The Diaspora
We have already gone through the definition of the terms, Jew, Hebrew and Israel. We spoke of Israel’s purpose and the prophecies of Moses, the blessings and the curses relating to their current state. (Deut.28). Let us now begin with a history of the Land. Here are important dates to remember.
Abraham: approximately 2000BC This is when the history of Israel finds its beginnings.
Moses: approximately 1500BC
David: 1000BC
Babylonian Diaspora: 586BC
We see that the prophets of the Bible began to appear around the 8th century BC. Who were they and why did they appear at this time? These prophets took on the role of the prosecuting attorneys speaking on behalf of God and the Mosaic Law. They were there to warn the people concerning the prophecies of Moses found in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Many of these prophets were rejected by the people and the civil authorities of the time. So, if these prophets are all concentrated in this area of history (about a 400-year span) it is because their message is related to Israel’s failure, yet at the same time they provided prophecies for the coming Redeemer, the Messiah
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Once entering the land, the nation stayed there for about 1000 years, until, because of their rebellion, they were expulsed in 586 B.C. This was the first destruction of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple. This is the start of the Diaspora of the Jewish nation. This time is marked by what Jesus called in Luke 21:24 the Times of the Gentiles. “And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled”. Since then, the Jews never really had jurisdiction over the Temple Mount area. This period of the Times of the Gentiles will end at the Second Coming of Jesus.
Some might ask if the Assyrian expulsion (722BC) could be considered part of the Diaspora. In this exile, the 10 tribes of the Northern Kingdom were expulsed, but having been assimilated into the vast Neo-Assyrian Empire, they did not remain a distinct people. Today many are looking to find the 10 lost tribes, but they are coming up empty. The word Diaspora can be better defined as the forced or voluntary migration of a people from their ancient homeland, but while outside the land, they still remain and can be identified as a distinct group. This is not the case for the Northern Kingdom. According to Yeshua’s definition, the Times of the Gentiles really began when Jerusalem would be trampled down by the Gentiles, which is what happened in 586BC when the Temple was destroyed. We can say then, that the Times of the Gentiles signalled the Diaspora.
Since the exile in 586BC we can count how many empires took occupation of the Land of Israel over the course of their long history. We start with the Babylonians, then the Persian and Macedonian Empires. This was followed by the Romans, the Moslems, the Crusaders, and the Asiatic Mongols. Then from the mid 13th to the 16th century, the Mumluk Sultanate ruled. From the 16th century up to World War I, the Ottoman Turks controlled the land. Then Britain ruled it under a League of Nations mandate, until 1948 with Israel’s independence. Israel had a difficult history for these past 2500 years, for the most part always under foreign domination, which was prophesied in many places in the Hebrew Scriptures. Though the majority of the Jews were outside the land during these past two millennia, there was always a presence of the Jewish people in the land of Israel. So, they were out of their land in the sense that for those who were there, they lost jurisdiction to rule, they were always under Gentile authority and they therefore lost the enjoyment of the land, ever since the Babylonian exile, something all the pre-exilic prophets warned them about.
As a side note, we should not exclude the fact that there were Jews who left the land of Israel in search of a better economic and social life. For example, even after 500BC when the Jews were given the right to return to Jerusalem and build their temple, many chose to stay in Babylon. And Babylon was not the only country to which the Jews went to at the time of the exile. In Jeremiah 42-43 we read of Jews fleeing to Egypt, and one of them who was forced to flee with the group was Jeremiah. The Jews did stay in Egypt despite warnings from the Lord that they should return to Judah and the Jewish community there did grow because during the Greco-Roman period we know that Alexandria was home to a sizeable Jewish population. We might ask why God allowed various Jewish communities to flourish outside the land when the goal was to rebuild and repopulate Jerusalem. Perhaps this was so there would be settled Jewish communities outside Israel which would then be ready to take in many exiles during the second major phase of the Diaspora in 70AD.
Reasons for the Diaspora
The word Diaspora comes from the Greek word “scattering” and can be understood as a divine discipline, a punishment from God for the sins of idolatry and rebellion against God and for the violation of the covenant He made with Israel. Leviticus 26:33 (I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins) and Deuteronomy 28:64 (Then the LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known) warned the Jewish nation that such a diaspora would take place.
Do you see the gravity of disobedience? – In Deuteronomy 28-29 alone, we find the word curse mentioned 10 times. We clearly see that to whom much is given much is required. Take note that the ultimate punishment is the Diaspora, where the Jews would be scattered among the nations. So, if you ever wondered why the Jews were spread all over the world for the last 2000 years, and if you ever wondered why they were persecuted all this time, the answer is found in this following passage.
In Deuteronomy 28:64 we read, the LORD will scatter you among all nations – as they continue to be today. And there they will not have rest because of the constant persecutions. History proves that there was not a time when this nation Israel was not under persecution by some other nation. This is what is repeated by the prophets, over and over so that the people would repent.
And the suffering of the Diaspora is especially seen in Deuteronomy 65-66. Here we see some hints of the Nazi Holocaust and the other holocausts which occurred throughout her history. “And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life”.
There is another verse which is very revealing as to the number of Jews today. We read that in Deuteronomy 28:62, “Then you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, because you did not obey the LORD your God.” We can see the traces of this prophecy even today.
Today, there are about 15.8 million Jewish people. This number is very, very small if we compare Israel with other nations which have a similar length of history. Compare Israel with the Chinese and the Indians, and God bless these two nations, but their number will help us to understand the prophecy. The Chinese have a 3500-year written history. India is one of the world’s oldest civilizations. The Chinese have a population of approximately 1.41 billion people while the Indian population is estimated at 1. 46 billion. Israel’s population figures about just 1% of each of those two nations. The prophecy is true. Israel is reduced in number.
Here are some passages from the prophets explaining why the Diaspora took place: Isaiah 5:13 Therefore my people have gone into captivity, Because they have no knowledge; Their honorable men are famished, And their multitude dried up with thirst.
Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
Here we find out one major reason why the Jewish people have been out of their land for over 2500 years; out of their land in the sense that they lost jurisdiction to rule; they were always under Gentile authority, and they therefore lost the enjoyment of the land ever since the Babylonian exile – something all the pre-exilic prophets warned them about. What exactly did the Israelites have no knowledge of (Isaiah 5:13), or what was it that they rejected (Hosea 4:6)? Time and again, they abandoned God’s law and turned to idols. They rejected listening to the true prophets of God and became both spiritually and morally corrupt. They broke the covenant of God. Things have not changed all that much as they entered into the first century. The traditions of the elders, the Talmud and other rabbinic customs and traditions clouded their understanding of the Tanakh and God’s messianic plan of redemption and salvation. Sadly, when compromising the laws of God and compensating true Torah with man made tradition, legalism and superficial religiosity is often the outcome.
In terms of Jewish responsibility to understand and study the Word of God, Yeshua asked this same templated question 6 times in the Gospels to the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Scribes.
Have you not read in the Book of Moses? Mark 12:26
Have you not read in the Law…? Matthew 12:5
Have you not read that He who Created? …leading them to Genesis Matthew 19:4
Have you not read what was spoken by God? Matthew 22:31
Furthermore, at least 3 times in the Gospels we read the words,
Is it not written in your Law?
Is it not written in this Book?
Is it not written in the prophets?
But what Yeshua reflects here is what the prophets of old have been saying. From Isaiah to Malachi, this was the very problem and issue that these Hebrew prophets declared to Israel. Yeshua confronted Israel at the time with such statements as, “You leave the commandments of God and hold to the traditions of men.”
In today’s day, we face a similar situation. The Jewish people have subjected themselves to the religious rabbinical authorities who have reinterpreted much of Scripture and who therefore have a wrong understanding of the Scriptures and in particular messianic prophecy. Knowledge of the Word is something that Jesus put so much stress on. Let us not forget, when Yeshua came, He was confronted by a new religion; that is Pharisaism, which is at the core of Rabbinical Judaism. For many Jewish people, the term Rabbinical Judaism is the one and only approach to understanding Torah and God. This is a false belief that we ought to denounce by making a distinction between Rabbinical Judaism and Biblical Judaism. It is this new set of beliefs that Yeshua called the tradition of the elders.
In fact, these traditions were so different from the faith and belief of the people of the Bible that Yeshua told them that they were transgressing the Word of God by their traditions (Matthew 15:3). And so Yeshua came to restore what had been lost. He came, not to bring a new religion, but to bring man back to his roots. And this is not only for the Jewish people but for the people from all nations, for going back to the Scriptures, each one can find the God they are seeking.
And if we are too quick at pointing a finger at the Jews in their disobedience, and pointing to Pharisaic Judaism as not recognizing their Messiah, we should not overlook what happened at the birth of the church. Just as the Pharisees did not recognize their own Messiah because they, according to Yeshua, they did not read, similarly, right at the birth of the church in the first century there was a representative congregation which did not even open its door to Jesus’s knocking. This is the church of Loadicea, which became the emblem of the unbelieving church. We read in Revelation 3:20, Jesus speaking to this church and saying; “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door…” What is Yeshua doing on the outside, when the church was already His, hoping that one wouldl open the door and begin to appreciate His long-suffering? There is a problem here too proving there is nothing new under the sun. Coupled with a church history shrouded in antisemitism, we have a great responsibility, as the Body of Messiah to explain and enlighten the present Jewish understanding of the true Messianic hope and Messiah.
Have you ever noticed that the history of the church follows the same pattern as the one of Israel? They both begin miraculously and are both miraculously sustained, despite their turbulent walk, and both are, miraculously, left at the end with a small remnant. The prophecies of the Seven Churches in Revelation is, in many ways, a carbon copy of the history found in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the books of the Torah and in the historical ones as well. Jesus draws much from these books when prophesying concerning the church in Revelation. He mentioned Balaam, Jezebel, David, and pointed to elements of the Temple including the manna.
Why so much resemblance? Simply because it is the history of man – so we can see our history in the Israel’s history.