Dear Mr. Soriano,

I love reading books from fiction to historical ones. I often encounter authors who would say that the cause of social ills today globally was brought about by the Jews, from wars to economic crises, due to its vast network of influence that manipulates the string of world events. Nevertheless, these people are the most hated among races deemed inferior by the racist stocks. My question is does the Bible say anything about this present plight or status of the Jews?

Thank you and more power!

Respectfully,

Atty. Alberto Bernardo
Office of the President
Malacañang Palace

Dear Atty. Bernardo,

I am glad to hear from people in Malacañang Palace asking questions to me. I have heard, sometime ago, that there was a ‘black propaganda’ against me brewing in Malacañang. There are people in Malacañang belonging to the group of Manalo that are trying to malign my person, even in the Office of the President. I believe this is true because they (the Manalistas) are doing it publicly on television. Anyway, I will be very glad to answer your question.

Your guess or presumption that the Bible says something concerning the Jews is correct. The Jews really are influential people because they are the ‘chosen people’ of God.

(Romans 9:4-5) "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen."

Of all the nations that existed during the time of Moses, the Jews or the Israelites were the only people on earth acknowledged by God as His people.

(Deuteronomy 7:1, 6-8) "When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;

For thou art a holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."

Although the fewest and the poorest, the Israelites caused great trouble and the defeat of the most powerful empire in the ancient world — the Egyptian Empire, who had enslaved them for four hundred years.

(Exodus 12:40-41) "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years, even the selfsame day it came to pass, that all the hosts of the LORD went out from the land of Egypt."

The defeat suffered by the Egyptians from the Israelites is suspiciously not recorded in existing manuscripts in the history of their empire. As it is a shame for an empire to be defeated by their slaves, it can safely be presumed that the authorities of Egypt intentionally did not cause it to be written, as it was well elaborated in the Bible. Fortunately, a piece of papyrus called “Ipuwer Papyrus” discovered in the early 19th century revealed what happened in Egypt during the days of the Israelites.

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In the early 19th Century a papyrus, dating from the end of the Middle Kingdom, was found in Egypt. It was taken to the Leiden Museum in Holland and interpreted by A.H. Gardiner in 1909. The complete papyrus can be found in the book Admonitions of an Egyptian from a heiratic papyrus in Leiden. The papyrus describes violent upheavals in Egypt, starvation, drought, escape of slaves (with the wealth of the Egyptians), and death throughout the land. The papyrus was written by an Egyptian named Ipuwer and appears to be an eyewitness account of the effects of the Exodus plagues from the perspective of an average Egyptian. http://ohr.edu/yhiy/article.php/838

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This papyrus further affirms the authenticity of the records of the history written in the Bible.

God’s favor towards the Israelites started from the time of their father — Abraham — to whom God pronounced His promises.

(Genesis 17:5-7) "Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee."

They were exceedingly loved by God because of Abraham.

(Romans 11:28) "As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes."

God dwells in them as a people.

(2 Kings 5:15) "And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and came, and stood before him: and he said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel: now therefore, I pray thee, take a blessing of thy servant."

(Psalms 22:3) "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel."

But they were not ‘favored’ without conditions. God, in His sense of justice, demands their obedience to His laws and statutes.

(Malachi 4:4) "Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments."

If they be willing and obedient, they will enjoy God’s blessings.

(Deuteronomy 28:1-2) "And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God."

But if they will break the covenant, they will be cursed.

(Deuteronomy 28:15) "But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:"

Because of their utter disobedience, God left these people sometime after the death of Moses.

(2 Chronicles 15:3) "Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God, and without a teaching priest, and without law."

Many times, they lost God’s favor, and were made captives by neighboring kingdoms like Babylon.

(Matthew 1:17) "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations."

During the time of Christ, the Israelites were under the authority of the Roman Empire.

(John 11:48) "If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation."

The same fate happened to the Israelites time and time again because of their disobedience.

(Jeremiah 32:31-33) "For this city hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face, Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction."

What happened in the Holocaust to the Jews is just a repetition of what had happened to their forefathers many times in the past — and these are all because of their neglect of God and disobedience to the covenant.

During World War II, Nazi Germany and its collaborators murdered approximately six million Jews. The Holocaust is the name used to refer to this systematic, bureaucratic, and state-sponsored campaign of persecution and murder. Beginning with racially discriminatory laws in Germany, the Nazi campaign expanded to the mass murder of all European Jews

[Link: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143]

(Ecclesiastes 3:15) "That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past."

The Jews are surely influential people. They have carved their mark in the history of humanity. They have caused blessings to other people and curses as well.

(Genesis 12:3) "And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

Some Jews are totally separated from God because of their unbelief in Jesus Christ, the begotten Son of God: the Messiah. They did not accept Jesus and His preaching when He was sent by God the Father in the 1st century of our common era; instead, up to now, they are waiting for a messiah.

(John 1:11) "He came unto his own, and his own received him not."

They do not acknowledge the authenticity of the New Testament, neither, the books of the New Testament. They believe in the books of the prophets, but they do not accept what the prophet Jeremiah said.

(Jeremiah 31:31-32) "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:"

Their ‘rejection’ of the books of the New Testament or the New Covenant is utterly a rejection of the prophecy of Jeremiah, which they claim to believe.

Really, the Jews are influential people, both physically and spiritually. Salvation comes from them.

(John 4:22) "Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews."

They were the first to inherit the promises and salvation.

(Romans 1:16) "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."

Biblically, their transgressions explain the causes of unrest that besets the people of Israel.

After all things have been said and done about them, the Jews, for me are not an inferior people, but a special people.

(Galatians 3:29) "And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

Sincerely in Christ,

EFS