Israel Has A Right To The Land?

One of the weirdest things Christians and other Zionists say is that Jews have a right to the land:

Israeli educational textbooks now carry the same message of the right to the land based on a biblical promise. According to a letter sent by the education ministry in 2014 to all schools in Israel: “the Bible provides the cultural infrastructure of the state of Israel, in it our right to the land is anchored.”26 Bible studies are now a crucial and expanded component of the curriculum—with a particular focus on the Bible as recording an ancient history that justifies the claim to the land."*

This is perhaps the strangest idea ever brought up on this issue. I don't know how anyone who reads the Bible can come to this conclusion, as nothing is more clear than the conditional nature of Israel's relationship to the land.

For one this "right" is never mentioned in scripture, Israel had no right to the land. Israel's relationship to the land is never discussed in the context of it having a right to it. Rights are things reserved for the king and what he may take from the people (1 Samuel 8) or the poor, or destitute, or marital rights. In other words rights are about how people should interact justly, and never something to do with Israel's possession of the land.

Israel, rather, had a responsibility to the land. No theology of possession is complete or accurate without this recognition. For instance the exile was timed for 70 years precisely because the Israelites had not granted the land the fallow years it was due. In fact God went to great pains to remind them they never owned a centermeter of the land (Leviticus 25:23). It would be more accurate to say that the land had rights, and the Israelites would be punished if they did not treat it right,

"20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years" (2 Chronickes 36:20-21).

The land had these rights precisely because it was only ever God's land, and he reserved the right to revoke its stewardship by Israel if they broke the covenant. Which he actually did,

"33 “Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36 Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected

    has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord's doing,

    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”

45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet."  (Matt 21”33-46).

Lastly, the land represents heaven, the land of promise, or rest. Saying Israel had a right to the land is akin to saying every Israelite had a right to heaven. This inverts the whole idea in the Bible that we have no right to heaven, only Christ does, and we enter it through repentance and faith in him.

Christians should not make such elementary biblical errors. There was no right to the land. Also, we should note that there is no New Testament passage that says Jesus’ words in Matthew 21 are to be reversed.The NT trumps OT every time. Ergo the idea of a right to the land is alien to scripture. 

*Ilan Pappe, Ten Myths About Israel.