The Land Of Purple

THE WORDING USED IN SCRIPTURE:

In Biblical terminology, the moniker “eretz Israel” is most prudently interpreted as “land of the Israelites”, NOT “land that IS Israel”.  It would be like saying “eretz Yehudim” [“land of the Judeans”]; which ends up being the same as simply saying “Yehuda” [“Judea”].  In the Hebrew Bible, such nomenclature is also used for Egypt: “eretz Misra-im” [“land of the Egyptians”]; which is the same as simply saying “M-S-R” [“Egypt”].  There is a reason it wasn’t written “eretz M-S-R” [“land that IS Egypt”].  It was only later that Europeans gave that land the Occidental name, “Egypt”, based on the Hellenic label, “[Ai]Gyptos”…which was from the Ancient Greek “a-Kupitiyo” (likely a bastardization of “Copts”).  “M-S-R” was from the Akkadian term for frontier: “Misaru” (later rendered “Musur” by the Assyrians).  (Egyptians themselves referred to their land as K-M-T.)

So how and when did “eretz Israel” become a fashionable onomastic convention for Palestine?  In the last decade of the 18th century, a Hassidic lexicographer in Tiberias, Abraham Kalisker opted to use the locution, “Land Of Israel” for the Holy Land—ostensibly meaning the land of the Jewish people.  (The land ITSELF was not “Israel”; as territory cannot itself be Jewish.)  This moniker seems to have been coined during the era of the Old Yishuv, when early calls for “aliyah” began—as exemplified by the writings of the Ashkenazi rabbi, Nathan Shapira of Krakow (notably, his “The Goodness Of The Land” c. 1654).  Shapira predicted that by time the Messia[c]h arrived, there would eventually be as many as 7,000 Jews in Jerusalem—that is: as a result of the in-gathering of Beth Israel over the course of the coming epoch.  (That was considered a Romantic vision at the time.  Little would he have imagined.)  Even so, “eretz Israel” did not really catch on until the advent of Revisionist Zionism—as it became an ideologically-charged label.

The fact that “Israel” refers to a people, not to a place, is confirmed over and over again throughout the Hebrew Bible. In reference to the Hebrews coming out of Egypt, we are told: “The Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness for forty years” (Numbers 32:13). This makes crystal clear that “Israel” did not refer to a particular tract of land; and that the earliest Hebrew community was known as “Israel” even when they were not in the Levant. The Abrahamic deity’s anger was not directed at a place; it was directed at a people. (Recall that until the Exodus, “Israel” was in Egypt.)

First Samuel 13:13 mentions establishing a kingdom [“mamlakah” / “malkut”] OVER Israel; not IN Israel (that is: over a people; not in a specific place). And that is precisely what David–followed by Solomon–did. To suppose that such a historical event–assuming it to be true–somehow warrants the establishment of a “medinat ha-Halakha” (Halakhic regime) TODAY is bonkers. This is especially the case if one claims to be interested in democracy (which is, it should go without saying, mutually exclusive with theocracy). After all, a democratic ethno-state is an oxymoron–irrespective of what the designated ethnicity might be.

So how did Judaic scripture refer to the Levant? As mentioned above, the favored terms were the “land of Canaan” and the “Land of Promise”. Otherwise, it was described in terms of geo-political features (as in Genesis 15:18 and Exodus 23:31)…or in vague terms like “the place where you stand” and “the land that you see” (as in Genesis 13:14).

It would later be referred to as “Jud[a]ea”, the area that corresponded with the southern kingdom [“mamlakah”] of “Judah”. (It is another irony that “Judah” was named after one of Jacob’s sons, and thus one of the brothers who deceived “Yisra-El” by faking Joseph’s death.) The alternate name for Judea is very revealing: “Eretz Yehuda” [Land of the Jews]. In other words, solely JUDEA was seen as a land affiliated with Jewish people; as that is where the Judaic kingdom (Judah) had been located. The northern portion of Canaan (“Shomron”), associated with the pagan KINGDOM OF Israel, was referred to as “Eretz Haggalil”. Thus “land of Yehuda” was held in contradistinction to “land of Haggalil”.

To recapitulate: From the earliest days of Abrahamic theology, “Israel” was a people, not a place. This is further illustrated by the use of the phrase “Beit Yisra-El” [alt. “Beth Israel”] throughout the Hebrew Bible. The moniker simply means HOUSE OF the anointed tribe (the progeny of Isaac’s son, Jacob; also referred to as the “seed” of Jacob). Note, for example, Exodus 34:27–in which the Abrahamic deity makes a covenant with Moses, and thus with “Israel”. Needless to say, Yahweh was not entering into a contractual agreement with a tract of land. The covenant was with a designated group of people…who, at the time, were not even in the Levant. (!) Meanwhile, when people ALREADY WERE in the “Promised Land”, interlocutors are told to “report everything you see HERE. Report it to whom? Well, to the House of Israel” (Ezekiel 40:3-4).

Thus: “Israel” was brought to Egypt by Joseph; “Israel” was IN Egypt until Moses led it out; and “Israel” wandered in the wilderness (i.e. Sinai and Negev deserts) for forty years. Later, much of “Israel” would operate in the Talmudic academies of Mesopotamia, and end up residing BACK IN Egypt (and eventually across the Mediterranean basin) during Late Antiquity.

Is there ANY phraseology that might indicate “Israel” was used in another sense? Indeed, there are some places where we read that something happened “in Israel” (a locution that crops up in various translations). When it comes to this particular phrasing, though, the “in” simply means “amongst” (i.e. in a polis, not in a place). In Leviticus, for example, we hear about the foreigners who live AMONGST Israel…which is sometimes translated as “in Israel”. Thus it could be read “in the House of Israel” (that is to say: within a certain body of people). In the Torah, that locution is used in several places:

• Genesis 34:7
• Deuteronomy 17:4, 22:21, 25:7, and 34:10
• Leviticus 20:2, 22:18, and 23:42
• Numbers 1:3, 3:13, 18:21, 23:21, and 26:2

We know that “amongst the Israelites” is the meaning of this locution because, in most of these situations, the Hebrews are not even in Canaan. (!) In other words: things are occurring in their midst…even as we are told that things are happening to those “in Israel”. Genesis 49:7 illustrates the meaning of the locution most vividly, as it speaks of dividing people IN JACOB (that is: dividing the progeny of Jacob). Psalm 78 explicitly equates “in Israel” with “in Jacob” (verse 5). This locution continued to be used in this manner in Deuterocanonical sources–as in, say, First Maccabees 9:27.

In the rest of the Hebrew Bible, the locution occurs in various places. Here are some of the more notable–many of which are used in situations before the KINGDOM OF “Israel” even existed:

• Joshua 6:25 and 7:15
• Judges 3:1, 5:2-11, 17:6, 18:1/19, 19:1, 20:6/10, and 21:3/25
• First Samuel 3:11, 14:45, 17:25/46, 18:18, and 26:15
• Second Samuel 3:38, 13:12-13, 15:2, 19:22, and 20:19
• First Kings 14:10
• Second Kings 5:8/15 and 6:12
• First Chronicles 12:40 and 16:3
• Second Chronicles 24:16, 34:33, and 35:18/25
• Isaiah 8:18
• Jeremiah 29:23 and 32:20
• Ezekiel 12:23, 14:7, 18:2-3, 33:11, and 36:17
• Ezra 4:3/10 and 8:29

…as well as the opening verse of Psalms 76 and 78. In each case, “in” means “amongst” (that is: within a body of people, not at a place). The fact that every instance of this locution occurs prior to First Kings (thus referring to a time that antedates the establishment of a united kingdom under David that was dubbed “Israel”) attests to the moniker’s original denotation.

Such legerdemain is not uncommon. In fact, disingenuous translators of the New Testament pulled the same stunt in reverse. The original version of Luke 17:21 stated that “The Kingdom of god is within you”, but was rendered “…AMONG you”. (That bit of hermeneutic chicanery hinged on the Greek term, “entos”.)

Hence when a person is said to have been “in” Israel, it can be read as “from amongst” Israel.  Deuteronomy 34:10 states that, since Moses, there did not arise any other prophets “in Israel” (as of that point in time).  Moses never made it to the Promised Land, yet he was “in Israel”.  Clearly, this was referring to prophets arising from amongst a group of people, not in a particular place.

Bottom line: Israel was a people, not a place.  In Psalm 105:23, we are told that “Israel” came to the land of Egypt.  In the passage, this is equated with saying that (the seed of) Jacob went to the land of (the seed of) Ham.  In the Book of Judges (chapters 11 and 12), Jepht[h]ah states that “Israel” (i.e. the 12+1 tribes that formed from Jacob’s progeny) had already occupied the land-in-question for several centuries by the time David ascended to the throne (11:26).  It would have made no sense to say that Israel had occupied…Israel.  These proto-Hebrews lived in proximity to the Assyrians, Amorites, Philistines, Egyptians, and other ethnic groups in Canaan.  There was no “Israel” qua place for anyone to live.  According to the Torah, “Israel” once resided in the land of Goshen (northeastern Egypt) in the 2nd millennium B.C.

Bear in mind, Jewish lore was inaugurated in Babylon (Mesopotamia) during the Exilic Period.

There are other instances where the “in” is used instead of “for” or “throughout”. In such cases, the translation “in Israel” is misleading, as it insinuates a location rather than a body of people. This happens in Judges 6:4. Note, though, that we are immediately thereafter told that “the rest of Israel was sent back to their own tents” (7:8). Clearly, it is used to refer to a community (that is: to a group of people).

We encounter a similar problem with the locution “all Israel”, which means EVERYONE in Israel (qua group of people), not EVERYWHERE in Israel (qua tract of land). Such phrasing pertains to all denizens of Beth Israel rather than to the entirety of a particular tract of land.

There are some other explanations for the use of the locution, “in Israel”:

• The preposition “in” is used instead of “over”. This happens in Deuteronomy 17:20, First Kings 18:36, and Micah 5:2. Note, though, that “over” is often used where it IS supposed to be–as in, say, Second Samuel 19:22 and Ecclesiastes 1:12. This indicates that “over” may have been transplanted with “in” in certain places by unwitting scribes.

• “Israel” is inserted when a location has already been specified after “in”. This happens in Malachi 2:11, where the location is simply Jerusalem.  Hence “Israel” is not used to specify a place.

• Sometimes “Israel” REALLY IS used to refer to a place, but it is referring to the (pagan) KINGDOM OF Israel (as opposed to the Kingdom of Judah). This happens in Deuteronomy 18:6; Numbers 1:45 and 18:14; Judges 19:29 and 20:6; Second Samuel 21:24 and 24:9; First Kings 19:18 and 21:21; Second Kings 1:3-16, throughout chapter 3, and 9:8; Second Chronicles 34:21; and Joshua 11:16-21. Most notable are the passages talking about Elijah, whose escapades occurred in the northern (pagan) kingdom–hence descriptions of him “in Israel”. There, “Israel” is used disparagingly, so is not associated with Judaic heritage.

• And sometimes references are made to the UNIFIED Kingdom of Israel (as it purportedly existed during the reigns of David and Solomon)–as in First Chronicles 21:14, 22:10, and 29:25.

Admittedly, there are a few passages where the use of the locution “in Israel” is somewhat confounding–as in Deuteronomy 17:20 (kingdom in Israel) and 18:6 (dwelling in Israel). Such anachronistic phrasing is peculiar, yet unsurprising considering how late the earliest manuscripts of the Torah occur. Pace the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest codex for the Hebrew Bible, from Damascus, dates only back to c. 1000 A.D. (that is: a millennium and a half after the Exilic Period). The Leningrad codex dates from even later. The Masoretic “Aleppo codex” is from the 10th century A.D.; and does not include the Torah.  Meanwhile, the Masoretic “Ashkar-Gilson” and London codices from the 8th century A.D. contain only a segment of Exodus. (The language of Mesoretic texts, it should be noted, was primarily ARAMAIC.) Over such a tremendously long period of (often-idiosyncratic) transmission, extensive modification could have occurred.  The coming and going of various anachronistic phrasings was inevitable. For example, Deuteronomy 17:20 was most likely “kingdom OF Israel”, while 18:6 was most likely “dwelling AMONGST Israel”.

Additionally, we might note the occurrence of the locution in 39:11, 44:28-29, and 45:8/16 in the Book of Ezekiel, where the wording is somewhat awkward.  This is also likely attributable to scribal snafus. For elsewhere in Ezekiel (33:11), we encounter the exhortation: “Turn from your evil ways; for why will you die, house of Israel?” Clearly, Yahweh was not addressing a kingdom–let alone a nation-State–located in the Levant; he was addressing certain people, wherever they happened to reside. A territorial demarcation cannot turn away from evil ways; nor can it die.  Ezekiel 20:38 refers to the “land of Israel”; yet 36:17 refers to a time when Beth Israel dwelled in “their own land”…rather than referring to when the Jewish people dwelled “in Israel” (that is: when “Israel dwelled in Israel”, which would not have made sense). The point was that the Abrahamic deity bequeathed a tract of land TO Beth Israel. (Where was that promised land? Canaan.)

It’s also worth considering the Biblical passages that specify the geographical boundaries of the Promised Land.  Ezekiel 47:14-21 refers to “the land”, which was to be divided AMONGST Beth Israel.  (Ezekiel 39:28 refers to “their own land”.)  The opening verses of chapter 34 in Numbers refer to “the land of Canaan”.  The opening verses of chapter 15 in the Book of Joshua refer to “the land of Judah”.  All these verses deal with the demarcation of a TERRITORY.  For whom?  For Israel.  (The territory ITSELF is not Israel.)

Another point worth noting: Such Biblical claims can no more be used as justification for geo-political agendas TODAY than, say, claims made in the Nibelungenlied and Völsunga saga by Nordic peoples…or the Iliad and Odyssey by Hellenic peoples…or the Khwaday-Namag and Shahnameh by Persians…or in the Mahabharata and Ramayana by Hindus…or in the Kojiki and Nihon-shoki by the Japanese.  Using ancient lore to justify present-day territorial claims is not only spurious, it is the height of mendacity.

The supposition that “Israel” was meant to refer to a place is further belied by the Song of Solomon, wherein “Israel” is thought of as a bride, wooed by the Abrahamic deity. The authors clearly did not think of Israel as a nation-State (let alone a one that represented the Jewish people). God was enjoining a religious community, not a theocratic regime. This metaphor was used for the Promised Land as well. In Isaiah 62:4, the land bequeathed to the chosen people is said to be the BETROTHED of the chosen people: “Your land shall be called ‘Beulah’ [betrothed].” Obviously, the land itself was not “Israel”; as the land was BETROTHED TO “Israel”. This usage is corroborated in the third verse of the opening chapter of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah equates “Israel” with “my people”.  In fact, the opening verse of the entire book tells us that “Israel” doesn’t know certain things (that is: things that it SHOULD know).  This was an admonishment directed at a people…who, it might be noted, primarily did NOT dwell in the Land of Purple.

Salient passages abound. Also note Isaiah 5:7 (where the House of Israel is equated with the people in the kingdom of Judah) and 9:8/12 (where god’s anger is directed against the followers of Jacob: “Israel”). In 11:12, when declaiming Judaic eschatology, the diaspora is referred to as the “dispersed of [the kingdom of] Judah”, gathered from the four corners of the Earth (when the time would come for the Messiah). In the same passage, these dispersed people are also dubbed the “outcasts of Israel”. (Here, the preposition “of” means “from amongst”.) If “Israel” referred to a territory, it would have instead used the phrasing “exiles from Israel”. (Referring to, say, the “outcasts of Scientology” does not make Scientology a place.) Also in the Book of Isaiah, the Abrahamic deity (as the “Redeemer of Israel”) says of his servant’s mission that he shall “raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the survivors of Israel” so that he might be “a light to the nations” (49:6-7). {12} Needless to say, land cannot be “redeemed” (in the moral sense meant here), nor does land “survive” (in the sense meant here). This is in keeping with the terminology of the Mishnah. In the “Kaddish” prayer, we hear references to “the prayers and supplications of all Yisra-El”, hoping for the salvation “for all Yisra-El”…and “during the lifetimes of all Yisra-El”. That prayer comes from the original Aramaic (which means it uses the idioms of the Mishnaic era).

The question arises: Can LAND commit a sin?  Of course not.  In the Book of Joshua 7:11, god declares that “Israel” sinned against him. {34}  He was referring to a people, not a place.

Another illustration of how the term “Israel” was used in Classical Antiquity is found in the Book of Lamentations, in which the prophet Jeremiah mourns the loss of Jerusalem. Throughout the book, we are told that “Israel” suffered because “Israel” sinned…which is why “Israel” was banished from Canaan. (Places neither sin nor suffer. And it would make no sense to say that “Israel” was banished from “Israel”.) Again, Israel referred to a place, not to a people. {11}

Throughout history, the moniker has pertained to a religious community–wherever it happened to be. Note that the phraseology here involves the simple distinction between:

• “of X”, which is a matter of “belonging to X” (where X is a group) vs.
• “from X”, which is a matter of “hailing from–or being sent out of–X” (where X is a place)

This is why it was not said that “Israel” was going back to “Israel”, as that would not have made any sense. When there IS a land being referred to, it is the referred to in myriad other ways (Canaan, Judea, etc.) The matter at hand was: Where did “Israel” happen to be (and in what spiritual state might it have been)?

Insofar as “Israel” referred to a kingdom, it would have been used in the same sense as “Judah” (as in, say, Jeremiah 30:1-3). However, being as it was pagan, the KINGDOM OF [“mamlakah” / “malku(t)”] “Israel” (i.e. the kingdom in the north, located in Samaria) would not have been the kingdom with which the Hebrews (i.e. the Jewish diaspora) would have identified. NOR would it have been the kingdom with whom they would have been associated by others (at least, not if we are to take Chronicles and the Books of Kings seriously).

Even this northern kingdom–the kingdom of “Israel”–was not always referred to as such, as it was sternly rebuked BY the House of Israel for being pagan. It was, after all, the iniquitous regime against which Amos inveighed. The kingdom to the north was often referred to as “Samaria” (e.g. Hosea 13:16), as that was the name for the part of the region (Canaan) in which it was located. This alternate way of referring the (pagan) kingdom was likely used so as not to cause confusion with the moniker that the Jewish people (the people of Judah) used for themselves: “Israel”.

In sum: The nomenclature here can be rather confusing, as Jacob’s seed (“Yisra-El”) (dwelling primarily on the Judean countryside) did not correspond to what would become the KINGDOM OF [“mamlakah” / “malku(t)”] “Israel” (which was a pagan sovereignty in the land of Samaria).

We might also look to the Biblical prophet, “Hos[h]ea” (not to be confused with the pagan King of Israel by the same name). Hos[h]ea hailed from Galilee, which he would have known as the land of Samaria (and associated with Ephraim). To reiterate: This was the location of the (pagan) Kingdom of Israel.

The nomenclature is complicated for other reasons. The NATION of “Israel” [“ahm Yisrael”] was yet another phrase. It referred to those who worshipped the Abrahamic deity (i.e. the Hebrews) regardless of where they happened to be. Thus “ahm Yisra-El” was synonymous with “Beit Yisra-El” (the House of Israel). The nation IS the house; the house IS the nation; and it exists irrespective of its distribution across the planet. However, EVEN THAT is inconsistent, as the Jewish people are elsewhere described as people hailing from different “nations” (note Acts 2:5 in the New Testament). It makes no sense to say that a nation comes from different nations; so “nation” was used in two difference senses (as a tribe and as a country). It should be noted here that the idiomatic use of the world’s Jewish people as a “nation” (people with a shared provenance) should not be confused with the modern conception of a “nation” (a sovereign State with discrete territory). Thus a “nation” in the former sense may be said to live in several different “nations” in the latter sense. {13}

And so it went that “ahm Yisrael”–as with the more familiar term, “Beth Israel”–simply referred to the world’s Jewish people, who were initially defined as the progeny of Jacob (i.e. all Hebrews)…a label that eventually came to refer to anyone who honored Mosaic law, irrespective of ancestry or location,  Throughout the Hebrew Bible, “Israel” is described as a nation AMONG nations…located IN Canaan (alt. Judea).  To pretend that this was meant as a prescription for a modern nation-State is nothing short of mendacious.  We might note that all the other tribes in Canaan were ALSO nations amidst other nations.  It does not follow from that fact that there is now warrant for a political regime based on any one of them.

Tribal distinctions from the Iron Age are as irrelevant to the geo-political prudence as are that era’s various legends.  Scriptural justification is an oxymoron: nothing is justified by any given tribe’s sacred texts, as nobody else has any obligation whatsoever to recognize one group’s myths.

So the onomastics here is plain to see.  Beth Israel is the diaspora. The diaspora is Beth Israel. Until the advent of Revisionist Zionism, the idea was always that a diaspora was united not physically, but by a shared Faith (that is: devotion to the same god, who was recognized above all other gods) and fealty to a common (Mosaic) law. What they had in common, then, was not necessarily bloodlines or homeland, but worship of the Abrahamic deity (and dedication to a shared creed). After all, the spirit of the Abrahamic deity (“Rua[c]h ha-Kodesh”; “Holy Spirit”) pervades the entire world. {14}

There’s another catch. Not all Israelites turned out to be Jewish (i.e. part of Beth Israel). Of the 12+1 tribes of which the Israelites were originally comprised, only those of Judah and Benjamin–plus the priestly class [kohen-im] from the tribe of Levi (spec. in the tradition of Aaron)–were explicitly Judaic. {5} In a sense, then, it would have been more accurate to refer to those subscribing to Judaic creed as “Judah-ites”, not as “Israel-ites”. {9} For it was the former who were denizens of the kingdom that was intermittently Judaic: that of Judah. {3}

Due to the fact that “Yisra-El” referred to Jacob’s seed (and was also the name of the UNIFIED kingdom under David and Solomon), this taxonomic glitch was un-avoidable.

In Second Isaiah, we can see that the Jewish people fashioned themselves as “a light to all nations” rather than as a literal nation-State located on a specific tract of land. Thus “Beth Israel” was concomitant with a potpourri of nationalities. It was not itself a nationality in the modern sense of the term “nation” (that is: a sovereign State with dominion over a specific territory). The community to which “Israel” referred, then, was defined by a shared Grand Narrative–and most explicitly: a shared fealty to the Abrahamic deity, and commitment to Mosaic law.

Even then, this identity was expressed in a variety of ways–each concomitant with the local culture. This is simply to say that the fealty was shared amongst a melange of ethnicities. Beth Israel was comprised of disparate groups that were scattered across various “homelands”–from Andalusia and the Maghreb to Arabia and Mesopotamia (and even into Persia). In terms of nomenclature, each ethnic group was often known by the land in which it resided; and so took on a distinct identity (replete with its own signature culture–heritage, customs, language, etc.) Hence the “Sephardim” of the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb…as opposed to the “Mizra[c]him” of the Levant and Mesopotamia. Later, there would even be the “Ashkenazim” of eastern Europe.

This has ALWAYS been the case. Indeed, the notion of a Jewish “diaspora” goes back to the Iron Age. Hence the proliferation of encomia to the “dispersed of Judah” who constituted “Beth Israel”. Again, we see that Israel was a people, not a place. Consequently, when authors of ancient texts DID want to refer to the region-in-question, they referred to it as “Judea” / “Judah”–as in Jeremiah 9:10-12. According to the Book of Joshua, chief amongst the peoples of the region that the Hebrews were exhorted to exterminate were the Canaanites [“Kena’anim”]. So even as the “promised land” for the Hebrews was Canaan, it may have caused confusion to refer to this land simply as “Canaan” in certain contexts.

In his landmark book, “The Invention of the Jewish People”, Shlomo Sand noted: “[T]he further we move from religious norms and the more we focus our research on diverse daily practices, the more we discover that there never was a secular ethnographic common denominator between the Jewish believers in Asia, Africa, and Europe. World Jewry had always been a major religious culture [as opposed to a distinct racial demarcation]. Though consisting of various elements, it was not a strange, wandering nation.” That is to say: Beth Israel was comprised of a potpourri of ethnicities, existing in different homelands; it was not a monolithic tribe-in-exile.

Sand continues: “The offspring of the Judaizers [promulgators of the Mosaic creed] around the Mediterranean, in Adiabene, before and after the Common Era, the descendants of the Himyar[ite]s, the Berbers, and Khazars, were linked by the Jewish monotheism that bridged the diverse linguistic-cultural groups which arose in far-flung lands, and followed different historical paths.”

The nebulous moniker “Zion” was sometimes considered a place–as in an oblique reference to the city of David; as it seems to have originally referred to a particular hill located in the city. (I explore this nomenclature in a forthcoming essay on the history of Jerusalem.) It is therefore telling that Psalm 14 reads: “O that deliverance FOR Israel [a people] would come FROM Zion [a place].” It adds: When the Abrahamic deity finally restores the fortunes of his people, “Israel” will be glad. Clearly, Israel is not a place. Tracts of land do not harbor sentiments; and places can not hail from places. Meanwhile, Psalm 147 (verse 2) notifies us that god builds up Jerusalem, where he shall gather together the outcasts of “Israel”: a clear reference to the diaspora (that is: to a group of people, hailing from different lands). Those who are outcast are still part of “Israel”; as they have been cast out FROM JUDEA (a place), not from “Israel” (a global community characterized by fealty to the Abrahamic deity, and a commitment to Mosaic Law).