Who was the first Jew?

A man of Judah. The term does not occur until after the division of the kingdom. 2 Kings 16:6; 2 Kings 25:25. It is applied to any one belonging to the two tribes, and it may have been used respecting any of the ten tribes who remained in the land at the captivity or returned thither. The name is principally found in the O.T. in Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Jeremiah. In Esther the name is applied to all the Hebrews in Persia. In the N.T. the name occurs most frequently in the gospel of John, where it is applied to those of Jerusalem and Judaea in distinction from 'the people' who may have been Galileans or visitors from a distance. John speaks of 'the Jews,' 'the Jews' passover,' etc., as though he were not a Jew. They had rejected the Lord, and in spirit John was separate from them.

In the addresses to the seven churches we twice read of those who "say they are Jews, and are not." The name is there used of those claiming to be the people of God by descent, but not so morally, as in another place there are some "who say they are apostles, and are not." Rev. 2:2, 9; Rev. 3:9. In a similar way the Jews prided themselves in being 'sons of Abraham,' whereas, the Lord declared that they were not such morally. The name JEWESS occurs only in Acts 16:1; Acts 24:24.

But God promised to Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish race, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. This promise will be carried out to the letter. Let us see how things are shaping to this end.

Then Mr. Harris, without more ado, expatiates upon the immense population of the English race. But consider his argument. He bids us differentiate carefully between the Jews and Israel, then as proof texts of Israel becoming a great nation he gives us three texts. These contain God’s promise to Abraham, who was the progenitor of BOTH JEWS AND ISRAELITES.

Of the seventeen occurrences of the word "Jews" in the first three Gospels, twelve of them consist of the title, "King of the Jews," applied to our Lord (a) By the wise men of the East (Mt. 2:2). (b) By Pilate, in the course of the trial (Matt. 27. 2 ; Mark 15:2, 9, 12; Luke 23:3). (c) By the soldiers (Matt. 27:29; Mark 15:18; Luke 23:37). (d) By Pilate in the superscription (Matt. 27:37 Mark 15:26; Luke 23:38).

The other occasions in the narratives are of its ordinary historical usage, such as, "among the Jews," "all the Jews," "elders of the Jews," "a city of the Jews," etc. The passages are the following: Matt. 28:15; Mark 1:5 (Judea) Mark 7:3; Luke 7:3; Luke 23:51.

The term "Jews" does not arise in the divine history until after the deportation of the ten tribes by the king of Assyria. It is then applied to those of the seed of Abraham who continued in the southern part of the land of the promise, under the rule of the descendants of David, and consisted mainly of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (2 Kings 16:6; 2 Kings 25:25; 2 Chron. 32:18). The use of the name is specially characteristic of the writings of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Jeremiah in the Old Testament, as it is of the Gospel of John in the New Testament.

It is not very clear why Abraham was called a Hebrew. It is generally supposed to be derived from his ancestor Eber or Heber; but it will be seen from Gen. 11:17-26 that there were five generations between Eber and Abraham, so by this derivation many others might have been called Hebrews. Gen. 10:21 says that Shem was "the father of all the children of Eber." This shows that the Hebrews were Shemites, but many other tribes were 'Shemites' that could not be called Hebrews. In scripture the name is not applied to any except to Abraham and his descendants, and only to those who descended through Isaac and Jacob, to the exclusion of the children of Ishmael and Esau. So that there must be some other reason for the name and for its being thus restricted.

The root of the word is 'to pass over,' as when one passes over a river, or from one region to another. Abraham was bidden to leave his country and his kindred and to go into the land of Canaan, and the word Hebrew is not employed until Abraham had left his country and was in the land of Canaan. Gen. 14:13. When there he was a 'sojourner,' in a strange country, dwelling in tents. Heb. 11:9. The name was therefore characteristic, and the people of the land could go to Abraham the 'sojourner' and tell him that Lot had been taken prisoner. Joseph when in Egypt said he had been stolen from "the land of the Hebrews." Gen. 40:15. The above characteristic was doubtless subsequently lost, and nothing seen in it but the natural descent from Abraham through Isaac and Jacob; the same persons being mostly called Israelites. The descendants of Ishmael and Esau were not sojourners in the promised land, but wandered whither they would. The name Hebrew does not occur in the O.T. after 1 Samuel except in Jer. 34:9, 14 and once in Jonah 1:9.

Designation of Abraham and of his descendants. The name is first met with when Lot had been carried away prisoner, one came and told Abram 'the Hebrew.' Gen. 14:13. Hence it is applied to Abraham's descendants through Isaac and Jacob in distinction to the name of Israelites (from the name of Israel given to Jacob), which is their covenant name, the name of promise. It may be remarked how Saul king of Israel had lost the sense of this when he said "Let the Hebrews hear." 1 Sam. 13:3.

The fourth son of Jacob and Leah, and the head of the tribe bearing his name, which signifies 'praise.' It was Judah who advised the selling of Joseph rather than taking his life: so his descendants, the Jews, delivered the Lord into the hands of the Gentiles. He sinned in the matter of Tamar his daughter-in-law; was ready enough to have her punished till it was shown that he also was guilty. Thus is traced the terribly corrupt history of the family of whom according to election Christ was to be born. Though not the eldest son he began to take a chief place in the family. He was able to persuade his father to let Benjamin be taken into Egypt, and when appeals were to be made to Joseph it was Judah who made them. When Jacob blessed his sons, the predictions show that in Judah was centred the royal line. The sceptre should not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh came, etc. Gen. 49:8-12. From Judah sprang David and a long succession of kings. Christ as born of the tribe of Judah, is referred to as "the Lion of the tribe of Juda." Rev. 5:5. In Luke 3:33; Heb. 7:14; Rev. 5:5; Rev. 7:5, the name is given as JUDA: and in Matt. 1:2-3, it is JUDAS.

God's divine wisdom chose and fitted Abraham, a man of outstanding faith, to be the father of this favoured nation. Stephen, in his masterful address to the Jewish council recorded in Acts chapter seven, reminds them of this great beginning of their distinctive history: “The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham” (Acts 7:2). Here was a great man, separated from his own family, brought into a different land but having no possession in it, yet promised that it would be given to the nation that came from him. Then when one hundred years of age he received the son through whom this promise was to be fulfilled (Genesis 21:5). This and other succeeding events in Israel's history illustrate the sovereign and miraculous power of God in conclusive proof of His choice of that nation for His own wise purpose.

Then Isaac had two sons, but God set aside the older and designated Jacob as His choice to be the immediate father of the nation Israel, and gave him the name Israel. Twelve sons were born to Jacob and these were destined to be the heads of the twelve tribes of which the nation was formed.

ABRAHAM, the chosen man, separated by the Call of GOD and his obedience of faith, has now become the father of a chosen and separated people. Through this nation the HEIR of the ages is to come into the inheritance of all things. For this reason the JEWISH people were redeemed out of EGYPT, brought into liberty, and constituted a nation, the nation. From that time the ways of GOD with other nations depended upon His ways with the nation — ISRAEL. When ISRAEL obeyed, the other nations served her; when she rebelled against GOD, the other nations were used to chastise her. The lesson that relationship regulates responsibility is plainly taught in the words of the prophet: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities." (Amos 2:2.)

showing that the word Israelite is applied generally. The late Rev. David Baron, a well-known Christian of Jewish birth, who carefully examined the British-Israel theory, wrote: “The name of ‘Jew’ and ‘Israelite’ became synonymous terms from about the time of the Captivity. It is one of the absurd fallacies of Anglo-Israelism to presuppose that the term ‘Jew’ stands only for a bodily descendant of Judah. It stands for all those from among the sons of Jacob who acknowledged themselves, or were considered subjects of the theocratic Kingdom of Judah.”