In Isaiah 46:10 he writes about God: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done; saying: ‘My counsel shall stand, and all My pleasure will I do.'”
What Isaiah is saying is that God foretells the future, and causes history to unfold as He pleases.
You have a small tribe around 3000 years ago. They are going to go on to:
1. Give the world the most best selling book ever.
2. Survive not just those ancient times up until modern times, outliving literally thousands of other groups, tribes and nations that will die out over the ages. They will do this under some of the most horrendous circumstances imaginable. This by itself is not inexplicable, but it is truly remarkable.
3. The teachings in their holy book will revolutionize much of the world’s understanding and practice of morality.
4. Major world religions that will include a majority of the globe’s population will develop out of Judaism. This is actually predicted in very specific detail in the torah itself. It predicts that these peoples believe the Jewish people are the chosen people who were taken out of Egypt by YHVH and who broke His covenant and therefore were exiled across the entire world. Yet the Torah is clear that these people are not Jews. See here – goo.gl/1CXQtq
5. These people in their exile will end up establishing communities across the entire world among all the nations in a way that no other people on earth has accomplished. This is predicted in detail in the Torah – goo.gl/Hp3RbZ
6. This people will not only survive as a people, but will also maintain their cultural and religious identity, again in very hostile environments that would grant them many benefits if they would only convert.
7. While this people is exiled from their land, the land will remain largely empty and desolate, with only a handful of cities maintaining any significant population. The land will become a barren wasteland. This is predicted by the Torah in a number of places. This fact is rather strange given the importance of Israel as a land bridge between Asia Africa and Europe, as well as its importance to Christianity and Islam. The fact remains that there were only three times Israel was a sovereign nation. Israel before the Babylonians, Israel after the Babylonians, and Israel in 1948.
8. This tiny ancient tribe will become one of the most persecuted groups on earth. Their very name “Jew!” will become a bad word. They will face more attempted genocides than arguably almost any other group on earth. The hatred of them will unite neo-Nazis and radical Islamists. Every generation someone will try to destroy them. And even up until modern times this theme will continue.
9. This small group will continue revolutionizing the world with their accomplishments. They will achieve more per capita than any other group on earth. Though they are a mere .2% of the world’s population they will receive 22% of Nobel Prizes, 51% of Pulitzer Prizes. They will be the father’s of all Hollywood studios. 3 of the 4 greatest thinkers of the 20th century it will turn out are Jews – Freud, Marx, and Einstein. Jews will be in the leadership of almost every major “ism” to arise in the 20th century. The Communists, Anarchists, Feminists, Hippie movement, civil rights movements, and Jews were also in all socialist movements, whether revolutionary or reformist, universalist or nationalist, etc. Jewish accomplishments, inventions, innovations, are simply off the chart for this tiny people – goo.gl/jiovgV. Light to the nations much? The world will be blessed by your descendants? Sure sounds like it. (IMO This fact alone should make the entire world pause and try to figure out what the heck is going on here.)
10. The Jews will face an unforeseeable mass slaughter at the hands of the Nazis and aided by many of their European neighbors. Many of these populations and their leadership who seem to hail from the heights of European civility, will commit an act of barbarism that is almost unmatched in history given its brutality and scope. At the same time, this mass murder of the Jews will end up arguably saving the entire world from Nazi domination. Had the Nazis forcibly enlisted the great Jewish minds they had at their disposal, they very possibly could have won the entire war. Once again, the Jews end up being the ones at the center of this world war, and end up saving the world again.
11. The Jewish people will also find a small opportunity in which to return to their rather desolate land and try to make it into a state. This will be done largely by secular Jews who do not believe that the prophecies of the bible are from God, nor do they believe there is any divine connection between the Jews and the land of Israel. This entire founding of the state will require the confluence of so many unlikely factors, each of which will have to happen or the entire enterprise could collapse and lead to total slaughter:
a) It just so happens that the land is open for large scale immigration, and the Jews have the ability to leave their lands.
b) their numbers are small and they are facing a hostile Arab population some of whose influential leaders are plotting the eventual genocide of the Jews, such as the mufti of Jerusalem.
c) at just this time, the antisemitism of the Nazis rears its head followed by the holocaust which will lead to the necessary emigration of large numbers of people who would otherwise had stayed in Europe. These numbers will be an indispensable factor in winning the 1948 war.
d) The Jews will win the 1948 war with minimal forces and weapons. The Jews had just lost 1/3 of their numbers and now they have a state. Losing this war would likely have ended in a second holocaust.
e) There is a very very brief window in which the US, Soviet Union, and other nations supported the founding of the state. Within just a couple of years the Soviets had completely changed their mind. Abba Eban has pointed out that without the arms given to Israel by the Soviets, and without the Soviet vote in favor of partition (along with the votes of four satellite nations) “we couldn’t have made it, either diplomatically or militarily.””
f) The Arabs forcibly evict around 1 million Jews, most of whom move to Israel. These numbers are once again indisputable to the country and to the future engagement in 1967. In an almost miraculous fashion, factors in a very short span of time lead to hundreds of thousands of Jews being practically forced to move to Israel from so many from European and Moslem lands.
g) The 1967 saw predictions of total destruction of Israel by Russian intelligence estimates, as well as predictions of very high casualties from US estimates. This could have been it. Yet Israel achieved one of the most stunning victories they could have imagined. How do the Jews in Israel get lucky every single time?
h) The 1973 war also could have easily lead to destruction. After the counter attack of June 8th failed, reports say Moshe Dayan was depressed and truly feared this would be the first and last war that Israel would lose. The major battle fought in Valley of Tears is about as close to a miracle as you can get.
i) if you want a rundown of the many extremely lucky victories that Israel achieved, many of which like the above were necessary for Israel’s survival, see here – goo.gl/sERTeY
12) Regarding the revival of the Hebrew language in the modern state of Israel, “there are no other examples of a natural language without any native speakers subsequently acquiring several million such native speakers, and no other examples of a sacred language becoming a national language with millions of “first language” speakers.” Hebrew is known as lashon hakodesh and has a holy, religious aspect to it, so this revival, which was initiated and brought to fruition primarily by secular Israeli settlers, is worthy of note.
13) The Torah predicts very clearly that once the Jewish people return to their land, the nations of the world will join together and try to destroy the state of Israel. It is interesting that in today’s world, there is no other country on earth whose very existence is called into question by groups and nations from across the globe. People may hate North Korea’s leadership or the Iranian ayatollahs, but they don’t want to destroy these nations and/or exile their people. Israel is the one country on earth that receives this distinction. Israel is arguably one of the most hated countries on earth, and polls have shown that.
14) The Torah and Midrashim ultimately predict that Iran will threaten to destroy the entire world and cause chaos around the globe leading to the war of Gog. Though it hasn’t happened as of yet, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons combined with the radical theology of the Twelver Shia sect that the Ayatollahs follow make this final prophecy a real possibility.
When one puts this all together,it becomes very clear that the unique, unlikely history of the Jewish people was spelled out in detail beforehand.