God's Blessing Through Israel Proven True: A People and Ideology of Great Positive Impact

I/W: 2023 General

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.” Genesis 12:3

Introduction

This post will look at how God’s blessing through Israel has come true and how the ideology brought through them has had great positive impact.

The above verse is God speaking to Abraham and referring to the seed of Israel, that came through his son Isaac, and the larger house of Israel. The angel of the Lord at a later time says to Abraham that in his offspring the nations of the earth will be blessed and at an earlier time God says he will bless Sarah (Ge 17:15-16, 22:18). This blessing has come to pass, continues to, and the full blessing to come from Israel is yet to be achieved. The blessing they pass on partly comes from that Israel is God’s firstborn son, in God’s own words (ex 4:22). Isaac was born due to God’s intervention, and the blessing God gave stayed with his son Israel. The implication is Isaac is born from Abraham, Sarah, and God’s spirit.

When you read the story of Abraham within its greater context, these things come out clearly. I wrote a longer post that goes over all that and explains it. This post is technically a branch off from that one. (that post isn’t fully completed and posted yet but I will link it here when it’s posted).

In this post, the Jewish people is referring to the Jewish people today, through history, and the ancient Israelites. The sources for referenced statistics are linked at the bottom. They’re external links, so it’s out of my control if they go dead or update over time. The post won’t look at the curse part of the verse, but rather just focus on the blessing.

A Look at the World’s Wealth

Wealth isn’t always a blessing necessarily but more often than not is, as it adds value to a person’s life.

Jewish people comprise 0.2% of the world’s population and it’s estimated they carry around 1.1% of the world’s wealth, over five times more than their population. Christians comprise 31.5% of the world’s population and hold around 55% of the world’s wealth. Christianity has incorporated the Hebrew Bible word for word into their Bible with minor differences in book ordering or books added by select denominations. The Hebrew Bible is near entirely based on the Israelite’s experiences, encompasses writings of their prophets, and was produced and kept by the Israelites. Also, the additional books in the Christian Bible were nearly all or all written by Jewish people and mainly revolve around Jesus who is Jewish.

Side note: The irreligion and other religions demographic in the statistic, which has theists in it that believe in the God of Israel and use the Bible, hold about 35% of the world’s wealth and is made up of about 29% of the world’s population. This could influence the stat in terms of people who use the Bible.

Wealth is pooled for the purpose of this stat but the true nature of wealth is that it’s infinite. The wealth available in the universe is infinite. Yes, wealth can sometimes carry negative connotations, but in the big picture, it’s a good thing, or rather, a great thing. Also, generally, wealth produces more wealth, which is good for everyone (ex. the internet).

Near 75% of the USA consists of people who identify as Christian or Jewish, 1.4% of that, Jewish. The United States tops the chart for highest annual wage by employee by country. Jewish people top the chart for highest median annual household income in the United States. Near half of the world’s Jewry resides in the United States. There’s also the influence of Biblical ideology on the country’s founding which is gotten into more after. Here you see the Jewish people have done well in the US free market, but really, the whole country has done well. Wealth produces wealth. “I will bless those who bless you”. In this case, the nation has recognized the value of the Jewish people and has been blessed in return, from a simplistic standpoint.

Isreal Has Brought Happiness

The 2023 world happiness report ranked Israel 4th for citizen happiness among all the nations of the world. The majority of Israel is Jewish. The top ten countries in the report are majority Christian across the two main sects of Catholicism and Lutheran Protestant Evangelical with a far heavier weight on the latter, Lutheran Protestant Evangelical. The Lutheran movement (and Protestant, Evangelical) is built on the principle of Christians gaining greater access to the Bible. A possible correlation of the more you allow the blessing in, the more you receive it. Catholics do read it too though. The point of the emphasis is on the blessing that has come through the text which came through the house of Israel.

While all the people in these nations illustrated for happiness may not actively use the Bible, it still influences everyday society, as do the people who use it. The same goes for the wealth statistics.

I’d imagine happiness may be something difficult to measure but these are the results of this specific report.

Blessings From the Jewish People on Everyday Society

Outside of teaching who the God of Israel is, the Jewish people have had swashes of positive influences on everyday society which has improved quality of life. This is a brief listing of inventions, innovations, and discoveries that are either wholly accredited to Jewish people or they played an integral part in their discovery or development:

Ballpoint pen, instant camera, camera phone, word-processing computer, mobile phone, video games, Google, jeans, TV remote control, theory of relativity, shopping cart, the laser, microphone, fax machine, sewing machine, vitamins, major Hollywood studios: (Universal, Paramount, Fox, MGM, Warner Bros., and more), voice over internet protocol, USB flash drive, segway, pregnancy test, and many more.

Additionally, they’ve had an abundance of positive influences on varying sectors and fields.

On the topic, the world’s greatest inventions have come out of the United States. This has brought wealth to them but also to the rest of the world. Near half of the world’s Jewry reside in the United States. The country was also founded and built by theists who use the Bible.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Declaration of Independence

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27

That excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, the USA’s founding document, is a cornerstone of it which occurs near its opening. As you can see in the following verse from Genesis, it appears inspired by the Bible. Reading the whole Bible would create more context for sighting inspiration. Referenced verses in the next section are more examples. I believe the term “men” in the excerpt is in reference to “mankind”, a word that occurs in it before and after, substituted to emphasize the individual person as opposed to people as a collective.

Why Is This the Case?

I think it has to do with the implementation of the ideology. The same law applied to everyone along with people being treated well and fairly (Lev 19:34, Lev 24:22, Ex 12:49, Mat 7:12) is a recipe to attract success. Generally, people take more of a liking to when they are treated well versus when they’re treated unfairly or less than others based on some prerequisite, and it makes for happier people in general. Also, it gives everyone an opportunity to bring out their full potential or others’ full potential without some kind of imposed ceiling restricting them. Put simply, it brings out the full potential of earth’s greatest physical asset, the human being.

Proof That at Least Part of Genesis Comes From a Higher Power

The Jewish people having maintained their identity for some 4000 years is a difficult task on its own.About 1 in every 500 people are Jewish today. For a people this small to have this big of a positive impact through history is no coincidence, in my opinion. I can’t see this being predicted some 4000 years ago unless from a higher power or with the help of a higher power. They’re a world minority, so when you compare the size of their footprint in comparison to their size relative to the world’s population, it’s quite amazing. Simply, the prediction of their blessing has come true.

This statement, and it coming to fruition, is proof that at least part of Genesis comes from a higher power. It’s not certain who the author (or authors) is but it was preserved with the Jewish people. It also gives weight to proof for the entire Torah coming from a higher power, as tradition says Moses wrote the Torah. I wrote another post on another Genesis verse that is evidence for the material coming from a higher power too which is linked here:

Genesis 1:26 Is Proof Revelations in the Torah/Genesis Are From a Higher Power

Proof That the God of Israel’s Intervention to Help Has Been Successful

To say the world would be better off if the God of Israel hadn’t made contact is something that can’t be proven or disproven. It’s a hypothetical. What can be done is one can look at the way things are now in the reality everyone lives in. I think the ideology has proven to be effective at bringing out the best of human potential. Not to say other ideologies don’t work necessarily. The point is the God of Israel’s making contact with the intention of helping has been successful, and the success shows his helping is beneficial, and that he was right in making contact.

Yes, all movements that have associated themselves with the God of Israel through history haven’t been 100% straight roads and sunshine, obviously. But the ideology isn’t a magic wand in itself, that you just say you believe it, etc., or whatever, and anything happens. It’s up to the people to implement it properly. Generally, the ideology is discovered through studying the scripture.

As you can see, the blessing is a good thing. It’s a power of higher intelligence and nature who is kind at their core, taking the initiative to endorse a people and bless the world through them. Personally, I think this is even enough to prove that the God of Israel exists. Also that he knows what he’s doing.

Sources

Difference of Hebrew Bible and Old Testament: https://www.bibleodyssey.org/bible-basics/what-is-the-difference-between-the-old-testament-the-tanakh-and-the-hebrew-bible/

Religions by Wealth in the World: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_and_religion#:~:text=According%20to%20a,3%5D%5B4%5D

World Population by Religion Percentage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_religious_populations

Avg Annual Wage by Country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage

median annual household income: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Income_Ranking_by_Religious_Group_-_2000.png

World Happiness Report 2023: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/charted-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world/

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-happiest-countries-2023/

Jewish Inventions, Innovations, and Discoveries: https://aish.com/10-big-jewish-inventions/

https://godtv.com/jewish-inventions/

https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions

USA by Religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States#:~:text=Roughly%2048.9%25%20of%20Americans%20are,the%20world’s%20largest%20Christian%20population.