WHAT IS THE MESSIAH OF JUDAISM? How the Jewish Bible Clearly Defines the Concept of The Messiah

[Music] so between 1980 and 1993 and that 13year window there were 1,200 tourists to the land of Israel who were admitted to the kavar Shaul Hospital in Jerusalem with symptoms of a condition known as Jerusalem syndrome and for these tourists the religious significance of Jerusalem and its charged spiritual atmosphere lead them to believe that they are the Messiah or some other biblical figure it was found of course that most of these people snaap out of this fantasy after returning to their home countries this is going to be a metaphor for what we're going to be seeing over the coming weeks we know that the topic of the Messiah is one of the central differences between Judaism and Christianity and we're going to see that the Christian definition the Christian concept is based upon a distorted concept it's a fantasy and when many Christians return to the Bible to the Hebrew scriptures they become disabused of their previous misinformed concept of the Messiah so we're going to see tonight that the concept of the Messiah the idea of the Messiah is a thoroughly Jewish concept this means that it's a concept that is rooted deeply rooted in the Hebrew Bible what we call the Tanakh it is in these writings where we can discern the definition of the Messiah Professor James tabore in his important little book restoring abrahamic faith notes that this concept this concept of the biblical Messiah he writes emerges clearly and unambiguously it's not a mysterious concept it emerges clearly and unambiguously from the pages of the Hebrew Bible what we're going to see in the coming weeks is that Judaism and Christianity ended up with a different understanding of what the concept of the Messiah is we will see that Judaism bases its concept of the Messiah on a clear and straightforward reading of the Hebrew Bible as Professor tabore noted this concept emerges clearly and unambiguously from the text we will see that Christianity developed its vision of the Messiah independently from the biblical text there were other factors driving the Genesis of the Christian Messianic concept however they would never be satisfied remaining disconnected from the scriptures and so once they had their Messianic Concept in hand they then went back to the Hebrew Bible to try and find biblical passages that might in some way support their Messianic concept so now let's see where we can find the concept of the Messiah in the Hebrew scriptures Messiah the word Messiah is a rendering of the Hebrew word it's an English rendering of the Hebrew word people that are English speakers often can pronounce the very gutural mashia and so English speakers say Messiah it's not really a translation it's not a translation the word mashiach literally means anointed what does anointed mean so we're going to see in the context of the Bible anointed means to smear something or smear someone with oil this is the idea you anoint something with oil you smear it with oil that is the meaning of the word mashiach or messiah messiah is an anointed one or someone or something that is Anointed with oil in Exodus 30 Moses was commanded by God to make a special anointing oil by mixing oil with several kinds of different sweet smelling or perfume smelling spices and then God commanded Moses to take this special oil and to anoint with it the tent of meeting the Ark of the Covenant the manora and the other vessels of the Tabernacle and then God commands Moses to anoint Aaron and Aaron's sons and to consecrate them as priests and this was done by smearing this special anointing oil on their heads now let's stop for a moment it's very important to make sure we have our bearings straight as we go through this Since Aaron was anointed Since Aaron had this oil appli to his head he can be called an anointed one right if you're anointed you can be called an anointed one in Hebrew the word would be a mashiach if you had a person Anointed with oil that's the process of of of smearing the oil that person has been anointed when and the Hebrew word is that person can be referred to as a mashiah the person was inaugurated into God's service with the smearing of oil on them in English you would say this person is a messiah again in Hebrew the Bible would refer to them as a mashia in English we would say they are a messiah or you might refer to them as an anointed one now later in the prophetic books we see the use of this anointing oil to dedicate the Kings of Israel so for example in first Samuel 10 ver1 we see the prophet Samuel smearing oil on the head of Saul of sha who was the first king of Israel and says to sha has not the Lord anointed you a ruler over his inheritance Saul is now being anointed he's being anointed by having the oil applied to his head Saul is now an anointed one a mashiach a messiah and we see the same thing taking place in 1 Samuel chapter 16 when the prophet anoints David to be the second king of Israel and of course people who were anointed such as Saul and David would be referred to as anointed ones in Hebrew as Messiah or as Messiah and indeed we see each of them referred to in scripture as God's Messiah or God's Messiah for example in first Samuel 24:6 we know that David was being urged by his men to kill King Saul King Saul was pursuing David to kill him was relentless and in this story in chapter 24 of 1 Samuel David and his men come upon Saul who was in a side of a cave all alone very vulnerable so David's men are saying look you have a chance now do away with him and David says to him his men God forbid that I should do this thing to my Master the Lord's Messiah the Lord's mashiach to raise my hand against him for he is the Lord's anointed one he is the Lord's Messiah now Christian Bibles will never render the Hebrew word here mashiach as Messiah you'll never see that they will always prefer to use the word anointed it's more distracting but the literal Hebrew says that sha is the Lord's is God's Messiah God's mashiah and later we see that sometimes prophets were anointed so in First Kings chapter 19 verse 16 Elijah the prophet is told by God you shall anoint Yu the son of nimshi as King over Israel another anointing of another king and you shall anoint Elisha the son of shaat of Abel noola as prophet in your place so here we see in one verse the anointing of king and the anointing of a prophet the upshot of all this is that there are many Messiahs in the Hebrew Bible many Messiahs in the Hebrew Bible many people were an anointed as priests as kings as prophets and the Hebrew word for being anointed is mashiach which we say in English as Messiah or some would prefer anointed so our next question is going to be okay so we see many messiah in the Hebrew scriptures many anointed ones but where do we find anything about a special anointed one about a special mashiach a special Messiah who would come in the future we might say that all of the historic ones might be referred to as an anointed one Aaron was an anointed one Aaron was a messiah Saul was an anointed one Saul was a Mia David was an anointed one David was a messiah but what about the idea of the Messiah not not a generic Messiah someone who happened to have been anointed we see that there are many of them in the Bible but where does the Bible speak about a special anointed one who will come in the future that we should look forward to where do you see that in the Bible and how do we go about doing that kind of Investigation so one very reasonable place to start would be by using a concordance a concordance is a tool it's a usually a large book could be online but it gives you every word in the scriptures every word in the Bible and it tells you every place that word appears in the Bible it's a very handy tool if we Look up the word mashiach Look up the word mashiach and its various forms because in Hebrew words have prefixes and suffixes so the word mashiach for example has various forms you could have mashiach anointed one or you say Messiah you have M your Messiah M his Messiah Le to his mashiach so you have different hebraic forms of the word mashiach and the concordance reveals that this word mashiach and its various forms appear 39 times in the Hebrew scriptures however you discover something interesting when going through these 39 passages here is the conclusion as explained by Christian Professor JM Roberts in a book called The Messiah developments in earliest Judaism and Christianity which was published by Fortress press in 1992 and he writes the following in the original context not one of the 39 occurrences of the word mashiach in the Hebrew Canon refers to an expected figure of the future whose coming will Conde with the inauguration of an era an era of Salvation one more time Professor Roberts says in the original cont context not one not one of the 39 occurrences of the word mashiach in the Hebrew Canon refers to an expected figure of the future Who coming will Conde with the inauguration of an era of Salvation so now we're back to square one we might have thought that if you go through all of the times the word Messiah appears in the Hebrew Bible you'd find something about some future Messiah that we should look forward to that's going to come not a historical figure that that came already that lived already some person that the Bible speaks about in the future it's not there there's no such word so now what do we do if none of the passages in the Bible that speak of an anointed Messiah are referring to a future anointed one where do we find such a concept in the Hebrew Bible it's a serious question why do we have such a concept why do we speak about the coming of the Messiah where did this come from again if you go in a in a straightforward Manner and you just try to look it up meaning that if you wanted to look up the concept of the high priest in in the Torah in the Bible you look up HOH you look up the the theoh mashia there are different terms for the high priest and you could find various passages that discussed the high priest you're in business if you're trying to find something about this Future character that we look forward to his coming call the Messiah you can't find it if you just try to look it up so where do we find such a concept it's not going to be too difficult but we need to keep two things in mind number one remember that King David was promised that all future kings would descend from him this is a a promise that was made to King David many times in the Bible for example in second chronicles 13:5 surely you should know that the Lord the god of Israel gave kingship over Israel to David forever to him and his descendants for an Everlasting Covenant that's as clear as you can get and this promise to David is repeated numerous times in the Bible for example in 2 Samuel 7: 16 says that your Dynasty and your kingdom will remain steadfast before you for all time your throne will remain forever that's the prophet Samuel speaking to King David I'll read it again your Dynasty and your kingdom will remain steadfast before you for all time your throne will remain forever that's one thing to bear in mind just to keep that in mind secondly the second thing to remember is that kings were anoint OED kings were anointed and kings are therefore known as they're referred to as anointed ones or as Messiahs so can we find any places where the scriptures speak of some future king who will come one day can we find any passages like that in the Bible again we weren't able to find any passages that speak about an anointed one who will come in the future but how about just speaking about a king because here we have the communative I think the associative theory of mathematics if a is B and B is C then a is C or something like that where if we know that kings are anointed ones so if we have a passage that speaks about a king we know he's Messiah a messiah we know the king were anointed so can we find any places in the Hebrew scriptures that speak of a future king who will come one day the answer is yes for example the prophet HOSA sometimes referred to as Hosea 3: 4-5 for many days the children of Israel will sit with no King no officer No sacrifice no pillar no apod or truim but afterward the children of Israel will return and they will seek out the Lord their God and David their King and they will tremble for the Lord and for his goodness in the end of days very interesting you have here a passage which is speaking about the distant future it's speaking about a time it's referred to as the end of day it's speaking about a time after the nation of Israel have gone through a long period bereft of a king bereft of the temple bereft of sacrifices and it speaks about a davidic king who will come after this period note that Hosea says that this is going to happen when is is this going to happen that after this long period of being without a king and without a temple and without a sacrifice they're going to seek out their davidic King David their King so the prophet says Hosea says it's going to take place after the children of Israel will return and seek out the Lord their God the prophet Isaiah also says that this is going to be the sequence of what will happen at the End of Time the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 59:20 that the Redeemer will come to Zan to those of Jacob who turn or repent of their willful sin so Hosea speaks about this davidic King coming after Israel has turned back to God Isaiah says the same thing the Redeemer is only going to come after Israel has returned to God and the national repentance of the Jewish people and their returning to God is also identified in the beginning of Deuteronomy chapter 30 as the trigger for their Redemption and the ingathering of their Exiles to the land of Israel so that was the first passage that we just saw where the Prophet Hosea speaks about a king from the line of David who will come in the distant future but as we go through the Bible we're going to see there are quite a few of these passages and they fill out a picture that as professor tabore said is clear and unambiguous so chapter 11 Isaiah Isaiah chapter 11 speaks of a great leader who will emerge from the family of David and he'll be a wise and righteous judge Isaiah says a staff will emerge from the stump of yesi yesi is of often called Jesse and he was the father of King David and a shoot will Sprout from his roots the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him a spirit of wisdom and understanding a spirit of counsel and strength a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord he will be imbued with a spirit of fear of the Lord and will not need to judge by what his eyes see nor decide by what his ears hear he will judge the destitute with righteousness and decide with fairness for the hum of the earth and he goes on to say that the wolf will lie down with the kid I'm sorry the wolf will lie down with the sheep and the leopard will lie down with the kid and a calf and a lion welp and a fatling will walk together and a young child will lead them they will not Nei they will neither injure nor destroy in all of my sacred Mountain for the Earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the water covering the seabed it shall be on that day Isaiah says that the descendant of yesi who stands as a banner for the peoples Nations will seek him and his resting place will be glorious so the prophet Isaiah here speaks of an age of universal peace and Universal knowledge of God why will the whole world be at peace with each other because as he says the knowledge of God will be as widespread as the water that covers the seabed the Prophet Jeremiah speaks of this Future King in three passages in Jeremiah 23: 5-6 behold days are coming the word of the Lord when I will establish a righteous Sprout from David a king will reign and prosper and he will administer Justice and righteousness in the land in his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely and this is the name people will call him the Lord is our righteousness several chapters later in Jeremiah 30: 7-10 the prophet writes woe for that day will be momentous there is no nothing like it it will be a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved from it it shall be on that day the word of the Lord master of Legions said I will break off the Yoke from your neck and I will tear your straps and foreigners will no longer enslave him they will serve the Lord their God and David their King who I will establish over them but as for you do not fear my servant Jacob the word of the Lord and do not be afraid Israel for behold I am saving you from distant places and your descendants from the land of their captivity and Jacob will return and be at peace and tranquil and none will make him afraid so here again we're told about the reign of a king from the line of David and God will rescue Israel from their enemies from their Exile he will return them to their Homeland and they will dwell there in peace and then in the book of Jeremiah the prophet Jeremiah chapter 33: 14 through 17 the prophet says behold the days are coming the word of the Lord when I will fulfill the favorable matter that I spoke concerning the house of Israel and and of the house of Judah in those days at that time I will cause a sprout of righteousness to sprout forth from David and he will administer Justice and righteousness in the land in those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in security and this is what people will call Jerusalem the Lord is our righteousness for this is what the Lord said there shall not be cut off from David a man who sits on the throne of the House of Israel so here we see the davidic king who will come in the future who will serve as a righteous judge and during his Reign the nation of Israel will live in peace and God repeats the promise that David's line will always be the ones who are worthy and rightfully the Kings of Israel the prophet Ezekiel yzel speaks of this Future King in chapters 34 and 37 here is his description in chap 37: 24-28 Ezekiel says my servant David will be king over them and there will be one Shepherd for all of them they will follow my ordinances and keep my decrees and fulfill them they will dwell on the land that I gave to my servant Jacob where your fathers dwelt they and their children and their children's children will dwell upon it forever and my servant David will be a leader for them forever and I will seal a covenant of Peace for them it will be an eternal Covenant with them and I will bless them and I will multiply them and I will place my Sanctuary among them forever my Dwelling Place will be among them and I will be a God to them and they will be a people to me then the Nations shall know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel When My Sanctuary will be among them forever now this passage in the 37th chapter of Ezekiel captures really all of the elements of the Messianic Vision it speaks of God who will raise up a davidic King for the nation of Israel and at that time the nation will be loyal to God and they will follow God's Commandments they will return to their ancestral Homeland and they will live there in peace and God will establish his holy sanctuary in Jerusalem forever and this will be the critical event to awaken the nations of the world to the truth of God's revelation of God's Torah and of Israel's role as God's special Nation so these passages that I've shared with you and there are others outline the biblical concept of the Messiah to come he will be a wise and righteous descendant of King David he will come to a baguer nation who have gone for a very long time Prim primarily in Exile without King and without a holy Temple without sacrifices and now they have returned to God they've repented and they've returned to God and God has sent this King to now lead them and he will be a wise judge and a righteous judge and during his Reign the Holy Temple will be rebuilt the Exiles will be gathered to the land of Israel Israel will live in peace and the knowledge of God will spread to the entire world and Usher in Universal peace throughout the world this is the biblical concept of the Messiah here we see unambiguous passages speaking about a davidic king that will come in the future and during his reign the world will be transformed into a utopian world and the Bible never calls this person the Messiah the Bible doesn't have to as a king we've already learned kings are referred to as Messiah as mashiach so this is the biblical description of the future mesiah the future anointed one the one that we refer to as the Messiah now once we understand this basic Contour of the Messiah and what will transpire during his Reign we can then see hundreds of places in the scriptures where this is corroborated and fleshed out each element each element of what the world will look like when the Messiah is here is confirmed and corroborated by numerous scriptural passages for example the ingathering of the Exiles the fact that one day God will bring his people back to their Homeland many such passages I'll just cite two of them Deuteronomy 30:3 then the Lord your God will bring back your captivity and have mercy upon you and he will gather you in from all the peoples with the Lord your God scattered you or the prophet Ezekiel 36: 24 I will take you from among the Nations and gather you from all the lands and I will bring you back to your own soil this is not mysterious this is not ambiguous this is as clear as daylight there are at least 10 other similar verses in the Bible and you'll notice what's interesting is that these corroborating verses don't speak about a messiah they don't even speak about a king they simply focus on what the world will look like when this Future King is here so what we have are the passages that I've shared with you earlier about the davidic king who will come in the future and during his Reign all of these Chang will take place the in gathering of the Exiles the rebuilding of the temple that the is the people of Israel will live in peace finally in their Homeland that the knowledge of God will spread to the entire world that world peace will result from that that's what you see explicitly in these passages that we studied that speak about this davidic King but the vast majority of passages in the Bible don't speak about the person of the Messiah they simply describe what the world will look like when he is here let's look at a few other corroborating passages so there is a promise that the Bible makes many times that one day the whole world will know God we see this in the prophet Zakaria Zechariah 8: 23 he says that thus says the Lord of hosts in those days 10 men from the nations of every language will grab hold of a Jew grasping His Garment and saying let us go with you because we've heard that God is with you here it describes how Israel is going to be a critical part of how the knowledge of God will spread to the world don't forget that the Bible says for example in Isaiah chter 43 that Israel are God's Witnesses we are here God says ATM ADI you are my Witnesses we are here to teach the world about God the Bible has referred to the Jewish people as a mohim a kingdom of priests kadosh and a holy nation what does it mean to be a priest it doesn't mean that every Jews going to bring sacrifices the main role of the priests in the Biblical times were teachers they were the teachers of Israel and the Torah says that the Jewish people will be the teachers of the world the Torah says that Israel is to be a light to the Nations and the prophet Isaiah says in chapter 60 that one day the nations of the world will come to your light as Zakaria just said there's going to be a time when the Nations will seek out Israel and say please teach us about God we know God is with you so Zachariah the prophet in the 14th chapter he says in in verse 9 and the Lord will become king over all the Earth on that day the Lord will be one and his name will be one it speaks about the end process the end of the process is the whole world is going to know God in Psalm 86 All Nations you have made will come and bow down before you oh Lord and shall glorify your name the prophet zhania Zephaniah chapter 3:9 for then I will turn to the people a pure language that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve him with one unanimous consent or Jeremiah chapter 31 no longer will they teach one another or say to each other know the Lord for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them says the Lord or Isaiah chapter 66: 23 and it will come to pass that from one new moon to another from one AB to another shall All Flesh come to worship before me says the Lord so this is again none of these verses we just saw speak about a king about a messiah about none of that it just speaks about a transformed World it speaks about what the world will look like when this Messiah is here and then as we saw the promise of the Messianic age is that it will lead to World Peace so we have for example in the prophet mikah chapter 4 he says in the days to come the mountain of the Lord's House will be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised up above the hills people will stream to it and many nations will come and say come let us go to the mountain of the Lord to the to the house of the god of Jacob that he may teach us his ways that we may walk in his paths for out of Zion will go forth the Torah and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem he shall judge between many peoples and arbitrate between strong Nations far away they will beat their swords into plowshares and their Spears into pruning hooks Nation will not lift up sword against Nation neither will they learn War anymore but they shall all sit each one under his own Vine and under his own fig tree and no one will make them afraid for the mouth of the Lord has spoken and this theme again is repeated throughout the scriptures Isaiah 60 he writes in verse 18 violence shall no more be heard in your land Devastation or destruction within your borders Zechariah 14 verse 11 and it will be inhabited for never again shall it be doomed to destruction Jerusalem shall abide in security or Hosea chapter 2 verse 18 I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals the birds of the air the creeping things of the ground and I will abolish the bow and the sword and War from the land and I will make you lie down in safety again these are themes that are repeated and corroborated over and over and over again so when we have a discussion about who is the Messiah or people discuss was Jesus the Messiah or was anyone the Messiah you you have to first have a clear and unambiguous definition of the Messiah it is impossible to make an informed accurate meaningful assessment of anyone's qualification you cannot pass judgment on anyone whether they are or aren't whether they were or weren't the Messiah unless you have in your hands a unambiguous and clear and accurate understanding of what is the concept of the Messiah and what I hope to have accomplished tonight was to show you how it is a idea that just flows right out of the words and pages of the Bible it's not a mystery but you have to look a little bit beyond the surface because what you don't have is any passage that says the Messiah will do X the Messiah will accomplish y that we saw we don't have because whenever the Bible uses the word mashiach it's about anointed people that lived already historical figures like Saul and David and Solomon and so to understand what the Bible's teaching is about a future anointed king you've got to do a little bit of just going beyond the surface and it's not that difficult and I believe I agree with Professor tabore that the concept emerges clearly and unambiguously from the Bible [Music] n [Music] [Music]