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The name “Israel” first appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name given by God to the patriarch Jacob (Genesis 32:28). Deriving from the name “Israel”, other designations that came to be associated with the Jewish people have included the “Children of Israel” or “Israelite” The name Israel is given to the patriarch Jacob after he wrestles with a man in the wilderness. The name is a combination of the Hebrew words for “struggle” and “God”. Jacob’s descendants are known as the Israelites. The House of Israel Are God’s Covenant People Because Jacob was faithful, the Lord gave him the special name of Israel, which means “one who prevails with God” or “let God prevail” Following a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they eventually formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. As the ultimate mark of His blessing, God chose Israel to be the human line of the Messiah. Through the Old Testament, we read detailed prophecy, down to the Messiah’s birthplace and gender, that confirm Jesus as the promised Savior. One of God’s purposes for Israel was that they would be a people who would obey him and keep his covenants. By doing this they would be God’s representatives in the earth. Israel would be a model of God’s way of living to the nations around them.
READ DEUTERONOMY 28:1-14
28 If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God: 3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. 4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. 5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. 6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven. 8 The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. 9 The LORD will establish you as his holy people, as he promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him. 10 Then all the peoples on earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will fear you. 11 The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity—in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground—in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you. 12 The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. 13 The LORD will make you the head, not the tail. If you pay attention to the commands of the LORD your God that I give you this day and carefully follow them, you will always be at the top, never at the bottom. 14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
• In the book of Deuteronomy, God outlined the blessings that would come upon Israel if they obeyed His commandments. This passage (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) is known as the Blessings of Obedience, where God promised prosperity, abundant crops, and victory over enemies to the people who remained faithful to Him. God’s Chosen Land of the Bible . . . Land of Faith . . . the Holy Land, revered throughout recorded history as the cradle of monotheistic religion. For a person of faith whose beliefs are rooted in the Bible, there is no place on earth like the Holy Land. God instructed the Children of Israel to be holy. As followers of the Messiah, our desire should be like the desire of my son who wanted to be like his father; we ought to desire to be like our Heavenly father who is Holy and has commanded us to be Holy like Him. Choosiness was invariably linked to a mission. As Yehezkel Kaufmann noted, Isaiah and Jeremiah viewed God’s loving choice of Israel as a means to teaching monotheism, combatting idolatry, curbing human arrogance, ending violence, lust, greed, extreme chauvinism and warfare, and ushering in a new society.
• Jesus’ ministry was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel precisely, because he is the good shepherd come to gather the renewed Israel around himself and to launch their trajectory into the world with the healing grace God always intended to flow through his chosen people. Jesus is considered the true Israel, succeeding where the old covenant Israel failed. He came out of Egypt, passed through the waters, and was tested in the wilderness, but he passed the test. The Holy Land for Christians, Israel is the Holy Land because it is where Jesus lived and died. Regardless of how one interprets the evangelists’ different accounts of the same event, it is clear that Jesus’ focus was on reforming Israel, not bringing his kingdom message to the rest of the world. His focus on Israel can be seen in his prophecies and pronouncements of judgment on the nation. We know Jesus lived in Israel (Matthew 4:13), taught there and did miracles (Matthew 8:14). He also delivered people (Mark 1:21) and healed both body and spirit of those willing (Mark 2:11). The town of Capernaum must have held a special place in Jesus’ heart.
The modern Jewish state is not only the “Promised Land” for Jews, but the only country in the world where they form a majority of the population. For Christians, Israel is the “Holy Land,” because it is the place where Jesus’ life and death unfolded .As the ultimate mark of His blessing, God chose Israel to be the human line of the Messiah. Through the Old Testament, we read detailed prophecy, down to the Messiah’s birthplace and gender, that confirm Jesus as the promised Savior. God chose the Israelites (the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) for a special purpose. He offered them an opportunity to become the model nation of His way of life for all nations, so that all people could have His blessings. Why is Israel so special to Christians? From the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem to the Mount of Beatitudes, Capernaum, and the Church of Annunciation in the north, it is clear that the Land of Israel is important to Christianity due to the fact that many important events in the religion’s history took place here, including the What did God want Israel to do? One of God’s purposes for Israel was that they would be a people who would obey him and keep his covenants. By doing this they would be God’s representatives in the earth. Israel would be a model of God’s way of living to the nations around them. There were difficult and dark days in Israel’s history. They were under the control of Rome and the tyrannical rule of the puppet king known as Herod. The fact is that 6 BC was a lousy time to live in Judea. The people hadn’t heard from God for 400 years. This set the stage for Israel to prepare for their modern days. It really began with Moses.
READ EXODUS 2:1-10
2 Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket[a] for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. She named him Moses,[b] saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
Moses’ story begins in the Book of Exodus, which finds the Israelites enslaved in Egypt by a new pharaoh after they had gone to Egypt to escape famine during Joseph’s story in the Book of Genesis. His story ends in the Book of Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah, with his death. Moses was the leader of the Israelites and lawgiver to whom the prophetic authorship of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is attributed. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, after which they based themselves at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. After 40 years of wandering in the desert, Moses died on Mount Nebo at the age of 120, within sight of the Promised Land. In the story, Yahweh appeared in a bush that was on fire but never burned up. This story functioned as Moses’ prophetic call, and Yahweh told him he would lead the Israelites out of slavery. On the way back to Egypt with his family, Moses’ brother Aaron, who later became the first Israelite priest, met them. According to the biblical account, Moses’ parents were from the tribe of Levi, one of the groups in Egypt called Hebrews. Originally the term Hebrew had nothing to do with race or ethnic origin. It derived from Habiru, a variant spelling of Ḫapiru (Apiru), a designation of a class of people who made their living by hiring themselves out for various services. The biblical Hebrews had been in Egypt for generations, but apparently they became a threat, so one of the pharaohs enslaved them. Unfortunately, the personal name of the king is not given, and scholars have disagreed as to his identity and, hence, as to the date of the events of the narrative of Moses. One theory takes literally the statement in I Kings 6:1 that the Exodus from Egypt occurred 480 years before Solomon began building the Temple in Jerusalem. This occurred in the fourth year of his reign, about 960 BCE; therefore, the Exodus would date about 1440 BCE.
God directed and planned for Moses to lead and form Israel from when he was a baby. One of the measures taken by the Egyptians to restrict the growth of the Hebrews was to order the death of all newborn Hebrew males. According to tradition, Moses’ parents, Amram and Jochebed (whose other children were Aaron and Miriam), hid him for three months and then set him afloat on the Nile in a reed basket daubed with pitch. The child, found by the pharaoh’s daughter while bathing, was reared in the Egyptian court. While many doubt the authenticity of this tradition, the name Moses (Hebrew Moshe) is derived from Egyptian mose (“is born”) and is found in such names as Thutmose ([The God] Thoth Is Born). Originally, it is inferred, Moses’ name was longer, but the deity’s name was dropped. This could have happened when Moses returned to his people or possibly even
earlier, because the shortened form Mose was very popular at that time.
Since Jesus is God The Son, and is one with God The Father, it can be said that He knew Moses.. In the Bible, Jesus is joined by Moses and Elijah during the transfiguration, when the three men appear in glory and speak with Jesus. Peter and his companions see the men and Jesus’ glory after waking up from sleep.
In the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as citing Moses by name, so he must have believed/known Moses to be a real person. Furthermore, during the event Christianity describes as the Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John witnessed Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah.Moses carried the law and pointed to the gospel. Jesus fulfilled the law and IS the gospel. The Israelites experienced 400 dark years of bondage to Egypt until Moses was born and came to rescue them. The nation of Israel experienced 400 dark years of silence from God until Jesus was born and came to save them. For Christians, then, Moses is a crucial figure because Jesus fulfills the Law that Moses brought down from the mountain. It is no coincidence that, when Jesus’ is transfigured on the mountaintop, Moses and Elijah appear with him. Moses symbolizes the Law and Elijah symbolizes the prophets. Jesus regularly called the Pharisees out for not following the Law of Moses. When asked about the Law, Jesus summarized it by saying it’s loving God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves” When the Israelites were bitten by snakes, God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and to put it on a pole. Anyone who looked at the bronze serpent would be healed. This is a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, who was lifted up on the cross so that anyone who looks to him in faith may be saved. . Moses, still full of life at 120 years of age, hears God’s promise to Abraham, surveys the Promised Land, dies, and is buried by God. He never did die. So we know how he got to Heaven. If you go to the book of Jude, it tells us that Michael the Archangel resurrected Moses. Moses received a special resurrection.
READ 1 THESSALONIANS 4:13-18
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever.18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
This scripture, among others, tells us of the first time Jesus (the Messiah) comes after His birth and His time as both God and human, until His Second Coming. It tells of a special event for all Christians that are alive on earth and those that have already “fallen asleep”. It is called the Rapture where all believers are snatched up in the air to meet Jesus and go to heaven. Various verses in the Bible tells us about the Rapture and says that it happens prior to Tribulation, which begins the End Times as described in Revelations. It sets the situation for Eternity that as complete believers in Jesus will enjoy God’s Golden Age.
The Rapture is an eschatological position held by Christians, particularly those of American evangelicalism, consisting of an end-time event when all dead Christian believers will be resurrected and, joined with Christians who are still alive, together will rise “in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.” Dr. David Jeremiah Pastor, TV Broadcaster, and author has stated he believes the Rapture will happen while he is still on this earth. He recntly turned 83 years old and knows there is no sign that he will see before it occurs. The origin of the term extends from the First Epistle to the Thessalonians in the Bible, which uses the Greek word harpazo (Ancient Greek: ἁρπάζω), meaning “to snatch away” or “to seize”. This view of eschatology is referred to as dispensational premillennialism, a form of futurism that considers various prophecies in the Bible as remaining unfulfilled and occurring in the future. While this Scripture is among many that clearly identify Jesus’ return to earth that is completely different than described in Revelation 19 which defines accurately In the Second Coming of Jesus. In Revelation it states believers from Heaven follow Jesus to the earth and Jesus stays here to establish His future kingdom. Thessalonians states dead Christians and those still alive meet Jesus in the air and go with Him back to Heaven. This follows what Apostle John states that Jesus takes believers to His home in Heaven- not that they stay on earth like in the Second Coming. While the word Rapture is not in the Bible, the Greek word Harpazo is in the Bible, and it means to snatch away or to seize like happened to Elijah. By the way the word “Trinity” is also not in the Bible, but the equivalent word is.
Pretribulationism distinguishes the rapture from the second coming of Jesus Christ mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew, 2 Thessalonians, and Revelation. This view holds that the rapture would precede the seven-year Tribulation, which would culminate in Christ’s second coming and be followed by a thousand-year Messianic Kingdom.[3][4] This theory grew out of the translations of the Bible that John Nelson Darby analyzed in 1833. Pretribulationism is the most widely held view among Christians believing in the rapture today, although this view is disputed within evangelicalism. All printed versions of the Bible write and record the End Times Events this way. There are other examples of Bible characters besides Elijah that “raptured” without dyeing. The rapture concept where believers are “snatched away” to heaven can be seen in Revelation. Chapter 4 and beyond of Revelation indicate that no true believers remain on earth- which describes the status after the Rapture takes believers to heaven with Jesus. The country of Israel and Jerusalem is being prepared for Jesus’ Second Coming. For many years Israel had been under the control or divided by many foreign countries. They needed to be established as the state of Israel.
The State of Israel declared its establishment on 14 May 1948. The armies of neighboring Arab states invaded the area of the former Mandate the next day, beginning the First Arab–Israeli War. Subsequent armistice agreements established Israeli control over 77 percent of the former Mandate territory.[26][27][28] The majority of Palestinian Arabs were either expelled or fled in what is known as the Nakba, with those remaining becoming the new state’s main minority.[29][30][31] Over the following decades, Israel’s population increased greatly as the country received an influx of Jews who emigrated, fled or were expelled from the Muslim world.[32][33] Following the 1967 Six-Day War Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and Syrian Golan Heights. Israel established and continues to expand settlements across the illegally occupied territories, contrary to international law, and has effectively annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in moves largely unrecognized internationally. After the 1973 Yom Kipbebe ar, Israel signed peace treaties with Egypt—returning the Sinai in 1982—and Jordan. In the 2020s, it normalized relations with more Arab countries. However, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict after the interim Oslo Accords have not succeeded, and the country has engaged in several wars and clashes with Palestinian militant groups. Israel’s practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism—along with accusations that it has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people—from human rights organizations and United Nations officials.
So now Israel, became officially the state of Israel a country in Southern Levant region of West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon and Syria to the north, the West Asia. Biblical Israel and Modern Israel are not considered the same. Ancient Israel’s people were known as Israelites while people of Israel today are called Israelis. No, modern day Israel is not the same as biblical Israel.
• Government
Ancient Israel was a theocratic monarchy, while modern Israel is a secular liberal democracy.
• Laws
The Torah, the Law of Moses, was the basis of ancient Israel’s laws, but modern Israel’s laws are not based on the Torah.
• Language
The word “Israel” in Aramaic, the language of the Bible, means “House of God” and refers to a family or group of followers of God, not a physical building.
• Location
The map of biblical Israel in the book of Numbers shows the land spanning from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, but the northern and southern boundaries don’t match up.
• Jerusalem
The modern Old City of Jerusalem is based on the layout of the city during the Late Roman Period and has been influenced by many other cultures since then.
• Creation
The United Nations created the State of Israel in 1948, while ancient Israel existed long before that.
Although modern and ancient Israel are different civilizations, they do share some religious and historical connections.
The Bible states that an Anti-Christ will be identified and take control after the Rapture and in the Tribulation. Israel will sign a peace agreement, and the Anti-Christ will break it and begin a terrible time for all who are alive and on earth. We are told that the Anti-Christ will not be identified until the Tribulation begins or who signs the agreement. However, we may be closer to an agreement since the leader of Hamas has been killed and our current government is trying to get a peace agreement worked out. While this may be an indication that this agreement and Tribulation is getting close, we are not told when or for sure what will indicate the End Times are coming. We are told by Jesus to get prepared and be ready. Moses, the law giver through God’s commandment’s, said to follow them and stay ready. Israel will be where the Messiah returns (Second Coming) to set-up His “kingdom” and where the New Heaven and New Earth will come for eternity. I believe this makes Israel the most important country and Jerusalem a very key city. However, in the Bible’s 21 chapter we read that after the Tribulation and Millennium periods the New Heaven and New Earth will come down and Jerusalem will be replaced. While the Bible does not say exactly where it comes, there are many philosophers who belief it will be centered in Israel.
For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been at the forefront of geopolitical struggles, biblical history, and prophetic aspirations. Even today, it is the centerpiece of the world’s three major religions and ground zero for international political maneuvering. It has been a place of pilgrimage pillaging, mistakes and mayhem. Perhaps no piece of land has been as revered, disputed, or disputed. Dr. Jeremiah has deemed it a Conflicted City. However, God has chosen Jerusalem as the Chosen City for its role in the history of Israel, specially in the life of Jesus. So, it has become a Christ-loved City. Then in the Millennium Jerusalem will become the Capital City in the chosen land of Israel and will become a Continuing City. In David Jeremiah’s book he says we all should learn to love Israel and be determined to learn from Israel and the original people of God- our Jewish friends.