Sanjay Rao, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
When my feet stood on the Promised Land in February 2000, I realized Israel is to the world what the heart is to the human body—the epicenter of life and breath. Perhaps it sounds overly dramatic, but when I exited our plane and stepped onto the pavement at Ben Gurion Airport, something inside me shifted. Though I was 6,000 miles from where I lived, the Promised Land was truly home.
Romans 4:16-17 FELT true. I was a child of Abraham.
Granted, my heritage is a kaleidoscope of Noah’s descendants—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and likely a smattering of all the Tower of Babel tribes spread across the earth (Gen. 11). Every one of my ancestors needed redemption. So did I. So did/do all those involved in Israel’s war and everyone in the nations of our fallen world.
We need what God promised in the Garden of Eden. Only then can Israel—the Promised Land—be at peace.
Hatred Is Mutual
Way back in the Garden of Eden, God promised He’d send our much-needed redemption through a Serpent Crusher. He told the deceiving serpent in the Garden:
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (emphasis added)
Enmity. Merriam-Webster defines enmity as: positive, active, and typically mutual hatred. Yikes! When I was a child, my mama only allowed me to hate two things:
- Dirt (She likes things clean)
- Devil
God and Satan have had a mutual HATRED for each other since before Creation, and after sin entered the Garden, God intended the Serpent Crusher to continue that mutual hatred. We, as humans, are also Eve’s offspring. Do YOU hate Satan? Because–here’s a news flash–Satan hates you!
Satan HATES humans because God LOVES humans!
Genesis 3:15 was fulfilled when that age-old serpent struck Jesus’s heel, inciting Jewish leaders and Roman soldiers to kill Jesus on a cross. Jesus then crushed the serpent’s head when He rose from the grave! Jesus’s perfect sacrifice meant redemption for anyone who believed His perfect sacrifice makes it possible for imperfect people to approach a holy God.
“Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Hebrews 2:14-15 (emphasis added)
I realized my mama’s boundaries on hate were accurate because when God doled out the punishment after Adam and Eve sinned, He specifically cursed only two things: the dirt and the devil (Gen.3:14,17)! It just proves we should always listen to our mamas! 😆
Godly Hate vs. Human Hate
How could HATE be part of God’s nature? Though it’s difficult for our finite minds to grasp, hate has always been a facet of God’s perfect emotions—directed at Satan and those who willfully choose to follow him.
God is perfect in His hate.
Think about it. God directs His infinite power (omnipotence) with concentrated hate at anything that defies His perfect goodness, love, mercy, and/or justice. However, because He is also perfect in knowledge (omniscience), He never misjudges a situation or another being’s (human or supernatural) actions or motives—as we humans so often do.
Though I might judge what someone does and become angry with—or hate—them in a moment of passion, the eternal God sees someone’s life as a whole. Taking into consideration all their choices, motives, goals, decisions, and ultimately their death, He can completely love or hate even before He knits that person together in a womb.
Still, Malachi’s declaration that God loved Jacob, but hated Esau really bothered me (Mal.1:2-3)! For years, I thought, “Is God unjust? Does He pick favorites because of some random, cosmic game only He understands?”
A Lesson From Job
Job challenged God with similar questions, and the Lord answered in a thunderstorm, giving Job a glimpse of the chasm between human understanding and God’s inexpressible knowledge. God is still God.
“[Job realizes,] Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” Job 42:3
Like Job, I don’t have answers to the war in Israel, but God reveals Himself in powerful ways to those who ask hard questions.
“You [Lord] said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.” Job 42:4-5
Even when God said to Job, “Shut your mouth and listen!” Job wasn’t cowed. He was awed at the new depths of God revealed by their encounter. (If you’d like to read more about the way I interpreted Job’s story, check out my novel, Love Amid the Ashes.)
To Read More…
I hope you’ll want to look more deeply into God’s Word for answers to the heartbreak in Israel so we can experience God in new ways and better know His heart. If you’re interested in reading more, please CLICK HERE to subscribe to my newsletter in which I share the following sections with more in-depth biblical insights and prayer direction:
- A Biblical Progression of Enmity
- Recognize Biblical Battle Beginnings
- Family Feuds
- Who Are God’s People Today?
- Who Gets Abraham’s Promised Land?
- How To Pray
If you’re already one of my “Newsies” but didn’t receive Part II of this post in your inbox, CLICK HERE to immediately re-subscribe and receive the post.
