Israel: Born in Fire – Part 1

Israel was born through fire in Egypt, gathered through fire in history, was resurrected as a nation through fire in 1948, and will be saved through fire in the future. A biblical survey through Scripture and redemptive history.

In 2004, when Ariel Sharon (Israel’s Prime Minister at the time) addressed the Knesset about the Gaza “disengagement plan,” he said that Israel had been born in blood. He was referring to the events surrounding the nation’s founding on May 14, 1948. And when we look back through history to the beginning, we see that the people of Israel were born in blood.

Jacob’s extended family with his twelve sons, Israel’s forefathers, developed into a nation in Egypt. Exodus 1:8-10 tells of Pharaoh’s order to oppress and enslave the children of Israel. Lastly, in verse 15, he gave the order to murder newborn Hebrew boys. It is the first attempted holocaust of the young nation’s history.

In Deuteronomy 4:20, the Lord refers to Israel’s painful formation in Egypt as “the iron furnace.” It describes the suffering and tribulation that Israel experienced during its slavery, as well as during the Exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. This furnace, this fire of tribulation, has a threefold meaning.

First, God used the heat of tribulation in Egypt to prepare His people for the Exodus from that country. It was the only way to reawaken their longing for the Promised Land. Second, Israel itself was being cleansed and purified. This illustration of purifying fire is found again and again in the prophets. In the New Testament, 1 Peter 1:6-7 also compares trials with purification through fire, proving our faith to be genuine and more precious than perishable gold that has been refined in fire. Third, Pharaoh’s hostility toward Israel, and by extension toward God Himself, is revealed in this Egyptian furnace.

BORN IN THE FIRE OF EGYPT

At the time when Israel was born in the furnace and fire of Egypt and became a nation, the new Pharaoh (who knew nothing of Joseph) greatly increased his oppression of the Hebrews, to the point of ordering their newborn sons to be killed.

In Exodus 1:10, Pharaoh says that the people of Israel must not grow too large, so that they cannot ally themselves with the enemy and leave the country in the event of war. Some translations also render Pharaoh’s words as expressing fear that Israel could take control of the land. The Hebrew word translated as “escape” in the ESV is alah, meaning “to ascend.” It could be used to denote an uprising, or leaving the country altogether.

When we consider the following chapters—which show how Pharaoh does everything possible to retain the Israelites as slaves in Egypt, even intending to bring them back after the Exodus has begun—it weighs strongly in favor of the latter. Commentator Carl Friedrich Keil writes:

“It was not the conquest of his kingdom that he was afraid of, but alliance with his enemies and emigration […] to Canaan. He was acquainted with the home of the Israelites therefore, and cannot have been entirely ignorant of the circumstances of their settlement in Egypt. But he regarded them as his subjects, and was unwilling that they should leave the country, and therefore was anxious to prevent the possibility of their emancipating themselves in the event of war.”

Pharaoh intends to keep the people small, but the more he oppresses them, the more they proliferate throughout Egypt (v. 12).

In verses 15-16, the order is given to murder the newborn boys. Without men, Israel would cease to exist as a people. They would lose their identity through intermingling in their slavery.

Pharaoh was willing to use every means possible to prevent Israel’s birth as a nation and their taking possession of the Promised Land, resulting in their fire of tribulation. It begs the question of why. Pharaoh naturally didn’t want to lose his enslaved workers, but wanted to retain the scepter in his hands. Israel would be kept small. But the following chapters show that it was about much more than a pragmatic matter of cheap labor. In Exodus 5:1, we read of how Moses and Aaron go to Pharaoh for the first time. This passage is always worth reading carefully. They don’t just refer to God or the Lord, but the two men say, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’”

This is entirely about the God of Israel. And Pharaoh’s answer reveals the cultural clash and the background of the conflict: “Who is the LORD, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

The question hinges on who the living God is: the God of Israel or Pharaoh, who believed himself to be a divine incarnation. The following must also be noted: Genesis 3:15 promises the coming Redeemer, and speaks of the enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It has been clear since Genesis 12 that the promised Redeemer will be from Abraham’s descendants—from the people of Israel—and is inextricably linked to the promise of the land made to Israel. Since then, Satan has tried everything to sever this chain of promise and prevent the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.

Whether Pharaoh was fully aware of this is of secondary importance. At any rate, he does everything possible to keep Israel small, to kill their male descendants, and to prevent their Exodus to the Promised Land. We can therefore also say that Israel was born in fire because it bears divine promises in the midst of a humanity that is hostile to God. The darkness does all it can to impede this promise.

This opposition is seen again when the Jews return from Babylonian captivity. The Lord Himself awakened the heart of the Persian king Cyrus to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (2 Chr 36:22-23). But shortly after the returnees arrived, enemies appeared (as recorded in Ezra) to prevent the temple and Jerusalem from being rebuilt. The same was true in the time of Nehemiah a few decades later, when returnees attempted to rebuild Jerusalem’s walls. Enemies immediately appeared to prevent the work by whatever means possible. Whenever it came to the people of Israel and their entry or return to the land, the entire process was always associated with struggle, suffering, and distress.—Israel, a nation born in fire.

In 70 AD—when the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed— and in 135 AD—when the Bar Kochba Revolt was put down—Israel was dispersed again. And this time it wasn’t for 70 years, as after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem; it lasted nearly 1900 years. That was an incredibly long time. Although a remnant of Jews always remained in Israel, the overwhelming majority were scattered in all directions. The Emperor Hadrian gave the land of Israel a new name, with the intent of erasing any memory of Israel’s history. After the uprising was quashed, he renamed it the land of Palestine, or Philistia in Greek. The British later retained this name in their Mandate in the Middle East.

During this nearly 2000-year period of dispersion, there were always small waves of return migration. Although longing for Zion existed throughout the centuries, it didn’t change the fact that the land had been destroyed and the people had been scattered worldwide.

THE GATHERING OF ISRAEL IN THE FIRE OF HISTORY

In Isaiah 43:1-5, the Lord speaks of how He will gather and redeem His people from all directions. Dangerous waters and flames of fire will neither drown nor burn them. Despite the greatest resistance and hostility, He will gather His people, redeem them, and bring them to their destination. This promise has no basis in Israel itself, as if Israel were somehow special, but is based on God’s unconditional love for His people and His election of them (Deut 7:7-8).

Some commentators believe that Isaiah 43 has long since been fulfilled with the return from Babylon, and no longer has any significance for the present or future. But when the Jews returned from Babylon, they only came from a single direction. Isaiah 43 speaks of a return from all four directions. In this context, Deuteronomy 28 speaks of two dispersals of Israel. Verse 36 describes a first deportation to another nation. That was the deportation of the people of the Northern Kingdom by the Assyrians, and that of the Southern Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians. Verse 64 then speaks of the dispersal among all peoples and in all directions. That took place in the years 70 and 135 AD.

Isaiah 43 is about gathering and returning from all directions. Not only does Israel’s path lead through water and fire, but also God even sacrifices nations for His people’s return.

The first great Aliyah (ascent) to Israel took place at the end of the 19th century. Around 30,000 Jews returned between 1882 and 1903, mainly from Eastern Europe and Yemen. The entire event was accompanied by pogroms and anti-Judaism in Russia. Israel’s gathering began in the heat of the fire, although the previous centuries had already been marked by hatred of Jews, along with repeated persecution and pogroms in Europe.

Independent of this Aliyah, the Dreyfus Affair took place on January 5, 1895. A French officer who was Jewish was accused of high treason. The sole reason for the accusation was anti-Judaism; no further facts existed. Jewish journalist Theodor Herzl was among those observing the scandalous trial, which prompted him to write his pamphlet The Jewish State, which concerns a homeland for the Jews. It was the birth of modern Zionism. The First Zionist Congress was held in Basel in 1897.

The second Aliyah to Israel took place between 1904 and 1914, and included around 40,000 returnees from Eastern Europe and Russia, where pogroms and anti-Semitism were still rampant. Interestingly, the discovery of the Middle East’s first large oil field also took place during this period. It was discovered by the British in Persia in 1908. This made the region very significant for the industrialized nations. The second Aliyah ended with World War I.

The third Aliyah took place between 1919 and 1923. An additional 35,000 returnees came, primarily from Russia, Poland, and Eastern Europe. This wave was linked to Russia’s October Revolution and the civil war that came with it.

Between 1919 and 1920, around 150,000 Jews were murdered in numerous pogroms in Ukraine. Once again, return migration is intensified by the fire of suffering. And when we consider the great upheavals that communism brought about in Russia and Ukraine, we can see how God gives nations over.

The fourth Aliyah took place between 1924 and 1927, with 67,000 returnees. Half of them were from Poland, and many were members of the middle class. Since the United States had closed its borders to mass immigration in 1924, going to the Promised Land was the only option for many of them.

The fifth Aliyah took place between 1930 and 1939, and you will discern further correlations when you consider the dates. With Hitler’s rise to power and his brutal anti-Judaism, Jews came from Germany, Austria, and other countries (many of whom had to enter Israel illegally). It was the largest Aliyah to date, with 250,000 returnees. And on September 1, 1939, World War II broke out.

The fifth Aliyah overlaps with the Aliyah Bet, which began in 1934 and lasted until the founding of the State of Israel in 1948. It is the term used for clandestine immigration of Jews to Palestine. It was carried out illegally, because the British authorities wanted to strictly limit Jewish immigration.

In Germany and the areas conquered by Hitler, the atrocities of the Holocaust (or Shoah, as the mass murder by Nazis is called in Judaism) began. Convinced that paradise on earth could only take place when the archenemy from Judah was defeated, Hitler intended to destroy all Jews. This can only be seen as a satanic inversion of the biblical story of salvation. And because it didn’t want to spoil its relationship with the Arabs, the British government had limited immigration to 75,000 Jews for the next five years in its White Paper of 1939. That would average to 15,000 Jewish immigrants annually. This is shocking in view of the Shoah, in which over six million Jews were murdered.

For this reason, Jewish organizations illegally pressed ahead with immigration, despite it being blocked by England. These organizations included what is now the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Mossad LeAliyah Bet, which later became the legendary secret service agency Mossad. Despite the British blockade, 136,000 Holocaust survivors were enabled to immigrate to Israel.