Israel: God's Holy LandSample

Our Spiritual Homeland

It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. — DEUTERONOMY 11:12

In Deuteronomy 3:25, we find Moses desperately pleading with God to “Let me go over and see the good land.” Moses wanted nothing more than to enter the land of Israel. Why was it so deeply important for him to go into the land? Moses knew that this land was unlike any other. This land was holy.

Many people call Israel the Holy Land because of the biblical events that took place there thousands of years ago. Both the Torah and the Christian Bible center on the land of Israel. However, Israel was holy long before Jesus walked through the hills of Galilee, before Joshua and the Israelites marched around the towering walls of Jericho, and before Abraham heeded God’s call to leave his homeland and go to “the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

In Judaism, the word “holy” means something or someone that is designated for a special purpose. The land of Israel was set aside by God at Creation to be His own special land.

We read in Deuteronomy 32:8-9: “When the Most High gave the nations their inheritance, when he divided all mankind, he set up boundaries for the peoples according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance.”

Yet, there is more to Israel than the fact that it was given to God’s people and designated as God’s Holy Land where the Holy Temple would stand. There are certain qualities in the land that make it different from any other.

God is more directly involved with this land. There is only one place in the world about which it is written: “It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.” (Deuteronomy 11:12)

In addition, many commandments listed in the Torah are either connected to the land of Israel or dependent upon it. For example, the laws about the sabbath year (shmita in Hebrew, Leviticus 25), bringing offerings (Leviticus 23:10; Numbers 15), and tithing (Deuteronomy 14:22-29) are tied to God’s Holy Land — “the land I am going to give you.”

Our celebration of Israel expresses more than the joy of a fledgling nation that beat the odds and serves as a beacon of light. It is the celebration of God’s Word coming to fruition, the Bible coming full circle, and our world entering a new phase for all humanity, when all prophecies regarding this wondrous time and land will be fulfilled.

Israel is at the core of Jewish identity and peoplehood; the land shapes the Jews’ self-image and character as a community covenanted with God. Indeed, to deny the link between the Jews and the land of Israel is to deny the Bible itself. To question the right of the Jewish people to live in Israel is to distort God’s Word.