I will bless those who bless you

[Muzhik]

Greeting! This came up in a discussion on another website I frequent. I am a supporter of Israel. I may not like things the country does, but I support her. This comes from Genesis 12:3, where G_D says to Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” Throughout history, you can find examples of countries that “blessed Israel” and prospered, and those who cursed Israel and suffered.

My question: In those historical examples the leader who did the blessing was frequently the king or queen, or a royal official acting in the monarch’s name. Traditionally the monarch has been mystically bound to the land and the people, so when the monarch acted against G_D’s wishes the land and the people suffered too.

America, however, is a representative democracy: we don’t have a king, we don’t recognize any kind of mystical binding between our leaders and the land or the people.

So what happens when we have a case where the President actively opposes Israel, but the Congress and the people overwhelmingly support it? Whose cursing and whose blessing retains priority in a government such as ours?

 

[justice99]

I would say it doesn’t matter. Those people may have blessed Israel would have to be Good people and those cursing, bad people.
In today’s reading from Jeremiah 28:1 - 17
you can see that Jeremiah prophesied doom in Israel and another prophet falsely prophesied liberation and died as a result.
So you see? a good king brings good things and a bad king, bad things

 

[Jared2914]

I don’t think God punishes the people just because the leader does bad things. I think God sees the whole situation. If the majority of people are doing evil, that is when he would curse a nation. A king or queen obviously has a lot more influence though. They could get the majority of the people to do evil whereas a no name person may only be able to change 5-10 people around them.