Close to the Land

This week the nation of Israel commemorated 72 years of independence.  They declared their independence on May 14, 1948 according to our 12-month Gregorian calendar; however Israel schedules on the 13-month Hebrew calendar.

So maybe you’re thinking, Israel is a long, long way from Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau and what would a mountain girl know about it anyway.  Well, you’re right of course, but I’ve got friends – and more importantly, I’ve got a Bible.

Really, I’ve been thinking about land and I’ve praised the Lord repeatedly over the last few weeks of quarantine that we are on a little spot where my kids can run and play and not bump into neighbors, where we can put out a garden and spend our evenings sitting on the porch.

At the same time, I’ve been researching and plotting out my next book.  Anytime you write historical fiction set on the mountain, the land is really at the center of it, isn’t it?  And in one sense, that’s true of both the Bible and Israel’s modern history.

Just as a recap – and y’uns know this better than me, I’m sure – Abraham came from Ur of the Chaldees because he was called to a land he did not know.  God promised to make him the father of many nations and promised a vast home-land.  All of these stories are preserved for us for lots of reasons, the chiefest of which is a foreshadowing of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as our savior, and our pathway to our eternal home in Heaven. (If, in fact, you did not know any of that, please comment below and I or one of my far more intelligent readers would be thrilled to explain in much greater detail!)

These people were looking for the land, they were dreaming of a home of their own – you didn’t think that was just the American dream, did you?  Enslaved, embattled, led astray from the Father who had given the promises, the Children of Israel suffered and searched throughout the centuries.  They occupied the Promised Land, then lost it.  Finally, after The Holocaust, when so many of God’s chosen people had been massacred and their homes destroyed, after they’d seen their Gentile neighbors turn their backs on them as they suffered, the world knew we must return to this people their homeland, and the modern nation of Israel was established.

Israel today has big cities with skyscrapers and traffic.  They have a little over 1,000 people per square mile compared to Tennessee’s 159 and Texas’ 105 people per square mile.  Still, they are farming over 1 million acres.  By contrast, ancient Israel was an agrarian society.  Sure, they had their walled cities which were necessary for defense in those days, and there were tradesmen who dealt in silver, cloth and pottery.  However, the vast majority of the people worked in some form of agriculture, including fishing.  They really needed the land.

 In fact, if you remember back in the early days in Egypt, when Joseph’s father and brothers first moved to Egypt, “Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land” (Genesis 47:22). 

Of course, people around the world see value in land, and I hope we are patriotic Americans and appreciate the blood that was spilled to establish and protect our country.  My friend Allen Lord has spent a lifetime studying, loving and working among the Jewish people and he summed up the country’s persepective so well, “Probably no other people in the world can truly appreciate the value of a 'Homeland' like the Israelis. The Jewish people are aware of the many times, throughout history, that God uprooted them from the 'Promised Land' because of sin. For almost 2000 years, since their dispersion in 70 AD, Jews have wandered throughout the world, exiled from the 'Land of Promise'. However on May 14, 1948, God began to fulfill the promise that He made to Jeremiah concerning the regathering of His people to Israel in Jeremiah 32:37 when He said; 'Behold, I will gather them out of all countries whither I have driven them in mine anger and in my fury, and I will bring them again into this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely.”

Allen and his wife, Hagit, sent me a video she took from her window of the beginning of the Independence Celebration.  Sirens sounded for one full minute and everyone stood at attention – even drivers stopped their cars and stood in the middle of the roadway. It moved me to tears.

We’ll talk a little more about the land in the coming weeks, and maybe you’ll remember these blogs when you read Lottie’s Letters in a few months.