Isaac & Ishmael, a Reciprocal Relationship

For starters Isaac and Ishmael were half-brothers whose father, Abraham, had a covenant relationship with Jehovah God which had, has and will have consequences for Isaac and Ishmael for all time.  The brother’s treatment of each other, past, present and future will determine how God’s mercies unfold toward each of them (and their descendants).

There is common understanding that Israel’s disobedience and rebellion would result in her expulsion from the land (Deuteronomy, Chapter 28).  What’s not so commonly known is the descendants of Ishmael and Esau would suffer a common fate for disobedience and rebellion; with the warning that should they mistreat the descendants of Isaac, their judgment would be swift and sure (see Isaiah 21:1-17).  This judgment would be seen, not in expulsion from their land, but in devastation and desolation of the land.

From Israel’s expulsion from the land under the Romans in 70 AD with the destruction of the Temple, until about 1917 when the Jews started coming back to the land, the land was devastated and the Arab people living in the land suffered accordingly.

All lovers of Israel need to understand that present-day Arabs have a right to dwell in the land of Israel.  Here’s what God had to say about it long ago:  “You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land.  The children of the third generation born to them may enter the congregation of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 23:7-89).  This was an appeal to break down a wall of exclusivity between Israel and at least certain of her neighbors.  Later the Prophet Isaiah would take this concept to its ultimate conclusion:  acceptance of all nations.  In this Israel was to be a “light to the nations”.

This responsibility was to be exercised first among her immediate neighbors, even the Arabs but in this she failed.  Consequently, deprived of the knowledge of the blessing of a support role, which through faith would ultimately allow them to be fully integrated into the life and worship of Jehovah, and by the on-rush of the Muslim religion begun by Mohammed in 611 A.D., with his twisting of the Scriptures switching the roles of Isaac and Ishmael, the truth of Ishmael’s covenant relationship with God (and between Jew and Gentile) has been lost.

So, with understanding lost, Arabs, particularly Muslim Arabs, have set themselves against Israel thereby incurring the wrath of Jehovah God.  Ezekiel chapter 35, fearful in its scope, is wholly given to the wrath God has stored up for this people for the hundreds of years they have set themselves against the sons of Isaac.

Of course, God does not want to destroy the sons of Ishmael, no more than He has wanted to destroy the sons of Isaac, which He has, but unless they repent of their present hatred of Israel, they will be utterly destroyed.

Perhaps the prospect of the future, wide-spread destruction of the sons of Ishmael, is why God in various and sundry ways is making imself known (as Jesus the Christ—Himself known as Jesus the Christ, the “Anointed One”, even the Messiah) to a great many, individual Muslim Arabs.

Christians everywhere should pray the veil be lifted from the eyes of Muslim Arabs that they may turn in true repentance to the God of their father, Abraham, and His Son, Jesus the Christ.  Similarly, prayer must be lifted for Jews in every place that the veil may be lifted from their eyes to the reality of the fact that Jesus is the “Messiah” for whom they have longed.