It’s almost Christmas, so we will look at some more messianic prophecies in the Old Testament that seem to point to Jesus. How do Jewish scholars and rabbis see the same verses? Are Christians twisting the scriptures, or does Jesus seem to shine out from the Old Testament?

Isaiah 9:6 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace.” One Jewish translation words it this way: “Wonderful in Council is God the mighty, the everlasting father, the ruler of peace.” This is an obvious attempt to get away from the view that this verse indicates this coming person has some divine attributes, a claim that Christians make about Jesus. But there is no use of the verb “is” in Hebrew – it’s placed there arbitrarily as a way to demote the individual spoken of. Looks like many Jews are uncomfortable with this verse since it seems to point to Jesus. Another Jewish translation is this one: “Wonderful counselor of the mighty God, of the everlasting father, of the prince of peace.” Again, this is an attempt to make the individual here a counselor, not a divine figure. But one modern scholar, Dr. James Price (Prof. with a PhD in Hebrew language) says the insertion of the word “of” in several places is not justified by any rule of Hebrew grammar that he knows. Again, this seems to indicate Jews feel the need to change the individual spoken of–to a lesser being than Jesus.

Let’s do one more messianic prophecy. Genesis 49:10 says, “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” The term “scepter” refers to the right to conduct their own government’s business including that of capital punishment. But around 6-7 A.D. the Romans took this away from the Jews. This explains why the Jews had to take Jesus in front of Pilate to get him condemned to death. The lineage here referring to the tribe of Judah was important for the Jews, but when the Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., the records were lost , including those  of tribal lineage. So, according to this verse somewhere between 6-7 A.D. and 70 A.D. the Messiah should have arrived. This, of course, is the time of Jesus. What has been the Jewish response to this? “Woe unto us for the scepter has departed from Judah and the Messiah has not come”; this is a line full of sadness as reported in the Babylonian Talmud, compiled between 200 and 500 A.D. So the Jews themselves looked back to this time and couldn’t find a Messiah for them. They saw this prophecy the same way Christians did–no distorting of of the Old Testament by Christians

There are more verses dealing with the coming of the Messiah, but I’ll save those for a future blog entry.