Why Today's Israel is not Biblical Israel

[June 10, 2009] The title of this post is a pun on the three divergent understandings of what "Israel" is within the Christian tradition. First, there is the Israel of the Bible; that is, the Israel of the Old Testament with its Temple, prophets, and everything else that goes along with it. Second, there is the modern political State of Israel; that is, the Israel of Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Middle East Peace Process and the associated load of baggage. Finally, there is the concept of Israel as the Church; or rather, the Church as the fulfillment and continuation of Israel.

Among evangelical Protestants in the United States one often finds a strict equivalence between the first and second defintions. The Israel of the Bible is equated with the current policitcal State of Israel; i.e., the modern country of Israel is viewed as the direct continuation of the Old Testament Kingdom of Israel. It assumes the former's authority and importance as a divinely constituted government on this earth, ruling, in some sense, by divine mandate. This flows from the presupposition that there is to be a national restoration of Israel in the last days, one of the pivotal eschatological tenets of evangelical Christianity. This belief also implies the denial that the New Testament Church is the continuation of Israel, a belief that is derisively labeled as "replacement theology."

Belief in a national restoration of Israel is not just some eccentric fringe idea of evangelical belief but is in fact central to it. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that their entire theology, and even their soteriology, centers on this one idea of the Jews being returned to their homeland, which they assert is prophesied in Scripture. This idea, then, is the key to the whole evangelical understanding of salvation history and biblical prophecy.

Does the Bible Prophesy the Restoration of Israel?

Let us first consider the main question: Does the Bible in fact predict that in the end times the Jews will return to their homeland? This is a tricky question and depends in a large part upon two other exegetical problems (1) Whether a given prophecy is to be applied literally or figuratively (2) Whether a given prophecy applies to something that has already happened or it yet to come. In this case, the evangelical idea of an end times national restoration of Israel is presupposes a strictly literal interpretation of Old Testament prophecy, as well as a general application of these prophecies to the last days (rather than Christ's first advent, the establishment of the Church, etc).

There are literally dozens and dozens of prophecies in the Old Testament that evangelicals will say apply to the end times restoration of Israel, and we really cannot go into them all here. But I will look at some of the more prominent and oft-cited verses.

Deuteronomy 4:27-28,30-31 27

And the LORD shall scatter you among the nations, and ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the LORD shall lead you. And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell. When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, [even] in the latter days, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice;(For the LORD thy God [is] a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.

The idea here is that God is warning the Jews that they will be scattered among the nations, but that if they cry to Him, even in the "latter days", God will "not forget" His covenant with them and will return them to their land. To get a national restoration of Israel at the end of time out of these verses depends on two huge assumptions:

First, assuming that "in the latter days" means the same thing to Moses in Deuteronomy as it does to fundamentalist evangelicals who use the terms "end times" and "last days." I think it is a gross exegetical blunder to simply interpret Moses' words according to a school of Protestant Dispensationalism that did not emerge until the late 19th century. In the Bible, the phrase "latter days" need not refer to the end of time, but only some period far off. For example, Isaiah 2:2 uses the phrase "latter day" to describe the period of the establishment of the Church. In Daniel 2:28, Daniel uses the phrase "latter days" to refer to the period immediately following the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, a period only one generation in the future. "Latter days" certainly can refer to the end of time (as it seems to in verses such as 1 Timothy 4:1), but in the Old Testament it is much more ambiguous and can refer to any period in the future—which means we need not interpret it strictly to refer to the end of the world only.

Second, the verse mentions only that God will not forget His covenant, but does not state that there will be a political restoration. In order to get the evangelical interpretation, we must read into the text the assumption that God "remembering His covenant" equals restoring the land. This is circular reasoning, as the evidence that remembering the covenant means restoring the land is based upon the argument that restoring the land is remembering the covenant.

Isaiah 11:11

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.

This verse states that God will recover His people a "second" time, the first time presumably being the gathering of Israel out of Egypt. Does this imply a restoration at the end of time? I don't think so—for one thing, if the recovery of Israel from Egypt was the "first" recovery, then the next recovery to happen chronologically after Isaiah's time would be the recovery of the Jews from the Babylonian exile. There is no reason to posit an end times restoration when another restoration was only two hundred years in the future.

But I don't think this verse refers to the return from Babylon, either. If we look at the verse in context, we can see that it is Messianic in nature:

In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious. In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt, from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the exiles of Israel; he will assemble the scattered people of Judah from the four quarters of the earth (Is. 11:10-12).

We see from the preceding verse that the "day" being referred to is the day when the Root of Jesse stands as a banner for all peoples and gathers the exiles together. This is clearly Messianic, refering not to an end time restoration of physical Jews according to the flesh, but to the gathering of the elect in the Church following the coming of the Son of David, which began on Pentecost when Jews from all these nations converted at the preaching of Peter. The ones who are gathered here are not simply Jews, but "the peoples" and "the nations", in addition to "his people." The vision here is not of a national restoration of physical Israel, but of a gathering of Jews and Gentiles together in the Messianic kingdom of the Son of David, something accomplished with the establishment of the Church.

Jeremiah 30:3

For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it.

Again, there is no necessary reason why this should be interpreted as referring to the end times, especially since the chapter immediately preceding concerns the captivity in Babylon. It would therefore be most natural to assume this verse is referring to the return of the Jews from Babylon. Jeremiah is seeing the lamentation of his people at their captivity and is speaking these words to comfort them. There is nothing in this verse or in the context that suggests that this "return" to the land is anything other than the return of the exiles under Ezra and Nehemiah.

Let's look at one more:

Ezekiel 36:24,33-35

For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. "Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded. And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by. And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

I found this verse cited on an evangelical website as a proof for the end times restoration of Israel. First, notice how it is cited: Ezk. 36:24, 33-35. What about verses 26 and following? We are they omitted? As we shall see, they are left out for a reason. Here are the missing verses, 26-28:

For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

When we insert the verses that were left out in the original citation, we see that they very plainly refer to baptism: the sprinkling with clean water, the new heart, new spirit—all of this speaks of the new birth that comes to us through the sacrament, not to an end time restoration of physical Israel. This is one of the cases where the prophecies attributed to Israel are applicable to the spiritual realities brought about by the New Testament sacraments. In the evangelical interpretation we can see a bias favoring the verses that talk about dwelling in the land and returning to the cities while ignoring the ones that talk about a new heart, spiritual renewal, etc. This is understandable, the Jews that inhabit modern day Israel do not have a new heart or God's Spirit;e.g., they have not been "sprinkled" with clean water in baptism. Therefore, these verses have to be ignored if the fundamentalist ideal of a physical Jewish restoration is to be upheld.

There are more passages we could study, but you get the idea. Most of the prophecies cited to support the idea of a restored Israel are of a similar kind: more feasibly applicable to some other event, or else Messianic prophecies that are ignored because they refer to the glorification or spread of the Church.

But beyond these fallacious interpretations of Old Testament prophecy (i.e., beyond the fact that the Old Testament does not prophesy a restored national Israel), I can offer six more reasons why the political State of Israel is not a to be viewed as a continuation of Old Testament Israel.

1) Most Jews Don't Live in Israel

Even if we grant that the Old Testament predicts a Jewish restoration (which it doesn't), then we have to take account of the fact that despite the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, most Jews in the world do not live there. As of 2023, the Census Bureau of Israel reported 7,145,000 Jews within Israel. The United States alone has 6.2 million Jews within it, and there are approximately 16,200,000 Jews worldwide. That means less than half of the Jews in the world reside in Israel. This being the case, it makes the argument that the current State of Israel is the promised divine restoration look a little silly; God said He would gather them from all the corners of the earth, yet after fifty years not even one half of all Jews are in Israel. What kind of restoration is that?

2) The State of Israel is not a Kingdom

If we grant the evangelicals the boon of taking these prophecies to refer to some end times restoration, we must point out that the Israel the Scriptures speak of is always a kingdom, not a democracy with a prime minister. The verses that are applied to an end time restoration of Israel never speak of this without refering to the house of David:

Hosea 3:5: And after this the children of Israel shall return, and shall seek the Lord their God, and David their king: and they shall fear the Lord, and his goodness in the last days.

This verse refers specifically to the "last days" and connects the repentance of Israel with the seeking of "David their king." The State of Israel has nothing to do with monarchy or the house of David, and therefore cannot be what is prophesied. Of course, this just goes to show how these verses should be applied to the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of the Church rather than to some fictional end time restoration.

3) No Proof That This Restoration is the Final Restoration

If we grant, again, that there will be a restoration, how do we know that this current incarnation of Israel is the final, definitive one? We don't. As a parallel, we know the Scriptures say that a great persecution will be inflicted on the Church at the end of time. That does not mean, however, that the next persecution will be the final one, or that there won't be a hundred more persecutions before the end. It just means there will be a persecution at the end, but doesn't help one fit any current or future persecution into any sort of time frame.

Similarly, the nation of Israel, as it currently exists, could end up being dispersed. The Jews could be dispersed and restored a thousand times before the end. We have no way of knowing that this particular restoration of the political State of Israel is the final incarnation of the political power of the Jews.

4) The Current State of Israel Has the Wrong Borders

If we are going with the evangelical literalism with regards to the State of Israel, we have to accept the as literal the Old Testament descriptions of where exactly the land of Israel begins and ends.

First, here is a map of ancient Israel, from "Dan to Beersheba" as the Scriptures always say:

Notice specifically the amount of territory east of the Dead Sea, in Ammon and Moab, which was partitioned out by God and given to the tribes of Reuben, gad and Manasseh, according to Joshua 1:12-18. This land was part of God's divine patrimony to the Israelites, and without it there cannot be said to be a restored Israel. Now, here is a map of modern Israel:

Notice that not only is all of the territory east of the Dead Sea missing, but likewise an enormous swath west of the Dead Sea as well (this is Samaria, or the West Bank as it is now called, which is administered by the Palestinian Authority and possessed by Palestinians). Here is a great map showing how ancient Israel and modern Israel overlap:

According to the Scriptures, the land that God gave the Israelites stretches "from the wilderness of the Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea and the going down of the sun" (Jos. 1:4). Any Israel which lacks these territories cannot be the restored Israel. Again, I would ask, what kind of restoration is God doing when He only brings back 40% of the people to 60% of the land?

Incidentally, this gives rise to a Zionist irredentism, seeking to "redeem" the lands of ancient Israel still held by the Gentiles and is the reason why these regions are so contested: Zionists know that, according to this ideology, their Israel cannot really be the prophesied Israel unless it possesses these lands. This forces the fundamentalists to come up with a type of "divided restoration" theory: God gave part of the land back in 1948 but He will give the rest back later. It is a terribly confusing way to get around the plain truth of what the Bible is really trying to tell us about Israel.

5) Israel Does Not Possess The Temple Mount

Every prophecy of restored Israel cited by the evangelicals has as its center the Jerusalem Temple (leading many to expect and desire a restored Jewish Temple). Take, for example, Isaiah 2:1-3:

This is what Isaiah, son of Amoz, saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come, The mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it; many peoples shall come and say: "Come, let us climb the LORD'S mountain, to the house of the God of Jacob, That he may instruct us in his ways, and we may walk in his paths." For from Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

All of the peoples are coming towards the Lord's "house," which evangelicals interpret as a literal temple. But how can Israel be this restored Israel if there is (a) no Temple, and more importantly, (b) the Jewish people do not even control the site of the Temple Mount?

In the ancient world, possession of a city is reckoned by who controls its most central citadel or temple complex area. In ancient Rome, for example, though the Gauls seized almost all of Rome in 387 BC, the Romans declared that the city had not really been conquered because the Gauls had failed to capture the Capitoline Hill. The essential city was seen to be identical with the one hill upon which the temple complexes and important government buildings stood. Though one could conquer most of the urban areas of Rome, if you had not seized Capitoline Hill, the city had not yet fallen.

Similarly, the Jews identified Jerusalem with the Temple. A restored Israel without the Temple, or at least the Temple site, would be ludicrous. The fact that the Al-Aqsa mosque stands on the Temple Mount is a perpetual reminder that the current State of Israel is not any special divinely constituted kingdom. Unless the Jews control the Temple Mount, there is no restored kingdom.

6) Israel is a Secular State

Israel was founded as a bastion of democracy in the midst of the autocratic Muslim states of the Middle East. As part of its democracy, it has adopted secularism. Though Israel describes itself as a "Jewish state," there is complete freedom of religion enshrined in law, making Israel a secular state by definition, a far cry from the utopian visions of a restored Israel in which "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isa. 11:9). Like the democracies on which it is modeled, Israel has no established religion and is officially secular.

Furthermore, as in America, the degree to which the Jews in Israel practice their faith is questionable. In 2007, a poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute found that only 27% of Israeli Jews say that they keep the Sabbath, while 53% said they do not keep it at all. While 85% of Israeli Jews participate in the Passover, only 65% said they even believe in God. As of 2015 the numbers had gotten considerably worse with 65% of Israelis saying they are "not religious" or "convinced atheists." More than half of all Israelis describe themselves as secular (as opposed to orthodox or ultra-orthodox). Therefore, we have only 35% of the Jews (representing only 15% of the world total) who believe in God, living in 60% of the land. If we were to narrow it down to asking if they believed in God and all of the tenets of Judaism, we would probably see the percentage get even smaller.

The restored Israel asserted by the evangelicals is supposed to be a godly, righteous nation where everybody worships God and lives in justice and equity. This is hardly the case in modern Israel. The restored Israel, if it existed, would need be a theocracy, not a secular democracy.

Conclusion: Reject Protestant Theses

Those are my reasons why the State of Israel is not the continuation of the Old Testament kingdom. Of course, we could also cite the fact that none of the Church Fathers or Doctors have asserted that there would be a restored Israel (though many did believe the Jews would convert to Christianity in the end).

This, of course, does not deter fundamentalists in their Christian Zionism, in which Israel is a fantasy-land rather than a real place wherein blasphemous and blatantly anti-Christian things are supported in order to further a false utopian conceptualization of the "Kingdom of God." Many adopt a kind of split-chronology to get around some of the problems I brought up. Yes, they would say, Israel is lacking the Temple, some of its land, its population, etc. But what was established in 1948 was nevertheless the seed, the "fig" that puts forth its shoots, as Jesus says, and that soon the rest that is lacking will be filled up and the Messiah will come down to reign from the physical Jerusalem for 1,000 years.

This, of course, is a profoundly Protestant eschatology that has no place in Catholic thought. Catholics ought to reject these Dispensationalist theses and adhere to the traditional Catholic understanding of the Church itself as the continuation of Israel.