by Dwight A. Pryor
THE AMERICAN MEDIA recently excoriated Pastor John Hagee as an anti-Semite for teaching that God caused the Holocaust of six million Jews by sending the “hunter” Adolph Hitler to destroy them. In fact, no more faithful friend of Israel can be found among Evangelical leaders than Hagee, who has raised millions of dollars for humanitarian Jewish causes.
Pastor Hagee’s stand in support of Israel, however, is on much firmer ground than his interpretation of the “fishers and hunters” of Jeremiah 16:16. In an audio recording excerpted on YouTube, Hagee teaches that the modern State of Israel is the prophetic fulfillment of Ezekiel 37’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones raised to life. And how did God get the Jewish people back to the land? Hagee states, “The answer is given in Jeremiah 16, verse 15 and following: the answer is fishers and hunters.”
[15] “… For I will bring [the people of Israel] back to their own land that I gave to their fathers.” [16] “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And then I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill … [17] For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from me, nor is their iniquity concealed from my eyes.”
Hagee (like the Father of American Dispensationalism before him, Rev. C.I. Scofield) links the first half of verse 16 – the “fishers” – with the promise of verse 15; but links the second half of verse 16 – the “hunters” – with the warning of verses 17-18.
Theodor Hertzl according to Hagee was a “fisher” because he tried to “bait” or entice the Jews of Europe to move to the land of Israel. “Those who did, founded Israel; those who did not, went through the hell of the Holocaust.” Hitler, by contrast, was a “hunter” sent by God. Why did the Almighty allow the Holocaust to happen? “Because God said, ‘My top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel.’
”ASIDE FROM THE THORNY theological quandaries his view poses, is Hagee’s application of “fishers and hunters” really consistent with the original context and prophetic setting of Jeremiah 16? Here are three reasons I would argue that it is not.
First, Jeremiah 16:1-18 is a prophetic condemnation of Israel’s iniquity and idolatry. As is common in such utterances, promises of return and restoration are sometimes interwoven right in the middle of words of judgment and condemnation. (See, e.g., how Micah’s caustic warnings throughout chapters 2-3 are intersected by the prophetic promise of 2:12-13.) Verses 14-15 are such a prophetic ellipsis for Jeremiah. Therefore verse 16, regarding “fishers and hunters,” should be read as continuing the warnings of verses 1-13, not as fulfilling the promise of verse 15.
Second, the “fishers and hunters” imagery in Jeremiah 16 is classic Hebrew parallelism – saying the same thing in different but complementary ways. Like saying the Word of God is “a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Fishers and hunters both are instruments of God’s judgment! Israel does not have a choice between fishers or hunters; rather fishersand hunters will be sent against them. As God’s agents they will scour land and sea to punish the idolatrous Jewish people Jeremiah warns.
Third, these prophesied “fishers and hunters” proved to be the Babylonians. All scholarly commentaries recognize this, with some suggesting that the figurative language points to the two deportations in 598 and 587 B.C. Following the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70, Jewish commentators sometimes suggested that the “fishers” were the Babylonians and the “hunters” were the Romans. But always the two together are seen as agents of God’s judgment.
The erroneous contrast between “fishers and hunters” has caught the imagination of many Christian Zionists in recent decades. For example, some Christians assisting Jews from Eastern Europe in making aliya to Israel believe they are doing the work of “fishers” (and thereby sparing them from future “hunters”). Like Pastor Hagee, their efforts on behalf of Israel are certainly commendable. But in neither case is the use of Jeremiah 16:16 appropriate.
(My thanks to David Bivin of jerusalemperspective.org for assistance with this article.)
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Want to study this subject in-depth? We recommend Christian Anti-Semitism in Historical Perspective.
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