Isaiah 11-13: The Nation Building Hand of God

In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Lower Egypt, from Upper Egypt,from Cush, from Elam, from Babylonia, from Hamath and from the islands of the sea.
He will raise a banner for the nations
   and gather the exiles of Israel;
he will assemble the scattered people of Judah
   from the four quarters of the earth.
Ephraim’s jealousy will vanish,
   and Judah’s enemies will be cut off; - Is. 11:11-13 NIV

A good majority of the people feel that Israel is a problem and quite a few of them think they have the answer.  Diplomats, politicians, rulers of nations, peacekeepers; they all think they know what should be done to solve the Palestinian problem.  It's never an Israeli problem, as if their children were never taken hostage or murdered, it's a Palestinian problem. I understand the Palestinian desire to have a place they could call their own, but they have never been forced from country to country or exterminated as the Jewish people have been. The Palestinians have lived in that land while various nations and kingdoms have controlled them through the centuries.  They have relied and survived on the infrastructure of the occupying nations, while the Jews were driven out. 

How you view the Palestinian situation depends on the God you follow.  If you follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you remember the promise made by God that they would have a land of their own.  Unlike the Europeans and later people from all the other continents, who usurped the land once belonging to the native Indians in the Americas, Israel's roots go back in that land to a time before there were any nations: a time when there were only roving bands of nomads who called few places home.  Most of them, like Abraham, moved from place to place depending on the availability of food and water for their cattle and themselves.

All that changed when God promised the land to Abraham and his descendants and will change some day in the future as well.  God will gather all of the exiles of Israel and they will return.   The return has started, a nation has been built.  Someday Judah's enemies will be cut off as well.  It won't be at the hand of any diplomat or peacekeeper.  It will be the nation building hand of God.

2010 Post - Isaiah 11-13:  Reclaiming a Remnant