Jewish people before the Torah scrolls (Western Wall)
Does God play favorites? It might seem so after a casual look at the many scriptures declaring how God has chosen the Jewish people. The scriptures make it plain that they are chosen in a unique, special, and eternal sense. In much the same way God has chosen the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. The choice goes back to ancient times with the call of Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish people (Gen. 12:1-3). It is clearly documented in numerous other passages. The following are but a small sampling: Genesis 17:7; Leviticus 20:26; Numbers 23:9; Deuteronomy 4:7-8; Psalms 147:19-20, and
Amos 3:2.
WHY THE JEWS?
We might ask, “Why the Jews?” They were certainly not the largest or greatest people of antiquity. In fact, it was even said of them that they were the least of all people (Deut. 7:7). Their choice was a sovereign act of God’s grace. That choice has surely set Israel apart from all other people. The Bible says of them, “For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deut. 7:6).
God has made clear that he has not dealt with any other people as he has dealt with Israel (Psa. 148:14). In Deuteronomy 32:8, we have the remarkable passage, “… When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel.” Perhaps it is difficult for us to imagine or understand that the small and beleaguered Jewish people have actually helped determine the boundaries and make-up of all the nations of the world.
This choice of Israel is all the more amazing when we consider that from the outset God knew Israel would not be faithful. Centuries ago God warned Israel through Moses, “I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins… You will perish among the nations….” (Lev. 26:33-38). How vividly these scriptures have been fulfilled over the centuries. Yet, has God cast away his people? The Apostle Paul both asks and answers this question in Romans 11:1-2: “I ask then: Did God reject his people? By no means! ….”
Still today, after some 2700 years of wandering in the land of strangers, God has not forsaken his covenant people. This also is according to his promise in Leviticus 26:44, “Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God.” Far from casting off his people, God has taken dramatic steps in our own day to reaffirm his eternal covenant with the people of Israel. I am speaking, or course, of the events leading up to the reestablishment of the nation of Israel. This of course happened in the mid-twentieth century. These events have been unparalleled since biblical times and are a specific fulfillment of dozens of prophecies (e.g. Isa. 11:11, Isa. 43:5-6, Jer. 32:15, and Jer. 41:18-20).
With this astounding modern development in view, and looking back over the centuries, we can surely say that there never has been a people been so honored by the Creator as the Jewish people. Yet, never has a people suffered more. God chose Israel for his own redemptive purposes, and it seems that with redemption there is always suffering. Ever since that choice was proclaimed about four millennia ago the people of Israel have been maligned, oppressed, exiled, ridiculed, enslaved, and murdered, even by so-called Christians. The culmination of this long and painful ordeal has surely happened in our time. I am speaking of the great and terrible Holocaust, in which a third of all the Jewish people perished.
So far from playing favorites, the divine choice of Israel has been a burden almost too great for a people to bear. Even the idea of “chosen people” is not always a comfortable idea to the Jews. This is so well expressed by Tevye in the play Fiddler on the Roof. After Tevye is informed about an impending persecution, he makes his complaint to God: “I know, I know we are the chosen people, but once in a while can’t you choose someone else!”
As in Fiddler, the Jewish people have somehow managed to make beautiful music for the world. Yet at the same time clinging to their precarious position. An attempt to even briefly summarize the saga of the Jews through their long dispersion is not possible here. Such an attempt would almost be like trying to summarize the history of the world, since the Jews have lived virtually in every time and in every place.
JEWISH BLESSINGS
During their centuries of wandering among the nations, the Jews have often been treated as parasites. Yet far from being parasites in their host countries, they have shaped and enriched those nations by providing the philosophers, musicians, scientists, physicians, financiers, and statesmen. We may never know in this age exactly what the Jewish people have meant to the world. It has been said that while other ancient peoples left only monuments, the Jews left ideas. It is these ideas that have so influenced history. Although the Jews account for less than one-half of one percent of the earth’s population, they have had a profound effect upon all areas of civilization. This is most clearly evidenced in the fact that the world’s three great monotheistic religions encompassing around two billion people, or roughly one third of the earth’s population, have all sprung from the Jews.
Jewish thinkers like Einstein, Freud, and Marx, have done much to shape modern times, for much good and occasionally for ill. In almost every area of endeavor, Jewish names stand out. For instance, in the US alone in the field of nuclear science, names like Robert Oppenheimer and Edward Teller are well known. In medicine there is Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. Among the authors, novelists and playwrights there is Arthur Miller, Edna Ferber, and Leon Uris. Among musicians and composers we hear of Isaac Stern, Aaron Copeland, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Rogers & Hammerstein, Benny Goodman, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Kern, Fritz Kreisler, and Bruno Walter.
When we look at Hollywood and the influential entertainment industry, Jewish personalities abound. First of all, the leading Hollywood studios were founded by Jews. These include Metro Goldwin Mayer, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, and 20th Century Fox. It has been estimated that eighty percent of all the famous comics were Jews. The list of all types of Jewish Hollywood and entertainment personalities, both past and present, goes on and on. These include Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Fanny Brice, Joyce Brothers, George Burns, Al Capp, Kitty Carlisle, Howard Cosell, Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Al Jolson, Danny Kaye, Jerry Lewis, the Marx Brothers, Edward G. Robinson, Beverly Sills, Phil Silvers, Barbra Streisand, Mike Todd, Shelly Winters…
Were it not for the Jews in the US and in the world as we can see, all our lives would be immeasurable poorer. Many of our great enterprises also simply would not exist. We would be without names like Levi Strauss, Sears Roebuck, Gimbels, Macy’s and
many more.
SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS TO COME
While some of the uniqueness of the Jewish people can be seen in these accomplishments, their real uniqueness lies in the spiritual realm. This is not so easily discerned and is often missed not only by the common man, but by historians, scholars, and even theologians. That special purpose, perhaps known only to God, is glimpsed in the prophets, especially in Isaiah 41:8-10, “But you, O Israel, my servant…I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God….” God speaks of Israel as, “…created for my glory, whom I formed and made….” (Isa. 43:7). He calls them: “the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise” (Isa. 43:21).
In ways unknown to us, the Jews have probably fulfilled much of their role as a “light to the nations “ (Isa. 42:6). Surely, they have brought to the world the knowledge of the true God. They have received, protected, and delivered to the world the revelation of God that we know as the Bible. Finally, they have also given us Christians our Messiah or Christ.
Some people feel that with this, God is through with the Jew. Yet as we look at the prophets, we see glimpses of a coming age in which Jews will figure prominently. In these pictures, they are described as priests and ministers of God (Isa. 61:6); they are called the holy people; the redeemed of the Lord (Isa. 62:12); they are said to be stones for a crown (Zech. 9:16); they are as though the Lord had not cast them off (Zech. 10:6). The prominence of the Jewish people in the end days is best seen in that remarkable passage in Zechariah 8:23, “…In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'”
The picture of Israel in the end days is no longer a picture of a scattered and oppressed people. It is a picture of a gathered and fulfilled people. It is a picture of a people living in peace at last, in their own land; a people of whom Moses could pronounce his blessing in Deuteronomy 33:29 once more: “Blessed are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD?….”
-Jim Gerrish
This updated article is presented courtesy of Bridges For Peace, Jerusalem. Original publication date, 1990.