“And now I am about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed. But just as all the good things that the LORD your God promised concerning you have been fulfilled for you, so the LORD will bring upon you all the evil things, until he has destroyed you from off this good land that the LORD your God has given you, if you transgress the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them. Then the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land that he has given to you.” (Joshua 23:14-16)
At the heart of the Biblical theology of Israel and the controversy surrounding the Land—past, present, and future—is the concept of what the Lord calls “the quarrel of the Covenant” found in Leviticus 26:25. The word “quarrel” is also translated as “vengeance.”
The “quarrel of the Covenant” can be summarized this way: Israel’s relationship with God has been (and still is) strained by a historical continuum of their persistent infidelity to the Covenant and the corresponding provocation of God’s holy jealousy—jealousy for Israel as a people and jealousy for the glory of His own Name (that is inextricably linked to this people).
Therefore, while they have been promised the inheritance of Land, their permanent residence in that Land is in jeopardy so long as they fail to meet the requirements of the Covenant (according to Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26).
The promise of Land is both conditional and unconditional in the same way that Israel is considered both holy and rebellious; rebellious in nature, but holy through election and the sure prophetic word of future grace.[501]
These complexities concerning Israel as expressed in history and summed up in the phrase “the quarrel of the Covenant” are quite similar to the complexities that Hosea faced when dealing with his estranged wife Gomer.[502] Hosea was committed to Gomer. Gomer was committed to infidelity. With the combination of the husband’s holy jealousy and the wayward wife’s persistent unfaithfulness, the covenantal relationship between the two was marked by pain, heartache, and turmoil.
Like Hosea and Gomer, God and Israel are entrenched in a “quarrel” having been “irrevocably”[503] bound to each other.
THE VENGEANCE OF THE COVENANT
The phrase “the quarrel of the Covenant” in Leviticus 26:25 is translated as “the vengeance of the Covenant” in other versions. While I prefer “quarrel” to “vengeance” believing it to be a more appropriate articulation of the dilemma brought to bear upon Israel as a people, there is something to be said of “vengeance,” because vengeance implies consequences. While Israel’s disobedience to God and infidelity to the Covenant do provoke God to “quarrel” with them as a people, it also provokes God to “deal them the blow of an enemy”[504] as He executes vengeance upon them as consequence for their rebellion. The consequences for disobedience and infidelity are delineated most explicitly in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, where “curses” are pronounced against the unfaithful and “blessings” are promised for the faithful. The “quarrel” manifests in history through temporal divine “vengeance,” often in the form of military conflict with the Jewish people and the Jewish Land in the eye of the storm. For example, read what the Lord told Moses in Leviticus 26 about Jewish residence in the Land:
“And if by this discipline you are not turned to me but walk contrary to me, then I also will walk contrary to you, and I myself will strike you sevenfold for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall execute vengeance for the Covenant [or ‘that shall avenge the quarrel of my Covenant’ in the KJV]. And if you gather within your cities, I will send pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. But if in spite of this you will not listen to me, but walk contrary to me, then I will walk contrary to you in fury, and I myself will discipline you sevenfold for your sins. You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. And I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars and cast your dead bodies upon the dead bodies of your idols, and my soul will abhor you. And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. And I myself will devastate the Land, so that your enemies who settle in it shall be appalled at it. And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you, and your Land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. ‘Then the Land shall enjoy its Sabbaths as long as it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; then the Land shall rest, and enjoy its Sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, the rest that it did not have on your Sabbaths when you were dwelling in it. And as for those of you who are left, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall when none pursues. They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape a sword, though none pursues. And you shall have no power to stand before your enemies. And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up. And those of you who are left shall rot away in your enemies’ lands because of their iniquity, and also because of the iniquities of their fathers they shall rot away like them. ‘But if they confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers in their treachery that they committed against me, and also in walking contrary to me, so that I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, then I will remember my Covenant with Jacob, and I will remember my Covenant with Isaac and my Covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the Land.’” (Leviticus 26:23-42)
According to this chapter, if the Jewish people are unfaithful to the Covenant (i.e., “walk contrary to Me”), they are unprotected from “the sword” and divine “vengeance.” The King James Version communicates the message the clearest:
“I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of [my] Covenant...” (Leviticus 26:25)
The sword of a foreign army is the chosen instrument by which God appeals to His estranged and wayward wife and defends the holy Covenant.[505]
The Bible asserts that every Jewish-centric military conflict has been and is the manifestation of the “execution” of the “vengeance of the Covenant” or the “avenging [of] the quarrel of the Covenant.” This includes: the Assyrian invasion in the 700s BC, the Babylonian invasion in the 500s BC, the Roman invasion in the AD 60s, and the future “great tribulation”[506] and “time of Jacob’s trouble” that begins in Jerusalem. Thus their abiding residence in the Land is contingent—in part at least—upon their obedience to God.
It’s important to acknowledge that neither the promise of Jewish inheritance of the Land or the consequences for covenantal disobedience have been abandoned, redefined, or made obsolete. The exilic prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel all bore witness to the veracity and binding nature of the Covenant on the part of both parties involved: God and Israel. Even in the New Testament we see Jesus affirming the same pronounced judgment on the Land and the people that is intended to “fulfill” the “days of vengeance” that have been “written about;”[507] clearly referring to the “quarrel” and “vengeance” of the Covenant first explained in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26. Moreover, Jesus declared this “written vengeance” rooted in the Covenant will persist until the end of the Age when the “times of the Gentiles” are complete and the “vengeance” is finally and ultimately satisfied on the same soil on which it was initially provoked so long ago.[508]
THE HUMAN “RAGE AGAINST THE HOLY COVENANT”
When the Lord looks upon Israel’s election and all that is attached to the privileges of the Covenant He is provoked. As a result, we read about the “quarrel,” “controversy,” and “vengeance” of the Covenant. When the nations of the earth look upon Israel’s election and all that is attached to the privileges of the Covenant they too are provoked. As a result, we read about the “rage against the holy covenant”[509] (most explicitly in Daniel 11:28-32). Both divine “quarrel” and human “rage” are essential components of the theology of “the controversy of Zion.”
This human “rage” against the Covenant has been expressed and displayed throughout Jewish history in a never-ending succession of invasions, attacks, scourges, and Holocausts that have continued to challenge the existence of the Jewish State and the survival of the Jewish people to the present day.
In the same way that this “quarrel,” this long-standing controversy that God has with His “Jacob,” is not just a thing of the past, neither is the “rage against the holy Covenant.” Neither belongs to antiquity alone. They both will have their greatest expression at the end of the Age. Human “rage” against the “Holy Covenant” is declared to have its most bestial manifestation during the last “time of trouble” before “the time of the end.” It is an eschatological reality.
The Scriptures are emphatic that this present Age ends with unequaled conflict, unprecedented quarrel, and unparalleled controversy: God with His Jacob, Jacob with his God, and the nations with both God and Jacob. Thus it’s no mystery why Jeremiah would call this turbulent, Age-ending hour of history “Jacob’s trouble,”[510] and why Jesus called it “a time of great tribulation.”[511]
The “rage” against the holy Covenant that is so prominent in biblical prophecy related to Israel’s final hour of suffering in the end-times is intimately associated with the controversy that mounts over “the Land” just prior to “the time of the end.”[512] This is the “jugular” of “the controversy of Zion.” Divine quarrel and human rage will collide during the last assault on the Jews living in the Land during the final years of this Age whereby “all nations” will “come against”[513] the recently established State[514] with the express intentions of exterminating the people of the Covenant, thereby settling the issue of the Land once and for all time.
GOD’S ZEAL FOR ZION
The Church’s understanding of the “controversy of Zion” must be rooted and grounded in the revelation of the “everlasting Covenant” in all its historic and eschatological glory. It’s there that we can stare into the “abyss”[515] of the historical continuum of Jewish suffering and its apocalyptic conclusion with an understanding of history, discernment of the present, clarity about the future, and reverence of the Holy. Understanding the issue of Covenant gives meaning to a seemingly meaningless history of mind-numbing violence.
As the nations vent their rage towards that “Covenant” through violence, the persevering Church will express her devotion towards Jesus through faithfulness; faithfulness to steward and declare God’s “zeal for Zion” and His dreams for the sin-stained “hill”[516] that shall soon be called “the faithful city:”
“Thus says the LORD of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the LORD: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the mountain of the LORD of hosts, the holy mountain. Thus says the LORD of hosts: Old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the LORD of hosts: If it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight, declares the LORD of hosts? Thus says the LORD of hosts: behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.” (Zechariah 8:1-8)
As we, the Church, grow to discern God’s fierce jealousy for the city of Jerusalem and the Land of Israel, prayer and intercession will become an effortless labor of love:
“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet, until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, and her salvation like a torch that is burning. And the nations will see your righteousness......On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.” (Isaiah 62:1-2, 6-7)
Such a Scripture ignites powerful questions: If God refuses to relent over the salvation of the city of Jerusalem, why has much of the Church dismissed the issue? If God refuses to keep silent concerning the dream of His heart that “the nations” will someday “see” Zion’s “righteousness,” why have we been quiet about it?
Prophetic statements of God’s fierce commitment to the people yoked to Him by Covenant demand faithful stewardship in prayer and in proclamation, in intercession and adoration. If the Lord is preoccupied over this issue, why aren’t we?
SUMMARY
Based on the eternal and abiding reality of the Covenant made with Abraham concerning the Jewish inheritance of Land, the historical continuum of the “quarrel of the Covenant,” the recapitulating historical episodes of Jewish suffering at the hands of those who harbor “rage against the Covenant,” and the multitude of prophecies depicting an Age-ending assault on a recently established Nation-State, we can with some assurance attempt to answer the question of “Jewish right to the Land.”
With these theological and historical realities in clear view, I believe it’s correct and appropriate to conclude that the Land belongs to national Israel; whether they are in it or not, whether they are being temporarily judged by God or not, whether their enemies may triumph over them for a season or not, and whether they are “blinded in part”[517] and rebellious to the Covenant or not.
The Scriptures often speak of the Land as belonging to Israel whether they are in it, out of it, or able to keep it. Also, the Lord clearly considers an attack on the Land as an affront on Himself and an act of ultimate defiance.
“But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the Land of Israel, declares the Lord GOD, my wrath will be roused in my anger.” (Ezekiel 38:18)
“I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my Land...” (Joel 3:2-3)
If, as the critics of “carnal Zionism” argue, God has no intention of fulfilling the promises to Abraham and his ethnic descendants as He originally made them, then “why does God seem to contend so severely with the nations on this very point? On what basis then does He hold them accountable to know that in laying siege to Jerusalem, they are laying siege against God? If this is such a vague issue of only relative importance, it seems strange that the hatred of Jewish occupancy of the Land is called “rage against the Covenant.” If otherwise, why should the nations be required to respect Israel’s right to the Land, to the point that an assault on this still disobedient people is counted an assault on God and His Covenant? Come let us reason.”[518]
Admittedly these issues are fraught with complexity, difficulty, and tension, especially when Israel’s tenure in the Land is marked by iniquity, rebellion, unbelief, and sin. Nevertheless, the question of the current day Jewish right to the Land, from a biblical perspective, is settled; whether they are in the Land or not. Prophetically speaking, the question of the future is just as sure:
“Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name. They shall forget their shame and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they dwell securely in their Land with none to make them afraid, when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have vindicated my holiness in the sight of many nations. Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God, because I sent them into exile among the nations and then assembled them into their own Land. I will leave none of them remaining among the nations anymore. And I will not hide my face anymore from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel, declares the Lord GOD.” (Ezekiel 39:25-29)
______________________________________________________________________________
[501] Few verses
show both dimensions the way Ezra 9:1-2 does.
[502] Hosea chapters 2-3
[503] Romans 11:28-29
[504] Jeremiah 31:13
[505] Marital imagery was often the way in which the prophets would explain the
nature of God’s judgments; Hosea 1-3; Jeremiah 2:2; 9; etc.
[506] Matthew 24:15-22; Daniel 12:1-2
[507] Luke 21:20-23
[508] Luke 21:23-24
[509] Daniel 11:28-32
[510] Jeremiah 30:7
[511] Matthew 24:21-22
[512] Daniel 11:40
[513] Zechariah 12:1-3; 14:1-3
[514] See Ezekiel 38 which describes Israel “dwelling safely” after many
“generations” of “desolation” when the Antichrist launches his assault. Note
the language in Isaiah 63:18 where the Jews are said to have “...held
possession for a little while...” when the “sanctuary is trodden down”
by foreign armies. [515] Wistrich, Hitler and the Holocaust,
Introduction.
[516] Jerusalem is sometimes referred to as the “holy hill” as in Psalm 2.
[517] Romans 11:25-26
[518] Reggie Kelly, “The Eschatology of the Everlasting Covenant,” Mystery
of Israel (website), accessed May 2011, http://the.mysteryofisrael.org/2010/10/20/the-eschatology-of-the-covenant-in-the-books-of-moses/.
Chapter 16. THE QUESTION OF THE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE LAND: THE VENGEANCE OF THE COVENANT
The Controversy of Zion and the Time of
Jacob's Trouble: The Final Suffering and Salvation of the Jewish People. Dalton Lifsey.
Maskilim Publishing. Kindle Edition 2011.
http://thecontroversyofzion.com/the-book/
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