Many Christians spend a lot of time concerned about the borders of Israel when evaluating the status of prophetic fulfillments. There are several Scriptures that address the issue. See, Numbers 34: 2-12. The boundaries meted out in Numbers measured about 160 miles by 50 miles, or less than 8,000 square miles. To put this in perspective, Oklahoma City contains over 604 square miles and Oklahoma about 69,000 square miles. Thus, even without Gaza and the West Bank, Israel’s size is once again roughly that set forth in Numbers.
The election in Israel held in March was in some respects about borders. Israel is building an electronic fence between itself and the West Bank, which Israel may turn over to the Palestinian Authority, the Parliament of which is currently dominated by Hamas. The current laws and records of land ownership may or may not be preserved when the state of Israel relinquishes the West Bank to the Palestinian Authority. This dispossession may work a tragedy on the Palestinians, including disenfranchising 150,000 Arab Israeli citizens, but may be one of the many necessary steps to independent statehood for the Palestinians. Israel’s post-election government, which seems to be teetering on a knife-edge, has publicly stated its intention to relinquish the West Bank and Gaza.
As noted above, evangelicals have been critical of abandonment of Israel’s borders and those that would propose it. During the Israeli election, the ultra-orthodox, represented by the Shas party, were critical of those that would recede from the borders resulting from the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Indeed, the leader of the Shas party in Israel claimed Hurricane Katrina was a “retribution†from God levied against the United States because of US support for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Olasky, World Magazine, April 8, 2006 at 20. Apparently, Pat Robertson was not alone in his bad taste. (Robertson has apologized but the Rabbi leading Shas does not appear to be accountable, post-election to the Knesset, for being ill mannered or presumptuous.)
It should be noted that the March election in Israel was burdened by low voter turnout of 63%. Olasky, World Magazine, April 8, 2006 at 21. In a country where military service is virtually universal, terrorism is a constant threat, and the dispossession of settlements and citizenship represents deeply troubling issues, it would seem that voter apathy would be impossible. Olasky blames weariness due to unrelenting terrorism and a resulting obsession with escapism as an explanation for voter apathy. This sounds too much like a ‘60s blame game label (“sex, drugs and rock and rollâ€) instead of an indictment of war without victory. More likely, like in the United States, the differences between politicians, and their lobbyists, are difficult to discern, and many voters have given up trying to do so.
In any event, the borders of Israel, in isolation, represent political realities, but not necessarily Scriptural or Biblical ones. The promises and predictions concerning the state of Israel were not delivered with metes and bounds tested by sextant. Even Genesis 15:18, the so called Palestinian Covenant, the promise to Abraham of the land between “the river of Egypt†and the Euphrates, does not contain metes and bounds. What it contained, and still contains, is an idea of the location of the place described, and an idea of the thing to occupy the place, people adherent to a covenant with God.
Those people are there now, just as the Scriptures foretold, and the stage is set. The curtain could go up any moment, and is rising, even now on the Second Coming.
