Today's Israel is not a different Israel from the historic Israel

A lot of people argue that the Israel of today is not the Israel from the beginning. But when you trace Jewish history carefully from Abraham until now, you will discover an unbroken historical line of a people that have survived slavery, exile, dispersion, persecution, and restoration.

God first spoke to Abraham and told him that his descendants would become strangers in a foreign land, where they would serve and be afflicted for hundreds of years. The history of Israel has indeed been marked by slavery, suffering, captivity, and dispersion for a very long time.

From Abraham came Isaac, and from Isaac came Jacob. Jacob lived in the land of Canaan where Abraham had earlier sojourned. Through the providence of God, Jacob later entered Egypt because of his son Joseph, who had become prime minister in Egypt.

Jacob entered Egypt with about seventy persons. The children of Israel settled in the land of Goshen, a place given to them through Joseph’s influence with Pharaoh. For many years they lived there and multiplied greatly.

Then arose another king in Egypt who did not know Joseph. This new Pharaoh oppressed the Israelites, afflicted them, and turned them into slaves. Their cries went up unto God.

God then raised Moses as a deliverer to bring Israel out of Egyptian bondage. Through signs, wonders, and mighty judgments, the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt. They journeyed through the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of Canaan... the land God had promised to Abraham and his descendants.

After settling in the land, judges ruled Israel for a season. Priests ministered before God on behalf of the people. Later, kings arose over the nation: Saul, David, Solomon, Josiah, and others.

Israel originally existed as one united kingdom.

But after the reign of Solomon, division came during the reign of his son Rehoboam.

The kingdom split into two:

The northern kingdom called Israel

The southern kingdom called Judah

Because of rebellion and idolatry, captivity came upon them.

First came the Assyrian captivity, where the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered and scattered.

Later came the Babylonian captivity under Nebuchadnezzar II, where Judah was taken into exile and Jerusalem was destroyed. Yet after seventy years, many Jews returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple.

Centuries later, foreign empires continued to dominate the land....the Persians, the Greeks, and eventually the Romans.

Under Roman rule, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem among the Jewish people. In AD 70, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the Second Temple, causing another great scattering of the Jews across the nations of the earth. This dispersion became known as the Diaspora.

For nearly two thousand years, Jewish communities lived scattered across Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of the world. Yet despite dispersion, persecution, and attempts to destroy them, they maintained their identity, traditions, language, and ancestry.

Then came one of the darkest moments in Jewish history: the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler during World War II. Millions of Jews were murdered in one of history’s greatest tragedies.

But after the war, something remarkable happened.

In 1948, after centuries of dispersion, the modern state of Israel was officially established once again in the ancient homeland connected to the Jewish people. Jews from different parts of the world began returning to the land.

Since then, Israel has existed again as a nation among the nations of the earth.... surviving wars, conflicts, and repeated threats of destruction.

So whether one agrees politically or theologically with modern Israel or not, history clearly shows that the Jewish people did not suddenly appear from nowhere. Their story can be historically traced from Abraham, to Egypt, to Canaan, through the kingdoms, captivities, dispersions, persecutions, and finally to the re-establishment of the modern state in 1948.

Few nations in history have maintained their identity through so many centuries of exile and suffering like the Jewish people.