Why 1948 Isn’t the Fulfillment of Amos 9:15
By Robert E. Cruickshank Jr. (February 24, 2026)
[5-Minute Read Time]
“‘I will also plant them on their land, and they will not be uprooted again from their land which I have given them,’ says the Lord your God” (Amos 9:15).
Recently, a reader asked me if this passage was fulfilled in the past, the present, or the future and sent me this comment from a popular website:
“There are a couple of reasons why I ask ‘when’ this restoration will happen. The first is that God says that His people ‘shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them’ (verse 15b). We know that a remnant of Israel returned to the land through Cyrus. These people were from the kingdom of Judah but were Israelites nonetheless. But the nation itself was uprooted again. They did not exist as a nation again until May 14, 1948 with the proclamation from the provisional government of a new state of Israel. The United States recognized that government and nation the very next day. So, the return of Israel after their exile in Babylon couldn’t have been the beginning of a continuous nation of Israel.”[1]
John Nelson Darby said something similar prior to Israel’s return in 1948:
“If there be a direct testimony that Israel shall be planted again in their own land, and never plucked up, it is plain it has never been fulfilled. The more the extended prophecies on the subject are considered, the more will it be found connected with the promises of God in the latter day as regards the blessings of the church, and the circumstances which attend it.”[2]
According to modern pop-prophecy pundits, like Dave DeSelm, May 15, 1948 was “the very day” that Amos 9:15 “was fulfilled.”[3]
But is jumping to modern assumptions really the wisest way to approach an ancient text?
A Wise Look at God’s Word
Commenting on Darby’s comments above, Evangelist John Bray offered these words of wisdom:
“When I first read what Darby said, I realized that many Bible students must read things like that (by him and others) and accept them as gospel truth without ever doing any real investigation or further study on the matter themselves.”[4]
Bray was absolutely right here, and the same holds true today. When it came to studying God’s Word, Bray’s motto was “dig deeper” – and that’s exactly what we need to do.
Digging Deeper into the Text
The English phrase “never again” translates the Hebrew lo od. The word lo is a negative particle in Hebrew and means “no” or “not.”[5] The word od is an adjective meaning “still,” carrying the idea of “further” or “continuance”[6] and often translated as “longer.” When paired together, these words convey something that has continued to a certain point, but will continue “no longer” after that point, for example:
“The womb forgets them; the worm finds them sweet; they are no longer (lo od) remembered, so wickedness is broken like a tree” (Job 24:20).
“They are dismayed; they answer no longer (lo od); they have not a word to say” (Job 32:15).
“…for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no longer (lo od)” (Ps. 103:16).
“Let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no longer (lo od)” (Prov. 31:7).
“Better was a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king who no longer (lo od) knew how to take advice” (Eccl. 4:13).
So, the connotation in Amos is that once they are planted back in their land, they will “no longer” be “uprooted” from their land. This happened, historically, once the exile was over. This refers to the past, and not to any future promises to Israel. They were “no longer uprooted” once the exile was over. This is especially clear in Isaiah 62:4, where this exact phrase is used, and the context is clearly dealing with the return from exile:[7]
“You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no longer (lo od) be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married” (Isa. 62:4).
Paying attention to the original context in passages like these helps us not get sidetracked by later assumptions.
Tracking with the Prophets
Isaiah and Amos are both tracking on the same idea, and the idea that this has anything to do with 1948 AD makes their words completely irrelevant to their original audience in the 8th century BC. As John Oakes comments:
“About Amos 9, this is a prophecy of God coming to bless his people after he has earlier judged them (see earlier in Amos, where God warns them about judgment because of their unrighteousness). Most likely he is referring to sending Judah into exile (Amos preaches to Judah) in Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar defeated them and their return to the Promised Land in 536 BC and the rebuilding of the temple in 516 BC.”[8]
As John Bray said, most believers today never do “any real investigation or further study on the matter themselves.” The irony is that believers today have easier access to the resources that can help them do the needed investigation and study than ever before, and you don’t need to be a scholar or have gone to seminary to do it. Helpful online tools such as Bible Hub, Blue Letter Bible, and STEP Bible (by Tyndale House) make it easier than ever to dig into the text for yourself.
So, the next time you have a question about when and how a particular passage was fulfilled, don’t just take someone else’s word for it, start digging!
Recap
Amos 9:15 is not a cryptic prediction about modern geopolitics but a promise of restoration spoken to God’s Old Testament people. The phrase “no longer (lo od) uprooted” is rooted in the idea of an exile that would come to an end, not an unbroken political state thousands of years later. When read in its historical and linguistic context, alongside passages like Isaiah 62, the promise fits naturally with Israel’s return from exile (cf. Ezra 2:70; 3:1). Instead of projecting the text into our headlines, we should anchor it in its original setting. The tools to do that are readily available, and careful personal study beats careless popular speculation.
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[1] Annette Vincent, Amos 9:11-15 Restored Israel | If I Walked with Jesus https://bit.ly/4cHzPtR
[2] The Collected Writings of J.N. Darby, Prophetic No. 1, vol. 2, p. 28.
[3] The God Who Keeps His Word | Dave DeSelm Ministries https://bit.ly/4s66NbR
[4] John L. Bray, Israel in Bible Prophecy (Lakeland, FL: John L. Bray Ministries, 1983), 28. A shout out to my friend, Spencer Smith, for reminding me about this important work by Bray!
[5] STEP Bible (Tyndale House), entry for לֹא (lo) ‘not’
[6] STEP Bible (Tyndale House), entry for עוֹד (od) ‘still’
[7] See: Robert E. Cruickshank Jr., and Daniel E. Harden, Isaiah’s New Heavens and New Earth (Part 2): Old Names and New Names | Last Days Past https://bit.ly/4tT5Rcw ; available in PDF here
[8] John Oakes, What is Amos 9:13-15 a prophecy of? | Evidence for Christianity https://bit.ly/4aNHhku
