[…] The status of the present return gives the illusion of a final return only because a second age-long dispersion beginning with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem was not clearly distinguished in the prophets from the much shorter Babylonian captivity. (Note: Those who scorn the concept of a “gap”, or better, ‘hidden age’ between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel should consider that if such an interim is not recognized as necessarily implicit in these prophecies, establishing a necessary distinction between a near and partial fulfillment [first-fruits/earnest] and a future fulfillment that is complete and final, then the more serious problem of failed prophecy presents itself, something that liberal critical scholars like to refer to as ‘prophetic dissonance’, since it is certainly no loss to them if prophecy has failed. But quite on the contrary, it is this very phenomenon, in keeping with the divinely designed puzzle of Messiah’s twofold advent, that forms the context and conceptual framework of the mystery revealed in the NT. Hence, a so-called ‘gap’ is by no means without scriptural precedent, but is inherent in the mystery that was divinely hidden for judgment. Indeed, it was necessary for Israel to stumble at the mystery).

Therefore, the first return would see the Jews back in the Land, but still short of the eschatological salvation necessary to endure in the Land, thus looking ahead to an ultimate future tribulation that begins ‘in the Land’. In significant analogy with the first return, the Jews exist in the Land once more as a viable nation with restored covenant institutions (Dan 11:31; 12:1), but the exile continues so long as Israel remains under covenant jeopardy. Thus, the Jews of the modern return are in essentially the same position as those living in the Land after the first return. Though lately returned to the land, they remain subject to the same future tribulation and desolations that ‘the prophets of return’ predicted would persist until the ultimate deliverance of the still future Day of the Lord. The Jews in the Land today are no more ‘home free’ than that first remnant for whom Jacob’s trouble remained a future ‘necessity’ (“for that which is determined shall be done” Dan 11:36). […]