
During the
seventy years, there has been many conflicts including the politically momentous
Six Day War in 1967, the Yom Kippur War in 1973, wars in Lebanon and the Gaza
strip. Despite the involvement of the United Nations and World powers such as
the EU, the US and Russia, peace initiatives have come and gone. Tensions
between Israel and its neighbours continue unabated and our news routinely
includes coverage of the often violent clashes that result. Indeed, the eyes of the world are on this
country the size of Wales.
What is less
well known is the way in which so much of this was predicted in the Bible
thousands of years ago by the prophets who described in advance both the scattering
of the Jews around the world and their eventual regathering to the land of Israel
which continues to this day. The prophet
Ezekiel who himself was taken captive from Israel to Babylon, modern day Iraq,
almost 600 years before Jesus was born:
“Therefore say, So says the Lord GOD: Though I have sent them (the Jews) far off among the nations, and though I scattered them among the lands, yet I will be to them as a little sanctuary in the lands where they had gone. Therefore say, So says the Lord GOD: I will even gather you from the people and assemble you out of the lands, in those where you were scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.” (Ezekiel 11v16-17)