“Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery Palestine must be the prince. The hills barren and dull, the valleys unsightly deserts [inhabited by] swarms of beggars with ghastly sores and malformations. Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. This is a desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds—a silent mournful expanse...A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”-Mark Twain on his visit to the Holy Land in 1867
If history has proven anything, it has proven the accuracy of the following statement:
“Rather, you are to keep my regulations and rulings and act accordingly. If you do, you will live securely in the land. The land will yield its produce, you will eat until you have enough, and you will live there securely.”-Leviticus 25:18-19
Whenever Israel was faithful to walk in the ways of YHWH, the land was amazingly productive.
In fact, during Bible times when the people of Israel dwelled in the land, Israel was considered the breadbasket of the entire Middle East!
The historical records left by the Babylonians, Persians, and Romans testify that one of the reasons these conquerers desired to control the Holy Land was because of all the fabulous fruit, vegetables, and grains Israel produced.
Yet the conquerers’ plans backfired.
Because every time the Hebrews were expelled from their homeland, the land stopped producing.
When the Assyrians invaded the Northern Kingdom of Ephraim-Israel and the land was overrun with foreigners, the land immediately refused to yield up its crops.
Two centuries later when the Jews returned from their captivity in Babylon, did they return to a land with growing fields and vineyards containing an abundance of fresh fruit and crops?
The answer is NO.
They returned to a destroyed Jerusalem and a land that was clearly barren and in distress.
And after the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 A.D. followed by the expulsion of the Jewish people, the land again began to slowly wither way, a process that was accelerated by greater presence and control.
Eventually, the population of foreigners had dwindled to practically nothing because the land had turned into a lifeless barren wasteland.
If you want indisputable historical proof that God’s Word is true, all you have to do is take a look at the history books and read the descriptions written by visitors to the Holy Land in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.
The prominent Scottish geographer and theologian George Adam Smith who made a trip to the Holy Land remarked that the country was a horrific combination of barren, treeless land and malarial swamps infested with weeds.
The conclusion is clear and indisputable.
When the land is not inhabited by the People of Israel as God has ordained, the land refuses to respond and dies a steady and sure death.
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