Paper 1
"The Lord has afflicted His Zion,
The City He loved so well,
Where He deign'd, like a couching lion,
In glory and strength to dwell.
And why has Jehovah forsaken
The place of His ancient throne,
His Vine from the wilderness taken,
To flourish for Him alone?
Ah! deem not the Holy One cruel.
Had Israel loved His will,
She had sparkled the costliest jewel,
The beauty of nations still;
The Lord had been still her defender,
And she, the queen of the earth,
In holiness, freedom and splendour,
Had gloried in Shiloh's birth.
But she fell — and her crown of glory
Was struck from her rebel brow,
And with feet all wounded and gory
She wanders in exile now.
Yet, sad one, distrust not our pity;
Though some may wring out thy tears,
We will weep for the Holy City,
And sorrow o'er former years.
Thou art stricken, dethroned and lowly,
Bereft of a home on earth,
Yet still to our hearts thou art holy,
Thou land of Messiah's birth!
He sprang from thy chosen of daughters,
His star o'er thy hills arose,
He bathed in thy soft-flowing waters,
And wept o'er thy coming woes.
He wept, who in secret yet lingers,
With yearnings of heart, over thee;
He, He, whom thy blood-sprinkled fingers
Once nailed to the cursed tree.
Dark deed! it was thine to afflict Him;
Yet longs His soul for the day
When thou in the blood of thy Victim
Shall wash thy deep stains away.
Thou land of the Cross, and the glory,
Whose brightness at last will shine —
Afar through the earth — what a story
Of darkness and light is thine!
He died as a lamb; — as a lion
He spares thee, nor can forget
His desolate exiles of Zion,
He waits to be gracious yet."
The deliverance of Jerusalem from the yoke of the Turk is undoubtedly the outstanding event of the war. It has thrilled the whole civilized world and set Jewry in every land rejoicing. Its immediate influence on the present titanic struggle may not be so great as would have been a signal victory to the allied arms on the Western front, but it has its significance in regard to a larger issue, even that of the establishment of Christ's kingdom on the earth and the wider outlook of permanent peace for every tribe and nation under heaven. Its significance lies in the fact that the British Government has declared that its determined policy is to restore the land to the Jewish people as a nation, and this policy has behind it the approval and the conscience of the whole of the British peoples.
It is plainly set forth in the sure word of prophecy that the reign of righteousness for which the whole creation groans will be inaugurated by the personal presence of the Lord Jesus Christ; that Jerusalem will be the metropolis of His earth-wide kingdom, and that the children of Jacob must be gathered into the land promised to their fathers before these things can be. So that this solemn pledge given on the part of the British Government indicates unmistakably the direction of the march of events. And the whole world has taken notice of it, and Christians are rejoicing, and the Jews in every land are "sounding the loud timbrel" as though this brilliant feat of arms in Palestine and the surrender of Jerusalem to the British would immediately end the long travail of Jacob's Children, and usher in the kingdom of the Lord.
But this is not the case. This event is the prelude to the opening of the darkest chapter in the chequered history of this remarkable race, and Jerusalem has still to pass through her most appalling hour.
Bright hopes will arise in the breasts of those who look not to God and believe not His word, but who put their trust in an arm of flesh. These hopes will rise high as the holy land becomes peopled with its rightful nation. But then shall come the rule of the scornful men who make lies their refuge (Isa. 28:14-15); and of Antichrist; then shall come the "time of Jacob's trouble" (Jer. 30:7); of "the great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be" (Matt. 24:21) a time in which if the days are not shortened no flesh shall be saved (v. 22); and the fowls shall summer upon Israel and the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them (Isa. 18:6) until all hope in man's help is extinguished and they are prepared to say, "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the Lord our God" (Ps. 20:7).
Before considering more closely what the Word has to say as to the things to come, let us cast our thoughts back and learn how the future of this great city is mirrored in its early annals as given to us in the Scriptures, and learn also that God cannot be thwarted in the fulfilment of His purposes, no matter how long they may be delayed by the opposition of Satan and the unbelief of men.
Genesis 14 — King of Salem and God's Purpose
Arguments have been advanced to prove that Salem, of which Melchizedek was king, was not Jerusalem, but Psalm 76 settles this question for us. Consequently we take Genesis 14 to be the first allusion to the city in the Scriptures, and there we see God's purpose as to its great destiny. Melchizedek appears as the priest of the Most High God, who is possessor of heaven and earth, and in whose hands lies the final disposal of all things; he appears to refresh and gladden and bless Abram after his victorious fight with the kings in the valley of Shaveh, and in this, his dramatic and only appearance in the word, he stands out as a beautiful foreshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ as the great royal Priest. Righteousness and peace are to be the two great characteristics of the coming Kingdom of Christ. He was King of Righteousness and King of Salem — Peace, and God's purpose is to set Him as His King in Zion. It is also written of Him, "The Lord has sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek" (Ps. 110). And again, "Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord: even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule upon his throne; and HE SHALL BE A PRIEST UPON HIS THRONE; and the counsel of peace shall be between them both" (Zech. 6:12-13). And again, "… The prince of peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this" (Isa. 9:6-7). Christ is the King who shall reign in righteousness, and Jerusalem, the city of sin and sorrow, shall be Salem, His tabernacle, from which peace shall flow to the uttermost bounds of His domain. He will bring forth the bread and wine of divine blessing to comfort and invigorate and gladden that distressed yet godly remnant that shall endure through the great tribulation and whose faith shall gain for them the victory over all their enemies (Matt. 24:13; Zeph. 3:12-13). And then will they respond to the challenge, "Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem … The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not … The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing" (Zeph. 3:14-17). And then shall the words be true, "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of His holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge" (Ps. 48). And this city is to be the centre as well as the joy of the whole earth, and all nations shall go up year by year to it, to worship the King, the Lord of hosts (Zech. 14:17). Wonderful indeed is the future of Jerusalem, wonderful because the Lord has chosen to place His Name there.
Joshua 10 — Adoni-zedec — Antichrist
The second mention of the city occurs in Joshua 10, and there we learn that an implacable foe to God's purpose and people had established himself there. And this king, Adoni-zedec, became the leader of a confederation of kings, the sworn foes of any who were not the foes of God's people. He sets forth that opposition to the will of God which grew strong in Jerusalem and took complete possession of it when the Son of God, who came in His Father's name, was led forth bearing His cross to Golgotha. This opposition will be personified in Antichrist who shall come in his own name, and shall yet reign at Jerusalem. He will be inspired by Satan to persecute and endeavour to exterminate God's elect (Rev. 13:15; Matt. 24:22), and then finally to fight against the Lamb in order to hold the city against Him (Rev. 19:19-20). But in standing up against the Prince of princes he shall be broken without hand (Dan. 8:5). And just as Joshua made the captains of his army put their feet upon the necks of Adoni-zedec and his allies, so will the Lord give His saints complete victory over Antichrist and all their enemies, and will lead them, as the true Joshua, into the rest that remaineth for the people of God.
Judges 1:5-7 — The Harvest of Tribulation
In Judges 1:5-9 we have a further mention of the city, and here we learn the third outstanding fact in the history of Jerusalem and its people, namely, that in them has been and will yet be exemplified that stern law, "What a man sows that shall he also reap." We read that "Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued after him, and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes." Such treatment of a fallen foe seems both unchivalrous and cruel, but the reason of it is not hidden from us, as he had served others so was he served. He immediately acknowledges the justice of his punishment, and in that state of self-judgment is brought to Jerusalem.
In no city in the world has this law of sowing and reaping operated so inexorably as in Jerusalem, her history since she became the city of David is one long record of it. But for the greatest of all her crimes she has yet to suffer. She rejected her Messiah, spat in His face, delivered Him to the pagan power, and cried, "His blood be upon us and our children," and held high festival when He was crucified as a malefactor. That generation reaped a fearful harvest from this sowing, for according to Josephus 1,100,000 perished during the siege of Titus in A.D.70, and the temple and its precincts "were so thoroughly levelled and dug up that no one visiting would believe it had ever been inhabited." But the harvest of that crime has not been fully reaped. The woes through which the city has passed will be exceeded in the time of Jacob's trouble, until it will seem as though none would survive. But those sufferings will bring the nation to repentance before God, they will cry to Him for deliverance, and not till then shall the terrible entail be broken. Their Messiah will appear for their deliverance, and when they look upon Him whom they had pierced their sorrow will be deep and real and they will acknowledge the justice of their punishment, and the Lord will comfort them and lead them, a repentant and restored people, into Jerusalem, a redeemed and restored city (Zech. 12:10-14; 13:1; 14:1-4; Isa. 52:9).
2 Samuel 5 — David takes the city — Zion
In 2 Samuel 5 Jerusalem emerges from the unimportant place that it had occupied in Israel and becomes the great centre and pride of the nation, but for this the God-appointed king had to appear, and he it was who subdued it completely for the first time, and called it Zion.
The Jebusites had held the city since the entrance of Israel into the land. They were descendants of the accursed Canaan, and their name means "trodden down." May they not represent man in his unregenerate condition — whether Jew or Gentile, who remains "blind and lame" in spite of all advantages, even those advantages that the law gives? May they not represent for us the state of man, under the yoke of sin and trodden down by Satan, needing to be born again, needing the grace of God ministered from the throne of which Zion speaks? We are persuaded that this is the lesson we are to learn here from.
It was David the King who took possession of Zion. But the blind and the lame that were in it were abhorred by him, the grace that could deliver such from their bondage was not in him, its manifestation awaits the coming of "Great David's greater Son." He has already been, and as He walked in His temple, Zion's true but unrecognized King, and "THE BLIND AND THE LAME CAME TO HIM, and He healed them" (Matt. 21:14). And when His kingdom shall be established in Zion, "the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped, and the lame man shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing" (Isa. 35:5-6).
David was the rejected and suffering man of God's choice, and afterwards the warrior and victorious king, and the turning of the city of the Jebusites into Zion by him tells of how the once suffering and rejected Christ, soon to come forth as the warrior king, will establish Israel in blessing not on the ground of law, but on the principle of grace, that is instead of their blessing depending as of old upon their faithfulness, they will draw everything through Christ from God. "And this is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord; I will put my laws into their minds and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people: and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord: for all shall know Me from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more" (Heb. 8:10-12). There we get what Zion will mean to Israel.
David who in figure established Zion prepared for the building within it of the temple of God, that in the people's worship there might ascend to God a suited response to His grace to them, and it is a point of deepest interest to note that the spot chosen for God's house, the spot from which peace offerings and burnt offerings ascended to God from the altar that David built, was the threshing floor of a Jebusite, Araunah by name. He had two names — Araunah, which means "Jah is firm," and Oman, which means "strong." And it was at the threshing floor of this Jebusite that the sword of judgment was arrested. Was he one of those weak Jebusites who had become strong in the sense of Jehovah's firmness and faithfulness to His own word and name? It would seem so. Indeed in the knowledge of God he seems to have been for the moment greater than David, for it is recorded of him, "All these things did Araunah, AS A KING, give to the king. And Araunah said to the king, The Lord thy God accept thee" (2 Sam. 24:30). Pity that David spoilt the beauty and grace of that by insisting upon paying for all he got.
But it will be in the sense of God's faithfulness, the firmness of Jah to His own word, that Jerusalem will be established, and that the people will draw near to Him in His holy temple. Psalm 89 gives us a most beautiful unfolding of God's word and His faithfulness to it, and when Salem becomes His tabernacle and His dwelling-place Zion, Jerusalem and all Israel will say, "Blessed be the Lord forever more. Amen and Amen."
Paper 2
The Christian's immediate hope is the coming of the Lord to catch away from this world His church, so that his first and most fervent prayer should be, "Even so, Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22). But He has also taught us another prayer, "Thy kingdom come"; and as this concerns His glory as well as peace for the earth, we must not forget it. That kingdom cannot come until He has Jerusalem in full possession.
Those who are praying "Thy kingdom come" not with their lips only, but from their hearts, have a better and fuller desire than mere victory for the Allied arms. They are not looking for the triumph of right as that is understood by the great democracies of the world, but they are awaiting the time for which all God's saints have hoped when His good and righteous will shall be done on earth; they have a better outlook than that all nations should be ruled according to their own "self-determination," namely, that all shall be according to God's determination, and His kingdom shall be established in His own way, for only so can permanent peace shed its blessings upon mankind.
Everybody wants peace, but Germany will not seek it because her leaders know that their depredatory ambitions will receive no consideration from the Allied powers unless they are enforced by the sword, and the Allied powers want peace, but they know that their aims can only be reached across the prostrate carcase of the hated and hateful military force. So the struggle continues, each battling for these opposing aims. But has God no purposes and aims? He surely has. And His children should be concerned as to what His aims are, so that they may pray earnestly, intelligently and prevailing, "Father, Thy name be hallowed, Thy kingdom come" (Luke 11:2, N.Tr.).
We may be sure that He who is "the God of peace," and "the preserver of all men," will not permit this awful conflict to continue one moment longer than is necessary for the attainment of His aims in allowing it at all. British statesmen have assured us that if they could righteously and for the general good call a halt they would do so at once, and we do not doubt them. But is God less righteous or compassionate than they? "The Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." His children who know that His purpose is final and universal blessing will not grow impatient at the continued strife, but their spirits will be kept in quietness, and they will maintain constant watchfulness with their earnest praying for the moving of God's hand in the affairs of men.
The withdrawal of Russia from the Allied cause is probably looked upon as the worst set-back that the Allies have sustained since the war began, and by it no doubt victory has been long delayed. But let us look at it from the standpoint of our prayer, "Thy kingdom come," and see if we may not learn something from it in the light of that.
The Bolsheviks have published a memorandum in which is summarised the secret agreement entered into by Great Britain, France, and Russia in 1916. In this agreement Palestine occupies a considerable place, but the hopes of the Jewish nation in regard to it do not seem to have been considered. Great Britain was to secure the two most important and strategical points of Haifa on the Red Sea and Acre on the Mediterranean, but for the rest it was agreed, according to the report of the British Palestine Committee, that, "with a view of securing the religious interests of the Entente powers, Palestine, with the Holy places, is separated from Turkish territory, and subjected to a special regime to be determined by an agreement between Russia, France and England." "The religious interests" of an avowed atheistic government such as France is reads strangely! But had victory come to the Entente with Russia in it, and this agreement had been put into force, Jewish hopes in regard to Jerusalem and Palestine would certainly have been thwarted. Meanwhile, however, Czardom has fallen, anarchy has taken the place of autocracy in Russia, and those who claim power in that distressed country have repudiated this agreement, so that it drops out of the Allied aims, and in its place there springs up the British declaration — one of the wisest it has ever made — that, as soon as they are able they will establish in Palestine an autonomous Jewish state. And the sooner the better, for universal peace can only flow from Jerusalem, with the chosen people in possession under the glorious and righteous administration of the Prince of Peace, the Messiah of Israel, our Lord Jesus Christ. So that the fall of Czardom and the withdrawal of Russia from the conflict has brought upon the horizon the fulfilment of God's word in regard to these people and their land, without which His kingdom cannot come. In this we ought to discern the hand of God.
At a great meeting of Jews in America, it was said by one of their chief rabbis that they had full cause for joy, for though this declaration was only "a scrap of paper" it was written in English. And that was certainly a tribute to British loyalty to her pledged word. But the declaration that the Jews shall have that land has been written in a more ancient and glorious language, and pledged to them by a greater and more faithful power; it has been written in Hebrew by the Holy Spirit and pledged to them by God, the Almighty, who cannot lie. "For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could sware by no greater, He sware by Himself, saying, Blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. For verily men swear by a greater … but God, willing more abundantly to show to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation" (Heb. 6:13-18).
It may help us to briefly trace out God's ways with this people since the time when He pledged His word to their father Abraham, when He called Him out from Ur and separated him from the idolatry of the Chaldees. The twelfth and twenty-second chapters of Genesis give us the covenant that God made with him and the oath wherewith He confirmed it. But before God's promises and purposes could be fulfilled in regard to Abraham's seed, there were four things necessary: a COUNTRY in which they could develop, not under a culture "of their" self-determination, but under God's own culture; a CITY whose firm foundation shall be righteousness and from which shall be administered the peace-giving laws of God; a TEMPLE in which they could approach their God and Blesser in responsive worship; and a KING who shall give them protection from every outward foe, and who shall lead them as a shepherd in the paths of righteousness, and harmonize every phase of their national and domestic life into one glorious whole for a pattern to the nations and for the glory of God. The country is Canaan, the city is Zion, the plans and specifications of the temple have been issued, AND THE KING IS JESUS. And to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen.
The people themselves were not only to be a chosen people, but a redeemed people, and the paschal lamb in Egypt, signified this: it was a type of the Lamb of God, by whose blood alone can men be redeemed. These people had to owe their position to God's sovereign choice, their life to the blood of the lamb, and their deliverance from their oppressors to the power of God. And so He brought them out of bondage and sent them into the land to possess it and to destroy the inhabitants of it. And here the critic of God's Word, and the caviller at His ways, steps up and charges Him with cruelty and injustice. But they are superficial thinkers and dishonest judges; they jump to conclusions without examining the evidence. God kept the people to whom He had apportioned that land in the fiery furnace of Egypt, in His patience with the wicked inhabitants of Canaan, for four hundred years, and did not proceed to execute His judgment upon their horrible transgression of all His laws until the cup of their iniquity was full. In Leviticus 18:25 the condition of the land is described and the reason for God's way given. "The land is defiled: therefore do I visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomitteth out her inhabitants." Thus was God's judgment of them justified.
He gave Israel the country, and then a King when He raised up David from amongst the people, to be their shepherd, and David subdued the Jebusite and captured the CITY and there made preparation for the building of the TEMPLE that was reared resplendent by Solomon his son.
Here, then, were the four things necessary for the development of these people according to God, but these were only temporary, until the time for the true King to appear, and by them the people were to be tested in order to see how far they would, of their own volition, live in accordance to God's will for them. The conditions could not have been more favourable: all their enemies were subdued; the land flowed with milk and honey; the wealth of Jerusalem was so vast that silver was of no more account than the stones of the street; the fear of them fell upon all nations, and the kings of the whole earth sent or came up to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of their king, "for his wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men." "So King Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth for riches and for wisdom, and all the earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart." We learn, too, how far he had advanced in the knowledge of God by his address to the people and his prayer to God at the dedication of the temple, and greater and better than all "THE GLORY OF THE LORD FILLED THE HOUSE OF THE LORD."
Here Jerusalem reached her ancient zenith, but the glory soon began to wane, and that splendid king led the people down a steep road, gathering into his kingdom apes, and peacocks, strange women and idols, indicating the folly, vanity, corruption and heathen abominations into which they descended. How discouraging this would be if we had no hope save in man's "self-determination," but the Scriptures help us, and from them we learn that the blessing that God has purposed shall flow out to all nations from Zion can only come through the One who is greater than Solomon, and that one CHRIST. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He says not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, to thy seed, which is Christ" (Gal. 3:16).
Israel and Jerusalem travelled fast on the downward road upon which Solomon started them. "They mingled with the heathen and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare to them. Yea, they sacrificed their sons and daughters to devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood" (Ps. 106:35-38). Each of those nations of Canaan, that they ought to have driven out, had its own special god — a demon (Deut. 32:17; 1 Cor. 10:20), in connection with which was some special abomination, for these powers of darkness which inspired this awful idolatry worked upon the basest passions of men. But when Israel and Jerusalem departed from God, they did not choose one idol and one abomination only, they took in all and every one. And these evil powers behind the idols, demons, that seem to have been satisfied hitherto each of them to hold one nation in thrall, now were all eager to exercise their malign influence over God's people, and to establish their authority in His metropolis; and the people, alas, were willing, and so every nameless abomination found a home amongst them, until their transgressions became more horrible than those of the nations that occupied the land before them. How vividly the prophet Ezekiel brings all this out.
The consequence was that "the wrath of the Lord was kindled against His people, insomuch that He abhorred His inheritance. And He gave them into the hands of the heathen, and they that hated them ruled over them. Their enemies also oppressed them; and they were brought into subjection under their hand" (Ps. 106). Less than five hundred years after the crown of all Israel had been placed upon David's brow, the sovereignty passed from his house and was given to Nebuchadnezzar the King of Babylon, and the "Times of the Gentiles" began, and the Jews became of subject race. But did God forsake them? No.
"He caring for the vineyard of His choosing,
Sent them His prophets till the day was done;
Bore with their churls, their wrath, and their refusing,
Gave them at last the glory of His Son."
What a moment that was when the star stood over Bethlehem, pointing the spot where the young child lay, and guiding the Eastern princes with their gifts to EMMANUEL! But all Jerusalem was troubled when they heard of it. The city had thrown off the abominations of the heathen, but so proud were its leaders that they would not recognize in that lowly Babe their great Messiah. And when He presented Himself to them, fulfilling the words of the prophet Zechariah, "Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold thy king comes to thee meek and sitting on an ass," they asked contemptuously, "Who is this?" He gave them the opportunity of facing and answering that all-important question, when He said to them, "What think ye of Christ? Whose Son is He?" Readily they answered, "The Son of David." Then came the final question, for which they had no answer, and which exposed their blindness. "He says to them, How then doth David in spirit call Him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, sit down at my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then called Him Lord, how is He his Son?" This surely was the test question, for them and for us, and for all mankind. He was David's Lord — the eternal God; He was David's Son — a man. Unfathomed and unfathomable mystery! The revelation of God for the salvation of Israel and the blessing of the world! But that salvation and blessing were postponed because they would neither own nor have Him. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, but it knew Him not, He came to His own but His own received Him not. When they saw Him they hated Him, and said. "This is the heir, come let us kill him." And, "We will not have this man to reign over us."
Jerusalem the beloved city, over which He had wept, cried, "Away with Him," and held high festival when her blood-stained hands had nailed her suffering Messiah to a cursed cross. Yes, that generation, more privileged than any that have gone before, crowned the centuries of Jerusalem's lawlessness by this foulest of all deeds, in the presence of which the sun shrank into darkness and the earth trembled.
But that deed, which showed man's utter and awful hatred against God, was taken by God to be the manifestation of the fullness of His love to men, and there upon that cross on that "green hill far away" love — divine, all-conquering, eternal — celebrated its triumph. The glory of that cross shall fill the whole of that land and the universe also, for only through it can the promised blessing come to Israel and the world.
The last time Zion saw Him was when He hung dead, amid all those circumstances of deepest shame, with a crown of thorns bound upon His sacred brow, and over His head this superscription written: THIS IS JESUS, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
The chief priests and the Pharisees took counsel to put Jesus to death because said they, "If we let Him thus alone … the Romans will come and take away both our place and nation." To get rid of Him they pretended loyalty to the Roman Caesar, but their hypocrisy recoiled upon their guilty heads and the very thing that they feared happened to them thirty-six years after they had expressed that fear. Titus reduced the city and its temple to ashes and the foundations of the sacred edifice were ploughed up by the Roman soldiers. Thus, without knowing what they did, literally fulfilling the Lord's own words, that "not one stone should be left upon another that should not be thrown down." The aged and infirm of those left alive in the city were killed, the children under seventeen were sold as slaves, and the rest were sent, some to the mines in Egypt, some to grace the triumph of Titus at Rome, and others scattered to various parts of the Empire. But it was not until the reign of Hadrian A.D. 135 that the people who had regathered in the ruined city were finally dispersed. For two years the insurgent Jews held out against the Romans, fighting with the courage of despair. But worn out by famine and disease they were compelled to yield. Their historians say that the Romans "waded to their horses' bridles in blood, which flowed with the fury of a mountain torrent"; 580,000 are said to have fallen by the sword, while the number of victims from other causes was countless. Hadrian determined to obliterate Jerusalem as a city, the ruins that Titus had left were razed to the ground, and again was the ploughshare passed over "as a sign of perpetual desolation," according to the desolator, but fulfilling the prophecy of Micah uttered nine centuries before, "Therefore shall Zion for your sake be a ploughed field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest (Mic. 3:12).
Several attempts were made to rebuild the temple, which all failed, the last by the apostle Julian; when an earthquake, a whirlwind and a fiery eruption compelled the workmen to abandon their labour.
Since then Jerusalem has been, according to the Lord's own words, "trodden under foot of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). Thus Zion and her people fell, and
"The crown of glory
Was struck from her rebel brow,
And with feet all wounded and gory
She wanders an exile now."
What a confirmation of the Word of God has the subsequent history of that nation been. More than 3000 years ago Moses warned them that if they rebelled against God's will they would "become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the nations whither the Lord shall lead thee" (Deut. 28:7). And the closing words of his warning are so descriptive of their long travail and so moving that they can scarce be read without tears. We quote them to show how true is the prophetic word. "And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even to the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind: and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shall have none assurance of thy life: in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see" (Deut. 28:63-67).
There is no need for us to recount the awful persecutions through which these people have passed in every country of Europe, but mostly in Russia. Like the bush that Moses saw in the desert they have been continually burnt with fire but are not consumed, and though scattered for all these centuries in all countries they are absorbed by none. They are the miracle of the ages, one of the greatest concrete proofs of the infallibility of the Word of God and of the justice of His governmental ways. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
And has God forgotten them? And are His promises made to their father's to fail? Never.
But the road that they have yet to travel, and how they will reach at last their final goal of blessing must be reserved for another paper, if the Lord will.
Paper 3
The well-known Zionist movement has unified and made articulate Jewish sentiment the world over. Its great object is to secure Palestine as the home of the nation. It is not the only movement afoot with the same object in view, but it is the greatest and most expressive of the hopes of Jewry. There can be no doubt but that in it is seen the fulfilment of the first part of Ezekiel's vision of the Dry Bones (chap. 37). For centuries the nation has been scattered amongst the Gentiles, with neither country, flag, nor king, nor national life. Their bones were very dry, and their hope was lost, and they were cut off from their parts (v. 11). But God has not forgotten them. He has said, "Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel and ye shall know that I am the Lord" (v. 12). God's clock seems to be about to strike the hour when this word shall be made good to them. As in the vision, bone is coming to bone and flesh and sinews are coming upon them, the unity of this people is appearing and they are speaking out their demands with no uncertain voice. The second part of the vision in which the nation is seen throbbing with life towards God will not be fulfilled yet, not until they have travelled the rough road of Jacob's sorrow which will bring them to full repentance for the rejection of their Messiah.
The first Zionist Congress was held in 1897, when the Jewish flag was raised, and Theodor Herzl of Vienna declared that the only solution of the Jewish question was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. This declaration was taken up with great enthusiasm by the younger Jews, and organizations were formed all over the world. The awakening is a national one, and of intense feeling, as can be judged by their rallying songs, of which the following lines are a sample.
"My brothers, my brothers! O wandering, aimless hordes!
A clarion from Zion is speaking for the Lord!
The thundering heavens command: Arise a mighty band,
With heart and voice make now the choice —
And straightway seek your land."
But as long as the Turk held the land there seemed small hope of the realization of this great object, and colonies elsewhere were tried, notably in Argentina, but though millions were spent on these schemes they came to nothing. At the 1903 Congress, Dr. Herzl announced that the British Government had offered to send a commission to inquire into the practicability of establishing an autonomous Jewish state in the East African Protectorate. But the project was dropped at a subsequent Congress. Nothing but the land of their fathers would satisfy their national hopes.
Large numbers of Jews, chiefly from Russia and Roumania, helped by their richer compatriots settled in Palestine, and considerable progress was made in colonizing, and the cultivation of the land. The fields waved golden in summer breezes, the grapes hung plenteous in the glorious sun, and the olives yielded their precious oil. But the war came and many of these immigrants fled the country or were banished; the land was laid waste and those who were left upon it reduced to the direst straits, and Zionism seemed to be set back many years.
But now has come General Allenby's victory and the British declaration that His Majesty's Government viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use its best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of its object."
Early in February of this year a Congress of the English Zionist Federation was held in London, and it was then stated that before the war negotiations had been opened for the securing of a site upon the Mount of Olives for the building of a Jewish University. The war compelled the suspension of the negotiations, but so keen are these Zionists in the matter that the very day after Jerusalem was occupied by the British the negotiations were resumed and have been brought to a successful conclusion. "Not tarrying for peace, but within the sound of the guns, Jewry asks His Majesty's Government to permit full investigation in the feasibility of the scheme for founding a Jewish University in Palestine, and should military and political exigences permit to take steps for the initiation of the undertaking. The British reply of God speed is at once a tribute to the petitioned and the petitioner" (Extract from Palestine). Losing no time in the matter, the Government has authorized the Zionist Federation to send a commission to Palestine and has appointed a capable officer to join it.
The very definite pledge on the part of the British Government seems to mark it out as "the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia," spoken of in Isaiah 18. It has been pointed out that the "Woe" at the commencement of the chapter should be "Ah," and that it is an exclamation of compassion. The land in question is evidently a maritime nation and has given protection to the Jews; for "the shadowing with wings" speaks of this, it is a well-known figure in Scripture. No land has given such a refuge to these downtrodden people as England has, and now she is taking them especially under her wing and that with the view of putting them into Palestine. But whatever is done in this way, and whoever does it, all the inhabitants of the earth shall see it (v. 3); it is to be a matter of international politics, probably one of the chief questions at the settlement when the war ceases.
But what will the outcome of it be? Most promising at first, for the bud will be perfect and the sour grape ripening in the flower, when God shall cut off the sprigs with the pruning hooks and take away and cut down the branches and they shall be left together to the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the fowls shall summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them (vv. 5-6). In these vivid sentences is described "the great tribulation" through which they must pass ere they reach the blessing and rest of Messiah's kingdom.
But why must this unspeakable sorrow come upon them? Because they will go into the land proud and unbroken; they will glory in the WISDOM of the professors who will be installed at their university, and the legislators who will frame their constitution; and in the RICHES of the great financiers of their race which will be poured out freely to make Palestine great, and in the MIGHT of whatever power or powers support and protect them. Not of such material as this will God build up His kingdom, for "thus says the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knows Me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth."
But these proud leaders of this proud race will take their own way. They will seek the honour that comes from each other and not that which comes from God; consequently as they refused their true Messiah who came to them in His Father's name so they will receive Another, who shall come in his own name (John 5:43-44). And he, their devil-inspired Antichrist, will be the plague, until there is left of them but a poor and afflicted people, who cry, "Some trust in horses, and some trust in chariots, but we will trust in the name of the Lord … Save, Lord: let the King hear us when we call" (Ps. 20).
Paper 4
Jerusalem has been trodden down by the Gentiles for long centuries and has been of little account in world-politics since the Dispersion, but it is now emerging from its obscurity and unimportance. Other cities have arisen and grown rich and haughty, rivalling one another for world supremacy in power, commerce, and pleasure, but their days are numbered; they must soon yield the palm in all that is truly great to Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is the city. And as surely as she fell because of her iniquity so surely shall she arise in the mercy and the glory of the Lord, for He will fulfil His word to her, "This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her" (Ezek. 5:5). "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion … the city of the great King" (Ps. 48:2).
It matters little how audacious and arrogant the ambition of would-be world-rulers may be, or how vast their preparations for world-conquest, or extraordinary their apparent success in the struggle towards their goal, all lies finally in God's hand, and "when He divided to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel: for the Lord's portion is His people: Jacob is the lot of His inheritance" (Deut. 32:8-9). This word still stands good and shall be established speedily when God-resumes His special dealings with His people, after the church has been caught up to heaven.
The spirit of the Jews themselves and the energy with which they are seizing the opportunity and pushing the enterprise is amazing. Already large sums of money are being subscribed towards it by Jews in American cities. The English members of the Zionist Commission are already at work in Jerusalem, the chairman of the Commission having been received by His Majesty the King prior to leaving these shores, showing the great importance that the British Government attach to this work. The following is an excerpt from Palestine: —
"The Commission, in its final form, will include, in addition to representatives from English Jewry, representatives of Russian, American and French Jewry. It goes out armed with the highest and the warmest recommendations to the British authorities in Palestine, it is assured in advance of the sympathy and assistance of the Imperial authorities. It has the advantage in possessing as liaison officer between the Commission and the British authorities Major Ormsby Gore, whose devotion to the cause is as admirable as his recognition of its greatness is unqualified … The task of the Palestine Commission is to lay the foundations and to commence the superstructure of a Jewish Palestine as far as this may be achieved during the war. Those who walk about in Jewry note an exaltation, the consciousness of a miracle manifest and mighty, the joy of being caught up in one of the great tides of divine purpose. 'Happy the man who saw it' is the refrain of a beautiful Hebrew hymn describing the glories of the Temple and the Jewish national life. Happy the man who has lived to see these days and to share in these mighty labours … The same wave of feeling and expectation is flooding with particular force through the Jewish life of Palestine, which already is seeking to adjust itself and to adapt itself to its new liberties, its greater responsibilities, and its loftier future … Jews have suffered too many bitter misfortunes and disappointments not to fortify their hopes and their desires by all the power of their will and their talent. They believe that their hour has struck after twenty centuries of waiting, and they are determined that it shall not mock them because of any failure in response on their part. They look to the Allies to play their part, and they look with confidence."
That the work will go forward cannot be questioned. The Jews themselves may be only thinking of securing their ancient land as their natural home, and the Allied nations may only have in view the safeguarding of their interests in the future, or the righting the wrongs of a downtrodden and defenceless people, but God is behind it, His hand is surely moving events towards that glorious moment when He shall declare to all rulers and peoples, "I HAVE SET MY KING UPON MY HOLY HILL OF ZION" (Ps. 2).
While the Christian rejoices in this, yet the thought of the way it must be brought to pass causes him sorrow of heart. Like the little book that the seer had to eat, which was sweet as honey in his mouth but was bitter in his belly (Rev. 10:9-10), so is the thought of the end of God's ways sweet to the taste and glorious to contemplate, but the consideration of the wilfulness and blindness of men, and of Israel in particular, that make judgment a necessity before God's end can be reached, gives sorrow to the heart. We look ahead, and it is "with joy and sorrow mingled," and so we enter somewhat into the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 10:17, 24; 19:41, 44).
We must now consider two great events which are to take place, not on earth but in heaven, but which have earth directly in view, and especially the destiny of Israel as the centre of it. The first is in Revelation 5, where the Lion of the Tribe of Juda, the Root of David, takes the Book of God's intentions in regard to the earth and Israel and Jerusalem, to open the seals of it, that all written therein might come to pass. And the second is in Revelation 12, where Satan is cast out of heaven and determines in his wrath to exterminate the Jews and so frustrate the fulfilment of God's promises to their fathers.
From Revelation 4 onward the church of God is in heaven, and so it will be above all that is to happen in the way of judgment on the earth. The intelligent reader of Scripture will recognize a very definite change in the dispensation in the way in which God is presented to us in this chapter. He is not here spoken of as the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which precious name He is known to the church, the saints with the heavenly calling, but He is addressed as Lord, God, Almighty, names in which He revealed Himself of old to people on the earth with an earthly calling and which declare His faithfulness to them. This plainly indicates that His dealings with the earth are about to recommence — the calling out of it of His heavenly saints being completed. Again the ascription of worship at the end of the chapter is, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created." The earth belongs to God, for He made it, but men since the Fall have refused the claims of God both in regard to it and themselves, and the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus was the casting out of the Heir that all might be theirs. But God is about to take up His rights and make the earth such as He can have pleasure in. How this is to be done and who will do it comes out in chapter 5.
Paper 5
At an official banquet given recently by the Governor of Jerusalem at the Government House, in honour of the Zionist Commission now at work there, and to which the principal notables of the city were invited, Dr. Weizmann, the chairman of the Commission, made a remarkable, and from a worldly point of view a statesman-like, speech.
In the course of it Dr. Weizmann said:
"I speak with a grave sense of responsibility. I wish to speak of peace, harmony, and co-operation between the communities here represented. On the spot where we are now standing my ancestors stood twenty centuries ago. FROM HERE THEY SENT FORTH THEIR GREAT MESSAGE, like bread cast upon the waters, and now the waters are bringing this bread back to us, their descendants. We are united tonight under the wing of the mightiest of the World's Powers, which is fighting for great ideals rooted in love for the old prophets of Palestine. Here the Jewish seers and poets proclaimed universal ideals of justice and peace; here we are the guests of the greatest of Bible-loving nations.
"This great nation has told us in the Declaration that our Jewish work accomplished in Palestine centuries ago has not been forgotten, and that our age-long devotion to Palestine has found recognition. In very truth this is not all accident. It is destiny. Our forefathers heroically defended our right to this sacred country, and only after having been overwhelmed by a fate more cruel and sanguinary than even the present fate of Belgium and Armenia did they lose physical hold on Palestine. But our ancestors did not relinquish their claim to it. Instead of a political Palestine, they set up a moral and intellectual Palestine, which triumphantly resisted the onslaughts of every conceivable foe.
"We do not, therefore, come to Palestine, we return to it; return to link up the glorious traditions of the past with the future, IN ORDER TO CREATE ONCE MORE A GREAT MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL CENTRE, WHENCE, PERHAPS, A NEW WORD WILL COME FORTH TO A SORELY-TRIED WORLD. This is for me the innermost meaning of a national home. But such a centre must have real props, must have its roots in and derive strength from the soil of Palestine …
"We ask therefore for opportunity for free national development in Palestine, and in justice that demand cannot be refused. We want to cultivate our long-neglected land with modern methods and under a just, economic system, avoiding the social evils from which even the advanced countries of Europe are only now beginning to free themselves.
"We want also, and here I am referring to what I regard as the coping stone of our present work, to make Palestine once more a fountain of knowledge and idealism through the creation of a Hebrew University at Jerusalem, a great intellectual centre open to all mankind, in which the ancient truths of the prophets will obtain expression in modern form … The eyes of our scattered people in every corner of the globe are now fixed on Palestine, and on what the Jews are doing there. The Jewish communities of the West are not without influence in the Councils of the nations.
"The city of Jerusalem is for Jews a holy shrine. For that reason, if for that alone, Jews are able to respect the sentiments of others for whom Jerusalem is sacred. We wish to interfere in no way with the holy places to which the hearts of Moslems and Christians turn with reverence. We Zionists wish to live in Palestine at peace with all, on a basis of mutual regard and mutual respect."
What was the great message that went forth from Jerusalem twenty centuries ago? How precious it is to us who have heard and believed it. It came from the lips of the risen Lord Jesus. He said to His disciples, "Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: AND THAT REPENTANCE AND REMISSION OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME AMONG ALL NATIONS, BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM" (Luke 24:46-47). This message was for "the Jew first," and if they had believed it they would not have been overwhelmed by so cruel and sanguinary a fate as that of which Dr. Weizmann spoke. But as they rejected with lofty scorn their meek and lowly Messiah, and with wicked hands crucified and slew Him when He was amongst them in person, so also did they refuse His message of repentance and a full forgiveness brought from heaven by the Holy Ghost. Hence "the times of restitution of all things of which God had spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" (Acts 3:21) have been postponed, and "the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost" (1 Thess. 2:16), and if the nation of the Jews have found an asylum in Great Britain, and if this land is interested above other nations in the welfare of this scattered people, it is only because this message rejected by the Jew has been more accepted here than in any other land.
Dr. Weizmann looked back to the former times when inspired seers and poets of Israel spoke of universal justice and peace, and he looked forward to the time when, perhaps, a new word will come forth to a sorely-tried world. And such a time is coming, for the most eloquent and sublime of all those ancient prophets proclaimed, "Out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people. and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Isa. 2:3-4). But when will that be? Only when these same people believe the report of this same prophet, which hitherto they have not believed, and confess that He whom they crucified was wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their iniquities (chap. 53:5). Will they do this? Not until they learn through still more bitter experiences than they have known hitherto that, without Christ, the Stone which was set at nought by the builders of their national life of old, and who is still set at nought by them and left out of their plans, their building must come to nothing. Except the Lord build the house they labour in vain that build it (Ps. 127). And the Lord will only build upon and from the Headstone of the corner, even Christ, whom He raised up from the dead (Ps. 118:22; Mark 12:10; Acts 4:11). Then Jerusalem shall be all and more than Dr. Weizmann says it shall be, for all that God has said of it shall be fulfilled. "The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people, as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass." And all the nations oft he earth shall look to Israel as the true spiritual, moral and intellectual centre, and they will say, "Come, let us go up to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths" (Mic. 4:3).
If Dr. Weizmann had learnt the lesson that the ancient seers and poets of his race teach, and if he were taking his guidance from them, he would not make the University the centre from which light and help and words of blessing are to radiate and flow to a sorely-tried world, he would understand that it is the TEMPLE and not the university that is to fill that great place. The Lord's House must be established if peace is to be within the walls of Jerusalem (Ps. 122), and spread out to the nations (Isa. 2:2). It is from that House and not from any seat of learning that the life-giving waters will flow (Ezek. 47). That means that God must be first and not man, that from the heart of God and not from the brain of man all good comes, and that there is no wisdom that can help men in those schemes that do not give to God that place that is His by right — the supreme place. The wisdom of the philosophers and the schools of learning is that of which the Word has said, "The world by wisdom knew not God" (1 Cor. 1:21) it is not the wisdom of God, for had it been "the princes of this world … would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor. 2:8). To revive such wisdom as that in Jerusalem will fill its cup of sorrow to the brim.
The chosen site for the University is the Mount of Olives. Have those who have had the purchase of this site in hand considered the writings of one of their ancient seers, Zechariah by name? If so, they have neither believed nor understood what he has written, for in the fourteenth chapter of his remarkable book we are told that the Lord's "feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a great valley, and half the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south." At that glorious appearing of the Lord, and the mighty earthquake that shall accompany it, the proud university will crash to its ruin, and with it shall perish for ever in the nation of Israel that confidence in the wisdom of men that has been their undoing, and they will then learn what that word means, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."
Paper 6
The foundation stones of the Hebrew University have been laid at Jerusalem. The day was declared a public holiday and six thousand persons witnessed the ceremony, which was a deeply moving one and produced an effect which will long remain with those who witnessed it. The site is said to be the finest available. On the one hand it looks down upon Jerusalem, and on the other to the wilderness of Moab. It is remarkable how the hopes and ambitions of Jewry centre for the time being in the University, which is practically the first constructive effort of Zionism.
Dr. Weymann delivered an address in the course of which he said (we quote from Palestine)
"We have today laid the foundation stones of the Jewish University, which is to be erected on this hill, overlooking Jerusalem. Many of us will have had our thoughts cast back to the great historic scenes associated with Jerusalem, scenes that have become part of the heritage of mankind … A week ago we were keeping the Fast of Ab, reminding us that the Temple had been utterly destroyed and the Jewish national political existence extinguished apparently for ever. But throughout the long centuries we, the stiff-necked people, have refused to acknowledge defeat, and 'Judea capta' is once more upon the eve of triumph. Here, out of the misery and desolation of war is being created the first germ of a new life … It seems at first sight paradoxical that in a land with so sparse a population, in a land where everything still remains to be done, in a land crying out for such simple things as ploughs, roads, and harbours, we should begin by creating a centre of spiritual and intellectual development. But it is not paradox for those who know the soul of the Jew. It is true that great social and political problems still face us and will demand their solution from us. We Jews know that when the mind is given fullest play, when we have a centre for the development of Jewish consciousness, then coincidently shall we attain the fulfilment of our material needs. I do not suppose that there is anyone here who can conceive of a university in Jerusalem being other than a Jewish one. The claim that the University should be a Jewish one rests upon the values the Jews have transmitted to the world, from this land. Here in the presence of adherents of three great religions of the world, which amid many diversities build their faith upon the Lord who made Himself known to Moses, before this world which has founded itself on Jewish law, has paid reverence to Hebrew seers, has acknowledged the great mental and spiritual values the Jewish people have given to it, the question is answered. The University is to stimulate the Jewish people to reach further truth. Am I too bold if here today, in this place among the hills of Ephraim and Judah, I state my conviction that the seers of Israel have not utterly perished, that under the aegis of this University there will be a renaissance of the Divine power of prophetic wisdom that once was ours? … Manifold are the preparations yet to be made. Some of them are already in progress; some, like the actual building, must necessarily be postponed until the happy day of peace arrives. But from this day the Jewish University is a reality. Our University, informed by Jewish learning and Jewish energy, will mould itself into an integral part of our national structure which is in process of erection. It will have a centripetal force, attracting all that is noblest in Jewry throughout the world; a unifying centre for our scattered elements. There will go forth, too, inspiration and strength, that shall revivify the powers now latent in our scattered communities. Here the wandering soul of Israel shall reach its haven; its strength no longer consumed in restless and vain wanderings. Israel shall at last remain at peace within itself and with the world. There is a Talmudic legend that tells of the Jewish soul deprived of its body, hovering between heaven and earth. Such is our soul today; tomorrow it shall come to rest, in this our sanctuary. That is our faith."
This confidence in learning and the learned, these hopes, resting in the University and its professors instead of in the Lord and in His house which has yet to be built, and when built will be the centre of light and wisdom for the world, proves that Israel still has the heart of stone, the old heart of unbelief. They need "the new heart" and "the new spirit." This no government, however kindly disposed towards them, can give them. It is the Lord alone who can take away the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh (Ezek. 36:26). And when He does this they will walk in His statutes and keep His judgments, and will dwell in the land and be His people, and He will be their God.
To those who know what is the only way by which rest and blessing can come to these people of the weary foot, it is saddening to hear their accepted and gifted leader saying about the University, "Tomorrow our soul shall come to rest in this our sanctuary, that is our faith." We know well that it is in GOD'S sanctuary alone that they will find rest. How different the faith and hopes and blessed certainty of the Sons of Korah, who, not looking to men and their wisdom, but to God's altar and His house, could sing, "Yea, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, even thine altars. O Lord of hosts, my King, and my God, blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah." (Ps. 84:3-4). It is this faith in God that will not be disappointed.
Confidence in the wisdom of men instead of in God is not, however, peculiar to Jews, Gentiles are just as guilty of it, and so Christ crucified, the power of God and the wisdom of God, is to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the Greeks foolishness.
It does but prove the absolute necessity of the new birth that these people, after centuries of sorrow, should still be blind as to whence their blessing and true restoration will come. We quote again from Palestine.
"There is a pregnant story which illustrates the conception Jews have of a great house of learning, and the part it has played, and will play, in Jewish history. When Jerusalem fell the most famous Rabbi of his day, Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zaccai, was asked by Titus where he wanted to go, and what he desired to have. The Rabbi answered: 'Give me Jabneh and her wise men.' Jabneh was then the seat of the Jewish Academy, and the illustrious Rabbi, in this memorable phrase, expressed his conviction that when the Jewish State and polity came down in ruins, Israel and Judaism would be saved by Jewish science and Jewish sages. The history of 1900 years is one long testimony to the profound truth and wisdom of the Rabbi's insight. Judaism and the Jewish people have been saved in exile by Jewish learning and Jewish sages. The Hebrew University in Jerusalem is the first edifice which the Jewish people erects on its return from exile to its home. As in the past a house of learning saved, so a Hebrew University is a guarantee of a renewed and freer life, a life along the great line of Jewish tradition."
No, it is not by learning that the Jews have been preserved from perishing as a nation, for the Greeks of old had learning as great as theirs and they perished. It is God who has preserved them, to whose word they are still a stiff-necked people, and it is through Christ that He will save them: that same Jesus whom they still number with the transgressors.