BIBLE PROPHECIES | THE NATIONHOOD OF ISRAEL (2)

 1. The nationhood of Israel 

a) Jewish history is unique in the extent to which its people have been exiled from their land and yet able to later return and re-establish their country. During ancient times, the Jews were forced to essentially relocate their center of life from Jerusalem to Babylon. But they had the ability to later restore Jerusalem as their center of life, as well as the land of Israel as their home.

b) Bible prophecies are listed below.

2. Bible Prophecies

a) The Jews would survive Babylonian rule and return home. 

Jeremiah 32:36-37 New International Version (NIV) 

³⁶ “You are saying about this city, ‘By the sword, famine and plague it will be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’; but this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ³⁷ I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety.  

3. Written: Sometime between 626-586 BC 

a) Jeremiah was one of the prophets who warned the people of Judah that they would be forced into exile by the Babylonians. In Jeremiah 32:36-37, he prophesies to the people that they will survive that their exile in Babylon and return home. 

b) Babylon had defeated the Assyrians in a decisive battle, ending in 612 B.C., at Nineveh. And then, in 609 B.C., the Babylonians captured the last Assyrian king. The Assyrians had an empire that had included the land of Judah but now the Babylonians had seized control of the empire. 

c) In an effort to show the people of Judah that Babylon was now their new master, they began a process of forcing key residents into exile, as early as 605 B.C. More deportations took place in later years, culminating with the wholesale destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 B.C. 

d) Jews began returning to their homeland after the Babylonian Empire was toppled in 539 B.C., by a coalition of Medes and Persians.