It is generally well known that earliest Jewish and Christian eschatology (study of the future) shared in common the view that God’s final defeat of the demonic powers of this age would come only after a brief period of unequaled great tribulation. In Judaism this period is typically called ‘the birth pangs of Messiah’. The tribulation was expected to end with the apocalyptic ‘day of the Lord’, which would realize the end of exile with the deliverance of besieged Israel, and the enthronement of Messiah. The Christian gospel is understood as ‘the revelation of the mystery’ contained in the prophetic writings that Messiah would come twice (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12), a first time to suffer making atonement, and a second to restore all things (Acts 3:18-21). The redemption would be accomplished in two stages rather than one as in Judaism. In both views, the final redemption comes at a time of unparalleled distress and desolation called ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’. The common view was that the events that distinguish and define Jacob’s trouble would culminate in the final deliverance of Israel at the climactic ‘day of the Lord’.
Rightly considered, few themes of scripture are more invested with greater divine significance than the coming time of Jacob’s trouble, also called ‘Zion’s travail’ (Mic 5:3; Isa 13:8; 66:8), also ‘the tribulation, the great one’ (Jer 30:7; cf. Dn 12:1; Mt 24:21; Rev 7:14). Though brief in duration, it holds the key to the final defeat of Satan with the restoration of Israel, and the bringing in of the age of righteousness (Rev 12:6-14). It is therefore of utmost importance that the church as God’s prophetic voice of witness among the nations rightly understands what God has invested in this short time and why. Because to understand Jacob’s trouble, not only in fact but in principle, is also to observe a pattern in all of God’s redemptive ways (Acts 14:22). For this cause, we are interested in more than the mere recognition of a coming time of unprecedented trouble; we want to understand its place and purpose in the larger intention of God, since through it, all the covenant promises of God will be publicly vindicated in the sight of all nations.
Jacob’s trouble is the point where all roads meet. It is the transition between the two ages. It signals the final defeat of the rebellious powers that hold this age in bondage and that resist the final triumph of the kingdom of God. Their ultimate dethronement in history and the principle by which their power is broken in the personal life of the child of God is much better understood in the light of God’s prophetic purpose in history, particularly as it concerns this ultimately transitional period.
In the necessarily brief introduction that follows, we want to simply open for further study and discussion some of the many questions that arise when considering the time, circumstance, and purpose of Jacob’s trouble and its relation to Israel and the church. We also want to draw particular attention to what is at stake in deciding between competing interpretations that have turned the time and nature of the last tribulation into a matter of greatest controversy and heated dispute. All of which is not the least surprising if we take seriously what this particular period of time threatens for the kingdom of darkness. Scripture makes plain that Satan’s final eviction, exposure, and defeat is bound up with the last 3 ½ years, which is the time that the prophets Daniel and John give as the duration of the tribulation’ (compare Dn 7:25; 9:27; 12:7, 11 with Rev 11:2-3; 12:6-14, 13:5).
It is furthermore important for the church to understand how and why Satan’s overthrow is bound up with the fulfillment of a well defined set of events and conditions that though not without parallel, are never realized so particularly and intensely as during the time of Jacob’s trouble. All of which is designed to crowd God’s elect into a transitional crisis that ends in glorious revelation and restoration. The revelation that quickens the dead and brings salvation comes at the point of utter weakness and destitution (Jonah 2:1). Through the final crisis of Jacob’s trouble, the pride of self-sufficiency is fatally shattered, and with the revelation that comes at the end of strength comes also the regeneration (Lev 26:19; Deut 32:36; Ps 102:13-17; Dn 12:7). This is the pattern for all salvation. The way of faith is the way of weakness and broken humble dependency on the Word of God.
Significantly, the same process that ends with the salvation of ‘the preserved of Israel’ accomplishes in the meantime the further refinement of those that are the appointed witnesses of the most prolific and public fulfillment of prophecy that the world has ever known. These are called in Hebrew ‘the Maskilim’. “Those that ‘understand’ among the people shall instruct many … those that are ‘wise’ shall turn many to righteousness” (see Dn 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). The term is in particular reference to those that ‘understand’ Daniel’s sealed vision (12:4, 8-10).
It should not fail our notice that the time that Daniel’s sealed vision is opened to the ‘wise’ is also the time of the greatest harvest of world evangelism. The reference in Revelation to the countless number that comes “out of great tribulation” (Rev 7:14) does not simply refer to the common experience of all saints. The double definite article in Greek suggests not simply tribulation in general, but more specifically, “the tribulation, the great one.”
It is well known that the witness of the apostolic church was carried out with great urgency under the shadow of an imminent destruction of Jerusalem as prophesied by Jesus. Others also expected the great tribulation to begin in connection with the Antichrist invasion of Jerusalem. The desert ascetics of Qumran were among the apocalyptic sects within Judaism that were expecting the tribulation judgments that would drive Israel again into the wilderness. This expectation was based on a number of prophecies, but Daniel’s in particular is the background of Jesus’ warning to flee into the wilderness. Physical survival will depend on speedy escape from Judea from the time that the Antichrist places the desecrating sacrilege in the holy place at Jerusalem (Dn 11:31-36 with Mt 24:15-21; 2Thes 2:4; Rev 11:2).
Prominent throughout the prophecies of exile and return is the theme of a new exodus.1 In the perspective of the prophets, the day of deliverance comes only after Israel has been brought once more into the wilderness for a final time of testing and divine pleading as at the first (Ezk 20:34-37; Jer 31:2; Hos 2:14-15). This raises the question of the time of fulfillment. The context is decisive; it is the critical point of transition that ends with final salvation and return to the Land. Israel’s flight into the wilderness is made expedient by the violence of Antichrist; the remnant flee from ‘the face of the destroyer’ (Isa 16:1-5; Jer 4:7; Ezk 35:5,12; 36:2-5; 38:17; Obad 10-14; Mic 2:12; Mt 24:16-21; Rev 11:2; 12:6). Some of the prophecies depicting the final return represent the remnant as returning not only from many nations but also from desert locations from neighboring regions outside the Land (Isa 16:4; Isa 26:19; 27:12-13; 42:11; Ezk 20:35; Dn 11:43).2
It is not hard to understand why many in first century Israel would share this perspective, because this is the meaning that one would naturally attach to a literal reading of the prophets. Hence, it was fully expected that the final redemption cannot come until after the nation has passed through its darkest hour of extremity and affliction, and this was expected to entail another return to wilderness conditions, as Jerusalem is ‘trodden down’, albeit briefly, by the Gentiles (Isa 28:18; 63:18; Dn 8:13; Lk 21:24; Rev 11:2). The flight is made expedient by the firmly expected multinational assault led by the Antichrist against the ‘holy covenant’ (Dn 9:27; 11:21-31; 12:11; Joel 3:2; Zech 12:2-3).
In this certainty, Paul speaks of his own time as “the present distress” (1Cor 7:26). This sense of urgency has been lost to the church in proportion to its loss of the apocalyptic perspective that characterized the apostolic period. Paul’s expectation would soon be vindicated by history, but the full end of prophetic hope passed unrealized. Jesus did not return in relation to Jerusalem’s destruction as expected. Did prophecy fail? Was the fulfillment deferred to the future? Or, is it a question of spiritual versus literal interpretation?3
Scholars make a case that the unexpected ‘delay of the parousia’ (Greek for coming or presence) created a crisis of faith in the early church. The problem of apparent delay is not unique to the New Testament. The Jews returning from Babylon surely expected the immediate fulfillment of the glorious events depicted in the prophecies of ‘the return’ as apparently accompanying the end of exile.
Taken alone, many of the prophecies of return do indeed give the appearance that the final redemption happens in immediate connection with the return from Babylon. There is no clear distinction; they appear as one event. Thus, it is natural that the Jews returning from Babylon would have expected the millennial splendors typically featured in connection with the prophecies of return to immediately attend their arduous trek back to the Land. Instead, they met with enemy opposition and the disappointment of delay and hope deferred (Ezra 3:12-13). The hard fought gains of those early days were at best a “day of small things” (Zech 4:10).
Daniel’s prophecy would address this crisis of delay by his further revelation that the final redemption would not quickly follow the first return. Rather, an additional seventy sevens are ‘determined’ (9:24). With Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy years in mind (Jer 29:10-30:7), Daniel sees ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble’ as the last 3 ½ years terminating in Israel’s national deliverance and the resurrection and reward of the righteous. Jacob’s trouble is the last half of the last week of Daniel’s seventy weeks of years (compare 7:25; Dn 9:24-27; 11:31-45; 12:1, 7, 11).4
The prophets living after the exile would see the return from Babylon as only a first installment (first-fruits) of a much greater world wide return that waits the still future day of the Lord (Zech 8:8; 10:6-10). Isaiah had said that the exiles would be gathered ‘a second time’ (Isa 11:11). This return must be distinguished from any previous return in that it is both universal and complete. After the final deliverance of the day of the Lord, all return; not one is left behind (Deut 30:4; Isa 11:11-16; 27:12-13; 43:6-7; esp. Ezk 39:28; Amos 9:9; Zech 10:8-9). This means that the present return must be regarded as only a preliminary first stage of a further gathering that is much more comprehensive and complete. Only such a universal and complete return can fulfill all the details of the return that Isaiah calls ‘the second’. The order of the return can be easily confused if we fail to recognize the distinction between the age-long Diaspora (which was unknown), and the very brief exile of the unequaled tribulation of the last 3 ½ years (which was well known).5
Although the prophets recognize a final return that comes with the day of the Lord at the end of the tribulation, it is important to note that there was no explicit indication that the tribulation would be postponed beyond the first century. Daniel’s seventy sevens (490 years) would naturally be expected to terminate within the first century. While many looked for a crisis of national devastation that would send Israel again into the wilderness in flight from Antichrist violence, this expectation carried no thought of another age-long dispersion that would require yet another preliminary return in national unbelief in order to prepare the stage again for a still future tribulation.
Although hinted in a few scattered prophecies,6 the extent of the Roman exile was unknown. It belongs to a hidden interval that forms part of the mystery of Messiah’s twofold advent. As much as Christ’s return is “immediately AFTER the tribulation” (Mt 24:29), an interval of indefinite duration must be observed to exist between the sixty ninth and the seventieth week of years. This is evident because the sixty ninth seven terminates in the messianic atonement (Dn 9:26), whereas the seventieth week (last seven years) is clearly occupied with the eschatological Antichrist and the final 3 ½ years of unequaled tribulation (8:11; 9:27; 11:31-36; 12:11; Mt 24:15-21; 2Thes 2:4). Therefore, it follows that the seventieth week could NOT have followed the sixty ninth in unbroken succession. This can only mean that a hidden interim exists between the sixty ninth and seventieth seven. All of which belongs to the greater mystery of the two advents of Christ (Rev 10:7).
The Roman destruction failed to bring about the expected end. This and the prolonged absence of a significant Jewish presence in the Land seemed for centuries to lend support to the view that the tribulation is past, or that the fulfillment of prophecy does not require a Jewish national existence. Still, it is well documented that many throughout history have stood, often quite alone, in their insistence that there must be a preliminary return of Jews to the land in unbelief in order for the events of the great tribulation to be fulfilled in a way that is consistent with the language and intention of the prophets. Such an insistence seems now much closer to vindication, as the amazing reappearance of the nation of the Jews and the ripening alignment of the foretold preconditions cannot be too greatly urged on the attention of the church and the world.
So what of the present return? Certainly a preliminary gathering to the Land is requisite towards establishing the conditions necessary to the literal fulfillment of prophecy. This alone is sufficient to invest the modern miracle of Jewish survival and national repatriation with the greatest prophetic significance. However, the end is not yet. ALL of the prophecies describing the events of the last days depict the nation in unbelief, abiding still under the judgment of a yet unfulfilled covenant. One of the primary purposes for the severities of Jacob’s trouble is to bring Israel back under ‘the bond of the covenant’ (Ezk 20:37; see also Deut 32:36 with Dn 12:7).
While many prophecies depict Israel as situated in the Land before the tribulation, still in unbelief and under the abiding threat of continued covenant discipline, there are a few remarkable passages that show that the judgments of the last tribulation break forth on a people that have only recently returned to the Land (Jer 30:3-7; Ezk 22:17-22; 38:8; Zeph 2:1-2; Joel 3:1-2). The language suggests that the holy places have been only lately recovered into Jewish possession when the City is suddenly invaded and ‘trodden down’ by the Gentiles (Isa 63:18; 64:10-11; Dn 8:13; 11:23 with Isa 28:15-18; also Lk 21:24 with Rev 11:2).
Since there are certain close and subtle distinctions that are sometimes difficult to recognize in the order and stages of Jewish return, it is easy to succumb to the error that was embraced by the early defenders of Jerusalem, namely, ‘the inviolability of Zion’. This is the view that the city of Jerusalem will ‘never again’ be successfully taken by an enemy. It is essentially the view that many take today. With the modern miracle of renewed nationhood and the marvelous success of Israel’s early wars, some see the future of the nation as essentially secure. Advocates of this view grant that Israel may indeed by threatened and even buffeted by implacable enemies, but God will be her defense, and so nothing of the scale and magnitude of the unequaled tribulation is to be expected. Recently, the view has been advanced that Jeremiah’s prophecy of Jacob’s trouble has already been fulfilled by the Holocaust of Nazis Europe. This view has met with wide international acceptance and has gained great currency among the messianic believers that live in Israel today. But the tribulation depicted in prophecy begins not in Europe but in Jerusalem (Dn 11:31; Mt 24:15-21). The prospect is almost too painful to consider, but as certainly as the tribulation is future, Jerusalem must again fall under Gentile control (Dn 11:45; Mt 24:15-21; esp. Rev 11:2).7
It is beyond the purview of this introduction, but the approach of the great tribulation that begins in Jerusalem is marked by definite signal events (Isa 28:15-18; Dn 11:23-31; 12:11). These will be recognized by those that have understanding (Dn 11:32-35; 12:3, 10). Jesus enjoins the reader of Daniel’s prophecy to ‘understand’ the critical importance of the abomination of desolation as signaling the start of the great tribulation (Mt 24:15-21). Jewish survival depends on this critical ‘understanding’, as this event signals the urgency of flight out of Judea into the neighboring wilderness (Mt 24:16; Rev 12:6, 14).
There must be no mistake; the scripture makes it clear that Israel’s last trouble eclipses any former tribulation in severity, scale, and scope, as it extends even to the devastation of nature (Mt 24:22). It begins in Jerusalem with the abomination of desolation, proceeds for 3 ½ years according to the well defined events outlined in Daniel’s prophecy, and ends with nothing short of Christ’s return and the resurrection and reward of the righteous (compare esp. Dn 12:1-3, 13 with Mt 24:21-29). Therefore, any other tribulation of past history that doesn’t answer to these specific criteria cannot be “Jacob’s trouble”.
Nor can any earlier return guarantee security in the Land apart from the everlasting righteousness of the final redemption. Only a righteousness that is forever can guarantee the everlasting continuance of covenant promise. Any security that is not based on this eternal righteousness is at best temporary and at worst ultimately deceptive (Isa 28:15-18; Ezk 38:8, 11, 14; 1Thes 5:3). Therefore, any earlier return remains precarious, as Jewish residence within the Land grants no immunity from the wrath of the covenant (Lev 26:25; Isa 10:6; Lk 21:23), and it is clear that the discipline of the covenant will include another last, albeit brief, expulsion and flight into a renewed wilderness experience of divine pleading (Ezk 20:35-37; Mt 24:16; Rev 12:14).
The oracle concerning the time of Jacob’s trouble follows Jeremiah’s earlier prophecy that the Jews would return after seventy years in Babylon (Jer 29:10-14).8 Many of the prophecies of return that appear in the earlier prophets are often represented in terms of millennial peace and righteousness. However, when Jeremiah looks for the peace that typically appears in connection with earlier prophecies of return, he is astonished to see instead the staggering vision of Israel’s most incomparable national disaster. “For thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask now, and see, whether a man is ever in labor with child? So why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor, and all faces turned pale? Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (Jer 30:5-7). The eschatological tribulation is not without precedent or analogy in the earlier prophets. Jeremiah’s prophecy builds on the earlier prophecy of Moses (Deut 4:30; 30:1-10; 31:29) and the theme of Zion’s travail appears also in Isaiah, Micah, and others.
Daniel does not specifically refer to another return or mention the day of the Lord, but his revelation of an additional seventy sevens of years served to explain the ‘already and the not yet’ of much of Old Testament prophecy. Daniel’s apocalyptic form of prophecy is primarily occupied with the mystery of iniquity that must precede the final redemption. The six stated goals of the final redemption are realized according to a predestined chronology of events that accomplishes the final conquest of evil and the bringing in of the ‘everlasting righteousness’ of covenant promise (9:24 with Jer 31:34; 32:40).
According to the logic of the covenant, the prophets understood that there can be no guaranteed continuance in the Land as long as the larger part of the nation is prone to backslide. The presence of a righteous remnant might forestall but never finally prevent the judgment of exile. Thus, the only permanent solution for Israel’s intractable tendency to backslide is the bringing in of an ‘everlasting righteousness’ (Isa 45:17; Jer 32:40; Dn 9:24). This, since only an enduring righteousness, extending not only to a mere remnant, but to ‘all Israel’ without the exception (Isa 4:3; 54:13; 59:21; 60:21; Jer 31:34; Ro 11:25-27) can make the promise eternally secure from the threat of further judgment through the jeopardy of covenant failure (Isa 45:17, 25; 54:17; Jer 23:5; 32:40; Dn 9:24).9
The collective regeneration of the surviving remnant is represented by the prophet Isaiah as the miraculous birth of a nation, “in one day … at once” (Isa 66:8; Ezk 39:22; Zech 3:9). Deeply sifted by the events of Jacob’s trouble (Deut 32:36; Dn 12:7; Amos 9:9), the ‘escaped of Israel’ are saved suddenly and at once by the transforming revelation of Christ at the day of the Lord in remarkable analogy to Paul’s experience on the Damascus road. The day of revelation and regeneration of ‘all Israel’ is also the day that ends the ‘times of the Gentiles’, as the dominion of the Gentile superpowers that have so long stood astride over the grave of captive Israel is forever broken. Satan is bound and the millennium dawns by the transforming power of the day of the Lord, which Christians know as the revelation of Jesus. For Israel it will be the revelation of Joseph to His brethren (Mic 5:3; Zech 12:10; Mt 23:39).
Therefore, so far from presenting ‘a problem for faith’, the mysterious postponement of certain features of the return prophecies and the delay of the final redemption becomes instead ‘an encouragement to faith’, when seen in the light of the apocalyptic mystery of the gospel. In a planned article, I hope to show that the apparent delay and age-long deferment of certain prophecies actually forms the structure for the apocalyptic mystery of God (Rev 10:7). The so-called ‘gap’, so smugly scorned by some interpreters, actually forms a glorious and supernatural framework for the mystery of Christ’s two advents, and accounts for the mysterious interim that must be seen to exist between many prophecies that depict Israel’s return from Babylon in terms of the final redemption. Failure to recognize the mystery of a divinely intended parenthesis has been the cause of much misinterpretation and unwarranted spiritualization. It is often invoked as evidence of failed prophecy. I call it the ‘glory of the gap’, because this characteristic of prophecy has been divinely employed to hide the glories of God’s hidden counsel from the proud wisdom of this age (Mt 11:25; 1Cor 1:9; 2:7-8), while at the same time demonstrating that all was foretold (Mk 13:23; Acts 26:22), and all provably contained in the prophetic writings, albeit in a mystery (Ro 16:25-26; 1Pet 1:10-12).
True to the prophecy that Jesus gave His disciples on the Mount of Olives, Jerusalem would indeed be destroyed within the space of a generation. However, the age did not end as expected with the return of Christ to raise the righteous and to restore the surviving remnant of Israel at the end of the great tribulation. Because of this apparent failure, the evidence shows that towards the end of the second century many began to re-interpret prophecy as never intending a literal fulfillment, applying the greater balance of prophecy to the church as the new spiritual Zion. Those objecting to this practice call this approach ‘replacement theology’. They see it not only as a flagrant violation of the language and intent of the prophets, but potentially nurturing of a triumphal attitude of presumption that effectively displaces the covenant promise that Paul argues is not fulfilled apart from the eschatological ‘re-engraftment’ of the ‘the natural branches’.
Many that have adopted the so-called ‘spiritualizing’ approach to prophecy over the centuries have doubtless seen it as the only viable alternative to the apparent non fulfillment of the prophecies that seemed to fail of a literal fulfillment. However, we have come full circle! For the first time in nearly two millennia since the Roman period, the church is once more living under the shadow of an impending world conflict over the so-called “Jewish problem’, as Jerusalem is made once more an international “cup of trembling” (Zech 12:2-3), and all nations are plunged into what the Isaiah calls “the controversy of Zion” (Isa 34:8). Through an amazing providence that includes the Islamic fixation with Jerusalem based on a 7th century myth,10 modern events continue to move us in the direction of the early church’s fervent expectation of an imminent end that comes by an international controversy that rages over Jerusalem. But unlike the early church, the modern church is largely out of touch with the apocalyptic perspective that animated the first Christians. Moreover, there is the modern problem of competing interpretations that greatly obscure the issues and rob the church of vital certainty.
It is important to consider that the far greater part of world wide Christendom supposes that Jacob’s trouble was fulfilled during the Babylonian captivity, or else it is believed that the time of unequaled tribulation prophesied by Jesus was fulfilled by the events of 70AD when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. That is the consensus report of most of the historic churches. The exception is another sizeable group within evangelicalism that looks for a future tribulation in relation to national Israel, but sees itself as safely removed from the scene by way of a pre-tribulation rapture. These two dominant views, held by the far greater number of Christians throughout the world, have something significantly in common. BOTH effectively remove the tribulation from any vital concern for the church. The reader is urged to seriously contemplate and review the implications if neither of these suspiciously convenient interpretations happens to be true. It will not be the first time that God has hidden His intention so that the wisdom of this age would be made to stumble. So the issue is one of greatest urgency.
Footnotes
- Prophecy concerning a second exodus is seldom interpreted literally, simply because there is no correspondence to many of the specifics of these prophecies in antiquity. The unimaginable implication is that this would suggest a return to the wilderness before the final redemption. For this cause, most conservative expositors and commentators tend to dismiss a future literal fulfillment, ascribing to the language a kind of ‘poetic hyperbole’, while liberal critical scholarship is more apt to dismiss the specifics of these prophecies as merely expressive of primitive Hebrew eschatology, suggesting that they simply failed of the expected fulfillment.
- Compare the following passages that speak of the final redemption in terms of a return from desolate places of a new wilderness experience: Isa 35:1-10; 40:1-5; 41:17-18; 42:9-16; 43:19-21; 51:3-23; 63:1-7; 64:9-12; Ezk 20:35-37; Jer 31:2; Hos 2:14-15 with Mt 24:16-21; Rev 12:6, 14.
- It is not surprising that orthodox Jews as well as skeptics will point out, albeit for very different reasons, that the spiritual-mystical view of prophetic fulfillment is obviously much ‘safer’ simply because it doesn’t require a literal supernatural fulfillment within observable, and therefore testable, history. However, there is nothing more ‘spiritual’ than the literal fulfillment and public vindication of the Word of God.
- Note also that the final trouble begins significantly with the standing up of Michael (Dn 12:1), and this is exactly what we see in John’s depiction of the heavenly war which marks the time of Satan’s eviction and the start of the great tribulation on the earth (Rev 12:6-14). The obvious connection between these events makes it impossible to separate Daniel’s unequaled trouble from the final defeat of Satan. No such conjunction of eschatological events took place in 70AD.
- Before the Roman destruction, it is unlikely that Jesus’ prophecy of the dispersal and treading down of Jerusalem in Lk 21:24 would have been interpreted to intend an exile of vast duration. This is evident from the reference in Revelation that limits the treading down of Jerusalem to the 42 months of Antichrist persecution in keeping with Daniel (Rev 11:2; 13:5). The long standing application of this prophecy to an age long fulfillment does not preclude its yet future fulfillment during the great tribulation. The prophecy has a double application in keeping with the mystery of a preliminary return that separates an age long exile from the brief exile of the great tribulation.
- While the captivity in Babylon prophesied by Jeremiah was limited to seventy years, a number of prophecies predict a much more extensive and universal exile of ‘long continuance’, and of ‘many generations’ (Cf. Deut 28:59; Isa 58:12; 61:4; Ezk 38:8; Hos 3:4; 5:15-6:2). A few passages go further to show that Israel has only recently returned to the Land before the last judgments are inflicted upon a yet unbelieving people (Zeph 2:1-2; 38:8). It is evident that this preliminary return is only provisional because it leads not to the abiding peace of the final return, but to the false peace that ends in the covenant judgments of the great tribulation and ultimately the day of the Lord (compare Isa 28:15-18; Ezk 38:8 with 39:26; Dn 9:27; 11:23; 1Thes 5:3).
- In contrast to the final return that attends the collective regeneration of the surviving remnant at the day of the Lord (Isa 59:21; 66:8 with Ezk 39:22), the return that has formed the modern state is not unto peace and permanence, but unto unparalleled national calamity (Zeph 2:1-2; Jer 30:7; Dn 12:1; Zech 13:8-14:2; Mt 24:21). From so great a death follows so great a resurrection of everlasting exaltation and glory in remarkable keeping with the pattern of Messiah’s personal suffering, death, and resurrection (Isa 52:13-53-12; Ezk 37; Act 3:18-21).
- Since it is clear that the modern Jewish residents of Israel fall conspicuously short of covenant obedience, there has been considerable debate over the question of ‘divine right’ to the Land. This question should be laid to rest by observing the history of Israel’s tenure in the Land. Certainly the remnant returning from Babylon fell egregiously short of covenant obedience (Ezra 9:1). Still, the prophets and leaders of the first return regard Israel’s repossession of the Land as not based on the nation’s righteousness (this obviously waits the post-tribulational regeneration of the nation), but rather on the basis of an irrevocable covenant with the Fathers (Jer 30:3; 31:35-37). Throughout the far greater part of Israel’s history in the Land, the larger part of the nation has remained critically short of the required obedience. Still, the Land is regarded as irrevocably given on the basis of the everlasting covenant established with the Fathers and later with David (Ps 89:30-33), which assures the fulfillment of the conditional covenant through the messianic atonement and the gift of the Spirit. In the meantime, while Israel as a nation waits the eschatological ‘fullness’ (Ro 11:12), the aggressive nations are held nonetheless liable for their presumption in attacking Israel. The final Antichrist invasion of the Land is represented as an assault on the ‘holy covenant’ (Dn 11:28, 30), as the hubris of this act proves the ultimate provocation (Ezk 38:18; Joel 3:2). These passages presuppose that the nation under assault is manifestly yet under judgment. The nations direct their attack on a nation that the prophets describe as ‘rebellious’. Yet the Land and people are nonetheless regarded as ‘holy’ in the sense of set apart by sovereign covenant election. Hence, the authority of the Word of God is at stake. “Has God really said?” How else shall we explain the wrath that is provoked against the nations that are reproved for their presumption in attacking Israel, despite their unwitting deployment as the rod of divine chastisement?
- Notably, such uniformity of ethnic salvation does not obtain for the nations of the millennium. While there will be extensive evangelism and salvation among the nations, it is only in the Land of Israel will this burning bush of divine testimony will prevail. The promise of total Jewish salvation continues the full balance of the thousand years, and extends to every child born to Jewish parentage (Isa 54:13; 59:21; Jer 31:34). It is not unreasonable to infer that it is this manifest divine favor that is the source of a latent envy that Satan will exploit to foment the final revolt at the end of the thousand years.
- The modern Muslim obsession with al-Quds (“the holy”), the Arabic name for Jerusalem, has its source in stories emerging from the eighth century of Mohammad’s alleged ascent into heaven on a winged horse from the place that Abraham offered Isaac. Hence, the Dome of ‘the Rock’ stands over the place that most agree to be the original site of the temple. Significantly, none of the invasions of antiquity answer so nearly to the specifics of prophecy as the situation that presents itself today. It is remarkable that a religion originating in the 7th century A.D. would be the key to the fulfillment of prophecies dating from the 8th to the 5th century B.C. Because of this irony of history, a pan-Arabic block of nations is poised to participate in the final ‘treading down’ of Jerusalem by the Gentiles (Ps 83; Ezk 35:1-36:5; 38:2-6; Obad 10-15). Significantly, these nations are dominantly Islamic today. Some of them represent the modern descendents of the Semitic half-brothers of Isaac and Jacob, Ishmael and Esau. These are the peoples that Ezekiel describes as possessed of “an everlasting hatred” (Ezk 35:5) and are most deeply incensed ‘against the holy covenant’ (Dn 11:28, 30, 32). Hence, many interpreters look for the ‘little horn’ of prophecy to emerge from this general region (Dn 8:9) and form a ten nation confederacy out of the nations that were Israel’s historic foes. Thus, the stage for the final fulfillment of prophecy is much more completely set today than ever before with any supposed fulfillment by the Greeks or Romans.
