The first prophet who has left any definite revelation concerning the Dispersion of the Jews and their ultimate restoration in Palestine was Moses, our Law-giver.
“And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein shall be astonished at it.” (Leviticus xxvi. 32.)
“And you will I scatter among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.” (Ibid. 33.)
“And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God.” (Ibid. 44.)
“But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the Lord.” (Ibid. 45.)
Here we have a promise not to abhor or utterly destroy the Jewish people, but to remember the covenant which God made with their ancestors. We find the purport of this covenant in an early chapter of the Pentateuch:—
“And the Lord said unto Abram, ... ‘Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward;’” (Genesis xiii. 14.)
“for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever:” (Ibid. 15.)
It is impossible to understand how it can be said that this covenant will be remembered, if the Jewish people is to continue dispersed, and is to be for ever excluded from the land here spoken of. As to the return from Babylonian captivity, that will not answer the intention of the covenant at all. For to restore a small part of the Jewish people to its own land for a few centuries, and afterwards disperse it among all nations for many times as long, without any hope of return, cannot be the meaning of giving that land to the seed of Abram for ever.
Again we read:—