Even when God warned Israel that she would be scattered amongst all the nations, He also promised to gather her back to His Land. In the Law He had warned her about the penalty for disobedience:

“And it shall come to pass, when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath driven thee, And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul; That then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee.” (Deuteronomy 30:1-3)

Furthermore, Ezekiel the Prophet, while in captivity in Babylon, assured his fellow captives several times of God’s promise to return them to the Land:

The Knesset’s Menorah sculpture, Jerusalem, Israel

“Therefore say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.” (Ezekiel 11:17)

These promises for regathering Israel were not for the return from Babylon—but a return from “all the countries” at the End Times.

“And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out I will accept you with your sweet savour, when I bring you out from the people, and gather you out of the countries wherein ye have been scattered; and I will be sanctified in you before the heathen.” (Ezekiel 20:34,41)

However, when “all men were in expectation” of the Messiah, Jesus the Messiah did come. But, at that time Israel’s expectation was that their Messiah would release them from the bondage of the Romans. They hoped that the Kingdom with its capital in Jerusalem would be established immediately. But the regathering and establishment of the Kingdom would only be centuries later—after the Great Diaspora—the great scattering during the Christian Gospel Age.

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2:2-4)

Swords into Plowshares Sculpture, United Nations, New York.
Photograph: David Paul Ohmer. Used by permission.