Do I Have to Support Israel?

Do I have to Support Israel?

I recently saw an interview of a U.S. senator being questioned about the United States’ obligation to support the nation of Israel. In that interview, he was asked why the United States should support Israel. His response, “Because the Bible says that God will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel.” That got me thinking. Does the Bibe say that? Are Christians mandated by God to support Israel at any cost?

 Let’s see what the Word says:

[Genesis 12:1-20 NKJV] ¹ Now the LORD had said to Abram: "Get out of your country, From your family And from your father's house, To a land that I will show you. ² I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." ⁴ So Abram departed as the LORD had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram [was] seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. ⁵ Then Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, and they departed to go to the land of Canaan. So they came to the land of Canaan. ⁶ Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites [were] then in the land. ⁷ Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him. ⁸ And he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel, and he pitched his tent [with] Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; there he built an altar to the LORD and called on the name of the LORD. ⁹ So Abram journeyed, going on still toward the South. ¹⁰ Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine [was] severe in the land. ¹¹ And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, "Indeed I know that you [are] a woman of beautiful countenance. ¹² "Therefore it will happen, when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, 'This [is] his wife'; and they will kill me, but they will let you live. ¹³ "Please say you [are] my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you." ¹⁴ So it was, when Abram came into Egypt, that the Egyptians saw the woman, that she [was] very beautiful. ¹⁵ The princes of Pharaoh also saw her and commended her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken to Pharaoh's house. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake. He had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female servants, female donkeys, and camels. ¹⁷ But the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram's wife. ¹⁸ And Pharaoh called Abram and said, "What [is] this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she [was] your wife? ¹⁹ "Why did you say, 'She [is] my sister'? I might have taken her as my wife. Now therefore, here is your wife; take [her] and go your way." ²⁰ So Pharaoh commanded [his] men concerning him; and they sent him away, with his wife and all that he had.

Abram was instructed by God to leave his home. God promised Abram that if he obeyed, He would make him a great nation. God was speaking directly to Abram, and nobody else. God said, “I will make your name great.”

This was a one-on-one conversation between God Almighty and Abram. This was not a conversation between God and Jacob, who would later be called Israel. This conversation between God and Abram preceded Israel by two generations. God did not say to Abram, “I will make your grandson’s name great.” He said, “I will make your name great.” Making the claim that God’s conversation and promise to Abram was a promise for the nation of Israel is quite a leap from the context of the passage.

God promised Abram that He would bless anyone that blessed him, and curse anyone that cursed him. This again, was a promise to Abram, not Israel. This promise was part of the instructions that God was giving to Abram. Remember, God was directing Abram to leave his father’s house. Abram would have been hesitant. God, in His loving manner, was assuring Abram that He would take care of him and provide for him along the way much the same way as any loving father would assure his child. For example:

When I taught my children to ride a bike, I had to convince them that I would be right beside them and not let go of the bike until they were able to stay balanced on their own. I said, “Daddy has you. I won’t let you fall. I’ll run right alongside you.”

That is the premise of God’s promise to Abram. He said, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you,” not, “I will bless the descendants of those that bless your descendants and curse the descendants of those that curse your descendants.” God’s promise to Abram was not a promise to Israel.

Consider the story of Abram’s journey to Egypt following the promise God made to Abram. Abram sinned greatly against God; he did not trust God to protect him even though God had promised Abram that He would make him a great nation. Abram lied to Pharaoh. Abram could have been killed, but God gave Abram favor in the eyes of Pharaoh and Abram left Egypt a very wealthy man. God had to protect Abram because He had promised Abram He would if he left his father’s house and went to the land God would show him. God could not break His covenant (promise) to Abram because the promise was unconditional. Not even Abram’s sin and lack of faith could keep God from blessing Abram. Man breaks covenant, but God cannot.

God’s promise to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 was never meant to be extended to Abram’s descendants. It was only for Abram. God did not say to Abram’s descendants, “I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you.” In fact, Abram had two sons; Ishmael the older and Isaac the younger. Ishamel was sent away from his father’s house. Isaac fathered twins, Esau and Jacob. But God later said, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.” So why didn’t God’s promise to Abram extend to all his descendants if in fact it was a promise to Abram’s descendants? If God was speaking to Abram’s descendants when He made the Genesis 12:1-3 promise, shouldn’t it apply to the families of Ishmael and Esau as well?

Here are multiple translations of the promise:

[Genesis 12:1-3 KJV] ¹ Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: ² And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: ³ And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

[Genesis 12:1-3 YLT] ¹ And Jehovah saith unto Abram, 'Go for thyself, from thy land, and from thy kindred, and from the house of thy father, unto the land which I shew thee. ² And I make thee become a great nation, and bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing. ³ And I bless those blessing thee, and him who is disesteeming thee I curse, and blessed in thee have been all families of the ground.'

[Genesis 12:1-3 NET] ¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father's household to the land that I will show you. ² Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, but the one who treats you lightly I must curse, and all the families of the earth will bless one another by your name."

[Genesis 12:1-3 NASB20] ¹ Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country, And from your relatives And from your father's house, To the land which I will show you; ² And I will make you into a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And [you shall] be a blessing; ³ And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed."

In every one of those translations, the sole recipient of the promise is Abram. The word used is “thee” and “you” only. There is no indication that the promise was to be extended to Abram’s descendants.

God made many promises to Israel, but they were always conditional. Consider the following passage:

[Deuteronomy 28:1-68 NKJV] ¹ "Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. ² "And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: ³ "Blessed [shall] you [be] in the city, and blessed [shall] you [be] in the country. ⁴ "Blessed [shall be] the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. ⁵ "Blessed [shall be] your basket and your kneading bowl. ⁶ "Blessed [shall] you [be] when you come in, and blessed [shall] you [be] when you go out. ⁷ "The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. ⁸ "The LORD will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the LORD your God is giving you. ⁹ "The LORD will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the LORD your God and walk in His ways. ¹⁰ "Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they shall be afraid of you. ¹¹ "And the LORD will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give you. ¹² "The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. ¹³ "And the LORD will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe [them]. ¹⁴ "So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, [to] the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them. ¹⁵ "But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: ¹⁶ "Cursed [shall] you [be] in the city, and cursed [shall] you [be] in the country. ¹⁷ "Cursed [shall be] your basket and your kneading bowl. ¹⁸ "Cursed [shall be] the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. ¹⁹ "Cursed [shall] you [be] when you come in, and cursed [shall] you [be] when you go out. ²⁰ "The LORD will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. ²¹ "The LORD will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. ²² "The LORD will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. ²³ "And your heavens which [are] over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you [shall be] iron. ²⁴ "The LORD will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. ²⁵ "The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. ²⁶ "Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten [them] away. ²⁷ "The LORD will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. ²⁸ "The LORD will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. ²⁹ "And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save [you]. ³⁰ "You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. ³¹ "Your ox [shall be] slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey [shall be] violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep [shall be] given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue [them]. ³² "Your sons and your daughters [shall be] given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail [with longing] for them all day long; and [there shall be] no strength in your hand. ³³ "A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. ³⁴ "So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. ³⁵ "The LORD will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. ³⁶ "The LORD will bring you and the king whom you set over you to a nation which neither you nor your fathers have known, and there you shall serve other gods--wood and stone. ³⁷ "And you shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the LORD will drive you. ³⁸ "You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. ³⁹ "You shall plant vineyards and tend [them], but you shall neither drink [of] the wine nor gather the [grapes]; for the worms shall eat them. ⁴⁰ "You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint [yourself] with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. ⁴¹ "You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. ⁴² "Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. ⁴³ "The alien who [is] among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. ⁴⁴ "He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. ⁴⁵ "Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. ⁴⁶ "And they shall be upon you for a sign and a wonder, and on your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ "Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joy and gladness of heart, for the abundance of everything, ⁴⁸ "therefore you shall serve your enemies, whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in need of everything; and He will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. ⁴⁹ "The LORD will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, [as swift] as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, ⁵⁰ "a nation of fierce countenance, which does not respect the elderly nor show favor to the young. ⁵¹ "And they shall eat the increase of your livestock and the produce of your land, until you are destroyed; they shall not leave you grain or new wine or oil, [or] the increase of your cattle or the offspring of your flocks, until they have destroyed you. ⁵² "They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the LORD your God has given you. ⁵³ "You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and your daughters whom the LORD your God has given you, in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you. ⁵⁴ "The sensitive and very refined man among you will be hostile toward his brother, toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the rest of his children whom he leaves behind, ⁵⁵ "so that he will not give any of them the flesh of his children whom he will eat, because he has nothing left in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. ⁵⁶ "The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground because of her delicateness and sensitivity, will refuse to the husband of her bosom, and to her son and her daughter, ⁵⁷ "her placenta which comes out from between her feet and her children whom she bears; for she will eat them secretly for lack of everything in the siege and desperate straits in which your enemy shall distress you at all your gates. ⁵⁸ "If you do not carefully observe all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD, ⁵⁹ "then the LORD will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues--great and prolonged plagues--and serious and prolonged sicknesses. ⁶⁰ "Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. ⁶¹ "Also every sickness and every plague, which [is] not written in this Book of the Law, will the LORD bring upon you until you are destroyed. ⁶² "You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God. ⁶³ "And it shall be, [that] just as the LORD rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess. ⁶⁴ "Then the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods, which neither you nor your fathers have known--wood and stone. ⁶⁵ "And among those nations you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul. ⁶⁶ "Your life shall hang in doubt before you; you shall fear day and night, and have no assurance of life. ⁶⁷ "In the morning you shall say, 'Oh, that it were evening!' And at evening you shall say, 'Oh, that it were morning!' because of the fear which terrifies your heart, and because of the sight which your eyes see. ⁶⁸ "And the LORD will take you back to Egypt in ships, by the way of which I said to you, 'You shall never see it again.' And there you shall be offered for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy [you]."

The above passage is God’s promise to Israel. This promise was given centuries after God’s promise to Abram. So, even if you believe that the Genesis 12 promise was intended for Israel and not Abram only, you will have to concede that this conditional promise supersedes the promise to Abram. And as you can see, the blessings were all conditional. The blessings would only come if the children of Israel diligently obeyed all that the Lord commanded, and great curses would befall Israel if they failed to obey all that the Lord had commanded of them. Has Israel obeyed all of God’s commandments?

There are 12 verses of blessings, but they are followed by the conditions. Verses 13-15 again state that the blessings will only come if the children of Israel completely obey the Lord. Then there is a stark warning for Israel if they do not obey. God said, “If you will not obey…” and He gave 52 verses of cursing. That is a conditional promise.

God’s promise to Israel is not the same as God’s promise to Abram. God’s promise to Abram required only one act of obedience by Abram; he had to leave his father’s house. After Abram left his father’s house, God was mandated to protect Abram because Abram obeyed the one condition. God’s promise of blessing to Israel required continual obedience, and a curse was pronounced on Israel should they not obey all that God had commanded. God did not say to Israel, “I will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you.” God Himself pronounced a curse on Israel for disobedience.

Is Israel in obedience to God today? Does the nation of Israel worship God’s Son or do they reject Him? God made a promise to Israel to curse them for disobedience. If God promised He would curse Israel for their disobedience, would He ask the church to bless Israel in their disobedience?

I try not to venture too much into opinions or politics but consider this: God sent His Son to the nation of Israel. God gave the nation of Israel the promises and the prophecies concerning His Son. God intended for Israel to declare to the nations of the world the deity of His Son Jesus. Is Israel in obedience to God’s command to declare to the world the deity of His Son or are they in disobedience, telling the world Jesus is not the Messiah?

I am not going to tell you if you should support Israel. That is a decision that you must make after careful consideration of God’s Word and prayer. However, your decision should not be based on the Genesis 12:1-3 promise that God gave to Abram. That promise was not given to Israel; it was a promise from God to Abram only.

I hope this helps.