Steve,
I have a plea for you, can you make an article about another
endtime events in scripture where Judah and/or Israel are
concerned? It would be so interesting!
There are also some people who can not really grasp that they are
Israel, and are reading still many bible passages wrong.
Do you know who is the House of Israel (Zech 12 and 13)?
Thank you so much!
Silvan
MYREPLY
Silvan,
Your “plea” is very timely and has already been answered! This very issue of “who is Israel and Judah” is addressed and answered in a new audio message I gave on July 5, 2009 at the Church at the Gate, a local Evangelical Church here in Sioux Falls where I live (I highly recommend Church at the Gate to anyone who reads this blog who is within driving distance of Sioux Falls–the church’s website is in my recommended links).
If you click on the “speeches” link at my homepage, you will find the new audio message entitled “The USA in Bible Prophecy” at the top of the speech options. It lasts approximately 1/2 hour (the first couple sentences are missing as I began my message with my microphone off and the recording system likely had to be re-set quickly when I started again with the microphone on).
I think this audio message explains the difference between “Israel”and “Judah” in both the Bible and in the modern world as clearly as I can present the subject. This is a subject all Christians need to understand in order to give their faith a major boost as it shows the Bible can be proven to be the authoritative and inspired Word of God that speaks to our world today.
The word “Israel” appears in Zechariah 12:1 and then is mentioned nowhere in the chapter (or book) afterwards. Indeed, the only other time that the word “Israel” is used anywhere else in the book of Zechariah is in 9:1 and I think that explains what is meant by “Israel” in Zechariah 12:1. Zechariah 9:1 refers to “all the tribes of Israel” which would certainly include the tribe of Judah. I see Zechariah 12:1’s use of the word “Israel” in the same context as in 9:1, especially since it is the only precedent for the use of the word Israel” in the book of Zechariah. Supporting this viewpoint is the fact that Zechariah 12-14 address only the destiny of the tribe of Judah in the end of our age, and these chapters say nothing about any other tribe. We need to recall that while “Israel” and “Judah” were separate nations in the ancient world and are addressed as separate entities in the latter days (Jeremiah 30:3, 5 and 24 is an example of this), Judah is a tribe which also is descended from the man named Jacob, whose name was changed to “Israel.” This name is primarily on the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (Genesis 48:14-16), but it generally includes the other eight tribes of the old northern kingdom when the expanded term “house of Israel” is mentioned in the Bible.
Steve
