Jewish Survival

The Endurance of Israel in God’s Plan of Redemption

Copyright 2026. Elizabeth Shulam

The Jewish people have endured exile, captivity, scattering, oppression, hatred, forced conversions, expulsions, massacres, conspiracy theories, and repeated attempts to erase them from history. Empires have risen and fallen around them. Kingdoms that once seemed unstoppable are now museum exhibits, archaeological sites, and footnotes in textbooks.

Babylon is gone. Persia changed. Rome fractured. Many powers that once ruled over Israel passed into history, yet the Jewish people remain. For Christians, that should be heard and repeated. Especially in the current climate of charged Nationalistic Christianity. It belongs inside the larger biblical story of God’s covenant, God’s promises, and God’s plan to bring blessing and redemption to the nations.

From Genesis forward, the story of Israel is tied to the story of the world. God did not call Abraham only for Abraham’s private blessing. He said,

“in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).

That promise stretches across the whole Bible. Israel’s calling was never small. Through Abraham’s family, God would reveal His name, give His instruction, form a covenant people, send the prophets, preserve the Scriptures, and bring forth the Messiah. So when we ask why the Jewish people have endured, we are asking about more than history. We are asking about God’s faithfulness, and whether God keeps His word across generations, exile, empire, suffering, and human failure.

Historical Endurance

The story begins with a man named Abram. God called him out from his land, his kindred, and his father’s house, and gave him a promise. He would become a great nation. His name would be made great. He would be blessed. And through him, all the families of the earth would be blessed. After Babel, when the nations are scattered and humanity is fractured, God begins to work through one family for the sake of all families. This is one of the great patterns of Scripture. God works through the particular for the sake of the universal. He chooses Abraham, and His concern reaches the families of the earth. He forms Israel, and His purpose reaches the nations. He gives Torah at Sinai, and His wisdom reveals His character before the world. He sends the Messiah through Israel, and the good news goes out to Jew and Gentile alike.

That is why Israel’s endurance cannot be separated from the plan of redemption. The Jewish people are not incidental to the biblical story. They are the covenant people through whom God chose to carry His promises forward. That does not mean Israel was chosen because they were larger, stronger, or morally superior. Deuteronomy is very direct on this point. God’s choice was rooted in His love, His oath, and His faithfulness. Naturally, this offends the human instinct to turn everything into competition. Scripture provides deeper understanding of Israel: Election is rooted in grace, covenant, and the character of the God who keeps His word.

One reason Jewish endurance is so important biblically is that covenant is tied to God’s own name. When God makes covenant, He binds His name to His promise. The endurance of Israel becomes a witness to the faithfulness of God, even through judgment, exile, discipline, and restoration. This is where Christians need to read carefully. The Hebrew Scriptures never present Israel’s story as painless or without complications. Israel is called, loved, corrected, disciplined, restored, and preserved. The prophets speak strong words of warning. They confront idolatry, injustice, false worship, empty ritual, and covenant unfaithfulness. They do not flatter the people, and they do not pretend obedience is optional. And I argue, that God continues this pattern to this very day of judgement, exile, discipline, and restoration.

The prophets also insist that God has not abandoned His promises. Jeremiah can speak of judgment and exile while still speaking of future hope. Ezekiel can stand before a valley of dry bones and still speak of breath and restoration. Isaiah can speak of failure and comfort within the same prophetic landscape. Hosea can speak of discipline and mercy. Amos can speak of justice and restoration. The point is not that Israel never suffers. Scripture says the opposite. The point is that suffering, exile, and judgment do not cancel God’s covenant faithfulness. That is why Jewish endurance should make us tremble a little, not in fear of the Jewish people, obviously, because let us not manufacture theological nonsense when history has already given us plenty. It should make us tremble before the faithfulness of God.

This week’s theme is Hope After Collapse, and the prophets are some of our strongest teachers. They did not live in a fantasy world. They saw the collapse of Israel clearly. Jeremiah lived through the fall of Jerusalem. He saw the consequences of covenant unfaithfulness. He watched national life fracture and carried the grief of a people whose world had fallen apart. Yet Jeremiah also spoke of return, planting, rebuilding, and future hope. In Jeremiah 31, the Lord speaks of restoration and a renewed covenant. The passage does not deny grief. Rachel weeps for her children. The sorrow is real. But the Lord also says there is hope for the future. That is biblical hope. It does not erase the wound. It places the wound before the God who keeps covenant.

Ezekiel gives another powerful picture. In Ezekiel 37, the prophet sees a valley full of dry bones. The bones represent a people who say,

“Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost.”

That is despair. Then God breathes life. The bones come together. Breath enters. The people stand. This vision speaks directly to restoration after exile, but it also teaches us something about the God of Israel. He brings life where hope appears dead. He restores His people for the sake of His name and His promise. Isaiah also speaks to Israel's collapse. Isaiah 40 begins with God speaking tenderly. A way is prepared in the wilderness. The glory of the Lord will be revealed. Human strength fades like grass, but the word of God stands forever. That is the foundation of hope after collapse: not human strength, not political stability, not cultural power, but the word of God.

Jewish Survival is central to God's plan for restoration

Israel’s endurance, then, is not only about Israel’s survival. It is about God’s plan to bless and redeem humanity. Through Israel, the world receives the Scriptures. Through Israel, the world receives the prophets. Through Israel, the world receives the covenants. Through Israel, the world receives the Messiah. Yeshua does not arrive as a detached religious teacher. He comes as the son of Abraham and the son of David. Matthew opens his Gospel that way on purpose. He wants the reader to understand that Yeshua stands inside the covenant story. The Messiah comes through Israel for the sake of Israel and the nations. That is not a side point. That is the architecture of the New Testament.

When Simeon holds the child Yeshua in Luke 2, he speaks of salvation prepared in the presence of all peoples,

“a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”

That line holds the story together beautifully. The nations are included, and Israel is not erased. In Acts, the good news begins in Jerusalem and moves outward to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. This reflects the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan. Paul also understands the story this way. In Romans 9–11, he wrestles deeply with Israel, election, mercy, Gentile inclusion, and God’s faithfulness. He does not treat Israel as irrelevant. He does not speak as if the church has replaced the Jewish people and moved on with a cleaner system. Paul warns Gentile believers against arrogance. He reminds them that they do not support the root. The root supports them.

That warning has needed repeating for about two thousand years, which is embarrassing, but here we are. Gentile believers are grafted into a story they did not create. That should produce humility, gratitude, and carefulness. The faith Christians confess did not begin with us. We received a story already underway. We received Scriptures preserved through Jewish faithfulness. We received a Messiah born from the line of David. We received apostles who carried the good news from Jerusalem outward. So when we see Jewish endurance, we should not respond with suspicion, indifference, or arrogance. We should respond with reverence before God’s faithfulness and with deeper attention to Scripture.

If the Jewish people disappeared from history, Christians would have a serious theological problem. The Bible repeatedly ties God’s name to His faithfulness to Israel. The prophets speak of judgment, yes, but also of preservation and restoration. Paul insists that God has not rejected His people. The New Testament’s hope for the nations does not require the erasure of Israel. So Jewish endurance is a witness. It witnesses to the God who keeps covenant. It witnesses to the God who preserves His promises. It witnesses to the God whose redemptive plan is larger than any empire. It witnesses to the God who brings blessing to the nations without discarding the people through whom He promised to do it.

Christians should look at Jewish endurance with reverence. The continued existence of the Jewish people reminds us that God’s story is not finished. The same God who called Abraham, preserved Israel, sent the prophets, and brought forth the Messiah is still working out His purposes in history.

This is where the theme of hope after collapse becomes deeply practical. The Bible gives us many pictures of collapse. Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden. The world is judged in the flood. The nations scatter at Babel. Joseph is sold by his brothers. Israel is enslaved in Egypt. The wilderness generation struggles with unbelief. The kingdom divides. Jerusalem falls. The Temple is destroyed. The people go into exile. The disciples watch Yeshua die. At many points, the story looks like defeat. Yet God keeps working. He clothes Adam and Eve. He preserves Noah. He calls Abraham. He raises Joseph. He delivers Israel. He gives Torah. He sends prophets. He preserves a remnant. He brings return after exile. He sends Yeshua. He raises Him from the dead.

God is the author of redemption. That is why the endurance of Israel fits so deeply within this week’s theme. Jewish survival is one of history’s clearest reminders that God can preserve His purposes through collapse. The world can shake. Empires can rage. Hatred can rise. People can fail. But God remains faithful to His Word. And for followers of Yeshua, this hope is carried into its deepest expression through the resurrection. Yeshua is not a break from the story of Israel. He is the promised Messiah within that story. He teaches from Torah. He fulfills the prophetic hope. He announces the Kingdom. He gathers disciples. He embodies Israel’s calling in perfect faithfulness. He gives His life. He rises from the dead.

Through Him, Gentiles are welcomed into the covenant blessings promised to Abraham. This is why Paul can say in Galatians 3 that the blessing of Abraham comes to the Gentiles through Messiah Yeshua. The promise to Abraham was always moving toward blessing for the nations. But the nations are blessed through the promise, not by erasing the people of the promise. Gentile inclusion is a miracle of grace. It should never become a permission for arrogance. The church’s existence does not prove that God is finished with the Jewish people. It proves that God has kept His promise to bless the nations through Abraham’s seed. That should lead to worship, humility, and a cleaner reading of the Bible.

This is also why Antisemitism is not merely a social problem for Christians. It is a theological problem. Antisemitism despises the people God chose. It forgets the Jewishness of Yeshua. It ignores the Jewish identity of the apostles. It treats the root as disposable while trying to keep the fruit. It reads the Bible while rejecting the people through whom God gave it. That is incoherent. Worse, it is sinful. Christians should oppose antisemitism because Jewish people are made in the image of God, full stop. But Christians should also oppose antisemitism because it directly contradicts the biblical story we claim to believe.

We cannot love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob while despising the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We cannot honor the Jewish Messiah while nurturing contempt for Jewish people. We cannot read the prophets faithfully while ignoring God’s promises of preservation, mercy, and restoration.

A blue heart can be a simple outward sign, but the deeper work is biblical. We need better teaching, better reading, deeper humility, and a break from the ugly patterns that have twisted Christian thought in the past. We need to read Genesis to Revelation as one connected story of creation, covenant, failure, promise, redemption, Messiah, Spirit, and final restoration. We need to remember that God works through covenant, and that the endurance of the Jewish people is connected to His faithfulness. We need to receive Gentile inclusion with gratitude rather than entitlement. And we need to resist antisemitism as a matter of discipleship, not as a trend, a public relations concern, or a slogan that gets posted when the internet is paying attention.

Jewish endurance teaches us something about the character of God. If God can preserve His covenant purposes through exile, suffering, empire, hatred, and centuries of uncertainty, then He can also meet us in the collapsed places of our own lives. Many of us know what collapse feels like in personal ways. A relationship collapses. A job collapses. Health collapses. Confidence collapses. A ministry collapses. A plan collapses. A dream collapses.

Hope after collapse calls us to remember. Remember God’s promises. Remember the Jewish roots of our faith. Remember that Yeshua was Jewish. Remember that hatred must be resisted. Remember that God restores. Remember that dry bones can live. And then take one faithful step. Wear the blue heart. Share the message. Teach your children. Open the Scriptures. Pray for Jewish communities. Stand against antisemitism. Ask God to rebuild what has collapsed in your own life. The story is not over simply because something fell apart. The prophets knew that. The apostles carried that hope forward. And the resurrection of Yeshua declares it with power.