Understanding Prophetic Boundaries
Do biblical prophecies apply to everyone in the World? Should everyone be concerned about the outcome of prophecies contained in the Bible? What is the viewpoint of the Bible when it comes to world affairs and the fulfillment of biblical prophecy? Abram came from the ancient Sumerian city of Ur in the region of Chaldea. His journey to Canaan was the result of a command from God, for Abram was found to be obedient to God’s law and to the will of God. What is peculiar about this part of the biblical story is that God promised to give Abram (Abraham), and his descendants the land of Canaan, and lands beyond the Middle East. This meant the eventual establishment of what we would call a political organization—a State with peoples, a government and internationally acknowledged national boundaries. Bringing us to consider how such a promise would naturally result in future conflicts with other nations, because it was expected—from a biblical perspective—that the sons of Jacob would eventually form interdependent and independent nations from their early tribal beginnings. We also ought to think about how the promises given to Abraham were not always known to all peoples of other tribes, city-states and territorial-states of the Middle East, and for that matter to the rest of the world. We could say then that the promises given to Abraham and his descendants became a part of their national development and character, and an important influence on how they would function as a nation among nations, but the promises had no direct relevancy to other nations. Consequently, to the nations that existed beyond the people of Israel, Israel’s eventual conquest of the Promised Land and political development had no more spiritual significance than their own conquests of lands and peoples in the known world. However, there was one other matter that was significant to the issue of the promises given to Abraham. That is to say the promises given to Abraham were prophetic. Such is the basic nature of the promises given to Abraham as he himself was not an inheritor of those lands promised to Israel, which means that God would have a direct role in the tribal territorial claims of the land of Canaan for the children of Israel—and lands beyond the Middle East. Thus, we could reasonably say that the promises given to Abraham would certainly influence Israel’s national character, but the world as a whole would have no real expectation that the promises of Abraham would have any meaning to national development or fulfillment, especially in today’s international arena. Now, historically, these promises came to have a more tangible and comprehensive realization for all the sons of Jacob in the time of King David. Including the promises given to two of Abraham’s great-great grandchildren—Ephraim and Manasseh—whose descendants would form independent nations of their own. They too would eventually become established as sovereign States, having their own governments, lands and established boundaries among the nations. Yet, all this seemed to change with the conquests of the Assyrians and Babylonians. In the period of the kings of Israel and Judah, following the time of David and Solomon, we find that prophets were sent to the leaders of the commonwealth to warn them of dire consequences for their disobedience to God. Those consequences eventually befell them when they were broken as a commonwealth by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians who removed the throne of King David to Babylon. (The stipulations of the covenant—the Ten Commandments—were legally bound to the promises, which allowed for the inheritance to be revoked if Israel disobeyed the law of God (not the Mosaic Law).) However, according to the promises, these events would not interfere with the geographic establishment of these sovereign States according to the promises given to Abraham. Leading us to conclude that according to the nature of the promises we should have tangible evidence of the existence of the tribes of Israel today, having formed their own States and having their own governments and recognized international boundaries, even though they were removed as a commonwealth from the area referred to as the Promised Land. This would, of course, include the nation-states that would represent the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh. In other words, if these two countries exist today as nation-states—as promised—then it is a most unusual phenomenon, because many other nations and countries of the world have generally formed their boundaries through conflict, strife and hardship, without any sense of divine providence that allowed them to become a State. Therefore, those countries outside of Israel’s boundaries would have little reason to conclude that the boundaries established for the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh are anymore legitimate than their own national boundaries, even though history shows that some peoples have invoked God in their cause to form their own country. (We have to remember that national boundaries are established today by recognition of those States that typically form boundaries around a country claiming statehood, such is the difficulty with the State of Israel today.) Now, the result of God’s promises to Abraham tells us the descendants of the tribes of Israel were to inherit lands and eventually become sovereign States with significant influence in the world. This sets the boundaries and perspectives of biblical prophecy related to Israel. It is from this vantage point that we should view prophecies found in Scripture regarding Jacob and his descendants, and not from the viewpoint of the interpretations produced by the church of God, or Christianity, or the political views of other countries of the world. Realizing this helps us understand the scope of many prophecies in the Bible. Now, when we think of boundaries, we often think about the conditional and sometimes transitory lines drawn on maps that separate State from State, but there are other important boundaries that have no real definitive lines, which give us a better look into why certain prophecies will inevitably come to pass regarding the people of Israel. This