Scattered and Gathered

            The scattering of Israel was a covenant curse.  Historically, Israel was scattered following the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC as a result of their chronic breaching of the covenant by following other gods.  It wasn’t an absolute rejection of Israel.  The Lord kept a remnant in the land and brought a portion back from exile because His promise would be fulfilled through Israel.  In the period between the testaments, though, we discover that not all Jews made their way back to the land.  A Jewish population remained in Babylon; another developed in Egypt; still others grew in Asia Minor and points west.

            However, the scattering of Israel in the exile and beyond ceased to be the biblical story after the ministry of Jesus.  Then, it was the scattering of the church that mattered.  The church was not scattered as a punishment but as a mission strategy.  So, for example, everyone knows that the so-called Great Commission does not contain a command to go.  The word there is a participle:  ‘while you’re on your way’ is a better translation.  (I don’t know why the English translations make the choice they make.)  God’s people are scattered like seed throughout the earth to produce a great harvest for the kingdom.

            The gathering of Deuteronomy 30 has its historical fulfillment in 538 BC, when the first exile return to ruined Jerusalem.  But for the church, the gathering becomes an end-time event; the return to the land becomes the advent of the new heaven and new earth; and the circumcision of hearts—now by faith—becomes the reality of renewed lives in God’s good presence.  This is not allegorizing; this is the appropriate recognition that the church’s story flows out of Israel’s story but that the church’s story is fundamentally different than Israel’s.