Episode 51: Isaiah and the Messiah Part 15–The Suffering Servant Song

Yes! In my opinion (which is rarely humble), Isaiah 52:13-53:13 is the most important material in all of the Hebrew Scriptures. Finally, God’s plan for the promised end to the relational estrangement between not only God and Israel but also God and the nations will be revealed and the shocking mission of the Servant, the Messiah, revealed.

The teaching I made reference to in the broadcast is Ryan White’s The Suffering Servant/The Leper Messiah and can be found on his website FaithofMessiah.com and is free all this month to subscribers at the $10/year level.

Speaking of support–I don’t get paid for doing the radio show but it does cost money to produce in terms of study materials, monthly software subscriptions, and the channel and blog costs. Plus this takes a huge amount of time to put together. Would you consider becoming a supporter? If everyone who listens would just chip in $5/month it would make a huge difference.

Transcript below, marginally edited.

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Isaiah and the Messiah 15—The Suffering Servant Song

I am going to be really honest here. I have been dreading this. It is too great a responsibility and I believe it is the most important section of the Hebrew Scriptures—yes, even more important than the Torah because if the Torah was sufficient to save us, it would have and we would not have needed the subject of today’s broadcast. Torah gives us guidance and it is eternal, but it remains powerless to save. When the disciples of Yeshua of Nazareth, you may call Him Jesus, heard and/or read these verses in Isaiah 42, 49, 50, 52 and 53, they recognized their teacher. Yeshua Himself used the verses of the various servant songs to describe Himself—but never used the verses that were clearly referring to Cyrus the Great. Isaiah has been building up to this climactic and universe-altering material since 49:1 when the Servant began to speak for Himself and outline His divinely ordained mission. The material started out rather vague but has gotten more and more detailed not only concerning his mission but also his fate.

My dear friend Ryan White has the absolute best teaching on this subject matter that I have ever heard and if you are a subscriber to his website at the $10/year level he has made his Suffering Servant teaching available as this month’s featured teaching. He works from his own translation that he did while getting his Master’s degree in Biblical Studies and covers it entirely from the context of honor and shame. His website is FaithofMessiah.com and he is someone I absolutely trust and I do not recommend teachers generally unless I know them, in person, and also know their spouse and kids as well. He is someone I talk with all the time and I know personally that he is willing to learn and grow and to admit error and reconsider his position when confronted with new data. Of course, the books I read are different—all you have to be is an excellent scholar. I don’t have enough time to get to know everyone whose books I read and even if I did, quite a few of them are dead.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com

Throughout this series, I have been quoting from the English Standard Version, the ESV.

Although the fourth Servant Song officially begins with 52:13, it begins with a “Behold” which behooves us to go back to see the context in which this new announcement is being made.

12 For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go before you,
    and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

As a review, the second Zion Song, which we covered last time, is a protest after the end of the third Servant Song, where the Servant speaks of the immediate results of His mission to regather and comfort Israel and bring salvation to the nations (which we heard in the Second Servant Song), culminating in his voluntary suffering within a legal setting which will be overturned by Yahweh, who will vindicate Him. Yahweh then, as He began in chapter 40, speaks of the comforting of His people and their future salvation via the “arm of the Lord.” The response from Israel to this good news that the Servant and salvation are coming is a challenge to Yahweh to wake up and save them, as though they didn’t even hear what He had said. We see this thematic cycle over and over again—Yahweh promises salvation and tells them to rejoice and they tell Him that they have no cause for rejoicing and that He is some combination of blind, deaf, powerless, uncaring and/or asleep. But last week’s Zion song ended with the promise of a Greater Exodus, greater than the Exodus out of Egypt and far greater than the pale shadow of a remnant Exodus inaugurated by Cyrus the Great out of Babylonia. This is the Greater Exodus led by the Servant, the Agent of Yahweh, the Suffering One, whom some later Rabbinic treatises label as the “Leper Messiah.” This Greater Exodus is the context of Mark—invisible if you don’t know what to look for but it wouldn’t have been lost on the Jews of the time. Paul, specifically, alluded to this quite a bit but, again, if we don’t know what to look for in the Synoptic Gospels, we will miss it. The last fifteen weeks and the next two—I am only teaching this so that you will be familiar enough with the material that when I teach Mark, you will see the story behind the story. Plus, by teaching this you can also see how the anti-missionaries selectively quote out of context in order to get people to deny Yeshua as Messiah. But let’s go over that last verse from last week once more:

12 For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight, for the Lord will go before you,
    and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

Obviously, a reference to the original Exodus—but also a reference to Cyrus’s Exodus. The original Exodus was unique—they ate of the Passover in haste and left Egypt in haste, they literally had to flee because once Pharaoh came to his senses after the shock of losing his firstborn son, he sent his armies after the Israelites and the mixed multitude who accompanied them. But this time is different. No one is chasing them. No one is going to try and get them back. But, just like the first Exodus, Yahweh will go before and behind them to protect them. Nothing really complicated here. But next, we have a “behold!” that is a signal to pay attention. And we cannot, cannot separate it from the verse before because this has all been one long connected poem since Isaiah 40. This is what the anti-missionaries do wrong, they take a verse here and there and then tell you what they mean without the context of the whole.

13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.

What is the context of this? “The Lord will go before you, the God of Israel will be your rear guard.” This is a huge show of strength on the part of the Lord followed by a reference to the success of the mission of the Messiah. How is this possible in terms of the Greater Exodus being alluded to in terms of the nations being saved and the restoration of relationship (gathering) of Israel with Yahweh? The main, overarching theme of 49-52 has been Israel’s estrangement with God and His promise to restore her Himself. And this is the alarming way that it will happen, a way that makes so little sense to humans that we come up with quaint little mantras in order to explain it away. But I think that in trying to pretend like we can ever fully grasp the divine logic of salvation through the Servant, we deplete it of quite a lot of beauty. In truth, though it may offend us terribly—it really doesn’t matter if we understand it all. It only matters that it has been proven true with billions of people over the past 2000 years.

But, “my servant shall act wisely.” Obviously, the speaker is Yahweh.  The word translated wisely, yaskil, means to act in such a way that one’s efforts will be successful. So, we have a Servant here who is guaranteed success. The Targum on this actually adds “Messiah” after the word “Servant” so the authors obviously believed this was not Israel but one man, the Messiah. Look at ”he shall be high and lifted up”–that phrase cannot be ignored as it only appears four times in Scripture and three of those times it refers to Yahweh Himself.  Also, we see that he “shall be exalted”, the Hebrew on that being gabah, and when we go back to Isaiah 2:6-22 we have a big long treatise/rebuke/whatever telling us that only God Himself can be exalted. And so these two phrases really complicate things for those who desire a fully human Messiah who was not also fully divine. Gabah can mean tall, and high and raised up—but when combined with “high and lifted up” the meaning becomes clear.

So, a verse about the Exodus, and then a verse about the success and exaltation of the Servant and then, we have what appears to be a 180. Like someone said, BUT not yet.

14 As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance,
    and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—

Wow, high and exalted but here we have this man, singular, “marred beyond ish which means man but is translated here as human resemblance. Man, but not man because of disfigurement. And his body, beyond that of b’nei adam, the children of mankind. I the ancient world, where beauty was blessing and disfigurement of any kind was dishonor, this is a shocking turn of events that we sometimes miss because we no longer think in terms of honor and shame. And yet, when we see someone grossly disfigured, we still will mock, shame, or sometimes react with horror. So, the contrast here could not be greater for an ancient audience, hence their astonishment.

15 so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.

The word sprinkle is the translation of a rare word yazzah which is found in Lev 14:7 in reference to the sprinkling of the leper during their purification. But of the twenty-four times it occurs in Scripture, fifteen of those are from Leviticus and refer to sprinkling with blood or oil in various purification rituals.  Remember that although the Servant, in Is 49, would regather Israel to Yahweh and end their estrangement from Him, that job was considered too small and He was also given the task of bringing salvation to the nations.  So, it makes sense that this Servant would sprinkle many nations—as Israel is a kingdom of priests, the ideal representative of Israel would perform this priestly purification of the nations.

Going forward, Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. This is the great irony—the gentile nations will be scandalized and shocked at the thought of a God who redeems those who are not even His own people. They had literally never heard of it but all of a sudden they would see it, and they would understand what they had never been told. The Cross, when it happened, turned the world upside down within the course of just a few hundred years—destroying polytheism within the Roman world. The Jews heard but only a remnant responded and believed—much like the remnant who responded and believed and left Babylonia when Cyrus gave them permission to leave.  Paul wrote about this phenomenon a lot and especially in Romans.

Now, before we start in on Is 53, I want to mention a few things. (1) Isaiah 53 was used as the template for different creeds within Christianity, and of course, the creeds were written in order to combat heresies like dualism and Gnosticism as well as to promote a unity of belief in order to protect people from those who would just flat out make up crazy stuff in an age of gross illiteracy; (2) Personal pronouns—in this chapter, there are at least nineteen references to Israel as a plural unity (we and they, that sort of thing) while there are forty-six singular references to the Servant. Those who teach that the Servant is Israel have to do some serious linguistic gymnastics in order to justify it. The Servant, in context, is part of Israel, its ideal son, so to speak, but Israel is not the Servant. The Servant serves Israel, gathers Israel, redeems Israel, ends Israel’s estrangement from Yahweh. Just as I can’t do that for myself, and no one can, by the way, Israel could not do it for herself either.

53 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Who is this us being referred to? We’re going to see a litany of nineteen plural pronouns here, all referring to Israel as a whole and whoever is speaking identifies themselves as part of Israel. Call it a representative speaking for the whole, the author. This isn’t an outsider, but an insider. This cannot be a representative for the nations because the context is just not correct for that and we have never seen them utter a peep up to this point. They are always challenged and then silent in response. No, this is a speaker who is speaking on behalf of all of Israel. Now, this entire section (all of chapter 53) is going to be posed as a retrospective, as though someone is remembering the past and talking about something shameful and shocking and tragic that they witnessed. This sort of perspective isn’t that uncommon and remember how much of Isaiah speaks of the future as though it is already a done deal. Same sort of concept—once Yahweh announces His plans, they are no longer in question. They will happen.

to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Remember, we have been talking over the past two weeks about the “arm of the Lord” (51:5&9) whom the Qumran community, the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and specifically 1QIsa (the Great Isaiah Scroll) identify as the Messiah. We can look at it this way, through their eyes, long before the birth of Yeshua—“To whom has the Messiah been revealed?” The Servant is the Arm of the Lord is the Messiah according to Jewish thought before His birth.

2 For he (referring back to 52:14, the disfigured one) grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

Whoever the Servant is, He didn’t just appear out of nowhere. He grew up in their presence—not like Mithra who popped up out of a rock fully grown up. No, the Servant was born and lived among the “us” spoken of in verse one. He was like a “root out of dry ground.” The Hebrew word for root is shoresh and in context here it is talking about a plant something like desert scrub brush. Not a pretty plant in a garden, but a survivor out in the uncultivated wilderness. That he has no form or majesty that “we” should look at him or any beauty that “we” should desire him—in the ancient world, and especially in Greco-Roman times when they worshipped the perfect human form, beauty and perfection was considered to be proof of God’s blessing and any sort of ugliness and deformity was considered to be a curse. No one in the ancient world wanted to be attached to someone who was cursed. Even Samuel wanted David’s eldest brother for king because was beautiful.

But not this guy, not the Servant.

3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

This should remind us of Job, and indeed it is a lament. Look at the Messianic Psalm 22 really quick for context:

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

It is heartbreaking to really think about this. The Servant, the arm of the Lord, was despised.  And we look at despised and we think of how we feel about our enemies, but this word is not about hatred. It is about looking at someone and deciding that he is totally worthless and beneath contempt—totally unworthy of notice. Such a person would be an affront to recognized leadership if he ever gathered any kind of notoriety. No wonder such a one would be familiar with grief. He has come to save and to serve and yet he is considered to be worse than nothing. That judgment undermines his mission and prevents him from doing what he came to do—or so it would seem at first.

And men hid their faces from him. Not shocking in a world where those who were believed to be under a curse would not be looked at for fear of the evil eye. People (and especially pregnant women) thought it was dangerous to even look at a disfigured person for fear that the curse would transfer.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.

Verse three told us that he was well acquainted with grief and sorrow but how does he respond? By taking on the grief and sorrows of others as well. This man is kind and loving and forgiving. Yet, but, the response to him was to decide that he was stricken, smitten and afflicted by God. And this is a double whammy—and again, alludes back to Job, who was innocent and yet stricken. How quickly and conveniently we forget that not all people who are afflicted are getting what they have coming to them—but that was the common belief in ancient times. You got what you deserved, in their minds, pure and simple. But “we” attributed deservedness to him despite his taking of our sorrows upon himself. I want you to get the point of what is being communicated here. What he looks like on the outside is what we look like on the inside. That’s what this verse is saying. And that word translated as stricken is na’gua—it refers to being stricken with leprosy, the living death. So all of “us” are like lepers on the inside while we consider him to be a leper, to be shunned and driven away because of his outside appearance when we look like that in a far worse place, on the inside.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

So much here. But he was pierced for our transgressions. First, we see the word “but” which is a response to our completely wrong attitude about him. Try, “despite our judgement of him, he was pierced.” It should hurt. It was meant to be shameful and hurt us. That word translated as pierced is mecholal and it is associated with death in Is 22:2, 51:9, 66:16 and Ps 69:26-27. This death happened on behalf of our transgressions, which is pescha, willful and rebellious spit in the face of God sin, and he was crushed for our iniquities, avon, intentional sins that are more the result of falling to temptation than outright rebellion. But to be crushed, that word actually means pulverized—not like, a rock fell on my leg and I will survive. The Servant was killed.

It is not explained or justified how his chastisement brought us to peace, to shalom, to wholeness and reconciliation with Yahweh, or how our wounds are healed. I find it remarkable that we are simply told that it is true and we are to accept that. We definitely try too hard to understand why what works, works—instead of praising God that it does. Sounds exactly like how Israel is rebuked through all of chapters 40-55, right? I have to see it, I have to experience it, I have to understand it, I have to like it before I accept it and praise God for it.

Although we do see the concept of one person suffering and atoning for another in various places, it is only specifically spelled out and claimed here. If you want to check out contemporary (for them) ideas about vicarious suffering/substitutionary atonement, check out 2 Macc 7:37-38, 4 Macc 6:27-29, 17:22, and 18:4. Isaiah 53 in the Masoretic text, as well as in the Septuagint and in 1QIsa, the Great Isaiah Scroll, all clearly lay it out but without saying how it is possible. Other documents that are questionable referring to it are the Apocryphon of Levi, 4Q540-541, and the Testament of Benjamin 3:8 but it is very much suspected to have been reworked during the Christian era by “helpful” scribes.

But, I will add this quote from John Oswalt, pg 385 of his NICOT on Is 40-66:

A lamb cannot die in a human’s place, but a perfect human could; and if that human is also God, he could die for every human’s sin.

Speaking of sheep, the next two verses introduce a “sheep vs sheep” situation. Two types of sheep are going to be compared and contrasted.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

First, we have the “we” sheep. They (we) are unruly, have gone astray, have turned to our own ways. Not complimentary. Remember that ancient Near Eastern kings were called shepherds, so all us common folks being sheep is not some mysterious metaphor. All of God’s people are His sheep because He is our king. But we aren’t exactly the model herd, are we? And so we do all these things. We don’t listen, we go where we want to go and do what we want to do. It’s all me, me! AND, we have an and clause here, instead of giving is all the annihilation we have so richly earned for being such stubborn beasts, all this iniquity, avon, the guilt sins, the ones that weren’t an accident but simply disobedience—Yahweh lays them on the Servant instead of upon us. Again, no reason given as to how or why this works. Perhaps it isn’t as important as we think it is, the why.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

I told you we had a sheep vs sheep simile. The Servant is not the kind of sheep we are—he is submissive, gentle, trusting and obedient. Is this merely a prophet? Well, can you name a prophet who didn’t loudly complain about persecution? Hello, Jeremiah. Hello Jonah. And in addition, the Servant is a willing participant. Let’s say hello to Jonah again! Poor Jonah! Like we would do better. But Israel, from chapter 40 onward, has been anything but quiet about what they believe to be their unfair treatment. Boy howdy, has Yahweh been hearing about it. This is a superhuman effort required for the Servant to endure without complaint, just because it is Yahweh’s will that it be done. Once more, this is what Israel should have been but wasn’t. This is what all of us should be, but aren’t. And can’t live up to.

Now, how literally do we take this? About his mouth literally never opening? As seriously as we take the Servant being literally pulverized and our wounds miraculously sealing up and healing on the spot. Remember, this is all oracular poetry and is expressing truth and not always in terms of accuracy. If we try to make all of the Bible dead-on accurate then we will have to toss a lot of it out. We cannot hold ancient writings to modern rules for literature. It is arrogant and unreasonable and presumes that our way of communicating is the best and one true way.

8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?

By oppression and judgment he was taken away gives the impression of a legal or quasi-legal setting. And if you have been following along week by week, you might be thinking of the ba’al mishpati of Isaiah 50:8 in part 13. Let’s look at that verse really quick:
 
8He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.

That’s right—the legal adversary of the Servant! Ba’al mishpati means “master of my justice” and in this case, it is dripping with irony. Because here we see that he is being oppressed and judged unrighteously. Taken away is not a positive thing in Scripture. The word used for taken away in the Septuagint is the same Greek word that refers to the fate of those who were destroyed in the flood in Matthew 23:39. So much for the rapture being a positive experience.

But this man was taken away—destroyed—so that he was cut off from the land of the living and, again, stricken for transgression. As a reminder, nega, the word for being afflicted with the living death of Biblical leprosy (not to be confused with modern-day Hansen’s disease) for the willful, rebellious, hateful actions of “my people.” Obviously for Israel’s rebellion.

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

We continue with the wrongful oppression of the Servant even after death as ba’alim misphati assign him to death alongside the wicked but already we see a glimmer of honor as a rich man gives him a place in death. This despite the reminder that, unlike Cyrus and unlike Moses, he did no violence nor, unlike David and his descendants, did he ever lie. This is just reminding us of the unjust fate of the Servant, despite his mission of mercy on behalf of God toward His people and the world.

10 Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

This is a tough verse and we cannot ignore it. And there is going to be just as tough a verse in Isaiah 54 next week and we can’t ignore that either. This crushing and grief—it was the will of God. It was the Servant’s purpose on earth. It doesn’t matter if we like it or understand it or approve of it. It is offensive to us. We don’t fully understand it. YET, it was Yahweh’s will that it happen. In Is 55 we will see a reminder that His ways are thoughts are light years above ours, but it is hard to swallow when we read this verse and wished that He thinks more like us, in ways that don’t offend our sensibilities.

His soul, the Servant’s nephesh, his very life and being, makes an asham-that’s the offering for avon, iniquity. The stuff we do on purpose but without malice toward God. But here we get to a point where the anti-missionaries think they can get all clever. This is not a human sacrifice. No animal ever had a choice. Animals were not created for sacrifice, that came later as a way to re-establish broken relationships between man and Yahweh in terms of an offering. This is a willing offering of the life of one for many—this is an act of love. The asham of the Servant was voluntary, it was like a sacrifice but it wasn’t a sacrifice. It served the same purpose, so it was like a sacrifice. But it didn’t even begin to meet the minimum ritual requirements for an actual sacrifice. The Servant’s offering of Himself on behalf of the world is far above and beyond temporal sacrifices of unwilling animals who cannot sin and thus cannot permanently atone for it.

11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

BUT, despite all we have seen, all he endured, what will come out of his suffering will give him satisfaction. It will be worth it in the end, when his mission is accomplished. Yahweh’s righteous one, the one judged to be right in his conflict with the baal mishpati, the one who, unlike the legal authorities who persecuted and oppressed him, is actually Yahweh’s true Servant will make many, rabbim, to be accounted, considered to be, in the right because he bears their iniquities, their avon, the things they did intentionally but without malice toward God.

I want you to notice the word rabbim, meaning many, because they pop up four times in our last two verses, 11 and twelve. Three times as many and once as their.

12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong,
because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Therefore, therefore what? Going back to verse eleven, because he made many to be accounted righteous and bore iniquity that didn’t belong to him, because he did Yahweh’s will and fulfilled his mission on behalf of Israel, Yahweh will divide him a portion with the many and spoil with the strong. The language here hearkens back to a conqueror’s victory parade, like a Roman Triumph and Hitler did these as well. The conqueror generally shares of the spoil with his troops, but Yahweh is so generous that he is literally giving a portion to and sharing spoil with the conquered! Why? Because when we identify with the Servant and accept that He is bearing our iniquities, then we become his allies—not his equals but his allies and he shares/will share with us. For our sake he was lumped in together with wanton God-hating criminals, transgressors who commit pesha level offenses against God. He bore the chattat, unintentional sin, of many—perhaps the Gentiles who did not know their right hand from their left, to borrow a line from Jonah. He even makes intercession for the transgressors, the pescha level offenders!

Our gratitude toward Him, going back to 52:13, exalts him to a place occupied by no one before nor since.

13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.

Yahweh made him to be high and lifted up, and therefore worthy of our allegiance and praise and worship—and we exalt him accordingly by giving him a position above all mere humans.

It is no wonder that, in the aftermath of the Cross and the resurrection, the disciples of Yeshua of Nazareth saw Him in these verses as plain as day.

Next week we have the third Zion song in response to this earth-shattering pronouncement of Yahweh’s plans.




“The Tombs Also Were Opened…” Matthew 27 in its Jewish Context

First of all, this is a risky sort of blog to write and I have been debating it for almost a year now, ever since I discovered an aggadic text about the Messiah dating from the 9th century of the common era – well, not so much discovered as read it in a book! Now, what is Aggadah and why is it important? Aggadah is legendary material, and full of myths that elaborate on Jewish beliefs on various subjects. The text I will be referring to in this article is Pesikta Rabatti, a collection of legends dealing with the Feasts. They do not detail actual events, and no one would confuse them with historical accounts, but relate concepts, beliefs, and/or larger truths that the authors wanted to convey. If you want to compare Jewish Aggadah with something Christian, we might choose Pilgrim’s Progress or the Screwtape Letters. It isn’t a perfect comparison, but we can all see how those writings convey truth through fanciful situations. The reason I want to introduce Aggadah to you is because this was a very common, popular, and completely accepted literary form that we even see in the Hebrew Scriptures. In our modern world, we have decided that accuracy is king – and further, that to be true something must be accurate, but this is a very modern mindset, one spawned during the Age of Reason in response to a growing scientific mindset. In order to compete with hard facts and figures, believers exalted accurate facts and figures over true concepts, and often over truth itself – as though truth can be confined by our limited understanding and rules, reduced to letters and numbers that we can comfortably grasp. Sadly, this creates problems when reading the Bible, which was written about truth, not in order to measure up to our almost idolatrous fascination with scientific modes of thought (and I am speaking as a Chemist married to a Chemical Engineer, so don’t think you can accuse me of being anti-science!). Scientific level accuracy is important, in science, but when it comes to larger truths, science falls short because we are very limited in both understanding and knowledge as compared to God.

I have always struggled with Matthew 27: 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

This is probably the most stunning claim in all of Scripture (short of the Resurrection itself), not because it is somehow unbelievable in a book filled with miracles, but because it is spoken of nowhere else – not in history, nor in any of the other accounts.  This would have happened during Passover week, and this was no small event. Did it really happen, or was this something that could only be understood within the context of Messianic expectations? Was it code for a certain concept floating around in the Messianic beliefs of the time? I will tell you right now that I do not have the answers and won’t argue this, at all. I put this out there only for educational purposes. I believe the Bible 100%, but in some cases, I believe we don’t always know how the author of a certain Gospel intended it to be read (this is more true for John than any other book). I believe the Bible is 100% truth. Just so we’re clear on that. I just believe that our ancestors have wandered far from the context of the people it was written by and to – whereas it was only written for us. Does that make sense? The Bible is for us, but we were not the original audience, nor did the authors write from our cultural mindset and point of view.

So, what if Matthew was using a well-known legend/belief in order to communicate a concept that would have been readily understood by his Jewish audience? In a way that they would completely understand, and have an “aha!” moment? Let’s look at that 9th century collection of Feast-related legends:

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Pesiqta Rabatti 36 (parenthetical additions in red are mine)

“The Fathers of the World [Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob] will in the future rise up in the month of Nissan (the month of the Passover) and will speak to him(the Messiah): “Ephraim, our true Messiah! Even though we are your fathers, you are greater than we, for you suffered because of the sins of our children, and cruel punishments have come upon you the like of which have not come upon the early and the later generations, and you were put to ridicule and held in contempt by the nations of the world because of Israel, and you sat in darkness and blackness and your eyes saw no light, and your skin cleft to the bones, and your body dried up and was like wood, and your eyes grew dim from fasting, and your strength became like a potsherd. All this because of the sins of our children. Do you want that our children should enjoy the happiness that the Holy One, blessed be He, allotted to Israel, or perhaps, because of the great sufferings that have come upon you on their account, and because they imprisoned you in the jailhouse, your mind is not reconciled with them?”

And the Messiah answers them: “Fathers of the world! Everything I did, I did only for you and for your children, and for your honor and the honor of your children, so that they should enjoy this happiness the Holy One, blessed be He, has allotted to Israel.” (Reconciliation)

Then the fathers of the World say to him: “Ephraim, our True Messiah, let your mind be at ease, for you put at ease our minds and the mind of your Creator!”

R. Shimon ben Pazi said: “In the hour the Holy One, blessed be He, raises up the Messiah until the heaven of heavens and spreads over him the splendor of His Glory [to protect him] from the nations of the world, from the wicked Persians. And He says to him: ‘Ephraim, Our True Messiah, be you the judge over these peoples, and do to them whatever your soul wishes’. For had it not been for my compassion for you which became strong, they would have caused you to perish from the world in one moment…” [God] has mercy on him while he is imprisoned in the jailhouse, for every day the nations of the world gnash their teeth and blink their eyes and shake their heads and shoot out their lips… and roar against him like lions and want to swallow him… [And God says:] “I shall have mercy on him when he comes out of the house of prisoners, for not only one kingdom, or two kingdoms, or three kingdoms will come against him, but one hundred and forty kingdoms will surround him.” And the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: “Ephraim, My True Messiah, fear them not, because all of them will die from the breath of your lips.

Instantly, the Holy One, blessed be He, makes seven canopies of precious stones and pearls for the Messiah, and from each canopy four rivers issue forth (in the ancient world, it was customary for four waterways to come out from a Temple/Ziggurat), of wine, milk and honey and pure balsam. And the Holy One, blessed be He, embraces him in front of the pious, and leads him under the canopy, and all the pious and the saintly and the heroes of the Tora (sic.) in every generation see him. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says to the pious: “Pious of the world! So far Ephraim, My True Messiah, has not taken [compensation for as much as] one half of his sufferings, I still have one measure that I shall give him, which no eye has ever seen…” In the hour the Holy One, blessed be He, calls the North Wind and the South Wind and says to them: “Come, honor Ephraim, My True Messiah, and spread before him all kinds of spices from the Garden of Eden..” (taken from Patai, Raphael The Messiah Texts, 1998 edition, pp 113-4)

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I highlighted some interesting features in blue, but I am going to focus on very little of the text. It is certainly worthy of being thoroughly investigated and compared to Scripture, but that is beyond the scope of this article.

For now, I want to focus on a few things (1) the expectation of a hierarchy of resurrection, with the Patriarchs rising first from the dead in some traditions; (2) the suffering Messiah motif, on behalf of/because of the children of the Patriarchs; (3) the exaltation of Messiah to the heaven of heavens; (4) the installment of Messiah in a temple/temples.

The Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are buried in Hebron, south of the city of Jerusalem. According to the pseudepigraphic (false name) writings of the few hundred years before the coming of Yeshua, there was a belief that there would be a definite order to the resurrection. In the second century BCE, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs – specifically the Testament of Benjamin 10.6-8 – states that the order of Resurrection would be first Enoch, then Seth, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the twelve Patriarchs and that they would be “changed” (what we would call glorified bodies). So when we see, in Pesiqta Rabatti, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob “rising up in the month of Nissan” during the very month of the year that Yeshua died and resurrected – this is definitely spoken in terms of the resurrection of the dead, a basic first-century belief for all Jews except the Sadducees. The implication is that they have risen up first and pay tribute to the Messiah, calling him “greater than we” during the Passover week.

The next motif we see is the Suffering Servant, which we are all familiar with having its source not only in Isaiah 53, but also in the story of Joseph. The idea of a messiah figure who suffers for the sake of all Israel (as Joseph did on behalf of his family, and because of their sins), saving them from death as a result of that suffering and being exalted to the right hand of God (or Pharaoh, in Joseph’s case) predated Yeshua by a long shot. In Pesikta Rabatti, we see all the classic themes from the Messiah ben Yosef (Messiah “son of” Joseph, coming in the style of Joseph). Here he is called Ephraim because Ephraim was the literal son of Joseph in Scripture, and his name is often used interchangeably with David in terms of representing the Messiah.  Again, we see Messiah exalted during the Passover week.             

The exaltation of Messiah to the heaven of heavens should have caught your eye immediately – as we see this in Mark 16.19,  Luke 24.51, and Acts 1.9. No surprises there, this was in no way controversial within Judaism.             

The installment of Messiah into a Temple (seven Temples in this case), hearkens back to Revelation and the description of the Holy Jerusalem where Messiah sits as King for a thousand years, as well as that found in Ezekiel 40-44.  These are all well-established Scriptural themes.           

So, all this being said, I need to summarize. The idea of the dead rising from the grave to testify of Messiah was not limited to the Gospel account in Matthew 27, but was an existing motif within the Messianic expectations of Judaism. Was this an Aggadic motif in Matthew meant to serve the purpose of driving home the truth that Messiah ben Yosef had indeed come in the person of Yeshua according to some Rabbinic expectations? Was it meant to be taken literally, or as Aggadah? As historical truth, or as an allegory? Did the tombs of Macpelah open and did the Patriarchs come to Jerusalem during Passover to testify about Messiah, or would this have been considered a first-century figure of speech? Either way, the message is the same and very, very Jewish – Ephraim, the One True Messiah, has come.    

 

 

 

 




Joseph, Rachel and what they teach us about how to deal with life.

I have learned so many different things from people in the scriptures and how they lived their lives, but this morning I want to talk about Joseph.

Everyone agrees that Joseph was extraordinary.  But what about his mother, Rachel? A barren woman, the beloved and favorite wife who strove against her sister because of the cruel circumstances inflicted by their own father, someone who strove against her own husband, and the daughter who stole what she felt belonged to her husband by inheritance rights. And I am not saying that I am judging Rachel.  I don’t know what it is like to have a sister as a rival for my husband’s heart, but I do know the frustrations of being barren and the cry of “Give me children, or I’ll die!” (Gen 30:1).  I also cannot relate to the frustration she experienced as her husband was constantly being cheated out of the inheritance owed to him by Laban.  I understand, when they left with with the livestock but without the land, why she must have felt entitled to take the household gods too.  In the ancient Near East, those were an important part of what was passed down from father to son.  But, as it was her character to strive against circumstances, she ended up dead when her own husband unknowingly pronounced a curse against her even as he was answering the charges of her father against them.  In an attempt to restore honor through answering the charges, Moses credits him as the architect of his beloved wife’s death.

It is interesting then, that Rachel gave birth to a son who went through far worse and yet never strove against it.  Joseph took everything life handed to him and prospered in the midst of it.  This morning, as I was meditating upon the Word in my bed, I realized that the story of Rachel and Joseph teaches us that a life of striving against circumstance is deadly, but embracing what has been given to us and striving against ourselves is life.

Joseph lost his mother when he was very young.

Joseph was rejected by his brothers, because of the favor showed him by their father and because of his dreams–and because he was a bratty little tattletale who preferentially ratted out the sons of his father’s concubines.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers.

Joseph ended up a slave in the house of Potiphar of Egypt.

Joseph had to endure repeated seduction attempts by Potiphar’s wife, who was married to a eunuch and perhaps desperately desired children (definitely striving against her circumstances).

Joseph was wrongfully accused of rape and thrown into jail for years and as far as we know, he was never cleared of that crime.

Joseph successfully interpreted the dreams of the baker and cup bearer but went forgotten.

Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream and became viceroy of Egypt.

Joseph is given a pagan wife and for all intents and purposes, is made to live as an Egyptian, so in many ways he is still nothing but a slave even though he has great power as he the freedom to leave Egypt.

And what do we see at each turn of events?  Joseph never strives against his circumstances.  He accepts them and serves, and keeps on going.  He serves his father, he serves Potiphar, he serves the jailer, he serves Pharaoh and the nation of Egypt.  We see no accounts of rebellion.  We never see him striving against his cruel circumstances.  Joseph never fights against his life, only against temptation.  Rachel, who strove with Leah, and her husband, and her father – gave birth to someone who didn’t strive against anyone.  Joseph cooperated.  Joseph lived and saved innumerable lives.

So many of us do not like the hand we have been dealt.  Our lives, or our spouses or children are not what we thought they should be.  But we have to realize that our lives are a gift – they were given to us not so that we could conquer evil, but so that we could learn to conquer ourselves in the midst of evil.  For the most part, Rachel wasn’t dealing with the consequences of her own sin, but the consequences of her father’s sin.  Likewise, Joseph usually wasn’t dealing with the consequences of his own sins either.  And there is a difference in how we treat those two situations. When I have made a misstep, or have sinned and find myself in an evil predicament, I must repent and fight my way out of it for the sake of my family and others.  For instance, if I have married an abuser, I have to get my kids and myself out of there.  If I have gotten myself addicted to drugs or pornography (which I did as a child), I need to repent and fight my way out of it. But if the circumstances are beyond my control–like Joseph’s and Rachel’s, I have to conduct myself like Joseph and not like Rachel.  I have to serve faithfully in this life I have been given until the time comes when God’s plans are revealed and He gives me the authority to act.  But this constant striving is deadly.  We cannot strive against everything and hope to have a victory in anything.  We cannot run from the lives we have been given any more than Joseph could have gotten out of that pit, or away from Potiphar, or escaped from jail, or abandoned Pharaoh.  Our lives were given to us so that we could learn the servitude of the slave, the distress of the wrongfully condemned, or the humility of the subject of a pagan King – and thrive in the midst of it, even so far as blessing our persecutors.

Joseph

Very few of us are meant to ever conquer anything except ourselves.  And yet conquering ourselves is a greater thing than conquering the world. It is when we have conquered ourselves that we can fight the good fight with honor and integrity–like the Civil Rights protesters last century in my own country who fought not only for themselves but for the voiceless and the powerless and sometimes paid the price of their lives. But they had to learn not to fight as the world fights, serving the world according to the upside down ways of the Kingdom. Just as the people of India did against the mighty British Empire, and won.

Yeshua (Jesus) came first as the suffering servant.  He saw the evil Roman Empire all around him every single day.  He saw crucifixions, and paganism.  His earthly king wasn’t even of the line of David but from the seed of Edom.  He had to pay taxes to Caesar in order to be excluded from the Imperial order to sacrifice to Caesar once a year. And yet, we never see Him fighting “everything.”  We see him preaching truth and serving and when he was tested verbally, then we see him striving with those who were questioning Him in the normal ancient Near Eastern fashion.  He isn’t recorded as spending time fighting against His circumstances.  He didn’t have a roof over His head, we don’t see complaining about not having enough money for His ministry, or fighting against his family or hometown.  He even went to His death without a fight.  He didn’t focus on the negatives, but on the Kingdom of Heaven, and only really fought when He saw people being barred from it or when He saw His Father’s character being misrepresented.  Yeshua had a lot to complain about but He didn’t spend much time doing it.

Like Yeshua, it is our lot to sometimes suffer in the lives that were chosen for us.  Like Joseph, we are in exile here, captives, and it is not going to be easy.  But we have been ordained to thrive in the midst of those circumstances, to show what His character looks like in the midst of troubles.  And in order to accurately reflect His character within the trial, we have to stop striving against the trial and instead use the trial to strive against ourselves. And like Joseph, to strive on behalf of the salvation of others–saving people who were foreign to himself and perhaps even hateful. What would the world be like if those in positions of privilege strove on behalf of others instead of themselves?

Rachel could have refused to strive against her sister, who was every bit as much a victim as she was.  She could have appreciated that she had the love her sister was denied, and pitied her sister. She could have cried out to God for children, instead of to her husband.  She could have left well enough alone and left the foreign gods behind.  After all, if her husband wanted them he could have taken them himself.  And additionally, she had the opportunity to speak up when her father made the accusation, before her husband pronounced the curse.  Repentance could have saved her life.  She also could have told Jacob what she had done, before her father ever arrived.  Rachel suffered, but her response to suffering was fruitless. Joseph suffered, and his response was life to many.

So we need to stop resenting and striving as the world strives against every personal circumstance we don’t like–and instead learn to be as Yeshua in the midst of that circumstance.  Learn to be the one in the midst of trouble who is just, righteous, merciful, self-sacrificing, radically loving, and diligent to serve.  Not focused on self, nor on the pain nor inconvenience nor how things should have been, but on how to do what must be done with how things are. That is not to say that we don’t speak up, or even act up when we have opportunity to make change in the midst of persecution but as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have to play by Kingdom of Haven rules. The world will do what the world will do–this has never changed and we cannot control whether they allow us to live or die. But we can represent well when it is our turn to be seen and heard.