THE TIME OF CHRIST'S COMING

A Jewish friend of mine once asked what would be the best proof of Jesus' Messiahship. Together we came to the conclusion that first of all we ought to decide whether the Messiah was to come at a certain time and whether this time was already past. Secondly, with this in mind, we ought to ask if Judaism could propose any other Messiah candidate with credentials as good as those of Jesus.

There are a couple of prophecies in the Pentateuch which raise questions about the time of the Messiah's coming. Daniel's vision of the "anointed prince" who was to come is part of the same theme. The Rabbis' discussions of these matters can also help Christians to understand the roots of their faith.

The Christ seen from afar

We have already seen that even critical biblical exegesis understands the passage known as Balaam's Blessing as foreshadowing the Messianic age. Numbers 24:13 contains an account of Balaam the son of Beor, who said, "What the LORD says, that must I say too". He presented himself as a man "whose eye sees clearly" and "who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High". "Come, I will let you know," he continues "what this people will do to your people in the latter days...  I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel."

This prophecy concerns the "latter days", a concept which among the Rabbis points to the Messianic future. Here, just as with Jacob's blessing, the Ruler who is to come will have the "sceptre" in his hand. The words of Ezekiel 21:27 also apply to both blessings:

    "It will not be as it was. The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low. A ruin! A ruin! I will make it a ruin! It will not be restored UNTIL HE COMES to whom it rightfully belongs; to him I will give it."
The sceptre which is spoken of is the distinguishing feature of the Ruler and the Lawgiver. Balaam's blessing also speaks of seeing a "star", something to which references are found in both the NT and in the Jewish literature.

The Aramaic Jerusalem Targum says of Balaam's blessing that God will "raise up a King from the house of Jacob, a Destroyer and Ruler from the house of Israel". The Aramaic terms 'destroyer' and 'ruler' describe the Messiah's role. Jesus likewise declared that "Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots" (Matt. 15:13). Targum Onqelos, which is officially recognised by the Synagogue, states that, "Then a King will rise from Jacob and the Messiah of Israel will be anointed". Adolf Jellinek has made a collection of old Midrash stories in which he considers 'the blessing of our Father Jacob', 'the wars of the Messiah-King' and the 'signs of the Messiah'.100 When he comes to 'the mysteries of Rabbi Shimon Ben Johai' concerning the Messiah, Jellinek speaks of how "Metatron, the Prince of the Presence", reveals that the "days of the Messiah, which will last 2000 years", will come as foretold "and then a star will rise in the east, with a sceptre, and it will be the star of Israel, as it is written, 'A star will rise from Jacob' ". RaMBaN too, speaking of Balaam's vision, states quite plainly that, "This prophecy refers to the days of the Messiah".

The Jewish scholars refer to the aeons beyond which Balaam's "clear eye" sees. Ibn Ezra, whose interpretation is followed by all the most comprehensive commentaries, says that Balaam is speaking first about "David, because it is said 'not now but further ahead, after 400 years' ". And then he says that there are "stars in the sky which are not known by history neither will be known". "Many have interpreted this as signifying the Messiah", but in the interim the Moabites, the Amalekites, and Assyria have arisen... "and the unlearned think that if the star is interpreted to mean David, then the coming of the Messiah will be denied. But away with the thought, because it is clearly said of the Messiah in the prophecy of Daniel, as I have explained, that he prophesied the rise of the Greek kings, the dominion of the Hasmonaeans, the building, siege, and destruction of the second Temple, and the subsequent salvation... "

In the NT section we will speak of the star which was seen when Christ was born. Here, when we are focussing our attention on the time of the Messiah's advent, we ought to take into account what the Talmud and the Midrash say about the 2000-year Messianic age and that the Rabbis looked to the book of Daniel for light on the question of the coming of the Messiah, and further, that the possibility of a twofold Messianic advent also appears in these discussions. The official Jewish prayer book, Sidûr, contains, at least twice, the prayer:

    "May it be thy will, O Lord our God and the God of our fathers, that we should keep thy commandments in this world and that we should earn, live, see and inherit the good part and blessing in the two days of the Messiah and in the coming eternal life." 101
The prayerbook itself does not reveal what is meant by these "two days of the Messiah". Balaam understood that the Messiah would come "in the latter days". The letter to the Hebrews understands these days as beginning with Christ.102
 
Christ's first advent

Concerning his second coming Jesus said, "No-one knows about that day and hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Matt. 24.36). Maimonides says in his 12th article, which is appended to the Sidûr prayerbook,

    "I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and, though he tarry, I will wait daily for his coming."
The idea that we cannot predict the time of the coming of the Messiah is somehow so deeply burned into our subconscious that we are easily misled into thinking that the Bible says nothing specific about his first advent. But is this so?

Ibn Ezra stated that "there is a clear account given of the Messiah in the prophecy of Daniel. And indeed: Daniel 9:24--6 gives a definition of the time of Christ's coming, his main function, and what will happen to Jerusalem and the sanctuary at that time. We read that:

    "Seventy weeks of years are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. "Know and understand this: from the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two weeks, the Anointed One (Heb. 'Messiah') will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary".

This talk of the 'weeks of years' after which the Messiah is to come is so simple that even Jewish children understand it immediately. By 'week' is meant seven years. At what point, then, was the word given "to restore and rebuild Jerusalem"? In Nehemiah 2:1--8 we read of the decree of "King Artaxerxes". Artaxerxes Longimanus (465--424 BC) authorised Ezra the priest to rebuild the city of Jerusalem in the seventh year of his reign, that is, in 457 BC (Ezra 7:7--8 and 11--26). The majority of critics agree upon approximately this year.

The prophecy speaks first of all about seven weeks of years during which the Temple will be rebuilt, and indeed the books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe this 49 year building phase "in the midst of dire times". After this there are a further 62 weeks to the coming of the Messiah. 62 x 7 = 434 years. Altogether, then, the time from the issuing of Artaxerxes decree to the coming of the Messiah is to be 49 + 434 = 483 years. Some writers analyse Daniel's prophecy counting up leap years and even days, but begin with whatever theory we may, it must be admitted that the prophecy fits the events surrounding Jesus. By simple arithmetic 483 - 457 = 26, and the general consensus of opinion agrees on approximately that year as the one in which Jesus, after receiving the baptism of John, began his public career.

The Dead Sea Scrolls show that shortly before Jesus' time the whole land was swept by a wave of Messianic longing, a fact which is also attested to by Luke in the 2nd chapter of his gospel. Both the aged devout Simeon and the 84 year old prophetess Hannah belonged to those who awaited in the Temple the "consolation of Israel" and the "redemption of Jerusalem". In Galatians we read that God sent his Son into the world "when the time had fully come" (Gal. 4:4--5).

And what, according to Daniel, was the Messiah's main role? The prophecy uses three times the word 'anoint', from which the word 'Messiah' is derived: the Most Holy is to be "anointed", the "Anointed One, the Ruler" is to come, and the "Anointed One" is to be cut off. However, he will come "to seal up sin, to atone for wickedness, and to bring in everlasting righteousness". Thus the fulfilment of prophecy is confirmed "with a seal". The idea of "cutting (off)" used of the destruction of the "Anointed One" or "Messiah" is the word used in both Hebrew and Arabic for the making of a covenant. The Messiah will introduce a new covenant by means of his atoning death. This was the chief purpose of Christ's first coming.

What the Jewish scholars think about  the coming of the Messiah

The most widely accepted Jewish exegete RaMBaM, Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, better known as "Maimonides", wrote to his friends the same kind of encouraging letters as the Apostle Paul wrote. In his letter IGERET TEIMAN he says this of our theme:

    "But Daniel has elucidated to us the profundities of the knowledge of the End Times. However, since they are secret, the Wise, may their memory be blessed, have barred the calculation of the days of the Messiah's coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the End Times have already come but there is no sign of the Messiah. For this reason the Wise, may their memory be blessed, have decreed: cursed be he who calculates the End Times...  But we cannot assert that Daniel was wrong in his reckoning... "103

In his booklet "The Statutes and Wars of the Messiah-King" RaMBaM gives a detailed account of mediaeval Messianic expectation and presents his own sound general principle:

    "We cannot know, in all these and similar questions, how they will be fulfilled since they are veiled even from the prophets. Our teachers have no special doctrines on these matters, they simply follow the particular leaning of various verses, which gives no uniform doctrine. In any case, the main thing is not to make claims regarding the accuracy of the ordering of these doctrinal questions...  as it leads neither to the fear of God nor to love. Let us not, therefore, think about the Last Days. The Wise say: 'Cursed be those who predict the End Times'."104
However, notwithstanding these warnings, dozens of predictions of the year of the Messiah's coming can be found in the Jewish literature. Even RaMBaM himself was guilty in this very IGERET TEIMAN pamphlet of determining the "year of salvation" as being 1212, by which time, fortunately, he was already dead.

The compiler of the main core of the Talmud, Rabbi Judah, who for this reason is generally honoured with the title of simply "Rabbi", as if no other were worthy to be compared with him, says of the times referred to in Daniel's prophecy that "These times were over long ago".105

These two mutually exclusive points of view -- that on the one hand the time of the Messiah's coming is past, and yet still he is awaited from day to day -- co-exist side by side in remarkable harmony. There are passages in the Talmud which stress the complete surprise of the Messianic advent: "Three [things] come without warning: the Messiah, hidden treasure, and a scorpion."106 Some of the scholars, such as R. Hillel, have said: "There shall be no Messiah for Israel, because they have already enjoyed him in the days of Hezekiah".107 According to some Israel will not have a king from the house of David "until the dead rise again and the Messiah, the Son of David, comes".108 "But if Israel can keep the Sabbath commandments for two Sabbaths, they will be immediately saved."109 Behind all this humming and hawing, however, the Rabbis saw the tradition of Elijah, according to which the Messiah ought to have come after the 2000 years of the dominion of the Law, "but on account of our sins, which were great, things turned out as they did".110  Even in the well-known prayer for the Great Day of Atonement, which we will consider when we look at the Suffering Messiah, we find the words:
"The Messiah, our righteousness, has turned away from us: we are deeply shaken, nor do we know where to find someone to redeem us... "111

There is in the Talmud an extensive discussion of the Messiah's coming, beginning with the assertion of 'Rabbi' that "these times are long since past". The seat of the problem is whether the advent of the Messiah depends on repentance or observation of the Sabbath. Finally one of the Sages refers to the words of Isaiah 49:7: "... they will bow down, because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you". And Rabbi Eliezer fell silent, because "this means that salvation will come in any case, even without repentance".112 Even this text, after which follows a discussion of the Lord's servant as a "covenant for the people", the Rabbis understood Messianically.

The destruction of the Temple and the dispersal of the Jews was for the Sages a setback for their nationalist beliefs, since the Messiah ought to have come during the time of the second Temple. Haggai 2:9 promises: "The glory of this last temple is to be greater than that of the first" (trans. acc. to Hebr.). Malachi 3:1 says: "Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come." R. David Qim .hi says, "The Lord, the angel of the covenant, is the Messiah." Zechariah 11:13, when it speaks of the 30 pieces of silver which were cast into "the house of the LORD" and to which reference is made in connection with Judas Iscariot, presupposes the existence of the Temple. Further, Psalm 118:26, a hymn which according to the Rabbis will be sung to the Messiah when he comes, says: "From the house of the LORD we bless you". The Messiah must, then, have come before the destruction of the second Temple.

However, the Bible sets yet another time limit for the coming of the Messiah, which does not usually spring to mind. We read in Jacob's blessing that the sceptre will not depart from Judah "UNTIL HE COMES to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the nations is his". This means that the tribe of Judah must retain its identity until the Messiah who is to be a "covenant for the people" rises from it. The book of Ezra (1:5--8) shows us that Judah preserved the awareness of its origins through all the 70 year captivity, with even its own legal advisor while in exile. The Jews preserved their genealogies right up to the time of Jesus, losing them only with the destruction of the Temple. When the Romans conquered the land the Great Council or Sanhedrin still had the right to the death sentence for murder. In Jesus' early childhood, in the year 6 AD, King Archelaus was deposed on account of his cruelty and intrigues. We are informed by the historian Josephus that a certain Essene by the name of Simeon had prophesied that this ruler, still Jewish albeit only nominally so, would be driven out in the tenth year of his reign, which is what actually happened. He was forced to flee to Gaul, and the Quirinius mentioned at the beginning of Luke's gospel sold his property as imperial stock.113 Thus Coponius was made procurator of Judah and the Sanhedrin lost most of its authority. It is to this that reference is made in John 18:31 when Pilate is told: "But we have no right to execute anyone".

The limitation of the nation's autonomy and rights of judgement was a calamitous misfortune. Rabbi Rahmon says:

    "When the members of the Sanhedrin discovered that the rights of life and death had been torn from their hands a general consternation seized hold of them. They covered their heads with ashes and their bodies with sackcloth, shouting, 'Woe to us! The sceptre of Judah has been taken away and the Messiah has not yet come'." 114

In the light of all this the Rabbis' speculation about the possible first advent of the Messiah is completely illogical -- he must already have come. R. Rahmon saw the Bible's own time limits.

The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple as a sign of the coming of the Messiah

The prophecy of Daniel chapter 9 tells us that when the Messiah has been put to death, "the people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary". Josephus says that this refers to the Romans. Furthermore, the historian goes into some detail on this prophecy in two chapters:

    "Daniel prophesied and wrote about all this many years ago. Similarly we can read in his writings about the way our people came under the yoke of Roman slavery and how our nation was destroyed by the Romans. All these writings Daniel left by God's command to give to the readers and students of history proof of the great honour God had granted him and to convince the doubters, who close out all possibility of guidance from life, that God still is concerned with the course of history."115
The Temple's destruction meant in particular the cessation of the sacrifices. The prophet Hosea foretold this:
    "For the children of Israel will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice...  Afterwards the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the LORD and to his blessings in the last days" (3:4--5).
Before that, though, the prophecy of Zechariah will be fulfilled: "And I will remove the sin of the land in a single day" (3:9). But are there any hints in the Jewish literature that the sacrifices will lose their efficacy?

Indeed there are! Both the Mishna Sanhedrin and the Avoda Zara speak of how 40 years before the destruction of the Temple the sacrifices lost their power and the gates of the Holiest of Holies opened by themselves. And the Talmud's Masekhet Yoma says:

    "40 years before the destruction of the sanctuary...  its western lamp went out and the doors of the sanctuary opened themselves. Then Rabbi Johanan Ben Zakkai (who died ca. 90 AD) rebuked them, saying, 'Temple, O Temple, why dost thou grieve so? I know this about thee, that thou shalt be destroyed. The prophet Zechariah has, after all, foretold of thee; Open thy doors, O Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars' (11:1). Rabbi Yitshak Ben Tablai said, 'That is why its name was called Lebanon, because it makes white the sins of Israel.' " This cryptic name 'Lebanon' for the Temple is derived from the root laban or 'white'.116
The well-known Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner writes in his book on Johanan Ben Zakkai that the events to which he refers were the result of the general corruption of morals and were a warning of the forthcoming disaster. In his account of these events he adds:
    "Josephus recorded a similar omen concerning the massive brass eastern gate of the Temple's inner court. Though securely locked by iron bolts, the gate opened by itself in the middle of the night. The watchman of the Temple ran and reported the matter to the captain, he came up and with difficulty succeeded in shutting it."117
Neusner reckons that Josephus' account influenced Johanan Ben Zakkai who then for his part tried to give an explanation to the Rabbis. Josephus, however, did not begin writing about the Jewish wars until the year 77 AD, which makes it rather unlikely that he could have influenced Jo .hanan Ben Zakkai's thought -- more probably the reverse. On the other hand, this tradition of the change of the nature of the sacrifice, according to which the transformation of the "shimmering cloth" from red to white had ceased, something to which the Talmud refers in three separate places, is too detailed to have been brought about by the influence of Josephus. RaSHI states that these remarkable events were manifestations of the Shekhina, the Presence of God, and it was as if the Holy Spirit were leaving the Temple.118

The real background to this miracle of which Josephus and the Talmud speak is to be found in the New Testament. Matthew, Mark and Luke say that the "curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom" at the moment of Jesus' death.119 The letter to the Hebrews also refers three times to the same event, giving it a spiritual interpretation.120 We have now a firm and secure anchor of hope which "enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain"; Jesus went on our behalf "once for all into the Most Holy Place", and in this way "we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place", which is "a new and living way " opened for us. In the words of the book of Daniel, sin is now "sealed up" (AV margin), wickedness has been atoned for and everlasting righteousness brought in.

Since we know that Titus took Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple in 70 AD we can understand that when the Talmud speaks of the events of 40 years before this it is referring to the year 30, which is most commonly recognised as being the year of Jesus' death.

We have discussed the time of the Messiah's first advent in the context of the five books of the Pentateuch, since the Proto-evangel, Jacob's blessing and Balaam's vision in the old Rabbinic writings contain references to it. In connection with these the prophecy of Daniel 9 always comes to the fore. The Pentateuch's Messianic vision speaks of a far off time in the latter days, although it is to be fulfilled when it is still possible to prove that the Messiah is of the tribe of Judah. By the time the city of Jerusalem and the second Temple have been destroyed, the Messiah ought to have already come.
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100.    Adolf Jellinek, Beth ha-Midrash, sifrei wahermann I-VI. Jerusalem 1967.
101.    Sidur ha-shalem, Shaharith lahol and minha leshabat.
102.    Hebr. 1:2
103.    Igeret Teiman, chap. 3 p24.
104.    RaMBaM, Hilchot ha-Melachim, chaps. 11 and 12.
105.    Sanhedrin 98b. and 97a
106.    Sanhedrin 97a.
107.    Sanhedrin 99a.
108.    Sutta 48b.
109.    Shabbath 108b.
110.    Sanhedrin 97a.
111.    Mahzôr leYom kippur.
112.    Sanhedrin 97b.
113.    Josephus, Antiquities, XVII, 13.
114.    Eg. Fred. John Meldau, Messiah in Both Testaments, Denver 1956, p30.
115.    Josephus, Antiquities, X.10 and 11.
116.    Yoma 39b.
117.    Jacob Neusner, First Century Judaism in Crisis, p73-75 and see also Josephus, Jewish Wars, VI; 5,3.
118.    See the Talmud's interpretation in Shabbath 22b and Minhôth 86b.
119.    Matt. 27:51, Mark. 15:38 and Luke 23:45.
120.    Hebr. 6:19, 9:12 and 10:19.

The next chapter "THE MESSIAH  IN THE PSALMS"

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