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Why We Should Pray for Jerusalem and the Jews
by Gary Hedrick
Why should Christians pray for Jerusalem and the Jews? There are seven biblical rea-sons.
1. The promise of God’s blessing.
In Psalm 122:6, David said, “
 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
” Notice that the admonition is accompanied by a promise: If we pray for the shalom of  Jerusalem, and love God’s people, He will prosper us.One of the first promises in the Bible is that God will bless those who bless His peopleIsrael. In Genesis, Chapter 12, we read, “
 Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of  thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: AND I WILL BLESS THEM THAT BLESS THEE, AND CURSE HIM THAT CURSETH THEE: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed
” (Gen.12:1-3).With those words, God him self established the irrevocable principle that those whobless the seed of Abraham will be, blessed, and those who curse the seed of Abraham willbe cursed. Throughout history, anti-Semites who have tested this principle have done so totheir own detriment.
2. Our indebtedness to the Jewish people.
We should pray for Jerusalem and the Jews because we owe it to them.
First, they gave us the Bible.
Speaking of the Jewish people, the Apostle Paul said, “
 . . . unto them were committed the oracles of God
” (Rom. 3:2). The Greek word for “oracles” islogia, from logos (“word”). The Jewish people were the custodians of the sayings of God asrecorded in the biblical writings.For thousands of years, the Scriptures were passed down from one generation toanother by Jewish priests and scribes who painstakingly handcopied every word on scrollsor parchments. (They didn’t have printing presses or typesetting equip ment like we havetoday.) Every thing had to be copied by hand, one word at a time. It was a very slow andtedious process.The priests and scribes were devoted to the preservation of God’s Word and went togreat pains to eliminate any possibility of error in their work. For example, they would countthe number of Hebrew characters (letters) in a manuscript before making a copy of it. Oncethey were finished, if the number of characters in the copy didn’t perfectly match the num-ber of characters in the original, the copy was destroyed immediately.The seriousness with which the priests and scribes approached their work was alsodemonstrated in their treatment of the divine name. Whenever a copyist came to the name
Yahweh
(the
Tetragrammaton
), he would flush the ink out of his pen with clean water, insertnew ink, and bathe himself in the mikvah (a Jewish baptistry) before writing the name. Thenhe would empty and clean the pen again, reinsert the old ink, and continue writing. Everytime the scribe came to the
Tetragrammaton
he would repeat the process.
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Even today, Orthodox Jews handle the Word of God with great care and respect. Andthey will not write or pronounce the name
Yahweh
, so they substitute another divine name,
 Adonai
, instead. No wonder God chose the Jewish nation—the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—to be the custodians and guardians of the Word of God.
Second, they gave us the Messiah.
His Hebrew name is
Yeshua Hamashiach
.
Yeshua
is the Hebrew name for Joshua, which means “Jehovah Saves” (compare Luke 1:26-33). The translators of the Septuagint rendered it with the Greek
 lesous
, from which theanglicized form “Jesus” comes. Mashiach is the Hebrew word for Messiah, or Anointed One.So Yeshua ha Mashiach is literally “Jesus the Messiah,” or “Jesus the Christ.”Never forget that the roots of our Christian faith are in biblical Judaism! Yeshua of Nazareth was born of a Jewish family of the House of David, descended from the tribe of  Judah. He was raised and lived as an observant Jew. He preached in the Jewish synagogues,offered sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple, and fulfilled the messianic prophecies in the Jewish Tanakh (Old Testament).From beginning to end, the Old Testament exhibits the clear and consistent teachingthat Messiah would come. Dozens of times we read such promises as, “
 . . . behold, thy King cometh unto thee . . .
” (Zech. 9:9); “
 Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, . . .
”(Isa. 40:10); “
 . . . the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple
, (Mal. 3:1); and“
The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, . .
.” (Deut.18:15).The divinely-inspired Scriptures even specified the time of Messiah’s coming. TheProphet Daniel predicted the arrival of “Messiah the Prince” in A.D. 33 (see Daniel 9:25,26), the precise date of our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
1
Those messianic expectations found their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Prophecies aboutHis birth, character, family, forerunner, ministry, place of residence, teachings, rejection,betrayal, and crucifixion —- all were fulfilled down to the smallest detail.
3. Israel’s priority in God’s plan.
“
 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek
” (Rom. 1:16).The Gospel was to be proclaimed to the Jew first. It was a priority not only in
time
,but also in
privilege
. Paul wasn’t merely saying that historically the Gospel would bepreached first to the Jews. He was also pointing out that they enjoy a priority in privilege.They have a special place in God’s plan. Jesus said, “
 . . . salvation is of the Jews
” (John 4:22). The Jewish nation, however, wasnot set apart because of its superior merit or magnitude (see Deuteronomy 7:7). Neitherwere the Jews chosen because of any partiality on God’s part toward them (see Acts 10:34).The selection of Israel to be a light to the nations was based not on human merit, but ondivine grace: “
 . . . because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, . . .
” (Deut. 7:8).Israel’s election was a matter of practical necessity. The unfolding of God’s plan of redemption had to begin at a particular point in time with a particular people, so He chosethe seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In turn, it would be their responsibility to take thisgood news to the rest of the world (see Isaiah 42:6; 49:6).
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Why We Should Pray for Jerusalem and the Jewish People by Gary HedrickPage 2
 
The Jews, therefore, were first in privilege. The covenants were made with the Jews.The promises were made to the Jews. The prophets were sent to the Jews. In the OldTestament, God made His earthly dwelling place among the Jews. So it was perfectly fittingthat when Messiah came, the Jewish people were the ones who were to hear about it first.“
 . . . ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth
” (Acts 1:8).That’s the biblical priority: to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. The real tragedy isthat in much of Christendom today, the order has been reversed. Some denominations areeager to take the Gospel to everyone but the Jews. Even among evangelicals, “to the Jewfirst” has all too frequently become “to the Jew last”!
4. Israel’s need for spiritual illumination.
We should pray for the Jewish people because of their need for spiritual illumination.The Apostle Paul declared, “
 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of th is mys- tery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in
” (Rom. 11:25).According to the
 Berit Hadashah
(New Testament), there are five “mysteries” thatwere previously undisclosed in the
Tanakh
(Old Testament). One of those mysteries isexplained by Paul here in Romans, Chapter 11. It is the outworking of God’s grace whereby Jew and Gentile, after a period of disobedience by both, will be granted a place in God’sKingdom.The Greek word for “blindness” in this passage literally means a “hardening,” “petri-fying,” or “callous.” Of course, a callous is a buildup of hardened skin at a point of sustainedirritation. A callous may form on your foot, for instance, where the skin rubs your shoe. Thecallous will grow thicker and harder until finally there’s no more sensitivity. That’s the sortof “blindness” Israelis experiencing. She has said “no” to God so many times, she’s becomehardened and numbed. When Israel wouldn’t listen to the Prophet Elisha, God sent theAssyrians. When she wouldn’t listen to Jeremiah, God sent the Babylonians. When shewouldn’t listen to Jesus the Messiah, He sent the Romans. And every time she has rejectedGod’s way, Israel’s heart has gotten a little harder.In the Book of Exodus, you will recall, Moses went before the Egyptian Pharaoh timeafter time, asking for the release of the Children of Israel. On each occasion, Pharaohrefused. We are told that Pharaoh’s heart was “hardened,” or calloused. Notice the progres-sion. At first, Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Ex. 7:13-14, 22). In later confrontations, thefoolish king persisted in his stubborn defiance of the Lord (8:15, 19, 32; 9:7). It wasn’t untilafter the sixth plague that the Lord confirmed Pharaoh’s willful action by hardening hiswicked heart for him (9:12).Pharaoh hardened his own heart by refusing to listen to the Lord. With contempt in hisvoice, he bellowed, “Who is this Jehovah that I should obey him?” Every time the Egyptianking said “no,” his heart got a little harder. The callous got a little thicker. Finally there wasa point where God hardened his heart. At that point, it became a judicial hardening, a sen-tence imposed upon him by God.That’s what has happened to Israel. Her heart has been hardened. The rulers of Israelrefused to recognize
Yeshua
(Jesus) as
 Hamashiach
(the Messiah) be cause He didn’t comeon their terms. His resume’ didn’t conform to their messianic job description. They demand-
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