At the end of his life and ministry, Moses warned the Israelites with a prophecy about what would happen to the land promised them should they rebel against God.
Deuteronomy 29:22-28 KJV – “So that the generation to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; And that the whole land thereof is brimstone, and salt, and burning, that it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the overthrow of Sodom, and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, which the Lord overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: Even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? what meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt: For they went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom he had not given unto them: And the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book: And the Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.”
A Hopeless, Dreary, Heart-Broken Land…
Nearly 1800 years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and scattered the Jewish people in AD 70, famed author and journalist Mark Twain wrote the following about his personal experience visiting in 1867 the land of Israel, renamed Palestine by the Romans. He recorded his observations in his book The Innocents Abroad, published in 1869.
Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly desert fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowed and despondent. The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee sleep in the midst of a vast stretch of hill and plain wherein the eye rests upon no pleasant tint, no striking object, no soft picture dreaming in a purple haze or mottled with the shadows of the clouds. Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective—distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.
[Concerning the Jezreel Valley] There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent—not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Nazareth is forlorn… Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin… Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, have nothing about them now to remind one that they once knew the high honor of the Saviour’s presence… Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and has become a pauper village. The note Sea of Galilee… and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala, Bethsaida and Chorazin, and the “desert places” round about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour’s voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.
Palestine is desolate and unlovely. And why should it be otherwise? Can the curse of the Deity beautify a land?
Surely there is no place we have wandered to that is able to give it such touching expression as this blistering, naked, treeless land.
To this region one of the prophecies is applied: “I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste.” [Leviticus 26:32-33]
No man can stand [in this deserted area] and say the prophecy has not be fulfilled.
Though hardly a devoted Christian, Mark Twain couldn’t help but marvel at the fulfillment of the prophecy concerning the desolation of the land of Israel due to Israel’s idolatry. In doing so, Twain became the very man from “a generation to come” who would bear witness to the consummation of Moses’ amazing prophecy.
… Has Become Like the Garden of Eden
But, God also promised that Israel’s land would not remain barren and lifeless. Once He began to regather the Jewish people from the four corners of the earth back into their promised land, the soil was fated to become fruitful once more.
Ezekiel 36:1-3, 6-11, 35-36 KJV – “Also, thou son of man, prophesy unto the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord: Thus saith the Lord God; Because the enemy hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient high places are ours in possession: Therefore prophesy and say, Thus saith the Lord God; Because they have made you desolate, and swallowed you up on every side, that ye might be a possession unto the residue of the heathen, and ye are taken up in the lips of talkers, and are an infamy of the people… Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen: Therefore thus saith the Lord God; I have lifted up mine hand, Surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame. But ye, O mountains of Israel, ye shall shoot forth your branches, and yield your fruit to my people of Israel; for they are at hand to come. For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and sown: And I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, even all of it: and the cities shall be inhabited, and the wastes shall be builded: And I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bring fruit: and I will settle you after your old estates, and will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and ye shall know that I am the Lord… 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. Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.“
Today, we are that generation that bears witness to the rebirth and rebudding of Israel and her land, and the fulfilment of Ezekiel’s prophecy.
