called “Israel,” there had not been a place called Israel for more than 50 years, and there would not be a place called Israel for another 2,520 years. And besides, Ezekiel was a Jew from the kingdom of Judah, not Israel.


But Ezekiel’s prophetic writings are filled with references to a future place called Israel, inhabited by those whom he described as “the people that are gathered out of the nations” (38:12) and later iden- tified as “my people of Israel” (38:16).


Ezekiel wrote of Israel’s re-gathering in the Last Days. In Ezekiel 37, the Prophet is shown a valley of dry bones. Tose dry bones, the Lord explains, are the “whole house of Israel” (37:11) that the Lord says would be restored in the Last Days.


Six hundred years before the remaining Jews of Israel were scatered by the Ro- mans, the Lord prophesied the circum- stances of their return to the Land in the Last Days. “And say unto them, Tus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on


tion,


pora have indeed ‘come from among the heathen from every side’ and returned to the Promised Land. “Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.”


—Isaiah 66:8 The Bible


prophesied that when God did call the Jews home to Israel, He would do so in the traditional, pure language of Jewish worship, the long-dead language of David the king.


Language


every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.” —Ezekiel 37:21-22


Nation of Israel Birthed Te fulfillment of this prophecy could not be more obvious. Te Jews of the Dias-


Israel was, in the strictest sense of under- standing, literally “born in a day.” In his book, Personal Witness, Founding Father and Israel’s first foreign minister, Abba Eban, described the final moments of labor as a nation struggled to be reborn: “In accordance with our plan, a leter from Chaim Weitzman to President Truman had been sent on May 13 asking him to recog- nize our new state. Te expected infant state was still nameless,


since the Zionist leaders were still characteristically arguing over the name (should it be “Judea?” “Zion?”—what about “Israel?” Weitzman, for the first time in history, was asking for a nameless state to be recognized. . . .”


Nobody had heard of such a thing. As Eban noted, it was the first time in history. Zion travailed and brought forth Israel, exactly as prophesied.


Lithuanian Jew Popularizes Hebrew Language But that is only part of the miracle.


Te Bible prophesied that when God did call the Jews home to Israel, He would do so in the traditional, pure language of Jewish worship, the long-dead language of David the king. Scripture explains in Zephaniah 3:9, “For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent.”


In 1881, a Lithuanian Jew named Eliezer Ben-Yehuda [see related article on page 14] emigrated to Israel and set out to revive the long-dead Hebrew as a living, working and functional modern language based on classical Hebrew.


When Ben-Yehuda’s first son was born in the Promised Land in 1882, he was raised as the first all-Hebrew speaking child in modern history.


In December 1890, Ben-Yehuda founded the Hebrew Language Council. In 1922 the UN listed Hebrew as one of the three working languages of the British mandate.


In 1948 Hebrew was officially declared the working language of the State of Israel.


Ingathering and the Promised Land As the 19th century drew to a close, something began to happen within the worldwide Jewish community. It wasn’t really the centuries of persecution, the periodic pogroms, or the second-class status of Jews in their host nations that precipitated the sudden atraction of the Jews to the Promised Land.


(Raising a Nation, continued on page 26) Jewish Voice Today 13


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28