What are the Scriptures that you know of that speak of the preliminary regathering of Israel in unbelief?
There are only a few, but of those few, there is one that is especially clear. That is Eze 38:8.
I’ll give you the ones I can think of right off the top below, but what is far more to the point of our argument is the many scriptures that show Israel present and prospering in the Land at the time of the end (Joel 2:1-3; Eze 38:12-13). This stands in stark contrast to the many centuries during which the Land lay desolate and mostly bereft of its Jewish population. This assumes a dramatic re-population of the Land before the conditions could be in place that all the prophets describe of pre-tribulation Israel.
On closer examination, it will be found that the far greater number of scriptures that speak of the return of the dispersed of Israel have in view have in view the post-tribulational return of the saved remnant who have survived the final tribulation. Only a few passages speak explicitly of a return before the tribulation, but a great many assume that the Jews are back in the Land, and some even indicate that this is AFTER the Land has lay desolate and depopulated for “many generations” of “continual” desolation (Isa 61:4; Eze 38:8).
Now, is the Land they’re in today theirs by divine, or better stated “covenant right”, by the promise and providence of God despite their abiding blindness and unbelief, or does the modern, largely secular exist by mere happenstance through a ‘Zionistic vision’ brought about by human effort and force?
Can God not use human initiative, even the decree of a pagan king such as Cyrus to accomplish His purpose? Does the human element make the end result any less ordained by God? Can such a human process be divinely directed? Of course it can as the following scriptures confirm.
But is this the final and complete regathering foretold in the far greater number of return passages the presuppose prior repentance and faith? Of course it is not, as the following passages also make clear.
One of the clearest passages presupposing the return as partial, in unbelief and prior to the full and repentant return at the DOL is
Ezekiel 38:8
After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
Noice this is before the invasion by the last hostile aggressor, the Antichrist of whom, not one but “ALL” the prophets spoke, so this is clearly the Antichrist and incarnation of Satan anticipated by the Assyrian, the Chaldean, Antiochus, and all the great proto-types of the final man of lawlessness, the little horn, beast, etc.
Ezekiel 38:16-17
And thou shalt come up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes. Thus saith the Lord God; Art thou he of whom I have spoken in old time by my servants the prophets of Israel, which prophesied in those days many years that I would bring thee against them?
Now notice that this is before the long awaited DOL that ends in Israel’s regeneration and return to the last person.
Ezekiel 39:7-8
So will I make my holy name known in the midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name any more: and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.
Behold, it is come, and it is done, saith the Lord God; this is the day whereof I have spoken. (Compare Rev 16:17).
Then, with Gog’s destruction by the breath of the Lord follows this statement
Ezekiel 39:21-22
And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them. So the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day and forward.
Then follows the final and permanent return in faith.
Ezekiel 39:28-29
Then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, which caused them to be led into captivity among the heathen: but I have gathered them unto their own land, and have left none of them any more there. Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God.
There is another good scripture in Ezekiel that shows the prior regathering in unbelief while yet facing the purifications of the tribulation that ends with the DOL.
Ezekiel 22:18-22
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it; so will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you.
Another would be Zephaniah 2:1-3
Gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, O nation not desired; Before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord’s anger.
Another would be Jeremiah 30:3
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 I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.
And this is just before the announcement of the surprising anomaly of Jacob’s trouble inserting itself between the pre-trouble and the post-trouble return of the ultimate DOL that Daniel also shows to end with his people’s deliverance (Jer 30:7 with Dan 12:1)
Notice too that Dan 12:1 sees Israel in the Land as a nation before the trouble, as does Zech 12, 14, Joel 2, and a considerable host of other scriptures that put Israel in the Land as a viable and prospering nation when the end comes.
These conditions were impossible until the last century, but Israel’s modern ‘occupation’ of the Land is NOT covenantally significant? Really? Who told you that? May I suggest Satan?
