God will not let Israel out of their predicament! In verses 1-7, He explained how there would be no hiding, no escape from the disaster that was coming. Then, God asked Israel a question. “O people of Israel, are you any more to Me than the Ethiopians are? Have not I, Who brought you out of Egypt, done as much for other people too?”
Why did God pose that question! Because they were His chosen people. And as His chosen people their job was to spread His message to other nations. “God had told Abram, ‘Leave your country behind you, and your own people, and go to the land I will guide you to. If you do, I will cause you to become the father of a great nation; I will bless you and make your name famous, and you will be a blessing to many others. . .the entire world will be blessed because of you.” (Gen 12:1-3). Yes, God wanted Israel to be a blessing to the world, but they decided they were God’s chosen people, and they didn’t want to share the message with anyone else.
Beginning in verse 8, God foretold the final outcome for Israel. “Yet I have promised that this rooting out will not be permanent. For I have commanded that Israel be sifted by the other nations as grain is sifted in a sieve, yet not one true kernel will be lost. But all these sinners who say, ‘God will not touch us’, will die by the sword.”
God went on to describe the rebuilding of the City of David, which He said “is now lying in ruins, and return to its former glory, and Israel will possess what is left of Edom and of all the nations that belong to Me.” “’I will firmly plant them there upon the land that I have given them; they shall not be pulled up again’, says the Lord your God.”
When will this happen? Jesus told the disciples according to Acts 1 that only God the Father knows when it will happen. But maybe the reason it has not happened yet is we have not completed our mission to take the gospel to all the world. Maybe it will only happen when all the world hears the gospel in a single generation. We don’t know the mind of God except that “God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son so that anyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.