Moreover, it must be understood that one can be critical of the Jews and Israel without being a hater. I hold Jews to the same standard as any other group. Christ was very critical of the Jewish leaders in His day, calling them “vipers,” “liars,” “fools,” “blind,” “hypocrites,” and “ye are of your father, the Devil” in John 8. Those leaders were far from the godly Jews who genuinely loved God and tried to follow His commandants. The two major Jewish leader-groups, Pharisees and Sadducees, were hypocrites and biblical heretics, respectively.

I believe it is time to stop funding Israel but that doesn’t make me a Jew-hater. Biden’s budget even plans to fund the “Palestinians.” That is madness. Since Israel stands for freedom, we should sell weapons to them; but they can stand on their own feet after almost 75 years. To fund Hamas terrorists who have promised to drive Israel into the sea is insensitive, incredible, and insane. The U.S. should only send welfare to nations if it is in our national interest to do so.

Furthermore, decent people can disagree with many of Israel’s policies, such as the Mossad, national politics, vaccinations, etc., without hating Jews. The most prominent critics of the secular Jewish state are orthodox Jews! So, of course, there can be room for disagreement without being a hater.

When Christ declared Himself to be God, the Jewish religious leaders only had one of two choices: they could either bow down and worship Him, or they could kill Him. You know their choice. While it is true that the vile, violent, virulent anti-Jew, anti-Israel hatred is rooted in the Jewish crucifixion of Christ, hatred of Jews has been endemic for thousands of years.

However, the hatred of Jews is more complex than a reaction to Christ’s death since it goes back to their beginning.

Unbelievers and wicked men hate certitude, and the Jews, while not always being right, have always been certain. While the rest of the world worshipped multiple pagan gods, the dedicated Jews demanded faithful and exclusive worship of Jehovah. Well, there goes the pagan vote!

God forbade them to marry into the unbelieving pagan nations, and that suggested Jewish superiority. That refusal to be absorbed into the culture has been a reason for their perpetuity as a people and a cause of universal hatred. Jews seemed to be pretentious, and they still do! Their critics often resented it and still do.

God gave the Jews a code of personal conduct known as the Ten Commandments, and nothing could be more absolute; they were not resolutions or recommendations but requirements. Men still chaff under “Thou shalt not.” Because of such holy demands and their uniqueness, the Jews were usually considered outcasts.

A substantial Jewish rebellion against Rome was prompted in A.D. 66 when a Jew-hater dumped a pot of urine outside a synagogue. Jews were rightly furious at this desecration, and a riot broke out during which some Jews insulted the Roman Governor of Judea. He ordered his soldiers to destroy the market and kill everyone in sight. What had been occasional acts of rebellion became a full-scale national revolt. It was all downhill from there. Josephus reported that 40,000 Jews were killed in Jotapata, a city he was defending as a Jewish leader. He wrote, “From one end of Galilee to the other, there was an orgy of fire and bloodshed.”

Fighting continued, and in A.D. 70, the Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem, including their sacred Temple, killing more than 1 million Jews. About 100,000 Jews were taken into slavery, thousands sent to the mines, and thousands scattered over the known world. All because of a pot of warm urine! A second rebellion in 135 caused by a false Messiah resulted in 500,000 more Jews being killed.

The Roman Empire experienced more opposition when Jews were forbidden to read the Torah, circumcise their sons, and other restrictions. When Emperor Constantine the Great (more appropriately, Constantine the Hypocrite) published his Edict of Milan in 315, providing tolerance to Christians, Jews discovered they lost some rights. With Constantine’s Council of Nicaea, the first worldwide religious conclave in 325, Jews lost the right of Sabbath worship and the right to Roman citizenship. Constantine said, “Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd.”

Constantine couldn’t make up his mind whether he was a preacher or a potentate, so he was pathetic as both. He was not a Bible believer, trusting in his empty, powerless reasoning, but his legs were not long enough to straddle the chasm between reason and revelation!

Another Roman Emperor issued the Edict of Theodosius in 391, declaring that Christianity was the only legal religion in the Roman Empire, bringing more pressure and persecution to Jews, although relief to Christians. Many Jewish synagogues had been destroyed earlier under the fiction that the land was “necessary.” By the end of the sixth century, Jewish children in Spain over seven years old were removed from their parents and educated as “Christians.”

No one, however bigoted, can defend such treatment.

Jewish persecution has been extensive, excessive, and always egregious but never excusable. However, the killing of Christ is not the only cause of such hatred since the persecutors had no real commitment to Christ. In many European nations, Jews were forbidden to own property, so they often became wealthy bankers. They were charged with usury which triggered envy, jealousy, and hatred. They spoke a strange language and usually kept to themselves, resulting in wild accusations followed by additional persecution.

Since Jews were “different,” “strange,” and “reserved,” they were convenient scapegoats to explain bad weather, accidents, wars, and plagues. The fear, envy, and hatred prompted massive persecution, torture, ghettoization, and massacre even from professing Christians. But then, no real Christian would do such a thing—but some Popes did.

During these problems, persecutions, and prosecutions of the Jewish people, it must be remembered that these were done by a state church run by religious tyrants or secular bigoted rulers, not by genuine, committed Christians teaching the truth in love to every man, especially “to the Jew first.”

Martin Luther defended Jews in his early ministry; however, he turned violently against them as he got older. He answered the question, “What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews,” and his reply has been used by the haters for centuries. “First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools…This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians …”

Luther was a brilliant, informed scholar who helped change the world, but his tirade against Jews is proof that Christians are also very human and often do evil. I wonder if he ever repented of his folly.

Luther then suggested Jewish houses be “razed and destroyed.” Their prayer books and Talmudic writings should be taken from them. Moreover, their rabbis should be forbidden to teach “on pain of loss of life and limb …” Luther suggested that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews “for they have no business in the countryside …” Then all “cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them …” Lastly, he suggested they be ejected from the country if there is reason to be fearful of them.

It should be noted that no German or European ruler implemented all of Luther’s suggestions. However, there is no doubt Jew-haters including some German Nazis for centuries used his statements to anger, abuse, and assault Jews,

Luther was a good, great, and even godly man, which only proves that good, great, and godly men can do and say ungodly, stupid things at times.

Often, the Jewish people almost invited persecution by their own actions, and I’ll be criticized for saying that. But then, burning at the stake has gone out of fashion, so I’ll survive.

Jews have financed wars charging kings and ordinary people outrageous interest; moreover, the Talmud (not an inspired book) is full of hatred, filth, and shameful charges against Christians and Gentiles. (But, then, I am not supposed to relate that fact since it will offend some Jews—but not honest Jews.)

The Talmud is a book that Jews have difficulty defending. Talmud normally refers to Babylonian Talmud, although there is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud compiled in the 4th century in Galilee. The popular Babylonian Talmud was compiled about the year A.D. 500.

Even some Jews are critical of the Talmud, as are many others with good cause. There is much anti-Christian and anti-Gentile content, but it was not the Torah that taught the Jews to criticize and hate Gentiles. The Talmud is also accused of absurd, immoral content and distorting Scripture. Orthodox Jews and, to a lesser extent, Conservative Judaism accept the Talmud as authoritative but have difficulty defending its implacable hatred of all non-Jews.

Jews brought much criticism to themselves because of their unusual influence in violent revolutions in France and Russia. Jews in Russia during the early 20th century occupied many leading positions, although they made up only a small percentage of the population.

Communism, as espoused by Karl Marx (also a Jew who died in 1883), got its impetus when a sealed train left Zurich, Switzerland on April 9, 1917, carrying 32 Russians (including Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin) through wartime Germany. Lenin had lived in Switzerland since 1900 as an exile.

Germany was losing WW I and saw a chance to cause further havoc in Russia by permitting Lenin’s return to Russia following their almost leaderless revolution in March (now sputtering and leaderless). In March, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated, and he and his family were butchered by the revolutionaries. Russia was in turmoil and praying for a strong leader.

He was already on the train.

Lenin’s train included 19 members of his Bolshevik Party and six Jewish members of the Jewish Labor Bund. Almost half the passengers on the train were Jewish. In less than a year, Vladimir Lenin would be running Russia following the bloody revolution in November led by him and Bolshevik revolutionaries.

The train took Lenin to Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), and that train ride is the most critical and relevant one in history. It took 8 days to travel 2,000 miles taking Lenin from relative obscurity in a cheap Zurich apartment to the absolute leader of Russia. His return to Russia turned their sputtering revolt into the world-shattering Russian Revolution. Millions died because of that train trip.

That was when a major train wreck would have been an enormous benefit to the world.

Jews were by far the largest group involved in the Bolshevik (Russian) Revolution. Half of some revolutionary committees in Russia were Jews, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared that half of the secret police were Jews. He confessed, “Without Jews, there never would have been Bolshevism. For a Jew, nothing is more insulting than the truth. The bloodthirsty Jewish terrorists have murdered sixty-six million in Russia from 1918 to 1957.” While a world-renowned hero, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and survivor of the Soviet gulag, Solzhenitsyn received much flack for his revelation about Jewish influence.

In an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald in 1920, Winston Churchill emphasized the Jewish role in the Russian Revolution, declaring it “probably outweighs [the role] of all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews.” And Lenin’s grandfather was a Jew.

Thousands of Jews were executed in Stalin’s purges in the 1930s, not because they were Jews but because Stalin was a paranoid killer who mistrusted everyone. Jews multiplied in the Russian leadership, not because they were Jews, but because they showed more enthusiasm and commitment to the cause.

Small-minded men hated Jews and envied their success as they do today, not realizing the foul breath of prejudice, bigotry, and hate are deadly to the soul.

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent being Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! The eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)

Jews were forced to convert to Christianity in Constantinople (of course it takes faith not force or fraud to produce a Christian), were forced out of Italy, and were driven from what is now Belgium. They could only return if they contritely confessed their guilt for killing Christ.

Of course, the Crusades were a dark, dismal, and decadent episode that ostensibly was to take Jerusalem and the Holy Land away from the “Muslim infidels,” but the “Christian” crusaders butchered thousands of Jews during their extended Holy Land tour. The Catholic Church tried to drive infidel Muslims and Jews into Heaven with a bloody sword; however, force never made a real convert–only faith does that.

France sure increased their “bottom line” in the 12th century when they expelled all Jews from the land and confiscated their land and houses! They were “kind” enough to permit them to sell anything that was moveable. England seized Jewish possessions and some of their homes were burned.

Another dark period began in 1229 when the Spanish Inquisition was authorized by Pope Innocent (!) IV permitting torture of Jews and non-Roman Catholic Christians. Later, 16,000 Jews were banished from England.

At the beginning of the 14th century, France forced 100,000 Jews from the nation (after expelling them about 300 years earlier then permitting them to emigrate again. The “Christian” leaders of France permitted the Jews to take food for one day and the clothes on their backs.

When the Black Death lashed the face of Europe, Jews were accused of spreading the plague by poisoning drinking wells; consequently more than 5,000 Jews were burned at the stake. As the night sky was ablaze in European cities the plague continued to ravage nation after nation.

In 1492, Jews in Spain were given three choices by “Christian” Ferdinand and Isabella: they could be baptized, banished, or butchered. About 300,000 Jews fled the nation without a peso in their pockets. Hatred and bigotry flowed through the streets of European cities like hot lava.

Another dark time in history came with the religious and political success of Martin Luther. He was one of the most courageous, committed men in history yet he became more anti-Semitic as he aged. He wrote a booklet titled, On Jews and Their Lies that asked the question, “What shall we do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?” He suggested that Jewish homes be “razed and destroyed,” and their religious books burned! Only God knows how much negative influence Luther had on Hitler and his development of the “Jewish solution.” Luther had pulled out of the state sponsored Roman Catholic Church only to start another state church in Germany. He “came out” but not far enough and brought some of the tyranny with him. He should have left it in Rome.

In the early 20th century, about 600,000 Jews were force marched from the border of Russia into the interior resulting in the starvation and exposure deaths of 100,000.

When Hitler gained control in 1933, he started restricting Jews from attending universities and working in the professions. In 1938, German mobs burned 2,000 synagogues, destroyed 7,500 Jewish businesses, and 30,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps on what is now called “The Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht). The Roman Catholic Church never excommunicated Adolph Hitler and other vicious Jew-hating dictators! Of course God took care of him. Hitler’s acolytes are active in Europe today!

In late 1941 the Odessa massacre scarred the world’s conscience when Romanian and German troops killed about 100,000 Jews. Some say it was closer to 115,000 Jews and 15,000 Gypsies.

Hatred of Jews came to a repulsive climax when Hitler sent them to concentration camps where many were killed simply for being Jews. Even now there is a huge number of people who honor Hitler and his cadre of criminals who paraded in jackboots forcing Jews and genuine Christians into submission.

The Jewish people have not always done right as any reader of the Old Testament knows; however, they were chosen by God and Christ was a Jew. They are a miracle people having survived thousands of years although plundered, persecuted, and prosecuted. And all Muslim nations want to drive Israel into the sea yet Israelis still negotiate with them, even giving them much of their land! That proves that very smart people do some very stupid things at times.

Muslims hate Jews (and everyone else) because the Koran teaches them to do so. And the incredible success of the Jews is a slap in the face to every Muslim, the nation of Israel being an excellent example. It’s easier to hate and kill Jews than to excel in science and other professions.

One general measure of success, especially in science, is being awarded the Nobel Prize for science. Two hundred Jews have won the Nobel Prize in science with only 16 million total Jews in the world. Of the 1.7 billion Muslims in the world, only eight Muslims have been so honored. Do the math.

I rest my case: Jews are hated because they are a special people. God is watching!

http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

Unbelievers and wicked men hate certitude and the Jews, while not always being right, have always been certain. While the rest of the world worshipped multiple pagan gods, the Jews demanded faithful and exclusive worship of Jehovah. Well, there goes the pagan vote!

God told them not to marry into the wicked, unbelieving nations around them and that suggested Jewish superiority. That refusal to be absorbed into the culture has been a reason for the perpetuity of them as a people but also a cause of universal hatred. Jews seemed to think they were special, and they were and still are! Others resented it and still do.

Jehovah gave the Jewish nation a code of personal behavior known as the Ten Commandments and nothing could be more absolute; they were not suggestions. Men still chaff under “Thou shalt not.” Because of such holy demands and their uniqueness, the Jews were usually considered as outcasts.

A major Jewish rebellion against Rome was triggered in 66 A.D., when a Jew-hater dumped a pot of urine outside a synagogue. Jews were rightly furious at this desecration and a riot broke out during which some Jews insulted the Roman Governor of Judea. He ordered his soldiers to destroy the market and kill everyone in sight. What had been occasional acts of rebellion became a full scale national revolt. It was all downhill from there. Josephus reported that 40,000 Jews were killed in Jotapata, a city he was defending as a Jewish leader. He wrote, “From one end of Galilee to the other there was an orgy of fire and bloodshed.”

Fighting continued and in 70 A.D. the Roman Army destroyed Jerusalem, including their holy Temple, killing more than 1 million Jews. About 100,000 Jews were taken into slavery, thousands went to the mines, and thousands scattered over the known world. All because of a pot of warm urine! A second rebellion in 135 caused by a false Messiah resulted in 500,000 more Jews being killed.

About this time more organized opposition was occasioned in the Empire when Jews were forbidden to read the Torah, circumcise their sons, and other restrictions. When Constantine the Hypocrite published the Edict of Milan in 315 providing tolerance to Christians, Jews discovered they lost some rights. With the Council of Nicaea, the first “worldwide” religious conclave in 325, Jews lost the right to Sabbath worship and the right to have Roman citizenship.

The Edict of Theodosius in 391 declared that Christianity was to be the only legal religion in the Roman Empire bringing more pressure and persecution to Jews, although relief to Christians. Many Jewish synagogues had been destroyed earlier under the fiction that the land was “necessary.” By the end of the sixth century, Jewish children in Spain over seven years old were removed from their parents and educated as “Christians.”

Jewish persecution has been extensive, excessive, and always egregious but never excusable. However, the killing of Christ is not the only cause of such hatred since most of the persecutors had no real commitment to Christ. In many European nations Jews were forbidden to own property so they often became wealthy bankers. They were charged with usury which triggered envy, jealousy and hatred. They spoke a strange language, and usually kept to themselves resulting in wild accusations that produced further persecution.

Since Jews were “different,” “strange,” and “reserved” they were convenient scapegoats to explain bad weather, accidents, wars, and plagues. The fear, envy, and hatred prompted massive persecution, torture, ghettoization, and massacre even from professing Christians.

During these problems, persecutions, and prosecutions of the Jewish people it must be remembered that these were done by a state church run by religious tyrants, not by genuine, committed Christians teaching truth in love to every man, especially “to the Jew first.”

Moreover, the Jew-haters had better remember, or forget at their peril, that God promised to bless those who bless the Jews and curse those who curse the Jews. God keeps His word.

My religious ancestors never persecuted anyone, and I would repudiate them if they had.
http://bit.ly/1iMLVfY Watch these 8 minute videos of my lecture at the University of North Dakota: “A Christian Challenges New Atheists to Put Up or Shut Up!”

However, another empire was gathering influence down in the river town of Babylon about 55 miles south of modern Baghdad between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Babylon was ruled by King Nebuchadnezzar II who became a Jewish proselyte after losing his mind for seven years.

Nebuchadnezzar ruled Babylon from 605 to 562 B.C. and he conquered Jerusalem in 597, taking into captivity the craftsmen, smiths, warriors, and intellectuals. Daniel (a young man of purpose, prayer, and prophecy) and Ezekiel were among the captives. Daniel played a major role in Nebuchadnezzar’s administration and Ezekiel was a prophet who compared his friend to Noah and Job!

In 586, Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem again and the captain of his bodyguards ordered that Solomon’s Temple, the royal palace, and all homes in the city of Jerusalem be torched. The surviving inhabitants of the city (a total of about 50,000) were taken captive to Babylon. Jerusalem was totally destroyed! It should be noted that about 100,000 Jews still occupied Judah while Jerusalem’s leaders, intellectuals, and craftsmen were sent into exile for 70 years.

Babylon defeated, destroyed, and demoralized Jerusalem and surrounding cities; but payday was coming for Babylon in a few years.

It was 539 B.C., that mighty Babylon fell to the Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great who diverted the Euphrates River that flowed through the city. Upstream from the city, he channeled the river into a large basin, thereby permitting his army to wade waist deep down the riverbed into the city. The Babylonians could have easily frustrated Cyrus but they were having a drunken party given by King Belshazzar. He and his officers thought that there was no way any army could capture the impregnable city on the Euphrates. That night proved that drinkers are not the best thinkers.

When Cyrus the Persian defeated Babylon, he killed Belshazzar, grandson of Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus is perhaps most widely known for allowing the exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple in 538. Following Babylon’s defeat, Darius the Mede was appointed by Cyrus to rule Babylon as recorded in Daniel 6. The prophet Daniel, past 80-years-old, had his lions’ den experience during the rule of Darius.

When Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem, he even returned the sacred, golden vessels that Nebuchadnezzar had taken in his conquest of the city and he helped finance the rebuilding of the Temple! It was finished in 515. Zerubbable led 42,360 Jewish exiles back home; very few out of an estimated one million that then lived in the former Babylonian Empire! What a trek south through 500 miles of desert! But they were going home after 70 years.

Darius the Great ruled Persia from 521-486 and his is son, Xerxes I, ruled from 485-465 and was killed by a bodyguard. Xerxes I is the Bible’s King Ahasuerus who ruled Persia and chose Esther as his queen in 473 B.C., after Queen Vashti refused his command to parade her beauty to a large host of drunken men. She knew that drunks are often skunks, however the king was angry and embarrassed at her refusal. After all, he controlled a world empire yet he could not control his own wife! He didn’t like his buddies and underlings snickering at his impotence. So he chose Esther as his queen, but did not know that she was a Jew.

Haman was a Persian official who hated Jews, especially Queen Esther’s uncle who was a minor government official. Haman devised a plan to kill all the Jews in the empire but when Esther discovered the plan, she risked her life by asking the king’s help without his permission. She bravely said, “If I perish, I perish.” Ahasuerus granted her access and discovered Haman was not a worthy official and had him hanged upon the very gallows that he had built for Esther’s uncle who had angered Haman by refusing to bow to him.

The King’s Jew-killing order had already been sent to all the provinces authorizing the Jews to be slaughtered on a specific day and Persian law did not permit any changes in their laws. However, the king permitted another law that gave information to the Jews so they could defend themselves on their day of slaughter.

So the Jewish nation was saved (again) in 473 B.C. because a Jewish queen had courage, character, and convictions. Jews today celebrate this miraculous deliverance at the Feast of Purim.

Artaxerxes, the son of Ahasuerus, ruled from 465 to 424 B.C. Under his rule, Ezra returned to Jerusalem with exiles in 458. Nehemiah led another group in 445 and succeeded in building walls that protected the Second Temple and the returned Jews who were now home. Artaxerxes provided the timber to build the walls!

The Jews were back in their land faithfully serving the one true God, having constructed the Second Temple and rebuilt the city walls. Meanwhile, the Greeks in Athens had built their Parthenon, a pagan temple to Athena.

Jewish History should send a message to even the dullest of tyrants: Don’t mess with Israel, the apple of God’s eye.

In the following years, Christians were persecuted and butchered throughout the Roman Empire, especially in Rome itself. But wild men in Rome (one of them being a state-certified nut) hated Jews as well. As happened often in their history, Jews in Judah were dominated by Rome and gave the Roman authorities more problems than the other provinces. They rebelled in Jerusalem in 70 A.D., resulting in over a million Jews slain, the Second Temple and all homes destroyed, and the remaining living scattered.

About 60 years later, the Roman Empire scattered the Jewish people all over the known world–again, following the rebellion of Bar Kakhba (declared by some to be the Messiah) in 132-135. A. D. There was enormous bloodshed on both sides. Bar Kakhba led 100,000 men and he expected God to intervene on their behalf. Rome’s best general Julius Severusled commanded his troops consisting of half the Roman Army, and three times the troops used by Titus in 70 A.D.! Rome never doubted the outcome, although it cost them dearly.
In that war (known as the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars), 585,000 Jews were killed, and 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed. The Romans “went on killing until their horses were submerged in blood to their nostrils” according to the Jerusalem Talmud. (A slight exaggeration!) All Jews and Christians (even though Christians did not support the revolt) were barred from Jerusalem, and were spread over the land, especially in Galilee.

The Jews revolted when they discovered Emperor Hadrian’s decision to build a pagan temple to Jupiter although he had promised to build a Jewish Temple upon the foundations of the Second Temple. Hadrian antagonized the Jews further by changing the cities’ name and “Ploughing up the Temple.” Then Hadrian abolished the rite of circumcision considering it a mutilation. Hadrian forgot the first rule of diplomacy: use religion, don’t fight it. Hadrian was not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Hadrian continued to make stupid decisions by deciding that Judaism was the cause of all his troubles and outlawed the Torah and the Hebrew calendar. Then he butchered Hebrew scholars, a tactic that all tyrants have always used: kill all the intellectuals. He installed two statues upon the Temple Mount, one of himself and one of Jupiter. His coup de grâce was to rename the nation after their ancient enemies–the Philistines: Judea was now “Palaestina.” That is where the modern “Palestinians” get their “credentials,” to be called, “Palestinians.” They did not rightly get the name from living thousands of years in the land of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Jews, without a Temple and with many of their scholars exterminated and others exiled from their land, spread all over the known world building synagogues for their teaching and worship. The majority of the Jewish population of Judea was killed, exiled, or sold into slavery. Others had settled in various parts of Judah.

How does a nation survive 2000 years of persecutions, prosecutions, and pogroms? Jews are very familiar with boycotts and banishments. They know firsthand about gossip, ghettos, and the grave. There is no human explanation how they became such a successful nation. They are indestructible because of God’s plan, provision, protection, and preservation. It does help to know the right Person.

Israel–the Jews–don’t always do the right thing as shown in their criminal attack upon the USS Liberty when it was attacked in international waters. Israeli forces on June 8, 1967, killed 34 Americans and wounded another 174. The Israelis knew it was an American ship and nine hours after that information was received, they proceeded with their attack as the American flag waved over the top of the mast. The cover-up persists to this day.

I do not slavishly defend everything Israel does. In fact, I hold them accountable as I do all nations. It would be dishonest not to do so. They have over-reacted at times and some of their first years, they did some very wrong things–such as bombing the King David Hotel on July 22, 1946, killing 92 British, Arabs, and Jews and wounding 46 others. There had been many false bomb threats called in and when the real warning call was made, the British officials and hotel staff rebuffed it. A British official retorted, “We don’t take orders from Jews.”

Before Jew-haters crank up their computers (before turning on their brains) to correct me, I admit that some of the world’s more repulsive, repugnant, and reprehensible people have been and are Jews. Some of the most despised, deranged, dangerous people on earth have been Jews. There, that should satisfy the haters. Of course, my statement is true, but that only proves that we are a fallen race consisting of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, Lenin (rumored to be Jewish), Sigmund Freud, Adolf Eichmann, Bernard Madoff, George Soros, are among the “ugly” in my opinion.

Of all Nobel Prize winners, at least 20% were Jews, although Jews make up less than .2% of the world’s population! Moreover, America’s greatest comedians were and are Jewish. Americans have laughed at Jewish comedians for a hundred years, but the mistreatment of Jews for thousands of years is not funny.

And I can assure you that God is not laughing.

At Israel’s beginning, Abraham went to Egypt for food during a famine instead of trusting in Jehovah. His whole family (70 of them) ended up there and within 400 years they became a mighty nation. Then, a new Pharaoh came to the throne that was not favorable to the Hebrews. He made them slaves and sought to kill all newborn males. Moses grew up in his palace as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, after she found him beside the Nile River, and he became the heir-apparent to the throne of Egypt. The very thought of a Jew sitting on the Egyptian throne was breathtaking.

Moses, at 40, refused the power, prestige, and possessions of Egypt and identified with his people the Jews, and spent his next 40 years in desert training. He led Israel from the land of bondage to the land of blessing when he was 80. When they fled Egypt, each family was commanded to kill a lamb and put the blood over their doors and everyone would be safe when the Angel of Death passed over that last night. The Egyptian homes all experienced the death of their first-born sons while the Hebrews’ sons were unharmed. Christians memorialize that incident when they sing, “When I see the blood, I’ll pass over you” referring to the Death of Christ.

The Jews left Egyptian slavery and returned to the land of promise; and since that time, Jews have celebrated that night of deliverance by observing the Passover. The story of their deliverance has been remembered, rehearsed, and retold as it is memorialized with the statement, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Meaning, wherever they were at the time, maybe next year, they would be back in their homeland. During the observance of the Passover, (either seven or eight days) the celebration begins with the Seder (meaning order) meal, symbolic of their deliverance from Egypt.

“The Festival of the Unleavened Bread” is celebrated with the first two days of delicious meals called Seders when the Egyptian Passover is remembered and memorialized. Six more days of celebration follow the first two. On the eve of the Passover, each home is searched to remove any vestige of leaven. According to Exodus 12:11 the meal was to be eaten “with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’s Passover.” They were to be in a hurry to leave bondage! According to Exodus 13:3, they were to “keep it a feast by an ordinance forever.”

The “Festival of the Unleavened Bread” begins with a hard-boiled egg dipped into saltwater. A rabbi was once asked why Jews eat eggs on Passover. “Because eggs symbolize the Jew,” the rabbi answered. “The more an egg is burned or boiled, the harder it gets.” Seems that way.

During the Seder, the family recalls their Egyptian slavery by eating matzo, known as the “poor person’s bread.” Bitter herbs, called “maror,” are eaten which symbolize the bitterness of slavery, and a sweet paste (charoset) representing the mortar which the slaves used to cement bricks. They dip vegetables into saltwater, and it recalls the tears the Jews shed during their servitude. Roast lamb or goat is a main portion of the meal.

An extra cup of wine is at the table for the prophet Elijah. It is almost electric when a child is sent to the door to open for the prophet who will be the messenger of messianic times ahead.

The whole celebration is to remind them of their slavery and the goodness of God in delivering them, not because of their greatness but because of His goodness and grace.
Israel was overshadowed by the greatness of Egypt, the grandeur of Babylon, the growth of Nineveh but they had what no other nation had going for them: They were the “apple of God’s eye.” Judah was caught in the middle of the constant struggles among the three powers, but Jews survived while the others did not. Will Durant wrote, the “Jews who are as old as history, may be as lasting as civilization.” Obviously.

Jehovah was faithful in showing His grace by delivering the Jews from slavery and He will further show his faithfulness with the construction of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount, the most important and contested 35 acres on earth, claimed by Muslims and Jews! Hummm, that will be an interesting development! Muslims have not learned the truth that you can’t mess with Israel but they are destined to learn that truth the hard way as did Egypt.

While the Passover reminds Jews of their release from slavery, it should be remembered that Pharaoh and his army were destroyed as the Jews were delivered.

The message of the Bible and history is: Don’t mess with Israel.

With passing of time, powerful nations demonstrated hatred toward the little embryonic Jewish nation along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. Powerful nations such as Egypt, Nineveh, and Syria were followed by a new threat that appeared on the stage of history: Babylon. The Amorite king, Hammurabi (ruled 1792-1750) first created the short-lived Babylonian Empire about 1792 B.C. but it quickly faded after his death. The only thing remembered about the empire is the famous Code of Hammurabi.

Bible critics suggest that the Hebrew prophet Moses got his laws from Hammurabi, and if so, so what. Even a pagan king can have some great ideas; however, Moses had something Hammurabi did not have: information from Jehovah! Of course, the earlier an event in history, the less reliable is the date. Moreover, all experts admit that the Mosaic Law was far more gentle and humane than Hammurabi’s.

Until about 600 B.C., Babylon was ruled by various powers in the region. Then, the empire became almost unstoppable. About this time, Zoroaster was teaching in Persia, Buddha was born in India in 563 (and later abandoned his wife and son) and the Roman Republic was founded in 509 B.C.

The Babylonians conquered and destroyed Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire after it had been weakened repeatedly by civil war. The Jews in Jerusalem were swiftly backsliding into all kinds of wickedness and were finally attacked by Nebuchadnezzar II, the head honcho of the Babylonian Empire. In 586 B.C., he returned to Jerusalem and took the best, the brightest, and the bravest Jews into a 70-year Babylonian Captivity leaving only the poorest of the poor to occupy the defeated, destroyed, desolated, and almost deserted city.

In captivity, 500 miles from Jerusalem, the Jews sat beside the Euphrates River, hung their harps on a willow limb and cried, “We wept, when we remembered Zion.” The recently defeated Jews had been marched from Jerusalem to Babylon and often promised, “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither.” However, with time they came to enjoy the “good life” and adjusted to the captivity. In Jeremiah 29:4-9, the prophet had told them to “make the best of it” and accommodate themselves to the conditions of a protracted exile without being assimilated with the pagan Babylonians. Of course, Jeremiah knew what followed the end of their captivity.

Herodotus, a Greek historian born about 450 BC, wrote, “Babylon surpasses in splendor any city in the known world.” He described the city as a huge square 14 miles on all four sides. It had 100 gates of bronze that were still standing when Herodotus was there about 400 B.C. He claimed the outer walls were 56 miles in length, 80 feet thick and 320 feet high! Wide enough, he said, to allow two four-horse chariots to pass each other. The city also had inner walls which were “not so thick as the first, but hardly less strong.” The walls went 35 feet underground thereby frustrating any tunneling under them. There was a large water-filled moat just outside the outer wall. It was impossible to conquer Babylon but Cyrus did the impossible.

Babylon fell to the Persian Empire under the rule of Cyrus in 539 B.C. The Persian Empire stretched from Ethiopia to India connected by more than 3,000 miles of well-built roads. The most famous road was the Royal Road built by King Darius that stretched about 1,600 miles from Sardis in Turkey to Susa, capital of Persia. Herodotus wrote of this road, “There are royal stations (every 3.4 miles) and excellent inns, and the whole road is through an inhabited and safe country.” Maybe the first Interstate!

Persia was also famous for its efficient postal system, the world’s first, prototype to our Pony Express. At the royal stations there were fresh horses for relay riders to carry the mail from one end to the other. Common travelers made the 1,600 mile trip in 90 days but the “Persian Express” did it is less than a week! About like U.S. mail from coast to coast–today.

Herodotus described the Persian mail system and it functioned exactly as the Pony Express did in America. The famous historian said of those Persian riders, “These are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.” Evidently, Americans took the Persians’ slogan as well.

Cyrus was very generous with all religions, especially the Jews. He understood that religion is “glue” that holds a state together. Within a year he gave permission for the Jews to return to their homeland and even helped finance the journey and the rebuilding of their city and Temple. Mighty Babylon was on a downhill slide and by the time of Strabo (at the end of the 1st century B.C.), the site was in ruins and by 500 A.D. the whole area was a swamp. In recent years, the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein (who envisioned himself as another Nebuchadnezzar) sought to rebuild Babylon; however, he was hindered because his “friends and associates” hanged him by his neck–until dead. Babylon is in the same condition–dead and buried. Many say it will be rebuilt.

When Captain Titus attacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the city fell and the Second Temple was destroyed, beginning the period of the Second Exile. The Jews would be scattered throughout the world. In the land God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob the Jews would have little influence for the next 1900 years. However during most of this Second Exile there have always been some Jews living in Jerusalem.

Such has been the Jewish story but they were never destroyed. Some Jews were assimilated but not as a nation. Enough of them stayed true to biblical principles such as worshiping Jehovah, abhorring pagan gods, keeping the Law, observing the Sabbath, circumcision of their sons, etc., to always be a separate nation wherever they were living. They are a strong, separate, and sovereign nation today much to the chagrin of Muslim Jew-haters who want to “drive Israel into the Sea.” Pharaoh tried that and he ended up in the Red Sea.

May all tyrants end that way!

In Genesis 12:3 God promised Abraham, “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” That verse has not been abrogated and, much to the chagrin of Jew-haters, it is working as I write. It is dangerous to mistreat the Jews. Zechariah 2:8 promised, “for he that toucheth you (Jews) toucheth the apple of his eye.” Jew-haters cringe when they hear those verses.

Some have asked why Jews are God’s chosen people and the reason is simple: God chose Abraham and promised to bless him and make of him “a great nation”! It was not because of any personal merits but because of His sovereign desire, design, and delight. Christians look at Israel with great appreciation, friendship, and love since Christ Himself was a Jew and came to the world through the Jewish people.

God gave the Jews the land from the Nile River in Egypt to the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia (Iraq), although most people, even Christians, think the Holy Land consists of land between the Mediterranean Sea east to the Jordan River.

Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital for about 3,000 years since David moved there from Hebron. David’s son, Solomon, ruled over the entire kingdom and built the first Temple that was known all over the world for it beauty and magnificence.

Following the death of Solomon in 930 B.C., his son, Rehoboam became king and the nation split like a ripe watermelon into two kingdoms: Israel the Northern Kingdom, (including the northern cities of Shechem and Samaria) and Judah the Southern Kingdom, with Jerusalem as its capital. The kingdom split because Rehoboam, like most politicians, was a tax and spend liberal who refused to listen to older and wiser heads.

Solomon had spent lavishly on building the Temple, gated cities, stables, his palaces, and other building projects, and the people cried for tax relief, but young Rehoboam refused to listen. Splitsville! I know of another young “king” who is making that mistake as I write.

Israel, the Northern Kingdom, led by a competent but corrupt Jeroboam, constantly disobeyed God. Israel had 19 kings, all bad, in its 240 year history. In 722, the Assyrians (inhabiting the area of Iraq, Turkey, and Syria) invaded the Northern Kingdom and took Israel into captivity. They are known as “the ten lost tribes” and have been lost to history. Disobedience to God is costly!

Judah, the Southern Kingdom, was more faithful to God and their kings reigned about twice as long as those in Israel. Hezekiah was Judah’s greatest king and was married to Isaiah’s daughter. During his reign, the Assyrians captured the Northern Kingdom so Hezekiah expected the Assyrians to come after Judah. They did. However, Hezekiah was ready for them because he fortified the city and also constructed a 600 yard-long tunnel from outside the walls to a reservoir inside the city providing water for the people.

It is still an incredible engineering job with workers starting at the two ends and meeting in the middle. I have walked through that tunnel a few times.

Sennacherib besieged Jerusalem in 701 but God sent a plague that struck the Assyrian camp and their army was decimated overnight–185,000 men! Isaiah had prophesied in Isaiah 14:25: “That I will break the Assyrian in my land and upon my mountains tread him under foot.” And that He did.

A failed Sennacherib led his army back to Assyria where his bloodthirsty sons slaughtered him a few years later. Like all politicians Sennacherib boasted of his “success”: “Hezekiah, King of Judah, I locked in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage.” Like most politicians he did not tell the whole truth which was that he fled back to Nineveh without taking the city! Ancient politicians, like leaders today, didn’t often record their failures.

Sennacherib sadistically enjoyed torturing his enemies by skinning them alive and nailing their skins to walls as a gentle warning to others: “Don’t mess with me!” But he didn’t skin one Jew in that famous battle; rather, God “skinned” Sennacherib and he discovered, too late, that the Jews are special people.