The Passed-Over Messiah
THE PASSED-OVER MESSIAH
Encountering The Suffering Messiah Texts In The Core-Literature Of Judaism
by Rabbi Bruce L. Cohen ©1999 & 2022 title & all copy • Video presentation available here.
(The following feature article was provided on request for Messianic Jewish Life Magazine (April-June 1999 Vol. LXXII, No. 2). It is an adapted excerpt from Rabbi Cohen’s book, Returning: A Jewish Journey To Faith in the God of Israel and the Messiah from Nazareth. ©1999 Bruce L. Cohen
“Objectivity is not an unobtainable emptying of mind, but a willingness to abandon a set of preferences - for or against some view - when reality seems to work in a contrary way.” – Stephen Prof. Jay Gould, Harvard University, citing Charles Darwin Originator of modern Evolutionary Theory
“Behold, I do a new thing; now it shall spring forth. Will you know it?” - Isaiah 43:19
UNEXPECTED INFORMATION
In his introduction to the English version of Israeli hero Yonatan Netanyahu’s letters, Herman Wouk described his habit of studying Talmud each morning as a means of nurturing his Jewish faith-life. Let us imagine for a moment that you have adopted a similar habit. As you are studying Talmud, the quintessence of Jewish religious commentary, you run across the following section: Talmud Bavli: Tractate Sukkah 52a 13-14. (The italics are my emphases of certain words in the text: no words have been added or changed.)
“It is well according to him who explains that the cause is Messiah, the son of Joseph, who was slain, since that well agrees with the Scriptural verse, ‘And they shall look upon Me Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only Son [Zech. 12:10]’ Our Rabbis taught, The Holy One, blessed be He, will say to the Messiah, the son of David (May he reveal himself speedily in our days!), ‘Ask of Me anything, and I will give it to you’ [Psalm 2:8a], as it is said, ‘I will tell of the (Lord’s) decree, “You are My Son: this day have I begotten You, ask of Me and I will give the nations for Your inheritance.”’ [Psalm 2:8b] But when He will see that the Messiah the son of Joseph who was slain, he will say to him, ‘Lord of the Universe, I ask of You only the gift of life’. ’As to life’, He would answer him, ‘Your father David has already prophesied this concerning you’, as it is said, ‘He asked life of You, and You gave it him’ [Psalm 16].”
Your brow wrinkles in confusion.
“‘Messiah son of Joseph who was slain?’ How did that get into my copy of the Talmud?” you exclaim, hastily checking the spine of the book to make sure you did not pick up a copy of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity by mistake.
What are these citations inside the Talmud passage? They seem to be references made by the Sages to the Hebrew Scriptures – The Bible. “How could the Sages of Israel believe the Jewish Bible refers to a Messiah Who was slain?” you query, becoming a bit irritated. Vague memories of “world peace” and “the wolf lying down with the lamb” come to mind.
So, you run to the closet and dig out your copy of The Bible they gave you when you became a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, and look up the first of these Bible references cited in this Talmudic passage by the Jewish Sages: Zechariah 12:10. Your stomach begins to churn uneasily when you see these words on the pages of your own Bible…“And they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and shall mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.” “I must be seeing thing,” you tell yourself, your most recent meal pushing against your epiglottis quite strongly now. This cannot be. It says, “Me whom they have pierced? Whom did we pierce? And who is “we” anyway? Humankind? Israel? The Romans?
Why do the Talmudic sages link this passage to the Messiah?
Why would anyone ‘pierce’ the Messiah?
Why would we – Israel (or humankind) – mourn when we see Him?
As you are pondering this dilemma, your eye picks up some words further down on the page that really grab your attention. “Today I have given birth to you.” Good, a reference to Messiah’s birth! Now we’re getting somewhere! You look up the Scriptural passage cited by the Jewish Sages, The Second Psalm – and near mental short-circuiting sets in as you read the words, “בני אתה – B’nee Atah – “You are my Son …” and then continues “today I have given birth to you.” “Son?” Did God say, “My son?” The Sages say the One speaking in this text is God; how can this be? It would mean King David (a good Jew, to say the least) believed God was going to have a Son. You look at the Hebrew just to be completely sure you are not hallucinating, or being subjected to a bad translation of the Bible by people out to convert you. No, there it is in clear Hebrew: “בני אתה” “You are My Son.” Don’t the Gentile Christians believe Jesus is God’s son? Jews never believed in a ‘Son of God,’ did we?
Since when is there a “Son of God” in Jewish religious thought? Moreover, since when is the Messiah also considered “the Son of God” in Jewish religious thought?
What is going on here?
Why do the Jewish Sages say the prophets foretell the Jewish nation will recognize this figure coming down from the sky as someone we pierced? How can someone descending from heaven also be someone humankind has pierced? That would mean he had to have been here on earth before. Does Judaism teach of a Messiah who comes twice?
As these questions and thoughts begin to cause cerebral flares, with great relief you spot a reference in the Talmud to King David. The relief disappears, however, when you see his name contained in a Messianic title, “Messiah, Son of David.” What is this? Now the Talmud is telling me there are Two Messiahs? What do these differing titles בן יוסף “Ben Yosayf” (Son of Joseph) and בן דויד “Ben David” (Son of David) mean? Going back to the Second Psalm, you see the words, “… I will give you the nations as your inheritance … to the ends of the earth.”
Now wait just a minute! This it too much! This “Messiah” (Son of David) is the Son of God and is going to rule the entire earth? It turns out, we learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls (Papyrus 4Q246) “They will call him, ‘the Son of God,’ and hail him as ‘Son of the Most High.” Jews as far back as the centaury before Yeshua of Nazareth’s birth believed in the coming of someone who would be hailed as "the Son of God.” It is not a concept foreign to Judaism.
How can one who is slain also be one who descends from heaven and rules all the nations? Who, then, is this other Messiah (Son of Joseph) who is supposed to be slain? Why do the Talmud’s rabbis link the two together?
To identify the conquering Messiah as someone previously pierced, even “slain,” whom humankind recognizes by the pierce-marks as he descends from heaven to Jerusalem in bodily form would mean he would have to arrive a first time … be pierced … ascend into heaven … and then return in bodily form to Jerusalem. That would mean the Two Messiahs would have to be the same person, but coming two separate times in history: a first time to be pierced and a second coming to rule in power.
A Second Coming? Isn’t that what non-Jews believe about their Christ (Messiah)? The Second Coming of Christ? That what the goyim (non-Jews) believe about their Jesus. Besides, if he comes the first time, is slain through being pierced – and then physically returns later – that would mean he would have to (gulp) … rise from the dead. Since when is Resurrection of Messiah in Jewish religious thought?
All this … and not a New Testament in sight.
With beads of sweat pouring off your forehead, you put down the Talmud and your Bible, and you suddenly feel quite lost.
Perhaps for the first time in your entire life … you lift your eyes towards the ceiling and talk from the heart directly to God. The prayer reverberating within the walls of your heart is as simple as it is agonized, and escapes your lips in these words: “God of Israel … who is the Messiah?”
FACING AN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
Scenarios like the one above were repeated untold hundred-thousands of times from the late 1960’s to the present. There is a spiritual event going on all around the Jewish world, and it is leading Jewish people to faith in Yeshua of Nazareth as the Jewish Messiah on a scale not seen since the First Century of this era, when virtually everyone who believed in Him was Jewish … and remained so.
At the time when I went through my own variation of the journey we just read, I was as surprised as my semi-fictional amalgam above, pictured reading Tractate Sukkah. “Everyone knows” the Messiah is going to bring in world peace and set up a Jewish theocracy in Israel. Yet, here was a Suffering Messiah I found predicted on the pages of our Jewish Scriptures and known in the Talmud as clearly as the Messiah who will eventually rule the entire world from Jerusalem. This was a Messiah who would die … or, more accurately, be slain (suffer karet, legal execution, as Daniel 9:26 foretells). And even though He was sinless, He would bear the transgressions of His own people and all the nations (as Isaiah Chapter 53 foretells), so our debt of sins before the One Holy God could be eradicated, and relationship based on the Spirit of God dwelling within us could be inaugurated. This was not how I grew up understanding Judaism.
A NEW THING
I love Gould’s reference to Darwin I placed at the outset of this piece. Reading Charles Darwin’s books and letters is a very moving experience: his writings contain sincere thoughts, not God-hating ones. The contradictions Darwin encountered in nature led him to ask certain questions preceding generations had been afraid to ask, for fear of their implications. As the Talmud says of Reb Jeremiah, ”For asking this particular question, he was thrown out of the yeshiva!”
The above-described experience is a summarized example of exactly what happened to my unsuspecting generation of Jews. We were ambushed unexpectedly by an inconvenient truth we could not escape: the Scriptures of our people testify eloquently to the validity of Yeshua of Nazareth’s claim to be the Messiah. Wanting something not to be the truth has never in all recorded history turned a truth into a falsehood. In the season of history immediately following The Six Day War, it seems the God of Israel infused an entire Jewish generation with a will to face this particular truth by plowing into the Jewish implications of it a flank speed.
The result has been the rebirth of synagogal Messianic Judaism over the past three decades – and it is all just beginning. My father-in-law is a Messianic rabbi - which means, if either of my two sons were to become a Messianic rabbi, he will be a third-generation Messianic rabbi: such continuity and perpetuity for Jewish faith in Yeshua of Nazareth – faith that vehemently embraces the New Testament mandate not to abandon “circumcision of our sons, the Torah of Moses, or the customs of our (Jewish) Ancestors.” (Acts 21:18-25) – has not been seen among us en masse for eighteen centuries.
The full fruition of this return God is engineering will alter human history for the better, as religious misperceptions are swept away by the One God’s interventions in human affairs. “In that day, truly the Lord will be One, and His Name (reputation) One.”
The Passover was such a moment in history. Our national Exodus from Egypt was a real-time intervention by God on behalf of our nation and for the rescue of Egypt from an empty, destructive national system based on the false premise that Pharaoh was a god. Similarly, the One Man from Nazareth came to suffer and die for the sin-debt of the world – just as Jewish Scripture foretold, exactly when Jewish Scripture foretold – a startling intrusion into business as usual. The word will never be the same. Western civilization sets its calendar by the life of this One Man. What will it mean to our Jewish Nation – and all humanity – when He visibly returns, recognized by His pierce-wounds, and sets foot upon the Mount of Olives to rule as Son of God, just as The Two Testaments foretell, and the Jewish Sages of the Talmud understand He will? Heaven only knows. That is a future entirely in God’s hands.
For all of us now in the present – The One God extends the same kind of loving invitation He did on the first Pesach in Egypt those millennia ago; to respond when He offers us the chance to accept being governed by truth.26 The Governor, or “Lord” of humankind’s life in that realm is Messiah.27 This is what it means to “accept the Lord.” This is the essence of being a God- follower.28
We all look forward to the day when humankind’s Lord is One. Bimhayra b’yamaynu! as the ancient prayer goes. “Speedily and in our days!”
Sources:
1. Gould, Stephen Jay Dinosaur in A Haystack pp. 149 Crown Publishers 1995 New York
2. This “He” refers to the Son of God, to whom God is promising all the nations as his future kingdom.
3. The Hebrew Bible is called the Tanakh. It is a Hebrew acronym for the three sections of the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament which are Torah (Law) Nevee-eem (Prophets) Ke-too-veem (Writings). These together make up the Jewish Bible prior to the New Covenant (Testament), or B’rit Chadashah, also known as the New Testament.
4. A rite of passage ceremony for Jewish boys and girls which initiated them into the age of responsibility as an adult member of the moral community.
5. The inhabitants of Jerusalem to whom the passage speaks. This does not mean that the Bible assigns the Jewish nation responsibility for the Crucifixion – Scripture makes it clear that all sinful humankind caused God to make the redemptive choice to let Messiah die as an atonement (see Isaiah 53:10).
6. Dead Sea Scroll fragments discussing the Son of God in ancient Hebrew, originating from 200 years before Yeshua’s birth to 100 years afterwards show clearly that many Jewish people held the concept of Messiah as Son of God , eventually ruling all nations and the heavenly realm as well. For now, see Vermes, Geza The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls In English pp. 576-7 Penguin 1997 New York & DSS Fragment 4Q246 (photo of ancient Hebrew document in Eisenman, R. Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol.11 plate#1272BAR Press 1991 Washington DC
7. The “we” here refers to all humankind, not only to the Jewish nation. (see Isaiah 53:6,10)
8. This passage proves conclusively that statements like Gerald Sigal’s – that “to arrive at the view of Yeshua (Jesus) as Messiah, the contents of scripture “must be twisted into views never held by priest or prophet, the authentic teachers in Israel.”…..are patently false.
9. It is interesting to note many Lubavitchers expect their dead Rabbe Mehachem Mendel Schneerson - whom they believe to be the Messiah - to rise from the dead; and they point to Isaiah’s 53rd chapter to justify it. Jewish theology has long understood Messiah must rise from the dead.
10. Stern, David Dr. Translation of Court Docket quoting Israeli Supreme Court Justice Witkon, p. 21c.1990 David H Stern. Used by permission. This document contains acknowledgment by Justice Witkon that the original followers of Yeshua were indeed zealously committed Jews.
11. Daniel 9:24-27, Isaiah 53:1-12, Zechariah 12:10ff-also see Op.cit Vermes, G. pp. 86,189 12. Isaiah 53 1-12
13. Isaiah 49.6ff
14. Ibid. Isaiah 53 ,Jeremiah 31:31, Ezekiel 36:24ff, Deuteronomy 30:1-6
15. By the way, relative recency of origin of the modern human species is not an idea antithetical to science: see Stringer & McKie African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity Henry Holt & Co.1996; and Leakey, Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human Anchor\Doubleday 1992 NewYork.
16. Talmud Bavli: Baba Bathra 23a
17. Deuteronmy 30 1-6.
18. Rom 11:15-16
19. Ezekiel 36&36. Zachariah 12-14 as exampled by God’s fore described dealings with Islam in the end of the days see Cohen, B. Israel Arabs & The Middle East: Understanding God’s Plan in Biblical Prophecy – Har Tavor 1991 Philadelphia (now New York: brucecohenwordsmusic.com)
20. Zechariah 14:9
21. If you students of the Bible ever wondered why Joseph gave his family the following advice for when they met Pharaoh, Genesis 46:34 “You should say, ’your servants have been shepherds from our youth even until now, both we and our ancestors’ so Pharoah will have you live in the land of Goshen; for every shepherd is an abomination unto the Egyptians,” the reason is that the word “Hyksos” means “shepherd kings” and the Hyksos’ conquest of Egypt two hundred years before Joseph was a national disgrace still poignant to the sitting Pharaoh in Joseph’s era. (See Kirsch, John Moses: A Life Ballantine Books 1998 New York)
22. Isaiah 53
23. Daniel 9:23-27
24. Isaiah 9:6
25. Isaiah 49:6ff
26. 2Thess. 2:10, 1 Tim. 2:4
27. Psalm 2
28. Micah 6:8, John 18:37b