How disturbing to witness the current displays of antisemitism across our nation, especially in the protests being held on many of our elite university campuses, with  signs and shouts of “From the River to the Sea,” a universal call for the eradication of Israel.  Probably the most violent protests are being held at Columbia University, where a Jewish student was poked in the eye by a protester waving a Palestinian flag.  I couldn’t help but be reminded of Zech. 2:8: “For thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘After glory He has sent me against the nations which plunder you, for he who touches you, touches the apple of His eye’ “.   The “apple of His eye,” of course, is not a fruit, but the pupil of the eye, so essential for sight that it becomes an apt symbol for a prized possession, something precious to God–in this case, His chosen people, Israel. 

     Although the context describes the time of Christ’s reign on earth (the Millennium), the phrase is also used in the “Song of Moses” in Deuteronomy chapter 32, where God sets the boundaries of the nations with Israel as the center of interest (looking forward to His kingdom on earth). It speaks of the “Most High” giving the nations their inheritance. (NOTE: “Most High” is El Elyon which means “the strongest strong one” and is the Millennial title of Deity.) Dt. 32:10 says of Israel: “He guarded them as the pupil of His eye.” 

     Antisemitism goes all the way back to the covenant God made with Abraham more than 4,000 years ago, in which God promised to bless the world through Abraham’s Seed  (Gen. 12:1-3; 22:18).This was God’s declaration that the Messiah, the Savior of the world, would come through Abraham’s descendants of promise (Gal. 3:8,9,16). Being the nation that brought us the written revelation of God and would birth the Savior, made the Jewish people the enemy of Satan, who is therefore the “father of antisemitism.”  Satan wants to destroy what God is using to redeem the world because God’s success means Satan’s demise, prophesied way back in the Garden of Eden in Gen. 3:15: “And I will put enmity between you (Satan) and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.”  The “seed of the woman” (Jesus, born of a virgin) would deal Satan a fatal blow (see Heb. 2:14,15; Mt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10), but would suffer in doing so (Jesus would be arrested, tortured and crucified, but in three days rise again, victorious over death and Satan). 

     Satan, understanding God’s promise to Abraham and his “seed,” attempted to destroy the descendents of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob, knowing that it was through them that God’s promises would be fulfilled and end up in his own defeat.  The Egyptian midwives were told to make sure any boy babies didn’t survive, but Moses did and became the Hebrews’ deliverer from bondage in Egypt. Then as they made their exodus, Pharaoh’s army tried to destroy them but the Israelites escaped and Pharaoh’s army drowned in the Red Sea.  The Jews finally made it to the land of Canaan that God had promised to Abraham.  Assyria and Babylon both tried to wipe out the tribes of Israel and Judah, but a remnant ended up going back to restore Jerusalem and the Temple.  Haman, in his hatred toward the Jews, plotted to have them annihilated and even got King Artaxerxes of Persia to set a date for the destruction of all the Jews.  Well, his plan backfired, the Jews survived and he was hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Jewish Mordecai (the book of Esther).   

     Finally, “When the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, in order that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Gal. 4:4,5).  The “seed of the woman” had come who would defeat Satan and become the Redeemer of mankind.  He was born to Jewish parents in the land of Israel. He observed Jewish Law, visited synagogues, quoted the Hebrew Scriptures, and went up to the Temple in Jerusalem for the holy days each year. He fulfilled hundreds of Jewish prophecies, was born in the Jewish town of Bethlehem, and lived in the Jewish town of Nazareth. Today, these town are Arab, but in Jesus’ day, they were Jewish. (NOTE: God’s Word contains not a single reference to “Palestine.” It speaks of Israel, Judea, and Samaria. Not until AD 135 did the Romans rename the land “Palestine” after the Philistines, Israel’s archenemies. It was their way of stripping the Jewish homeland of its Jewish identity. To claim  (as even one of our own Congressional members has done) that Jesus was a Palestinian is an insult to the Christianity and to the Jews and their history and denies that the tiny nation of Israel is a miracle and that God is fulfilling His promises to restore the Jewish people as a nation in their own land and will restore them spiritually and will come to reign on the throne of David as He promised.)

         When Satan had failed in stopping the “seed of the woman”  from coming, he attempted, through King Herod, to kill Him when He was a little toddler. Later, the religious leaders of the Jews made several unsuccessful attempts on His life.  Jesus would die on His own terms by being “lifted up” on the cross(Jn. 3:14; 12:32), the sacrificial Passover Lamb (Jn. 1:29; I Cor. 5:7) to put away sin. Even then, no one took His life from Him. Jesus said, “No one has taken it from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again…” (Jn. 10:18).  The “seed of the woman” (Gen. 3:15) and the “seed of Abraham” (Gen. 22:18) came and accomplished God’s plan of providing a Redeemer.

      But, Satan didn’t give up. Since He was unsuccessful in stopping the Seed from coming and dying for sin, if he could get rid of the Jewish people, then Jesus wouldn’t come back and set up His kingdom as promised, so he has continued, in his hatred of God, to attempt to destroy the Jewish people.   For centuries, the Jews remained dispersed throughout the world, a nation without a land.  Hitler,  Stalin, and other Jew-haters (pawns of Satan) tried to destroy the Jewish people.  It seemed that God’s covenant promises to Abraham had failed (and Satan was succeeding).  Maybe God would fulfill the promises through the church instead. “In 1932, British expositor G. Campbell Morgan wrote, ‘I am now quite convinced that the teaching of Scripture as a whole is that there is no future for Israel as an earthly people at all’ (This Was His Faith, p. 290). Then came May 14, 1948, and the rebirth of national Israel! Just as God kept His promise to Abraham and sent the Messiah, so He will keep His promise and restore the land to His people” (Be Obedient by Warren Wiersbe, p. 49). 

     In spite of the Jews’ rejection of Christ when He came (Jn. 1:11), they remain “the apple of His eye,” His chosen people and He will protect them and one day, when God is done calling people (mainly Gentiles) into His Body, the church, Jesus will remove the church from the earth (I Thes. 4:13-18) and will turn His focus back on Israel, and through a very difficult time called “The time of Jacob’s distress” (Jer. 30:7) or the “great tribulation” (Mt. 24:31), “All Israel will be saved” (Ro. 11:26).  God is not finished with Israel yet and they remain His prized possession and to go against the Jews, desiring to see them destroyed is very serious business. God said to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you I will curse” (Gen. 12:3).  We know, as in the days of Asaph, Israel’s enemies “made shrewd plans against Thy people, and conspired together against Thy treasured ones. They said, ‘Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more’ ” (Ps. 83:3,4). But, God preserved Israel and He will continue to do so today and in the days to come (Rev. 12). God has promised that Israel will never cease to exist (Jer. 31:35-37).  

     I praise God that through the people who are “the apple of God’s eye” we have a Savior, we have the Word of God, and we have, through faith in Jesus Christ, been grafted into the vine and become recipients of the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant (Rom. 11:11-24; Gal. 3:16-29). Pray for both the Jews and the “Palestinians” that they will come to know the real Messiah, Jesus, our Redeemer. 

Forever His,

Pastor Dave