25. Forsaken the covenant. See 1 Kings 19:10, 14; Jer. 22:9. For hundreds of years the land of Palestine has been spread before all men as a witness to the curse of God. Much of the country has long been a barren wilderness. This came upon the land because of the apostasy of the Jewish nation in forsaking the covenant. Men are often puzzled that a land so forbidding as Palestine is today could ever have been described as “flowing with milk and honey” (Ex. 3:8; etc.; see on Gen. 12:6).