Ezekiel and the power of trees

"But you, O mountains of Israel, you will put forth your branches and bear your fruit for My people Israel; for they will soon come. 'For, behold, I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you will be cultivated and sown" (Ezekiel 36:8-9).

We tend to view history through our own eyes and within the times we live. Today, we can see videos of the land of Israel as a thriving region of cities, high-tech, farmland and hills in the north, and creativity coming to life in the southern Negev desert. We so quickly forget that this same land, only 100 years ago, wasn’t that way.

After the British victory in Palestine in World War I, British and American developers flooded the region by the 1930s, looking to improve the quality of life. This is what they discovered:

“We found it inhabited by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria...Large areas...were uncultivated... (Lewis French, British Director of Development writing of Palestine in The Hope-Simpson Report, London, 1930).

Walter Lowdermilk, representative of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service and respected author on global natural resources, traveled in the Middle East in during 1938-39. He described the land in biblical times as having rich red earth, terraces, and forested hillsides. These, he said, were stripped of their topsoil as desert Arabs cut down the trees, leaving the country:

“…a desert land with no one to till the soil...” In his book, Palestine Land of Promise, Lowdermilk concluded: “The decay of Palestine reached its darkest stage in the four hundred years of Turkish rule, from 1517 to 1918.”

Some 2,600 years ago, Ezekiel was told to prophesy to the desolate land of Israel and he told the land that it will again revive and produce for the people of Israel. Today, we can see the dramatic change when comparing images before and after the State of Israel was declared. Furthermore, we can read eyewitness accounts from Jews, Christians and Muslims for the last 2,000 years that verify these reports were nothing new for almost two millennia. Quite simply, the land was forgotten, empty, and an unkept desolation.

As Lowdermilk alluded to, the 400 years of Ottoman rule in the region were particularly devastating. The Ottoman Empire taxed the inhabitants of the already impoverished land based on how many trees were on their property. So, if you were already poor and didn't want to pay taxes, what else would you do but cut down your trees? Add this to extensive deforestation to support the new railway lines and, ecologically, everything changed. Weather patterns changed, massive erosion, animal populations disappeared, topsoil was blown or washed away. Much of what was left was deserts and swamps. That is exactly what Jewish leaders said 'Yes' to in the 1948 partition plan.

Yet, things were changing. In the verse above, the first command that Ezekiel speaks to the trees is to “put forth your branches.” Ironically, this is exactly how the changes began in the early 1900s, when the Jewish National Fund (JNF) began planting trees in Palestine that had been decimated by the Ottoman taxation of trees.

Since that time, JNF has planted more than 240 million trees all over the State of Israel, providing luscious belts of green covering more than 250,000 acres." Every Israeli forest, orchard and vineyard that we now see in the land was planted by hand in the last 100 years. The growth continues even today.

From these efforts, topsoil was naturally recreated, erosion was reduced, animal life emerged, fragile ecosystems were strengthened and weather patterns were soon affected over the region, including the gradual increase of steady seasonal rains. Perhaps even more amazing is that Israel became one of only two countries in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees. Today, Israel is one of the only places on earth where deserts are shrinking rather than expanding. You simply need to see it.

Excerpts from this article are taken from my best-selling book Israel Rising, where you can read Ezekiel’s prophecy and then see these incredible before/after transformations in the landscape, as well as read the historical eyewitness accounts from the land over the last two thousand years. 

Today we’re living in the midst of a stunning ecological restoration, one that we so quickly forget about while enjoying the current prosperity. A desolate and forgotten region of swamps and deserts for hundreds and hundreds of years has been transformed in a couple of generations and is now supporting a thriving homeland of millions, not to mention exporting flowers and produce around the world. No other nation, region or ancient people group in all of history can make such a claim.

Today, this same land is still growing and producing… as should our faith in knowing that we are living in the time that God told us about 2,600 years ago.