The Holy Land
23The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.
Index:
Introduction:
The purpose of this page is to document and discuss the Scriptural references relative to the ownership, possession, and occupation of the promised land.
will show clear Scriptural evidence that the land has been given to the children of YHWH, and where the Hebrew people were exiled from the land.
On that same day, YHWH made a covenant with Abram, saying: "I have given this land to your seed, from the river of Mitsrayim to the great river, the River Euphrates. with the Qeynite, and the Qenizzite, and the Qadmonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Repha'im, and the Amorite, and the Kena'anite, and the Girgashite, and the Yebusite.
And I shall give to you and your seed after you the land of your sojoumings, all the land of Kena'an, as an everlasting possession. And I shall be their Elohim.
For the land which you are going in to possess is not like the land of Mitsrayim from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden, but the land which you are passing over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of the heavens, a land which YHWH your Elohim looks after. The eyes of YHWH your Elohim are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the latter end of the year. And it shall be that if you diligently obey My commands which I command you today, to love YHWH your Elohim and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your being, then I shall give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, and you shall gather in your grain, and your new wine, and yoour oil. And I shall give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be satisfied. Guard yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other mighty ones and bow down to them. Then the displeasure of YHWH shall burn against you, and He shall shut up the heavens, and there be no rain, and the land not give its increase. An you shall perish quickly from the good land with YHWH is giving you.
The house of Israel was driven from the land by the Assyrians. Scripture indicates this was done because Jeroboam set up temples in Dan and Beth El to keep the Northern tribes from worshipping in Jerusalem. (1 Kings 12:26-33, 2Kings 17)
The house of Judah was driven from the land by the Babylonians. For most of their kings and rulers were evil, practicing idolatry, killing the prophets, and living shamefully. For example, Rehoboam, Joram, Joash, Ahaz, Manasseh, etc., surpassed all the Gentiles or the kings of Israel in vileness. Scripture indicates this was done because the house of Judah profaned the temple. (Jeremiah 3:6-11, Jeremiah 19:3-5, Jeremiah 40:2-3)
The controversy arises with regards to when the people will be permitted to reoccupy and/or possess the land.
I am bothered by what I see as a disturbing trend amongst men to use Scripture to validate their occupation of the land. At this time, I believe it is the Messiah that is supposed to restore ownership and occupation when HE returns.
A number of Messianic teachers have made references to how the existing government of Israel has cleaned up the land and that the surrounding lands (occupied by Arabs) is somehow dirty and unclean. I suspect when they are making these statements, they are trying to claim that the prophecy in Ezekiel 36:35 has been fulfilled. Upon further examination it becomes evident that the land was already productive before the coming of the Zionists in 1948. This fact is supported by a number of available studies, not the least of which is A Survey of Palestine, prepared by the British Mandate for UN prior to proposing the 1947 partition plan which disputes this Jewish myth of an previously empty land that has been recovered since 1948.
While there are plenty of Scriptural references indicating the promised land shall be given to the children of Israel/Yisr'ĕl as an inheritance, there is also strong evidence to suggest that YHWH is witholding the inheritance like a trust fund for a juvenile until the child comes of age. In this case, it would seem that a condition of the inheritance is that it is to be given to the children of Israel/Yisr'ĕl by the Messiah upon HIS return.
Additionally, Scripture seems to indicate that the twelve (12) tribes will be reunited and they will ALL inherit the land. Currently the government of Israel is restricting land ownership to DNA Jews only. This would mean that only three (3) of the thirteen (13) tribes are allowed to own land. These three (3) tribes would be Judah/Yahudah, Benjamin/Binyamin and Levi/Lĕwi to the exclusion of everyone else.
Scripture References:
1 'And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.' (KJV)
2 'And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly.' (KJV)
3 'And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying,' (KJV)
4 'As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations.' (KJV)
5 'Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee.' (KJV)
6 'And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee.' (KJV)
7 'And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.' (KJV)
8 'And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.' (KJV)
The land of Canaan.
4 "And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers." (KJV)
The land belongs to YHWH.
5 "Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: " (KJV)
Do not oppress strangers in the land
33 "And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him." (KJV)
The land will vomit you out if you disobey
22 "Ye shall therefore keep all my statutes, and all my judgments, and do them: that the land, whither I bring you to dwell therein, spue you not out." (KJV)
The land belongs to YHWH.
23 'The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine, for ye are strangers and sojourners with me.' (KJV)
The land belongs to YHWH.
Conditions for return to the land.
40"If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;" (KJV)
41"And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:" (KJV)
42"Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land." (KJV)
43"The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes." (KJV)
44"And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them: for I am the LORD their God." (KJV)
45"But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD." (KJV)
46"These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses." (KJV)
These are the conditions for return to the land.
I do not see how the people who call themselves Jews or Israel have met these requirements.
This chapter also states the penalties for breaking covenant with YHWH.
Since ALL of these curses have come to pass, it is certain that the children of Israel broke covenant with YHWH. I have yet to see where the children of Israel have been restored to covenant relationship with YHWH.
YHWH states that even after HIS people have broken HIS covenant, for the sake of their ancestors, HE will one day remember HIS covenant.
51 "Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan;" (KJV)
52 "Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places:" (KJV)
53 "And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it." (KJV)
54 "And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit." (KJV)
55 "But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell." (KJV)
56 "Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them." (KJV)
This is a very important statement as it means that he will drive them out of the land. I have yet to find a reference in Scripture that states that the Hebrews or Israelites are supposed to return to the land and drive out the inhabitants that live there.
Border definition
The earth and all that is in it belongs to YHWH.
14 "Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is." (KJV)
Border definition
14 "Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be." (KJV)
There will always be poor in the Holy Land.
11 "For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." (KJV)
Banishment from the land
63 'And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.' (KJV)
Border definition
4 'From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.' (KJV)
Excluded cities
22 'There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained.' (KJV)
Does this verse and the next indicate that Gaza/Azzah, Gath and Ashdod/Ashdod are NOT part of the land of the children of Israel?
22 'So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war.' (KJV)
Land allocation east of the Jordan river
6 'Them did Moses the servant of the LORD and the children of Israel smite: and Moses the servant of the LORD gave it for a possession unto the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh.' (KJV)
YHWH states that the land is HIS.
18 "And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double; because they have defiled my land, they have filled mine inheritance with the carcases of their detestable and abominable things. " (KJV)
The people will let go of the inheritance YHWH gave them.
4"And thou, even thyself, shalt discontinue from thine heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not: for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever." (KJV)
3"And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle." (KJV)
4" Because they have forsaken me, and have estranged this place, and have burned incense in it unto other gods, whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents;" (KJV)
5"They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind:" (KJV)
22 'They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.' (KJV)
Is YHWH saying that all the things taken in the Babylonian raid will remain there until HE returns or is this referring to the Hebrew people?
VERY interesting.
This verse speaks of Israel AND Judah.
3"For, lo, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, saith the LORD: and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it." (KJV)
"6In the day that I lifted up mine hand unto them, to bring them forth of the land of Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, flowing with milk and honey, which is the glory of all lands: " (KJV)
YHWH selected the Holy Land
This entire chapter needs to be annotated.
6 'Prophesy therefore concerning the land of Israel, and say unto the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I have spoken in my jealousy and in my fury, because ye have borne the shame of the heathen:'
7 'Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I have lifted up mine hand, Surely the heathen that are about you, they shall bear their shame.'
It does not say when this is going to happen.
17 'Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way and by their doings: their way was before me as the uncleanness of a removed woman.'
18 'Wherefore I poured my fury upon them for the blood that they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted it:'
This is why the House of Israel was driven from the land.
24 'For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.'
This says that YHWH will gather us our of all our countries and bring us into our own land.
28 'And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.'
This says that the House of Israel will return.
31 'Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.'
I certainly don't see this happening today. The House of Israel and the House of Judah are filled with pride.
33 'Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded.'
Have the people been cleansed of all their iniquities?
35 'And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.'
Is this why the Israeli government is building a wall?
11 'Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.'
12 'Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.'
13 'And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,'
14 'And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.'
This seems to be a pretty clear marker of the events that will transpire when then the Messiah returns.
After YHWH raised people from their graves, HE will restore them to the land.
16 'Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and for all the house of Israel his companions:'
17 'And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.'
18 'And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?'
19 'Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.'
20 'And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.'
21 'And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:'
22 'And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.'
This verse seems to indicate that YHWH will take the children of the 10 lost tribes which were dispersed by the Assyrians and bring them back to the land of Israel/Yisr'ĕl.
23 'Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.'
24 'And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.'
25 'And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.'
These verses seem to indicate that after YHWH/YAHUSHUA returns as King and the children of Israel/Yisr'ĕl have been cleansed of their sin, then they will dwell in the land.
26 'Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.'
This is a key indicator of when this prophecy has come true. When YHWH's santuary is in the midst of the children of Israel/Yisr'ĕl for evermore.
27 'My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.'
27 'And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.'
Border definition
15 "" (KJV)
Strangers can claim a portion of the land as their inheritance also.
22 'And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.'
Strangers can claim a portion of the land as their inheritance also.
23 'And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord GOD.'
Strangers can claim a portion of the land as their inheritance also.
14And they shall not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate the firstfruits of the land: for it is holy unto the LORD. (KJV)
All the earth is YHWH's
1 "The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." (KJV)
All the earth is YHWH's
12 "If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof." (KJV)
2 'I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.'
The fate of people who take the land by violence.
The changing of the inheritance
1 "Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand." (KJV)
2 "And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage." (KJV)
3 "Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which ye shall not remove your necks; neither shall ye go haughtily: for this time is evil." (KJV)
4 "In that day shall one take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say, We be utterly spoiled: he hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me! turning away he hath divided our fields." (KJV)
The earth belongs to YHWH.
28 "But if any man say unto you, this is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof:" (KJV)
The Holy Land In The 7th Century A.D./C.E.:
The Holy Land In The 20th Century A.D./C.E.:
Excerpt from "Eretz Israel in the Past and in the Present" by David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Ben-Zvi (1918) chapter 2.
"The Invention of the Jewish People" by Shlomo Sand pg 184. par c.
fellahin - a native peasant or laborer in an Arab country.
Excerpt from "Eretz Israel in the Past and in the Present" by David Ben-Gurion and Itzhak Ben-Zvi (1918) chapter 2.
"The Invention of the Jewish People" by Shlomo Sand pg 186. par c.
"The Zionist enterprise saw itself as providing “a land without a people for a people without a land,” to use its own unfortunate phrase. Palestine was not a land without a people, neither in 1897 nor in 1917 nor in 1948, To put it as starkly as possible: The Zionist movement aimed at establishing a Jewish state in Palestine, a land already inhabited by another people awakening to national identity. To this people the Zionist enterprise could only have appeared as an attempt by a culturally alien group to colonize and eventually gain control of their country.
"Many of the early Zionist settlers in Palestine considered themselves socialists or even Marxists. They did dream of creating a new, egalitarian and progressive Jewish society in that land. Some of them may have honestly believed that Palestine could be transformed into an idyllic Jewish commonwealth without infringing on the rights, the land, the way of life of its indigenous inhabitants. Yet the very means required to create the foundations of a functioning Jewish society were incompatible with socialist principles.
"Land was bought from absentee landlords for exclusively Jewish settlements; the peasants, the actual cultivators of the land, were dispossessed and -- if they resisted -- suppressed by the Turkish or British overlords of the country. Campaigns were launched to boycott Arab produce so as to encourage Jewish agricultural (and later industrial) enterprise. Bitter struggles were fought to force Jewish employers to hire only Jewish workers rather than cheaper Arab labor. David Hacohen, for many years a prominent figure in the Labor Zionist movement, explained what the dream often meant in practice:
"I remember being one of the first of our comrades to go to London after the First World War.... There I became a socialist.... When I joined the socialist students -- English, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, African -- we found out that we were all under English domination or rule. And even here, in these intimate surroundings, I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut, to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there.... To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Keren Kayemet [Jewish National Fund] that sent Hankin to Beirut to buy land from the absentee effendis and to throw the fellahin off the land -- to buy dozens of dunams [of land] from an Arab is permitted, but to sell, God forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild, the incarnation of capitalism, as a socialist and to name him “the benefactor” -- to do all that was not easy. And despite the fact that we did it -- maybe we had no choice -- I wasn't happy about it.
"Jews constituted some 10 percent of the population of Palestine in 1914, and about one third in 1947. As the Zionist enterprise progressed, as a growing percentage of the land was alienated from Arab hands, as new immigrants poured in, as a ramified network of settlements and pre-state institutions developed and Zionist leaders openly proclaimed their intention to establish a Jewish state, the Palestinian Arabs resisted in both peaceful and violent ways. Whatever the motives, intentions, hopes and dreams of the early Zionist settlers and leaders, in practice Zionism was quite understandably perceived by the Palestinian Arab people as a dire threat to their national integrity, to their homeland. It is difficult to see how things could have been otherwise. One can, in retrospect, argue that the Palestinians should have accepted the 1947 UN partition plan and been content with less than half their country, and thus perhaps they could have avoided the catastrophes that have followed. At the time the partition of their country seemed to them and to the whole Arab world as a grave injustice: they were being made to pay for Europe's crimes against the Jews.
"It is fine to talk about the early Zionists as humanitarians, romantics, dreamers, men and women who combined the ethical concerns of the ancient Jewish prophets with the socialist politics of Eastern Europe. Writing for an American audience during the invasion of Lebanon, Amos Oz, the noted Israeli novelist, gets positively rapturous about the idealism, the longing for justice and the concern for humanity of the early Zionist “pioneers.” But this purity of thought was accompanied by a neary complete moral blindness to the implications and effects of their actions for the Palestinians. Indeed, their commitment to socialism, to egalitarianism, to solving the Jewish problem -- all laudable in themselves -- justified a whole range of reprehensible actions, from the dispossession of peasants to alliance with British imperialism to the use of violence against Arab resistance. Of the early settlers Oz writes: “Sadly enough, they couldn't wrap the Arab peasantry in Tolstoyan loving kindness because of the language barrier and other reasons.” Other reasons? Oz's ingenuousness is mind-boggling. Did the settlers want or try to include the peasants in their dream? Was there not an impassable barrier between these “romantic” colonizers seeking to "reclaim" the land and the indigenous peasantry which strangely enough persisted in believing that Palestine was their country?
Zionism Good and Bad - Jacobo Timerman and the Lebanon War (WWW.MERIP.ORG) (2014/0723)
Historical Occupation Of The Holy Land:
14And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. (KJV)
The poor Hebrews were left in the land AFTER the Babylonian exile took place.
It seems to me this would be the majority of the population.
I am currently unaware of any time in history where these Hebrews were removed from the land.
12But the captain of the guard left of the poor of the land to be vinedressers and husbandmen. (KJV)
The poor Hebrews were left in the land AFTER the Babylonian exile took place.
They were left their to tend the land.
22And as for the people that remained in the land of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had left, even over them he made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ruler. (KJV)
The poor Hebrews were left in the land AFTER the Babylonian exile took place.
10But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time. (KJV)
The poor Hebrews were left in the land AFTER the Babylonian exile took place.
It seems to me this would be the majority of the population.
I am currently unaware of any time in history where these Hebrews were removed from the land.
7Now when all the captains of the forces which were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed unto him men, and women, and children, and of the poor of the land, of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon; (KJV)
The were Hebrews were left in the land AFTER the Babylonian exile took place.
11Likewise when all the Jews that were in Moab, and among the Ammonites, and in Edom, and that were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan;
12Even all the Jews returned out of all places whither they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, unto Mizpah, and gathered wine and summer fruits very much. (KJV)
It appears that there were Hebrews hiding out in Moab, among the Ammonites, and in Edom that escaped the Babylonian exile.
When they heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Hebrews in the land and had appointed a Hebrew overseer, they returned to Judea.
16But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left certain of the poor of the land for vinedressers and for husbandmen.(KJV)
Once again, it is noted that the poor Hebrews were left in the land to tend to the land. This fits historically, as the Babylonians were not an Agrarian culture. They would over run a culture, destory it's leadership and leave the poor to tend the land (and pay annual tributes or taxes).
Proper Conduct In The Holy Land:
5But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. (KJV)
25The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therin: for it is an abomination to the LORD thy God.
26Neither shalt thou bring an abomination into thine house, lest thou be a cursed thing like it: but thou shalt utterly detest it, and thou shalt utterly abhor it; for it is a cursed thing. (KJV)
1 "These are the statutes and judgments, which ye shall observe to do in the land, which the LORD God of thy fathers giveth thee to possess it, all the days that ye live upon the earth." (KJV)
2 "Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:" (KJV)
3 "And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place." (KJV)
4 "Ye shall not do so unto the LORD your God." (KJV)
19 "When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayest eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege:" (KJV)
20 "Only the trees which thou knowest that they be not trees for meat, thou shalt destroy and cut them down; and thou shalt build bulwarks against the city that maketh war with thee, until it be subdued." (KJV)
16 "These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:" (KJV)
17 "And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD." (KJV)
Reference Links:
- Kingdoms around Israel in the 9th Century BCE (HTTP://COMMONS.WIKIMEDIA.ORG) (2012/1215)
PALESTINE:
- Palestine Notes Page (WWW.THEKEYOFKNOWLEDGE.NET)
- Middle East Timeline (WWW.THEKEYOFKNOWLEDGE.NET)
- History Crash Course #5 The Promised Land (WWW.AISH.COM) (09/01/11)
- The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict (HTTP://IFAMERICANSKNEW.ORG) (09/21/11)
- Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem (WWW.ERWM.COM) (09/25/11)
- Jerusalem to New York: Feel The Hate and Know The Love (WWW.THEPEOPLESVOICE.ORG) (01/21/12)
- Bayith HaTorah (WWW.BAYITHHATORAHBLOG.TK) (2012/1129)
- As Jews we say "Birthright" trips must end (WWW.COUNCILFORTHENATIONALINTEREST.ORG) (2013/0510)
- ARMAGEDDON IS WELL LOCATED (1978) by Noam Chomsky (WWW.DITEXT.COM) (2014/0723)
