Chapter 2—The Chosen People
For more than a thousand years the Jewish people had awaited
the Saviour’s coming. Upon this event they had rested their brightest
hopes. In song and prophecy, in temple rite and household prayer, they
had enshrined His name. And yet at His coming they knew Him not.
The Beloved of heaven was to them “as a root out of a dry ground;”
He had “no form nor comeliness;” and they saw in Him no beauty
that they should desire Him. “He came unto His own, and His own
received Him not.”
Isaiah 53:2
;
John 1:11
.
Yet God had chosen Israel. He had called them to preserve among
men the knowledge of His law, and of the symbols and prophecies that
pointed to the Saviour. He desired them to be as wells of salvation to
the world. What Abraham was in the land of his sojourn, what Joseph
was in Egypt, and Daniel in the courts of Babylon, the Hebrew people
were to be among the nations. They were to reveal God to men.
In the call of Abraham the Lord had said, “I will bless thee; ... and
thou shalt be a blessing: ... and in thee shall all families of the earth
be blessed.”
Genesis 12:2, 3
. The same teaching was repeated through
the prophets. Even after Israel had been wasted by war and captivity,
the promise was theirs, “The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of
many people as a dew from the Lord, as the showers upon the grass,
that tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.”
Micah 5:7
.
Concerning the temple at Jerusalem, the Lord declared through Isaiah,
“Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all peoples.”
Isaiah
56:7
, R. V.
[28]
But the Israelites fixed their hopes upon worldly greatness. From
the time of their entrance to the land of Canaan, they departed from
the commandments of God, and followed the ways of the heathen. It
was in vain that God sent them warning by His prophets. In vain they
suffered the chastisement of heathen oppression. Every reformation
was followed by deeper apostasy.
Had Israel been true to God, He could have accomplished His
purpose through their honor and exaltation. If they had walked in the
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