CENTER OF THE EARTH

CENTER OF THE EARTH

 

“Thus saith the Lord GOD; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst of the nations and countries that are round about her.” Ezek. 5:5

Israel lay in the central position between the nations, at the connecting point of three continents via land and water. Israel saw Jerusalem with its Mount Zion as the center of the world (Isa. 2:2; Ezek. 5:5). As expressed later in the Jewish midrash, "just as the navel is in the center of a person, so is the land of Israel in the middle of the world." Christians in the first centuries after Christ took over this type of geographical description and made Golgotha, considered the grave of Adam and of Christ, the middle point of the world.

A central international authority with benevolent power to enforce His wise and impartial good decisions. Daniel 2:31-35 says a stone smites all political systems and becomes a great mountain with a universal reign over all the earth. Vs. 2 - 5 are so similar to Mic 4:1-3, 5 that it has been suggested that one of these writers copied from the other. God gave both men the same vision. Micah includes an extra verse (vs. 4), thus describing the vision somewhat more fully than Isaiah does. Although both prophets employ the same words, in Isa. 2:1 Isaiah stresses the fact that the vision was one that he had personally seen.

On the slopes of Olivet the feet of the King shall yet actually stand, and from the City of the great King, the law shall yet go forth, in obedience to which man shall realize the highest of life.  See note Deut. 11:12.

“A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.”

This is an arresting description of the Holy Land, and the place it occupies in the world geographically and historically is equally remarkable. As to location, it is central. Granted the realization of completed civilization in all the other lands, with accompanying perfected means of inter-communication, it would be better suited than any other place on earth for the seat of world-wide government. Under such conditions, to there would the tribes go up easily, and in the intellectual and spiritual light of its capital city all the nations of the earth might walk; and into it, send their glory and their honor. Its history is covered by the naming of three names, Abraham, Moses, Jesus; these three forming a sequence in the Divine movements therein. Its climate varies from Alpine cold on Hermon, to tropical heats in the region of the Dead Sea. It is a land of abounding water. Its soil is fertile, especially in Bashan and Sharon, and is capable of supporting a large population if properly cultivated. The changes of its conditions have been very varied, and have had distinct relationships with the spiritual condition of its inhabitants. In the light of Biblical reference, and of its own history interpreted by such reference, it is impossible to think of it without reverence. It is the land for which God cares. He makes it fruitful or barren. That is its story in the past. There can be no doubt in the mind of the student of these Holy Writings that it will yet be the earthly center of the Kingdom of God. On the slopes of Olivet the feet of the King shall yet actually stand, and from the City of the great King, the law shall yet go forth, in obedience to which man shall realize the highest of life.