There are those in Christendom who teach that the Israel of the Bible has been spiritualised. They say the Church is the new Israel. They may overlook this exchange between Jesus and his first disciples:
When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this [...]
They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man’s, shall he return unto her again? … yet return again to me, saith the LORD.
And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill [...]
To my knowledge the word ‘Jews’ is first used in the Scriptures more than two centuries after the division of the kingdom when Ahaz was King of Judah and Pekah was King of Israel. It appears in this passage:
Then Rezin king of Syria and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to [...]
A foretaste of the division occurred when David was made King of Judah and a separate King of the rest of Israel was crowned following the slaying of King Saul. David later became king of all Israel.
David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years.
In Hebron he reigned [...]
Judah and Joseph were two of Israel’s twelve sons. Israel was previously named Jacob and shortly before his death he named Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh as his own. He subsequently made certain prophecies concerning Judah and also concerning Ephraim and Manasseh. Those prophecies and the covenant later made by God with King David all [...]
