@RealThomSieloff@Simi_2210_ Ha! I appreciate your observation, but British English uses the term "jumper" for what we call "sweater" in American English.
A lot of words on Israel and the bible. I wonder if I'll ever read it all? Well, at least I'll know where to find it if I decide I want to finish reading it...
DOES THE BIBLE SAY THAT GOD WILL BLESS THOSE WHO BLESS ISRAEL?
Tucker Carlson has made something of a hobby out of mocking the idea that God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse her. When Senator Ted Cruz could not cite the verse on the spot, Carlson declared victory in what became a viral moment for him. But winning a theological debate on a technicality against a non-theologian is not the same as being right. Let us look at what the Bible actually teaches — and then let the history books add their own testimony.
THE FOUNDATIONAL PROMISE
The foundational passage is Genesis 12:1–3. God speaks to Abraham and declares,
"I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Tucker’s counter-argument is essentially: fine, that was a promise to Abraham personally, and Abraham is dead, so case closed, or maybe, that was a promise to the future church! But this reading does violence to the entire arc of Scripture.
A DYNASTY PROMISE, NOT A ONE-MAN DEAL
Any serious Old Testament scholar understands that the Abrahamic covenant was not a one-man arrangement — it was a dynasty promise. The covenant God made with Abraham and later reaffirmed with Isaac and Jacob is of transcendent significance, containing promises that were explicitly everlasting — even through “a thousand generations” (Psalm 105:8–11). The Lord reaffirmed through oath His commitment to bless Abraham and his seed — understood as the corporate physical progeny (meaning his actual physical descendants) — and the covenant came through Isaac and Jacob as well.[1]
The Scripture makes this extension of the covenant unmistakable. When God appears to Isaac in Genesis 26:3–4, He says:
"Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed."
The same covenant. The same nations. Now addressed to the next physical generation.
Then God reaffirms it again to Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28:13–14:
"I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed."
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob — three generations, one unbroken covenant.
Psalm 105:8–11 seals the case:
“He REMEMBERS his covenant FOVEVER, the word that he commanded, for A THOUSAND GENERATIONS, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an EVERLASTING COVENANT, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.’”
This is not a personal promise to one man. It is a covenant made to Abraham, renewed to Isaac, confirmed to Jacob, and declared everlasting to the nation of Israel.
BALAAM AND THE BLESSING OF THE NATIONS
Most strikingly, in Numbers 24, a pagan diviner named Balaam is hired by the Moabite king Balak specifically to curse Israel. But what came out of Balaam’s mouth instead of a curse was this: “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you”— spoken over the twelve physical tribes of Jacob wandering in the wilderness.[2]
Commentators note that Balaam’s blessing formula deliberately echoes the original words of Genesis 12:3 and Isaac’s blessing of Jacob — confirming the assurance of divine favor to the righteous and their seed forever.[3] By Numbers 24, Abraham has been dead for centuries. But the blessing-and-cursing principle is applied without hesitation to the living nation of his descendants. Tucker's argument — that the modern nation of Israel (which DNA proves are the descendants of the Israelites) has no connection to the biblical promises — cannot survive contact with the text.
NOTE: I do not believe that the modern nation of Israel is guiltless or should not be held accountable like any other nation. Wherever there is injustice, it should be called out. But that also means in Russia, which attacked Ukraine without cause, and in Iran, where 50,000 citizens have been murdered for protesting. It seems that people like Tucker are fixated on Israel's sins while making excuses for the Islamic world. What the Bible teaches is that believers should contend for Israel's salvation in order to provoke her to jealousy (Romans 11:11). That doesn't mean unquestioned support and no accountability.
THE CHURCH IN GENESIS 12
Before we turn to history, a reasonable question must be answered: what about the Church? If the Abrahamic covenant extends to Israel as a nation, where do Gentile believers fit in? The answer is not complicated — it is actually hiding in plain sight in Genesis 12 itself.
God makes two distinct promises to Abraham in those opening verses. First, He says He will make Abraham into a great nation — that is, Israel, the physical descendants through Isaac and Jacob. But then God says something broader: "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Those are two different things. One is a nation. The other is the multitude of nations. The promise is not either/or — it is both/and. Israel is the vehicle through which the universal blessing travels. This is why God changes Abram’s name to Abraham in Genesis 17 to indicate that he will be the father of a multitude of nations.
And we know exactly what that blessing is. Paul makes it explicit in Galatians 3:8, where he quotes Genesis 12:3 and says that God was preaching the gospel in advance to Abraham — that through his seed, meaning, ultimately, the Messiah Jesus, all nations would be blessed with salvation. So the Church is not in competition with Israel in Genesis 12. The Church is the fulfillment of the second half of the promise. Gentiles who believe in Jesus are the "all the families of the earth" God was already talking about when He first spoke to Abraham. That does not cancel the covenant with the nation of Israel — it completes the picture.
NOW, LET THE HISTORY SPEAK
In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, expressing its support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine — an act many believe represented divine favor at work, and which historians describe as among the last great acts of the British Empire.[4] Britain was then the world’s dominant superpower, controlling roughly a quarter of the earth’s landmass. It was said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” because it had lands all over the globe. For several decades, under leaders with strong evangelical sensibilities, Britain had championed Jewish restoration to their ancient homeland.
Then Britain turned.
In May 1939, the British government issued the White Paper, heavily favoring Arab demands: it limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 over five years, ended Jewish land purchases, and effectively declared that Britain had fulfilled its obligations to the Jewish people — closing the Holy Land’s doors even as Jews were fleeing Nazi persecution across Europe.[5] It was a breathtaking betrayal, and it came precisely when the Jewish people needed refuge most.
The timeline of what followed is striking. In 1940, the British Empire still contained a quarter of the world’s population and a fifth of its landmass. Yet within the following two decades, more than twenty British territories gained independence, and by 1980, only a handful remained under British control.[6] The sun, so to speak, began setting on the empire almost immediately after Britain slammed the door on the Jewish people.
Meanwhile, the United States stepped into the void. America had long been shaped by a deep biblical heritage and a Puritan identification with Israel’s story. America championed the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948 — Harry Truman, himself a student of Scripture, recognized Israel eleven minutes after independence was declared at 9 AM EST on May 14. In the decades that followed, the United States became the undisputed dominant world power in every category: economic, military, cultural, and technological. For nearly a century now, no nation on earth has come close.
ANECDOTE OR EVIDENCE?
The cynic will note that empires rise and fall for many reasons — wars, economics, nationalism. That is true, and no honest theologian claims the blessing-and-cursing principle operates as a simple vending machine. But the trajectory is undeniable. The nation that championed Jewish restoration rose to global preeminence. The nation that betrayed the Jewish people and locked them out of their homeland as the Holocaust unfolded lost its empire within a generation.
That is not merely anecdote. That is a pattern consistent with what the Scripture promises — a promise that did not die with Abraham, but was passed to his seed, renewed through Isaac and Jacob, reaffirmed through a pagan prophet named Balaam, and written across the history of nations ever since.
Tucker Carlson is free to dismiss that pattern. But dismissing it does not make it disappear.
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@RobProvince He made his fortune shorting currencies. Known as the man who crashed the Bank of England. Crashing the American dollar is his Moby Dick, and he’ll do anything to crash it including getting insane commies elected. It’s profit motivated.
Thanks for attending my TED Talk
Delcy Rodríguez, the "acting" president of Venezuela has declared a state of emergency.
What you are watching from Venezuela is more than a natural disaster story. It is a governance autopsy.
Hundreds are confirmed dead and the real toll is rising because no one is coming to rescue those still trapped in the rubble.
Let's break it down: Twin 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes. Buildings collapsed in Caracas and neighboring cities.
And where are the ambulances?
Where are the fire trucks?
Where is the state?
There are no emergency services. Because there is no state. There is only a criminal enterprise that wears a costume. The state built a machinery to repress. Silence. Torture. Kill. Not to rescue.
To every American businessperson who has traveled to Caracas in the last few months, met with Delcy Rodríguez, signed deals, convinced themselves that "things are changing" and that engagement is pragmatic. This is for you…
For those who believe the American government fiction that "everything is going great" with Delcy…. you are watching your thesis collapse in real time, under rubble, with no one coming to help.
The fiction that Venezuela is "open for business" exists for one reason: Delcy and her brother Jorge need your money, your legitimacy, and your silence. They have no intention of reforming. They respond that they just "don't know" when elections will take place. They have no intention of being held accountable for the billions looted, the political prisoners disappeared, the diaspora of more than eight million people. They need you as props. They need you to keep telling Washington that things are "great!" And that Delcy is exactly what Venezuela needs right now to "stabilize" and "reform."
What this earthquake reveals, as every crisis in Venezuela reveals, is that Maduro and his cronies hollowed out every institution. PDVSA. The hospitals. The fire departments. Civil defense. Emergency services. All of it stripped to the bone and the proceeds wired offshore.
The death toll will be much higher precisely because of what the people now in power did over the last 25 years.
Let's be clear: The people dying tonight and in the next few days under collapsed buildings in Caracas are not dying because of an earthquake. They are dying because of 25 years of systematic looting by the same people now issuing press releases about a "state of emergency." Because they're wholly unprepared. Because they looted everything. Did away with talent. And on top of all of this have zero empathy or motivation to help anyone but themselves. They didn’t care about millions of people fleeing into a jungle and walking hundreds of miles to freedom. Why would they care about survivors of this natural disaster?
The media locally isn't reporting or showing the images of the devastation. They're terrified of upsetting the dictatorship.
And tonight:
Not a firefighter in sight. Not an ambulance in sight. Just cameras, and Delcy, and the performance of governance where none exists.
Those businesspeople were warned. The Venezuelans who fled told you. The human rights organizations told you. The evidence was always there.
Now you have photographs.
RESPONSE TO @POTUS
Mr. President,
Yesterday you stated the following:
“Outside of the earthquake, the people are happy and dancing in the streets.”
This is neither right nor fitting at this moment. Many of us are genuinely grateful for what you did to put Maduro and his wife where they belong, and for the scale of the relief effort @DeptofWar and @StateDept, among other U.S. actors, are mounting for the hundreds of thousands devastated by the June 24th earthquakes in Venezuela. But the self-centered, ill-informed boasting is not appreciated. No one is dancing in the streets. They are digging through rubble, burying their dead, and searching for the missing. Millions of people in Venezuela have seen little change since the brilliant military operation that removed Maduro from power. Today, the future looks even more bleak. Twenty-seven years of corrupt rule have resulted in thousands of deaths due to the country’s lack of essential readiness and infrastructure, especially in an earthquake-prone region.
Your standing, and that of the country that elected you, is not served by this. Constant mischaracterization of conditions on the ground, scant transparency over the management of oil and mineral flows, and excessive praise for an interim arrangement most Venezuelans never chose and do not trust will, sooner or later, negate the good you have done..
Please stop caricaturing a crisis that remains deadly, painful, and dangerously unresolved.
@usafirstlab Why do you keep pushing something that no one but you wants? Read the "room." Do not FU the beautiful barrier islands off the coast of GA.
@Thefactsdude He's not wrong. I've received two tickets that were not mine, but were my car - same location. My husband caused one. My sister, the other.