A few weeks ago I had lunch with an Israeli diplomat, a man for whom I hold great respect, in Washington, DC. We discussed, among a host of other things, the inescapable tensions that often arise between the Christian and Jewish…
When people hear the word Jericho, they naturally think of Israelites marching, trumpets sounding, and walls falling down. It is a wonderful story of faith and victory that we enjoy reading and telling in Sunday school class, but did it…
The call had gone out nationwide to assemble at Mount Carmel. Now the peak was bustling with thousands of people. King Ahab was there. Also present were 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah. Standing before the throng…
Potato latkes, sufganiyot (Hebrew for jelly donuts), special songs, special food, and special times with family and friends are all part of the eight-day celebration of Hanukkah, a festival that commemorates the Jewish victory over…
The Jewish people had traveled a tortuous road for the better part of two millennia before Baron Lord Rothschild received, on behalf of the Jewish people, the official letter sanctioning a national home for Jewish people in Palestine. For 400 years…
To the casual observer of life in the Middle East, the real struggle there appears to be about the issue of soil. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs are arguing over “land rights.” At times, this struggle has erupted into violence over how…
The American College Dictionary defines the word obstacle as “something that stands in the way of or obstructs progress.” In order to understand the Middle East Peace Process, we must investigate the facts surrounding the…
Israel is a thriving democracy in the heart of the mainly Muslim Middle East. The Jewish state is the only full and stable democracy in the region, although a few other countries are attempting to move in that direction. However, Israel’s rambunctious…
The year 1998 is the Year of Jubilee—the 50th birthday of the State of Israel! What is going through the minds of Israelis on the state’s 50th birthday? What are the expectations of its citizens? Since Israel is a nation of immigrants…
Repeated denials by U.S. officials of any intention to pressure Israel into a posture of appeasement in the interest of approving nods from Yasser Arafat are refuted by their own actions. The heat is on Israel to acquiesce to Washington’s…
Jewish people are being warned to watch out for Christian Zionists by “Bracing for the Apocalypse.” In an article published by Forward newspaper (February 6, 1998), Jonathan Mahler produced a classic exercise in manipulative…
It is increasingly clear that the major roadblock to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not Israel’s alleged refusal to make concessions to Arab demands. In fact, the more land Israel concedes, the more strident the Palestinian…
Most of us hardly noticed that Israel was having a birthday. No, I’m not talking about its upcoming 50th, which will be celebrated in 1998. It was in August 1897 that a group of Jewish representatives in silk hats and frock coats filed into a hall in Basel, Switzerland, to hear…
“He who has not seen Herod’s Temple has never seen a beautiful building.” With those deliberately exaggerated words, rabbis extolled the magnificence of the Temple that was in Jerusalem during the first century A.D. Although the religious Jews often despised…
The most volatile 35 acres on earth are undoubtedly those comprising a rectangular platform in East Jerusalem on which the ancient Jewish Temple once stood. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament affirm that a new Temple will once again occupy…
In a few months, the State of Israel will commemorate fifty years of modern statehood. No nation in the history of mankind has been born out of such enormous suffering.
“A people considered for centuries as non-fighters carried out in June, 1967 against long odds the most nearly perfect military operation in modern history.” With these words an eminent American historian opened her…
Prime Minister Golda Meir was worried. It was that same strange feeling she had back in 1967, on the eve of the Six-Day War. Reports had been coming in since May…
The Bible pictures Lebanon as a land of towering mountains covered by tall cedars, rising above lush valleys with flowing rivers. Although few of the famed trees grow in the rugged mountains of modern Lebanon…
On July 30, two young Arab men embarked on a suicide mission with the intent to kill and maim more innocent Israelis. Their target was Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market, an open-air shopping strip jammed tightly…
If you believe in the Lord Jesus as your Savior, I ask you the following question: Are you a Christian American, or are you an American Christian? You may answer with some perplexity…
The four hundred years between the prophecy of Malachi and the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, are frequently described as silent or mute years; however, they were full of activity. Although no inspired prophet appeared…
Theodor Herzl had a dream. It was a dream born of the desire of the Jewish people to have a homeland in Eretz Israel under the recognition of international law.
Thus saith the Lord Gᴏᴅ: Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, to which they are gone, and will gather them on every side…
The most prominent events marking the early days of the modern Zionist movement were the publication of Theodor Herzl’s The Jewish State in 1896 and his calling of the First Zionist Congress in 1897.
So wrote Chaim Weizmann in 1919. Both God in heaven and Balfour in England viewed “with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
Two thousand years ago a young Jewish woman and her husband came to the town of Bethlehem, in Jewish Judea, to be registered for taxation. Their permanent residence was Nazareth.
Bedlam broke out among the Ultra-Orthodox Jews of Tiberias. The fracas was over the renewed potential for Christian missionary activities around the Sea of Galilee. The culprit for this hullabaloo was the front-page headline…
The young Jewish victim cringed in agony as the soldier roughly pushed his right heel over his left against the sturdy wooden post. Violent blows from the mallet on the iron nail tore angrily through…
American Edward Robinson a former Congregationalist minister, was the first person in modern times to scientifically explore the marvel of Hezekiah’s Tunnel.
“We want a piece of the action!” This seems to be the prevailing attitude when the international community talks about Jerusalem. Until the Jewish people began to wind their way back toward the Holy City…
“And Isaac entreated the Lᴏʀᴅ for his wife, because she was barren: and the Lᴏʀᴅ was entreated by him, and Rebekah, his wife, conceived. And the children struggled together within her;
This February, a lone Jewish man walked into a mosque inside of a shrine built over the cave of Machpelah in Hebron. Dressed in Israeli military garb, he gunned down 29 Muslim Arabs…
The ground in front of the beautiful Golden Gate was still soft from the recent heavy rains. An archaeology student confidently stepped back from the gate to capture its entire view in his camera…
When Bible readers move from the Old to the New Testament, they encounter many new ideas and institutions. They encounter groups like the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, and Zealots, who are not mentioned in the Old…
As you will discover, this edition of Israel My Glory is dedicated to Israel and issues related to the Jewish people and their land. Recent hostilities between Israelis and Hezbollah terrorists operating from Lebanon point…
In what may be called a conservative expression of what has taken place between the Israelis and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, a “historic breakthrough” was announced on August 31, 1993.
On August 31, 1993, the Israeli Government approved a draft declaration of principles designed to implement extensive Palestinian self-rule in the areas of Jericho and Gaza.
There is a saying in Israel that if you really want to learn about the political situation in the country, the person to ask is a taxi driver.
The United States of America was built by immigrants. In the earliest days, they came from England, Holland, and Spain, often seeking freedom from religious persecution.
Israel is a modern country, much like many Western countries. It has a modern economy and offers many of the comforts of the world’s most progressive societies.
The Arabs of the Middle East are constantly in the news, one probable reason being that they control a major portion of the world’s petroleum. Islam, the religion most often associated with them…
“This land is mine. God gave this land to me,” is the opening line of the beloved song “Exodus.” Although deeply moving lyrics to the ears of an Israeli, they are inflammatory words…
A barren ruggedness marks the eastern side of the Judean Hill Country. Virtually year-round the face of these slopes is covered with only sand, stones, and deep gorges…
Regardless of your point of origin in Israel, with rare exception, if you are headed for Jerusalem, you are going up. Its elevation is nearly 3,000 feet above sea level.
It has been 25 years since those battle-begrimed young paratroopers stood looking up at the Western Wall, the last artifact of the Herodian Temple. Their faces graphically mirrored the awe engendered in the heart…
Jerusalem! The very name commands a fascination. No other city in the world has been both adorned and devastated so many times by so many different peoples over so many centuries.
The ancient rabbis said, “Ten measures of beauty descended to the world. Nine were taken by Jerusalem and one by the rest of the world.”
Anyone who has stood on the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem, and overlooked the city of Jerusalem will never forget the sight. This is especially true if it is seen as the early…
Transitions can be very difficult, but most of us are called upon to make them from time to time. One of the most difficult transitions to make is a change of vocations.
My first glimpse of the Sea of Galilee came as the early-morning winter sun kissed the surface in a brilliant, shimmering display. We were coming down from Upper Galilee on a north-south course parallel…
What did the Jewish people of Jesus’ day believe about the Messiah? What Messianic preconceptions greeted Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel?
Many questions have been asked recently about the Jewish people in Ethiopia and their immigration to Israel. These Ethiopian Jews are sometimes referred to as the Falashas. Who are they? How did they become Jewish?
At the southern end of the Huleh Valley and the northern tip of the Jordan Valley lies one of the most amazing geographical features in Israel. It is the Sea of Galilee.
One of my favorite expressions to describe Israel is Land of Contrasts. Just below the region of Dan, which was covered in the previous issue, is a valley that typifies this expression very well.
When the children of Israel first settled the Promised Land, the tribal allotment for Dan was along the coastal plain. But, by nature, the openness of the coastal plain created problems for the tribe…
“The fifth Gospel”—that’s what one professor of biblical geography called the land of Israel. His point was that the Gospel writers, when presenting the life of Christ, assumed that their readers would know exactly what..
Jews and Arabs have lived as neighbors for nearly three thousand years. The entrance of the sons of Isaac into the land of the sons of Ishmael may go back as far as the days…
Interest in rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem rose to a fever pitch last October when a group calling themselves the “Temple Mount Faithful” attempted to lay a cornerstone for the “Third Temple” at the Western…
Many Bible students are aware of the Old Testament Tabernacle, the portable sanctuary of the Lord described in graphic detail in Exodus 25-40. Fewer students however, have paid close attention to the Temple, the permanent…
A third-century rabbi, reflecting on the past history of his people, remarked, “Israel went into exile only after it became divided into twenty-four sects.”
One evidence for the Bible being the inspired and inerrant Word of God is its apparent contradictions. The fact that there are certain truths presented in the Bible that appear to conflict with each other indicates that God is the author of Scripture.
The forty years of wilderness wanderings were ending. God was completing His dealings with Israel and was about to take them into Canaan, their long-promised and long-awaited home.
The Jordan River, which forms the eastern boundary of Israel, is one of the most famous short rivers in the world. It runs through a deep canyon, the southern portion of which is well below sea level…
It is a sad fact to acknowledge that the “church” has been the biggest barrier between Jesus and the Jewish people. The medieval church assumed all of the promises to the Jews and left nothing…
For the first two hundred years of church history the relationship between Christians and their Jewish neighbors is best characterized by the phrase, an “uneasy tension.” During this period, there was no evidence of outright Christian persecution of the Jews.
The relationships between Jews and Christians have always been characterized by an uneasy tension. This tension has broken out at times into violence of the worst kind. At other times the relations between the two have been more peaceful…
The Ark of the Covenant was the central furnishing in the Tabernacle and also later in the Temple of Solomon. It was a chest made of acacia wood covered by gold, 3 ¾ feet in length and 2 ¼ feet wide and high.
The English word holocaust comes to us through Latin and is derived from a Hebrew word meaning a sacrifice taken to the altar to be burnt before God. The Old Testament Jews were familiar with this concept of total burning…
Anti-Semitism is an ugly word. Just men have always abhorred it. But, like a bad dream, it refuses to go away. Historians, social scientists, philosophers, theologians — all are hard pressed to explain this perpetual…
These simple Christian hearts are much better than our Jewish clerics who think of their wedding fees . . . .
Juma was beginning to get nervous. Some of the goats he had been tending were climbing too high up the cliffs. He decided to show his own nimbleness and climb the cliff face himself to bring them back.
On May 14, 1948 at 4:30 p.m. a dead nation was resurrected — Israel was reborn. Many predicted and millions more hoped that she would be stillborn. Four wars and thirty-one years later…
Four thousand years have extended their span between Israel’s birth, demise and rebirth as a modern state in May of 1948. This prophesied rebirth is unparalleled in all the annals of recorded history.
And the Lord shall scatter you (Israel) among all people, from one end of the earth even unto the other; and there shall you serve other gods, which neither you nor fathers have known, even wood and stone.
On May 14, 1948 Israel declared her independence as a sovereign nation. The next day six Arab nations struck against Israel with only one motive, “to push her into the sea.”
The radio voice was polished and persuasive — it was also disseminating theological absurdities. Upon listening, one would chuckle were it not for the fact that this revival of prophetic gobbledygook called British-Israelism has captivated the minds of so many people.
The land and people called Israel comprise a major unifying theme running through the Scriptures. It was Israel the PEOPLE whom God chose…