A large percentage of the Bible is made up of prophecy. When one comes upon a word of prophecy in the Bible, one must ask: "Is this a fulfilled word or a word that has yet to be fulfilled?"Some prophecy, such as this word from Micah 5:2, "But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel...", is an example of fulfilled prophecy. This prophecy was made around 700BC and was fulfilled 700 years later when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
As one surveys the Bible, one will find many prophecies of the Jewish people being brought back to the land of Israel. As I've stated in a prior post, the Jewish people were banished from the current land of Israel in 587 BC (which is after the Micah prophecy). And they WERE brought back roughly 50 years later. So, some prophecies of the Jewish return to Israel must refer to this return. But what does one do with these?
Hosea 3: 4-5, "For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days." - Obviously 2500 years ago weren't the "last days".
Ezekiel 36:12, "I will cause people, my people Israel, to walk upon you. They will possess you, and you will be their inheritance; you will never again deprive them of their children." - Less than 600 years after the Jewish people came back from the land of Babylon, they were again banished from Israel, so "never again" will not work here.
And these are just two of the many! So, one must conclude that God was referring to yet another return of the Jewish people to the land of Israel. The next time--and the only other time--the Jewish people returned was 1948AD.
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