Speaking to Moses from a burning bush, following captivity in Egypt, God promised to redeem the Israelites and bring them into a land flowing with milk and honey. (See yesterday’s post if you missed it!) Little did anyone know the many ways in which God would fulfill His promise!
Regarding His promise, here are some interesting thoughts:
Most often in Scripture, honey refers to fruit nectar (primarily date honey), not honey from bees.
Fruit trees grow in lots of places, but only in fertile land, where fruit trees are well-nourished, does produce overflow with nectar.
Likewise, livestock lives in many different places, but produce more milk when fed in fertile pastures.
According to the Midrash (Hebrew commentary) milk symbolizes superior quality, richness of taste and nourishment.
Honey is symbolic of sweetness.
With some of those thoughts in mind, consider how God continues to fulfill His milk and honey promise. Click here for a fascinating look at that fulfillment.
The Jewish people have a special relationship with their land. The Lord gave it to them and they love the gift He gave.
Moses and the ancient prophets spoke of Israel as a land flowing with milk and honey. God promised them abundance. Yet, after they were driven from their land, it became desolate and barren. In fact, Mark Twain visited the land in 1867 and wrote this in Innocents Abroad:
A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action….We never saw a human being on the whole route….There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.
– 1867 (Quoted in Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, London: 1881)
The land was virtually uninhabited, as no one saw any value in it. Yet, the prophet Ezekiel wrote of the Lord’s preparation of the land for the Jews’ return. Chapter 36 of Ezekiel speaks of that preparation, followed by the Jews’ return in chapter 37. He had not forgotten His promise of abundance!
Today, Jews pray fervently for rain and for abundance in their land. When they get it, there is great rejoicing! When God grants the moisture, the land becomes a gorgeous testimony to God’s goodness.
Israel is currently in the midst of a terrible drought. In fact, the Sea of Galilee (Israel’s most important water source) recently reached dangerously low levels, and it was feared irreversible damage was being done to the ecosystem. But last week the God of Israel honored the prayers of His people, sending abundant rain (we might call it flooding!) to the land. Miraculously, the water level on the Sea of Galilee rose an astounding 19 centimeters (about 7.5 inches) in just 2 days!
In Israel, no one complains when it rains! In fact, it is always seen as a blessing. The land becomes lush and beautiful, reminding everyone of the Lord’s promise of abundance. Take a look at some of the sights. Enjoy!
Israel’s Blessing
PS: Check back tomorrow when I’ll share some interesting ways in which God is fulfilling His milk and honey promises!
“Dude, how can you be Jewish and believe in Jesus?
It was November of 2002. I had just released my first novel, The Last Jihad. I was doing a telephone interview on a hard rock radio station in Rochester, New York, the city closest to where I grew up in Upstate New York. And the radio host, a guy who called himself “Brother Weese,” asked me this very question.
Here’s my answer.
The story of my spiritual journey — how I was raised by a Jewish father and Gentile mother and came to believe that Jesus is, in fact, the Jewish Messiah — was just released online by a ministry called, “One For Israel.”
