“It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding.” – Daniel 2:21
The Exodus from Egypt was not a neat 90-minute production by CB DeMille, but a messy reality of millions of people over many years, many of them not “believers.” Some within saw it only as a great annoyance, others without saw the event as an invasion, others as a target for attack, not everyone saw it as a divine event in their days.
There are indeed some theologians who do not see the hand of G-d in the modern gathering of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel after two thousand years of dispersion. It seems, they say, too ‘secular’ and void of pillars of fire and splitting seas. It is too ‘political’ and mechanized, they say. But the exodus from Egypt had its political ramifications in its day as well, damaging the economy of the great nation of Egypt, whose army was sent out to retrieve its lost workforce. And the actual outworking was done not with jeeps and cargo planes, but with the machinery of the times- carts and camels, donkeys and oxen. This is equally true of the prophesied return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel from Babylon in 538 BCE, being a political decree of the Persian King Cyrus.
Some claim this regathering is not of G-d but a mere “political accident,” as so many Jewish Israelis are secular, and few believe in Jesus. But Ezekiel 36 speaks of the Jews returning in unbelief, and then a revelation, not to mention Zechariah 12 describing the Jews in their land when the Spirit is poured out upon them to reveal the Messiah. These along with many other passages in both OT and NT. These events have not yet been fulfilled. The miraculous is not always seen by everyone, but must often be pointed out. Even the disciples of Yeshua, upon seeing him resurrected, did not at first recognize him, until they sat and ate with him. There were no bands of angels or trumpets blaring. Which shows us that the most spiritual is in the apparent ‘commonplace’ of life.
Much of the denial of the divine Hand in our modern Israel’s regathering is deeply influenced by the Catholic (and Islamic) idea of Replacement Theology – that the Jews have been rejected and replaced by the Church – or Islam.
I admit that there are things too great for me to comprehend fully, but “as in a glass darkly.” I walk by faith in the little I know, and do my best to live it out down here in reality. The secret things belong to G-d. But if the prophet Daniel’s observation cited above is true, then it is YHVH who is once again gathering Israel back to the Land of their inheritance.
“Have you not considered what these people have spoken, saying, ‘The two families which YHVH has chosen, He has also cast them off’? Thus they have despised My people, as if they should no more be a nation before them. This is what YHVH says: ‘If I have not made my covenant with day and night and established the laws of heaven and earth, then I will reject the descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one of his sons to rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes and have compassion on them.’” – Jeremiah 33