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Suggested Reading: Isaiah 14:1-2

After God destroys the kingdom of darkness, He will once again appoint His own chosen people as rulers over the land and they will be accepted by all. People from other nations will join them. Paul wrote that after the time of the Gentiles has fully come, God will once again turn to His people Israel with compassion and have mercy on them. So, what happened was that God chose Israel as His people. But they rejected Him and disobeyed His laws. He then finally turned His back on them and instead extended mercy to other nations.

The LORD will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Aliens will join them and unite with the house of Jacob. Nations will take them to their own place. And the house of Israel will possess the nations as manservants and maidservants in the LORD’s land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors. 

When Jesus came “His own did not receive Him.” Although a Jew just like them, they rejected Him. But God remained faithful to His promise to Abraham and David and Jesus first told the Good News of the Kingdom to them. They were given the first opportunity to believe and receive salvation from their sins by faith in Christ Jesus.

This was the fulfilment of God’s promise to His people. In Jesus Christ, all the prophecies concerning the Messiah was fulfilled. But, most of Israel did not receive the Good News. They did not want to accept the righteousness from God and instead sought to achieve their own.

Then God extended that same invitation to other nations. This was all part of God’s plan since He told Jesus that He was too great to be the leader of just one nation and that other nations will be included in His righteous reign:

I will proclaim the LORD’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father. Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.

Quote from Psalm 2:7-8 and we see a similar promise in Isaiah 49:5-6:

And now the LORD says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD
and my God has been my strength—
he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

But the fact that God now turned to the Gentiles did not mean He has rejected His people forever. For we as humans cannot make God unfaithful because of our unfaithfulness. No, He keeps His word…always. So, after the time of the Gentiles’ opportunity to join His kingdom has expired, He will once again bring His people Israel (or Jacob as we read here) back to Him and offer them another opportunity to receive His righteousness by faith in Christ Jesus, the God-appointed Saviour of mankind. When God returns to His people they will “make captives of their captors and rule” over those who oppressed them.

God is faithful in all that He does. The fact that He remembers His promise made to Abraham and David so many millennia ago are an affirmation that He never goes back on His word and should fill us with hope for the future. Whatever God said He would do, He will certainly do. He does not change like the shifting shadows.

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