Transcript: Biblical Prophecy Fulfilled in Israel: Land of Milk and Honey

Today, on a special edition of Jerusalem Dateline, the desert blooms and prophecy is fulfilled in the land of milk and honey. And the Jewish people are returning to Israel just as the Bible prophesied. Plus, could this be the home of the prophet Elisha? All this and more this week on Jerusalem Dateline. Hello and welcome to this special edition of Jerusalem Dateline. I'm Julie Stahl. Israel is the place where biblical prophecies come to life. Scripture calls Israel the land of milk and honey, and many people may be surprised to learn that's not just an expression. Here's what I discovered a few years ago on a trip to the Arava Desert. In the Bible, God promises the Jewish people a land flowing with milk and honey. And while it's a sign of abundance, it's also literal. In fact, milk and honey is critical. It's used 20 times in scripture. But when the Jewish people returned from 2,000 years in exile, they found a barren desert land. And Orthodox Jewish author Moshe Kempinski says that was all in God's plan. God says, I'm going to do something miraculous. I'm going to create a land that even though those climate issues don't call for it, It's going to be a land that's going to be filled also with dates and honey and also with milk, so that you know that nothing comes here. Nothing in this land comes here except when it's from me. And God has delivered on that promise. We consider leaders in that production of milk in the world. Despite the heat, humidity, and limited resources, the Israeli cow produces more milk per year than cows in the U.S., European Union, and Australia. We keep going up. Ronen Gal manages operations for the dairy at Kibbutz Yotvetah, the largest milking facility of its kind in the country. The milk production in Israel is very clever. It's very high-tech. And what about the honey? Most believe honey in Bible times probably came from date trees, Botanist Dr. Elaine Salloway emigrated from the U.S. and settled not far from Yotvata on Kibbutz Keturah in 1974. Actually, I started out here as the head of the orchard branch. And, of course, that was kind of funny because at that time we didn't have any orchards. So in the first few years, I was responsible for planting them. And the first orchard I planted was the date orchard, which you can see behind us, which is the main agricultural branch of the kibbutz. There are tens of thousands of acres of date trees in Israel. Salaway planted some 3,000 of those trees here. This date orchard is here at Kibbutz Katora in the Arava Desert. Each one of these trees produces about 350 pounds of dates a year. Salaway even managed to sprout a 2,000-year-old date seed found by archaeologists years ago at Masada. Nicknamed Methuselah, the tree is now five years old. Dates and palms were important in the scriptures, and dates from this area were known throughout the ancient world. The Romans had nothing nice to say about the Jews, except that they had good dates. And their emperors actually used to order Judean dates to eat, and there were some very, very good date varieties in that day. They were famous through the known world. Today, Israel's dates are still famous throughout the world. Israel exports some 12,000 tons of dates each year to 20 countries. Now, Salaway is going beyond dates to grow other life in the desert. I'm looking for trees that love to live in the desert, that rejoice to live in the desert, not the ones I have to keep on life support. She found clues in the Bible. Well, the biblical trees, if they grew here in the old days, why shouldn't they grow here now? We reintroduced frankincense and myrrh, which had probably been introduced at the time of King Solomon. According to what we can tell from folktales and from the Bible, there was already an incense and a medicinal tree being cultivated here called the Bomb of Gilead. The frankincense and myrrh brought to Jesus were probably in crystal form like this. According to Kempinski, the revival of trees in the land is the first sign of redemption. Ezekiel 36 says, Matthew, shoot forth your branches, give forth your fruit, because my children are coming home. That's an unusual thing for God to tell a tree. That's what he created a tree to do. Except God is saying, in Leviticus, I said, it's going to be a death of the land when I kick you out. But watch, when I bring my people back home, this land is going to come forth with blossoms and trees and fruits. So, he says, every date you eat and every glass of milk you drink here is like prophecy being fulfilled. Nearly 70 years before the modern state of Israel was reestablished, the Jewish people began returning to their ancient homeland as the prophets had foretold. And they just keep coming. A few years ago, CBN's Scott Ross spoke with some of these new immigrants about why they call Israel home. They come from all over the world to a place many have never been Yet the Jewish people have longed to return to this land for thousands of years I Sarah from France Hi I Dylan from Uruguay I did Aliyah in December. I'm here because I love Israel. Hi, my name is Debbie. I'm from Córdoba, Argentina. I'm Nikita from Russia. Hi, my name is Gadi. I'm from Brooklyn, New York, and I made Aliyah in December. I'm a lawyer in New York, and I'm here because it's the only Jewish state there is. It's called Aliyah, literally going up. Taken from biblical times, the term describes when people went up to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. Now it means immigrating or returning to Israel. You're an American. Yep. Why did you come? It's a beautiful country. I love it here. Yeah, Arizona's beautiful. But it's not Israel. For almost 3,000 years we were disconnected, but we were praying for Jerusalem. So it's really a gathering of exiles, and it continues every day. I spoke with Natan Sharansky, former leader of the Jewish Agency, which oversees bringing the Jewish people home. Sharansky made headlines in the 80s as a political prisoner in the former Soviet Union. International pressure led to his release, and he immigrated to Israel in 1986. I meet with a lot of new immigrants, and I love to be at the airport and to see this moment of them going down from the airplane, because we think that after each of these people, there are at least 50 generations of Jews who are praying and dreaming about coming to Jerusalem. Biblical prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel all spoke of a time when God would bring the Jewish people back to the land of Israel. The prophet Amos says they'll never be dispersed again. Although they're part of a prophetic and exciting journey, immigrants face a whole new world when they arrive. Some of the people left everything. Left the friends, left families, left the smell, the food, the jobs. All the things that they knew, they're coming here and they start a new life. That's why the state works to create a smooth transition. Ziva Avrahami leads Beit Kanada, Opon Etzion, an absorption center in Jerusalem. New immigrants live here free for five months so they can focus on learning Hebrew and living in Israel. We call them the first home in the homeland. They're coming here and they have like a soft landing. They don't need to be afraid for things. We help them to be part of Israel, but step by step. How important is it that they learn Hebrew? The main reason that the people are here in this absorption center is to get to know the language. The Hebrew is the key to the Israeli society. If you want to be part of Israel, if you want to be the leader of this beautiful country, you need to know the language. Upan Etzion is mainly for millennials who have a university degree. You could say it's like a prophetic melting pot. Are there conflicts between them, culturally, socially, adapting and adjusting to one another? Yes. They're different people from different places. The culture is different. The language is different. So to put together 250 young adults in one place, you can imagine what's going here in the evenings. A lot of people are becoming friends for life. Do the majority of them then stay in Israel? The first year and the second year are the hardest ones. And if you survive the two years, people are staying in Israel. This is going to be their home. I spoke with some of the students about their experiences. It's the land of the Jewish people, and that is why I'm here. I want to essentially come home and to be with my fellow Jews and to please God find a Jewish husband. Why did you come? Well, I came to Israel because I feel this is the homeland of the Jewish people. And for the first time in 2,000 years, we have our own homeland, and we can build a prosperous Jewish state. And I think that's very exciting to be a part of. What kind of work would you like to get into? So I studied accounting and finance, so hopefully something in that area. Do you want to get married? Yeah, for sure. That's why I'm here in Israel. There's plenty of beautiful Jewish girls, and let's hope I can find one of them. I asked Sharansky if you thought all the Jewish people need to come home. Our prophets speak about it very clearly, about this grand design of engathering of the people of Israel in the land of Israel. And I want to help the people to make this decision not by giving orders, not by pushing them, even not by shaming them, but simply by giving them the feeling how good it is. Scott Ross for CBN in Jerusalem. them. Coming up, fulfilling prophecy through scientific discovery. The Bible says Israel will be a blessing to all nations. One way that's happening is through life-saving scientific research. The Israeli innovation in our next story could revolutionize how we use stem cells to treat patients around the world. Take a look. Around the world, people are living longer. It is said that people that are born in the 21st century will have a median lifetime of more than 100 years. That brings new challenges to medicine. Dr Shai Yarkoni of Select Biotechnology Limited says his company can help meet those challenges So the 21st century medicine is called regenerative medicine And the idea about regeneration is we move away from fixing with all the adverse effects that are there for the chemotherapy and the antibiotics and all of these issues to replacing them. Stem cells, the body's building blocks, can provide an answer because healing is their main purpose. That's the way we were created. We constantly heal ourselves through the stem cells. They sense death. They know how to get to the area where cells are dying. For them, that's a signal for activity because they go there, they find out what's missing, and they become that tissue. While the medical world sees the potential, an urgent need remains for enough stem cells to conduct mass research that will lead to new treatments. Yarkoni says only Select can provide the enabling tool. We are the first one who took this biological approach and translated into a company with products and business. Thus far, technology has been incapable of isolating stem cells in a cost efficient manner. The process begins in sterile labs like this with fresh or frozen stem cells. They're separated one by one, incubated, and run through a centrifuge, all to get one unit. We took this whole thing, this whole infrastructure, and condensed it into a simple product like this. Inside the bag, a mesh membrane mimics the healing process, basically telling mature cells to die while moving to activate the multiplication of stem cells that carry the healing properties. The physician or the technician takes the cells of the donor or the patient himself, put it in, leave it for two hours of incubation, and that's it. We show that we can work on bone marrow, on fat, on blood, even on cord blood, any adult tissue. According to Yarkoni, products on the market now can take five to six weeks to grow in a lab and can have side effects. But he estimates Select's bags will cost less than 1% of what treatments cost today and be safer to use. Up next, why archaeologists say this could be the home of one of the Bible's most important prophets. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and called fire down from heaven. The prophet Elisha is one of the great figures of the Bible. Chris Mitchell has an exclusive look at the site that could contain Elisha's house. This is Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley. During 16 years of digging, archaeologists uncovered a 3,000-year-old, well-planned city. They also found a unique building that might have been the House of Elisha. The house was full with objects of unique type. Two altars we found there, two pottery altars that were used for burning incense. Lead archaeologist Ami Mazar also points out the difference in the structure of the house. Normally houses have one entrance leading into a large space with rooms all around. This house was divided into two wings. The two wings were connected to one another through the back room. And each one of the wings had an opening towards the street. Outside the room were incense altars, maybe used to make an offering to God, before entering to hear the prophet's message. During the excavation, archaeologists discovered this special room inside the house with a table and a bench inside. They also discovered a pottery shard with the name Elisha on it, dated to the 9th century, which leads some to believe this was the room of the prophet Elisha. We found an ink inscription written in red ink on pottery. It's broken, unfortunately, but we reconstruct the name as Elisha. Elisha was born about seven miles from Tel Rehov and Avel Mahola and went throughout the kingdom of Israel, from Jericho to Samaria to Shunam. I cannot say for sure that this particular Elisha that we found is the biblical Elisha. You know, it's very difficult to say, but it's very tempting because it's exactly the period when Elisha acted, the second half of the ninth century B.C. Elisha the prophet was known for telling the widow to borrow empty pots, fill them with a tiny cruise of oil and sell them to pay her creditors. Raising the Shunammite son from the dead and instructing the Syrian army commander Naaman to wash in the Jordan River seven times to be healed of leprosy. Archaeologist Stephen Fawn calls the evidence compelling. With only six other people by the name of Elisha known in that time for a couple of centuries on either side, we can somehow believe that either there was just the luck that this holy man was also by the name of Elisha, or this was Elisha the prophet himself. Another discovery pointing to Elisha is the discovery of two different inscriptions mentioning the family of Nimshi Remember it was Elijah that was told to anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi to be king He passed that on to Elisha who sent out one of his disciples to finally do the anointing. Many archaeologists shy away from drawing conclusions about the Bible, but some see it as a way of putting the pieces together. Archaeology is like a huge puzzle. We add information from one excavation, a second excavation, a third excavation, Chatzor, Megiddo, Tel Rechov, Bet She'an, Samaria, and together we bring it in into a large picture, a large puzzle, trying to decipher the material culture of the Israelites. For Kerry Summers, who heads Nazareth Village, it's even more. It's like any other archaeological site, in essence, is every scoop of dirt proves the Bible one scoop at a time, and this site is absolutely magnificent. The future of the site is uncertain because its mud bricks are deteriorating. Experts hope, however, it can be preserved to help future generations understand the Bible. Chris Mitchell, CBN News, Tel Rehov, Israel. Coming up, a look at one of the most important biblical holidays, Sukkot. Thank you for watching Jerusalem Dayline. We're committed to providing you with unbiased reporting from the Holy Land. Through weekly broadcasts, podcasts, and online media, our vision is to reach millions around the globe with the true story of what's happening in Israel and the Middle East, all from a biblical and prophetic perspective. This is a big vision and is only made possible by the generous support of people like you. Call us toll free at 1-800-700-7000 or go to CBN.com slash Jerusalem Dateline and make a donation that will help spread the light of truth about Israel throughout the world. This week, Jewish people around the world will follow the biblical command they've kept for thousands of years to live in temporary dwellings during the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot. Let's go inside one of those sukkahs to hear how it brings the Jewish people closer to God. It's an ancient biblical commandment that's still being kept today. Some call it a Jewish camping trip, but with the conveniences of home. Shalom. Welcome. We're so glad to have you here with us in our sukkah. Yes, thank you. We're here in our sukkah, which is really the home away from homes for this whole week of the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot. Like many Israelis and Jewish people around the world, Seth and Teinah Ben Chaim build a sukkah or booth on the back porch of their Jerusalem apartment every year. It helps us remember, first of all, we're commanded to remember the exodus from Egypt and how we needed to wander through the desert for 40 years without permanent dwellings. But it also reminds us that even though we've been brought into the land of Israel, we haven't reached our final destination. So tell us about the sukkah itself. How do you make a sukkah? The main thing is that it's a roof that will make us feel that we're open to the elements. And why is that? Well, because otherwise we'd be in the protection of our homes in some ways. And we're supposed to be in this flimsy tabernacle so that we can remember that ultimately we're under Hashem's protection. Most sukkahs are decorated at least in part by the children. Families eat, sleep, study, and play together in their temporary houses for a whole week. Despite the camping conditions, it's considered a joyful time. And you can focus on the real important things like relationships and just sitting down and studying the Word and talking with the children about God's faithfulness. Jonathan and his sister Rebecca enjoy the holiday so much, Jonathan made his treehouse into a sukkah. This was so cold. This was so cold. And that too. That's very pretty. So you decorated your sukkah up here? Yes. Wow. Another part of the Sukkot celebration, recorded in Leviticus 23, is bringing a special fruit and branches to rejoice before the Lord. We offer them to Hashem, all four of these, in our prayers. Every morning we wave them in many different directions, and we really look to above. And that's what this type of roof helps us remember, too, is we're looking to above because that's where our help is going to come from. That's all for this edition of Jerusalem Dateline. Thanks for joining us. Remember, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. And you can also access CBN content through our CBN News and other CBN apps. And don't forget to sign up for our email blasts so you can continue to receive all of our exciting CBN content. And remember, the God who's watching over Israel and you and me neither slumbers nor sleeps. I'm Julie Stahl. We'll see you next time on Jerusalem Dateline.