The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

But if, in the ancient dispensations, the Messenger Jehovah, the delegated official Person, Messiah, was, in all relations, the actor, administrator, and revealer; if Moses and the prophets wrote intelligibly of Him; if they recognized and acknowledged him under all the Divine designations, why, it may naturally be asked, did not the authors of the English and other modern versions so understand, and in their translations construe and represent them? An answer to this question, in all its bearings, probably no one now would be inclined to undertake. But in certain, and perhaps the most important respects, it admits of a satisfactory answer. The translators, from the prescribed or customary and popular course of theological study and opinion, which aimed to avoid, with the arrogant assumptions and pretensions of Romanism, the gentile heresies of the whole Papal history, were led to entertain an overweening and ill-founded confidence in the modern Jews as interpreters of their own Scriptures; that is, of the Jewish authors who flourished, and whose works were published, after the establishment of Papal domination and intolerance, and of Mohammedan ravage and proscription. That school of Jewish authors was not only more modern, but widely different in respect to their theological doctrines from the Chaldee paraphrasts, especially in regard to the Messiah; and may be comprehensively described as including the Talmudists, the Masoretic doctors, and their rabbinical disciples and followers of various names. The productions of these Jewish authors were numerous and readily accessible at the period of the revival of learning in Europe, and in the sixteenth century were brought into notice and favor especially by the elder Buxtorf, in connection with his edition of the Hebrew Bible, and his lexicons, grammar, and various works relating to Masoretic and rabbinical literature. He seems to have entered with enthusiasm into the study of this school of Jewish writers; and, with respect at least to the later and best known portion of them, as the clue to their sentiments was furnished by their use of the Masoretic points, he embraced their system in that respect, and inculcated and defended the application of it to the text of the Hebrew Scriptures with earnestness, perseverance, and success. His example was followed. The use of the points facilitated the study of the language; and for that reason, as well as because they were supposed to be safe guides in respect to the reference and meaning of words, they became popular with the learned and with students. Instead of being regarded as having the effect of a translation and commentary, and thereby fastening on the text the constructions and opinions of their authors, whether erroneous or otherwise, they were regarded primarily in a grammatical point of view, and as indicating the vowels supposed to be proper to Hebrew words, in addition to the letters originally composing them.

But this system of punctuation has unavoidably the effect of a version or comment. Its office is essentially that of an exponent of the constructions and opinions of its authors, and as such it can be no further correct and reliable than their theological, exegetical, and religious doctrines, theories and sentiments were in accordance with the real meaning of the original text. It may often, and perhaps generally where no doctrine or doubtful construction is concerned, have the effect to express that real meaning, and to that extent it might be harmless, and, if not wholly useless, might be of equal value with a paraphrase to the same effect. But if the student adopts this system as a guide, he naturally relies on it as equally applicable to every portion of the sacred oracles, and, with as much confidence in one case as in another, adopts the construction which it indicates.

An attempt to reform the reigning fashion of Hebrew study in relation to this subject would probably be as hopeful a task as an attempt to disabuse the minds of theologians and religious teachers of the empirical, fanciful, and puerile system of figurative exposition which was rendered popular by Origen, and has reigned triumphant from his to the present time; being propagated from age to age by education, and by the example and influence of the learned. But, regarded in a merely historical point of view, there appears to be no room for doubt but that the Hebrew vowel points—closely and even bigotedly adhered to, as they are understood to have been, by the translators of the Scriptures into our own and other modern languages—had, extensively, a very ill effect upon the versions which they furnished. And to whatever extent this was true, it would naturally prevail, especially in relation to those passages concerning which the authors held erroneous opinions, and as to which, under the more than hereditary Jewish prejudices occasioned by the persecutions and proscriptions to which they were subjected, they aimed to counteract the tendency of the Chaldee versions, as well as “to root out,” in the language of McCaul, the Christian interpretations of the Hebrew text. “The violent persecutions of the Crusaders,” says that writer, “the jealousy excited by the Christian attempt upon the Holy Land, and the influence of the doctrine of the Mahometans, amongst whom they lived, produced a sensible change in Jewish opinions and interpretations, which is plainly marked in Kimchi and other writers of the day, and without a knowledge of which the phenomena of modern Judaism cannot be fully understood. Rashi, Aben-Ezra, and Kimchi endeavored to get rid of the Christian interpretations, and Maimonides to root out the Christian doctrines which had descended from the ancient Jewish Church.” (Introduction to Kimchi.) Yet this laborious student of those authors and of the Talmud adhered as pertinaciously as they to the Masoretic points, and apparently without over suspecting that their highest office and their necessary and principal effect was that of being the vehicle of a comment. Such is the force of education, literary discipline, example, and habit in generating fixed opinions.

But let one deemed competent to judge and to speak upon this subject be referred to:

“The Masoretic punctuation,” says Bishop Lowth, “by which the pronunciation of the language is given, the forms of the several parts of speech, the construction of the words, the distribution and limits of the sentences, and the connection of the several members, are fixed, is in effect an interpretation of the Hebrew text made by the Jews of late ages, probably not earlier than the eighth century, and may be considered as their translation of the Old Testament. Where the words, unpointed, are capable of various meanings, accordingly as they are variously pronounced and constructed, the Jews, by their pointing, have determined them to one meaning and construction, and the sense which they thus give is their sense of the passage, just as the rendering of a translator into another language is his sense; that is, the sense in which in his opinion the original words are to be taken; and it has no other authority than what arises from its being agreeable to the rules of just interpretation. But because in the languages of Europe the vowels are essential parts of written words, a notion was too hastily taken up by the learned at the revival of letters, when the original Scriptures began to be more carefully examined, that the vowel points were necessary appendages of the Hebrew letters, and therefore coëval with them; at least that they became absolutely necessary when the Hebrew was become a dead language, and must have been added by Ezra, who collected and formed the canon of the Old Testament, in regard to all the books of it in his time extant. On this supposition the points have been considered as part of the Hebrew text, and as giving the meaning of it on no less than Divine authority. Accordingly, our public translations in the modern tongues for the use of the Church among Protestants, and so likewise the modern Latin translations, are for the most part close copies of the Hebrew pointed text, and are in reality only versions at second-hand, translations of the Jews’ interpretation of the Old Testament.”

After conceding to this interpretation what he supposes it may justly claim, he adds that the modern translators “would have made a much better use of it, and a greater progress in the explication of the Scriptures of the Old Testament, had they consulted it without absolutely submitting to its authority; had they considered it as an assistant, not as an infallible guide.” Finally he compares the effect of this course to that of the Act of the Council of Trent in pronouncing the Vulgate to be of equal authority with the original Scriptures. (Dissertation preliminary to his Version of Isaiah.)

Now to apply these observations to the case in hand. Our translators having been educated in the Jewish sense of the Hebrew Scriptures, and having studied the original with the points under the received and general impression that they were of equal authority with the text, of course proceeded with their translations under the influence of whatever erroneous constructions and opinions the Massorites and their disciples entertained. Those errors, therefore, which were predominant in the Jewish mind when the points were added to the text, and when the causes of prejudice and hostility against the Christian doctrines were universally and most violently in operation, were perpetuated, both among Jews and Christians, by the use of those ingenious and plausible appendages; and from that day to this, translators and expositors have fallen back upon them, and upon the awful petrifactions of Talmudical and rabbinical jargon, as guides to the meaning of the words of Inspiration.

The Jewish people, after their total defection to idolatry, their exile in Babylon, and the cessation of prophetic gifts, having renounced idols and incurred the hatred and contempt of idolaters, were, from their restless state of mind, their internal divisions, feuds, and rivalships, and the exposures and vicissitudes of their external condition peculiarly exposed to cardinal and sectarian errors. They had forsaken Jehovah, and no longer received any tokens of his presence and favor. Both priests and people, a faithful remnant always excepted, had rejected him as their mediatorial prophet, priest, and king, and renounced their allegiance to him as their lawgiver and providential ruler and protector; and holding no longer the belief of a Divine mediator or of any mediation, they relapsed into that notion of the Unity which they still adhere to, and looked only for a temporal political Messiah. The fitful efforts at reformation which, under the influence of Ezra, Nehemiah, and the latest prophets, appeared after the rebuilding of their temple, gave place to extremes of formalism, hypocrisy, and impiety. Their notions of the person, offices, prerogatives, incarnation and sacerdotal work of the Anointed One, were as unscriptural and baseless as those of more modern times.

Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, (Brown’s version,) about the middle of the second century, thus refers to the Rabbins of that day, (sect. 68.) Trypho, in common, no doubt, with the Jews generally, held that there was no distinction of Persons in the Godhead, and that, there was no Divine Being, or Person, but the Father only; and quoted, not the original Hebrew of Scripture texts, but the glosses and false constructions of the Rabbins, in support of his opinions. Justin replies: “If, therefore, I shall prove that this prophecy of Esaias was spoken of our Christ, and not of Hezekias, as you say, shall not I prevail upon you in this also to disbelieve your Rabbies, who assert that the translation which your seventy Elders made when they were with Ptolemy, King of Egypt, is in some places not true? for those places in the Scriptures which expressly contradict any foolish notion which they are fond of, they say are not so in the original; and those places which they can twist and twine about so as to make them suit any human affairs, they say were not spoken of this Christ of ours, but of him whom they endeavor to wrest them to speak of. So they have taught you to wrest the passage now in dispute, saying that it was spoken of Hezekias; upon which passage I will prove that they have fixed a wrong interpretation. But when we propose those Scriptures to them which I have already recited, and do expressly prove that Christ was to be exposed to sufferings, to be worshipped, and is God, they do indeed, being necessarily obliged thereto, own that they relate to Christ; but they take upon them to assert that he was not THE Christ, and say that there is one still to come, who is both to suffer, and to reign, and to be worshipped, and to be God.” In sect. 71 he observes that the Rabbies “have erased out several whole periods from the Septuagint translation, in which it is expressly foretold that he who was crucified was to be God and man, and to be crucified and to die;” which erased passages he afterwards quotes.

In the course of his argument he alleges and quotes from the Old Testament to show that the Christ is called God, Lord, Lord of Hosts, a King, the King of Israel, the King of Glory, Angel or Messenger, Man, Captain of the Host, &c.