Does God Still Bless Those Who Bless Israel?

The Bible. The History. The Truth.

Tucker Carlson has made something of a hobby out of mocking the idea that God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse her. When Senator Ted Cruz could not cite the verse on the spot, Carlson declared victory in what became a viral moment for him. But winning a theological debate on a technicality against a non-theologian is not the same as being right. Let us look at what the Bible actually teaches — and then let the history books add their own testimony.

The Foundational Promise

The foundational passage is Genesis 12:1–3. God speaks to Abraham and declares,

"I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."

Tucker’s counter-argument is essentially: fine, that was a promise to Abraham personally, and Abraham is dead, so case closed. But this reading does violence to the entire arc of Scripture.

A Dynasty Promise, Not a One-Man Deal

Any serious Old Testament scholar understands that the Abrahamic covenant was not a one-man arrangement — it was a dynasty promise. The covenant God made with Abraham and later reaffirmed with Isaac and Jacob is of transcendent significance, containing promises that were explicitly everlasting — even through “a thousand generations.” The Lord reaffirmed through oath His commitment to bless Abraham and his seed — understood as the corporate physical progeny (meaning through his actual physical descendants)— and the covenant came through Isaac and through Jacob as well.[1]

The Scripture makes this extension of the covenant unmistakable. When God appears to Isaac in Genesis 26:3–4, He says:

"Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." (Genesis 26:3–4, ESV)

The same covenant. The same nations. Now addressed to the next generation.

Then God reaffirms it again to Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28:13–14:

"I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob — three generations, one unbroken covenant.

Psalm 105:8–11 seals the case:

“He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying, ‘To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance.’” 

This is not a personal promise to one man. It is a covenant made to Abraham, renewed to Isaac, confirmed to Jacob, and declared everlasting to the nation of Israel.

Balaam and the Blessing of the Nations

Most strikingly, in Numbers 24, a pagan diviner named Balaam is hired by the Moabite king Balak specifically to curse Israel. But what came out of Balaam’s mouth instead of a curse was this: “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you”— spoken over the twelve physical tribes of Jacob wandering in the wilderness.[2] 

Commentators note that Balaam’s blessing formula deliberately echoes the original words of Genesis 12:3 and Isaac’s blessing of Jacob — confirming the assurance of divine favor to the righteous and their seed forever.[3] By Numbers 24, Abraham has been dead for centuries. But the blessing-and-cursing principle is applied without hesitation to the living nation of his descendants. Tucker’s argument that the promise died with Abraham is simply not what the biblical text teaches.

The Church in Genesis 12

Before we turn to history, a reasonable question must be answered: what about the Church? If the Abrahamic covenant extends to Israel as a nation, where do Gentile believers fit in? The answer is not complicated — it is actually hiding in plain sight in Genesis 12 itself.

God makes two distinct promises to Abraham in those opening verses. First, He says He will make Abraham into a great nation — that is, Israel, the physical descendants through Isaac and Jacob. But then God says something broader: "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." Those are two different things. One is a nation. The other is the multitude of nations. The promise is not either/or — it is both/and. Israel is the vehicle through which the universal blessing travels. This is why God changes Abram’s name to Abraham in Genesis 17 to indicate that he will be the father of a multitude of nations.

And we know exactly what that blessing is. Paul makes it explicit in Galatians 3:8, where he quotes Genesis 12:3 and says that God was preaching the gospel in advance to Abraham — that through his seed, meaning, ultimately, the Messiah Jesus, all nations would be blessed with salvation. So the Church is not in competition with Israel in Genesis 12. The Church is the fulfillment of the second half of the promise. Gentiles who believe in Jesus are the "all the families of the earth" God was already talking about when He first spoke to Abraham. That does not cancel the covenant with the nation of Israel — it completes the picture.

Now, Let the History Speak

In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, expressing its support for the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine — an act many believe represented divine favor at work, and which historians describe as among the last great acts of the British Empire.[4] Britain was then the world’s dominant superpower, controlling roughly a quarter of the earth’s landmass. It was said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” because it had lands all over the globe. For several decades, under leaders with strong evangelical sensibilities, Britain had championed Jewish restoration to their ancient homeland.

Then Britain turned.

In May 1939, the British government issued the White Paper, heavily favoring Arab demands: it limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 over five years, ended Jewish land purchases, and effectively declared that Britain had fulfilled its obligations to the Jewish people — closing the Holy Land’s doors even as Jews were fleeing Nazi persecution across Europe.[5] It was a breathtaking betrayal, and it came precisely when the Jewish people needed refuge most.

The timeline of what followed is striking. In 1940, the British Empire still contained a quarter of the world’s population and a fifth of its landmass. Yet within the following two decades, more than twenty British territories gained independence, and by 1980, only a handful remained under British control.[6] The sun, so to speak, began setting on the empire almost immediately after Britain slammed the door on the Jewish people.

Meanwhile, the United States stepped into the void. America had long been shaped by a deep biblical heritage and a Puritan identification with Israel’s story. America championed the founding of the modern State of Israel in 1948 — Harry Truman, himself a student of Scripture, recognized Israel eleven minutes after independence was declared at 9 AM EST on May 14. In the decades that followed, the United States became the undisputed dominant world power in every category: economic, military, cultural, and technological. For nearly a century now, no nation on earth has come close.

Anecdote or Evidence?

The cynic will note that empires rise and fall for many reasons — wars, economics, nationalism. That is true, and no honest theologian claims the blessing-and-cursing principle operates as a simple vending machine. But the trajectory is undeniable. The nation that championed Jewish restoration rose to global preeminence. The nation that betrayed the Jewish people and locked them out of their homeland as the Holocaust unfolded lost its empire within a generation.

That is not merely anecdote. That is a pattern consistent with what the Scripture promises — a promise that did not die with Abraham, but was passed to his seed, renewed through Isaac and Jacob, reaffirmed through a pagan prophet named Balaam, and written across the history of nations ever since.

Tucker Carlson is free to dismiss that pattern. But dismissing it does not make it disappear.

[1]The Master's Seminary Journal, "The Abrahamic Covenant" (tms.edu). The covenant blessing and cursing language of Gen. 12:3 is understood by scholars to extend corporately to Abraham's physical progeny through Isaac and Jacob.

[2]Numbers 24:9 (ESV). See also ONE FOR ISRAEL Ministry, "What Does It Mean to Bless Israel?" (oneforisrael.org), which notes that this oracle was spoken by Balaam directly over the twelve physical tribes of Jacob.

[3]David Guzik (Blue Letter Bible) and Precept Austin commentaries on Numbers 24 both observe that Balaam's blessing formula in v. 9 deliberately echoes God's original words to Abraham in Gen. 12:3 and Isaac's blessing of Jacob in Gen. 27:29, confirming the covenant's extension to Israel as a nation.

[4]"Israel and Britain: Failure to Support Israel Led to Britain's Decline," factsaboutisrael.uk (Aug. 2, 2017). See also The Historical Significance of the Balfour Declaration, Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs (Nov. 2017).

[5]"The White Paper of 1939," historycentral.com. The paper capped Jewish immigration at 75,000 over five years, ended Jewish land purchases, and closed Palestine's doors precisely as Jews faced genocide in Europe.

[6]"The End of the British Empire After the Second World War," Imperial War Museum (iwm.org.uk). In 1940, the British Empire contained a quarter of the world's population and a fifth of its landmass; by 1980, only a handful of territories remained under British control.