It was part of God's promise to Abraham:
" 'This is My covenant with you: I will make you the father of NOT JUST ONE, but A MULTITUDE OF NATIONS! What's more, I AM changing your name. It will no longer be Abram; now you will be known as Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations.'" (Gen.17:4-5 NLT New Living Translation)
Abraham's descendants are not just Israel, but Ishmael and Esau, for instance... who have become the Arab nations and the nation of Turkey, respectively.
Israel, however, as a nation, are the descendants of Abraham's grandson, Jacob, whose name was changed to "Israel." Israel [Jacob] had twelve sons... all of whom became individual "tribes" or "nations" unto themselves: Danites [descendants of Dan], Gadites [descendants of Gad], Jews [descendants of Judah], etc.. In due course, they all ended up, collectively, in Egypt where in the course of time they became the slaves of the Egyptians.
"...'You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, and they will be oppressed as slaves for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.'" (Gen.15:13-14 NLT)
It then turned to God to keep His promise to Abraham, to make the descendants of his son, Isaac, into the special nation through whom the Salvation of all the nations of the world rested.
"...All the families [nations] of the earth will be Blessed [a spiritual promise] through you [the promise of the Christ]." (Gen.12:3 NLT)
And He did it in spectacular fashion through the witness and testimony of Moses and Aaron... and a series of miraculous plagues and signs that destroyed the economy of the Egyptian empire; along with Pharaoh and his armies. The result of it was the collective nation of Israel and a great host of Gentiles [two or three million strong] coming out of Egypt with great wealth and a bright future [pending their Obedience to the voice of their father Abraham's God]:
" 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I brought you TO MYSELF and carried you on eagle's wings. NOW IF YOU WILL OBEY ME and KEEP MY COVENANT, you will be MY OWN SPECIAL TREASURE from among all the nations of the earth; for all the earth belongs to Me. And you will be to Me a KINGDOM OF PRIESTS, MY HOLY NATION.' ..." (Ex.19:4-6 NLT).
"They all responded together, 'We will certainly do everything the LORD asks of us.' So Moses brought the people's answer back to the LORD." (verse 8)
That was the seed that planted the nation of Israel... Abraham's God [Jesus Christ, the Creator LORD God of the Old Testament - John 1:1-3] making good on His Promise to Faithful Abraham.
The lack of faith in people, however, and their failure to do what they agreed to led to other things.
The fault wasn't with the agreement [covenant] with His newly-established nation [the marriage vow Christ established with Israel]... but with a faithless people's inability to keep their sworn oath:
"For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For FINDING FAULT WITH THEM, He saith, 'Behold, the days come,' saith the LORD, 'when I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah [the two estranged and faithless wives of the LORD: "...Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with Me, O House of Israel, saith the LORD." "...which My covenant they brake, although I was an Husband unto them, saith the LORD..."]: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because THEY CONTINUED NOT in My covenant, and I regarded them not,' saith the LORD." (Heb.8:7-9 KJV)
The bottom line of the LORD's [Jesus Christ's] Promise to Abraham, to make of him a great holy nation of priests, rests not in the hands of faithless men... but with HIM -- JESUS CHRIST! The fact of which is that the True "nation of Israel" Christ is speaking of is the coming Kingdom of God in which the True Children and descendants of Abraham are not flesh and blood people -- but FAITHFUL ONES!
"The REAL children of Abraham, then, are ALL THOSE WHO PUT THEIR FAITH IN GOD. What's more, the Scriptures looked forward to THIS TIME when God would accept THE GENTILES, TOO, on the basis of their Faith. God Promised this Good News [gospel] to Abraham long agowhen He said, 'ALL NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED THROUGH YOU.'" (Gal.3:7-8 NLT)
So, the biblical Truth of the matter is, that the "nation of Israel as per the Holy Bible" has not yet come to fruition! But the Promise of the LORD and Abraham's Great Holy Nation of Priests awaits His return with that Nation... the Kingdom or Government of God.
"For you were killed, and your Blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become GOD'S KINGDOM AND HIS PRIESTS. And THEY WILL REIGN ON THE EARTH." (Rev.5:9-10 NLT)
"And there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth, for YOU WILL SEE ABRAHAM, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets WITHIN THE KINGDOM OF GOD, but you will be thrown out. Then the people will come from all over the world to take their places in the Kingdom of God." (Luke 13:28-29 NLT)
Ancient Israel became a nation when the LORD took them by the hand and led them out of their bondage to Egypt. That was the nucleus whereby God planted the "seed of Christ" who would later come in the flesh, to lead others out of their bondage to sin [disobedience to His Commandments - I John 3:4] and the god of this world... to include all the nations [families] of the earth in His promise to Abraham. Not through a blood descendancy through Abraham... but through the same child-like, trusting Faith of Abraham that they would have in Christ's shed BLOOD.
"It was by Faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God's Promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, though God had promised him, 'Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.' Abraham assumed that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead." (Heb.11:17-19 NLT)
So, Israel is still a nation in the making... as per the Holy Bible. It awaits the return of Abraham's God to see its fruition.
"And now that you belong to Christ, you are THE TRUE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM. You are his Heirs, and now all the Promises God gave to him belong to you." (Gal.3:29 NLT)
Abraham's God, Jesus Christ, is still taking Faithful people of all nations by the hand and leading them out of Egypt [sin] and their bondage to it And standing between them and Pharaoh and his armies [Satan and his demons; unclean spirits]. He's preparing them for their future leadership roles in His Kingdom as Kings and Priests, to lead the rest of the nations of the world into the Righteous ways of God.
The nation of Israel is still in the making: as per the Holy Bible.
Israel became a nation through two things. One is that God renamed Jacob, calling him Israel (Genesis ch.35), and Jacob had enough descendants to form a nation (Exodus ch.1). The other is that God promised the land of Canaan to Jacob and his descendants, the Israelites (Genesis ch.28). Once they entered Canaan under Joshua (Joshua ch.3-4), it was thenceforth called the Land of Israel (Joshua 11:16,21; Judges 19:29; 1 Samuel 11:3, 13:1,9).See also:
Where did Jews live in more than anywhere else?
Does Israel belong to the Jews?
The holy sites of all three religions can be found in the Middle East, where all originated. More specifically, all have sites located within the current nation of Israel.
The holy sites of all three religions can be found in the Middle East, where all originated. More specifically, all have sites located within the current nation of Israel.
The apartheid regime, The occupying regime, Occupied Palestine,
It was called the Holy Land by the Israelites. The word "Holy" means to be set apart. God set apart the land of Israel for the Israelite nation.
It was called the Holy Land by the Israelites. The word "Holy" means to be set apart. God set apart the land of Israel for the Israelite nation.
" But thou [art] holy, [O thou] that inhabitest the praises of Israel." (Ps.22.3) "But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." (1Pet.2.9)
No, there is no Saint Sydney mentioned in the Holy Bible. The Bible predominantly focuses on figures from ancient Israel and the early Christian church.
They will fight over it
The Holy Book of Judaism is the Tanakh. Israel is a nation without an official state religion. (While Israel is the Jewish State, it is only Jewish in the ethnic sense, not the religious sense.) Most Israelis are Jews, but there are Muslim, Christian, Druze, and Baha'i minorities who each have their own holy books. To read more about the Jewish Holy Book, please read the Related Question below.
According to the Bible, God decreed it: Leviticus 19:1-2: 1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 "Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: 'Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.'
Israel is a holy country because it has the western wall which is the last renaming wall of the holy temple which is holy for Jews, Christians and Muslims.
Yes indeed the holy book of the Christians is the BIBLE.