Pound for pound (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

So I just recently got back from from a 10 day trip in Israel, so I foresee several Israel related posts in your future.

One of the biggest surprises to me when we traveled around the area is how small the country really is. When I read about it in the Bible, I imagine all these fairy tale landscapes of vast proportions, but in a tour bus it took us about 3 hours to get from the northern tip of Israel to it’s near geographic center in Jerusalem. Statistically among all countries, Israel ranks 97th in population size and and 152nd in land area.

As a display of my nerdy side, today’s picture is a graphical representation of the population sizes of the 15 largest nations in the world (their flags are strung across the rafters) as compared to Israel (in the hand of God). I did some rough calculations to make each flag comparatively as large as it’s population. Israel is basically the size of the tip of one of the stripes in the U.S. flag (in actuality it’s roughly the same land area as New Jersey).

The amazing thing is how successful such a “small” country has been in just 63 years since its formation. Israel’s economy ranks 50th in the world when comparing GDP. It ranks in the top 20 in the Human Development Index (a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living). Israel ranks 4th in the world in scientific activity based on the number of scientific papers per person. Their high-tech industry region has been nicknamed Silicon Wadi (wadi being the Arabic translation for valley) because Israel is second in importance only it’s cousin in California. Israel has produced six Nobel Prize-winning scientists since 2002 (and that’s not including the Jews from other countries). The point that is becoming clear to me is that God is still blessing his people just as he promised in the Old Testament.


If you drive a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport at top speed from the northern most point of Israel to the southern tip (meaning you make the drive in a little over an hour):