Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 61:243 (Jul 1904)
Article: The Modern Jew: His Whence And Whither
Author: Hugh Macdonald Scott

BSac 61:243 (July 1904) p. 443

The Modern Jew: His Whence And Whither

Prof. Hugh Macdonald Scott

This is a subject of perennial interest. The Jew, like the poor, is always with us, and we cannot leave him alone. He does not dwell in heathen lands, in China, India, Japan, Africa. Half of Israel live in Russia, and most of the other half in Austria, Germany, America. His lot is cast with the Christian, and his future is inseparable from ours. “What advantage then hath the Jew?” Paul inquired, and answered, “Much every way.” He so spoke in view of the revelation given unto Israel, while the Gentiles sat in the region and shadow of death. He also spoke as a prophet, for the way of the weary-footed Jew finally leads to the glory of Israel. The Hebrew, more than any other, must

“so forecast the years,
And first in loss a gain to match,
And reach a hand through time to catch
The far-off interest of tears.”

But, for the present, the advantage of the Jew is hard to find and difficult to determine. Heine called it a “misfortune “to belong to Israel; and the anti-Semitic movement is as old as Abraham and Darius, and the Maccabees and Vespasian, and Richard the Lion-hearted of England. Every student of history or politics, of commerce, society, race, and religion, must consider the Jewish factor in his theme; and the consideration of it he finds to be like a two-edged sword. The Israelite is everywhere present with the inexorableness

BSac 61:243 (July 1904) p. 444

of law and destiny. The Talmud says that one of the horns of the, ram offered by Abram in place of Isaac, was blown at the giving of the law on Sinai, and that the other will be sounded at the Day of Judgment. Between these blasts of Jewish horns, horns of law and judgment, moves the history of Israel as part of the history of mankind. For weal or woe they go together. The heredity of the Hebrew and the environment of the Gentile are in some way, under God, to shape the humanity that is to be. Until the last Jew is dead or converted to his Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, there will never be perfect peace on earth; for the Jewish question is at heart a Messianic question, and this, like all religious problems, can be solved only at the foot of the cross. Past and future of Israel and the Gentiles circle about Calvary. Here, and here alone, can Hebrew and Greek and Roman and American alike seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and here alone can all other things—the good things of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—be added thereto.

We are to consider the past and the present of Israel, not in the expectation of solving a problem,—for the question concerning Israel will be answered only in the revelation of the Lord i...