Jerusalem's Prophecy

I find it interesting that when Jeremiah prophesied the first destruction of Jerusalem, he noted that the exile from the land would be seventy years. When Jesus prophesied the fall of Jerusalem late in each of the synoptic gospels, he promised a lot of things, but he never prophesied a rebuilding of the temple or a return from this second exile. Luke's account is most pointed: "They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (TNIV). (NB: "nations" and "Gentiles" are the same word, different case. The Jews are carried to the nations doing the trampling, I would assume.) But there is never a prophecy of a return and reoccupation of Jerusalem by the Jews (or of a temple rebuild).

From a larger perspective, it seems God tells his people what they need to know. The prophets said some cryptic and seemingly unhelpful things, but in retrospect, the prophecy of the return was pretty strong. In fact, there seem to be three returns from where I sit. There's the return to the land, which happened under Cyrus. There's the return of God to his people, which Jesus effected. Then there's the full restoration of creation where God will again dwell fully with people at the end of Isaiah, repeated at the end of Revelation. But there's no return foretold anywhere in Scripture after the temple's second destruction.

I think Jesus' silence on a Jewish reoccupation of Jerusalem is telling. (Note a timetable here: Jesus's prophecies of the destruction of the pretty temple occurred in AD 70. Hadrian overran Jerusalem in AD 135 and banned any Jews from entering it. Jews were only allowed to enter Jerusalem again when it fell under Muslim control in 638.) Should this show us that God is working with a redefined Israel? Jesus rebuilt the nation of Israel around himself. He is the true Jacob, the true Moses, the true Aaron, the true David. He called twelve disciples to be the twelve sons of Israel. He did so much that was symbolic of who he claimed to be, that there is no doubt that the assembly of Jesus followers is the new Israel. (Paul is riddled with this idea too.) Given all of these symbolic actions with explicit statements AND a lack of prophecy of a second return of those who showed themselves to be poser Jews (Pharisees, Saducees, regular Josephs, etc.), why do we keep tearing up the earth to institute something God didn't really intend. (Sure, permissive will or whatever, but God's work is through the body of the new Israel, Jesus.)

It seems that the British agenda in pushing for a Jewish state starting in the twenties has wreaked all manner of havoc in the world. Think of how things would have been different if they hadn't set up the state in 1948. I'm no anti-Semite, and in principle, I'm all for a group of people with a common heritage to have a homeland. Indeed, rabbis over the centuries have longed for and prophesied a resurgence of Judaic practice. But, as a follower of Jesus, I wonder if it was the best thing to push for something that the Bible is silent on. Nothing we can do about it now, except everyone start living like Jesus. Oh, was that the point all along?