a perpetual holding; and I will be their God” (17:8). Thus the covenant with Abraham was tied to this earth and concerned inheritance of it. The promise of the land is central to the promise of salvation. This promise of the land has haunted Jewish consciousness for centuries. Forced from the land in A.D. 70—from the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the Jews have wandered over the face of the earth as exiles and sojourners in foreign lands. The very uncertainties and dread caused by the