It was promised to Abram, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” When and how have the nations ever been blessed? As for the poor Jews, no curse ever fell so heavy on mortals as fell on them, in consequence of their considering themselves God’s chosen people, and other nations treating them as such. For eighteen hundred years, Christians have plundered and murdered them, because they have faithfully worshipped (since He cast them off) the God of their fathers, against whom (when under his protection) they continued to rebel.
The Jews are a strange people. Strange and hard has been their fate; and it can be easily accounted for, from their being originally cheated into the fact that they were God’s chosen people to the exclusion of the rest of the human race. Christians ask how it could have been possible for Moses or any other person to induce them to believe that they were so chosen, when miracles and wonders were performed in their behalf, if no such things did in reality take place? The answer is easy:—Christians suppose that the books of the Old Testament were written at the time the generation lived, before whose eyes those wonders were performed. This is a fatal mistake. Those miracles and wonders, no doubt, were ante-dated, and brought forward to the Jews in after times, as proofs of what Jehovah had done for their forefathers; for it clearly appears from the internal evidence of Jewish history, that the five books said to have been written by Moses, were not known to the Jews, as a nation, till after the reigns of David, Solomon, and many others. At what time the five books were first made known to the descendants of Abram, is not ascertained; but, whenever it was, they contained the history of the Abrahamic family, including all the miracles and wonders performed by Jehovah in their behalf.
It is easy to perceive, how the Jews might be brought to believe all that was written concerning God’s choice of them, as his peculiar people. An ambitious leader and legislator could, without much difficulty, soon establish them firmly in the conviction that they were Jehovah’s chosen people. It would flatter their vanity; and the credulity of the human mind is such, even now, that we need not wonder that the Jews, as a nation, gave credence to the tales of former times concerning their being the especial favorites of Jehovah. The Jews, then, no doubt were cheated into the firm conviction (by their early leaders) that they, of all people on earth, were the chosen of Heaven. This will account for their keeping themselves as a separate people—the heaviest curse that could befal them, and which remains on them till this day.
According to the Bible, the dealings of Jehovah towards mankind in general, and of the Jews in particular, will bear out the following remarks:—That, after the confusion of tongues at Babel, and the descendants of Noah were dispersed abroad on the earth, the Bible God forsook the earth for some hundred years. He had no worshippers on earth. He then descends and selects one family to be called after his name. From that moment, Jehovah appears to direct his whole attention to the family concerns of his new choice. Troubles come on in quick succession; Abram’s domestic jars claim his attention and superintendence. Sarah and her maid servant quarrel; the maid is turned out of doors, about a child who claimed Sarah’s husband as its father.
The Lord interfered and matters were made up. But soon another misunderstanding arose between Sarah and Hagar about the child who had ill-behaved himself towards Abram’s wife. Sarah became enraged, and got the better of the Lord; and Abram and she drove Hagar and her son out of the house for good and all. The Lord again made the best of the matter by sending an angel who took charge of Hagar’s son; and Abram and Sarah lived happy, and directed all their attention to little Isaac.
To return to the Jews, as a nation. Did they answer the end for which they were chosen? Most undoubtedly they did. For, as “known unto the Lord are all his works from the beginning” whatever his dealings were towards them, in punishing them for their rebellion and disobedience, and whatever suffering they endured in consequence of their departure from his commands, are included in his choice; and are the ends for which they were chosen. Here, then, we have arrived at the ends for which they were selected,—he knowing that they would continue to transgress, and also that such transgression would call forth his anger; and that punishment would follow from their disobedience. These are the only ends that we can discover by their being chosen, and these ends were fully answered.
And as Jehovah is represented as acting the same as men act under similar circumstances, the following remarks are in accordance with his dealings with the people of his choice, namely: that after Jehovah had driven the inhabitants of Babel abroad on the face of the earth, and not having any church or worshippers in the world, he became weary of this state of inaction, and, sighing for something to do, he chose the descendants of Abram for his future operations on the earth. And from that moment, the Jews required all his attention; his anger was always raging: he had no repose whatever.
In the course of his watching over them, he occasionally stirred up the heathen against them, and suffered them to become bondmen and slaves. Then, again, they had arms put into their hands, and he marched out in aid of their victories; and then the “Lord of Hosts was his name.” Then, as if he had forgotten the promises made to their forefathers, he repents of the neglect shown to them; again renews the combat and orders them to war against nations, and to spare neither old age nor infancy. So that, by turns, hating them and showing them no mercy; then again, repenting of his severe conduct towards them, proclaiming to the world that the Lord of Hosts or battle is his name,—the Bible account of Jehovah confirms us, in concluding, that, he chose the family of Abram for no other purpose than to disturb and brutalize the rest of the world.
The Jews, and their God, seem to be objects of pity and contempt. Pity for the poor Jews, for their unfortunate fate; and as for Jehovah, if the Bible be true, from the moment he adopted them as his favorites, he became subject to rage, furious anger, grief, repenting of the choice he had made; and finally casting them off. These, then, are some of the glorious ends for which they were chosen. To conclude—Of all the impositions that ever have been palmed on the inhabitants of the earth, destructive of “peace on earth and good will towards men” that of the Jews being God’s chosen people, is one of the greatest; the Jehovah of the Bible, being nothing but an imaginary God, to cheat the World into the faith of his being the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe.