The appointment of the Family of Aaron to be Priests, was to continue as long as the Israelites should be a nation. See Lev. vii. 35.
The Feast of Tabernacles was to be forever. Lev. xxiii. 41. It shall be a statute for ever, in your generations. The observance of this Festival is particularly mentioned in the prophecies, which foretell a future settlement of the Jews in their own land, as obligatory on all the world; as if an union of worship at Jerusalem was to be, according to them, effected among all nations by the united observance of this Festival there, see Zech. 14; what he there says is confirmed by what Isaiah prophecied concerning the same period. Is. 2. It shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go, and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the Law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and rebuke many people, and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation. shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
With respect to all the Laws of Moses, it is evident from the manner in which they were promulgated, that they were intended to be of perpetual obligation upon the Hebrew nation, and that by the observance of them they were to be distinguished from the other nations, see Deut. xxvi. 16.
The observance of their peculiar Laws was the express condition on which the Israelites were to continue in possession of the promised land; and though on account of their disobedience they were to be driven out of it, they had the strongest assurances given them that they should never be utterly destroyed, like many other nations who should oppress them; but that on their repentance God would gather them from the remote parts of the world, and bring them to their own country again. And both Moses, and the later Prophets assure them, that in consequence of their becoming obedient to God in all things, which it is asserted they will, (and which may be the natural consequence of the discipline they will have gone through,) they shall be continued in the peaceable enjoyment of the land of promise, in its greatest extent to the end of time. See to this purpose Deut. iv. 25, &c.; also. Deut. 30, where it is thus written.
And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee; and shalt return unto the Lord thy God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul; that, then, the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return, and gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee. And the Lord thy God will bring thee unto the Land which thy Fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy Fathers. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live; and the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee. And thou shalt return, and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day." &c.
What an extent of prophecy, and how firm a faith in the whole of it do we see here! (says Dr. Priestly.) The Israelites were not then in the land of Canaan. It was occupied by nations far more numerous, and powerful than they; and yet it is distinctly foretold in the 4th ch. that they would soon take possession of it, and multiply in it: and that afterwards they would offend God by their idolatry, and wickedness, and would in con-sequence of it be driven out of their country; and without being exterminated or lost, be scattered among the nations of the world; that by this dispersion, and their calamities, they would at length be reformed, and restored to the divine favour, and that then (as in the quotation) in the latter days they would be gathered from all nations, and restored to their own country, when they would observe all the laws which were then prescribed to them. Past history, and present appearances, correspond with such wonderful exactness to what has been fulfilled of this prophecy, that we can have no doubt with respect to the complete accomplishment of what remains to be fulfilled of it.
What was first announced by Moses, is repeated by Isaiah and other prophets, assuring them of their certain return wherever dispersed, to their own land in the latter days; and that they should have the undisturbed possession of it to the end of time.
It has been objected, that the term "for ever" is not always to be understood in its greatest extant, but is to be interpreted according to circumstances. This for the sake of saving time I will acknowledge. But the circumstances in which this phrase is used in the passages already adduced, and in a number of others of similar import which might be adduced, clearly indicate, that it is to be understood in those passages to mean a period as long as the duration of the Israelitish nation, which elsewhere is said to continue to the end of the world.
For this reason, among others, this final return of the Jews from their present dispersed state, cannot at any rate be said to have been accomplished at their return from the Babylonish captivity.
For that captivity was not by any means such a total dispersion of the people among all nations, as Moses, and the later prophets have foretold. Nor does their possession of the country subsequent to it, at all correspond to that state of peace, and prosperity, which was promised to succeed this final return.