John Quincy Adams: Supporting the Jewish homeland with the Bible in hand
The sixth US president's expertise in the ‘Good Book’ made him encourage the ‘rebuilding of Judea.’
By BENJAMIN GLATTJohn Quincy Adams(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Long before God had awakened the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland, experts of the Bible, such as sixth US president John Quincy Adams, were already in support of a Jewish state in the Holy Land.Immediately upon entering the White House, Adams, like his father, president John Adams, had written to Maj. Mordecai Manuel Noah in the first year of his presidency that he believed in the “rebuilding of Judea as an independent nation.”This love for the people who brought the Bible to the world was nurtured in the Adams puritan household.“They were also deeply religious Unitarians who admired Jews and sympathized with those who dreamed of a return to their ancient homeland,” wrote Denis Brian in “The Elected and the Chosen: Why American Presidents Have Supported Jews and Israel.”Yet none of this could have happened had Adams not been so familiar with the Bible. In the American Jewish Historical Quarterly from 1955, the editors noted the fervor the Adams had for studying Scriptures and the importance he saw behind it.In the 1811 letter to his son, Adams wrote how happy he was to hear that his son was helping his aunt study the Bible every evening.“I advise you, my son, in whatever you read, and most of all in reading the Bible, to remember that it is for the purpose of making you wiser and more virtuous,” he said. “I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit and temper of mind, which I now recommend to you: that is, with the intention and desire that it may contribute to my advancement in wisdom and virtue.”Quincy Adams learned from his father that whoever reads the Bible can only come to the conclusion that God will fulfill his Word to the prophets and bring the Jewish people back to their ancient homeland.“I speak as a man of the world to men of the world; and I say to you, search the Scriptures! The Bible is the book of all others, to be read at all ages, and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice or thrice through, and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions of one or two chapters every day, and never to be intermitted, unless by some overruling necessity,” he once proclaimed.These beliefs and knowledge of the Bible that the American people have, continue to support the strong US-Israeli ties till this day, with the Adams family helping establish this fact in the highest and most powerful office in the country – the Executive Office of the President of the United States.On February 23, 1848, at the age of 80, the sixth president of the US John Quincy Adams died in Washington DC. He is remembered as one of the first leaders of the free world to announce his support for the fulfillment of God’s Word to the prophets through the creation of a Jewish state in the Holy Land.To learn more about the role of the Bible in history and the roots of Christian Zionism, check us out at @christian_jpost, on Facebook.com/jpostchristianworld/ and see the best of the Holy Land in The Jerusalem Post - Christian Edition monthly magazine.