October 7, Remembered

Pharaoh wanted the Jews dead. Haman, Hitler, and Hamas wanted the Jews dead. God thought otherwise.

On Oct. 7, 2023, the satanic forces of darkness engendered a vicious assault against the nation-state of Israel, dealing death to God’s chosen people at the hands of the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hamas. Satan, the Father of Anti-Semitism, must have smiled with glee as he watched 1,200 innocent Israelis shot to death in their homes and at music festivals. He must have cheered as terrorists dragged hostages from their homeland into the Gaza Strip.

But Satan, who hates everything associated with God (2 Thessalonians 2:4), including the people God covenanted to Himself in the book of Bereshit (Genesis), has never learned his lesson: the children of Israel will always rise again.

Indubitably.

Without fail.

Thus saith the LORD.

We know this because God has promised it. “Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the Lord; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid,” we read in Jeremiah 30:10-11. “For I am with thee, saith the Lord, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet I will not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished.”

From the pharaoh who did not know Joseph” (Exodus 1:8) to Yahya Sinwar, the Jewish people have survived more credible threats of extermination than any other people group in history. What happened on October 7 was not new. It was, rather, the latest iteration of an age-old, satanic hate. Throughout history, the Jews have been bullied, persecuted, hunted, suppressed, and killed by history’s most powerful regimes. And yet, who emerged victorious in the end? Who remains a formidable fighting force today, whereas their enemies have been relegated to the ash heap of history? God’s people outlived Ancient Egypt, the Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Caliphate, and Nazi Germany in direct fulfillment of Scripture — “I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet I will not make a full end of thee.…” History corroborates these ancient words. Israel will outlive Iran and anyone else who dares to make war against God’s covenant-bound people.

“And it shall come to pass in that day,” God promised in Zechariah 12:9, “that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”

As the biblical narrative makes clear, this does not mean Israel is exempted from hard times or God’s wrath and punishment for disobedience. They have experienced both throughout their history. But they are resilient through it all. They are resilient because the faithful God, who cannot lie, made an eternal covenant with Israel, and as He swears throughout Scripture, He will not suffer it to fail.

God delights in Israel. “And [Israel] shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and an honour before all the nations of the earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them: and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for all the prosperity that I procure unto it,” the LORD says in Jeremiah 33:9. Of all the people in the world, God chose Israel. “For the Lord hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar treasure” (Psalm 135:4, see also: Exodus 19:5-8). The New Testament makes this clear, too. “I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid,” the Apostle Paul declares in Romans 11. “For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”

Anyone who opposes Israel in the ultimate sense is fighting against God. Hasan Bitmez, the Turkish politician who dramatically suffered a heart attack and died two days later after pronouncing “the wrath of Allah” against Israel and her “collaborators,” should serve as a reminder of that.


October 7 will live in infamy. May we never become numb to the horrors of that day, nor lose sight of the fact that, 366 days later, Hamas still holds an estimated 100 hostages.

And yet, despite these dark tidings, October 7 also serves as our reminder that, in the end, any attempt to exterminate the apple of God’s eye (Zechariah 2:8) is futile and foolish. God will not suffer His people to fail. No matter what Satan may do to suppress them, the Jewish people will rise again.

God’s Word says it. History confirms it. And once again, we are watching it play out before our very eyes.