The Makers and Teachers of Judaism / From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Death of Herod the Great

by Charles Foster Kent

Section CXX. THE MESSIANIC HOPES AND THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF JUDAISM

[Sidenote: Sibyl. Oracles, III 767-784] Then a kingdom over all mankind for all times shall God raise up, who once gave the holy law to the pious, for whom he pledged to open every land, the world and the portals of the blessed, and all joys, and an eternal, immortal spirit and a joyous heart. And out of every land they shall bring frankincense and gifts to the house of the great God. And to men there shall be no other house where men may learn of the world to be than that which God hath given for faithful men to honor; for mortals shall call it the temple of the mighty God. And all pathways of the plain and rough hills and high mountains and wild waves of the deep shall be easy in those days for crossing and sailing; for perfect peace for the good shall come on earth. And the prophets of the mighty God shall remove the sword; for they are the rulers of mortals and the righteous kings. And there shall be righteous wealth among mankind; for this is the judgment and rule of the mighty God.

[Sidenote: Ps. Sol. 7:23-35a] Behold, O Lord, and raise up to them their king, the son of David, in the time which thou, O God, knowest, that he may reign over Israel thy servant; and gird him with strength that he may break in pieces those who rule unjustly. Purge Jerusalem with wisdom and with righteousness, from the heathen who trample her down to destroy her. He shall thrust out the sinners from the inheritance, utterly destroy the proud spirit of the sinners, and as potters' vessels he shall break in pieces with a rod of iron all their substance. He shall destroy the ungodly nations with the word of his mouth, so that at his rebuke the nations will flee before him, and he shall convict the sinners in the thoughts of their hearts. And he shall gather together a holy people, whom he shall lead in righteousness; and shall judge the tribes of the people that has been sanctified by the Lord his God. And he shall not suffer iniquity to lodge in their midst; and none that knoweth wickedness shall dwell with them. For he shall take knowledge of them, that they are all the sons of their God, and shall divide them upon earth according to their tribes, and the sojourner and the stranger shall dwell with them no more. He shall judge the nations and the peoples with the wisdom of his righteousness. And he shall possess the nations of the heathen to serve him beneath his yoke; and he shall glorify the Lord in a place to be seen by the whole earth; and he shall purge Jerusalem and make it holy, even as it was in the days of old.

[Sidenote: Ps. Sol. 7:35b-46] And a righteous king and taught of God is he who reigneth over them; and there shall be no iniquity in his days in their midst, for all shall be holy and their king is the Lord Messiah. For he shall not put his trust in horse and rider and bow, nor shall he multiply unto himself gold and silver for war, nor by ships shall he gather confidence for the day of battle. The Lord himself is his King, and the hope of him who is strong in the hope of God. And he shall have mercy upon all the nations that come before him in fear. For he shall smite the earth with the word of his mouth, even for evermore. He shall bless the people of the Lord with wisdom and gladness. He himself also is pure from sin, so that he may rule a mighty people, and rebuke princes and overthrow sinners by the might of his word. And he shall not faint all his days, because he leaneth upon his God; for God shall cause him to be mighty through the spirit of holiness, and wise through the counsel of understanding, with might and righteousness. And the blessing of the Lord is with him in might, and his hope in the Lord shall not faint. And who can stand up against him; he is mighty in his works and strong in the fear of God, tending the flock of the Lord with faith and righteousness. And he shall allow none of them to faint in their pasture. In holiness shall he lead them all, and there shall be no pride among them that any should be oppressed.

[Sidenote: Enoch 46:1-3] And there I saw One who had a head of days, and his head was white like wool, and with him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man, and his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels. And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, and why he went with the Head of Days? And he answered and said to me, "This is the Son of Man who hath righteousness, with whom dwelleth righteousness, and who reveals all the treasures of that which is hidden, because the Lord of Spirits hath chosen him, and his lot before the Lord of Spirits hath surpassed everything in uprightness for ever."

[Sidenote: Enoch 48:3-6] Before the sun and the signs were created, before the stars of the heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Spirits. He will be a staff to the righteous on which they will support themselves and not fall, and he will be the light of the Gentiles, and the hope of those whose hearts are troubled. All who dwell on earth will fall down and bow the knee before him and will bless and laud and magnify with song the Lord of Spirits. And for this reason hath he been chosen and hidden before him before the creation of the world and for evermore.

[Sidenote: Enoch 49:27-29] And he sat on the throne of his glory, and the sum of judgment was committed to him, and the Son of Man caused the sinners and those who have led the world astray to pass away and be destroyed from off the face of the earth. With chains they shall be bound, and in their assembling-place of destruction shall they be imprisoned, and all their works will vanish from the face of the earth. And henceforth there will be nothing that is corruptible; for the Son of Man hath appeared and sitteth on the throne of his glory, and all evil will pass away before his face and depart; but the word of the Son of Man will be strong before the Lord of Spirits.

[Sidenote: Enoch 51:1, 2] And in those days will the earth also give back those who are treasured up within it, and Sheol also will give back that which it has received, and hell will give back that which it owes. And he will choose the righteous and holy from among them; for the day of their redemption is at hand.

I. The Growth of Israel's Messianic Hopes. Eternal hopefulness is a marked characteristic of the Hebrew race. Throughout most of their history the greater the calamities that overtook them the greater was their assurance that these were but the prelude to a glorious vindication and deliverance. This hopefulness was not merely the result of their natural optimism, but of the belief, formed by their experiences in many a national crisis, that a God of justice was overruling the events of history, and that he was working not for man's destruction but for his highest happiness and well-being. It was their insight into the divine purpose that led the Hebrew prophets to break away from the popular traditions that projected backward to the beginnings of history the realization of man's fondest hopes. Instead they proclaimed that the golden era lay in the future rather than the past. The hopes of Israel's prophets regarding that future took many different forms. Often the form was determined by the earlier experiences of the nation. At many periods the people looked for a revival of the glories of the days of David. In later days, when they were oppressed by cruel persecutions, they revived in modified form the dreams that had been current in the childhood of the Semitic race, and thought of a supernatural kingdom that was to be inaugurated after Jehovah and his attendant angels, like Marduk in the old Babylonian tradition of the creation, had overcome Satan and the fallen angels. Israel's messianic hopes were also shaped and broadened by the teachings of the great ethical prophets. A growing realization of the imperfections of the existing order led them to look ever more expectantly to the time when the prophetic ideals of justice and mercy would be realized in society, as well as in the character of the individual. These different expectations regarding the future are broadly designated as messianic prophecies. The word "messianic," like its counterpart "Messiah" (Greek, "Christ"), comes from the Hebrew word meaning to smear or to anoint. It designated in ancient times the weapons consecrated for battle or the king chosen and thus symbolically set aside to lead the people as Jehovah's representative, or a priest called to represent the people in the ceremonial worship. The common underlying idea in the word is that of consecration to a divine purpose. In its narrower application it describes simply the agent who is to realize God's purpose in history, but in its broader and prevailing usage it designates all prophecies that described the ideal which Jehovah is seeking to perfect in the life of Israel and of humanity, and the agents or agencies, whether individual or national, material or spiritual, natural or supernatural, by which he is to realize that ideal.

II. The Kingly, Nationalistic Type of Messianic Hope. The messianic prophecies of the Old Testament seem only confusing and contradictory until the three distinct types are recognized. These different types of messianic prophecy naturally shade into each other, and yet they are fundamentally distinct and were represented throughout Israel's history by different classes of thinkers. The first is the kingly, nationalistic type of hope. It came into existence as soon as Israel became a nation, and may be traced in the Balaam oracles in Numbers 24:17-19, where the seer is represented as beholding Israel's victorious king smiting its foes, the Moabites and Edomites, and ruling gloriously over a triumphant people. It is echoed in II Samuel 7:10-16 in the promise that the house of David should rule peacefully and uninterruptedly through succeeding generations. Ezekiel, in his picture of the restored nation in 37:21-28, declares in the name of Jehovah that "my servant David shall be king over them and they shall dwell in the land that I have given to my servant Jacob wherein their fathers dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, they and their sons forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever." In such passages as Isaiah 9 and 11 the Davidic ruler is represented as reigning not despotically or selfishly, but in accordance with the principles of justice and mercy, bringing peace to all his subjects. As has already been noted, in the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah and in connection with the rebuilding of the second temple Israel's kingly, nationalistic hope reached its culmination, but through the victories of Darius was rudely cast to the ground (Section XCV:vi). For the next three centuries and a half, throughout the Persian and Greek periods, this type of Israel's messianic hope was apparently silenced. The Maccabean struggles and victories, however, and the oppressive rule of Rome stirred this smouldering hope into a flame and gave it wide currency among the people at the beginning of the Christian era. Again the nation came to the forefront. In the beautiful prophecy of Zechariah 9:9, 10, which apparently comes from the earlier part of the Maccabean era, is found the noble picture of a peasant king, humble yet victorious, establishing with the sword a world-wide kingdom. Memories of the glorious achievements of the Maccabean leaders kindled the popular imagination. When in 63 B.C. Rome's iron hand closed upon Palestine, the eyes of the Jews looked expectantly for the advent of a champion like David of old, who would crush the heathen, convict the sinful Jews, and gather the faithful people, ruling over them in justice and with tender care. These hopes are most plainly expressed in the Psalms of Solomon, which were written near the beginning of the Roman period. These expectations in their more material form inspired the party of the Zelots during the earlier part of the first Christian century repeatedly to unsheathe the sword in the vain effort to overthrow Rome and to establish at once the rule of the Messiah. It was because this type of hope was so strong in the minds of the common people that the false messiahs who rose from time to time were able quickly to gather thousands about them in the vain expectation that the moment of deliverance had at last arrived.

III. The Apocalyptic, Catastrophic Type of Messianic Hope. Another class of thinkers in Israel looked not for a temporal but for a supernatural kingdom. It is usually described in the symbolic language of the apocalypse. The inauguration of this kingdom was not dependent upon man's activity but solely upon the will of God. The exact time and manner of its institution was clothed in mystery. Traces of this belief are found in the references in Amos to the popular expectations regarding the day of Jehovah. Evidently the Northern Israelites lived in anticipation of a great universal judgment day, in which their heathen foes would be suddenly destroyed and they themselves would be exalted. It was a belief which Amos and the ethical prophets who followed him strongly combated, for they were fully aware of the fundamental weakness in the apocalyptic or catastrophic type of prophecy: it took away from the nation and individual all personal responsibility. Furthermore, its roots went back to the old Semitic mythology. This type of hope, however, was too firmly fixed in the popular mind to be dispelled even by the preaching of Israel's greatest prophets. As a result of the calamities that gathered about the fall of the Hebrew state it was revived. It is found in Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Joel. Each of these prophets looked forward to the time when Jehovah would miraculously overthrow their heathen foes, restore his scattered people, and establish for them a world-wide, eternal kingdom. In the closing chapters of the book of Daniel this form of belief attains its fullest expression in the Old Testament. In the Similitudes of Enoch (37-71), which come either from the latter part of the Maccabean era or else from the days of Herod, these messianic hopes are still further developed. Instead of Israel's guardian angel Michael, represented as coming on the clouds from heaven and in appearance like a son of man, a heavenly Messiah is introduced. He is known by the title of the Messiah, the Elect One, and the Son of Man (probably taken from the book of Daniel). In Enoch the term Son of Man has evidently become, as in IV Esdras, the title of a personal Messiah. He is described as pre-existent and gifted with the divine authority. When he appears, the dead are to rise, and angels, as well as men, are to be tried before his tribunal. The sinners and the fallen angels he will condemn to eternal punishment. All sin and wrong shall be driven from the earth. Heaven and earth shall be transformed, and an eternal kingdom shall be established in which all the righteous, whether dead or living, shall participate. This was evidently the type of messianic hope held by the Pharisees as well as the Essenes. As the result of the teaching of the Pharisees it was held widely by the Jews of the first Christian century. It was clearly in the minds of Jesus' disciples when he made his last journey to Jerusalem. It was both the background and the barrier to all his work. It is the key to the interpretation of Paul's conception of the Christ, or the Messiah, for he had been educated a Pharisee. This apocalyptic type of messianic hope powerfully influenced the life and thought of the early Christian Church and even permeated the Gospel narratives. The question of how far Jesus himself was influenced by it is one of the most vital and difficult problems of early Christian history.

IV. The Ethical and Universalistic Type of Messianic Prophecy. Far removed from the kingly, messianic hopes of the people and the supernatural visions of the apocalypses were the plain, direct, practical ideals of Israel's great ethical prophets. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Jeremiah all united in declaring that the realization of Jehovah's purpose in history depended primarily upon the response of his people. They regarded the kingdom of God as a natural growth. It represented the gradual transformation of the characters of men under the influence of God's truth and spirit working in their minds. They hoped and labored to see the nation Israel living in full accord with the demands of justice, mercy, and service. The II Isaiah, under the influences which grew out of the destruction of the temple and the closer contact with the heathen world, voiced this type of messianic hope in its broadest and most spiritualized form. He declared that the Israelites had been called and trained for a unique service and that that service was to be performed by them quietly and unostentatiously, as prophets and teachers of men. He also presented most clearly Israel's missionary ideal, and showed that its task was not to destroy but to bring light to the Gentile world. He and the more enlightened prophets who followed him saw an ever-widening kingdom established without the aid of the sword and freed from all racial barriers—the eternal, universal, spiritual kingdom of God on earth. It is evident that in contrast to the other types of messianic prophecy this form was comprehensible, practicable, and alone capable of realization.

V. The Messianic Hopes of Judaism at the Beginning of the Christian Era. Unfortunately, as a result of the varied experiences through which Judaism passed in the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era, its ethical and universal messianic hopes were largely eclipsed. The ideal of the suffering servant appears to have been almost forgotten. As the later Jews read the earlier scriptures of their race in order to determine what the future held in store for them, they fixed their eyes upon the kingly and apocalyptic prophecies. Regarding all scriptures as equally authoritative, they attempted the impossible task of blending these fundamentally different types of prophecy. The result was that their beliefs became, indeed, a complex labyrinth with paths leading in opposite directions. Later events have proved beyond question that these popular types were the dreams of religious enthusiasts rather than true pictures of the way in which the divine purpose was to be perfected in human history, and yet the apocalyptic type of prophecy was not without its significance. It tended to correct the narrow national hopes of the Jews and to lift them to the consideration of that which was spiritual and eternal. It also led them to appreciate the unity of all history, and in times of distress it kept alive their faith in a God who was wisely guiding their destinies. Underlying all these different types of prophecy is the appreciation of the broad truth that God was working out in the lives of men and nations a definite purpose, and that that purpose was good, and that the God back of all history was a God not only of power but also of love. It was inevitable that the ethical and more spiritual expectations of the early Hebrew prophets should find the fullest response in the heart and life of the Great Teacher. In the face of opposition from the leaders of his race, from the multitudes that gathered about him, and even from the disciples who loved and followed him, he proclaimed that the kingdom of God would not come by observation, but that its growth would be natural and gradual like that of the mustard seed, that it was not external but within the hearts of men, that membership in that kingdom depended not upon the arbitrary will of God, but upon men's acting in accord with that will in the every-day relations of life. Thus Jesus prepared the way for the complete fulfillment of all that was noblest and best in Israel's messianic hopes, and in his character and teachings far surpassed the highest expectations of the inspired teachers of his race.