Persecution and the Jewish People

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (New International Version, NIV)

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 (New International Version, NIV)

Throughout the centuries, there has been so much open hostility towards the Jewish people. There’s probably no other race of people that has been so persecuted and hated. They have experienced so much of this that there is even a specific term for it- antisemitism. Of course, the most notable case of this took place during the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were cruelly slaughtered. Have you ever wondered why this particular people group has suffered so much? Is there some reason why so many people have come against them? It’s not that people hate the Jews on their own, but they are influenced by the devil to do so.

The devil hates whatever God loves. And the devil takes pleasure in harming anything that God cares for through his strategy of stealing, killing, and destroying. God established a covenant with Abraham and decreed that Abraham’s descendants, born of him and Sarah, would be great in the earth. Therefore, if God cared for Abraham’s seed, then the devil automatically hated them.

But, the devil’s plan to destroy these people goes back even further than Abraham. We have to go back to Genesis chapter 3 where the Lord is explaining to Adam, Eve, and the devil what they will experience as a result of their sin. He tells the devil that the human race will produce someone who would crush his head, or destroy his authority in the earth. After that time, the devil was trying to do everything he could to prevent that from happening by destroying the human race or at least contaminating the bloodline of man- but that’s another teaching altogether.

Once God made covenant with Abraham, it narrowed down the field; it showed the enemy that God would work through the descendants of this one man, the Jewish people. So, he focused his efforts on them. This is why we see the Israelites tempted to go into idolatry so much and why they were oppressed so many times by other nations. That was the devil at work.

Then, the unthinkable happened- Jesus came to earth as a man- through the Jewish people. He died, destroyed the devil’s authority, and rose again. And the devil has been set on total annihilation of Israel ever since. A Jew beat up the devil and took back the authority he had, giving it back to us. A Jew so totally humiliated him in front of every demon and principality that he cannot cease his efforts to wreak havoc upon the Jews. Because the One who triumphed over him came from the Jewish people, he wants to do everything he can to make them pay.

God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them; you shall not curse the people [of Israel], for they are blessed.” Numbers 22:12 (Amplified Bible, AMP)

But, the Bible tells us that whatever God has blessed cannot be cursed. No matter the persecution that the enemy has tried to bring to the Jewish people, they are blessed and therefore they thrive. Go to any community where Jewish people reside and you will see that they are prosperous business people and whatever they put their hand to prospers. Why do Jews do so well financially? It is the blessing of God upon them that has not been removed- and will not be removed.

Always remember that God has promised to bless those who bless Israel (Genesis 12:3). So, it is always beneficial to us to stay on God’s side and be a blessing to Israel.