Chosen: Bible Studies on the Jewish People, the Land of Israel, the City of Jerusalem, and Mount Zion

By Stefan Haas

What does it mean to be "chosen"? Why does God choose a people – a land, a city, and a mountain? What are His plans? And: Has history really proven the fact that this nation was chosen?
In John 4:22, Jesus says to a gentile woman, "You do not know what you worship; but we know what we worship; for salvation is from the Jews."
"Chosen" – this book digs deeply into the subject, looking for answers through in-depth Bible studies. It touches many sensitive issues concerning the Jewish people, the land of Israel, the city of Jerusalem, and Mt. Zion. There is a special emphasis on the relationship between Israel and the nations.
The book does not shy away from controversial questions! And so it serves to find enlightening and helpful answers in the Word of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOS Verlag
• Release date: Oct 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9783981804096

Book preview

11:16.20.41.

1. The Covenant with Abraham

1.1 From the Beginning of Time to Abraham

In the first eleven chapters of the Bible, we read about the story of a global disaster. It begins with a golden era, a time of unimaginable beauty: God creates a wonderful world, the best paradise possible. Mankind is doing tremendously. There is only good, not even the slightest notion of suffering, distress, sickness, death, mourning, frustration, hopelessness, senselessness, or poverty. There are also no relational problems whatsoever. Man and woman experience God’s presence and love firsthand on a daily basis. They see Him and speak with Him.

Then man falls into sin. It is like adultery: In one moment, the trust and relationship between God and man are totally destroyed. So they have to leave paradise and lose access to the invisible world. They no longer see or experience God and are on their own now in a dark world. Within only a few decades, they lose every bit of knowledge of God. At the same time, sin runs ever more rampant – like a torn piece of cloth that cannot be sown back together. As early as Chapter 6 of the Bible, we read that God’s heart is deeply troubled and saddened by how evil humans have become ². The tear widens, until we read in Chapter 11 about the Tower of Babel, the subsequent confusion of languages and dispersion of all peoples throughout the earth. All of this leads us to today’s reality. Sin has destroyed everything.

If you did not know this story and were to read it for the very first time, you would hardly be able to bear the tension in Chapter 11. And what now?! It almost feels like the day after a global nuclear war. What can possibly come next after this greatest disaster in humanity?

All around the globe, it has become dark. Let us take a look at those involved: Is there anyone who could still make a difference now? Humans are evil through and through, godless, and lost beyond hope of redemption. They have no more chance to change the situation by themselves. And God? What is He going to do now?

If God had not intervened at this point, humanity’s story with God would have ended as Genesis, Chapter 11 describes it. And what does the Lord do? In this world, which has become so dark, far to the east, He ignites a single light. God calls a single man with whom He starts a new story after this disaster: Abraham. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this story. It is not just the story of a single man from far away in the east. It is the beginning of an entirely new relationship between God and man. We will only be able to understand God’s story with mankind once we understand His story with Abraham. For this, we have to pay close attention and listen very carefully to God’s words. While doing so, we will see that there are two coordinates in God’s subsequent history with mankind, which from God’s point of view designate the epicenter of history: The Jewish people and the land of Israel (including the capital Jerusalem and Mount Zion).

What happens, then, on the Day After – after the huge disaster? While in Chapters 1-11 we always had a certain global perspective, now the focus is suddenly on a single man. We are introduced quite discreetly to the family line of a certain Abraham ³. We read about how already his father Terah, together with his family, had left his home in Ur in Chaldea to move to Canaan.

Let’s take a look at the map:

Map 2 – created with Bible Mapper 5.0

To go from Ur in Chaldea (in today’s Iraq, in the lower right corner of the map) to the land of Canaan, Terah had to first travel north on the Silk Road (gray dotted line), because the more direct path would have taken him through the desert. The route from Ur to Haran is about 900 miles long and probably led through the areas now known as Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Erbil. So Terah and his family went as far as Haran and settled there. However, the Bible does not tell us why he did not continue his journey from there (as opposed to his original intention).

In Genesis 11:32, we are told that Terah died in Haran aged 205. After that, the story of Abraham begins in Chapter 12. It sounds like Abraham only left Haran after his father had died. Once you add up the years, though, you will find this is not true. Terah was 70 years old when Abraham was born ⁴ and Abraham moved from Haran when he himself was 75 years old ⁵. So Abraham left the city of Haran when his father Terah was 145, but who actually lived to be 205. After 25 years of waiting, his long-awaited son Isaac was finally born. At that time, Abraham was 100 years old ⁶. And – his father Terah was still living in Haran – by now 170 years old. This means that Terah could have known Isaac as an adult.

So Abraham’s father left his home in Ur of the Chaldeans for the Land of Canaan for a reason we do not know. A little bit more than halfway, he stopped and settled in Haran. At this point, the Lord speaks to Abraham and calls him.

1.2 Abraham’s Calling

We read about this in Genesis 12:1-3 (NKJV).

Now the Lord had said to Abram: Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Let us take a closer look at these verses, because they are so fundamental. These three verses consist of nine individual elements:

1. Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house

2. to a land that I will show you.

3. I will make you a great nation.

4. I will bless you

5. and make your name great.

6. You shall be a blessing.

7. I will bless those who bless you,

8. and I will curse him who curses you;

9. and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Studying the content of these verses, we can see that there are three main focus points:

1.A land which the Lord will show to Abraham.

2.A people whom the Lord will make into a great nation.

mishpachah here, which in Modern Hebrew is the common term for family.

At this point, we have to realize that there are, generally speaking, two different types of promises in the Bible: Conditional promises and unconditional promises. We can actually lose conditional promises ⁷ if the condition is not fulfilled. Which type of promise do we have here in Abraham’s case? If any, the only condition is the first part of the first verse, Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house (…). Abraham did this. After this, there were no further conditions on which the fulfillment of God’s promises would have been dependent on. So the promises in Genesis 12:1-3 to Abraham have to be fulfilled – otherwise God would be a liar.

Let us take a closer look at verse 3 in Hebrew:

I will bless those who bless you – even if you do not speak Hebrew, you can see that the same word appears twice in the Hebrew: to bless and to bless.

and I will curse him who curses you – generally most English translations would use the same word here twice. However, in Hebrew, two different words appear:

(arar) – I will curse ⁸.

(qalal) – on the other hand means in its basic form: to be little, unimportant, despised ⁹. The Hebrew verb form (piel) used here in Genesis 12:3 points to making someone little or despised ¹⁰ – and in this sense also to curse.

This part of the verse could therefore be translated as follows. I will curse him who treats you with contempt. We should be very aware of this statement. This does not speak about outright antisemitism, the persecution of Jews, or the Holocaust. This covers so much more. It begins with simple contempt or even just indifference.

I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt. When the living God pronounces a curse, there are very practical consequences for our lives. It may mean, for example, that certain areas of life just do not prosper – no matter how much we try or how much effort we put into it. Or maybe our lives or part of our lives are simply a desert (for example relationships, finances, career, or success). A curse cannot be changed by means of effort, work, or intelligence. A curse has to be forgiven and broken. In order for this to happen, though, we first have to recognize the curse.

And now let us address the goal and focus of the entire calling – the last part of the verse: and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. It is God’s plan that along the path He takes all of mankind will be touched through Abraham. This means that we are included in this story. We cannot just read about God’s story with Abraham as spectators. We ourselves are a part of this story: Either we are under the curse that comes from treating Abraham and his descendants wrongly, or we receive the blessing. It is the beginning of God’s new story with all of mankind. But vice versa, this also means that from now on, mankind has to face the challenge that its story only exists within the coordinates God Himself has determined. From this point on, the story of the Abraham’s descendants and the land of Israel (with the capital Jerusalem and Mount Zion) are in the center of world history. God has already set the course with His first step towards mankind after the fall of man: with Abraham. And this course will never change.

1.3 Later Stages of Abraham’s Path

Let us take a closer look at important later stages of Abraham’s path. After his calling, Abraham did in fact set out. He left his father Terah, his brother Nahor, and other family members, and left for the land that God was going to show him ¹¹. Then we read in Genesis 12:6-7, Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.’ So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him.

The first part of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3 refers to a land that I will show you. It is only after this that a people is ever mentioned. So the land is not just a minor part of this promise. It comes first. Once Abraham has already crossed half the country, traveling about 500 miles from Haran, he arrives at a place that will be important for the coming history of Israel: Shechem.

Map 2 – created with Bible Mapper 5.0

This place is pretty much right in the center of the region in terms of latitude and longitude. It is at this place that God appears to Abraham and promises him, To your offspring I will give this land ¹². So, Abraham has made it. Here, he hears for the very first time that this is the land that God was going to show him. And it is here that Abraham builds the first altar for the Lord in this Promised Land.

At this point, let us take a look at this location in view of the current political map of Israel: The Biblical location of Shechem is now known as Nablus and is located in the so-called West Bank. So, the place where the Lord says to Abraham for the first time, To your offspring I will give this land nowadays is part of the Palestinian territories and not Israel (see map below).

Map 3.1 – created with Bible Mapper 5.0

Map. 3.2 – Source: Shutterstock

Later, Abraham continued from Shechem to Bethel. We read about this in Genesis 13:14-15.

The LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.

In Bethel, Abraham was commanded explicitly to look around in every direction, for God told him, All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever.

This statement has two remarkable features:

It goes a step beyond what the Lord had previously told Abraham. Now He is promising Abraham this land forever. Here too, we have a promise without any condition whatsoever.

Today, Bethel is also located in the Palestinian governed West Bank. However, it is the place where Abraham is explicitly commanded to look around in all directions, because the Lord wanted to give him and his offspring precisely this land which he saw.

Very close to the Biblical location of Bethel is the town known as Ramallah today, where part of the Palestinian National Authority is located.

Map 4.1 – created with Bible Mapper 5.0

Map. 4.2 – Source: Shutterstock

The second place where God speaks to Abraham about the Promised Land is also not in the State of Israel today. From here, Abraham then leaves to go to the next place, Hebron. In Chapter 15, 7.18-21 we read the following.

And He said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenite and the Kenizzite and the Kadmonite and the Hittite and the Perizzite and the Rephaim and the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Girgashite and the