Desolation, with a Deadline - Wendy Wippel - http://www.omegaletter.com/articles/articles.asp?ArticleID=7834
Mark Twain visited Israel in 1867, his impressions bleak: ''A desolate country. Given over wholly to weeds, a silent mournful expanse, hardly a tree or shrub anywhere.'' So much for milk and honey. The good news is that, as promised, Jesus' metaphorical fig tree, Israel, bloomed. And in more ways then one.
Twain's ramblings reflect the fact that arable land in Israel is considered to be less than 17% of its total area. (Arable being defined as land that can be used to grow crops by the centuries old, tried and true, natural farming methods.) So the below-subsistence level agricultural output that Twain recorded in 1867 is basically normal for that geographical area. At least in the modern era.
It wasn't always like that, according to Scripture.
Remember the story of Joshua and Caleb and their reconnaissance of the Promised Land? The cluster of grapes, cut down at the brook of Echol, that it took both of them to carry home?
That was a metaphorical preview of the riches to be found in covenant with God. And as part of the covenant that God made with Israel, He made firm promises of provision:
"Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:" Deuteronomy 28:1-2...
"Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. "Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways." Deuteronomy 28:4-7
"The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you." Deuteronomy 28:8
"The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand." Deuteronomy 28:9-12
So how did we get from the promises of Deuteronomy to the desolation described in Twain's Innocents Abroad? What happened?
The thing was, God's covenant promises included promises for obedience-the blessings like we saw above, as well as promises for disobedience:
But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
"Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country.
"Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
"Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
"Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out.
"The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron.
The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed.
"The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. ...A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. Deuteronomy 28:15-31
"You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. Deuteronomy 28:38-42
"Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. Deuteronomy 28:45
Bottom line: God allowed the destruction of the land due to Israel's abrogation of the covenant God made with them, in which He had promised to shield them from the ravages of war and from its consequences: from the destruction of crops as well as arable land. But Israel didn't keep the promise they made at the foot of Mt. Sinai, to be faithful to everything that He commanded them to do.
So God gave them up to their enemies: The Egyptians. The Philistines. The Assyrians. The Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks. The Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Umayyad Empire, the Spanish Empire, Hitler's Germany and the Soviet Union.
All those empires that devastated Israel are gone. Yet, Israel remains.
Which brings right back around to the times of Mark Twain. Another passage in Twain's Innocents Abroad goes like this:
"Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies... Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur and is become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in the annals of the world, they reared the Holy Cross".
Another passage elaborates on the lack of vegetation:
"The hills are barren, dull of color. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent. ... It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land. ... I would like much to see the fringes of the Jordan in springtime, and Shechem, Esdraelon, Ajalon, and the borders of Galilee, but even these spots would seem mere toy gardens set at wide intervals in the limitless desolation. .
Bleak indeed.
But God still had promises to fulfill,
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; 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. Ezekiel 37:21-22
I will bring back the captives of My people Israel; They shall build the waste cities and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and drink wine from them; They shall also make gardens and eat fruit from them.I will plant them in their land, And no longer shall they be pulled upFrom the land I have given them," Says the Lord your God. Amos 9:14-15
And another, more specific one: Therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God! Thus says the Lord God to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, the valleys, the desolate wastes...I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations.. Ezekiel 36:30
God says He proves Himself through fulfilled prophecy. And this one alone should be a slam-dunk clincher:
When Israel regained the land in 1948, only 408,000 acres was under cultivation; that has increased approximately 250%. Agricultural production has expanded 1600% (three times more than population growth.) Israel now provides virtually all its own needs, importing only small amounts items like coffee, sugar and meet. And it's the world leader in many exports.
When Israel regained the land, agriculture exports from Israel did not exist. Fruits and vegetables grown in Israel earned exactly zero in the world market.
In 2013, they brought in nearly $40 Billion. That's billion, with a "B". Forty billion dollars worth of fruits, vegetables and olive oil. And a quite incredible fulfillment of that prophecy in Ezekiel.
The anti-Zionists get their undies in a wad when people quote Mark Twain's descriptions of 1867 Israel, saying "Mark Twain visited in the middle of the summer", that he only visited places in the bible (?), that he provided no statistical data so his statements shouldn't be considered authoritative (?), that his comparison of Palestine to other countries wasn't fair.
Funny. People who have been to Israel will tell you that it's the comparison of Israel to its neighbors that absolutely proves God's provision. Even if you don't know where the boundaries between Israel and its neighbors are, you do, because the land in Israel is green while its neighboring countries' are "desolate country". "Given over wholly to weeds, a silent mournful expanse, hardly a tree or shrub anywhere."
And that is the result of one thing: drip irrigation, an Israeli invention that turned virtually all of Israel into arable land, and is increasing crop production in underdeveloped countries around the world.
Has the story of Joshua and Caleb ever seemed kind of fanciful to you? I admit it has to me.
God keeps His promises.
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