Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was

When all these things have happened to you, the blessings and the curses that I have set before you, if you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, and you and your children obey him with all your heart and with all your soul, just as I am commanding you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, gathering you again from all the peoples among whom the LORD your God has scattered you. Even if you are exiled to the ends of the world, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will bring you back. The LORD your God will bring you into the land that your ancestors possessed, and you will possess it; he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors.

We see in this text that the idea of the gathering of the people of God presumes that it is scattered among the nations. Among the prophets, in particular, the “gathering of what is scattered,” that is, those in the Diaspora, plays a major role—and always with great theological significance. “Gathering” in many cases becomes almost a soteriological terminus technicus, that is, a fixed concept representing the bringing of salvation. “Gathering” Israel is often parallel to “liberating,” “saving,” “healing,” and “redeeming” Israel. Thus the term acquires a certain independent quality of representing the coming of salvation, even though “gathering from the Diaspora” remains controlling.

It is always God who gathers the people. It is never said that the people will gather themselves. The background is the image of the shepherd who gathers his or her flock and leads them home—and scattered sheep, as we know, cannot gather themselves. The goal of the gathering is a renewed dwelling in the Land. It is true that the gathering of the people of God means more than simply bringing them together. It always means as well that the people will find unity among themselves:

[The LORD] will raise a signal for the nations,

    and will assemble the outcasts of Israel,

and gather the dispersed of Judah

    from the four corners of the earth.

The jealousy of Ephraim shall depart,

    the hostility of Judah shall be cut off;

Ephraim shall not be jealous of Judah,

    and Judah shall not be hostile towards Ephraim. (Isa 11:12-13)

Ephraim here represents the Northern Kingdom, Judah the Southern Kingdom. The division between the northern and southern realms will be healed by the gathering of the people of God. The rivalry of the tribes will come to an end. Gathering from the exile is thus not only being led back into the Land but also the overcoming of the mortal divisions within the people of God itself.

In the postexilic period the gathering of Israel gradually became a central part of the promise of salvation, comparable to the exodus from Egypt, Israel’s primal confession. “With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm” God will lead Israel out from among the nations—as once before out of Egypt. In Jeremiah 23:7-8 we even read:

Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, “As the LORD lives who brought the people of Israel up out of the land of Egypt,” but “As the LORD lives who brought out and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the land of the north and out of all the lands where he had driven them!”

Thus the bringing back of the people from the Diaspora more and more clearly becomes a fundamental statement about God, God’s nature, and the way God acts. This is evident in the relative clausal construction in Isaiah 56:8: “Thus says the Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel.” Here we already find prayer language, a praise of God’s action that has become a fixed formula. In fact, the “gathering of Israel” enters more and more into the inventory of prayer formulae. In Psalm 106:47, Israel prays: “Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from among the nations.” And in the final Hallel, the great conclusion to the book of Psalms, Psalm 147:2-3 reads:

The LORD builds up Jerusalem [anew];

    he gathers the outcasts of Israel.

He heals the brokenhearted,

    and binds up their wounds.

In the Shemoneh Esrei, Israel’s daily prayer, which very probably was composed in the first century CE, that development then came to its conclusion. The tenth petition is: “Sound the great shofar for our freedom and raise a banner to gather our exiles and unite us together from the four corners of the earth. Blessed are You, LORD, who regathers the scattered of His people Israel.”