The Land of Promise: The Covenant of Abraham - The Divine Promise

From Egypt to the Land of Israel

In the middle of a terrible and protracted famine, God commanded Jacob to leave the Land and journey to Egypt with his family. He lived there for seventeen years, but his longing to return did not abate for a moment. Before his death he assembled his sons to give them his blessing. He then instructed them to take his body back to the Land and bury him in the Machpelah Cave in Hebron which Abraham had purchased and where... Abraham and his wife Sarah were buried; there Isaac and his wife Rebekah were buried; and there I buried Leah. (Gen. 49: 31)

For many years, Jacob's son Joseph was the viceroy of Egypt. Despite his exalted position, he also yearned to return to the Promised Land, and before he died asked that he too be buried there: Joseph said to his brothers, "I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land that He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, "When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here." (Gen. 50:24-25)

Joseph's death was followed by a long period of enslavement of the Israelites by the Egyptians. After they had endured centuries of suffering, the people cried out for deliverance. God dispatched Moses to organize their exodus from Egypt and bring them home: Say, therefore, to the Israelite people: I am the Lord. I will free you from the labors of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage ... I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and I will give it to you for a possession.
(Ex. 6:6-8)

Following a miraculous exodus, Moses led his people through the wilderness and prepared to receive the Torah - the cornerstone of laws and history upon which Judaism is built - at Mount Sinai. This event was significant not only to the Jewish People, but to the rest of the world. It was a declaration that there was a new future for humanity, based on the acceptance of monotheism.

After a 40-year journey, the Jewish People arrived in the Land of Israel as a nation, as promised to them by God many centuries earlier. Under the leadership of Joshua, they prepared to cross the Jordan River. The rapidly flowing waters seemed to make such a passage impossible, but at God's command, Joshua ordered the priests (who were carrying the Tabernacle in which lay the Ten Commandments) to enter the Jordan and then halt. As they stepped into the water, it divided: The water flowing from the north downstream stopped and allowed the people to cross while the water on the southern side continued to flow. As the last people climbed out on the other side... the waters of the Jordan resumed their course, flowing over its entire bed as before. (Josh 4:18) Thus the Israelites were able finally to realize their right to their beloved land, promised to them by God.

David, Solomon, and the Building of the First Temple

Four centuries passed. After the death of their first king, Saul, the young hero David, who had defeated the mighty Goliath against all odds, became king. David soon earned the reputation of a courageous warrior, but he was also a gentle and holy man, who attained the gift of prophecy. He is credited with composing the book of Psalms, inspired by the love of God that burned fiercely within him.

During the first few years of his reign, David made Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom (c.1000 BCE) - the spiritual and political center of the People of Israel. Despite David's intense desire to build a holy Temple, God told him that his son would have that great merit. Nevertheless, David made all the preparations for its construction, so that he could at least be a participant in the enterprise. First he purchased the site of the Temple: And Araunah asked, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" David replied, "To buy the threshing floor from you, that I may build an altar to the Lord." (2 Sam. 24:21-22)

Then he made other preparations: David gave orders... to quarry and dress stones for building the House of God. Much iron for nails for the doors of the gates and for clasps did David lay aside, and so much copper it could not be weighed, and cedar logs without number... For David thought, "... the House to be built for the Lord is to be made exceedingly great to win fame and glory throughout all the lands; let me then lay aside material for it." So David laid aside much material before he died. (1 Chronicles 22:2-5)

After David's death, his son Solomon ascended the throne. King Solomon used his immense wisdom to govern his people well and with great justice, and even to advise other nations: The Lord endowed Solomon with wisdom and discernment in great measure... he was the wisest of all men... his fame spread among all the surrounding nations... men of all peoples came to hear Solomon's wisdom... When the Queen of Sheba observed all of Solomon's wisdom... she was left breathless. (1 Kings 5:9-14, 10:1-5) King Solomon is traditionally assigned authorship of three divinely inspired books that are included in the Bible: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs.

King Solomon followed in the path of his father David and developed his kingdom, both politically and economically. Because of his peace-loving nature and great wisdom, Solomon was deemed worthy to build the holy Temple, the seat of the Divine Presence in the Land of Israel. Its dedication was an occasion of great public celebration. The Temple became the spiritual center of the people for the next four centuries, so fulfilling Ezekiel's prophecy: When you shall dwell in the Land which I gave to your fathers, and you shall be My people and I will be your God. (Ezekiel 36:28)

One of two small silver scrolls dating from the end of the Solomonic period (c.7th century BCE), inscribed wtih the biblical priestly blessing.

Destruction and Exile

In the year 597 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylonia, led his armies into the Land of Israel. He plundered the treasury of the Temple and the royal palace, sending the spoils and some 10,000 captives - including sages, princes and warriors - to Babylonia. His soldiers demolished many cities and then returned to Babylonia, leaving behind a ravaged and desolate land as prophesized by Jeremiah years earlier: Says the Lord... "I will turn Jerusalem into rubble... and I will make the towns of Judah a desolation without inhabitants... I will scatter them among nations which they and their fathers never knew; and I will dispatch the sword after them until I have consumed them." (Jer. 9:10-15)

Some nine years later, in the 9th year of the reign of King Zedekiah, the last king of the House of David, Nebuchadnezzar returned. On the tenth of the Hebrew month of Tevet he completed a siege wall around Jerusalem, and waited for the meager bread and water supplies in the city to run out. Over the next three years, famine killed thousands of Jerusalem's inhabitants. Knowing that their opponents no longer had the strength to oppose them, the Babylonians then broke through the city walls. After four weeks of resistance by Jewish fighters, the Babylonian commander Nebuzaradan entered the Temple and slaughtered the priests and those who were trying to defend them. On the ninth of Av (586 BCE), the Babylonians razed the city walls and set the Temple on fire. Jerusalem was turned into a mound of rubble - just as Jeremiah had warned.

Most of the people were sent into exile in Babylonia; only the poorest remained behind. The Levites, who had been the choristers in the holy precincts, poured their souls into elegiac psalms: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea we wept, as we remembered Zion. (Ps. 137:1) Overcome by their sorrow, the people swore a solemn oath: If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither; let my tongue stick to my palate if I cease to think of you, if I do not keep Jerusalem in memory even at my happiest hour. (Ps. 137:5-6)

The exiles never ceased to long for their ancestral homeland. Each time they assembled to pray they faced Jerusalem. They also instituted four annual days of mourning and fasting: the first, in the month of Tevet, on the anniversary of the siege of Jerusalem; the second in Tammuz, when the city wall was breached; the third in Av, when the Temple was destroyed; and the fourth in Tishrei, when Gedaliah Ben Ahikam, appointed by Nebuzaradan to govern the remnant of the community, was assassinated, and Jewish self-government came to an end. The most important of these was the fast of Tisha B'Av (the ninth of Av), which later became the pre-eminent day of mourning for the Jewish People. However, the words of the prophet Jeremiah echoed in their ears: For thus said the Lord: "When Babylon's seventy years are over, I will take note of you, and I will fulfill to you my promise of favor - to bring you back to this place. (Jer. 29:10)

The Second Temple

In 539 BCE the army of Cyrus, King of Persia, conquered Babylon. Aware of the divinely ordained bond between the People and the Land of Israel, Cyrus issued a proclamation urging the Jewish exiles to return to their ancestral homeland and rebuild the Temple. He instructed his subjects to subsidize poor Jews so they could join their brothers and sisters who were returning to their land; he also took the sacred vessels plundered by the Babylonians and entrusted them to the leaders of the returning exiles.

The royal proclamation spurred many to return to the Land, but many more chose to stay behind, choosing to provide generous support to the returnees. The following year, the returnees dedicated an altar on the site of the Temple and, backed by a royal permit, laid a cornerstone, raised funds and began rebuilding the Temple. Despite various setbacks, the Second Temple was completed in the sixth year of the reign of Darius (515 BCE), son-in-law of Cyrus, and dedicated with great pomp and joy.

The Second Temple period saw a return to religious observance and the study of the Torah, promoted by the setting up of the 120-member Knesset Hagedolah (Great Assembly), the supreme religious authority in the Land. In addition, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt and the fabric of daily life - commerce, agriculture and construction - was reinforced, with the people able once again to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on the three major festivals - Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentacost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles):
I rejoiced when they said to me, "We are going to the House of the Lord." Our feet stood inside your gates, O Jerusalem... to which tribes would make pilgrimage... to praise the name of the Lord. (Ps. 122:1-4)

The return to their homeland, however, did not mean sovereignty. The Second Temple period was accompanied by political and military struggles for independence, which eluded the people for most of that era. Except for the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled for less than a century, the country remained under foreign rule, subject successively to the Persians, the Ptolemies of Egypt, the Seleucids of Syria, and finally the Romans.

The Long and Bitter Exile

In 66 CE, the Roman emperor Nero sent his legions, under the command of Vespasian, to the Land of Israel, where the people had revolted against their conquerors. Vespasian ravaged the country and devastated its cities, massacring most of the residents and selling the survivors into slavery. He then turned to Jerusalem, the people's last hope and refuge. After Nero died, Vespasian returned to Rome as emperor, leaving his son Titus in command of the legions besieging Jerusalem.

For a while the people fought valiantly, and were able to repel Roman attempts to breach the city walls. However, famine soon became an even greater threat to their survival. On the 17th of Tammuz, Titus' soldiers breached the city wall; three weeks later, on the ninth of Av, Titus led them into the Temple compound - within hours the Temple was engulfed in flames. The sight of their Temple burning was too much for many of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem to bear, and many chose to jump into the inferno or to fall on their own swords. The Romans massacred the population, showing no pity for women, children or old people. Then they burned the entire city.

From that day, the Jewish people began a dark and bitter journey into exile that lasted nearly two thousand years - an exile characterized by misery, persecution and blood libels, with no country providing long-term refuge. Throughout the long Diaspora, however, generations of Jews never forgot Jerusalem. Three times daily they turned towards the holy city and prayed: May our eyes behold your return to Zion. At the same time, a minority remained in the Land of Israel, preserving the Jewish spark in the ancient homeland and waiting patiently for the day when the exiles would return.