The Chosen People:
Reasons for Diaspora
Lv 26:27-35
27 “‘If you in spite of this won’t listen to me, but walk contrary to me;
28 then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven
times for your sins.
29 You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your
daughters.
30 I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast
your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
31 I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation,
and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrance of your offerings.
32 I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein
will be astonished at it.
33 I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after
you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste.
34 Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are
in your enemies’ land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths.
35 As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it
didn’t have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it.
Dt
28:15,21,32,36,37,41,58,63-65,68
15 But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of Yahweh
your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command
you this day, that all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you.
21 Yahweh will make the pestilence cling to you, until he has consumed you from
off the land, where you go in to possess it.
32 Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and
your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there
shall be nothing in the power of your hand.
36 Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a
nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there you
shall serve other gods, wood and stone.
37 You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the
peoples where Yahweh shall lead you away.
41 You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they
shall go into captivity.
58 If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are
written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name,
YAHWEH YOUR GOD;
63 It shall happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to
multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to
destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to
possess it.
64 Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth
even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods,
which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone.
65 Among these nations you shall find no ease, and there shall be no rest for
the sole of your foot: but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, and
failing of eyes, and pining of soul;
68 Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which
I said to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall sell
yourselves to your enemies for bondservants and for bondmaids, and no man shall
buy you.
1Kg 14:15,16
15 For Yahweh will strike Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water; and he
will root up Israel out of this good land which he gave to their fathers,
and will scatter them beyond the River, because they have made their
Asherim, provoking Yahweh to anger.
16 He will give Israel up because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he has
sinned, and with which he has made Israel to sin.”
Ezr 5:12
But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he gave them
into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed
this house, and carried the people away into Babylon.
Is 5:7,11-13
7 For the vineyard of Yahweh of Armies is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah his pleasant plant:
and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression;
for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.
11 Woe to those who rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong
drink;
who stay late into the night, until wine inflames them!
12 The harp, lyre, tambourine, and flute, with wine, are at their feasts;
but they don’t regard the work of Yahweh,
neither have they considered the operation of his hands.
13 Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge.
Their honorable men are famished,
and their multitudes are parched with thirst.
Jr 16:10-13
10 It shall happen, when you shall show this people all these words, and they
shall tell you, Why has Yahweh pronounced all this great evil against us? or
what is our iniquity? or what is our sin that we have committed against Yahweh
our God?
11 Then you shall tell them, Because your fathers have forsaken me, says Yahweh,
and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshiped
them,
and have forsaken me, and have not kept my law;
12 and you have done evil more than your fathers; for, behold, you walk every
one after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me:
13 therefore will I cast you forth out of this land into the land that you have
not known, neither you nor your fathers; and there you shall serve other gods
day and night; for I will show you no favor.
Jr 24:5
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I regard the
captives of Judah, whom I have sent out of this place into the land of
the Chaldeans, for good.
Jr 29:18,19
18 I will pursue after them with the sword, with the famine, and with the
pestilence, and will deliver them to be tossed back and forth among all the
kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of horror, and an astonishment, and a
hissing, and a reproach, among all the nations where I have driven them;
19 because they have not listened to my words, says Yahweh, with which I
sent to them my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but
you would not hear, says Yahweh.
Lm 1:5
5 Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper;
for Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions:
her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.
Ezk 5:5-12
5 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the midst of
the nations, and countries are around her.
6 She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than
the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around
her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they
have not walked in them.
7 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Because you are turbulent more than
the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither
have kept my ordinances, neither have done after the ordinances of the nations
that are around you;
8 therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I, even I, am against you;
and I will execute judgments in the midst of you in the sight of the
nations.
9 I will do in you that which I have not done, and whereunto I will not do any
more the like, because of all your abominations.
10 Therefore the fathers shall eat the sons in the midst of you, and the
sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you; and the
whole remnant of you will I scatter to all the winds.
11 Therefore, as I live, says the Lord Yahweh, surely, because you have
defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your
abominations, therefore will I also diminish you; neither shall my eye
spare, and I also will have no pity.
12A third part of you shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they
be consumed in the midst of you; and a third part shall fall by the sword around
you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out
a sword after them.
Ezk 36:16-19
16 Moreover the word of Yahweh came to me, saying,
17 Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled
it by their way and by their doings: their way before me was as the
uncleanness of a woman in her impurity.
18 Therefore I poured out my wrath on them for the blood which they had
poured out on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols;
19 and I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the
countries: according to their way and according to their doings I judged
them.
Dn 9:7
Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as at this day;
to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who
are near, and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven
them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you.
Hs 9:17
My God will cast them away, because they did not listen to him;
and they will be wanderers among the nations.