The Righteous Nation

Isaiah 26 is Judah’s millennial song. The faithful remnant in Israel is looking back to the Lord’s dealings with them, vindicating them among the nations in the great tribulation, and looking forward to the prospect of Jerusalem as a city set apart to God and Israel as the first among the nations during Christ’s millennial reign.

“Open the gates,” cry the remnant, “that the righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in.”

That’s not a Christian sentiment, it’s a Jewish one, and it’s quite a change from what we are seeing today.

Differences of Opinion

If we are watching the news, and most of us are, no small number of Christians view Israel’s recent military moves as just, reasonable or, at very least, sadly necessary. Others think its government is overreaching. Still others (and I include myself in this category) are unsure anything we see about Palestine on the news is really as it appears. Despite our differences of opinion, all would agree, I think, that referring to present-day Israel as a “righteous nation” in any biblical sense is an impossible stretch. No nation on earth currently merits that adjective, let alone one that continues to reject its Messiah, or one whose ultra-Orthodox lawmakers recently proposed jail time for Christian proselytizing. (Happily, the bill was blocked after a global pushback Israel’s government knows it cannot afford. They need all the international support they can get at the moment.)

No, the “righteous nation” of Isaiah 26 is not today’s Israel.

Gaza and the West Bank in Bible Prophecy

I pointed out a couple of weeks ago at the end of our study in Obadiah that the Lord has every intention of giving Israel the Gaza Strip one of these days. The deal is as good as done. “Those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines,” says Obadiah. For those not familiar with biblical geography, that’s Judah inhabiting — owning! — the Gaza Strip. God has promised it, and it’s going to happen. Put that together with the description of the division of future Israel in Ezekiel, and it’s inevitable Israel will be getting the West Bank back as well. Whatever the ultimate resolution of the Palestinian problem, it will not be with Palestinians living in Palestine, let alone Hamas, no matter what the overwhelming majority of Gen Z may think is just or fair. Why? Because God says Jews are going to live there, and for anyone who believes in the inspiration of the Bible, that’s that.

Isaiah says much the same thing here in a more general way. He has the remnant singing, “You have increased the nation, O Lord, you have increased the nation; you are glorified; you have enlarged all the borders of the land.” The prophets tell us future Israel will expand in every direction. Some people will definitely not like that. Too bad. That’s God’s agenda, and nobody’s ill-informed political opinion will overrule it.

God and the IDF

But note that the deliverance of Israel from its current perils will not happen in the strength of the flesh. When Israel’s borders are eventually enlarged, it will be God who accomplishes it, not the IDF. “O Lord, you have increased the nation.” Concerning Israel’s attempts to protect itself from its numerous enemies, the remnant can only say this: “We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth, and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.”

That’s always the fate of efforts made in our own strength. All are futile. Only the Lord can deliver Israel, and that deliverance will not come until the nation has a complete change of heart. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

We’re still a long way from that.