Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

The well-known Zionist movement has unified and made articulate Jewish sentiment the world over. Its great object is to secure Palestine as the home of the nation. It is not the only movement afoot with the same object in view, but it is the greatest and most expressive of the hopes of Jewry. There can be no doubt but that in it is seen the fulfilment of the first part of Ezekiel’s vision of the Dry Bones (chapter 37). For centuries the nation has been scattered amongst the Gentiles, with neither country, flag, nor king, nor national life. Their bones were very dry, and their hope was lost, and they were cut off from their parts (verse 11). But God has not forgotten them. He has said, “Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel and ye shall know that I am the Lord” (verse 12). God’s clock seems to be about to strike the hour when this word shall be made good to them. As in the vision, bone is coming to bone and flesh and sinews are coming upon them, the unity of this people is appearing and they are speaking out their demands with no uncertain voice. The second part of the vision in which the nation is seen throbbing with life towards God will not be fulfilled yet, not until they have travelled the rough road of Jacob’s sorrow which will bring them to full repentance for the rejection of their Messiah.

The first Zionist Congress was held in 1897, when the Jewish flag was raised, and Theodor Herzl of Vienna declared that the only solution of the Jewish question was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This declaration was taken up with great enthusiasm by the younger Jews, and organizations were formed all over the world. The awakening is a national one, and of intense feeling, as can be judged by their rallying songs, of which the following lines are a sample.

“My brothers, my brothers! O wandering, aimless hordes!
A clarion from Zion is speaking for the Lord!
The thundering heavens command: Arise a mighty band,
With heart and voice make now the choice —
And straightway seek your land.”

But as long as the Turk held the land there seemed small hope of the realization of this great object, and colonies elsewhere were tried, notably in Argentina, but though millions were spent on these schemes they came to nothing. At the 1903 Congress, Dr. Herzl announced that the British Government had offered to send a commission to inquire into the practicability of establishing an autonomous Jewish state in the East African Protectorate. But the project was dropped at a subsequent Congress. Nothing but the land of their fathers would satisfy their national hopes.

Large numbers of Jews, chiefly from Russia and Roumania, helped by their richer compatriots settled in Palestine, and considerable progress was made in colonizing, and the cultivation of the land. The fields waved golden in summer breezes, the grapes hung plenteous in the glorious sun, and the olives yielded their precious oil. But the war came and many of these immigrants fled the country or were banished; the land was laid waste and those who were left upon it reduced to the direst straits, and Zionism seemed to be set back many years.

But now has come General Allenby’s victory and the British declaration that His Majesty’s Government viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of its object.”

Early in February of this year a Congress of the English Zionist Federation was held in London, and it was then stated that before the war negotiations had been opened for the securing of a site upon the Mount of Olives for the building of a Jewish University. The war compelled the suspension of the negotiations, but so keen are these Zionists in the matter that the very day after Jerusalem was occupied by the British the negotiations were resumed and have been brought to a successful conclusion. “Not tarrying for peace, but within the sound of the guns, Jewry asks His Majesty’s Government to permit full investigation in the feasibility of the scheme for founding a Jewish University in Palestine, and should military and political exigences permit to take steps for the initiation of the undertaking. The British reply of God speed is at once a tribute to the petitioned and the petitioner” (Extract from Palestine). Losing no time in the matter, the Government has authorized the Zionist Federation to send a commission to Palestine and has appointed a capable officer to join it.

The very definite pledge on the part of the British Government seems to mark it out as “the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,” spoken of in Isaiah 18. It has been pointed out that the “Woe” at the commencement of the chapter should be “Ah,” and that it is an exclamation of compassion. The land in question is evidently a maritime nation and has given protection to the Jews; for “the shadowing with wings” speaks of this, it is a well-known figure in Scripture. No land has given such a refuge to these downtrodden people as England has, and now she is taking them especially under her wing and that with the view of putting them into Palestine. But whatever is done in this way, and whoever does it, all the inhabitants of the earth shall see it (v. 3); it is to be a matter of international politics, probably one of the chief questions at the settlement when the war ceases.

But what will the outcome of it be? Most promising at first, for the bud will be perfect and the sour grape ripening in the flower, when God shall cut off the sprigs with the pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches and they shall be left together to the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them (verses 5-6). In these vivid sentences is described “the great tribulation” through which they must pass ere they reach the blessing and rest of Messiah’s kingdom.

But why must this unspeakable sorrow come upon them? Because they will go into the land proud and unbroken; they will glory in the WISDOM of the professors who will be installed at their university, and the legislators who will frame their constitution; and in the RICHES of the great financiers of their race which will be poured out freely to make Palestine great, and in the MIGHT of whatever power or powers support and protect them. Not of such material as this will God build up His kingdom, for “thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knows Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth.”

But these proud leaders of this proud race will take their own way. They will seek the honour that comes from each other and not that which comes from God; consequently as they refused their true Messiah who came to them in His Father’s name so they will receive Another, who shall come in his own name (John 5:43-44). And he, their devil-inspired Antichrist, will be the plague, until there is left of them but a poor and afflicted people, who cry, “Some trust in horses, and some trust in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the Lord … Save, Lord: let the King hear us when we call” (Psalm 20).