Three issues with the Jewish understanding of the Messiah
And how Christianity solves them
The concept of the Messiah has been an amorphous one among orthodox Jews of antiquity. There is no consensus on what the Messiah must or must not do, the prophecies in the Hebrew scriptures are scattered and not unified. The Jewish rabbis however pieced together, from the various prophecies, some key things that will happen in the time of Messiah as well as some elements to his mission while not necessarily having all the details nailed on or fully knowing how they will play out.
It is this rabbinic conception of the Messiah we will look to unpick,
The first issue with the Jewish conception of the Messiah is that he still has not come. The various prophecies of the Hebrew scripture indicate the Messiah should have come ages ago.
The prophecies that say the Messiah comes from the lineage of David (e.g. Isaiah 11:1, 1 Samuel 7:14) and from the tribe of Judah would imply that the Messiah must come at a time when it is possible to trace his lineage back to David or Judah. The possibility of this was extinguished with the destruction of the temple in 70AD.
Also, Daniel’s prophecy of the seventy septets or seventy weeks from the decree to rebuild the city indicate that within that period the Messiah had to come. As it is written,
“Know therefore and understand, That from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem
Until Messiah the Prince, There shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks…”
(Daniel 9:25)
Not only that, Daniel further writes,
“And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself;
And the people of the prince who is to come
Shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.
The end of it shall be with a flood,
And till the end of the war desolations are determined.”
(Daniel 9:26)
Putting this together, the Messiah had to come within 483 years after the decree to rebuild the city. The most mainstream calculations, including the respected Jewish rabbi Rashi, put the timeline of the Messiah’s arrival sometime within the 1st century AD. Secondly, the Messiah must come and then die before the destruction of the city and the temple (sanctuary). The city and temple were destroyed by Rome in 70AD so the Messiah had to have shown up before then!
Now, everyone is free to disagree with the exact date and timings of the Messiah’s arrival or the method of calculation but the point still stands irrespective; He must have arrived by now!
The rabbis had this saying,
“The school of Eliyahu taught: Six thousand years is the duration of the world. Two thousand of the six thousand years are characterized by chaos; two thousand years are characterized by Torah, from the era of the Patriarchs until the end of the mishnaic period; and two thousand years are the period of the coming of the Messiah.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 97a)
The two thousand years of Torah since the Patriarchs is definitely past. The Messiah ought to have come by now! The sages also forbade people from counting the days of the Messiah or even reading the book of Daniel in some instances because the obvious conclusion would have been that the time of the Messiah is past!
“Naḥmani says that Rabbi Yonatan says: May those who calculate the end of days be cursed [tippaḥ], as they would say once the end of days that they calculated arrived and the Messiah did not come, that he will no longer come at all. Rather, the proper behavior is to continue to wait for his coming, as it is stated: “Though it tarry, wait for it.” Lest you say we are expectantly awaiting the end of days and the Holy One, Blessed be He, is not awaiting the end of days and does not want to redeem His people, the verse states: “And therefore will the Lord wait, to be gracious to you; and therefore will He be exalted, to have mercy upon you; for the Lord is a God of judgment; happy are all they who wait for Him”
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 97b)
And again,
“Rav says: All the ends of days that were calculated passed, and the matter depends only upon repentance and good deeds.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 97b.)
For Christians, however, there is this very unknown figure not many people have heard of called Jesus Christ (You might know about the guy?) came into the scene during that time line. Jesus fits the timeline of Daniel having come in the first century and before the destruction of the temple and the city. This would resolve the conundrum of our Jewish friends.
The second issue with the Jewish belief of the Messiah is the tension and conflict between prophecies which on the one hand portray the Messiah as a ruling all-conquering king from the lineage of David and prophecies which portray the Messiah as someone who suffers and then dies. To resolve this, the rabbis coined the “two Messiahs” theory. They believed in Messiah Ben Joseph (or Ben Ephraim) and Messiah Ben David. The first Messiah comes to fulfil the sufferings prophesied and then dies in battle while Messiah Ben David comes in, raises Ben Ephraim from the dead and then fulfils the prophecies of reigning forever as a king on David’s throne.
“The Sages taught: To Messiah ben David, who is destined to be revealed swiftly in our time, the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: Ask of Me anything and I will give you whatever you wish, as it is stated: “I will tell of the decree; the Lord said unto me: You are My son, this day have I begotten you, ask of Me, and I will give the nations for your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for your possession” (Psalms 2:7–8). Once the Messiah ben David saw Messiah ben Yosef, who was killed, he says to the Holy One, Blessed be He: Master of the Universe, I ask of you only life; that I will not suffer the same fate. The Holy One, Blessed be He, says to him: Life? Even before you stated this request, your father, David, already prophesied about you with regard to this matter precisely, as it is stated: “He asked life of You, You gave it to him; even length of days for ever and ever” (Psalms 21:5).”
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sukkah 52a:6)
There was also an attempt to square the opposing prophecies of the Messiah as regal, coming in the clouds of glory and humble and modest, riding on a donkey, by stating that the glory of his coming will depend on the worthiness of Israel,
“Rabbi Alexandri says: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi raises a contradiction between two depictions of the coming of the Messiah. It is written: “There came with the clouds of heaven, one like unto a son of man…and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom…his dominion is an everlasting dominion” (Daniel 7:13–14). And it is written: “Behold, your king will come to you; he is just and victorious; lowly and riding upon a donkey and upon a colt, the foal of a donkey” (Zechariah 9:9). Rabbi Alexandri explains: If the Jewish people merit redemption, the Messiah will come in a miraculous manner with the clouds of heaven. If they do not merit redemption, the Messiah will come lowly and riding upon a donkey.”
(Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 98a:6)
From the Christian paradigm, it is not an issue of two Messiahs (which the Hebrew scriptures never hint at) or of the mode of his coming being dependent on the deeds of Israel (The Hebrew scriptures repeatedly say it is the Zeal of YHWH that accomplishes the promise of the Messiah’s coming) but rather it is one Messiah coming two times.
Jesus’ first coming was a humble one, riding on a donkey to suffer and die for sin, the second coming will be on the clouds of glory to take His place as the eternal King!
“And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
(Hebrews 9:27–28)
And again,
“ For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.”
(Matthew 16:27)
So it is one Messiah, Jesus, who dies and is resurrected from the dead as the scriptures say in Psalm 16:10 and Isaiah 53.
The third issue with the Jewish Messiah is this. Who exactly is he? Is he a warrior? Is he a king? Is he a warrior-king? There is also some question as to what exactly the Messiah does after he has been revealed and brings redemption to Israel. He is seen to be some kind of “agent of God” and his triumphs are equated with the triumph of God.
The Christian position however is that the Messiah IS GOD Himself putting on flesh. Jesus, the man who walked this earth in the 1st century AD was, as Isaiah says, “God with us”. He is God in human flesh or as Paul puts it “the visible image of the invisible God”! This would mean everything He does did and will do, He does as God and as such His very victories can be equated with the victories of God.
In conclusion, if the Messiah did not come before the destruction of the second temple, the Messiah is not coming, especially because the timelines reckoned by the rabbis have all passed and with the destruction of the temple went the ability for the Jews to accurately trace the lineage and tribe of anybody claiming to be the Messiah. But the lineage of Jesus was not in dispute as it is taken for granted,
“For it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah…”
(Hebrews 7:14)
Jesus Christ within the Christian theology also makes the most sense of a single Messiah who dies and somehow reigns. Jesus, being God in the flesh, also makes sense of the triumph of the Messiah being the triumph of God Himself.
