The first great blessing upon the Jewish people came through Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you. In you, all of the families of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 12:2-3) And further on in Genesis 18:18, a similar blessing is pronounced again: “In him all the nations of the earth will be blessed.” (Genesis 18:18)

The Blessing of Melchizedek
“Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine: and he was priest of God Most High. He blessed him, and said, ‘Blessed be Abram of God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth…” (Genesis 14:18-19) And then the Scripture says that Sarah, the Jewish matriarch was also specifically blessed (Genesis 17:16)

After preparing to offer Isaac: “indeed I will greatly bless you.. and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.” (Genesis 22:17)

The Blessings Upon Jacob
The next blessings were passed down generationally upon Jacob from his father Isaac. Through the connivance of Rebekah his mother, Jacob received the blessing in place of his brother Esau, the first-born. (Genesis 27: 27-30).

Next, Isaac called Jacob to himself and said: “So Isaac called Jacob and blessed him and charged him, and said to him, ‘You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan’. Go at once to Paddan-Aram to the house of Bethuel, your father's mother [the Arameans]....May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and numerous... May he give to you the blessing of Abraham...” (Genesis 28:1-5) Ishmael was also blessed (Genesis 17:20), but not as much as Jacob nor in the same way.

Finally, Jacob received blessing directly from God Himself:


Next, when Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord, the angel said: "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed... And he blessed him there." (Genesis 32: 28-29)

So we see a multitude of blessings upon Jacob – now Israel – both as an individual himself and also as the embodiment of the Jewish people for all generations to come.

No other people group ever received blessings such as these – multiple blessings and generational blessings!

The Jewish people have A CORPORATE BLESSING upon them from God - not because they deserve it, but because GOD IS FAITHFUL to HIS PROMISES!

This corporate blessing does NOT mean that the Jewish people are SAVED. Today, each Jewish person individually has to repent and come to faith in Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah just as any non-Jewish person does.... But, at the same time, the Scriptures also teach that THERE WILL COME a DAY WHEN ALL ISRAEL WILL BE SAVED! (Isaiah 45:17; Romans 11:25-26

II. Always a people: "...the offspring of Israel...shall be a nation before Me forever." (Jeremiah 31:35-36)

 

Actually, the Scripture says that if the "fixed order" of the Sun, moon and stars "were ever to cease from my presence," then, He says, would "the offspring of Israel also cease to be a nation before Me forever."

This is about as ironclad a promise as God could have given - that is, that the Jewish people, despite all that is arrayed against them, will never stop being His people...

This promise demonstrates God's faithfulness to the children of Israel, even if they have not always been faithful to Him... One either sees the continued existence of the Jewish people as a miracle in and of itself, or one does not.

One who does not is famed Israel author and self-proclaimed atheist Amos Oz, who has written that he sees "no mysterious necessity, historical or divinely ordained, for the Jews to have come such a long way." (Amos Oz and Fanta Oz-Salzberger, Jews and Words, 38).

But another Jewish person, Adolph Saphir, who later came to believe in Jesus (Yeshua) as the Jewish Messiah, said the following in 1864:

"...defying every climate and difficulty, and surviving all persecution, they live to witness to the truthfulness and power of God. Every effort has been made to destroy them, to take away their energy, their property, their influence; they have been cramped, despised, tortured and massacred, but they have only outlived their persecutors...their energy has not been crushed, their intellect not dimmed, their determination not conquered, and their physical and mental vitality not diminished. That they exist is a miracle; but that they are what they are is still more wonderful...in every branch of thought and modern civilization-life they have shown themselves quite able to compete with any nation." (Adolph Saphir, Christ and Israel, 144-145, from a lecture given on April 26, 1864).

So, dear reader, you must choose for yourself. Is there a divine plan behind the continued existence, suffering, and glory of the Jewish people - as contradictory and strange as that may seem? Or is it all just a fluke of history and blind fate? Each person must decide for themselves.

III. Wanderers. "...and they shall be wanderers among the nations." (Hosea 9:17)

 

Yes, the Jewish people have been wanderers among the nations ever since the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 AD - until 1948. In fact, the epithet often applied for centuries to the Jewish people was, 'The Wandering Jew'...

But as they have now been regathered into the Land of Israel, they no longer are wanderers...They have a Homeland.

 

The Arch of Titus in Rome today commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple

IV. The Return: "...The waste places shall be built...I will do better to you than at your beginnings..." (Ezekiel 36:10-11)

Ezekiel 36:8-11: “But you, mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel...and I will multiply men on you....and the cities shall be inhabited, and the waste places shall be built; and I will multiply on you man and animal; and they shall increase and be fruitful, and I will cause you to be inhabited after your former estate, and I will do better to you than at your beginnings: and you shall know that I am the LORD..."