“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:3).

The tiny land of Israel is an amazing phenomenon, explainable only in Biblical terms. It began almost 4,000 years ago with the family of Jacob (or Israel) and his twelve sons. Most of the contemporary nations at the time—Elam, Chaldea, the Hittite empire, and others—have long been extinct as nations, but Israel is alive and well, and is in fact, the very hub of international concern. It has, as God prophesied, become “a burdensome stone for all people.”

This word is used only once in the Bible, and Israel has, indeed, become a unique burden to the nations. The whole Muslim world insists that Israel be destroyed as a nation, but Israel is determined to maintain her present boundaries. For 1,800 years, “the wandering Jew” had no true home, yet survived. In accord with Biblical prophecy, she had “become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations whither the LORD shall lead thee” (Deuteronomy 28:37).

The city of Jerusalem itself, just since the time of Christ, has been controlled at various times by the Romans, Syrians, Arabs, Crusaders, Egyptians, Persians, and Turks; but never again by the Jews until our own generation.

The problem of Israel and Jerusalem is apparently intractable to the other nations of the world and so must be resolved by God. Zechariah 12 also shows that it will indeed be solved “in that day”—the day when Christ returns. At that time, He says: “I will pour upon . . . the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him” (Zechariah 12:10). In that great day, says Paul, “all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:26). HMM