Again Considering People-Groups

Scripture:
But I will strip Esau bare;
I will uncover his secret places.
He will try to hide, but he will be unable.
His descendants will be destroyed
along with his relatives and neighbors.
He will exist no longer.
Jeremiah 49:10

Observation: As Judah is about to be destroyed and taken into exile, Jeremiah takes time to review the Lord's declarations regarding the neighboring nations. In such circumstances, there is always special attention to Edom, as it is the nation descended from Jacob's brother Esau. The family feud always persisted, to the point that Edom celebrated the destruction of Israel and Judah, and the Lord responded. He declared Edom would be wiped out, and it was.

Application: I have thought often about this, but it bears repeating over and over. Today, as we live, ~2,600 years after Jeremiah was written, the Jews - a designation for the descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and through Jacob - remain a people-group and a nation. This is not true for any nation that opposed that one family. Edom, Ammon, Moab, Kedar, Hazor, Elam, Philistia ... the seven nations of the Canaanites, Girgashites, Amorites, Hittites, Hivites, Jebusites, and Perizzites ... even Babylon ... all gone. The nations don't exist. There major cities are now empty and uninhabited hills. There are no clear records of even whom might be linked through ancestry explicitly to them.

In my mind, this remains one of the greatest proofs of the Lord's existence and authority. The Lord declares that one family will exist as his priestly nation, and thousands of years later that family remains a nation that is interwoven through all elements of human history, while also enduring the supernatural hate and genocidal programs of other people-groups. Meanwhile, every historical people-group that has hated that family - most of whom were nation-size groups, and some of whom were regional superpowers - has been thoroughly wiped from the earth.

I hope it doesn't take hundreds of years to wipe the current haters off the face of the earth. However, even when they are removed, there will be new haters.

Prayer: Lord, may you be with Israel more and more, every day. Protect your people. May the move closer into fulfillment of your plan and your prophesies, eventually coming around as your nation of priests to recognize Jesus as Messiah, and bringing into existence a new way of honoring you. Amen.