It is interesting to see how Talmudical literature falls in with
these thoughts. A few quotations from these old writings of the Jews
will no doubt be acceptable to the reader. Rabbi Isaac Napcha says:
The Holy One said, I kindled a fire in Jerusalem (in wrath) Lament.
iv: 11, and I am going to build her up again with fire, as it is
said, "I will be unto her, saith the Lord, a wall of fire round
about. He that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution." The
Pesikta Rabethi has this: What is this: "And for a Glory I am in the
midst of her." Is it not the case that the glory of the Holy One is
none other than on high, as it is said, "His glory is above the
heavens." The glory is in order to show every creature in the
universe the superior excellence of Israel, since it is on their
account that the Holy One brings down the Shekinah from the highest
heaven and lets it dwell in the earth.
We have now in the vision a continued description of that happy
condition of Jerusalem and all that is connected with it. First, we
notice the summons for the Jews who are then still in dispersion.
_Ho, ho, flee from the land of the North, saith the Lord, for I have
spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord.
Ho, Zion, escape that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon._
It is not to be expected that when the glory appears and the King of
Glory comes again and His feet stand there on the Mount of Olives,
that the entire Jewish nation will then live in the land. This will
not be the case; only a part of the nation was restored in unbelief,
and in the midst of them a believing remnant, whose faith, suffering
and salvation we hope to describe later. Two-thirds of all the
inhabitants of the land will be swept away in the great tribulation.
After the Lord has come, the others will be restored. It is
significant that the land of the North is mentioned here, Late; in
the eighth chapter, we read: "I will save my people from the East
country and from the West country," but those living in the land of
the North come first. Of course, Babylon was meant as far as this
vision had anything to do with the restoration which had taken place
in part from the Babylonian captivity. The North country, which
figures in the coming restoration, is not Babylon, but another land.
Russia is directly north of Palestine, and in this northern land, the
territory once inhabited by Gog and Magog, about one half of the Jews
now living have their homes. About six millions of Jews are living
to-day in European and Asiatic Russia. Their deplorable condition in
that land of the North is well known, and there, likewise, the
national awakening has been the most marked and Zionism has its most
ardent advocates. A large multitude is getting ready in the North
country for a mighty exodus. Like their forefathers in Egypt, they
will flee from the land of the North, and thus prophecy is literally
to be fulfilled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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