Monthly Archives: March 2010

Zechariah 12: 10 refers to the “piercing” of the Messiah. The Hebrew word translated as “pierced” in this verse is “daqar” (daw-kar’). It means “to stab” or “to thrust through.” This is what the Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 52a) says about Zechariah 12: 10—“What is the cause of the mourning? It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of Messiah, the son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the Scriptural verse, ‘And they shall look upon me because they have thrust Him through, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son.’” I will not go into much detail about this issue, but many Jewish sages and rabbis over the millennia have had difficulty with the notion that the Messiah Son of David had to suffer for His people. They understood that the Bible describes a suffering Messiah, but they could not accept the fact that He was the Messiah referred to as the Son of David. Therefore, they called Him by another name—the Messiah son of Joseph—even though the only Messiah referred to in the Bible by Name is the Messiah Son of David.

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“For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” (Thomas Jefferson)

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The Book of Isaiah:

I am now showing you the book of Isaiah from the New American Standard Bible with one significant change.  I am including Yahweh’s Name where it belongs.  Each day I will post one chapter of Isaiah until I have posted the entire book.

Isaiah 4

  1. For seven women will take hold of one man in that day, saying, “We will eat our own bread and wear our own clothes, only let us be called by your name; take away our reproach!”
  2. In that day the Branch of Yahweh will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth will be the pride and the adornment of the survivors of Israel.
  3. It will come about that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy—everyone who is recorded for life in Jerusalem.
  4. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the bloodshed of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning,
  5. then Yahweh will create over the whole area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, even smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy.
  6. There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain.

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SnyderTalk® Commentary:

Currently, I am putting up bite sized pieces of His Name is Yahweh in SnyderTalk Commentary.  If you haven’t read it, it will be a treat for you.  If you have read it, you will probably enjoy reading it again.  Don’t hesitate to share it with your friends.  You can download the entire manuscript for free at His Name is Yahweh, or you can buy it in Kindle format from Amazon for just $5.

I have left out several footnotes.  Please go to the website His Name is Yahweh and download the manuscript.  It has all the footnotes, and it’s free.

About Jeffrey’s Probability Estimates

To his credit, Jeffrey’s estimates are conservative in every instance.  For example, his fifth prophecy deals with the Messiah’s crucifixion.  Somewhere between 1010 B.C. and 970 B.C., King David prophesied that the Messiah would be crucified.  In Psalm 22: 16 he wrote, “For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.” (Psalm 22: 16)

Crucifixion is a form of capital punishment that was invented by the Romans in the first century B.C.  In David’s day, stoning was the prescribed method for capital punishment so his prophecy that the Messiah would be crucified at least 800 years before crucifixion was invented is remarkable.  Jeffrey estimates the probability of this happening as 1 in 100, but I believe it is closer to zero.  David simply could not have foretold the Messiah’s crucifixion unless God explained it to him.

Many Jewish people believe Christians have misinterpreted the Hebrew word in Psalm 22: 16 translated as “pierced.”  The Hebrew word appearing in this verse is “ariy” (ar-ee’).  Its present-day meaning suggests violence, and it seems to involve a lion or a young lion.  Based on this fact Samuel Levine, author of You Take Jesus, I’ll Take God, has said, “That verse of ‘they pierced my hands and feet,’ which seems to point to Jesus, is a mistranslation, according to all the classical Jewish scholars, who knew Hebrew perfectly.  In fact, the Christians have invented a new word in the process, which is still not in the Hebrew dictionary.”

Even though the contemporary definition of “ariy” seems to indicate something other than “piercing,” I believe Mr. Levine is mistaken.  This is why.  The Jewish authorized Greek Septuagint Tanach (a version of the Tanach that was translated by 70 rabbis in 285 B.C.—i.e., almost 285 years before Yeshua’s birth) and Targums written at that time interpret “ariy” as “pierced” exactly the way Christians have translated the word.  No one alive today has a better understanding of the Hebrew used in the Tanach than that group of rabbis, so I defer to them and rely on their translation of “ariy” to support my conclusion.

Furthermore, Zechariah 12: 10 refers to the “piercing” of the Messiah.  The Hebrew word translated as “pierced” in this verse is “daqar” (daw-kar’), and it means “to stab” or “to thrust through.”  This is what the Babylonian Talmud (Sukkah 52a) says about Zechariah 12: 10—“What is the cause of the mourning?  It is well according to him who explains that the cause is the slaying of Messiah, the son of Joseph, since that well agrees with the Scriptural verse, ‘And they shall look upon me because they have thrust Him through, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son.’”

I will not go into much detail about this issue, but many Jewish sages and rabbis over the millennia have had difficulty with the notion that the Messiah Son of David had to suffer for His people.  They understood that the Bible describes a suffering Messiah, but they could not accept the fact that He was the Messiah referred to as the Son of David.  Therefore, they called Him by another name—the Messiah son of Joseph—even though the only Messiah referred to in the Bible by Name is the Messiah Son of David.

According to Raphael Patai, a Jewish Bible scholar, “When the death of the Messiah became an established tenet in Talmudic times, this was felt to be irreconcilable with the belief in the Messiah as the Redeemer who would usher in the blissful millennium of the Messianic age.  The dilemma was solved by splitting the person of the Messiah in two: one of them, called Messiah ben Joseph…would fall victim….  The other, Messiah ben David, will come after him…and will lead Israel to ultimate victory, the triumph, and the Messianic era of bliss.” (Patai, Raphael.  The Messiah Texts, Wayne State University Press: Detroit, 1979, pp. 166-167.)

It is perfectly clear that all classical Jewish scholars do not agree with Mr. Levine, and neither do I.  Obviously, the 70 rabbis who translated the Greek Septuagint Tanach in 285 B.C. do not agree with him, and I would be foolish to accept his interpretation over theirs.  It is also perfectly clear from the weight of evidence and from the Word of God that there is (and can be) only One Messiah.  He is the Messiah Son of David; He is the suffering Messiah described in Isaiah 53; and He is the victorious King Messiah described throughout the Old Testament and the Tanach.

Now, take a look at Jeffrey’s seventeenth prophecy.  It deals with darkness covering the entire earth at the time of the Messiah’s death, and it is almost impossible to predict.  Amos 8: 9 says, “‘It will come about in that day,’ declares Adonai Yahweh, ‘That I will make the sun go down at noon and make the earth dark in broad daylight.’”

Amos was a sheep breeder from Tekoa, a town about 10 miles south of Jerusalem, and he wrote this prophecy in about 755 B.C.  He was not a scientist, and he did not possess sophisticated instruments to calculate the movements of heavenly bodies.  Furthermore, this event could not have been a total eclipse of the sun because an eclipse would not affect the entire earth all at once.  According to Jeffrey, two ancient historians, Thallus and Phlegon, confirmed that an unusual darkness did blot out the sun for 3 hours during Passover in the year the Messiah was crucified.

Jeffrey estimates the probability of Amos predicting this event more than 700 years before it happened as 1 in 1000.  In my opinion, it is almost zero for the same reason I stated before.  There is only one rational explanation for this event.  It was an act of Yahweh, and Amos was simply declaring it hundreds of years in advance.

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News Items of Interest:

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His Name is Yahweh:

There is a wealth of material available for free download on www.hisnameisyahweh.org including the book His Name is Yahweh.  His Name is Yahweh is also available at Amazon on Kindle for just $5.  If you haven’t read His Name is Yahweh, you should.  The importance of Yahweh’s Name is becoming more apparent with each passing day.

Available on Amazon Kindle and it can be downloaded at www.hisnameisyahweh.org