I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God. – Amos 9:15

Today's Scripture Reading (February 17, 2023): Amos 9

In 1948, the unthinkable happened; Israel was planted in Palestine as a nation in the Middle East one more time. Israel has had a long history of both its presence and absence in Canaan. It is a presence that began with God promising the land to Abraham. And yet, even Abraham left the land that had been promised to him to spend time in Egypt. Jacob, Abraham's grandson, raised his family in Palestine but found themselves evicted from the land because of a severe famine.

For the next 400 years, the descendants of Jacob, literally Israel, lived in Egypt and grew into a nation. While Israel started their time in Egypt as valued guests, they became enslaved people in the land until God brought them out of Egypt and through a forty-year journey in the wilderness before he once again planted these descendants of Abraham back in the land that was intended for them. And after gaining control of the land, they would stay there for the next 800 years.

But as the end of those eight centuries drew  closer, Amos was given a message for Israel. You have enjoyed time in this land, but it is about to be taken from you because of your sin. Israel will be removed from Palestine. The country will pass through God's purifying fires, but they won't be removed forever. There will be a time when Israel will be brought back, and a time will come when they will never leave the land again.

The first of these removals happened in 721 B.C.E. The Assyrian empire entered the Northern Kingdom and carried away the people of Israel. In 586 B.C.E., Babylon did the same thing to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Persian Empire would then replant Judah before they disappeared again in the early years after the death and resurrection of Christ.

Israel would be replanted once again in Palestine in 1948, almost nineteen centuries after the Romans had defeated Israel in 70 C.E. Then, the world was confronted by the suffering of the Israeli people, the expulsion of Jews from some European nations, and the final insult of Adolf Hitler's attempt to eliminate the race, all of which had produced a political imperative to restore Israel to the land that they once walked, even over the protestations of the people who currently occupied the land. Was this the final time Israel would be placed in "their land," an event spoken of by Amos? The truth is, we don't know. But God's final words to Amos were that that day would come. It was a day when Israel would be finally planted in the land, never to be removed again.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jonah 1 & 2