WHICH ISRAEL DO WE BLESS AND SUPPORT WITHOUT BLINDNESS? Josimar Salum

 WHICH ISRAEL DO WE BLESS AND SUPPORT WITHOUT BLINDNESS?

Josimar Salum 

28/6/2025

When you trace the story of Israel throughout the Bible, you begin in Genesis 11, where God calls Abram to leave his father’s household in Ur of the Chaldeans.

In Genesis 12:1–3, God declares a foundational promise:

“Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

From there, you see God forming a covenant with Abraham, promising to make of him a great nation, to bless him, and to give his descendants the land of Canaan (Genesis 17:7–8).

This covenant included three crucial dimensions:

1. A Great Nation — God promised to form from Abraham’s offspring a people with a distinct identity, purpose, and destiny.

2. A Land — God guaranteed Abraham’s descendants the possession of the land of Canaan, describing its specific borders in Genesis 15:18–21:

“To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.”

These boundaries encompass far more than the territory of the current modern state of Israel, extending from the Nile region to the Euphrates, covering parts of present-day Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. This is often referred to as the “Greater Israel” promise.

3. A Blessing to All Nations - God’s plan was never confined to natural Israel alone but had a redemptive, worldwide scope. Through Abraham’s seed, all the families of the earth would be blessed.

It is essential to understand that when God referred to the “seed” of Abraham, He was not speaking of many descendants in general, but ultimately pointing to a specific descendant — the Messiah — who, although a natural descendant of Abraham according to the flesh, is also the unique heir of God’s promises. Paul explains this powerfully in his letter to the Galatians, saying:

“Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘and to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘and to your seed,’ that is, Christ.”

(Galatians 3:16, NASB)

This promise is connected to the word God gave to the woman in Genesis 3 about the Seed who would crush the head of the serpent, as it is written:

“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

(Genesis 3:15, NKJV)

Therefore, the blessing of Abraham extends beyond the nation of Israel to include all who are in Messiah, forming one people as one with Him. Galatians 3:29 affirms:

“If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

This profound truth reveals that Abraham’s descendants are far greater than a single ethnic lineage: they include a global family — the redeemed from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Revelation 5:9–10).

However, the one body of believers in Christ does not replace the nation of Israel, nor does it annul God’s word and promises for natural Israel, including those who are part of the modern state and government of Israel. God’s faithfulness remains sure for His covenant people, and their prophetic destiny continues to unfold in accordance with His sovereign plan.

The promise continued through Isaac and then Jacob, whose encounter with God at Peniel transformed his name to Israel (Genesis 32:28), establishing a new identity for his descendants as the people of God. The story advances through Joseph, who preserved the family in Egypt during famine (Genesis 50:20), and then by the service of Moses to the birth of Israel as a nation in Exodus, as God delivered them from slavery and established them through the first Passover (Exodus 12:13–14).

During their wilderness journey, Israel faced repeated attacks, rejection, indifference and persecution from surrounding nations (Numbers 20:14–21), yet God preserved them. In the time of the Judges, Israel went through cycles of rebellion, oppression, and deliverance (Judges 2:16–19), until they requested a king, leading to the reign of Saul and then David, who established Jerusalem as the nation’s capital (2 Samuel 5:6–7).

The Scriptures then narrate centuries of covenant-breaking, idolatry, and injustice among the people of Israel, which led to their judgment and exile by the Assyrians (722 BC) and Babylonians (586 BC), fulfilling prophetic warnings (2 Kings 17:7–23; 2 Chronicles 36:15–21). Yet God promised restoration, saying, “I will gather you from all the nations and bring you back to your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24). That promise was partially fulfilled with Israel’s rebirth as a modern nation in 1948, after nearly two millennia of dispersion.

It is crucial to distinguish between the people of Israel — God’s covenant nation — and the State of Israel — a modern political institution with its own government. Similarly, we must differentiate the biblical Israel of the patriarchs, prophets, and apostles from today’s secular democratic state of Israel.

The modern State of Israel, though miraculously restored to its ancestral homeland, has adopted policies and cultural values contrary to biblical righteousness, including legalized abortion, the advancement of LGBTQ ideologies, and many liberal positions at odds with God’s moral standards. The prophetic destiny of Israel is holy, but its politics are not necessarily holy.

However, we cannot ignore the fact that nations and countries that persecute Israel or refuse to align with the State of Israel have historically been doomed to fail. Even in recent history, countries that have waged war against the State of Israel have suffered humiliating defeats. You may separate the actions of the State of Israel when they are unrighteous, but it is impossible to stand against the State itself without also standing against the people of Israel, upon whom the promises of God rest according to His covenant love with the ancient patriarchs of Israel — a covenant that still remains.

God commands us to bless Israel as the descendants of Abraham and to stand firmly against antisemitism, which is a demonic hatred directed at the Jewish people and their God-given right to the land promised to them. 

Let me be clearer! The covenant with Abraham still stands: “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse” (Genesis 12:3). Likewise, Paul reminds us in Romans 11:28–29 that Israel is “beloved for the sake of the fathers,” and that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”

God’s faithfulness to Israel is rooted in His everlasting covenant — “an everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8) — and His determination to uphold their land and borders as described in passages like Amos 9:15: “I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted.”

Yet blessing Israel does not mean endorsing everything the Israeli government does. Like any human authority, it can act in unrighteous and unjust ways. Believers should pray for Israel’s leaders to rule with wisdom and justice, pray for the peace of Jerusalem  (Psalm 122:6) while recognizing that only the Messiah will fully reign in righteousness and peace from Jerusalem in the age to come (Isaiah 9:6–7).

The restoration of Israel to its land is a sign of God’s covenant faithfulness, but their ultimate redemption will come only when they recognize Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah, fulfilling Zechariah 12:10: “They will look on Me whom they have pierced, and mourn.”

In summary, God’s heart for Israel is deeply rooted in His unchanging covenant with the descendants of Abraham. He has promised to uphold their borders, protect their people, and bring about a glorious restoration through the Messiah. Although the modern State of Israel fulfills aspects of biblical prophecy, it remains subject to human sin and political shortcomings. Our calling is to bless Israel as a people, pray for their peace, and stand firmly against antisemitism, while also holding the nation’s government accountable to standards of righteousness, justice, and truth.

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