Antisemitism: Part 2 - Birth of the Jewish Nation

“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land that I will show you. ‘I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing, … and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”” Genesis, 12:1-3 (NIV)

Later Abram poured out his heart to the Lord expounding the sorrow he had about his wife and how she was warren. With no offspring,he said, Eliezer, my servant, will inherit all that I have. God promised Abram that he would have a son from his own loins. Abram believed God and God credited it to him as righteousness. Sarai, Abram’s wife, was impatient and gave Abram her maidservant Hager to start a family. She bore a son and he named him Ishmael. Later, God changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah. God did this because Abraham and Sarah would be the father and mother of many nations.

“Then God said, ‘Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. Genesis, 17:19 (NIV)

“Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’” Genesis, 22:1-2 (NIV)

Three days later God said, “'Do not lay a hand on the boy,’ he said. ‘Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.’” Genesis, 22:12 (NIV)

As you can see by the last two scripture passages, God considered Isaac, Abraham’s only son, the son of His covenant.

When Isaac was older, he married Rebekah and they had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau was the elder of the two sons. However, God declared the older would serve the younger. It was through Jacob that God would continue the covenantal line. Jacob had twelve sons. These twelve sons produced what is known as the twelve tribes of Israel. Anyone who is a descendant of one of the twelve tribes of Israel is a Jewish person. There is no such thing as a spiritual Jew. You need to be a blood descendant of one of the twelve sons of Jacob.

So why is Satan so determined to be an adversary to the Jewish people. The reason is because in Genesis 3:15, God declared war against Satan with the promise that the seed of the woman, the Messiah, would crush and defeat him. This seed has been determined to come through Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Now, before Jacob dies, he gives a blessing and a prophecy to all twelve sons. It is with these blessings that we learn that the Messianic line will now go through the line of Judah. Satan will eventually target the tribe of Judah, specifically, but for now he will attack all of the tribes of Israel.

Earlier in the life of Abraham God promised him that his descendants would inherit the land of Canaan. However, God promised Abram that his descendants would also be slaves in a land not their own for four hundred years. During that four hundred years his descendants would grow into a large nation. When God brought Israelites out of Egypt, they were given great possessions by the Egyptians. God would then lead this large nation back to the land of Canaan for an eternal possession. This four hundred-year period of time started when the family of Jacob went to Egypt to escape a severe famine. The family prospered under the leadership of Joseph, one of Jacob’s sons. However, as the descendants of Jacob grew and grew, there was a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph and he put the Israelites into slavery. The nation that grew out of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was named Israelites because God changed Jacob’s name to Israel. Therefore, from his twelve sons, all the descendants were deemed to be Israelites.

Returning to the plots of Satan. When the Israelite nation was growing into a large nation, Pharaoh became scared that the Israelites would soon become larger than the Egyptian nation. Therefore, Pharaoh ordered that all the Hebrew (Israelite) males were to be drown at birth. The drowning of all the male babies was a direct attack on God’s plan because the Messiah would be a male.

As history unfolds, Moses leads the Israelite nation to the Promised Land of Canaan where they were to possess the land as God promised. The land of Canaan had many idolatrous nations within its borders. Idolatry was Satan’s way of drawing people away from the one true God. God had deep concerns for His covenant people and told them that they were to destroy all the inhabitants of the land. This way the Israelites would not be tempted to worship the gods of the other nations. History shows that the Israelites did not follow God’s instruction to destroy all the inhabitants of the land and that is why Israel had a long history of worshipping other gods and had constant battles with many of its neighbors.

In Part III of the series of antisemitism, it will be explained how idolatry caused a judgement to come against the kingly line of Judah. It will also be shown the starting point of the antisemitic sentiments that exist in our world today.