This page is a summary of the twelve Times of Israel. The button at the start of each summary will take you to the initial lesson for that particular Time.

1 ~ Promises to Abraham

About 2000 years before Christ, God called Abram out of Ur where he lived near the Persian Gulf. Abram settled in Haran, at the other end of the Euphrates river. However, God led him down to Canaan, east of the Mediterranean Sea where the river Jordan flows. God promised that Abram’s descendants would possess that land. God also promised that one of Abram’s descendants would bless all nations. Abraham (as his name became) was old. His wife Sarah was also old, and what is more she had always been barren. Sarah and Abraham contrived to produce a son an heir through Sarah’s servant Hagar, so Ishmael was born. However God insisted that Sarah would bear a son to Abraham, and his name would be Isaac. Through the promise and power of God, Isaac was indeed born to them. In time, Isaac begot Jacob who became known by the name Israel. He fathered 12 sons from whom the twelve tribes of Israel were descended.

2 ~ Bondage in Egypt

Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Israel, was sold to slave traders by his brothers. Yet with God’s help, Joseph rose to power in Egypt. His brothers were driven there by a famine which Joseph had foretold. Egypt was surviving the famine because of Joseph’s wisdom in storing food during the preceding good years. Joseph forgave his brothers, welcomed them to Egypt, and settled the family in Goshen. Generations later, Egypt had forgotten the origin of the Israelites, who by now were many, and Egypt cruelly enslaved them.

3 ~ Wandering in the Wilderness

In the providence of God, one of the Israelites, Moses, was privileged and powerful in Egypt. After forty years he tried to deliver his people from slavery, but they rejected him. Having killed one of the cruel slave masters, Moses fled to Midian and was forty years a shepherd. He saw an angel in a bush that was burning yet unconsumed. The angel sent Moses back to Egypt. There he brought ten plagues upon Egypt and led the children of Israel across the Red Sea into the sandy wastes of Sinai. He led them wandering in the wilderness forty years because they were too disobedient and unthankful to enter Canaan the promised land. At Sinai, the law was given and the tabernacle of worship prepared.

4 ~ Conquest of Canaan

The next generation of Israelites was led over Jordan by Joshua. They fought many wars to conquer Canaan. Through sin and idolatry they faltered. Through penitent revivals they prevailed, helped by judges like Gideon and Deborah. Eventually the tribes were settled around the Jordan. By this time there were thirteen tribes, not twelve, because Joseph’s descendants had formed into two tribes Manasseh and Ephraim. There were still twelve territories however, because the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, was required to settle in towns throughout the territories of the other tribes.

5 ~ Kingdom of David

As the nation grew, the people asked for a king, not being satisfied to have God alone as their ruler. The first king was Saul from the tribe of Benjamin. The second was David from the tribe of Judah. The house of David was established as the royal family, and after David, his son Solomon reigned. Solomon built a great temple in Jerusalem. Israel as a nation stretched from Dan to Beersheba and saw great power, but her glory was short-lived.

6 ~ Kingdom Divided

While Benjamin clung to Judah, the other ten tribes were rebellious. When Solomon died, they rejected Solomon’s son Rehoboam as king, and made Solomon’s servant Jeroboam their king instead. They rejected Jerusalem the holy city, and made their capital Samaria to the north. So there was a division into two kingdoms. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin became known collectively as Judah, while the ten surrounding tribes retained the name Israel. Each kingdom had its own succession of kings, many of whom were evil, Israel’s being the worst.

7 ~ Exile and Scattering

When Assyria was a world power, Israel was captured and its people exiled northward to the area whence Abraham had come so long ago. Hezekiah was then the king of Judah, a good king who listened to Isaiah, God’s prophet, so the kingdom of Judah was spared and only Israel, the ten tribes, were taken. But when the Babylonians came to dominate the world, Coniah was the king in Judah. He was evil, so it was Judah’s turn to be conquered. The people were exiled in Babylon. Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed. Coniah became like a shattered jar as Jeremiah had prophesied, and none of Coniah’s descendants could reign any more on David’s throne in Judah.

8 ~ Return of the Remnant

But God preserved a remnant of his people, and after seventy years, when the Medes and Persians dominated the world, Cyrus king of Persia decreed that the remnant should return to Judah and rebuild the temple and the holy city Jerusalem. The rebuilding was a long and difficult business, but Jerusalem was resettled and the remnant awaited the Messiah whom the prophets said would come.

9 ~ Prophecy Unfolding

The prophets fell silent, and four hundred years passed without the Messiah appearing. In that time, Jerusalem and its temple were again destroyed, when the Greek empire, especially under Alexander the Great, dominated the world. Later the Roman empire took over the world. For all their iron rule, the Romans did allow the temple to be rebuilt once more. It was being finished when the Messiah came.

10 ~ Coming of the Son of God

The Son of God came into the world about 2000 years after God called Abraham. When Jesus grew to manhood, his ministry was heralded by the prophet John, who preached repentance, and baptism for remission of sins. Jesus also went about preaching the gospel, and healing the sick. He was rejected by the religious leaders, however, and eventually was crucified as a common criminal although he had done no wrong. His death was a sacrifice for all sin for all time.

11 ~ Dawning of New Israel

Jesus arose from the dead, and, after 40 days in which he appeared many times to his disciples, he ascended into heaven. His apostles carried on the preaching, and Christ’s kingdom was established across the world with churches formed in many towns and cities. God gave amazing miraculous powers to many Christians. The apostle Paul and others wrote the scriptures we call the New Testament. About the middle of this period, in AD70, the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and its temple, as Jesus himself had foretold.

12 ~ Kingdom in All the World

By the time that the New Testament scriptures were complete, and the miracles had ceased, the gospel had become known across the world in every nation. God’s kingdom, Israel, was no longer a worldly kingdom, but rather a spiritual kingdom. This kingdom of heaven, the new Israel, was spread throughout the world. It was a kingdom to which people of every nation belonged whether Jew or Gentile. The king of this wonderful kingdom is Jesus Christ, who reigns from heaven. The gospel of this kingdom includes the belief that Jesus Christ is coming again one day, at the end of the world to gather up his spiritual Israel, from among the living and the dead, to take its every citizen into heaven forever. And so it is true to say that, to the story of Israel, there is no end.

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