Rabbinic Writings and the Messianic Prophecies

One of the main points of the Jewish argument against the Christian faith is that the Christian exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures is erroneous. The Medieval period was the fortifying time for most of this type of prophetic objection. However, by appealing to early traditional writings, the case for the Messianic application of numerous Old Testament prophecies by Jewish rabbis and scholars can be demonstrated. The following is a very short compilation of a few citations demonstrating this. The dating of the material from which these quotations are taken is as follows: Targum Onkelos……………………………………………………….(A.D. 100-200) Baylonian Talmud……………………………………………………..(A.D. 200-500) Targum Jonathan………………………………………………………(A.D. 100-150) Targum Pseudo-Jonathan…………………………………………(A.D. 600-700) Midrash Tehillim………………………………………………………..(A.D. 900-1,000) Targum Yerushalmi…………………………………………………….(A.D. 600-700) Pesikta Rabbati………………………………………………………….(A.D. 600-900) 113Genesis 3:15 – Targum Pseudo-Jonathan:“And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between the seed of your offspring and the seed of her offspring; and it shall be that when the offspring of the woman keep the commandments of the law, they will aim right (at you) and they will smite you on the head; but when they abandon the commandments of the law, you will aim right (at them), and you will wound them in the heel. However, for them there will be a remedy, but for you there will be none, and in the future they will make peace with the heel in the days of the king, Messiah”. 114Genesis 35:11-12 – Targum Jonathan:“And the Lord said to him, I am El Shaddai: spread forth and multiply; a holy people and a congregation of prophets and priests, shall be from thy sons whom thou hast begotten and two kings shall yet from thee go forth. And the land which I gave to Abraham and to Izhak will I give unto thee and to thy sons after thee will I give the land”. 115Genesis 49:10 – Targum Jerusalem:“Kings shall not cease, nor rulers from the house of Jehuda, nor sapherim teaching the law from his seed, till the time of that king, the Messiah shall come, the youngest of his sons; and on account of him shall the peoples flow together. How beauteous is the King and Meshiha who will arise from the house of Jehuda.” 116Genesis 49:10 – Targum Yerushalmi: “Kings shall not cease from the house of Judah nor scribes who teach the Torah from his children’s children, until the time of the coming of the King Messiah to whom belongs the kingdom and to whom all dominions of the earth shall become subservient.” 117 Numbers 24:17 – Targum Onkelos:“I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not nigh. When a King shall arise out of Jakob and the Meshiha be anointed from Israel….” 118 Deuteronomy 18:18; Isaiah 11:3 – Maimonides:“Messiah will be a very great Prophet, greater than all the Prophets with the exception of Moses our teacher….”“His status will be higher than that of the Prophets and more honorable, Moses alone excepted. The Creator, blessed be He, will single him out with features wherewith He had not singled out for Moses; for it is said with reference to him, ’And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears.” 119Psalm 2 – Midrash Tehillim:“The sufferings are divided into three parts: one for David and the fathers, one for our own generation and one for the king Messiah, and this is what is written, ‘ He was wounded for our transgression’…” 120 Psalm 22 – Pesikta Rabbati:“My strength is dried up like a potsherd’ – (Psalm 22:15). Then the Holy One – blessed be He! – says to Him; Ephraim, my righteous Messiah, you took all this upon yourself from the six days of creation; now your suffering shall be like my suffering…” 121Psalm 22 – Pesikta Rabbati 36:1,2.“(When the Messiah comes), the Holy One, blessed be He, will tell him in detail what will befall him: There are souls that have been put away with thee under my throne, and it is their sins which will bend thee down under a yoke of iron and make thee like a calf whose eyes grow dim with suffering…. Iron beams will be brought and loaded upon his neck until the Messiah’s body is bent low… It was because of the ordeal of the son of David that David wept saying, ‘My strength is dried up like a potsherd’.” 122Psalm 21:1 – Midrash Tehillim“God calls King Messiah by his own name. But what is His name? Answer: Jehovah is a man of war – Exodus 15:3.” 123Psalm 72:12,17 – Babylonian Talmud – Sanhedrin 98b“O God, give thy judgments to King Messiah… May his name (Messiah) be Yinnon as long as the sun.” 124 Psalm 118:22 (Isaiah 8:13-15) – Targum Isaiah:“The Lord of hosts, him shall ye call holy; and let him be your fear and let him be your strength. And if ye will not hearken, his Memra shall be amongst you for vengeance and a stone of smiting, and for a rock of offense to the houses of the princes of Israel, for a breaking and for a stumbling;…” 125Isaiah 9:6 – Targum Isaiah:“The prophet saith to the house of David, a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us; and He has taken the law upon Himself to keep it, and His name has been called from old. Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, He who lives forever, the Anointed One (Messiah), in whose days peace shall increase upon us.” 126 Isaiah 11:1 – Targum Isaiah:“And a King shall come forth from the sons of Jesse and an Anointed One from His son’s sons shall grow up. And there shall rest upon him a spirit from before the Lord, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” 127Isaiah 11:1-4 – Babylonian Talmud:“Sanhedrin II – The Messiah – as it is written, and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.” 128Isaiah 11:2 – Targum Isaiah:“And a king shall come forth from the sons of Jesse, and an Anointed One (Messiah) from his son’s son shall grow up.” 129Isaiah 33:22 – Targum Isaiah:“For the Lord is our judge, who brought us out of Egypt by his might; the Lord is our teacher who gave us the instruction of his law from Sinai; the Lord is our King, he shall deliver us and execute a righteous vengeance for us on the armies of Gog.” 130Isaiah 44:6 – Targum Isaiah:“Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel and his savior the Lord of hosts, I am He, I am He that is from old; yea, the everlasting ages are mine, and beside me there is no God.” 131Isaiah 52:13-53:12 – Targum Jonathan:“Behold, My servant the Messiah shall prosper; he shall be exalted and great and very powerful.” 132Isaiah 53:6 – Targum Jonathan:“All of us were scattered like sheep, we were exiled, each in his own direction, but it is the will of God to pardon the sins of all of us on his (Messiah’s) account.” 133Isaiah 53 – Rabbi Moshe el Sheikh (Chief Rabbi of Safed) in the 16th century:“Our Rabbi’s with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking here of the King Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view.” 134Isaiah 53:5 – Machzor in the Musaf:“Our righteous anointed (Messiah) departed from us: horror hath seized us and we have none to justify us. He hath borne the yoke of our iniquities and our transgression and is wounded because of our transgression. He beareth our sins on his shoulders that he may find pardon for our iniquities. We shall be healed by his wound, at the time that the Eternal will create him as a new creature. O bring him up from the circle of the earth. Raise him up in fear, to assemble us the second time on Mount Lebanon, by the hand of Yinon (a rabbinic name for Messiah).” 135Jeremiah 23:6, Lamentation 1:16 – Echa Rabbathi:“What is the name of Messiah? R. Abba be Cahana (A.D. 200-300) has said: Jehovah is His name, and this is proved by ‘This is His name’.” 136Daniel 7:13, Zechariah 9:9 – Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a:“R. Joshua opposed two verses: it is written, ‘ And behold, one like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven’; whilst it is written, (behold, thy King cometh unto thee….) ‘lowly and riding on an ass’. If they are meritorious, (he will come) with the clouds of heaven; if not, lowly and riding upon an ass”. 137Daniel 9:24-27 – Megillah 3a Babylonian Talmud:“The Targum of the Prophets was composed by Jonathan ben Uzziel under the guidance of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi… and a Bath Kol came forth and exclaimed, who is this that has revealed secrets to mankind? He further sought to reveal a targum of the Hagiographa (part of the Scriptures that contain Daniel), but a Bath Kol went forth and said; Enough! What was the reason? Because the date of the Messiah is foretold in it.” 138Micah 5:1 – Targum Jonathan:“And you, O Bethlehem Ephrath, you who were too small to be numbered among the thousands of the house of Judah, from you shall come forth before Me the Messiah, to exercise dominion over Israel, he whose name was mentioned from before, from the days of creation.” 139 Zechariah 9:9 – Babylonian Talmud – Ber. 56b:“If one sees an ass in a dream, he may hope for salvation, as it says; ‘ Behold thy King cometh unto thee; he is triumphant and victorious, lowly and riding upon an ass’.” 140 Zechariah 12:10 – Sukkah 52a Babylonian Talmud:“What is the cause of the mourning?…. It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of Messiah the Son of Joseph since that well agrees with Scriptural verse, ‘and they shall look upon me because they have thrust him through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son’.” 141Jewish – Christian scholar, Alfred Edersheim provides a fully documented list of Messianically – applied Old Testament passages in the Rabbinic writings. Concerning this he states;“The following list contains the passages in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah or to Messianic times in the most ancient Jewish writings. They amount in all to 456, thus distributed: 75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and 138 from the Hagiographa and supported by more than 558 separate quotations from Rabbinic writings. Despite all labor and care, it can scarcely be hoped that the list is quite complete although, it is hoped, no important passage has been omitted.” 142He adds: “The Rabbinic works from which quotations have been made are: the Targumim, the two Talmuds, and the most ancient Midrashim.” 143A careful examination of this list reveals that 45 of the 63 prophetic passages listed earlier in this presentation were found to be Messianically applied in the Rabbinic writings. Of the eight Hebrew references that we have examined, 22 of the 26 predictions fulfilled by Jesus of Nazareth, were considered by Rabbinic sources to be clear Messianic qualifications. Along with these citations, numerous other Hebrew Scriptural references that have found fulfillment in Jesus can be found within the rabbinic writings. Indeed, the argument that the Christian exegesis of the Hebrew Scriptures is erroneous and without foundation does not stand up in the light of Jewish history and ancient Messianic thought. See Note #2.