Israel

Israel is at once a man, a people, and a hope. The name is given to Jacob after his night of wrestling — "Your name will not be Jacob anymore, but Israel: for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Gen 32:28) — and is then carried by his sons, his sons' sons, and the nation they become. Across the canon Israel is enslaved and delivered, ruled and divided, exiled and gathered, and at the end held open as a remnant whom Yahweh has not cast off. The pages below trace that arc through the verses themselves.

Jacob renamed Israel

The renaming happens twice in Genesis. At Peniel, after a night-long contest, the man tells Jacob, "Your name will not be Jacob anymore, but Israel: for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Gen 32:28). Jacob asks his name in return and is blessed there (Gen 32:29). He calls the place Peniel, "for, [he said], I have seen God face to face, and my soul is preserved" (Gen 32:30). The renaming is then confirmed at Beth-el: "Your name is Jacob: your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel will be your name: and he named him Israel" (Gen 35:10). Long afterward, the narrator of Kings still names this episode as the people's deepest identity: Yahweh "commanded the sons of Jacob, whom he named Israel" (2 Kgs 17:34).

The twelve tribes

Israel's twelve tribes descend from Jacob's sons. Sirach's praise of Israel telescopes the whole moment: "And a blessing rested on the head of Israel; And he gave him the title of Firstborn, And gave him his inheritance; And he set him for tribes, To be divided into twelve" (Sir 44:23). The same writer asks, "Gather all the tribes of Jacob, That they may receive their inheritance, as in days of old. Have mercy upon the people called by your name, Israel whom you surnamed Firstborn" (Sir 36:11-12). Of the nations, Sirach says, "For every nation he appointed a ruler, But Israel is the Lord's portion" (Sir 17:17), and elsewhere, "For Yah has chosen Jacob to himself, [And] Israel for his own possession" (Ps 135:4). Balaam looks down from the rocks and sees the same fact: "Look, it is a people who stays alone, And will not be reckoned among the nations" (Num 23:9).

Slavery and Exodus

In Egypt the descendants of Jacob become slaves. "The Egyptians made the sons of Israel to serve with rigor" (Ex 1:13); slave masters were set over them with their burdens, and "they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses" (Ex 1:11). Moses, grown up, "went out to his brothers, and looked on their burdens: and he saw an Egyptian striking a Hebrew, one of his brothers" (Ex 2:11). When the king of Egypt died, "the sons of Israel sighed by reason of the slavery, and they cried, and their cry came up to God by reason of the slavery" (Ex 2:23). Pharaoh's complaint to Moses and Aaron — "Why do you⁺, Moses and Aaron, take the people away from their works? You⁺ get to your⁺ burdens" (Ex 5:4) — only sharpens the captivity. Looking back, Numbers will recall, "our fathers went down into Egypt, and we dwelt in Egypt a long time; and the Egyptians dealt ill with us, and our fathers" (Num 20:15), and the psalmist says, "He turned their heart to hate his people, To deal subtly with his slaves" (Ps 105:25).

The deliverance is a covenant act. Yahweh tells Moses, "I will take you⁺ to be my people, and [my Speech] will be your⁺ God; and you⁺ will know that I am Yahweh your⁺ God, who brings you⁺ out from under the burdens of the Egyptians" (Ex 6:7). Through the plagues Israel is set apart. "I will set apart in that day the land of Goshen, in which my people dwell, that no swarms of flies will be there; to the end you may know that I am Yahweh, [whose Speech dwells] in the midst of the earth" (Ex 8:22). "All the cattle of Egypt died; but of the cattle of the sons of Israel not one died" (Ex 9:6); "Only in the land of Goshen, where the sons of Israel were, there was no hail" (Ex 9:26). The distinction is named openly: "But against any of the sons of Israel will not a dog move his tongue, against man or beast: that you⁺ may know how that Yahweh does make a distinction between the Egyptians and Israel" (Ex 11:7). The Passover blood is the token: "And the blood will be to you⁺ for a token on the houses where you⁺ are: and when I see the blood, [by my Speech] I will pass over you⁺, and there will be no plague on you⁺ to destroy you⁺, when I strike the land of Egypt" (Ex 12:13). At the sea, "Yahweh saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore" (Ex 14:30). Looking back, Moses tells the next generation: "because he loved your fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought you out with his presence[his Speech], with his great power, out of Egypt" (Deut 4:37).

Sinai and the wilderness generation

At Sinai the people are constituted as a covenant nation. Yahweh tells Moses, "Now therefore, if you⁺ will obey [my Speech] indeed, and keep my covenant, then you⁺ will be my own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine: and you⁺ will be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which you will speak to the sons of Israel" (Ex 19:5-6). The wilderness life that follows is shadowed by promise and threat. Yahweh promises healing for obedience: "If you will diligently listen to the voice of [the Speech of] Yahweh your God, and will do that which is right in his eyes, and will give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I have put on the Egyptians: for I am Yahweh who heals you" (Ex 15:26). Moses begins to judge the people daily (Ex 18:13). The covenant curse names disobedience's price: "I will set my face against you⁺, and you⁺ will be struck before your⁺ enemies: those who hate you⁺ will rule over you⁺; and you⁺ will flee when none pursues you⁺" (Lev 26:17).

Deuteronomy lays out the full alternative. Israel can be exalted — "to make you high above all nations that he has made, in praise, and in name, and in honor; and that you may be a holy people to Yahweh your God, as he has spoken" (Deut 26:19); "Yahweh your God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth" (Deut 28:1); "[the Speech of] Yahweh will make you the head, and not the tail" (Deut 28:13); "He made him ride on the high places of the earth, And he ate the increase of the field; And he made him to suck honey out of the rock, And oil out of the flinty rock" (Deut 32:13); "Happy are you, O Israel: Who is like you, a people saved by [the Speech of] Yahweh, The shield of your help, And the sword of your excellency!" (Deut 33:29). Or Israel can be reproached — "all these curses will come upon you, and overtake you" (Deut 28:15); "you will become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where Yahweh will lead you away" (Deut 28:37); "you will serve your enemies that [the Speech of] Yahweh will send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he will put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he destroys you" (Deut 28:48). And exile is foreseen: "Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you will set over you, to a nation that you haven't known, you nor your fathers; and there you will serve other gods, wood and stone" (Deut 28:36). Even there a return is held out: "[the Speech of] Yahweh your God will turn your captivity, and have compassion on you, and will return and gather you from all the peoples, where Yahweh your God has scattered you" (Deut 30:3). The threat of forsakenness is also explicit (Deut 31:17).

Israel is to be a nation of judges and brothers. Moses charges the judges, "Hear [the causes] between your⁺ brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother, and the sojourner who is with him" (Deut 1:16). "Judges and officers you will make for yourself in all your gates ... and they will judge the people with righteous judgment" (Deut 16:18); courts must "justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked" (Deut 25:1).

Conquest and judges

Israel enters the land. At Jericho, "the people shouted, and [the priests] blew the trumpets ... and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city" (Josh 6:20). At Ai they fail — "there went up there of the people about three thousand men: and they fled before the men of Ai" (Josh 7:4). At Beth-horon, "Yahweh cast down great stones from heaven on them to Azekah, and they died" (Josh 10:11).

In the period of the judges Israel cycles between apostasy and rescue. They "went whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves down to them" (Judg 2:17). When they cry to Yahweh he raises a savior — Othniel (Judg 3:9), Ehud (Judg 3:15), Shamgar who "struck of the Philistines six hundred men with an ox-goad" (Judg 3:31), Deborah under her palm-tree (Judg 4:5), Gideon (Judg 6:36), Tola (Judg 10:1), Jair (Judg 10:3), Jephthah (Judg 11:11), and others (Judg 12:8, 12:11, 12:13). They are also defeated and humbled: at the city of palm-trees (Judg 3:13), under Eglon for eighteen years (Judg 3:14), driven into mountain dens by Midian (Judg 6:2). Even the saviors fail them — Gideon's ephod becomes a snare and "all Israel went whoring after it there" (Judg 8:27). Samson dies pulling the house down on the Philistines (Judg 16:30). Gideon's victory is the kind of moment that defines the era: "they stood every man in his place round about the camp; and all the host ran; and they shouted, and put [them] to flight" (Judg 7:21).

The united kingdom

Samuel judges Israel "all the days of his life" (1 Sam 7:15), making circuit "from year to year ... to Beth-el and Gilgal, and Mizpah" (1 Sam 7:16). At Mizpah Yahweh thunders against the Philistines and "they were struck down before Israel" (1 Sam 7:10). Eli's forty-year judgeship ends in defeat at Aphek: "the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel: and when they joined the battle, Israel was struck before the Philistines" (1 Sam 4:2); "Israel has fled before the Philistines, and there has also been a great slaughter among the people, and your two sons also, Hophni and Phinehas, are dead, and the ark of God is taken" (1 Sam 4:17), and "[Eli] fell from off his seat backward by the side of the gate; and his neck broke" (1 Sam 4:18).

Saul's first victory is over the Ammonites at Jabesh: "Saul put the people in three companies; and they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch, and struck the Ammonites until the heat of the day" (1 Sam 11:11). But Goliath terrifies him: "When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and greatly afraid" (1 Sam 17:11), until David runs out and "stood over the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of its sheath, and slew him, and cut off his head with it" (1 Sam 17:51). On Gilboa, Saul falls — "the battle went intensely against Saul, and the archers, men with the bow, overtook him" (1 Sam 31:3); the report comes back: "The people fled from the battle, and many of the people also fell and have died; and Saul and Jonathan his son are dead also" (2 Sam 1:4).

David sees what kind of nation Israel has become. "What other nation on earth is like your people Israel, whose God went and redeemed a people for himself, and made a name for himself, and did great and awesome things for you⁺ to drive out nations and their gods before your people, whom you redeemed to yourself from Egypt?" (2 Sam 7:23). Under him Israel routs Syria — "the Syrians fled before Israel; and David slew of the Syrians [the men of] seven hundred chariots, and forty thousand horsemen" (2 Sam 10:18) — and one of his mighty men "struck the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand stuck to the sword; and Yahweh wrought a great victory that day" (2 Sam 23:10).

The schism and the northern kingdom

After Solomon, the kingdom splits. "When all Israel saw that the king didn't listen to them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion do we have in David? Neither do we have inheritance in the son of Jesse: to your⁺ tents, O Israel: now see to your own house, David. So Israel departed to their tents" (1 Kgs 12:16). "Then King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the men subject to slave labor; and all Israel stoned him to death with stones" (1 Kgs 12:18). "So Israel rebelled against the house of David to this day" (1 Kgs 12:19). Jeroboam, the "mighty man of valor" Solomon had set "over all the labor of the house of Joseph" (1 Kgs 11:28), is recalled, and "they sent and called him to the congregation, and made him king over all Israel: there was none who followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only" (1 Kgs 12:20). From this point, "Israel" in the historical books frequently names the ten northern tribes against Judah.

Kings of Israel and Kings of Judah march in parallel through the chronicler's lists. Solomon dies and Rehoboam succeeds him in Judah (1 Kgs 11:43). The southern kings — Abijam (1 Kgs 14:31), Asa (1 Kgs 15:8), Jehoshaphat (1 Kgs 15:24), Jehoram, Ahaziah (2 Kgs 8:25-26; 11:2), Joash, Amaziah (2 Kgs 14:1-21), Azariah-Uzziah, Jotham (2 Kgs 15:1-38), Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:20), Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon (2 Kgs 21:1-19), Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, Zedekiah (2 Kgs 23:30-34; 24:6, 24:17) — succeed in the city of David. The northern kings — Jeroboam (1 Kgs 14:20), Baasha (1 Kgs 15:16), Elah, Zimri, Omri, Ahab (1 Kgs 16:8-29), Jehu, anointed by command, "and Jehu the son of Nimshi you will anoint to be king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you will anoint to be prophet in your place" (1 Kgs 19:16), Ahaziah (1 Kgs 22:40), Jehoram (2 Kgs 1:17), Jehu's burial in Samaria (2 Kgs 10:35), Jehoash (2 Kgs 13:10), Jeroboam II who "recovered Damascus, and Hamath" (2 Kgs 14:23-29), and the disintegrating last reigns — "Zechariah the son of Jeroboam reigned over Israel in Samaria six months. And Shallum the son of Jabesh conspired against him, and struck him before the people, and slew him, and reigned in his stead ... Pekah ... reigned twenty years. And Hoshea the son of Elah made a conspiracy against Pekah ... and struck him, and slew him, and reigned in his stead" (2 Kgs 15:8-30) — fill out the list. From the start the northern dynasties bear a verdict: Yahweh "will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin" (1 Kgs 14:16); the threat is that he "will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers, and will scatter them beyond the River" (1 Kgs 14:15).

The prophets begin to picture this Israel as an unfaithful wife and a fruitless vine. "You brought a vine out of Egypt: You drove out the nations, and planted it" (Ps 80:8). Yahweh "looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth bad [grapes]" (Isa 5:2). "I had planted you a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then have you turned into the wild branches of a foreign vine to me?" (Jer 2:21). "Israel is a luxuriant vine, that puts forth his fruit: according to the abundance of his fruit he has multiplied his altars" (Hos 10:1). And the wifely image: "Do you⁺ pollute yourselves after the manner of your⁺ fathers? And you⁺ whore after their detestable things?" (Ezek 20:30); "Don't rejoice, O Israel, for joy, like the peoples; for you have whored away from your God; you have loved wages on every grain-floor" (Hos 9:1); "for the spirit of whoring has caused them to err, and they have whored away from their God" (Hos 4:12; cf. Hos 5:4); "they trespassed against the God of their fathers, and went whoring after the gods of the peoples of the land" (1 Chr 5:25); "they were defiled with their works, And whored in their doings" (Ps 106:39); "they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed in all their disgusting behaviors" (Ezek 6:9). The threat that Israel will become "a proverb and a byword among all peoples" (1 Kgs 9:7) is repeated again and again (Deut 28:37; Jer 24:9; Ezek 22:4; Ps 44:14).

The Assyrian exile

The northern kingdom falls. "In the days of Pekah king of Israel came Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maacah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazor, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali; and he carried them captive to Assyria" (2 Kgs 15:29). And then in full: "In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria, and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kgs 17:6); "Yahweh rejected all the seed of Israel, and afflicted them, and delivered them into the hand of spoilers, until he had cast them out of his sight" (2 Kgs 17:20); "the king of Assyria carried Israel away to Assyria, and put them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes" (2 Kgs 18:11). The narrator gives the reason: "it was so, because the sons of Israel had sinned against Yahweh their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt; and had feared other gods; and walked in the statutes of the nations, whom Yahweh cast out from before the sons of Israel; and [walked in the statutes] which the kings of Israel made" (2 Kgs 17:7-8).

Amos had foretold it: "Jeroboam will die by the sword, and Israel will surely be led away captive out of his land" (Amos 7:11). Hosea had announced it: "My God will cast them away, because they did not [receive his Speech]; and they will be wanderers among the nations" (Hos 9:17). Israel's princes will be children, "and babes will rule over them" (Isa 3:4). Mourning will replace joy: "I will turn your⁺ feasts into mourning, and all your⁺ songs into lamentation; and I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and its end as a bitter day" (Amos 8:10); "I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feasts, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies" (Hos 2:11); "There is a crying in the streets because of the wine; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone" (Isa 24:11); "The joy of our heart has ceased; Our dance has turned into mourning" (Lam 5:15); "I will cause the noise of your songs to cease; and the sound of your harps will be heard no more" (Ezek 26:13). The same fate falls later on Judah and Jerusalem: "the cities of the South are shut up, and there is none to open them: Judah is carried away captive, all of it; it is wholly carried away captive" (Jer 13:19); "of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, they will take away; and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon" (Isa 39:7); "he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives ... none remained, except the poorest sort of the people of the land" (2 Kgs 24:14); "the remainder of the people who were left in the city ... Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away captive" (2 Kgs 25:11). Among the nations Israel becomes a byword: "you make us a byword among the nations, A shaking of the head among the peoples" (Ps 44:14); "they have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance" (Ps 83:4).

The prophets and the remnant

Within judgment a remnant survives. "Except Yahweh of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah" (Isa 1:9). "He who is left in Zion, and he who remains in Jerusalem, will be called holy, even everyone who is written to life in Jerusalem" (Isa 4:3). "There will be a highway for the remnant of his people, who will remain, from Assyria; like there was for Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt" (Isa 11:16). Hezekiah pleads, "lift up your prayer for the remnant who is left" (Isa 37:4). Jeremiah hears, "they will thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn again your hand as a grape-gatherer into the baskets" (Jer 6:9), and again, "I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply" (Jer 23:3); "Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the chief of the nations: publish⁺, praise⁺, and say, O Yahweh, save your people, the remnant of Israel" (Jer 31:7). Ezekiel: "look, in it will be left a remnant that will be carried forth, both sons and daughters" (Ezek 14:22). Micah: "I will surely assemble, O Jacob, all of you; I will surely gather the remnant of Israel; I will put them together as the sheep of Bozrah, as a flock in the midst of their pasture" (Mic 2:12). Zephaniah: "the remnant of my people will make a prey of them, and the remainder of my nation will inherit them" (Zeph 2:9).

The same prophets hold out return. "It will come to pass in that day, that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, who will remain, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea" (Isa 11:11). "As Yahweh lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the countries where he had driven them. And I will bring them again into their land that I gave to their fathers" (Jer 16:15). "I will bring them again also out of the land of Egypt, and gather them out of Assyria; and I will bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon" (Zech 10:10). "At that time I will bring you⁺ in, at the time when I will gather you⁺; for I will make you⁺ a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth" (Zeph 3:20). Yahweh names them his own: "But now thus says Yahweh who created you, O Jacob, and he who formed you, O Israel: Don't be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine" (Isa 43:1); "For Jacob my slave's sake, and Israel my chosen, I have called you by your name: I have surnamed you, though you haven't known me" (Isa 45:4). And the nations will recognize Israel's exaltation: "the labor of Egypt, and the merchandise of Ethiopia, and the Sabeans, men of stature, will come over to you" (Isa 45:14); "kings will be your nursing fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers: they will bow down to you with their faces to the earth" (Isa 49:23); "the sons of those who afflicted you will come bending to you ... and they will call you The city of Yahweh, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 60:14). At the same time the harshest threats are kept open: "though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my soul would not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth" (Jer 15:1); "I will cast you⁺ out of my sight, as I have cast out all your⁺ brothers, even the whole seed of Ephraim" (Jer 7:15).

Post-exile

When the people return, they confess that they have not yet shed their humiliation. "Since the days of our fathers we have been exceedingly guilty to this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to plunder, and to confusion of face, as it is this day" (Ezra 9:7). Nehemiah's prayer remembers the same pattern: "after they had rest, they did evil again before you; therefore you left them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried to you, you heard from heaven; and many times you delivered them according to your mercies" (Neh 9:28). Persecution continues — "[prominent] men, Chaldeans, came near and brought accusation against the Jews" (Dan 3:8); "letters were sent by posts into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day" (Esth 3:13).

Maccabean Israel

Antiochus's invasion comes upon a still-fragile community. "After Antiochus had ravaged Egypt in the hundred and forty-third year, he returned and went up against Israel" (1 Macc 1:20). "There was great mourning in Israel, And in every place where they were" (1 Macc 1:25). "Many of Israel consented to his service, and they sacrificed to idols, and profaned the Sabbath" (1 Macc 1:43). "Thus by their power they dealt with the people of Israel, who were found in the cities month after month" (1 Macc 1:58). The lament reaches into the older imagery: "the land was moved for the inhabitants of it, And all the house of Jacob was covered with confusion" (1 Macc 1:28); "Jerusalem was not inhabited, But was like a desert ... And joy was taken away from Jacob, And the pipe and harp ceased there" (1 Macc 3:45); enemies "thought to destroy the generation of Jacob who were among them, and they began to kill some of the people, and to persecute them" (1 Macc 5:2).

Resistance takes shape under Mattathias and his sons. Mattathias dies "in the hundred and forty-sixth year ... and all Israel mourned for him with great mourning" (1 Macc 2:70). Judas Maccabeus "grieved many kings, And made Jacob glad with his works, And his memory is blessed forever" (1 Macc 3:7). After the first victories, "Israel had a great deliverance that day" (1 Macc 4:25). Judas "gathered together all the Israelites who were in the land of Gilead, from the least even to the greatest, and their wives, and children, and an army exceedingly great, to come into the land of Judah" (1 Macc 5:45). Some "wicked men of Israel" join the besieged Greek garrison (1 Macc 6:21). Judas opens diplomacy with Rome: "Judas Maccabeus, and his brothers, and the people of the Jews, have sent us to you⁺ to make an alliance and peace with you⁺, and that we may be registered your⁺ confederates and friends" (1 Macc 8:20). Jonathan's death brings public mourning — "Israel mourned with great lamentation" (1 Macc 12:52). Simon, left alone, says, "By reason whereof all my brothers have lost their lives for Israel's sake, and I am left alone" (1 Macc 13:4); "all Israel bewailed him with great lamentation: and they mourned for him many days" (1 Macc 13:26). Under Simon at last, "in the year one hundred and seventy the yoke of the nations was taken off from Israel" (1 Macc 13:41); "the land of Judah was at rest all the days of Simon, and he sought the good of his nation: and his power, and his glory, pleased them well all his days" (1 Macc 14:4).

Sirach's older praise of Israel's heroes runs alongside this story. The wisdom that "fixed my dwelling place" hears Yahweh say, "In Jacob let your dwelling place be, And in Israel take up your inheritance" (Sir 24:8). The Twelve Prophets are remembered as those "Who made Jacob whole, And delivered him by confident hope" (Sir 49:10). Even the chastened sentence of Sirach 48 holds the promise open: "for all this the people did not turn, And did not cease from their sins; Until they were plucked from their land, And were scattered in all the earth; And there were left in Judah but a few; Yet to the house of David was left a prince" (Sir 48:15); "some of them did that which was right, And some of them sinned more and more" (Sir 48:16). And of Israel's life as a people: "the life of a man [numbers] few days, But the life of Israel days without number" (Sir 37:24).

Restoration hope

Across the prophetic books and the apostolic writings, hope of Israel's gathering is never let go. The genealogy of the Christ traces the same lineage: "The Book of the Generation of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham" (Matt 1:1); "all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the Babylonian Exile were fourteen generations, and from the Babylonian Exile to the Christ were fourteen generations" (Matt 1:17). Jesus' lament foresees still further trial — "they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations: and Jerusalem will be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (Luke 21:24).

Paul's argument over Israel runs through Romans 9-11. Israelites are those "whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service [of God], and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh" (Rom 9:4-5). Even within unbelief a remnant stands: "Isaiah cries concerning Israel, If the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant that will be saved" (Rom 9:27); "even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace" (Rom 11:5). Branches have been broken off — "if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became copartners with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree" (Rom 11:17). Yet the question "Did God cast off his people?" is answered with a refusal: "God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God did not cast off his people which he foreknew" (Rom 11:1-2). The mystery is then named: "a hardening in part has befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved: even as it is written, There will come out of Zion the Deliverer; He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob: And this is my covenant to them, When I will take away their sins" (Rom 11:25-27).

The hope holds, in the language of Sirach: "God did not forsake his mercy, And will not let any of his words fall to the ground; He will not cut off the posterity of his chosen, And the offspring of those who love him he will not destroy; And he gave to Jacob a remnant, And to the house of David a root from him" (Sir 47:22). And it holds in Moses' word: "Happy are you, O Israel: Who is like you, a people saved by [the Speech of] Yahweh, The shield of your help, And the sword of your excellency!" (Deut 33:29).