Randy Kluth
Well-Known Member
That didn't last. They soon returned to idolatry, apostasy, and depravity, resulting in God's ongoing punishment, and ultimate complete destruction.
If you live a life that is faithful to God, I cannot say 10 generations later that when some of your children are faithless, you failed! If Israel has been faithful at times in their relationship with God, then failures down the line does not spell their defeat. The promised age-long punishment of the nation was not intended by God to annihilate them. Rather, it was a temporary marginalization, to give time for other nations to enter into their own covenant relationship with God.
God utterly destroyed that nation in 70AD, and signaled that He was building His True Church, which would be a new nation. ( Matthew 16:18; 1 Peter 2:9).