God’s Unending Promise to Israel in the Face of Rising Anti-Semitism

Rocket attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip. Threats by the Iranian government. Mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. calling for boycotting, divestiture, and sanctioning against Israel and its economy. All in the name of promoting peace in the Middle East by forcing Israel to give up land, including East Jerusalem, to the Palestinians. This makes for frightening and discouraging times for Israelis. But as a gentile Christian, I find plenty of hope in Scripture for Israel’s survival, despite all the enemies seeking its demise.

A passage of Scripture I studied that speaks of God’s unending love and protection for Jews is the 83rd Psalm. Written by Asaph, this psalm is both a prayer for God’s intervention against a major threat from multiple enemies, and a recounting of His defense of Israel in the past. A key verse I found in this psalm around which the defense of Israel is pleaded for is v. 4: “Come,” they say, “let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.” This reveals what these enemy nations coming against Israel were plotting to do with their overwhelming military might. Israel’s enemies at that time were seeking to eliminate every Israelite from the soil of Palestine, and cause its name, along with the very mention of its God, to be wiped from world memory.

Asaph casts this threat in the light of past enemies’ attempts at their defeat and destruction. He recalls how enemies such as King Jabin of Hazor (Judges 4-5) and the Midianites tried to enslave the Israelites under their control, but were defeated by God and His select troops from different tribes of Israel. In each of these instances, when Israel turned to God for His help, He brought down and destroyed enemy armies much larger and better equipped than their own. Asaph is seeking to remind his fellow Israelites that no enemy army, however large or powerful, was any match for Almighty God. Though all those enemies were determined to “take possession of the pasturelands of God” (v. 12), they were all defeated under the leading and power of God.

Asaph prays in this psalm that God will completely destroy the enemies listed in verses 6-8, the same way He did the Canaanites under King Jabin and the Midianites. He calls upon God to bring shame, disgrace, and humiliation on these enemy nations threatening Israel’s very existence, so they well seek and learn His name Adonai, and recognize Him as the One and only true God Who rules over all creation. Instead of the Name of God ending up forgotten by the world with the elimination of the nation of Israel, His Name will become known all over the earth, says Asaph.

What does this have to say to the nation of Israel and all Jewish people today, concerning their safety and survival? I believe we find five truths that will help our Jewish friends in Israel and everywhere in this psalm:

1. When enemies threaten to destroy God’s faithful children and His chosen people in particular, instead of relying on human help, crying out to God for salvation and protection is the best thing they can do. In the case of modern Israel, under pressure to either divide their land or disappear as a nation altogether, the need for God’s intervention to ruin the schemes of their enemies is just as real and necessary as it was in the days of Asaph and the judges.
2. Israel could face in the near future the same threat of complete annihilation at the hands of invading armies. This is why the need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem and Israel is greater than ever. The assurance modern Israelis have of God’s defense of them as a nation and people is that God will not allow them to be destroyed, as He has never allowed them to be in the past. The enemy nations that threatened Israel in Asaph’s day are all gone. Only Israel remains.
3. Just as Asaph called out to God to defend Israel from enemies that not only wanted to obliterate them from the earth, but their very name from the world’s memory, so Christians need to join with Jews today in praying for the same protection.
4. Like Asaph in Psalm 83, Jews and Christians alike must trust that God will wipe out any and all enemy armies which seek to destroy Israel completely. In the New Testament, Revelation 16:13-21 correlates with this psalm in describing the Battle of Armageddon, in which the final enemies seeking to destroy Israel will instead face compete destruction.
5. Even as Asaph prayed that God’s judgement against Israel’s enemies would reveal Him as the One true God, so must Jews and Christians pray for the same. No matter who their enemies may be, either hostile nations or coalitions of apostate churches seeking to tear Israel down through boycotts, divestitures, and sanctions, Israel will survive, Jews will be vindicated, and God’s name will be exalted as Lord over all in the end.

This is the hope and peace of Israel, even as God reveals Himself and His Messiah, Jesus Christ, to them in the days ahead. Shalom.

(Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV), copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblia, Inc.) Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.