch Abraham, ‘In thy seed shall all nations be blessed.’

It cannot be denied that the prophets do foretell an ultimate regathering of Israel to their homeland. It was the prophet Jeremiah who declared: ‘I will bring them again to this land [Palestine]; and I will build them, and not pull them down; and I will plant them, and not pluck them up. And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God; for they shall return unto Me with their whole heart.”Jeremiah 24:5-7.

It cannot be said that the return of Jewry from their seventy years’ captivity to Babylon fulfilled this prophecy; for after that return they were again pulled down and repeatedly plucked up; whereas the prophet here predicted a time to come wherein they would never again be plucked up from their ancient homeland. Since Jeremiah was a true prophet of God, and his various other predictions were fulfilled, there is no reason to doubt that this prediction also shall be fulfilled eventually; and later on in this narrative we will present evidence to indicate that the time for its fulfillment is at hand.

The same prophet also foretold the future dispersion of the Jews into all the earth, and even indicated the fact that they would mainly go to lands north of Palestine’ such as Russia, Poland, etc. Then he foretold their ultimate return to their homeland, in these encouraging works:

‘Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coast of the earth....A great company shall return thither...they shall come with weeping; and with supplications shall I lead them....Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him as a shepherd doth his flock; for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.’ Therefore, they shall come and sing in the height of Zion...and they shall not sorrow any more at all.’’Jer. 30:18-21; 31:8-12.

Again the prophet declared: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall not be said, ‘The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt’; but, ‘The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither He had driven them’:and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them; and after will I send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them”Jer. 16:14-16

The reference here to ‘fishers’ and to ‘hunters’ as a means to ‘bring them again into their land,’ seems significant. A fisher uses bait to attract the fish; whereas a hunter usually fights and kills, or drives out, his prey. And both these means are being utilized today in the regathering and rebuilding of the Jewish National Home. The Zionist agencies have been exerting an attractive force for four decades, as a result of which a large aggregation of Jews from all parts of the world have been regathered. But what the ‘fisher’ method has failed to do, the ‘hunter’ method is now accomplishing’yea, the heavy hand of the persecutor recently has been raised against Jewry in many pestilential spots of Europe, as a result of which thousands of refugees have had to flee, and are finding their way to Palestine. Thus are the prophet’s words finding literal fulfilment in this our day.

The prophet Ezekiel likewise predicted: ‘And I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.’ {Eze 37:14} In similar vein did the prophet Amos declare:

‘In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old. And I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord God.”Amos 9:11-15.

Such prophecies as these cannot be logically interpreted in any symbolic sense. It is not a Canaan in heaven that is referred to, but a Canaan on earth. Israel is to be planted again ‘upon their own land,’ the land of their fathers, which God had given them; the land which was divinely promised to Abraham and his seed as an ‘everlasting possession.’ The promise is from God Himself, and must be fulfilled eventually. That original promise to Abraham reads:

‘Life up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever....Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto the....I will give it unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession.”Gen. 13:14-17; 17:8.

His Promises Are Sure

Long has Israel awaited the fulfillments of these ancient promises: even for the time when they would be permanently established in the land that was given them, never again to be plucked up. A scatted, homeless and oft persecuted people, they are still a distinct and homogeneous people. United by ties of blood, by common characteristics, manner, customs and religion, with common hopes inspired by a common faith in the utterances of their ancient prophets and in the sure promises of the one true God (though they may have but dimly comprehended the full significance of many of these divine promises), and still further bound together by a bond of sympathy growing out of their common sufferings and privations as exiles, the faithful of Israel to this day look and long for the fruition of their oft-deferred hopes. They realize that God, in His wisdom, has a definite time for the accomplishment of each feature of His great plan for His chosen people, and for all mankind; even as the inspired Psalmist declared:

‘Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come. For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof. Then shall the Gentiles fear (reverence) the name of Jehovah, and all the kings of the earth thy glory. When the Lord shall bring up Zion, He shall appear in His glory.”Psalm of David, 102:13-18.

It must be admitted that many in Jewry today have lost faith in the inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures as the Word of God; and now look upon the Hebrew prophecies as a mere collection of ‘wise sayings’ of ancient philosophers which have no particular significance for our day. Perhaps this generation of moderns should not be unduly blamed for their skeptical attitude toward the Scriptures, in view of the fact that the world has been flooded of late with literature in criticism of the sacred writings. But an earnest study of the Law and the Prophets, apart from the traditions and theories of men, should convince any sincere seeker for truth that there exists in His heaven a personal, intelligent Creator; One who is superior to the things that have been created; One who is orderly in His dealings in behalf of humanity, and most definite in His shaping of the destiny of His people Israel.

The prophetic Psalm above quoted mentions a time, a ‘set time,’ for the return of divine favor to Zion. And this same principle of orderliness is exemplified in all God’s arrangements, as described throughout the sacred Scriptures. God timed the entrance of Abraham into Canaan, and the migration of Jacob into Egypt; also the rise of Moses, the Exodus, the wandering in the wilderness, the conquest of Canaan, and eventually the establishment of the Jewish kingdom. In due time David, Solomon and other monarchs appeared; and each of them represented God Himself in the theocratic kingdom of Israel, and later Judah. It was said that they ‘sat upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord.”1 Chron. 28:5.

Overturned ‘Until He Come’

Eventually, and at a ‘set time,’ the sceptre was taken from Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, ‘until He shall come whose right it is’; as had been foretold by the prophet Ezekiel. {Eze 21:17} When dominion was thus taken from King Zedekiah, at the time of Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians, the Gentiles began their long domination of the Jewish homeland, which has continued on down to this day. This has been by

divine permission and for a divine purpose. But such domination is not to continue forever; for god has a time, yea, a ‘set time,’ to return His favor to Zion, and to plant her again in her own land, never again to be plucked up.

The God of Israel has recognized these dominating Gentile powers, for a purpose; but not in the sense that He had recognized His own chosen people. He called Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian monarch, ‘My servant”for he served the divine purpose of visiting punishment upon Judah, ‘because ye have not heard My words.’ {Jer 25:8,9} But neither Babylon nor any other Gentile power has ever been designated ‘the kingdom of the Lord,’ as was said of those of the Davidic line. {2Ch 13:8} Nor was any Gentile dynasty ever assured perpetuity of rule, as was promised to the offspring of David.’2 7:16,17 Isa 11.

The Gentile powers were merely granted a ‘lease’ over the holy land for a definite term, as a punishment for Israel’s and Judah’s idolatries and unfaithfulness. Then, at the time appointed, this Gentile lease of power was to terminate; and forthwith He would ‘assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.’ {Isa 11:12} Then God’s original purposes for all Israel would be resumed, she would be established in her homeland, and once more her opportunity to represent Him in the earth would return to her, exactly as the ancient prophets of Israel had foretold. Is it possible then that this modern Zionist movement is not merely the creature of Herzl’s or of Israel’s natural longings, but has come about in this our day by divine providence, simply because ‘the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come,’ as predicted in the foregoing prophetic Psalm’ We believe the evidence, as set forth in the following pages, actually justifies that conclusion.

Gentile Dominion Foreseen in Vision

Ezekiel tells us that Zedekiah, Judah’s last king, was both profane and wicked, and that the time had come when such iniquity would have an end. Hence the crown was removed, the Jewish kingdom was overturned; and the homeland was to remain under Gentile domination ‘until He come whose right it is, and I will give it unto Him.’ {Eze 21:25-27} This One who was to come is the great Messiah, who is to be a Branch out of Jesse and of David, {Isa 11:1-4} and whose Kingdom is to be an everlasting and righteous dominion. At the time of Zedekiah’s overthrow, therefore, a parenthesis was divinely declared in the Davidic rule; and Gentiles were given a lease of power over Jerusalem during this interim. All this was prophetically seen and foretold; not only by Ezekiel, but specially by the prophet Daniel’when he interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar’s remarkable dream or vision.’Daniel 2:25-47.

This vision which the king of Babylon saw was no ordinary dream; it was divinely implanted in his mind, and also the interpretation of it in the mind of Daniel. God simply took this means of revealing to His chosen people in advance the fact that successive Gentile world-powers would be permitted to dominate the holy land throughout the coming centuries, until the ‘set time’ shall come when He shall have mercy upon Zion and return to her His favor. The vision which the king saw in his dream was that of a stupendous image or statue, with a head made of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, and feet of iron intermingled with clay. Then a stone smote the image and broke it to pieces. Then the stone grew and filled the earth.

When none of Nebuchadnezzar’s counsellors or wise men could interpret this vision, the captain of the king’s guard ‘brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said thus unto him, ‘I have found a man of the captives of Judah, t hat will make known unto the king the interpretation.’... Daniel answered in the present of the king, and said, ...’There is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king Nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days.”’Dan. 2:25-28.

Four World Empires

Daniel then explained that this image pictured earthly dominion, and that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was represented by the head of gold. ‘And after thee shall arise another kingdom, inferior to thee; and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth. And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all thing....And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potter’s clay and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of iron....And as the toes of the feet were part of iron and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle...they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another....And in the days of these kings [represented in the toes] shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom, which shall never be destroyed....It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms; and it shall stand forever; forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver and the gold. The great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.”Dan. 2:36-45.

Even as the image was in four main parts’being made of gold, silver, brass and iron’so has history disclosed just four great world-empires, namely Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rom. The two arms, united to the breast, all of silver, represented the Medes and the Persians as united under Cyrus, who conquered Babylon in 536-8 B.C. Then Greece, under Alexander, subdued and succeeded the Medo-Persian as world conqueror. Then came the strong power of Pagan Rome, represented by the two iron legs’with one foot planted at Byzantium on the Bosporus, and the other on the Tiber, in the West. These iron legs were firm and powerful; but later the Roman empire, in both the east and the west, ceased to be a strictly civil power and came to be dominated by church authority; and was then known as the ‘Holy Roman Empire.’ Eventually Byzantium, or Constantinople, became the head of the eastern Catholic communion, while Rome was the centre of western Papal authority. Thus were the iron feet of civil authority intermingled or smeared with the clay of ecclesiasticism, exactly as foretold by Daniel the prophet. Here also is seen the course of human history’beginning with gold, it terminates in nothing better than clay.

At the terminus of each foot of the image were subdivisions, representing the ‘toes.’ These, too, were mixed with clay, and thus were made to appear like stone’a counterfeit of the true ‘stone’ kingdom of God, which eventually was to smite the image, demolish and superceded it. These toes clearly represented the ten original cleavages of the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ which exist in Europe to this day, many of which have crumbled as ‘kingdoms’ within the past few years and are now in a state of change. Thus we are now living in the final days of Gentile domination, as represented in the ‘toes’ of this symbolic image. No other great Gentile empire is to arise in the earth. The next thing to expect is the true kingdom of God, represented by the little ‘stone,’ which is to grow until its beneficent influence becomes worldwide.

Each of the world empires represented in the image, as interpreted by Daniel, were to have definitely appointed limits’a fixed time for their beginning and an ‘appointed time’ for their duration and termination. There were never to be any other empires than those here mentioned, to tread down Jerusalem and dominate Zion. The vision itself was of divine appointment, its interpretation was by divine wisdom, and therefore its fulfilment is sure’it can neither be annulled, obstructed nor checkmated by anything that men may do. Daniel also disclosed that the full understanding of these things would be revealed only at the ‘time of the end.’ {Da 12:4,8,9} If therefore we can now understand the meaning of the vision, this is further proof that we have come to the ‘time of the end’ of the Gentile lease of power, and are approaching the time when God ‘shall arise and have mercy upon Zion; for the time to favor her, yea, the set time, is come.’

I Will Chastise You Seven Times

THE long period of national affliction that has been visited upon Jewry, had been foretold long before the Babylonian captivity and Zedekiah’s overthrow. In Le 26:27,28, the Lord spake to Israel through Moses, saying, ‘And if ye will not for all this hearken unto Me; then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.’ This warning of ‘seven times’ of punishment was repeated four times in this same chapter, and is also alluded to elsewhere in the Scriptures. This word ‘times’ (Hebrew paam) literally means to strike or chastise with regular blows or strokes. It therefore may be used to signify periodic divisions of time during which chastisement or trouble is being endured. Hence this word in the singular is sometimes conventionally used to signify a year of trouble: and ‘seven times’ would thus indicate ‘seven years’ of affliction upon Zion.

But it is manifest that this supreme period of punishment could not refer to seven literal years; for Israel had been afflicted four much longer periods than that prior to the pronouncement of this prophecy. Moses referred to those prior punishments; and then said, ‘If ye will not for all this hearken’ unto the Lord, then He will chastise you ‘seven times”thus clearly indicating that the ‘seven times,’ or seven years, here prophesied, would be a much longer and greater punishment than Israel had ever been called upon to suffer in the past; greater even that their long enslavement in Egypt from which Moses had recently delivered them. Nor could the subsequent seventy-years captivity to Babylon have fulfilled this dire prediction of ‘seven times,’ for it was not as great a punishment as that endured back in the days of Egyptian bondage.

A Day for a Year

What, then, could those ‘seven times’ refer to; and how long a period would they actually cover’

Perhaps a clue is given us in the prophecy of Ezekiel. This prophet wrote while in captivity at Babylon. He was divinely instructed in a vision to lie on his left side for 390 days, and then to turn and lie on his right side for 40 days more. This the prophet did, lying, helplessly as if bound; while the other captives doubtless wondered what it all meant. But the Lord explained to the prophet, ‘I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of days, three hundred and ninety days: so shalt thou bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. And when thou hast accomplished them, lie again on thy right side, and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days: I have appointed thee each day for a year.’{ Eze 4:4-6} Thus Ezekiel symbolized the 390 years exile of the ten-tribe kingdom t o Assyria; and the remaining 40 years of captivity that Judah must yet endure before being released from Babylon.

In similar manner, may it not be that God intended that the ‘seven times,’ or seven years, of affliction mentioned in Le 26:27,28 , also were to be fulfilled on the basis of a ‘day for a year”This seems to be a logical conclusion since these ‘seven times’ manifestly were to exceed in severity all other punishments that had been visited upon this chosen people. If therefore these ‘seven times’ could not refer to seven literal years, they must mean seven symbolic years; that is, ‘each day for a year.’ A solar year, of course, contains a fraction over 365 days, but in computing ‘symbolic time’ as it is set forth in the Scriptures, students of prophecy find that the writers simply divided the year into 12 months of 30 days each. In other words, a time, or year, in Scriptural symbology, refers to 360 solar years’each day representing a year. ‘Seven times,’ then, would signify 7 times 360, or 2520 years.

Duration of the Gentile Lease

Is it possible then that the Gentile ‘lease’ of authority over Zion was to continue 2520 years, and that thereafter she would be permitted to repossess her rightful heritage’ Let us see how this suggestion works out. The final treading down or domination of Jerusalem by Gentiles, from which there was no subsequent release, began when Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came and subjugated the land and took his first Jewish captives. This was a few years before he actually dethroned Zedekiah, the last Jewish king, and destroyed Jerusalem. Some historians claim that the subjugation of Judah began in 606 B.C., while others claim that that date marks the actual destruction of Jerusalem. In any event, we may take this date as marking the practical beginning of the Gentile lease of power, and the start of Zion’s national affliction.

Now if the ‘seven times,’ or 2520 years, of Gentile domination, and of national chastisement upon Zion began about 606 B.C., when would that period end’ Strangely enough, 2520 years after 606 B.C. brings us to the important date 1914 A.D. when the World War began; and out of that conflict came the ousting of the Turks from Jerusalem by General Allenby, the famous Balfour Declaration, the opening of the ancient homeland to Jewish refugees and pioneers from all lands, and the infusion of the whole Zionist movement with new life and hope. It would seem, then, that we are now at the termination of the ‘seven times’ of national affliction upon Israel, and that the events that are now taking place in Palestine in behalf of Jewry are the early beginnings of a new day; that the long lease of power to the Gentiles is up, and that the dispossession of the old tenant and the repossession by the rightful owner is actually under way.

The Handwriting on the Wall

Another possible corroboration of the fact that the period of the Gentile lease of power would be 2520 years, seems to be contained in the ‘handwriting on the wall’ which appeared at Belshazzar’s feast on the night in which that co-regent son of Babylon’s last king was killed and the empire overthrown by Cyrus the Medo-Persian conqueror. Daniel pointed the revelers to the words that flashed miraculously across the palace wall, and which read as follows: ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.’ What could this strange message mean’ Daniel told them that it signified, for one thing, that the Babylonish kingdom had been ‘weighed in the balances and found wanting”these four words being Chaldaic units of weights and measures. Being translated literally from the ancient cuneiform in which they were written, they would read: ‘A mina, a mina, a shekel and a divided mina”that is, a half-mina.

But why were these, and only these, particular symbols of Babylonish weights and measures used’ Was there any further or hidden meaning to them, than the general fact that the Babylonish empire had been weighed in the balances of God’ It would seem so. A mina is 50 shekels, and a shekel is 20 gerahs; hence let us reduce this formula to gerahs and see what number it yields. One mina would be 1,000 gerahs; and ‘a mina, a mina, a shekel and a half-mina,’ or two and a half minas plus a shekel, when reduced to gerahs, yields the number 2520’exactly the same number that we have seen symbolized in the ‘seven times’ of Israel’s punishment at Gentile hands.

It would seem, therefore, that this message that God flashed to the leaders of Babylon, which was the first of the four great Gentile powers’the ‘head’ of the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream’not only signified that Babylon’s days were numbered, but that the total days of Gentile supremacy were also numbered, and that the number is 2520 years. Counting this period from the year 606 B.C., we have noted that it terminated in 1914 A.D., and that in that very year the World War broken out, and events began to happen in rapid succession looking toward the reestablishment of Israel in her homeland, and the ushering in of a new order for all humanity. We are now at the end of the 2520 years of the Gentile lease of power over Jerusalem, and not only Jewry but the whole world is clearly experiencing some momentous transition’a new order is coming in. Every statesman realizes that fact.

This number 2520 is distinctive, in that it is the least common multiple of all the digits in our system of numbers. That is, it is the least possible number that can be divided by each of the digits, from 1 up to 10. Thus it is seen that, in this special sense, 2520 is an all-comprehensive number, and therefore is the best number to portray the total duration of such an important period as that of Gentile supremacy over the holy land. No other number could be so appropriate for spanning the whole period of this long lease of power to the Gentiles. And, at the same time, this number is exactly seven symbolic years in duration. Here, then is a further prophetic clue that we are now at the end of the old order, and that a new order of things is now gradually being ushered in’a new day for Israel and for mankind generally.

These things, of course, are not to be accomplished in a day. The lease has been long, and the full change of occupancy may require considerable time. Nor is it the wish of Zionists that other peoples who now live in the holy land should be summarily ousted or dealt with unfairly. Though Israel has long suffered injustices, she has no desire to visit injustices upon others. The transition, however, must go on apace, for god’s time to favor Zion, ‘yea, the set time,’ has come. Jewish immigrants are being received into the Homeland as rapidly as present conditions will permit; and the entire country is taking on a new lease of life and throbbing with new activities under the hands of these zealous pioneers who recognize it to be their rightful inheritance.

Another Prophetic Clue

Another prophetic suggestion from which we may infer that now is the time for the seed of Abraham to inherit their land, seems to be contained in God’s strange answer to Abraham, when the patriarch asked for a token whereby he may know that he shall inherit Canaan. The Scripture reads: ‘I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it. And he said, ‘Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it”And He said unto him, ‘Take Me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon!”’Genesis 15:7-9.

This was a peculiar reply for God to give to the patriarch’s query. What did it mean’ It is difficult to see any meaning in it, unless it be that the ages of the animals He specified are significant. No age was mentioned for the young pigeon and the turtle dove, but if they were young they would be of the first year. If then we count 1 year for each of them and 3 years each for the other animals so designated, and add them together, we have a total of 11 years. But He could not have meant 11 literal years. Might He not then have signified 11 symbolic years’ That seems reasonable, especially when we work it out.

We have seen that a symbolic month, in Bible prophecy, refers to 30 years’each day representing a year’and that a symbolic year consists of 12 symbolic months, or 360 literal years. Hence 11 symbolic years would be 3960 literal years. And, strange as it may seem, it has been just about that length of time since God gave the foregoing peculiar reply to Abraham’s straightforward inquiry concerning his future inheritance of Canaan. We cannot be sure as to the exact date when this conversation occurred, but the context in which the account is found shows that it took place shortly before the time when Abram’s son Isaac was born. Bible chronologers compute Isaac’s birth from about 2007 to 2026 B.C. If this be approximately correct, then 11 symbolic years, or 3960 literal years, from that time brings us right down here to the very days in which we now live, wherein we do see the repossession of this ancient homeland, as the rightful inheritance of Abraham’s seed, actually taking place. Here again is another clue by which Israel may infer that Gentile domination of her ancient homeland is about ended, that the ‘lease’ to the alien has expired, and that God’s ‘set time’ for a change of occupancy has come.

Daniel’s Vision of the Four Beasts

In the seventh chapter of Daniel’s prophecy is another description of that same long period of Gentile rule, which began with the Babylonian captivity. Daniel, who had been taken to Babylon among the early captives, was given a vision of those same four world-powers that were represented in the four parts of the great ‘image’ which Nebuchandnezzar had seen in his dream and which Daniel interpreted. But in Daniel’s own vision he saw these four powers in the form of four wild ‘beast,’ ruthlessly trampling others under foot to gain their ends. The beastly character of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and the subdivision of the latter, were amply displayed during their ascendancy’the rights of lesser peoples seldom, if ever, being taken into consideration whenever they ran counter to the ambitions or desires of those who wielded sufficient power. In every war the nations have torn at each other’s throats like wild beasts, down and including the World War, which saw the slaughter of five million of the flower of youth and the maiming of fifteen million more’in the name of civilization.

The ‘seven times’ of the Gentiles are synchronous with the reign of these four beasts’the fourth of which ‘was diverse from all others, exceedingly dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, break in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet....Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom [fourth world empire] upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down and break it in pieces. And the ten horn s out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and others shall rise after them....But the judgment shall sit, and they shall take away his dominion, to consume and to destroy it unto the end. And the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him.”Dan. 7:19-27.

Note that Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the image was in four parts, and the feet of the fourth part were divided into ten toes. In Daniel’s vision of the four beasts, the fourth beast developed ten horns. There were just ten original subdivisions of Rome. While it is true that there are more than ten nations in Europe today whose territory was once part of the ‘Holy Roman Empire,’ nevertheless they may still be placed in ten groups, by reason of the languages they speak; for they represent ten principal tongues, namely, Italian, Hispanic, French, German, English, Scandinavian, Slavic, Magyar, Turkish, and Greek. Note also that in the days of the subdivisions of the fourth world-empire (Rome), appeared the rightful Kingdom of God-in each of these symbolic pictures-and that it is to have ‘everlasting dominion.’ Hence these two visions must picture the very same thing, namely, the full period of Gentile dominion: the ‘seven times’ during which Zion would be in national eclipse-which is to be followed by the return of divine favor to Zion and the setting up of an ‘everlasting Kingdom’ by divine decree; from which all peoples of earth shall be blessed.

Daniel Foresaw ‘The Time of the End’

In the last chapter of Daniel’s prophecy he tells us that he was commanded to ‘shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.’ {Da 12:4} He also says, ‘And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great Prince which standeth for the children of the people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation: and at that time thy people shall be delivered.’ (Vs. 1.)

Here are three things which the prophet thus described would be in evidence at ‘the time of the end”the time when God’s chastisement upon His people would end, and when they shall be delivered’namely: (1) ‘many shall run to and fro,’ (2) ‘knowledge shall be increased,’ and (3) ‘at that time...there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.’ If the prophet was given a truly prophetic vision of ‘the time of the end,’ and if we are now living in that time of the end, then we should be able to behold the fulfilment of these three things which he saw back there in his vision. Do we today see anything that corresponds to these matters which Daniel thus cryptically described’ Let us see.

(1) There never has been a time in all human history when humanity could ‘run to and fro’ as at the present time, because never before did they possess such means of transportation as we enjoy today. Quick and general travel is peculiar to our time. Our grandfathers walked, or rode horseback, or used ox carts; and thus it was throughout all past history’until the last century. Then, for the first time, railway systems were built, speedy ocean liners were launched, electric cars came into use, then automobiles, bus lines, and now airplane travel. Daniel saw all this in vision, and declared that when ‘many shall run to and fro’ it will be ‘the time of the end.’

(2) Daniel also said that in the time of the end ‘knowledge shall be increased.’ But has not knowledge always been increasing’ Not very much. Up until the last century we did not have free school systems; hence throughout all past ages the vast majority could not read or write. Nor did they have ready means of communicating knowledge even if they could have read. It is only within recent times that we have witnessed a general increase in knowledge. After the establishment of our modern free school systems came compulsory education laws, requiring children to go to school and be educated. Then came the development of telegraphy, the laying of trans-oceanic cables, the establishment of great news systems, and daily newspapers, an increase in magazines and books, the establishment of free libraries, the building of telephone lines, then wireless telegraphy, the motion picture, radio, communication, the talking pictures, and now television. Daniel saw in vision this great day when ‘knowledge shall be increased’ phenomenally; and said that it would be evidence of ‘the time of the end.’

The Time of Trouble

(3) ‘And at that time,’ says Daniel, ‘there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation.’ It cannot be denied that the World War, which broke out so suddenly in 1914, just at the end of the ‘seven times’ heretofore mentioned, was a conflict such as never had been known since there was a nation. It was the first and only World War this earth has ever seen. Daniel does not explain just what kind of trouble he saw in ‘the time of the end’; but if he saw no more than what humanity has witnessed since 1914, it could well be said to have been ‘a time of trouble such as never was since there was a nation.’

But it may be that more trouble still lies ahead, and that Daniel saw it all in vision. The trouble that is to accompany this day of transition may be as ‘travail’ {Isa 66:6-9} that is, in successive spasms, with period of easement in between. If so, then matters today seem to be running true to form. Came the War, a worldwide spasm; then an easement. Then came the Depression, also worldwide; and maybe another easement is ahead. Then may there not be another severe birth pang, before nations learn that might does not make right and that disregard of the rights of others does not produce lasting happiness for anybody’

Yes, it seems that we are actually in ‘the time of the end,’ exactly as the prophet saw it in vision; and that beyond the troubles attending this day of adjustment, will come peace for ion and for the whole world. Thus declares another prophet: ‘In the last days it shall come to pass that....many nations shall come and say, Come, 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 the law shall go forth out of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”Micah 4:1-3.

Gentile Interest in Zionism

Fair minded Gentiles, especially in America, are becoming interested in the rights of Jewry in Palestine. The Pro-Palestine Federation of America is an organization of non-Jews pledged to aid the Jewish settlement of the holy land.

As early as 1889, before even the Jewish world had heard much of Theodor Herzl and of the Zionist movement, the late Charles Russell, a Gentile friend of Jewry and a deep student of the Hebrew prophecies, published a book in which he predicted that 1914 would mark an important change in the affairs of all Gentile nations, and particularly for God’s chosen people Israel; because he believed that God’s ‘set time’ to remember Zion had come. In 1910, upon his return from Palestine where he had made friends with Dr. Levy of the Zionist organization and had addressed an interested audience of Jew in Jerusalem, some American Zionists, namely on Dr. Levy’s recommendations, allowed him to address a Jewish mass meeting at the New York Hippodrome.

More than 4,000 representative Jews attended this unusual gathering in New York, to hear a Gentile address them on their own Hebrew Scriptures relating to the restoration of Zion. It was a strangely impressive event. Many, as they entered the hall, obviously were suspicious and skeptical. No applause greeted the speaker as he arose to address this audience; they received him in absolute silence. But soon it became apparent that this Gentile really possessed a profound knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that he had no proselyting scheme. And his thorough familiarity with the subject of Zionism, and his kindly sympathy for the hopes and aspirations of Jewry soon broke down prejudices and penetrated the icy reserve of his hearers; and the audience that had come to debate or criticize, burst into such a storm of applause at the finish that it literally downed out the music.

By a system of careful deduction based upon various Hebrew prophecies this Gentile, back in 1910, declared to that audience of Jews his belief that Zionism was due to take on new life shortly after the year 1914. None at that time suspected the outbreak of a World War in that year, or at any other time which would wrest Palestine from the terrible Turk and place it under the mandate of a friendly power that would give the Jews a free hand in establishing there a Jewish Homeland. But that is exactly what occurred, much as the speaker predicted. Among those who heard him on that occasion were many prominent Jewish rabbis, teachers, lawyers and editors’to mention a few by name: Dr. Jackos and S. Goldberg, of the American Hebrew; W.J. Solomon and J. Brodsky, of the Hebrew Standar; Louis Lipsky, of the Maccabean; A.B. Landau, of the Warheit; J. Pfeffer of the Jewish Weekly; Mr. Goldman, of the Jewish Daily; S. Diamont, of the Jewish Spirit; J. Barrondess, of the Jewish Big Stick; Leo Wolfson, President of the Roumanian Societies; and many other of prominence, who made it a representative audience of Jewish culture and scholarship.

This Gentile next addressed another Jewish mass meeting at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The place was packed, with 300 crowded onto the stage, and over 2,000 had to be turned away at the doors. From there he went abroad and addressed a meeting of Jews in Royal Albert Hall, London; following which 5,000 requests for printed copies of his deductions of Zionism were received within the next two weeks. Already, it seemed, Zionism was actually beginning to take on new lie; and the movement, which had been purely political in its inception, was now finding strong confirmation from a religious point of view, and enlisting many new adherents who up to this time had taken slight notice of it.

Prophecy Vitalizes the ‘Dry Bones’

Dr. Herzl, whose name is a household word among all friends of Zionism, had quickened national aspirations and struck a popular chord in the hearts of Jewry the world over, by stressing the political and economic advantages of a Jewish state. The ancient prophecies which had predicted the ultimate restoration of Zion had been largely overlooked or forgotten in those early days of the movement. But Dr. Herzl himself, and many other leaders, came to recognize that the religious aspect of the movement also was to be a factor of great force in the establishment of a Jewish Homeland. It is to be regretted, however, that this phase of the Zionist movement has not been given greater prominence heretofore.

Dr. Nordau, the immediate successor of Dr. Herzl, although a man of great talent and patriotic zeal, met with much difficulty in his efforts to carry on. Zionism, as a patriotic movement, was admittedly languishing. The leaders saw it trembling in the balances, and were frankly afraid that it would come to naught. It seemed that it had spent its force along the purely political lines in which it had been conceived and inaugurated. But when Jews, possessed of faith in the ancient prophets, came to see that Zionism is fulfilling the destiny of God’s chosen people Israel, they with renewed zeal swung their moral force back of the movement, giving life and sinew to that which had begun to resemble a valley of dry bones. It called to mind the words of the prophet Ezekiel:

‘The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down into the midst of the valley which was full of bones....Then He said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost....Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God....I shall put My spirit into you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the Lord have spoken it, and performed it, saith the Lord.”Ezek. 37:1, 11, 14.

’Jacob’s Trouble’ Aids Zion’s Rebuilding

Zionism cannot fail, for it has the backing of almighty God. He has committed Himself, through His holy prophets, to see to it that the faithful of Israel and of Judah who desire to repossess their homeland shall be permitted to do so. Although further Jewish persecutions may be anticipated in certain quarters, nevertheless ‘Jacob’s trouble’ will not dismay true Zionists; they should expect God to permit ‘hunters’ as well as ‘fishers’ to be instrumental in Zion’s restoration {Jer 16:14-17} The prophet elsewhere says:

‘For, lo, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah, saith the Lord; and they shall possess it....Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness’ Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it....

‘Therefore fear thou not, O My servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel; for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet I will not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished....Why criest thou for thine affliction’.... For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord; because they called thee an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after...in the latter days ye shall consider it.”Jer. 30:3-24.

Evidently the ‘hunters’ of Germany, Poland, Romania and elsewhere have not yet succeeded in driving to Palestine all the Jews whom the Lord would have return there for the rehabilitation of the homeland. It is equally evident that many of Jewry in friendly lands must yet be aroused by the ‘fishers’ who are being sent to attract them into the Zionist fold. It is confidently expected that many other Jews of wealth or of a pioneering spirit’especially those having an abiding faith in the foregoing promises’will either join with the Mizrachi World Organization or otherwise assist in forwarding the work of Zionism as soon as they come to realize that this movement is of God and is clearly foretold through the ancient prophets of Israel. In this day of turmoil, coincident with the termination of the Gentile lease of power and the great ‘time of trouble’ heretofore mentioned, great financial upheavals may be expected; and those of Israel who have the means, but who hold back from supporting this movement which is ordained of God, may find themselves in the condition of those mentioned by the prophet Ezekiel: ‘They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed; their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.”Ezek. 7:19.

Who Has the Faith of Abraham’

The great ‘Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in’ shall test and prove all Israel as a people chosen of God. {Mal 3:1,3} Those who worship idols of gold, silver, stocks, bonds or other material things, and forget their privileges and duties as the chosen of the Lord, will not only miss the opportunity of sharing in the present rebuilding of Zion in fulfillment of prophecy, but will receive severe chastisement at His hands in this day of transition’that they may be taught some much needed lessons ere He can use them as channels of blessing in fulfillment of the ancient promise to Abraham: ‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed My voice.”Gen. 22:18.

Those of Israel who are unwilling to obey God’s voice at this time in helping to rebuild Zion, do not have the faith of Abraham; they do not possess Jacob’s appreciation of God’s promises; but, like Esau, they prefer the things of momentary comfort and pleasure rather than claim their divinely intended birthright. But chastisements from God are blessings in disguise; and harsh experiences during the days of ‘Jacob’s trouble’ may open the eyes and ears of many to appreciate and heed the voice of Israel’s prophets. If that be so, then these providences of God can accomplish far more in rebuilding Zion than can mere economic advantage in the homeland, or purely Jewish pride or popular patriotism.

After Zion is rebuilt, then, according to the prophets, Israel’s future work of extending blessings to all humanity is due to begin. God will then make a new covenant with His chosen people, even as Jeremiah has foretold: ‘Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers [whose mediator Moses could not give them lasting blessings] in the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt, which covenant they brake...but I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people.”Jer. 31:31-33.

Moses declared that a greater than he would ultimately lead the people. {De 18:15} Moses, of course, referred to the coming Messiah of Israel. Similarly David declared, ‘The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion....The Lord hath sworn and will not repent, Thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek...He shall judge among the Gentiles...He shall wound the heads over many countries.’ {Ps 110} May it not be that this great Messiah, ‘the King of glory,’ is a heavenly Lord, who even now is overruling the work of rebuilding Zion, preparatory to re-establishing the throne of David, and ultimately exercising spiritual dominion worldwide’

Israel’s Double

In an earlier part of this treatise we discussed the prophecies relating to the ‘seven times’ of national chastisement upon Jewry, and offered the suggestion that we have now reached the end of that long period, and that this accounts for the origin and present impetus of the Zionism movement.. Another prophecy of interest to God’s chosen people is the hitherto obscure utterance of Zechariah, who wrote these words a few years after the Babylonian captivity: ‘Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee; he is just and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass...turn ye to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope: even today do I declare, I will render double unto thee.”Zech. 9:9-12.

Another equally strange prophecy which evidently refers to the same matter, is the following passage from Isaiah: ‘Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, and that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.’ {Isa 40:2} Although the word mishneh was used in the Zechariah prophecy, and kephel is the word employed by Isaiah, yet the meaning undoubtedly is the same’each text referring to a period or to an experience, or both, which would be a duplication or repetition of something that had gone before. Zechariah foretells this ‘double’ before it happens, while Isaiah prophesied of the time when the ‘double’ would be ended and when Zion would again come into her own.

Zechariah does not say, in his prophecy, when the ‘double’ is to begin; he merely quotes the Lord as saying, ‘even today do I declare, I will [future from the prophet’s day] render double unto thee’’he does say ‘Today the double begins.’ Nor does Isaiah say when this ‘double’ would end’he merely declares that when it does end Jerusalem shall be ‘comforted,’ because the ‘set time’ would then have arrived when God shall return His kind favor to Zion. What then does this ‘double’ refer to, and when does it begin and terminate’ Inasmuch as Isaiah shows that divine favor was to be withheld from Jerusalem during this ‘double,’ therefore this period of punishment must coincide, at least in part, with the full period of the ‘seven times’ of disfavor heretofore mentioned. But this ‘double’ of disfavor could not have begun at the same date that of the ‘seven times’ began; that is, at the time when the Jewish kingdom ended, at the Babylonian captivity. Why’ Because Zechariah was a post-exile prophet, writing several years after the Babylonian captivity had ended; and he says that this ‘double’ had not yet begun, that it would be declared upon Jewry at some date in the future. If the ‘double’ had begun at the time of the captivity and the destruction of Jerusalem, then undoubtedly the prophecy would have said, ‘I have rendered,’ instead of ‘I will render double unto thee.’

The Dispersion

Evidently, therefore, this ‘double’ of disfavor has reference to some additional national punishment that was to come upon the Jews as a people at some time subsequent to the Babylonian captivity. But what could it signify’ What chastisement ever came upon Jewry that was greater than that suffered in 606 B.C., when her children were taken captive to Babylon, her kingdom overthrown, and her temple and capital city destroyed’ We answer: The Dispersion, of A.D. 70-73, was far more terrible than the captivity of 606 B.C. After that Babylonian captivity the Jews were permitted to return to Palestine; and while they were not allowed to restore the kingdom, yet they did maintain a tributary national existence in their own land for the next six hundred years’until they were ruthlessly dispersed into all the world by the roman legions under Titus. This dispersion began in 70 A.D., but the last Jewish fortification did not surrender until the morning of the Passover, 73 A.D.

Was this, then, the ultimate practical beginning of the ‘double’ of disfavor’ It would seem so. While divine disfavor clearly began prior to this time, yet this was the date when its actual and terrible manifestation became pronounced. Like certain other epochs in Biblical history, this ‘double’ may be regarded as having two or three beginnings and two or three endings, like overlapping cycles. But it seems clear that the ultimate beginning of this ‘double’ of disfavor was when the Jewish fort of Masada surrendered in 73 A.D., and the Jews were absolutely uprooted from their land of promise and finally dispersed to other lands afar. Since that date the Jews have never had even a semblance of national existence as a people’until the beginning of the present rehabilitation of the Jewish Homeland under the Zionists, within the last few years.

National Existence: National Eclipse

But why is this period of complete national annihilation of Jewry, from the time of the Dispersion until now, called a “double”A double, or duplication, of what’ Since this is seen to have been a period of total absence of national existence for Jewry, it would then seem that it is called a ‘double’ simply because it is a duplication, in point of time, of the period during which Israel enjoyed a national existence. And how long did she exist as a nation’ Her early beginning dates from the death of Jacob at which time ‘the twelve tribes of Israel’ came to be recognized as such, and dwelt together as ‘the house of Israel.’

Historians compute the death of Jacob as being about two centuries before the Exodus from Egypt. The long period of time from then down to A.D. 73 has been so definitely recorded in the Scriptures and in secular history that scholars agree to its exact length to within less than 20 years ‘some holding that 1813 B.C. was the correct date of Jacob’s death, while others compute it as being 1794 B.C. But whichever date we take, the ‘double’ of that period is found to touch down here at the time in which we are now living, and when the Zionist movement is being so outstandingly blessed by the Lord.

Talking into consideration the suggestion already made, that there is probably an overlapping of cycles in connection with this ‘double’ of time’since it may be regarded as having a preliminary beginning when the circumstances first arose which ultimately led up to the complete Dispersion of Israel in 70-73 A.D.’it brings the ‘beginning of the end’ of the double at about the time when the Zionist movement originated and began to grow to its present important proportions.

We do not need to insist upon the absolute accuracy of any past dates, nor do we attempt here to make predictions for any future ones. It is sufficient for our purpose if these calculations are only approximately correct. That being so, they do furnish a reasonable basis for belief that here again is prophetic corroboration of the fact that ‘the time to favor Zion, yea, the set time, is come’,{ Ps 102:13} and that the time for the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy is at hand:

O Zion, Lift Up Thy Voice!

‘Comfort ye, comfort ye, My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand DOUBLE for all her sins....O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, that bringest good, lift up they voice with strength; lift it up; be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, behold your god!....Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, He taketh up the isles as a very little thing....All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity....Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God’.... He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might He increaseth strength.”Isa. 40:1, 2, 9, 15,14,27-29.

Transforming a Waste into a Garden

During the period of the present generation we have witnessed the gradual rise of Zionism’from a visionary theory in the mind of Theodor Herzl and his co-workers, to the practical establishment of a Jewish National Home through the cooperation of Jews the world over. About in the middle of this period of rise, came the wresting of Palestine from the Turk, the Balfour Declaration and the British mandate, since which time the actual rebuilding of the Homeland has begun in dead earnest. The greatest progress has been made during the past ten years. But there is much yet to be done; and the funds raised during the present drive will make possible the carrying forward of pending plans for the receiving of additional hundreds of thousands of Jews into this Homeland within the next few years.

The World War of 1914-18 had left Palestine economically in very desperate straits. The Turkish armies had plundered and devastated the towns and rural districts as well. But this was nothing new; for throughout long centuries of political and religious strife her agricultural resources had been ravished by contending Turks and Arabs, and her forests also ruthlessly destroyed. Little or no effort ever had been made to maintain soil productivity or prevent irrigation, outside the crude hand-made efforts of a few individual Arabs. Impoverished and depopulated by almost two millennia of misrule and inadequate cultivation, the holy land’s original natural endowments had become nearly nonexistent.

The World War completed the wreck, so that 1918 found Palestine almost destitute of plant and animal life, with 50 per cent of her land written off as barren. The census taken in 1920 revealed only 80,000 head of cattle, 4,000 mules, and a few camels in the whole country. It was a common sight there to see there a man or a woman, instead of an animal, hitched to a plough. In 1922 the Director of Agriculture of Palestine reported the total of exploitable land surface to be not exceeding 7,000 square miles.

Then the ‘hunters’ of Jer 16:16 appeared, and drove numerous Jews from Russia, Poland, Roumania and Germany, back to their homeland. These Jewish refugees started reclaiming the arid land, so that by 1930 the Commissioner of Lands gave in his report for Palestine, 612,000 acres of farm land; 375,000 hill acres; and in the Beersheba area 1,025,500 acres. Obviously no figure can be accepted yet as final for the total of ‘cultivable’ land there until the Jewish farmer has defined the word ‘cultivable.’

These figures did not include the swamps nor coastal marshes, the sand dunes, nor the rocky hills between Rafa and Acre, nor the Wilderness of Judea; these were considered as a cipher.

Since then what has this ancient people of the ‘shop’ done about farming in Palestine’ Well! within a few short years the Jew has drained and brought to a high state of cultivation 211,800 acres of swamps of Samaria. These malaria-infested miles of ‘no man’s land,’ whose pools were the breeding beds of death-dealing insects and disease, have become a garden, irrigated and planed in fruits. A land previously without an inhabitant and called ‘cursed’ by many people, is now laden with the perfume of the orange and lemon tree. These cesspools of the coasts have changed into an Eden of citrus-bearing trees whose blossoms make a panorama of delight, and whose fruits have brought new hope to a long exiled and seemingly forgotten people.

Divine Providence Over Jewry

But the Jew should not forget that the battle has not been his; that while he fought, the God of his fathers also fought beside him, and has begun to fulfil His ancient promise and ‘hath given the increase.’ The antitypical year of Jubilee has come, the ‘trumpet’ is now sounding, calling every Jew to return to his possession; and all the captives are to be set free.

‘Lo, the day has come, saith the Lord, the day when I said I will bring again the captivity of My people Israel and Judah; I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers and they shall possess it...Ye shall buy fields in this land, whereof ye say, It is desolate, without man or beast, it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans; men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe evidences and seal them, and take witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, in the cities of the mountains: for I will cause thy captivity to return, saith the Lord.’ ‘Thou shalt build the waste cities and inhabit them; thou shalt plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof; thou shalt make gardens and eat the fruit of them.

‘I will plant you upon the land and thou shalt no more be pulled out of the land which I have given thee.’ ‘I will call for the corn and I will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. I will multiply the fruit of thy tress and the increase of thy fields.’ ‘I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.’ ‘Thou shalt build houses and inhabit them: thou shalt plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them: thou shalt not build and another inhabit, thou shalt not plant and another eat; thou shalt not labor in vain nor bring forth for trouble...for thou art the seed of the Blessed of the Lord.’

‘In the day that I have cleansed you from all your iniquities, I will cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded, the desolate land shall be tilled whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by; and they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the Garden of Eden, and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited.’ ‘And thou shalt dwell in the land that I gave unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and ye shall dwell therein, even thou and thy children and their children’s children forever.

‘My servant David shall be thy Prince and I will be thy God forever.’ ‘Ye shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace: the mountains and hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the tress of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, instead of the brier the myrtle: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.’ ‘In the wilderness I will plant the cedar, the shittim tree, the myrtle and the olive. In the desert I will plant the fir and the pine and the box tree. All shall see, and know and consider and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath don e this; the Holy One of Israel hath created it.”Jer. 30:32 Am 9 Eze 36:35 Isa 41:18.

Israel, go up, posses ye your land. Be of good courage, and believe in Him who hath promised, for He is able and ready to fulfil all these things.

Zionist Progress

While millions have been invested by the various Jewish organizations, created for the very purpose of making a national home of the land of their fathers, a place of refuge for the hunted and persecuted of Jewry; yet it is no part of the Zionist scheme to encourage pauperism or indiscriminate charity. The idea is to create a self-respecting co-operative commonwealth in which every one shall pull his share of the weight, producing his own food, clothing, tools to carry on, and the necessities of life. One of the fundamental planks of the undertaking is that all land bought from the Gentiles is to remain forever in the hands of the Jews. It cannot be resold to an alien. Furthermore a lease or homestead can be for only 49 years; then in the 50th year it returns to the original Jewish Land Co. But the lessee can renew his lease if he so wishes. The amount of land each Jew may obtain under this arrangement is determined by how much he can work individually without hiring help. Here then are three death knells for the old order’to speculation, to exploitation, and, last but not least, to pauperism’for should old age or sickness overtake any individual, a fund created from the ‘lease tax’ provides the hire for having his crops cultivated, harvested and marketed for him. Hence the fear of becoming homeless or dependent upon charity never disturbs his peace of mind. Those sinister twin brothers, the almshouse and the poor-farm, never come nigh his dwelling.

Zionism is thus proving to doubting world that Jewry not only possesses the political qualities essential to self-government, but that it knows how to make every man secure and of equal size. The Jewish bodies in Palestine have spent $700,000,000 on drainage, irrigation, amelioration of soil, and afforestation. The Palestine Jewish Colonization Association is concerned with the colonization of Samaria, upper and lower Galilee and Judea. They already have reclaimed much land and established plantations throughout Judea; built highways and railroads; also water supply and irrigation systems. They have invested $30,000,000 in colonization and $2,000,000 in the aromatic or perfume industry which is only in its infancy.

Harnessing the Jordan

The Zionist scheme of electrification of Palestine, costing millions, has now become a fact; from this all of Palestine is to have power for her various commercial interests, as well as light, heat, and irrigation. Such names as Lord Reading, Rothschild, Hirst and Mond, on the directorate of the Palestine Electric Corporation, to carry out the great Rutenberg scheme of electrification of both Palestine and Transjordania, gives ample assurance of success to the project. The harnessing of the Jordan River is only a part of the Rutenberg scheme, and this is now well in hand. Another part of the program, as mapped out by the engineers, is a forty mile tunnel right through the mountain on which Jerusalem is situation, which will be a link in the canal that will bring water from the Mediterranean into the Dead Sea. This water, brought in at a cost of $60,000,000, will have a drop of 1400 feet, thus supplying an abundance of power for the operation of pumps which will irrigate thousands of acres of now arid land in lower Palestine.

The great vineyards of Pica have wonderful wine cellars, costing $1,000,000. The vineyards near Jaffa have the third largest wine cellars in the world. At Benjama is an experimental station of great importance to the other colonies. If conducts experiments in irrigation, crops, aromatic plants, breeding of livestock, modern dairy methods, and machinery of all types for labor-saving and efficiency; with the result that crop production under these scientific methods often yields as much as 400 cases of products per acre in excess of that grown by primitive competitive methods. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent annually on such work of experimentation. More than half a million dollars has been spent on Palestinian roadways recently. Ancient camel paths have been succeeded by fast transportation on modern motor highways second to none; an essential asset to agriculture throughout the land.

Jerusalem Becoming a World Center

The deepening of the harbors of Jaffa and Haifa now enables large vessels to dock in all weather, makes Palestine a logical gateway between the east and west, and assures its future as a point of prominence in the commerce of the world. Even now Palestine’s gardens and orchards, when plucked today, are on Egyptian tables tomorrow. Such are the fast transportation systems already in operation out of Palestine. Jerusalem is to be made the center of the railway system from Jaffa to the Persian Gulf. This will link up with the railway from Cairo and Suez, to Jaffa and Haifa. Another will extend out of Jerusalem to Damascus, thence to Constantinople; and a new route has just been established between Colombo and Port Said. Not only is Jerusalem to be a great railway center, but is also becoming a center of communication, with wires connecting it with Suez, Egypt, the harbors of Palestine, and the outside world. Later, by reason of its unique location, it should become an important centre for transportation by air.

The enterprising Jewish farmers within the Homeland have hastened the establishment of European markets, to ensure quick handling of their perishable products; and this has called for the perfection of rapid transportation lines, that they may reach the markets ahead of competitors. The citrus fruits of Palestine are of a high grade. The Jaffa orange is acknowledged to be superior to any other orange grown anywhere. Near Ziova, in Judea, is a 2500-acre development for intensive plantation experimental farming, in connection with which there also is a training farm for girls.

There are seven such experimental stations in Palestine, which have resulted in the abolishment of traditional methods of husbandry and the introduction of up-to-date systems of agriculture. Every possible labor-saving device is employed to decrease the costs of production and to increase the net earnings. One station is devoted to the study of fruits, another to wild plants. Over 50,000 such plants have been classified for study, and new useful plants are being developed. Another station devotes itself the study of soils from different parts of the country, also to the study of fertilizers, trees, seeds, livestock, poultry, insects, etc. The Agriculture Extension department conducts lectures all over the Homeland to give everyone the benefit of discoveries made. A children’s village, established in 1927, has 175 acres where these youngsters are taught truck gardening, horticulture, fruit-raising, etc., in connection with other educational studies. Here children are accepted, from kindergarten age up to the 8th grade. There is a budge of $40,000 for its annual upkeep.

The Jewish Fund has planted 1,225,000 eucalyptus trees in arid areas for the stabilization of the sands. Such trees are used along the railway between Egypt and Palestine for protective purposes. Between 1920-29 over 5,000,000 trees and 2,000,000 vines were planted throughout the Homeland, most of which were from Government nurseries.

Thousands of New Enterprises

Already there are over 3,500 different enterprises now existing in Palestine, more than 2,000 of which were never heard of there up to a few years ago. The Palestine Potash Co. Ltd., is extracting minerals from the Dead Sea, and have found it a veritable gold mine of natural resources. It is estimated that the mineral deposits in the Dead Sea are worth at least 238 billion pounds sterling, or about 1,200 billion dollars’greater than the combined wealth of all the nations of the world.

At Haifa is located not only the newly deepened harbor, but railway workshops, sugar refineries, a match factory, a cement plant, an oil factory, and flour mills. At Jaffa is located the fine new harbor and an electric power station’part of the huge electrification scheme for which the waters of the Jordan are being used’also soap factories, etc. Great brick works are at Tel-Aviv. Bethlehem is the home of the textile industry, furniture factories, etc. At Nazareth, farther to the north, are engineering shops, printing plants, as ice factory and mineral works. Near Jerusalem is the home of the red marble industry. Altogether there are now 265 flour mills, and hundreds of other important enterprises too numerous to mention. There are over 600 olive oil mills which manufacture numerous products; also textile mills, tobacco and gypsum industries, tanneries, etc. Private investments in all these undertakings, exclusive of colonization itself, amounts to $51,000,000.

The importance of all this lies in the fact that these pioneers are the forerunners of an established Zionist commonwealth. As such, they should be appraised; not by old world standards but by pioneering standards; for they are but the vanguard of later and greater achievements. However, even now their work in the field of agriculture is exciting the attention of other peoples in various parts of the world.

Palestine’s institutions for research, her laboratories, experimental farms, unique credit system, scientific agricultural literature, etc., also her fine harbors and her highways and rapid transportation lines’already established or in the process of construction’all point the way to future Jewish colonization on a large scale. So expect are the methods employed in the Homeland that a fair-sized Jewish family can exist in comparative comfort on as little as two and one-half acres of ground. The words ‘depression’ and ‘unemployment’ are quite unknown among these pioneers.

The Unquenchable Fire of Faith

But this story of the rebuilding of the Jewish Homeland would be far from complete if merely these commercial achievements were recorded. Zion would be ‘as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals’ were it not for those vital elements of faith in the ancient promises of restoration, which well up within the heart of the faithful of Israel, and for which prayers have ascended for centuries while rivers of tears have flowed. Soon after the first mad rush for a foothold in Palestine had been accomplished’which at first was but as a peg on which to hang one’s hat’the hitherto latent spiritual side of Zionism also began to manifest itself.

An eye witness tells of the pent-up longings of ages that broke all bounds at the laying of the cornerstone of the Hebrew University there a few years ago. Whether Zionist or non-Zionist, Jew or Gentile, it was impossible not to recognize the real source and depth of that heart-cry as those pioneers of the Homeland, and their kinsmen from afar, began to realize this further beginning of their hitherto of-deferred hope of emancipation. ‘Never,’ aid this witness, ‘have I never seen a crowd so reveal its inner self. Men stood transfixed, women wept; and no one slept nor talked anything else for days, but this momentous event, this cornerstone, of Zion!’ It was on Mt. Scopus’the Mount of Olives’overlooking the ancient capital, Jerusalem, that Dr. Chaim Weizmann, head of the world Zionist Organization, in the presence of Lord Balfour, General Allenby, Albert Einstein, and representative Jews from all parts of the world, laid the foundation of this all-Jewish institution of learning, as a symbol that God, through Israel, shall soon give light unto all the earth. Not one stone, but twelve, were laid; symbolizing the cooperation of the twelve tribes as one people.

An Advanced Center of Learning

In 1927 Prof. Albert Einstein accepted the chair of Professor of Sciences in this Hebrew University. He has since endowed a chair for the study of the higher sciences, to extend beyond the field covered by the curriculum of other universities; which makes this new Hebrew University at Jerusalem the most advanced seat of learning in the world today. Nor does this University limit itself to Jewish students; it opens its doors to all people, regardless of race, creed or color; thus offering exceptional educational facilities to all, untrammeled by sectarian policies.

No sooner had the University begun to function when substantial contributions of equipment began to arrive, to help make it the truly great institution it is destined to become. Prof. Ignaz Goltziher released to it the famous Oriental Library, with its 6,000 volumes. Then the equally famous Chezanvitch Library, of Bialostock, containing 5,000 volumes in 16 languages, was transferred to the University. The French Government sent a contribution of very valuable books. The Fecheimer family, of Cincinnati, donated 6,000 volumes, Oscar Straus gave 500 volumes, and various others. Also the Dutch Government has instructed various universities in the Netherlands to make certain valuable donations of books, some extremely rare volumes; and already nearly 1,000 copies have been received from this source, with promise of others to come. It is the expectation that this rapidly growing library of the University of Jerusalem will become the greatest and finest scholastic library in the world. And the Jewish pioneers of the Homeland are quick to take advantage of their educational opportunities. Not only is the University library well patronized, but it is not uncommon to see a Jewish lad plowing his field and at the same time carrying in his pocket, for instant perusal during moments of leisure, a Hebrew translation of Homer’s Iliad or some other classic.

The Regathering of All Israel

Palestine, within its present confined limits, of course would not be capable of receiving but a portion of the 17,000,000 Jews now living upon the earth. Nor is it expected that all Jews will endeavor to return to the Homeland. Many, indeed, have lost faith in the divine promises made to God’s people through the prophets of old, or otherwise are not yet fully sympathetic with the endeavors and objectives of Zionism. But this is no argument against the success of the movement. Nor is the fact that certain Jews are firmly established in other lands, and have no immediate desire to reside in Palestine, any reason why they should not at least be deeply interested in the establishment of a Homeland for those Jews who do wish to return thither. It should bring joy to the heart of every man and woman, in whose veins flow the lifeblood of Abraham and of Jacob, to know that somewhere on this earth is a land that Jews may call their own. And should not that joy be intensified many fold by knowledge of the fact that such a homeland is now actually in process of rehabilitation, and that it is none other than the very land made sacred by Israel’s ancient patriarchs and prophets, where ruled the judges who sat in Moses’ seat, and where reigned the kings of the illustrious Davidic line’

Before Messiah’s Kingdom can be established, at lease a remnant of the faithful of all Israel must be regathered to Palestine, even as the prophets have declared. Isaiah identifies Israel’s Messiah as a righteous One unto whom ‘shall the Gentiles seek.’ {Isa 11:10} Then he continues: ‘And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again, the second time [even as He did the first time, at the end of the Babylonian captivity], to recover the remnant of

His people....And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcast of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah, from the four corners of the earth.’’Isa. 11:11,12.

Already hundreds of thousands of the dispersed of Jewry have been regathered to the Homeland. The Jewish halutzim or pioneers, who now are in Palestine, have come from no less than 64 different nations; although the majority are from eastern and central Europe, where orthodox Judaism flourishes more than in the West. And yet it is largely through the contributions of the more prosperous Jews of the West that the rapid rebuilding of this ancient Homeland is being made possible. Immigration is progressing as fast as funds will allow’over 61,000 Jews having entered Palestine during the past twelve months. This immigration began on an important scale in 1925. In that year, for the first time in twenty-five centuries since the ‘seven times’ of Jewry’s affliction began, the flag of Judah and the star of David floated over the seas’atop the mast of the S.S. President Arthur, on her maiden voyage as one of the American-Palestine lines.

A Remnant of All Tribes

These Jews who now are returning to Palestine undoubtedly are remnants of all twelve tribes. Even the tribe of Dan, which separated from their brethren and migrated into Arabia after the captivity, where they have roamed as nomads for the past twenty-four hundred years, now have folded their tents and returned to their ancient homeland and have settled in a colony near Jerusalem, happy and full of faith in the belief that Zionism’the ‘Third Jewish Commonwealth”heralds the near approach of Messiah’s Kingdom.

A large part of the regathered of Israel who are now in Palestine are truly called halutzim’pioneers, or the advance guard. These men and women, animated by faith, hope and patriotism, are gladly enduring all needful privations for the cause of Zion. All through the country you will see them, in companies large and small, working with an idealism that has never been seen before. You will see educators, college professors, lawyers, and doctors of philosophy, doing their share alongside more hardy laborers, all engaged in breaking stone, mixing cement, and laying highways. And after a hard day’s work of this sort they will assemble and sing the triumphal songs of Zion. Such sacrificial service is not for mercenary reasons; it is due to a spiritual urge, and animates the heart of thousands.

Like the Zeal of the Ancients

With many of these, their sacrifices began long before they reached Palestine. Many poor Jews from Russian, Poland, Romania, Germany and elsewhere, had to undergo intense suffering and endure the greatest of privations, before they finally succeeded in accomplishing their supreme desire’that of coming here to assist in rehabilitating this Jewish Homeland. An able engineer from Russia arrived without shoes, his feet bandaged in old rags. It had taken him eleven long months through cold and heat to make the journey on foot. But he got there, and was joyful that he could come and have a part with the other happy halutzim in rebuilding Zion.

When Dr. Herzl, over forty years ago, envisioned Palestine as a free homeland for the persecuted of Jewry, few realized or even dared hope that it would really become an accomplished fact within this generation. They mourned for Zion, and waited; they did not then know that God’s ‘set time to favor her’ really had come. {Ps 102:13} They did not suspect the meaning of the ‘seven times’ of chastisement, nor that this period of Gentile domination had about run its course. {Le 26:18,24,28} They did not realize that Israel’s ‘warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.’ {Isa 40:2} Nevertheless Dr. Herzl and his associates began’no one knew exactly why’to frantically appeal to Jewish pride, to instill patriotism into God’s chosen people the world over, to establish Zionist societies in all countries and to educate and enthuse all Jewry for possible great developments ahead.

The Zionist idea seemed too fantastic at first. How could a handful of persecuted Jews ever hope to gain a foothold in this despoiled land which the terrible Turk holds in a deathlike grip’ And how could Jews expect to make a living there if they did find entrance’ But those who thus doubted the practicability of Zionist hopes in those days were reckoning without a knowledge of God’s plan for His chosen people. Others simply held on somehow by blind faith. And finally the ‘set time’ arrived for God to perform His ‘strange act.’ Came 1914, the end of the ‘seven times,’ the World War, the capture of Jerusalem, the wresting of all Palestine from beneath the ruthless heel of the Turk, and the opening of this ancient fatherland to immigration and to the establishment of a Jewish National Home. It was the beginning of Jewry’s emancipation, and the ‘beginning of the end’ of Gentile domination over Zion.

A Deliverance Not Merely of Man

When Jerusalem was captured from the Turks in 1917, not merely Jewry but the whole wide world thrilled to the news of the event. Everybody seemed to sense that here was some unusual history in the making’as if some strange spiritual current had sent a wave of wonder around the entire earth. Even the British troops themselves were peculiarly affect ed as on no other battlefield, said Sr. Arthur Wingate; all being eager for information as to the history of each town or hill as it was taken. And so keenly interested was the reading public the world over, concerning this sector of the allied campaign, that the army of newspaper correspondents were kept busy for days thumbing through Bibles, fitting Old Testament records to current events, and cabling column after column of dispatches filled with narrations of things that occurred on this same battlefield far back in the great days of the Jewish kingdom.

If the capture of Jerusalem thus excited the attention of all Gentile peoples throughout the earth, how indeed mut it have thrilled every Jew’especially he who is filled with a traditional passion for the land of his fathers, so great that he instinctively turns his face to Jerusalem when he prays; who buries his dead facing east; And who purposely leaves partly unfinished every house that he builds for his dwelling, as mute testimony to the fact that he is but a sojourner, a wanderer, a pilgrim in a strange land not his own! Even Lord Rothschild, one of the world’s wealthiest bankers, left unfinished one of the pillars in his palatial home, thus signifying his role as a child of the dispersion, with but a temporary abiding place, and symbolizing his hope that some day Israel may be able to find her tents and go back home.

How Jerusalem Was Spared

How Jerusalem was taken on December 9, 1917, without bombs or gunfire, seems nothing short of a divine miracle. Jerusalem is almost impregnable as a natural fortress or stronghold. The Turkish army could have held out for quite a long time, inflicting many casualties upon the allies. In the end, the city might have been destroyed, even as it was laid low by Nebuchadnezzar at the beginning of the ‘seven times,’ and by Titus at the beginning of the ‘double.’ But the time had come for God to deal comfortably’ with Jerusalem; for ‘her warfare is accomplished, her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.’ {Isa 40:1,2} Hence, in divine providence, not only was the city spared from destruction but it was actually taken without a single shot being fired; though it was being held by fierce and modernly equipped Turkish troops.

It was not until after the armistice that the full story behind Jerusalem’s easy capture came to light. As General Allenby approached with his army, he wondered how he could best take the city without too much damage. He had no desire to destroy it, and in fact abhorred the thought of devastation and bloodshed within its sacred walls. But war is war, and he had a duty to perform. While thus he was trying to formulate plans for capturing yet sparing the city, an enemy runner reached his Turkish commandant, and reported that a strong army was approaching, led by a powerful general named Allah-Bey (Allenby). The news quickly spread among the superstitious Moslem troops, and the magic name Allenby was understood by all of them to be Allah-Bey’which meant, ‘The prophet of Allah.’ Terrified by what to them was a sacred name, they refused to fight against a ‘prophet of Allah,’ fearing Allah’s displeasure; and the commandant finally gave orders to hastily evacuate the holy city ere ‘Allah-Bey’ arrived.

The Clock of the Ages Strikes

General Allenby, on taking over the occupation of the city permitted the residents to resume their peaceful pursuits with little interruption. But one important change was that of abolishing the Mohammedan Hegira calendar, which had held sway over this land for 1335 years, and putting into effect the Gregorian calendar, beginning January 1, 1918. Meanwhile General Allenby, and the ‘Jewish Legion’ fighting under the Jewish flag, pressed on, clearing the Turks from the remainder of Palestine. Evidently General Allenby’s name had lost its magic, as the Turks came to understand it better; and the legion now met with considerable resistance. But they held all the territory, from Gaza in the south to Beersheba in the north. By autumn Damascus was occupied. And just as the Jewish Legion succeeded in driving the Turks beyond the ancient Solomon-Davidic boundary near Damascus, thus emancipating the entire land from this people, who for centuries has been the chief thorn in Israel’s side, the general armistice was declared. It was as if God had said, ‘The main objective, so far as My chosen people are concerned, is now accomplished; hence cease your hostilities, and let them go up and rebuild their homeland.’

After Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, Hebrew ceased to be the spoken language of the land. Now that the ‘double’ has ended, this ancient tongue is being restored. For several years Prof. Eliezer Ben Yewdah, an ardent Zionist who died in 1922, strove to bring it back into its own. His efforts met with little success at the first, and he was looked upon as a visionary; but he lived to see his works bearing fruit. Hebrew is now being freely spoken in the Homeland, and the schools there employ it as the medium of instruction. Postage stamps now bear the Hebrew words, Aretz Israel’the land of Israel. The currency of Palestine no longer carries the superscription of Caesar, or the face of a Caliph, but instead ‘The Tower of David.’ The $1,500,000 palace which the German Kaiser built on the Mount of Olives, is now a government house for the New Palestine.

Climatic Conditions Improving

Even the climatic conditions of Palestine are now showing marked improvement. In 1927 the Pools of Solomon, dry for centuries, began to overflow. At that time the High Commissioner of Palestine was asked to declare a day of public thanksgiving to God for this seeming miracle. The pools were measured and found to contain approximately sixty million gallons. In Bible times there were two copious rainy seasons in Palestine, the ‘early and the latter rain.’ But for the past many centuries the ‘early rains’ have been scant; while the ‘latter rains’ and the dews had disappeared completely. But now these have returned to gladden the land, with the result that some parts of Palestine now yield two or three crops a year.

The prophecy of Zechariah, written after the return from the Babylonian captivity, seems more applicable today than at any time in the past: ‘Thus said the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth....Now I will be unto the residue of this people as in the former days, saith the Lord of hosts. For the seed shall be prosperous; the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give her dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.’ {Zec 8:3,11,12} ‘Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for He hath given yo the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain; the former rain, and [also] the latter rain in the first month.”Joel 2:25.

For some reason the climatic conditions of Palestine seem peculiarly suited to the Jew; he prospers where other people have failed. On this point we quote from an address by an able Zionist, the late Nahum Sokolow, as follows:

‘To the ancient Jew, Palestine is home. To the Europeans going there it is a foreign land. The stalwart Prussians took their wives and tried to colonize Palestine with Prussians. The result was: Their children born in the land were puny, physically frail, sickly and weak. But the Jew who settles there, though he himself may not be robust because of years of privation and hardship elsewhere, is able to produce robust offspring in their homeland. It seems to be God’s answer to those who challenge the right of the Jew to this land, which was given by God to Abraham and his seed.’

Intellectual Wealth for Zion

It is recalled that a few months after the World War began, the British found themselves running short of a certain mineral product essential to high explosives; and the situation was becoming alarming. In that critical hour a Jewish chemist, who had live in England for 25 years and taught chemistry at Cambridge, set to work on his laboratory to develop a chemical substitute’and he succeeded. The British engineers tested out this substitute and were elated, and in their extremity the government was ready to pay a fabulous price to the chemist for his valuable formula. That chemist was Dr. Chaim Weizmann, an enthusiastic Zionist, who later, and for 13 years, headed the World Zionist Organization and subsequently became President of the Hebrew University at Jerusalem. Dr. Weizmann’s reply to the British government was, ‘I do not desire that the government pay me anything for my formula; but I do request the government to promise that they will try to free the land of Palestine from the Turk, and then secure it as a homeland for my people.’ The promise was given, the Turk was driven out; and the historic Balfour Declaration, the British Mandate over Palestine, and all subsequent British assistance in the establishment of the Jewish National Home, are the result.

The remnant of Jewry now returning to Palestine are brining to the homeland great wealth, not only of substance but especially or intellect. It is no secret that Jews generally are an intelligent, progressive people. They have become leaders in practically every field they have entered. They are the word’s leading bankers. They excel in commerce. They also become leading lawyers, leading scientists, leading philosophers. Some of the world’s greatest musicians and composers are Jews. The same is true in the literary field; many become great authors, editors, historians, poets. The European press is largely controlled by Jewish brains, and they also are an important element in the American press.

Although Jews constitute but three percent of the population of Germany, yet no less than 100 chairs in German universities were occupied by Jews up to 1933. The world has heard much about the achievements of ‘German scientists’; but what is not always noted is the fact that many of these achievements are the work of Jewish minds. For example, it was Hertz, the German Jew, who proved the existence of electro-magnetic waves, that led the way to numerous electrical inventions and to the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. In America the outstanding electrical wizard was Steinmetz, an immigrant Jew from Russia.

Prosperity and ‘Fame in Every Land’

These achievements of Jews are mentioned, not to boast but to show the fulfilment of prophecy. Zephaniah, who foretold the greatest affliction upon Jewry, which was to begin with the Babylonian captivity and continue until ultimately they would be dispersed into all the earth, also foretold that they wold become famed in ‘every land’ even while they as a people are subjugated and put to national shame. He also then foretold of their ultimate regathering, after which they ‘shall not see evil any more.’ Speaking of the termination of God’s national judgment upon Jewry, the prophet says:

‘The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy [the Turk’]: the King of Israel even the Lord, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack....I will gather [not every Jew, but] them that are sorrowful who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold, at that time [the ‘set time’] I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out’ and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.’ {Zep 3:15-19} In similar vein did Isaiah declare: ‘The Gentiles shall come to thy light...the abundance of the sea shall be turned unto the; the wealth of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.’ {Isa 60:3,5} While these prophecies may have a spiritual fulfillment, yet they are having a literal fulfilment also, in God’s providential dealings with His people Israel.

Successful as Tillers in the Holy Land

It has been declared that there is one field in which Jews do not excel, namely, in agriculture. It has been said that as a people they are ‘land-shy’ and ‘city-mad.’ It is true, of course, that in America not much more than 1.5 per cent of the Jewish population is engaged in farming, while 98.5 per cent are city dwellers. That perhaps is because they find they can make greater fortunes in other pursuits than in American agriculture. But in Palestine fully a fourth of all Jews who have gathered there are settled in farm communities. Dr. Weizmann writes:

‘Thousands of young Jews and Jewesses arrive here who have been tied to the apron strings of their native cities. They could not distinguish a hoe from a spade. Yet they have turned to the arid land of Palestine and have wrenched from it the secret of plenty and prosperity. What is this’ Why is the Jew now doing in the Holy Land what he was never known to do in other lands’ Because he works under the inspiration of inherent and natural love for this land, which centuries of wanderings by his progenitors have not killed. Each of his movements is spurred by a feeling that this land is his own, by all the rights and traditions of civilization and Biblical teaching. The Jew tills the soil of Palestine with far more fervor than does the farm of other countries. Because of this the Jewish National Home is making such remarkable strides in its agricultural development. This ardor, born of a long denied heritage, coupled with the introduction of modern equipment and scientific methods, is causing the land of ‘Palestine to yield her increase.’

Non-Jewish Interest in Zionism

The interest that Gentile peoples as well as Jews have taken in the present rehabilitation of Palestine seems significant; further pointing to the fact that the ‘set time’ for a change of tenancy in the Holy Land has come, and that divine power is being exercised to speed the transition. First came the Balfour Declaration of 1917, heretofore mentioned, manifesting Great Britain’s readiness to aid in the fulfilling of Israel’s desire in such an undertaking. That historic official pronouncement said:

‘His Majesty’s government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use its best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of that objective; it being understood that nothing shall be done which will prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by the Jews in any other country.’

This British declaration was immediately endorsed by the principal allied powers, and also embodied in the Treaty of Sevres, wherein it was provided that Palestine should be entrusted to a mandatory power, the mandate to be approved by the League of Nations. A few years later Great Britain was given the mandate over Palestine by the League of Nations (1922), since which time the rebuilding of Zion has been permitted to go forward. Although the United States of America is not a member of the League of Nations, yet it manifested its interest in and approval of the British declaration, the U.S. Congress adopting unanimously a resolution endorsing the movement to re-establish in Palestine a Jewish National Home. Furthermore, in 1932 various Gentile leaders of Washington and elsewhere formed the Pro-Palestine Federation of America, to assist in the realization of Jewish aspirations in the rebuilding of their ancient homeland; and many American Gentiles have individually contributed money to the various Zionist funds as well as to this Pro-Palestine Federation.

Generous Support From American Jewry

But, as might have been expected, the great factor that is principally responsible for the rapid rebuilding of Palestine in recent years is the generous financial support that has come from Jewry in America. The Jews of Europe have indeed done their part, but as a class the Jews of the United States are far more prosperous than are their brethren over seas. Fully half of the $200,000,000 that already has been expended or invested in Palestine, either privately or under direction of the World Zionist Organization, has come from the pockets of Jews living in America.

Although Zionism did not originate in America, it was not long after its founding until it crossed the Atlantic and gained a firm foothold here. It was in 1898 that the Zionist Organization of America was founded, being then called ‘The Federation of American Zionists.’ Prof. Richard Gottheil, of Columbia University, was its first president, and Dr. Stephen S. Wise was its first secretary. Ere long there came to its support many other distinguished American Jews, such as Dr. Judah L. Magnes, who later became chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; also Louis D. Brandeis, now Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; Judge Julian W. Mack, Nathan Straus, Louis Lipsky, Morris Rothenberg, Felix Warburg, and many other of like calibre.

Nor have the Jewish women of America neglected to do their part. On the contrary, ion 1912, Miss Henrietta Szold organized a women’s Zionist organization, called ‘Hadassah,’ which has dedicated itself to safeguarding the health of Palestine settlers. Today an elaborate hospital and clinic system exists in Palestine, also child welfare centres, nurses’ training schools, medical laboratories, milk stations and playgrounds, all due to Hadassah. Furthermore, this women’s organization is enrolling Jewish mothers, who are committed to the task of instilling the Zionist spirit and ideals into their children, thereby assuring a steady increase in Zionist ranks for the future.

The Land Being Brought, as Jeremiah Foretold

Although every phase of the rehabilitation work in Palestine is under the general direction of the World Zionist Organization, yet the expenditures are not made from one general fund; there are various funds, each concerned with its own particular field. For example: The Jewish National Fund provides for the purchase of land for Jewish settlement and cultivation. All land being taken over for Jewish settlement is being paid for. It was not God’s intention that when the ‘seven times’ of Israel’s chastisement had ended, that Jews should attempt to seize or confiscate the land, even though it is their rightful inheritance. On the contrary, the land should be bought, so that no injustice may be done to the former occupants. Says the prophet Jeremiah, concerning the regathering of God’s chosen people:

‘Behold, I will gather them out of all countries whither I have driven them in Mine anger, and in My fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely...as I have brought all this great evil upon this people, so will I bring upon them all the good that I have promised them. And fields shall be bought in this land....Men shall buy fields for money, and subscribe deeds, and seal them, and take witnesses, in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, and in the cities of the mountains, and in the cities of the valley, and in the cities of the south.”Jer. 32:37-44.

Therefore it is the function of the Jewish National Fund to make purchases and improvements of Palestine land, and already over $16,000,000 has been raised and expended for this purpose. This fund was founded under a provision which requires that two-thirds of the land purchased by it shall never pass out of the control of the Fund. Not only would it violate this provision to resell any of this land to non-Jews, but it cannot be sold even to Jews; the Fund must retain title to it; and it is then leased to individual Jews for a period of 49 years. Not only does the Fund make purchase of the land, but part of the Fund is also used for irrigation, drainage, clearing away rocks, and other needed improvements.

Systematic Jewish Colonization

The Keren Hayesod is a fund found in 1920, since which time it has raised and expended about $25,000,000 for colonization purposes. In short, this fund takes up the work where the Jewish National Fund leaves off. After the land has been purchased and cleared of rock, or swamps drained, the actual settlement of the land and its cultivation must then be financed. This is the function of the Keren Hayesod. It establishes public works, conducts experimental stations, promotes education, encourages immigration, develops urban centres, and aids marketing. Then there also is the Hadassah, already mentioned, whose fund attends to hospitalization, and promotes general welfare. By having these separate funds, not only can each phase of the rebuilding work be promoted more expeditiously, but contributors are thereby enabled to make selection, and thus may have their money used in the particular department in which they are most interested.

Jews who settle in Palestine become citizens of this Jewish commonwealth. But a scheme has now been put into effect whereby any Jew who is interested in the rebuilding of this Jewish Homeland may be registered as a citizen thereof. In Jerusalem is kept a ‘Book of Remembrance,’ and in which is written the name and address of every Jew who contributes $100 or more to the Jewish National Fund. All whose names appear in this book are automatically made citizens of the Jewish Homeland. A few months ago the National Conference for Palestine assembled in Washington, D.C., and a nation-wide effort was launched, known as the United Palestine Appeal, having for its objective the raising of $3,500,000 in the United States. Similar efforts are being made simultaneously in other countries; and many Jews who heretofore have stood aloof from the Zionist movement are now rallying to its standard.

Never before have the prospects for the success of Zionism looked so bright as they do now. How can anyone longer doubt that the reason for this lies in the fact that God’s due time has come to do for Israel all that He has promised He would do for them as soon as their ‘double’ or national eclipse would end’ That time has come; and nothing that man may do or fail to do cover thwart the successful outworking of God’s plan for His chosen people. The heart of every Jew should thrill at every present evidence that God is now extending His mercy to Zion, ‘even the sure mercies of David’; because ‘the time to favor her, yea the set time, is come!”Psalm 102:13.

’Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God.

Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,

That her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned;

For she hath received from the Lord’s hand DOUBLE

What Reviewers Say:

‘This unusual work, ‘Zionism in Prophecy,’ is dedicated to the true interpretation of Israel’s prophets. It shows that no one can honestly claim belief in the Bible and at the same time approve, or even remain silent, when Israel falls the victim of anti-Semitic persecution which is often masked by the cloak of religion. The author places himself above all race-prejudice cults which, unfortunately, are so popular today. He directly affiliates himself with and becomes a strong link in the alliance with all that is good and noble. Jews and Gentiles alike should read his brochure with interest; it will strength their belief in the Scriptures and in the ultimate goodness of mankind.’

‘Rabbi Max Kirchblum, Executive Director

Mizrachi Organization of America

(Orthodox Jewish Zionist Agency)

‘At a time when the major portion of the Jews are still deaf to the call of Zion, when some of our own people are trying to frustrate the building of a Jewish Home in Palestine, it is heartening to find in this country today a Gentile who is raising his voice in behalf of Zionism, in an arresting booklet called ‘Zionism in Prophecy’... It would be nor more than right that it be disseminated in many languages, including Hebrew. At this time when Israel’s enemies are making such baneful use of anti-Jewish propaganda, this brochure will be a powerful literary antitoxin and spiritual serum.”Jewish Morning Journal.

‘The attitude of many Gentiles toward Jews has been at the best anomalous. Hence it is an exalting experience to encounter a Gentile writer who has an honest, impersonal and truly devout attitude of favor toward Zionist striving. Such a man is the author of ‘Zionism in Prophecy’.... On every ground his utterances are worthy of perusal by both Jews and non-Jews everywhere. A little more of his spirit would help to sole more than one world problem.’’Rabbi Abraham Burnstein, Managing Editor, The Jewish Outlook.

‘We are interested in seeing what you write concerning Palestine and ‘Zionism in Prophecy’. We should be glad indeed if this were published....With deepest appreciation of Dr. Wise and the entire United Palestine Appeal Committee”Mendel N. Fisher, Campaign Director, United Palestine Appeal.

‘Whatever basis for claim the Jew may have upon Palestine, it is transcended by the fact that this land was divinely decreed to be his eternal possession. The world may renounce international obligations, but it dare not oppose the Word and will of the Almighty, as voiced by His prophets and recorded in His universal testament to man’the Bible. Because the author of the message, ‘Zionism in Prophecy’. Emphasizes this view, his modest but precious brochure will prove comforting to Jews and challenging to Gentiles.”Joseph H. Lookstein, Vice-President, Mizrachi Organization of America, and Assistant Professor of Homiletics, Yeshiva College, New York City.