Hosea 3:4-5 “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.”
The final key event of fulfilled prophecies that we will discuss, is the restoration of Israel's sovereignty. In previous sections, we discussed how God warned the Jews that, because of their sinfulness, He would eventually send the nation into exile. In other words, the nation would lose its sovereignty. We have seen that the northern kingdom of Israel lost its sovereignty when its last king was deposed in the year 722 BC, and the southern kingdom of Judah lost their sovereignty when their last king was deposed in the year 609 BC. About Israel’s loss of sovereignty, we have already looked at the above-quoted passage of scripture, in which the Lord confirmed that Israel would be without a king or prince for many days. Nevertheless, in the same passage, the Lord implied that Israel’s king (sovereignty) would be restored in the latter days. Historical records reveal that in the year 1948 AD, Israel was finally able to declare its independence, thus restoring Israel’s sovereignty once again. And so we see that Hosea’s prophecy proved to be extremely accurate, for between the years 609 BC and 1948 AD (2,557 years), Israel lost its sovereignty, i.e. they had no king for many days[1].
Ezekiel 37:19-22 “say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand." ‘(20) And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. (21) "Then say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; (22) and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.”
We have already discussed the numerous times God’s prophets warned Israel that the nation would be taken into exile and thus have their sovereignty removed. Nevertheless, there are just as many prophecies in the Old Testament, where God informed the Jews that a time would come when He would finally bring them back from their exile and restore their sovereignty once again. The above-quoted passage of scripture is just one example of said prophecies; delivered in this instance by the prophet Ezekiel in approximately the year 585 BC[2]. In this passage we see that the Lord is addressing this prophecy to the whole nation of Israel; we know that because the Lord specifically mentions restoring the two nations (Israel and Judah) from among the nations to which they were exiled, and making them one nation again. The Lord went on in this passage to say that one king would reign over them all, and they would no longer be two nations. In other words, the Lord was saying that He would restore Israel’s sovereignty once again. As we have already mentioned, because of the ending of New Testament scripture in approximately the year 62 AD, there is no scriptural account of the restoration of Israel’s sovereignty. And so in this section, we will only discuss the historical account of this event. During the First World War in 1917, the British Government issued a public statement which eventually became known as the Balfour Declaration. In the statement the British Government announced its support for the establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine, then an Ottoman region with a small minority Jewish population. The declaration was contained in a letter dated 2 November 1917 from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland[3]. Following the end of World War I in 1918, the League of Nations placed the Palestine territory under British administration. The British mandate came into effect in 1923 and remained in place until 1948. The Mandate required Britain to put into effect the Balfour Declaration's "national home for the Jewish people" alongside the Palestinian Arabs, who composed the vast majority of the local population. During the Mandate period, the area saw the rise of two nationalist movements: the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs. Inter-communal conflict in Mandatory Palestine ultimately produced the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and the 1944–1948 Jewish insurgencies in Mandatory Palestine. The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was passed on 29 November 1947; this envisaged the creation of separate Jewish and Arab states operating under economic union, and with Jerusalem transferred to UN trusteeship[4].
Civil war broke out on 30 November 1947, a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which divided the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states, and an international Jerusalem (UN Resolution 181). Partition was accepted by the Jewish leadership but rejected by Palestinian Arab leaders and the Arab states. This war is described by historians as the "civil", "ethnic" or "inter-communal" war, as it was fought mainly between Jewish and Palestinian Arab militias, supported by the Arab Liberation Army and the surrounding Arab states. Characterised by guerrilla warfare and terrorism, it escalated at the end of March 1948 when the Jews went on the offensive, and concluded with their defeating the Palestinians in major campaigns and battles, establishing clear frontlines. During this period, the British still maintained a declining rule over Palestine and occasionally intervened in the violence. On the last day of the British Mandate (14 May 1948), the Jewish community in Palestine issued the Israeli Declaration of Independence. This was followed the next day by the invasion of Palestine by the surrounding Arab armies and expeditionary forces. The invasion marked the beginning of the 1948-1949 Arab–Israeli War [5]. Ironically, on 15th May 1948, Iran was the first country to recognize the newly formed state of Israel. Iran was followed by Guatemala, Iceland, Nicaragua, Romania, and Uruguay. The Soviet Union was the first nation to fully recognize Israel de jure on 17th May 1948, followed by Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ireland, and South Africa. The United States extended official recognition only after the first Israeli election on 31st January 1949. Israel’s first government was formed on 8th March 1949 with David Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister[6]. By General Assembly Resolution 273 (III), Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 11th May 1949[7]. And so we see that after 2,557 years (many days) Israel finally became a sovereign nation-state once again. It is interesting to note that Israel chose to implement a democratic form of government, rather than the monarchy form of government prescribed by the Lord (1 Samuel 8:9). As we will discuss later in this series, Israel’s current form of government will change in the future.
Hosea 3:4-5 “For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. (5) Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.”
We have seen in this section that in fulfilment of bible prophecy, the Lord has finally restored Israel’s sovereignty. And so the question is asked, why has the Lord restored Israel's sovereignty now, after 2,557 years? The Lord answers that question for us in the above-quoted passage of scripture, for in this passage the Lord states that in the latter days, Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God. And so we can see that we have entered into the time of the latter days; otherwise, the Lord would not have restored Israel’s sovereignty at this time. As an aside, at the time of the writing of this section, many are saying that Israel's current path is leading to its destruction, and within the next few years it will no longer exist as a nation-state. God will not allow that to happen however, for He is the one who has restored Israel's sovereignty and that status quo will remain in place until the end of the age. I do need to qualify that statement, however, because Israel's current actions will incur the Lord's judgement, which we will discuss later in this series. Nevertheless, even though Israel will be judged, the removal of its sovereignty will not form part of its judgement. As an aside, it is important to note that the Lord used World War 1 as the catalyst for international acceptance of the need for a sovereign Jewish State. In the same manner, the Lord used World War 2 as the catalyst for international recognition of the newly created state of Israel. And so as we will see later in this series, in the same manner, the Lord will use World War 3 as the catalyst for international recognition of Israel’s biblical borders finally being restored.
Michael E.B. Maher
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