Chapter XXXI. Israel under the Curse

Driven to his Destiny. His Dispersions and Wanderings. In Great Britain in the 17th Century. Jehovah's Monument. The Deliverer. Westward to his Final Blessing.

HIS FINAL BLESSING.

And what of the destiny of Israel in the world's future ? Shall the earth have joy and Israel be left desolate ? Shall the culmination and crowning of all civilizations come to pass in these latter days, and Jehovah's covenant people have no lot nor part in the matter?

Pertinent questions these for even a modern Jew!

Will Jehovah answer?

Nay, hath he not answered in his wondrous dealings with his chosen people ?

In the light of the mission and themes of the Prophet of Latter-day Israel a new and significant interpretation is given to the curse, and " Israel under the curse " becomes a manifestation of Providential manipulation, as exact in its purposes and outcome as are the methods and conclusions of a scientific proposition. Witness the record, beginning with the curse, as uttered by Moses:

" Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. * * * * The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land whither thou goest to possess it. * * * * And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be as brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust : * * * * And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee."

And what was all this but the seeric perception and prophetic announcement of that which should befall the land of Palestine in the course of nature's inevitable physical transmutations? Jehovah, foreknowing, prompted Moses to pronounce that inevitable in his name, that Jacob at last might understand him, and with him " see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion."

But witness the sequel also :

" And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee,

" And shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart and with all thy soul ;

" That then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.

" If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost

parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee :

" And the Lord thy God will bring- thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it ; and he will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers."

We have seen that civilization had been moving westward from the beginning of time. And the learned Moses knew this, for he made the map of Israel's course and destiny with as much scientific exactitude as an astronomer's sketch of the heavens. In the fulfillment of Moses' prophecy the earth was but obeying her own law ; and in the dispersion of Israel Jehovah was but forcing his unwilling children into the channel of the world's progress.

Had Jacob remained in Palestine he would have died and been forever entombed there. But such was not to be his destiny. Israel is Jehovah's living monument, — by his migrations pointing the very course, and time, and place of Messiah's coming.

To the West, by the rod of his providence, has Jehovah driven his stubborn, self-willed people, to their greater destiny of the latter-days. And wherever their affections and fidelities have made them to linger, there has the rod of his chastisement descended,, now in this guise, now in that, scourging them onward to their Zion, their blessing, their rest.

And this accomplished, behold the promise, "And he will do thee good and multiply thee above thy fathers."

Had Israel, as a nation, understood as much of the purposes of Jehovah as did Moses and the seers,

then had they been led, not driven, to their destiny. Had Jehovah succeeded in making of his Israel a nation of prophets and seers, then had they been taught of him the mystery of his providence, and the course which the Lord of the earth was taking, and they would have followed him even more willingly than when, as the angel of their covenant, he led them up out of the land of Egypt.

But with the very promise of their possession of a land flowing with milk and honey came the affirmation that they should leave it at some future time. While it remained thus productive and delightful, and while the East was the centre of civilization, they had there a destiny. But by and by Palestine was to become a desert, and by and by the mighty Orient was to become as the sepulchre of empires and civilizations. What business had Israel there in such a day ? True, it should come to pass that Jacob should mourn the fall of Jerusalem with an awful lamentation, but above it all might have been heard the voice of Jehovah : " Let the dead bury the dead : follow me ! "

Had Israel been wise unto salvation, the chosen people had not sat so long under the shadow of impending doom. Had he hearkened unto the Lord before the day of that doom's appearing, then had he understood the thunderings of impending calamities to have been the self-same voice that spake to Abraham, " Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee."

And was not this exactly the case with Lehi and his little Israelitish colony, who left Jerusalem in the

days of Zedekiah, — just in time to escape the awful scourge of Nebuchadnezzar, — giving the initial subject of the Book of Mormon ?

Furthermore, did not the Jehovah-fearing men of England (in the seventeenth century, after the star of Bethlehem had risen to pilot the shepherds westward) hear this same command, " Get thee out of thy country ?" And did they not obey the word of the Lord ? not lingering to feel the sting of his chastisement, nor waiting for the curse of ages to scourge them to their Father's providence in them.

These of England, in the seventeenth century, were a better Israel than they of old. And out of their obedience and true Israelitish faith an empire has already grown up in America, mightier and more blessed than all the empires of the past, — a kingdom without a king, waiting Messiah's coming.

Such as Moses and Daniel were indeed prophets of empires ; and their forecastings were of the nature of an exact science. The exactitude with which Moses describes the final overthrow of the Jewish nation, nearly two thousand years afterwards, is not only invaluable as a key of Hebrew history and destiny, but is strikingly suggestive of a seeric science as well as a seeric gift. As witness:

" The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand ;

"A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor shew favor to the young: * * *

" And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, * *

" And thou shalt eat the fruit of thy own body, the flesh of thy sons and daughters, * * in the siege, and in the straitness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee." "x" * *

The complete Mosaic description of the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman power is a chapter of unexampled horrors. Yet when the Lord brought against them the " nation of fierce countenance," whose armies were " swift as the eagle flieth," and whose standards bore the eagle as an imperial emblem, the prophecy was fulfilled most literally.

In view of such an exact and terrible prophecy from Moses, ere the tribes had set their feet in the land of Canaan, Israel ought not to have waited the coming of that terrible scourger, nor should Judah have been found in the city of David, with the blood of Messiah on his head, deserving that dreadful doom.

But what if Israel had obeyed all the counsels of the Lord his God ? Then had he migrated westward. But could he not have remained in Jerusalem and escaped the doom ? No ; though Judah truly might have been less worthy to receive its awful seal.

Rome was the iron power that ruled all nations when Messiah came. How significant his own words : " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," accompanied by his own act of paying tribute. In Jerusalem, even the King of Kings was under the feet of Caesar, in consequence of the inexorable fact that dominion and empire had gone westward from Judea.

But by and by, in his Zion of the West, will Messiah pay tribute to Caesar? Will the Lord and genius of America say, Render unto Rome /

Fallen Jerusalem, for a century or two, continued to be as a loadstone to the Jews, yet was it also a millstone about their necks. In vain they attempted to restore it. In vain sought they again their destiny in the East.

Through the very heart of the Christian empires that arose after their fall, the angel of the covenant forced the footsteps of the chosen people. Jehovah was indeed now driving them. Over all Europe were they scattered. More terrible than anything else on record has been their history. They had invoked the blood of their Messiah to be on their and their children's heads, and their prayer was most awfully answered.

But still was Israel Jehovah's monument ; still both a blessing and a necessity to the world. They had given their Bible to the Gentiles, and in their dispersions they were ordained to be the very torchbearers of western civilization.

" In Moorish Spain their numbers greatly increased, and they became famous for their learning as well as their trade. They were counselors, secretaries, astrologers, or physicians to the Moorish rulers ; and this period may well be considered the golden age of Jewish literature. Poets, orators, philosophers of highest eminence arose, and not isolated but in considerable numbers ; and it is a well established fact that to them is chiefly due — through the Arab medium — the preservation and subsequent spreading of ancient classical literature,

more especially philosophy, in Europe." — [Chambers Encyclopedia

Holland was the first nation to lift up Judah and make him again a power in the world, and an acceptable offering of the Providence that had wrought in and through him so much of blessing to the race. England next did Judah justice, and from Cromwell's time he has been rising to such an influence in the earth that the terrible past has been well-nigh forgotten. London has become to the Jew more than was Jerusalem to his fathers , and in our own day one of his blood has been raised to the Premiership of England, and more potent among nations is he than was Solomon in all his glory. In the coffers of the Rothschilds are locked the sinews of Europe, and in their hands is Europe's destiny. Verily to-day is Judah, in the old world, riding in the very chariots of civilization, while in America no barrier is interposed to bar the flight of his loftiest ambition. And thus is he coming from under the curse.

And does all this mean nothing ?

Nay; doth it not signify that the time has come for Jehovah to reveal his New and Everlasting Covenant to the whole house of Israel ?

" And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob."

And this is the significance of the rise of Joseph of the West, whose mission is the prophecy of the Deliverer that shall come out of this Zion of all the earth.