Blessings and curses

Does history reflect this Divine principle?

The first person in the Bible who was going to be a blessing to mankind was Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2) All people on earth were going to be blessed through Abraham, a spiritual blessing through his seed, Jesus Christ, who came around 2,000 years later. But Jesus was not the only seed of Abraham. The whole Jewish nation (including Jesus), which sprung from the descendants of Abraham’s second son, Isaac, also carry a blessing to the world.

Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.” (Genesis 17:19-21)

As a sovereign unknowable God, there are things about Him that are mysteries to us. We can grasp the spiritual blessings that flowed to the whole of humanity through Abraham’s seed, Jesus. We can also understand the blessings to mankind that flowed through the Jews, the physical seeds of Abraham, up until the arrival of Jesus on the scene.

“Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised.” (Romans 9:4-5)

The mystery is in what happened since the time of Jesus. This is because the story of the Jews, from that time onwards, takes a downwards swing and one thing that is rarely on our lips regarding the Jewish people is that word … blessing.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you …”

How so … ?

The blessing is, I believe, in their miraculous survival. Despite everything the world has thrown at the Jewish people over the last 2,000 years, they have survived and, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear, it has truly been a miraculous survival. For individual Jews it has mostly been far from painless, but for the people as a whole you have to realise that if God is to be seen as Alive and Well and working in the Nations, there can be no bigger witness than such a survival against all odds that can astound us with the following statistics:

There are just over 14.3 million Jews world-wide (2015 figures), indicating that about 0.19% of the World is Jewish – about 1 person out of every 520. Yet, according to Wikipedia: “Nobel Prizes have been awarded to 881 individuals, of whom 197 – 22.4% – were Jewish or people of Jewish descent although Jews and people of Jewish descent comprise less than 0.2% of the world’s population … Jews or people of Jewish descent have been recipients of all six awards, including 41% of economics, 28% of medicine, 26% of physics, 19% of chemistry, 13% of literature and 9% of all peace awards”

This is a people who have spent the last 2,000 years being persecuted, vilified, exiled and murdered without conscience, often by people who believe they were doing God’s Will! If God decides that these people are to be a blessing – and the Nobel Prize statistics show an aspect of this – then He’s surely got His work cut out in keeping His covenant people alive.

And the Holocaust … ?

He responded to this challenge in two ways. Firstly, He was to show His Hand of Protection over His people. The mystery, of course, was in Him not providing a total hedge of protection over His people, particularly at such dire times as the Holocaust. The answer to this is in the gift of free-will given to humanity. The Holocaust showed us what happens when evil is allowed to go unchecked and free reign is given to every hatred of the human heart. It proved the failure of man, not the failure of God. He gave man free will and what the World witnessed in the 1940s was how low we could sink when we forsake morality and conscience. The Holocaust showed us that without God and His teachings, the earth could not survive; we would just end up killing each other.

Out of the embers of the Holocaust came the birth of the State of Israel. Now all gloves were off, the battle over the Jews was going to intensify and God was going to show His hand … for all those with eyes to see, ears to hear. 

In November 29th 1947 the United Nations General Assembly were voting to decide on the UN Partition Plan to create a Jewish State and an Arab State in the Middle East. Fifty seven nations voted. Naturally the Moslem countries – Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Afghanistan – voted against the plan, not wanting any official declaration of a Jewish nation in their midst. The biggest mystery concerned the attitude of Russia, which actually saw the Jewish Zionists, with their socialist leanings as potential allies in the Middle East. So Russia and its allies joined with Europe and most of the free World and voted for the partition plan. Without this unexpected support, the United Nation partition plan would never have been accepted, as it needed a two thirds majority to be carried through. It was carried through, and the State of Israel was born into the international community. 

The odds were 200 to 1; seven Arab nations with population of over 140 million, against one fledgling Jewish nation with 650,000 people. The Jews had no backing from any other country. The Arabs had, amongst other advantages, a Britishsponsored army called the Arab Legion. Israel was fighting on four fronts; Transjordan to the east , Syria and Lebanon to the north, Iraq and Syria in the north east and Egypt in the south. It was 1948 and this was Israel’s War of Independence. The Jews had little military equipment, especially arms and ammunition – at times two soldiers had to share a single rifle. During the war they used weapons foraged and specially created, such as improvised armoured cars and molotov cocktails. They also had a mixture of small arms leftover from World War II, light artillery and machine guns, some anti-tank bazookas, and jeeps and half-tracks with mounted machine guns. The Arab armies, on the other hand, were heavily armed with the latest equipment from Britain. The war lasted over eight months, punctuated by the occasional truce. The Israeli victory was such that only a quick intervention by British delegates in the U.N. saved the Arabs from a more disastrous defeat. The war that was provoked by the Arabs to annihilate the new State of Israel not only brought a pride-thrashing defeat for them, but rewarded the Israelis with an increase of more than 40% of extra land, over and above that promised to them through the UN Partition Plan, including West Jerusalem! 

In the Six Days War of 1967, the victory was such that Israel had increased its size by an incredible 300%! Historian Cecil Roth later described the Six Day War as ‘perhaps the most brilliant campaign in military history … the Israeli army had shown itself the best fighting force in the world’. 

In the Yom Kippur war of October 1973 a group of Israeli soldiers stumbled into a minefield on the Golan Heights. A windstorm suddenly blew and when it had ended, the top level of the soil had blown away and every mine was visible. 

In the same war, also in the Golan Heights, at one point only seven Israeli tanks faced over 1,000 Syrian tanks bent on invading. Suddenly the tanks stopped and the Syrians deserted them in their droves, apparently terrified. Eye witnesses later testified to a Hand from Heaven pressing down on them! This is reminiscent of the Angel of Mons during the 1914 Battle of Mons in the First World War, when angelic beings came to the aid of British forces. There are numerous versions of this story, though, so it is hard to find a single definitive account of what had happened.

Blessing the Nations

There are literally hundreds of similar stories that can be told concerning the survival and accomplishments of the Nation of Israel. But this whole story is not about Israel or the Jews, it is about the promises made to them by a Sovereign God who is ready, willing and able to intervene to make sure His Will is carried out and that His Covenant people are protected.

I mentioned earlier that God has shown His Hand of Blessing towards the Jewish people in a second way. This can be summarized by the first part of Genesis Chapter 12, verse 3; “I will bless those who bless you …”

Again there is plenty of historical evidence to back this up. Even in exile in the Diaspora, Jews have risen to key roles in society. They have been heads of government in nine countries; England (Benjamin Disraeli), France (Leon Blum, Pierre Mendes-France, Rene Mayer), Italy (Luigi Luzzatti and Sidney Sonnino), Austria (Brunel Kreisky), Australia (Sir Isaac Isaacs), Vavaria (Kurt Eisner), Hungary (Bela Kun), India (Marquis of Reading)and Palestine (Sir Herbert Samuel). The Italian story was an interesting one. Luzzatti founded the People’s Bank, was Minister of Finance seven times and became Prime Minister in 1910. Soninno was Prime Minister twice. Ludovico Mortara was President of the Supreme Court and served as Minister of Justice.

In the Middle Ages there were many times that a Jew was appointed by a European nation to actually help run the country, particularly in financial matters. This was the case in Spain until Jews were expelled in 1492. At that time they had a Jewish Financial Minister, Don Isaac Abarbanel, and the King and Queen tried to get him an exemption to exile, but he refused. In the 16th Century, Jews even ran the estates in Poland and held the keys to the churches! In the book, The Story of Civilization in the Reformation, it was stated, “So prominent was the Jewish role in the foreign commerce of Europe that those that received the Jews gained and those countries that excluded them lost the volume of their international trade”.

On the other hand …

There’s a book, Eye to Eye by White House correspondent, Bill Koenig1 , that tells a remarkable story. It is an account of the historical outworking of the second half of the verse examined earlier, Genesis Chapter 12, verse 3; “… and I will curse those who curse you.” Written in 2004, the blurb on the back cover provides interesting reading.

What do these major record-setting events have in common? 

Nine of the ten costliest insurance events in U.S. history. 

Six of the seven costliest hurricanes in U.S. history. 

Three of the four largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. history. 

Nine of the top ten natural disasters in U.S. history ranked by FEMA relief costs. 

The two largest terrorism events in US history.

All of these major catastrophes transpired on the very same day or within 24-hours of U.S. Presidents Bush, Clinton and Bush applying pressure on Israel to trade her land for promises of “peace and security”, sponsoring major “land for peace” meetings, making major public statements pertaining to Israel’s covenant land and/or calling for a Palestinian state.

Incredible stuff and, if true (and you wouldn’t expect a Washington correspondent to be a liar), highly significant. It tells us a story that, if God still uses natural phenomena to communicate His displeasure, then touching the Land of Israel is like touching a raw Divine nerve!

This seems to be driven by this piece of Scripture: “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.” (Leviticus 25:23)

Can there really be curses rained down on those who curse Israel through their meddling?

How it plays out …

The best known disaster in the above list is, of course, the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001. What is less known is what happened a day earlier. The American government were just writing up an agreement made with the Saudis regarding “the most comprehensive plan and message ever to be offered on Israel’s covenant land by an American President”. This was planned to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly on September 24th 2001. This was especially poignant due to the majority of the 9-11 hijackers being Saudis!

There was another incident not in the book for two reasons. Firstly because it took place a year after the publication of the book and secondly, because it concerned the UK.

In early July 2005 there was a G8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, presided over by Tony Blair. On July 6th, they agreed a substantial package of help for the Palestinian Authority, amounting to up to $3 billion in the years to come, so that ‘two states – Israel and Palestine – two peoples, and two religions, can live side by side in peace’.

The next day was the biggest ever terrorist outrage on British soil, the London bombings, 7-7.

So God’s displeasure at the dividing up of His land is not just confined to the machinations of the USA (though George W Bush had an unfortunate bicycle accident that same day, sending a policeman into hospital).

What do we have here? A vengeful God who compelled those Jihadists to travel to London with their suicide vests? No, because this had been pre-planned. But it could have been thwarted, as many have (including a copycat attempt a fortnight later). But God chose to allow it to happen. He chose not to intervene with the execution of an evil plan birthed by evil hearts. Again He allows us humans to follow the free-will that has been given to us as a gift.

Unfortunately, we fail to learn from these events, because few of us seem to be alert to the signs. Bearing in mind the secular nature of our nation, the denial of God’s sovereignty by the Liberal Church and, perhaps, the reticence for any true prophetic voice to engage with either, it seems that we do not currently have the eyes to see, the ears to hear.

1 Eye to Eye Facing the Consequences of dividing Israel, by William Koenig: paperback 2004 ISBN -10 100971734704 ISBN -13 978-0971734708