Proverbs 2:21-22 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. (22) But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
Halleluiah. This statement should be part of the ‘roadmap’ to peace in the Middle East. There is no point in trying to plan something if we don’t do it in accordance to God’s plan.
We need to remember the context and the linguistics of this verse. The word ‘land’ and ‘earth’ in Hebrew are one and the same: ‘aretz’, and it refers to the Land of Israel. We also need to remember that the person speaking is a Jewish king, speaking to a Jewish nation to whom the greatest of all of God’s blessings was the forever possession of the Land of Canaan. In those days, here was no greatest desire for a Jewish old man than to die and be buried in the land of his fathers. This promise has been given to them, but with conditions.
The Bible refers to the Land of Israel as His land. So God has the ultimate prerogative to decide who lives in it, who doesn’t. He also decides how people live in His land. It is like when we rent a house or apartment; we have to live within the boundaries allowed us in the contract or, we risk getting kicked out by the landlord. God He brought people to His land before, but they broke the conditions of the contract, so they got kicked out. They can and will return, but the conditions have not changed.
It is the upright who will eventually dwell in the land. It is the perfect that will remain in it. Who is upright but one whose way is straight within the ways of the instructions of God? Who is perfect but one who has been perfected through the Savior Yashuah, the Messiah? But the wicked who twists God’s instructions (Wicked: one who is ‘twisted’ as we twist the ‘wick’ in a candle) to fit his own ways and beliefs; the ones who transgress the instructions of God, shall be cut off from it. God will never allow them to live in His land.
In the promise of the return of the Jewish people to the old land of Israel, is imbedded the promise of their salvation and discovering of the Messiah who for so long has tried to reach them. So when we obey the injunction to ‘pray for the peace of Jerusalem’, let us pray that the people of Jerusalem find their Savior, Yashuah h’amashiah’ Sar Shalom, Jesus Christ the Prince of peace, without whom there will never be peace not only in the M. East, but anywhere on the earth.
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