Nehemiah 2:20
I answered them (Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab) by saying, "The God of Heaven will give us success. We His servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it."
In today's news are reports that the Arabs and the Palestinians are claiming rights in the same city of Jerusalem that Nehemiah was talking about so long ago in this passage. The Horonites, the Ammonites and the Arabs were three of the peoples that the kings of Babylon had conquered and carried out of their native lands to other conquered lands, to disperse all the national and political groups to divest them of any power against the conquering king. So these people had all been taken from their territories and settled in the land of Israel, as the Israelites were also scattered among the other nations.
So they had no historical claim to this piece of real estate, as they had been uprooted and carried there.
And they still have no historical rights to the land or in Jerusalem today. They are still just doing Satan's bidding against God's chosen people, and trying to keep God from fulfilling all His promises to them.
But no one can thwart God's purposes or derail His plans. God is the Almighty, and we all are His creation. Even Satan is His creation, and cannot go beyond what God allows (see Job 1:6-12, 2:1-6).
So as God's people today, Christians and Jews walk hand-in-hand, so to speak, in recognizing Israel's rights to the Land God gave to them so long ago. Because of their unfaithfulness to Him, He removed them from their Land, but now He has returned many of them, and Israel is again a Nation among the nations; and God is continuing to bring His people back out of all the Nations, and He is orchestrating the world powers to accomplish everything He has planned out before anything came to be.
Great is our God, and Great is His Majesty and Glory; Every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess His Reality.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
