The Jewish Dispersion

God's Role in the Jewish Diaspora
God loves the Jew. All through Scripture it is plain that Israel is God's chosen
people and He will protect and uphold them. What a beautiful picture of this is
represented in the Jewish dispersions. Just as today there exists wheat still
growing amidst the tares, there always remained a remnant of the faithful within
Israel during these times. The first of such dispersions is told in Genesis to Abram
by God Himself: "thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall
serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years" (Genesis 15:13, KJV).1
This scripture foretells the dispersion of Israel into the land of Egypt. One must
remember that while God can, and does, disperse Israel due to disobedience, God
in His omniscience and mercy also uses the dispersion for protection and
sustaining of the Jewish race through which the promised Messiah would one day
come. This certainly is true in the case of the flight to Egypt out of Canaan. While
Jacob had not always been close to God and had experienced times of "the flesh"
in Haran (Genesis 29, KJV), he is still under the watchful care of God. Through the
events in the life of his son, Joseph, being sold as a slave by his jealous brothers
whereby he is taken into Egypt (Genesis 37, KJV), the stage is set for the trip
"down" into Egypt to avoid annihilation by famine and to relocate Israel for 400
years. Seventy souls would go into exile in a foreign land (Genesis 46:26, KJV),
but God would use that time to greatly multiply and strengthen His people for a
future time when they would leave in a great number and with great wealth and
riches: "also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall
they come out with great substance" (Genesis 15:14). God would not forget His
covenant with Abraham, but still more important and precious is the fact that God
would not forget His promise of the coming Messiah to redeem the people
(Genesis 3:15). The second dispersion of Israel would take the Jews under the
control of a foreign nation as prophesied in the book of Deuteronomy: "The Lord
shalt bring thee…unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known…"
(Deuteronomy 28:36, KJV). The Babylonian captivity certainly fulfilled this
prophecy. Israel had once again become ungrateful and was not following the
command of their God. The people had rejected the prophets whom God had sent
as a warning and for 490 years they had refused to practice the sabbatical rest of
the land (II Chronicles 36, KJV). God allowed Israel to go into Babylonian captivity
for seventy years until the land "had enjoyed her Sabbaths" (II Chronicles 36:21,
KJV). What great price Israel paid this time! They watched, certainly in horror, "the
king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword…and had no
compassion…for age…and all the vessels of the house of God…and the treasures
of the house of the Lord…brought to Babylon" (II Chronicles 36:17-18, KJV). God's
Word records even greater destruction to the Temple: "and they burnt the house of
God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem…" (II Chronicles 36:19, KJV). There
would certainly be no "quick fix" this time for the Jewish nation. Their Temple
destroyed, their people slaughtered, and their goods spoiled, they would now face
great sorrow and toil in punishment for disobedience. How true the saying: "you
never know what you have until it is gone".
The third dispersion mentioned in Scripture is one in which the Jewish people have
never recovered. Just as before, Israel once again forgot God and became
disobedient. Time caused complacency in the things of God and allowed
worldliness to set in. In 70 A.D. Rome conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the
second Temple. From there the Jews were scattered across the Globe. What great
concessions must be made for disobedience to a Holy God! Just as strong as the
judgment will be the endless mercies of God as one day He will gather His sheep
yet again from the four corners of the earth and set up His millennial Kingdom
(Ezekiel 34:11-31, KJV).

Endnotes
1All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Bible version, Royal,
1971.