Deuteronomy 28: Palestine, The (Conditionally) Promised Land

In 2017, the State of Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an interesting remark while addressing Christians United for Israel (CUFI), an organization founded by John Hagee. CUFI is the largest pro-Israel organization in the US. It seeks to build a broad-based coalition amongst all pro-Israel Christians and Christian communities.

To the Christians, Netanyahu said,

When I say we have no greater friends than Christian supporters of Israel, I know you’ve always stood with us . . . You stand with us because you stand with yourselves because we represent that common heritage of freedom that goes back thousands of years . . . America has no better friend than Israel and Israel has no better friend than America, . . . and Israel has no better friend in America than you.

Christian support for Israel is fierce. At times, it is unconditional. Though various attempts have been made to explain Christian support for Israel in economic, political, or cultural terms, Christian Zionism is undoubtedly theological. It is the theological justification that gives Christian support for Israel such force.

Grounding Support for Israel in the Bible

There are many verses in the Bible that Israel’s Christian supporters use to justify their politics. Making a biblical case for Zionism always involves equating the modern State of Israel to the Israel of the Bible. Not all accept that presupposition. Indeed, for most of Christian history, theologians have seen the Church as the new Israel.

But assuming that the State of Israel is the same as the biblical Israel, what case can be made that Christians should support it?

Israel’s God-Given Right to the Land

One of the foundational building blocks of a biblical case for Zionism is Israel’s right to the land of Palestine.

One need not look far in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible before seeing that God does give the land of Palestine (then called Canaan) to Israel. The nature of this gift is one of inheritance. The language of inheritance, as Greg Laurie at Harvest Ministries points out, is used throughout the book of Joshua. And as Laurie sums up, “the Lord, who owned the land, gave it to them [i.e., to Israel].”

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) also points out God’s gifting of Canaan to Abram as one of several reasons to support Israel (Genesis 12:7). Ralph Drollinger at Capitol Ministries draws even more from Genesis, pointing out how the land of Canaan was promised by God to Abram and his descendants “forever” (13:15) and as “an everlasting possession” (17:7).

As Drollinger concludes,

Since God is not through with Israel, and since God has a huge future plan for Israel, . . . all individuals and all nations should be sure to stand on the side of Israel. Amen!

Terms and Conditions

Aside from the scarcity of biblical references in these articles (except Drollinger’s), these authors miss an important part of God’s gift. It is conditional.

Scripture must be interpreted systematically. If some parts are cited and others are excluded, the Bible can be made to say anything one wants it to say. Instead, readers of Scripture must aim to hear what every instrument is playing in the grand symphony of Holy Scripture. It is in the harmony and the discord that we hear truth sing.

Here, it is clear that there are significant parts of the Bible being excluded from the conversation. Thus, we (re)introduce ourselves to the book of Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 28

God gave Canaan to Israel. Israel inherited the land from God. But their practice and use of the land determines their occupation of the land.

In Deuteronomy 28, God is speaking to the Assembly of Israel. In this chapter, He lays out the conditions of occupying the land of Canaan. The structure of the chapter is simple. And its content runs throughout Deuteronomy as well as throughout the whole Old Testament.

God begins by listing blessings for obedience. Then He follows up with curses for disobedience. We must remember that even though God entered into an eternal covenant with Abraham and his descendants (however that is interpreted), this covenant demanded obedience to God’s ways and laws.

I. Blessings for Obedience

In the start of the chapter, God begins:

Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: (Deut. 28:1-2, NKJV)

Now, what were these blessings? God promises bountiful harvests and livestock, bodily health, and economic prosperity (vv. 4-14).

But the chief blessing that God promises, if Israel obeys God’s commands, is living in the land of Canaan. God says, “Blessed shall you be in the city [i.e., Jerusalem], and blessed shall you be in the country [i.e., Canaan]” (v. 3).

II. Curses for Disobedience

Then, come the curses. It is interesting to note that the blessings section is much, much shorter than the curses section of the chapter.

If Israel disobeys God’s commands and violates God’s covenant, the blessings previously promised turn into curses. Israel will have no harvest nor livestock to eat, they will be stricken with plague and disease, and they will deteriorate into poverty. God tells Israel that their marriages will suffer, that Israel will be conquered by war, and eventually destroyed, displaced, and sold into slavery.

But what is most interesting among these curses is their relationship to inhabiting the land. The first curse, like the first blessing, deals with living in the land (v. 16). God tells the Assembly that He will “make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess” (v. 21). The land’s produce will be shut up to the Israelites, and whatever is left will be consumed by invaders. These enemies will “besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you” (v. 52).

The Conditionally Promised Land

As God concludes in the chapter,

it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. Then the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known—wood and stone (vv. 63-64, emphasis added).

There are many more passages throughout Scripture that highlight the conditions of occupation. One can look to the whole book of Judges. In Judges, the Israelites are repeatedly given over to the peoples whose gods they worship, and the consequence of idolatry is displacement from Canaan.

Or one can also read the prophets. Isaiah and Jeremiah both rebuke Israel for her idolatry and oppression of the poor and the foreigner, and remind them that God did not intend for them to inhabit the land of Judaea unconditionally.

Back to the Biblical Promised Land

As blogger Phill Sacre points out, “a lot of Christians have the idea that all Christians should support Israel unconditionally – or at least, should mostly support Israel.”

Perhaps the unquestioning fervor with which so many Christians support Israel and by extension the absolute violence it exerts upon Palestinians is largely due to un/intentional misreadings of Scripture. Recall that though there are economic, political, and cultural reasons for why Christian Zionism exists, it is precisely the theology behind Christian Zionism that gives it such force.

Now, if we are to remain untainted by ideology, if we are to recommit ourselves to faithfully reading God’s Word, perhaps it is time to come back to God’s view of covenant. Maybe we should remind ourselves of God’s definition of the conditionally Promised Land instead of holding onto our own understanding.

Christian Zionism’s View of the Promised Land

The major flaw with Christian Zionism is that it begins with an unbiblical view of covenant and promise, and then moves to twist Scripture to support that view. If we begin with the belief that Israel’s occupation of Palestine remains valid no matter what Israel may do, who cares what Israel is doing?

This view of an unconditionally Promised Land makes Israel an epistemic no-fly-zone. It excludes it as a real conversation. It makes us play mind games with ourselves, saying things like “I know Israel isn’t perfect, but the Bible tells us we must support and bless it.”

But when we begin with what Scripture says, that Israel’s occupation of the land of Canaan/Judaea/Palestine is based on its conduct and obedience to God, we begin with a question instead of dogma. Instead of starting with, “We must bless and support Israel occupying the land,” we start with, “Is Israel inhabiting the land like how God demands it to?”

As God says through the prophet Jeremiah,

if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, . . . then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever (7:5-7).

Innocent blood is indeed being shed in Gaza, even as you read. Is Israel inhabiting the Promised Land like how God demands it to?