Are there many scriptures you can think of regarding Israel lying down in millennial safety with no one to abuse them again?
When we read the below verses, we see that peace in the Land, and the ability to hold the Land, depends on fulfilling the Law. Given what the scripture says and history demonstrates of the nature of man, what hope can there be in an entire nation ever being truly and eternally safe in the Land of promise? What must happen for the Land to one day be inherited by all Israel in everlasting peace and security?
Anyone can see that a temporary and partial fulfillment of the law can never secure the everlasting inheritance promised in the unilateral covenant made with the Abraham, the patriarchs, and with David. This is how God intended to use the Land promise to teach Israel of the only ‘kind’ of righteousness that could secure them, all of them, as a living, all holy nation, in the Land forever.
What righteousness would this be? Certainly not the righteousness of a people prone always to backslide. Nor can such an inheritance be secure, even for the righteous remnant as long as the larger nation is still prone to eventually slide back into vanity and ultimately again into exile. Only an everlasting fulfillment of the law, not only by a righteous few, but of all the nation could ever secure abiding, everlasting felicity in the Land.
This “everlasting righteousness” is exactly what the prophets expected as necessary to fulfill the promise made to Abraham. It is why they knew this could only be accomplished by God Himself on the basis of a New Covenant that did not depend on man, anymore than the unilateral covenant God made with Abraham when he was in a deep sleep depended on human participation. They knew this predestined certainty of an unconditional promise guaranteed a radical, apocalyptic intervention of God, even the miraculous birth of a nation in “one day” (Isa 66:8; Zech 3:9). THEN will ‘all Israel’ (the penitent remnant and all their children after them) “lie down safely, and none would make them afraid”, according to covenant promise, now eternally secure to ‘all Israel’.
As you will see in the below verses, the promise of security in the Land had a past, partial and temporary fulfillment, but the ever present peril of what we might call “covenant of jeopardy” always compelled the prophets to look ahead to an eschatological miracle of radical and complete national transformation. They saw this taking place after an unprecedented time of national travail and tribulation when they would be delivered from all their enemies and through the grace of a New Covenant, made to inherit all that stood written in the covenants, promises, and prophecies.
Had there never been mention of a thousand years, this period of salvation and everlasting blessing in the Land was always seen to take place on the earth, with the restoration of an all saved Jewish nation forever secure in their own Land. This national deliverance would predestined (the “set time”) to take place at one time only, namely, the great day of the Lord, never before!
The coming of Jesus did nothing to change this fact. Nothing in the apostolic writings can justify a program of re-interpreting such plain, obvious language, This is to denude and void these texts of their plain meaning in their historical context and manifest intention. Is this a question of hermeneutics (how a text should be interpreted?), or is it more ultimately a question of belief? Do you believe the text as it stands written or don’t you? It is a marvel to me how theologians, admitting that the day of the Lord is yet future, can so confidently affirm that God will NOT make good on these promises concerning the Jewish people and the future of the Land. How do they know He will not? What in the gospels, letters, or the Revelation says He can’t?
The mystery of the gospel would reveal two, distinct comings of the Messiah, with eternal salvation being accomplished in two distinct stages. What is new in the revelation of the gospel is not whether the day of the Lord will accomplish all that remains of what has been promised to Israel. It is the discovery that the promised Deliverer who will one day turn away ungodliness from Jacob will be the returning Jesus of Nazareth.
The revelation of the gospel has brought to full light the wisdom of God in accomplishing eternal salvation for Jew and gentile alike, but nothing of His good promise to the natural branches is capable of failure. It is simply postponed ‘UNTIL’ His return.
Leviticus 26:5-6
And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.
Leviticus 25:18-19
Wherefore ye shall do my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; and ye shall dwell in the land in safety. And the land shall yield her fruit, and ye shall eat your fill, and dwell therein in safety.
Deuteronomy 12:10
But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety;
Deuteronomy 33:27-29
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places.
1 Sam 12:11
And the Lord sent Jerubbaal, and Bedan, and Jephthah, and Samuel, and delivered you out of the hand of your enemies on every side, and ye dwelled safe.
2 Sam 7:10
Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime.
1 Kings 4:25
And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.
Proverbs 1:33
But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
Isaiah 14:30
And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.
Isa 54:14
In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.
Jeremiah 23:6
In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness.
Jer 30:10
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.
Jeremiah 32:37
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:
Jeremiah 33:16
In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely: and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, The Lord our righteousness.
Jer 46:27
But fear not thou, O my servant Jacob, and be not dismayed, O Israel: for, behold, I will save thee from afar off, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and be in rest and at ease, and none shall make him afraid.
Ezekiel 28:25-26
Thus saith the Lord God; When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob. And they shall dwell safely therein, and shall build houses, and plant vineyards; yea, they shall dwell with confidence, when I have executed judgments upon all those that despise them round about them; and they shall know that I am the Lord their God.
Ezekiel 34:25
And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.
Ezek 34:27-28
And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.
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.
Ezek 38:11
And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates,
Ezek 38:14
Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In that day when my people of Israel dwell safely, shalt thou not know it?
Ezek 39:26
After that they have borne their shame, and all their trespasses whereby they have trespassed against me, when they dwelt safely in their land, and none made them afraid.
Hos 2:18
And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.
Amos 9:15
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 thy God.
Mic 4:4
But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.
Zeph 3:13
The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth: for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.
Zech 14:11
And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.
