Does Israel Occupy the Promised Land?

Tom: Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. Presently we are going through Dave Hunt’s book, A Cup Of Trembling—Jerusalem and Bible Prophecy. And, Dave, we are finishing up chapter 2 and maybe we will get to chapter 3 today. But one of the objectives here is to really address the issues, which your book does well, about Israel, about Jerusalem, but from a biblical, historical—and those two words are synonymous; the Bible gives us the history absolutely—but if we understand some of the background, we will have some insights into really what’s taking place there today. But, I think without that, it just seems to be random violence, random activities, political, economic, all of those things that are creating problems.

Dave: Well, without that you don’t get the truth; you get propaganda on the radio or television. You get a revision of history. History has been rewritten by the Muslims, claiming that that land belongs to them, which in fact, it does not. So it’s a very important topic.

Tom: Dave, the promised land—we’ve been talking about that for a number of weeks, and we’ve been saying, according to the Word of God, according to the Scriptures, it’s been promised to the Jews. It’s as simple as that.

Dave: It is as simple as that. Now, the Muslims claim—the Arabs, in fact—claim that as the descendants of Ishmael, it belongs to them. But that’s very clear; I think we probably dealt with that in our program recently, didn’t we?

Tom: We have.

Dave: Genesis 17.

Tom: Dave, but the boundaries of the promised land—that’s a problem. That’s laid out very clearly in Genesis:15:18-21 [18] In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: [19] The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, [20] And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, [21] And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
See All.... Let me quote that: “In the same day, the Lord made a covenant with Abram, [later God renamed him Abraham] saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: [naming the peoples in possession at that time] The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, and the Hittites, and the Perrizzites, and the Rephaims, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” Again, that’s Genesis:15:18-21 [18] In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: [19] The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, [20] And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, [21] And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.
See All.... It’s a very specific land, but certainly not the land that we refer to today as Israel, which is a small part of what God actually promised.

Dave: Yeah, it’s interesting. The Bible lays it out, no one can argue with it, and this is a specific land that was given to Israel, given to Abraham. And of course, as we mentioned, the Arabs claim that as the descendants of Ishmael, who was Abraham’s firstborn through his wife’s maid, Hagar, that it belongs to them. And that is dealt with specifically in Genesis 17, where God says, “No, Ishmael is not the son of promise, but Isaac is the son of promise.” And God, 203 times in the Bible, calls Himself the God of Israel. Now that was Jacob—that was Jacob’s name—and He is repeatedly called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Never once is he called the God of Ishmael, never called the God of the Arabs. Don’t feel bad about that, Arabs, because He’s never called the God of the Americans or the God of the French. He is only and specifically called the God of Israel over and over. And this land—the world was not given to Israel.

Tom: So, they weren’t to go forth and conquer and take it all.

Dave: No, this was a specific land, and the reason was because of the wickedness of these people. They were so evil that God had to wipe them out. That’s hard to imagine, but after all, He wiped out Sodom and Gomorra, didn’t He? Because of the wickedness of those people He destroyed them with fire from heaven. In this case, He would use Israel to destroy these people. They weren’t to convert them, they were to kill them—even the babies, and I don’t understand that, but there must have been some genetic foul-up, demonic possession, that even affected the babies. I do not know, but God specifically says in this very chapter, Genesis 15, that it was because of the wickedness of these people that He was forced in His righteousness to wipe them out. And Israel was to take their land. They weren’t to take over anything else.

Now, in contrast, the Muslims believe they must conquer the world. They must take over the world for Allah. That’s a big difference, and they often say, “Well, look at the Jews. They went in there and they killed the Canaanites.” They had a specific commandment from God and a specific reason for doing that, whereas the Muslims—Muhammad said (we have probably quoted it before), “Allah has commanded me to fight against all people until all people confess there’s no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.” So, there is a big difference right there.

But anyway, as you are trying to point out here, Tom, this is the promised land. It is a specific land promised specifically, directly, to Abraham’s seed through Isaac and Jacob—and Jacob, whose name became Israel. And these people of Israel were kept in the land of Egypt for 400 years while the iniquity of the Amorites…and that means all the rest of them as well ripened.

Tom: All those that I quoted.

Dave: Yeah, while that iniquity ripened—and we would have to say the world is ripening for God’s judgment once again today—but the whole world—which will come upon the world—we read of it in the Book of Revelation, horrible judgment will come upon this world because of its wickedness.

Tom: Dave, Israel, however, never took possession, never possessed all of this land. Will they?

Dave: Well, they did somewhat possess it because we read in 2 Samuel:8:3David smote also Hadadezer, the son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to recover his border at the river Euphrates.
See All... that David recovered his border at the river Euphrates—so he did go all the way to the river Euphrates—and that he had garrisons in Damascus, which wouldn’t make the Syrians too happy today, but that is the land. And in fact, this whole land was called Syria-Palestina, and the world recognized that it belonged to the Jews, and we’ve been over that as well. The League of Nations, the Declaration of Principle in 1922, the Balfour Declaration, 1917, and then of course they were betrayed, and they finally were given 18 percent in UN Resolution 181, the partitioning of that land November 29, 1947. But Israel was okay—they were willing to take it, and you know that the Arabs rioted, and finally attacked them because they would not allow the Jews to have one square yard of that.

And Tom, if I could just take another minute to try to explain this. See, this land was once possessed by Israel—okay, that’s way back; that’s 3,000 years ago—but since then, it was conquered by the Muslims. For example, the Turkish Ottoman empire, Muslims, held it for 400 years until 1917, when they were on the wrong side in the first World War, and the allies then divided it up, created Jordan and Syria and Lebanon and Iraq, Iran, created Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates, and so forth. So, this land, having been under possession of Muslims, cannot be relinquished. This is a reversal of history, as far as they are concerned, and it is absolutely impossible—it’s not to be allowed that a Muslim should be ruled by a non-Muslim, especially by a Jew.

So, with that little bit of understanding of the background and of the thinking of the Muslims today, you understand why it’s absurd to talk about giving them a little more land to make a deal for peace with Israel. No, Israel must be obliterated; it must be destroyed. And the Muslims must control this land. The Jews must be under them. It’s intolerable for a Muslim to be under a Jew—not allowed! For example, a Muslim can marry a non-Muslim woman, but a non-Muslim man could not marry a Muslim woman—that would be intolerable. It just goes against everything that Islam stands for.

So, this is a land that God gave to these people—that’s history, that’s…their title deed is in the Bible. A lot of history has gone under the bridge since then because of Israel’s sin. They were cast out of this land, but God promised He would preserve them and bring them back, and that is the situation today.

Tom: But Dave, this land then, which, as you mentioned, only at one point, perhaps David did, through troops, and so on, did control at least the area that was given. Now we have Israel with a small part and then giving away, trading off for peace so-called.

Dave: Right, to an enemy that has sworn to exterminate them. And then we have the pressure, Tom, of the whole world: “Yeah, but what about these refugees? They have a right to return.”

And again, I don’t know what we have talked about in the past, but there are about a hundred million refugees in the last century. Never, ever, have any of them been given the right to go back and repossess the land out of which they fled. And Israel did not chase these people out. They were chased out, you could say, by the Arab high command broadcasting over the radio: “Get out, all Arabs get out! We’re coming in. We’re going to wipe out the Jews, and then you can come back.” But they say—and this is the one exception, the one exception! in all history—“These people must be allowed back in their land.”

Now, let’s put it like this: supposing we had a group of people in America who were determined to take over the United States—some religious group, some fanatic religious group, let’s say—well, David Koresh, let’s say, and let’s say that his following grew to millions, and he was determined to take over the United States. Let’s say we chased him down into Mexico, okay. Now he demands the right to return. But his purpose in returning is, once again, to take over the United States, to destroy Americans with suicide bombers…any means possible. This is the situation that Israel faces, and the whole world is insisting that they give land to these people inside Israel, which becomes a launching pad for their takeover of Israel. They have never relinquished their publicly declared determination to destroy the Jews, to take over Israel.

And now, Tom, let me appeal to anyone out there listening. Would you say that Israel should allow millions—they have grown, now, in numbers and a lot of them have moved in that weren’t even descended from these original refugees—but should Israel allow back in…give these people land inside Israel, when they have sworn to exterminate the Jews? It doesn’t make sense! It’s irrational! It’s wicked! But this is the mindset of the world. This is what is being forced upon Israel.

On the other hand, you had almost twice as many Jews who fled—1948, ’49, ’50—they fled from Muslim lands where they had been persecuted and killed for 1,300 years since the advent of Islam. There are almost twice as many of them—of course they have grown in numbers as well—who came into Israel. Are they allowed to go back? Is there any thought that they would go back and repossess the land and the homes that they once owned in Muslim lands? Iraq, for example? Iran, and so forth? They wouldn’t want to go back, I can tell you that.

Tom: Dave, can you make a distinction here? There are many, however, Jews—from Europe, from former Soviet Union Russia, who are immigrating to Israel. Is there a difference between those two things? Or in other words, there are many Jews immigrating to Israel. Would they say, “We are going back to the land which we own,” and so on? In other words, people will say, “Look, the Jews are doing the same thing, and they are coming in and setting up settlements,” and so on and so forth.

Dave: I understand what you are saying. You know, I don’t think that the Jews who are coming to Israel—they don’t believe the Bible, most of them; they don’t believe that they are the promised people; they don’t believe this is the promised land, and that is not the reason why this entire area called Palestine was set apart by the League of Nations in the 1920s for these people. The idea was, these people—they’ve been chased all over the world, they have been hated and persecuted, and they once had a homeland over here. Well, they deserve to have a homeland like anybody else deserves to have a homeland. The French have France, the Germans have Germany, the Americans have America. Why can’t the Jews have Israel, even if it’s only part of what they once possessed, what belonged to them?

And yet, Tom, that’s called Zionism. “We’re going to go back to Zion,” and you know, the Bible has a lot to say about Zion: “If I forget Zion,” the psalmist says, “If I forget Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its cunning. If I don’t remember you…” This is the City of God, this is the City of David. But mostly, they didn’t go back with the idea that “we are repossessing land that belonged to our forebears”; they simply went back—you had a Holocaust. Six million were killed! “Give us at least a little piece of land back there that we can call our own, where we can defend ourselves, and we can develop it and do with it what we want to.” And that’s the reasoning that they ought to have this land.

But Zionism, the idea that the Jews should have a land of their own, was condemned by the United Nations as racism, if you can imagine that! Now that was reversed 16 years later but reversed with a vote that not everybody voted in that direction. They still claim that Zionism is racism. In fact, the Arabs liken Zionism to Nazism, and so forth. In fact, the PLO Charter says, “These people are not a race of people, they are not a nationality. They belong to all the nations of this world. They are an international influence for evil.” And to allow them back here in the midst of the Arab homeland creates all kinds of problems. They want to live here under the Muslims, under Sharia, under Islamic law, they are welcome to do that, but of course, you know what that means, the persecution…

Tom: Dave, I think they are called Dhimmis.

Dave: Exactly, and to explain that, if we haven’t in the past and I don’t think we have, you see, when Muhammad—Muhammad said, “Allah has commanded me to fight against all people,” okay? He’s supposed to take over. If you are a pagan, you have the alternative of either being killed or confessing, “There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is his prophet,” okay? If you are a Christian or a Jew, then you are called “people of the Book”—these are called “the people of the book,” and theoretically, the Bible once read exactly like the Qur’an reads. In fact, the Quran says that we—and I don’t know why that word, we, is used, for Allah—sounds like a plurality, but anyway, that “we gave them the Torah and the -------, the gospel and so forth, and then it was corrupted.” But nevertheless, because these are the “people of the Book,” and they once had the Qur’an, therefore, they have another alternative. You confess, “There is no God but Allah; Muhammad is his prophet,” and you become a Muslim with full rights. If you refuse to do that, “Since you are the people of the Book, we will allow you to live. We are not going to kill you…” although they do, often, but theoretically, theologically, Islamic law, they have the right to live under Islam, and they are called, Dhimmis.

Now what that means is you’re not even a second-class citizen—you are worse than that. You must be treated maliciously, you must be humiliated. Therefore, they had to wear, depending upon the area, either a yellow hat, or a certain kind of clothes, in some places you had to wear your left shoe on your right foot, your right shoe on your left foot. You had to be recognized, and in some places Christians had to have a huge cross around their necks, and the Jews had a star of David, and so forth, because how are you going to humiliate people in public if you don’t recognize who they are? So they had to be recognizable. Now you know that Hitler picked that up, and there were certain areas to which they were confined. Of course it was the popes who first put them in ghettos. So that’s what a Dhimmi is. You have the privilege of living, and that’s what the Jews would be in Israel under Islam. They would have the privilege of living, but it would be a horrible, horrible existence, and I would just suggest that anyone out there and you’re doubting what I am saying, please go back and read your history and find out what the existence of these people was for 1,300 years in Muslim societies—what—the Jews and the Christians as well, and that is what it would be again as Dhimmis.

Tom: Dave, we have about two minutes, but you have an interesting quote from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who wrote in the Jerusalem Post, talking about the ability of the Jews “to remain on Israeli soil—and not to be exiled—“ depends on how much they hold to the traditional Jewish teaching, the continuity of their ethical, moral, ritual conduct, which links, he says, together with our glorious past. This is what he writes, which is interesting: “Only those Jews who return to Israel because it was the land of their forebears, yearned for by their grandparents, can re-endow the land of Israel with its original sanctity. And only those Jews who value their history, and whose ethical, moral and traditional mores are inextricably linked to the great chain of Jewish being, will be allowed to maintain this land and their rights to live in it.” Not much about the Word of God here or about their…

Dave: It’s tradition. But David Ben Gurion, the first premier of Israel, said it very clearly. He said, “Neither I, nor any Jew, nor any Israeli—nobody has the right to give away this land.” And he did recognize it was given to them by God, and he did refer, as did the Declaration of Independence of Israel—they committed themselves to God—but the Jews today in Israel, they have wandered very far from that. About 30 percent claim to be atheists, many New Agers, and so forth. They don’t really believe this.

Tom: So, they are going to give away land.

Dave: Yeah, sadly, and one day, Jesus is going to have to come back and rescue them, and they will at last recognize that He is the Messiah in the midst of Armageddon.