The Messiah, What Are Jews Expecting? – Rabbi Eli Cohen
According to the Tanakh, what qualifications are Jews to look for in the coming messiah? Will the messiah be a resurrected David? Is the messiah required to be perfect?
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Hi Jono, I find it interesting that the people of the USA tend to want a President who is their idea of perfect – kind of like a Pastor Bob and Dr Phil composite and seem to want a Monarch as well, such as the Queen in England and a First Lady who is ‘Queenly’. The ‘apple’ did not fall too far from the tree in America’s war of Independence from Britain.
Yes. We Christians have a gap between the 1st and 2nd coming. You also have a gap between the end of the Tanakh and now. The great book does not read as if the coming in of everlasting righteousness and the glorious kingdom is going to wait 2500 more years, and yet here we are: still waiting. The 70 Sevens of Daniel do not read like “IF you do such and such, THEN comes in these things: end of sins, everlasting righteousness, anointing the most holy, etc.” No, Seventy Sevens are DETERMINED upon thy people and upon thy holy city. (apologize for all caps; only way to emphasize). And we could say as much concerning the other prophets. To a man, they present the Day of the LORD as imminent and not to be averted.
We can see hints of the gap in the prophetic writings: the great mountain peak of the Day of the LORD, that looms behind the other closer at hand peaks that were contemporary to the prophets. From their perspective they could not see the distance between the peak in their immediate future (Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, etc) and the terrible, final conflict and glorious consummation of all things that is still future.
Likewise I see a gap in Psalm 110. The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand UNTIL…” That is a gap. Something has been accomplished. David’s Lord, the kingly, eternal priest, is SITTING at the right hand of the Almighty, and there is a waiting until all his enemies are put under his feet, and the striking through kings “in the day of his wrath.”
I see a gap in Hosea 5:14-6:3. “I, even I will tear and GO AWAY… I will go and RETURN to MY place UNTIL they acknowledge their offense, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early” “Come let us return to the LORD. HE has torn us to pieces but He will heal us. HE has injured us, but He will bind up our wounds. After two days He will revive us, on the third day He will restore us.” That looks like two “comings” to me. Plug in Psalm 90:4 here and we are brought very close to the present day.
The LORD is perfecting a righteousness that cannot be boasted about by any man. (Dt 9) In the new covenant it is shown to be HIS righteousness given as a gift of grace. He is calling some to be heralds of the righteousness of that Day before the time. I am not hearing it here.