the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.  If any of thine be driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee.  And the Lord thy God will bring thee unto the Land which thy Fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it, and He will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy Fathers.  And the Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live; and the Lord thy God will put all these curses upon thine enemies, and on them that hate thee, which persecuted thee.  And thou shalt return, and obey the voice of the Lord, and do all his commandments which I command thee this day.” &c.

“What an extent of prophecy, and how firm a faith in the whole of it do we see here! (says Dr. Priestly.) The Israelites were not then in the land of Canaan.  It was occupied by nations far more numerous, and powerful than they; and yet it is distinctly foretold in the 4th ch. that they would soon take possession of it, and multiply in it:  and that afterwards they would offend God by their idolatry, and wickedness, and would in con-sequence of it be driven out of their country; and without being exterminated or lost, be scattered among the nations of the world; that by this dispersion, and their calamities, they would at length be reformed, and restored to the divine favour, and that then (as in the quotation) in the latter days they would be gathered from all nations, and restored to their own country, when they would observe all the laws which were then prescribed to them.  Past history, and present appearances, correspond with such wonderful exactness to what has been fulfilled of this prophecy, that we can have no doubt with respect to the complete accomplishment of what remains to be fulfilled of it.”

What was first announced by Moses, is repeated by Isaiah and other prophets, assuring them of their certain return wherever dispersed, to their own land in the latter days; and that they should have the undisturbed possession of it to the end of time.

It has been objected, that the term “for ever” is not always to be understood in its greatest extant, but is to be interpreted according to circumstances.  This for the sake of saving time I will acknowledge.  But the circumstances in which this phrase is used in the passages already adduced, and in a number of others of similar import which might be adduced, clearly indicate, that it is to be understood in those passages to mean a period as long as the duration of the Israelitish nation, which elsewhere is said to continue to the end of the world.

For this reason, among others, this final return of the Jews from their present dispersed state, cannot at any rate be said to have been accomplished at their return from the Babylonish captivity.

For that captivity was not by any means such a total dispersion of the people among all nations, as Moses, and the later prophets have foretold.  Nor does their possession of the country subsequent to it, at all correspond to that state of peace, and prosperity, which was promised to succeed this final return.