When Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1867, here is how he described it: “A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is wholly given over to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. There was hardly a tree or shrub anywhere. Desolate and unlovely.”
Riding on horseback through the Jezreel Valley, Twain observed, “There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent—not for 30 miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride 10 miles, hereabouts, and not see 10 human beings.”
Besides the barren land, there were large areas of swamps infested with malaria, considerable tracts of desert and large amounts of soil contaminated by brackish saltwater. To cap this, the Turks had recently destroyed vast numbers of trees across the land to build railways. This left the soil open to erosion and further impeded drainage.
There are similarities here, on a smaller scale, to the situation we will face at the start of the Millennium. Cities will have been laid waste, vast expanses of land contaminated, trees and foliage destroyed, infrastructure demolished. The surface of large parts of the Earth will be a barren wasteland (Ezekiel 6:14; Revelation 8).
An immediate challenge will be the rebuilding of the earth and its agriculture. This will take place hand in hand with reeducating mankind and establishing proper worship of God. This will be one of the first great projects we get involved in as spirit beings, working together with mankind.
God wants us to be excited about this task. He wants it clear in our minds that we aren’t being called now just to be saved. We are being prepared in the Work of God today to do God’s Work tomorrow. God is excited about this Work! The more our minds are on it, the more future-focused we will be and the more we will share His excitement for the Kingdom. This can fuel our prayers and fellowship.
Today, Israel is one of the world’s great agricultural success stories. Making adjustments for its size, the agricultural output of Israel is up there with many nations that have much friendlier climates and land that is easier to work. Israel produces high-quality fruits and cereals and achieves world-beating milk yields from its dairy herds. The annual value of its produce is $8 billion—from a country roughly the size of the state of New Jersey. In the process, the Israelis have literally made the desert bloom.
The transformation of physical Israel over the last 150 years can provide inspiring insight into the work that lies ahead for mankind, and for us, at the outset of the Millennium.
God Works Through Humans
We can easily spiritualize away how Earth will be repaired. We can think that, with some major miracles from God, it will simply be transformed. God is a God of great miracles and power; He can accomplish anything. But for those things that can be done humanly, He expects man to put in the work, and He then backs and supports them with powerful miracles. This is how He trains and prepares man for His Family.
For example, building the ark must have been a daunting task for Noah. God could have simply given him an ark; instead, He had Noah and his sons build it. Surely God worked many miracles along the way, but Noah had to put out effort and exercise faith to do the job.
We should expect there to be intensive human effort to rebuild the Earth. In the process, man will learn God’s ways and, with repentance, build righteous character in preparation for birth into God’s Family. We will be at the heart of this, directing their work; repairing, teaching and training families; and, all the while, building the God Family. God wants us to be thrilled by this opportunity.
The Power of Vision
Of the 10,000 to 15,000 Jews in the land when Mark Twain traveled through, 8,000 lived in Jerusalem. The rest were spread across a few other towns and cities; very few lived on the land. Many were from Poland and Lithuania and largely survived on charity from home. Some historians have said Palestine was the place the Jews went to die.
The population size had been stagnant for several hundred years while under the control of the Ottoman Empire. But as the second half of the 19th century advanced, several Jewish figures arose who strongly believed the Jews should have their own homeland—a homeland that was productive and that could feed itself—a land to which Jews from around the world could return. This vision was propagated to Jews worldwide. It altered their outlook and ignited their dreams even though this was long before British forces captured Palestine from the Ottomans. Coupled with a violent persecution against Jews in parts of Europe and Russia, the promotion of this vision over time sparked more Jewish immigration into Palestine, which the Ottomans tolerated.
This vision was presented so powerfully in Europe and the United States that professionals from all sorts of backgrounds were willing to give up their livelihoods and move to Israel. Unlike the previous inhabitants for hundreds of years before them, and aided by a weakening Ottoman Empire, the new settlers were willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work, doing whatever was necessary to transform the barren, hostile terrain into productive, fertile land. Inspired by the dream of a homeland, they endured harsh conditions to reshape the land and to ultimately build a nation.
This history shows the power of a compelling vision.
In the Millennium, we will be painting a picture of hope for all those who survived the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord. We will be inspiring them with God’s plan for their future. We will be motivating them to commit themselves to the work ahead. It seems certain that most of mankind, regardless of their past professions, will be involved in this vast cleanup, repair and restoration of the land to a cultivatable state.
Even today, we should strive to build the ability and talent to inspire others.
The Arrival of Nation Builders
For the new wave of immigrants, the only land available for farming was small parcels that could be purchased from the local landowners. Often this land was of poor quality, vacated by the owner because it was infested with malaria.
The incoming Jews set to work. They dug ditches and drained the swamps. They excavated canals to provide irrigation. They planted trees to improve drainage and to further help dry out swampland. All this was accomplished by grueling manual labor: men working in teams with picks, shovels and wooden wheelbarrows in, quite often, a scorching, unfavorable climate. Yet these initiatives slowly bore fruit. Bit by bit, the land that had been neglected for centuries was brought into productive cultivation.
The workers built homes, often just wooden huts. Kindergartens were established to educate the young. More settlers arrived; the number of settlements grew. Agriculture became more organized, and new arrivals would spend time on established farms, learning the basic skills of agriculture, before moving on to new settlements.
In the early 1920s, the settlers were able to purchase their first sizable tract of land from a Lebanese landowner. It was 15 square miles—about 10,000 acres—in the Valley of Jezreel. There was plenty of water on the land, but it was stagnant and infested with mosquitos. Major irrigation projects were required to make the land usable. Again, this was all achieved by teams of men and hard labor. Orchards were established together with cattle and mixed farming operations. Work was slow and difficult, but over time the number of settlements and the amount of activity in the valley grew.
Today, the Jezreel Valley grows wheat, watermelons, melons, oranges, white beans, cowpeas, chickpeas, green beans, cotton, sunflowers and corn, as well as provides grazing pastures for multitudes of sheep and cattle. This former swampland is known as the breadbasket of Israel.
Pushing Back the Desert
The Negev Desert accounts for 60 percent of the land in Israel. “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isaiah 35:1). Inspired by such scriptures, Israel’s leaders saw the importance of putting this land to work. David Ben Gurion, founder and first prime minister of Israel, said, “It is in the Negev where the creativity and pioneering vigor of Israel shall be tested.”
The Jews have been working hard to green the Negev—and have found great success. It is the only desert in the world that is shrinking rather than growing.
In a speech addressed to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on the 75th anniversary of Israeli independence (in 2023), European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Seventy-five years ago, a dream was realized with Israel’s Independence Day.” She praised Israel’s world-renowned innovation and technical advancement, then said, “You have literally made the desert bloom.” She remarked that she had seen it with her own eyes when she visited Israel’s Negev.
Perhaps this gives us insight into the hard work it will take to make this inspiring scripture reality in the World Tomorrow.
How was this transformation achieved? Through hard work, determination, ingenuity—and, once again, the inspiration of a powerful vision, reinforced by Israel’s leaders.
An example of the greening of the desert was the kibbutz at Yotvata, 25 miles north of Eilat in a valley adjacent to the Negev. The soil was dry and contaminated by salt, but ample supplies of fresh water were discovered underground.
Experiments were made to determine what would grow well. Fresh water was pumped up and used to wash the soil of much of the salt that was contaminating it. Then special crops were grown—not for food but to help condition the soil with nutrients so it could eventually host commercial crops. At last, a range of different fruits were planted there and a 100-acre date orchard established.
Over time, this area has expanded and come to specialize in dairy farming. It produces around 100 million liters of milk a year and provides 63 percent of the Israeli dairy-beverage market.
Reforestation
Another way that Israelis have been able to establish agriculture in the desert, including in the Negev, is through forestation.
Since 1900, roughly 250 million trees have been planted across Israel. In 1948, about 2 percent of Israel was covered in trees. This has now grown to around 8.5 percent. Israel is the only country in the world that ended the 20th century with more trees than it had in 1900.
The forests have many benefits, including slowing soil erosion, enabling scarce rainwater to better penetrate the soil, and encouraging foliage growth for grazing animals. Trees have an immense capacity to clean up the atmosphere and improve the climate and local environment around them. According to the Jewish body responsible for managing forestry, a mature tree can absorb well over 40 pounds of dust per year, and “swallow” over 170 pounds of compounds containing polluting particles. A tree can also produce more than 1,500 pounds of oxygen per year. Forests help lower the surrounding temperature by up to 4 degrees—and they are beautiful.
Revelation 8:7 prophesies that at least a third of the trees on Earth will have been destroyed by the start of the Millennium. Considering that 250 million trees were planted over the past century in a tiny nation like Israel, surely the number of trees planted worldwide early in the Millennium would run into trillions. This will all take planning, organization and effort.
Creating Tomorrow’s Leaders
Many of the early leaders of independent Israel spent some of their younger years engaged in farming activity on the land.
At the age of 19, David Ben Gurion traveled from Poland to Israel. He was immediately put to work as a hired hand, hauling manure to fill holes in which young orange trees would be planted. He caught malaria and was advised to return home. He resolved to remain—and became a key figure in the Zionist movement before becoming the first prime minister of independent Israel.
Levi Eshkol, Israel’s third prime minister, left for Palestine in 1914. He worked in setting irrigation tunnels in local orchards and was remembered as an excellent worker.
Golda Meir, the nation’s fourth prime minister, also started out in farming, enduring the hardship and gaining great satisfaction in working the land. She said they were the happiest years of her life.
These leaders’ hard physical toil undoubtedly helped to shape their character, develop their initiative and resilience, and engender a strong work ethic.
Surely God will use the labor required in the early years of the Millennium to build similar qualities of character in those first millennial generations, people who will no doubt grow into important leaders in God’s Kingdom.
On a Global Scale
Israel is a tiny nation. In a relatively short period of time, the Jews—with considerable help from God and many miracles—have achieved an incredible transformation of their land. While making this land productive, they have built up world-class expertise in many fields of agriculture and irrigation, and they now share this knowledge around the globe.
In the Millennium, God will use the project of transforming the Earth as an opportunity to create godly character, which in God’s eyes is a million times more beautiful and valuable than the most beautiful landscape.
We can take the opportunity at this Feast of Tabernacles to meditate more deeply and speak to one another about the inspiring work that lies ahead.