Dead Nations Never Rise Again?

The Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem²

British Foreign Secretary, Arthur James, Lord Balfour, 100 years ago Friday sent a communique, that came to be known as the "Balfour Declaration."

Dear Lord Rothschild,

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object... .

Arthur James Balfour

Rome's imperial legions, commanded by her future Caesar Titus Flavius Vespasianus in AD 70 made Jerusalem a desolation. The second temple was set aflame and as it burned, rivulets of gold betraying its magnificence mingled with the blood that bathed the temple mount. And as the conflation consumed the city, a remnant, a Jewish diaspora, was scattered by the four winds of heaven to all the nations of the earth.

Longfellow in the 1845 poem “The Jewish Cemetery at Newport” bewails “How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves” as he describes the diaspora of the Jews “in narrow streets and lanes obscure," in “Ghetto and Judenstrass, in mirk and mire” partaking “unleavened bread and bitter herbs of exile” slaking their “thirst with [the] marah of their tears” while enduring “the life of anguish and the death of fire.”

But lamentably, in the last four verses, Longfellow affirms a two millennia "anathema."

But ah! what once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.

 But ah! What once has been shall "be" again! In 1948 a dead nation "did" rise again!

 But ah! Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus’ “Eternal” Roman Imperium! “What once has been shall be no more!”

 “… The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones, And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry. And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones; Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the LORD. So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath in them. Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts. Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves, And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD” (Ezekiel 37:1-14).¹

¹The bones of this prophecy are those of the "whole" house of Israel, which the LORD, in a yet future day will bring up out of their graves and into the land of Israel. "And they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced," and shall know the LORD. And they shall be "born of the Spirit," and shall live!


² By David Roberts, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10987959

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