Back to the Basic Question
So, we find ourselves still grappling with the question we began with: “How did the Jews survive?” And there is really only one answer: “Supernaturally.” Psalm 124 sums it up best:
- “Had it not been the LORD who was on our side,” let Israel now say,
- “Had it not been the LORD who was on our side when men rose up against us,
- Then they would have swallowed us alive, when their anger was kindled against us;
- Then the waters would have engulfed us, the stream would have swept over our soul;
- Then the raging waters would have swept over our soul.”
- Blessed be the LORD, who has not given us to be torn by their teeth.
- Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper; the snare is broken and we have escaped.
- Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Although this passage probably speaks specifically about the survival of the Children of Israel during their wilderness wanderings under the leadership of Moses, it expresses an eternal principle concerning God’s relationship with the Jewish people. The author of Psalm 121 put it this way: “Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4).
God’s Promise to Preserve His People
The Hebrew prophets were very precise about the fact that God would always preserve the Jewish people. Consider this symbolic prophecy of Isaiah who wrote 2,700 years ago, 700 years before the birth of Jesus (Isaiah 49:14-16):
14) But Zion [the Jewish people] said, “The LORD has forsaken me, and the Lord has forgotten me.”
15) [God answers] “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
16) “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands…”
Speaking more specifically, Isaiah wrote these words about the preservation of the Jews (Isaiah 41:10-11):
10) “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.
11) “Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; those who contend with you will be as nothing and will perish.”
Likewise, the prophet Jeremiah, who wrote 75 years after Isaiah, declared that God would preserve the Jewish people (Jeremiah 30:11):
“For I am with you,” declares the LORD, “to save you; for I will destroy completely all the nations where I have scattered you, only I will not destroy you completely. But I will chasten you justly and will by no means leave you unpunished.”
A more graphic prophecy by Jeremiah concerning the preservation of the Jews can be found in Jeremiah 31:35-37 —
35) Thus says the LORD, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the LORD of hosts is His name:
36) “If this fixed order departs from before Me,” declares the LORD, “Then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
37) Thus says the LORD, “If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the LORD.
So, when will the Jewish people cease to exist? When the sun stops coming up and going down, when the seasons of the year cease to come, and only after all the heavens and the depths of the oceans have been explored. In short, the Jewish people are here to stay.
Do I need to inform you that these prophecies have been fulfilled? Despite their dispersion, their persecution and the murderous pogroms leading up to the Holocaust, 6.5 million Jews live in Israel today (slightly more than the number killed in the Holocaust), with another 7.5 million in other countries.
Now, you can understand why the continuing existence of the Jewish people is proof positive that there is a God and that the Bible is His Word.
The continuing existence of the #Jews is proof that there's a #God and the #Bible is His Word. Click To Tweet