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title of any pericope numbered in red to access the original language text.
218. |
A True Son of
David |
11 |
The Lawless One [anomos]
has emptied our land of its inhabitants;
they have made young and old disappear, together with their
children. |
12 |
In the splendor of his wrath, he
exiled them to the West,
and the rulers of the land to unrelenting mockery. |
13 |
As an alien, the enemy acted in
arrogance;
and his heart was alienated from our God. |
14 |
All that he did in Jerusalem was
like the Gentiles
in the cities of their might. |
15 |
And in the midst of Gentiles,
the sons of the covenant outdid them;
and there was none among them in Jerusalem who did mercy and
truth. |
16 |
Those who love the congregations
of the saints fled from them;
and they flew like sparrows from their nests. |
17 |
They wandered in the wilderness
to save their souls from evil;
and precious in their eyes was the company of a soul saved
from them. |
18 |
The dispersion into all the
earth was wrought by lawless men,
so that heaven held back from dropping rain upon the earth. |
19 |
The everlasting springs of the
depths from the mountain heights were shut,
because there was none among them who did righteousness and
justice; |
20 |
from their ruler even to the
least of the people they were all in sin.
The king transgressed, the judge was unscrupulous and the
people sinned. |
21 |
Look, Lord! And raise up their
(true) king, the son of David,
to reign over your servant Israel in the hour which you
foresaw, O God! |
22 |
Gird him with strength to
shatter unrighteous rulers!
let him purify Jerusalem from Gentiles who trample her in
destruction; |
23 |
to remove sinners from your inheritance
with wisdom and righteousness ,
to shatter their substance like a potter's vessel [Ps 2:9]. |
24 |
to wipe out the arrogance of the
sinful with a rod of iron,
to destroy the Gentile
transgressors with the word of his mouth |
25 |
so that at his rebuke the Gentiles shall flee from his face,
and to refute sinners in the word of their heart. |
26 |
He will gather a holy people
that he will lead in righteousness;
and he shall judge the tribes of the people sanctified by the
Lord his God. |
27 |
They shall not allow iniquity to
settle in their midst;
and any man who knows evil shall not dwell with them.
For he will know them that they
are all sons of their God; |
28 |
and he will separate them into their tribes in the land.
The settler and the foreigner
shall no longer dwell with them. |
29 |
He shall judge the nations and
the Gentiles
in the wisdom of his righteousness; |
30 |
and he shall have the nations of the Gentiles under his yoke
to serve him.
And they shall shall glorify the
Lord as a sign for all the earth.
And he will purify Jerusalem in holiness, even as it was in
the beginning. |
31 |
The Gentiles are to come from
the end of the earth to see his glory,
bearing her exhausted sons (as) gifts [cf. Isa 66:18-20].
They are to see the glory of the
Lord by which God glorified her [Jerusalem]; |
32 |
and he who is king over them shall be righteous and taught by
God.
In his day there is to be no
iniquity in their midst,
for all will be holy, and their king the Lord's
Anointed
[Christos Kyriou].* |
33 |
For he will not hope in horse
and rider and bow,
nor will he multiply for himself gold and silver for battle,
nor will he place his hopes on multitudes in the day of
battle. |
34 |
The Lord
himself (is) his king,
the hope of one strong in the hope of God;
And he shall have mercy on all
the gentiles (who come) before him in fear. |
35 |
For he shall strike the earth with the word of his
mouth forever.
For he shall bless the people of
the Lord with rejoicing in wisdom; |
36 |
and he shall be free from sin to rule a great people.
He shall rebuke rulers and
remove sinners by the force of (his) word. |
37 |
And he shall not weaken in his days,
since God shall make him strong by a holy Spirit,
and wise, with strength and righteousness, in the counsel of
understanding. |
38 |
The blessing of the
Lord will be with him in force;
and he will not weaken. |
39 |
His hope
is in the Lord
and who can (stand) before him? |
40 |
(He is) mighty in deeds [erga] and strong in the fear of
God!
He shall shepherd
the flock of the Lord in faith and righteousness;
and he shall not allow any of them to weaken in their pasture. |
41 |
He shall lead them all in
holiness;
and there shall be no arrogance among them for any to be
oppressed. |
42 |
This is the majesty of the
king
of Israel which God foreknew [cf. Isa 11]
to raise him up in Israel to guide him. |
43 |
His sayings are
purer than pure quality gold.
In the congregations he shall judge the peoples, the tribes of
the sanctified.
His words will
be like the words of the saints in the midst of a holy people. |
44 |
Blessed are those who are born in that day,
to see the good of Israel which
God will do in the congregation of the tribes. |
45 |
Let God speed his mercy to Israel!
He will keep us from the
impurity of profane enemies! |
46 |
The Lord, he is our King forever and ever! |
|
--- Pseudepigrapha,
Psalms
of Solomon 17:11-46 |
* |
Experts generally agree
that the nominative Κυρίος in extant
mss. of this Jewish composition is the product of a misreading
of the original Hebrew by the Hellenistic translator or a later
Christian copyist. This translation follows recent published
editions of the Psalm in restoring the genitive form Κυρίου
which lets the text be read as the traditional Judaic
designation of royal descendants of David (as invoked in v. 21). |
219. |
Judah's Warrior King |
10 |
Kings and rulers shall not
cease from the house of Judah,
nor scribes teaching the Torah from his seed,
until the time when the youngest of his sons, the
king Messiah, shall come
and because of him the peoples shall flow together. |
11 |
How lovely is the king Messiah,
who is to rise from the house of Judah.
He girds his loins and goes out to wage war on those who hate
him,
killing kings and rulers...
and reddening the mountains with the blood of their slain.
With his garments dipped in blood,
he is like one who treads grapes in the wine press
[cf. Isa 63:3]. |
12 |
More lovely are the eyes of
the king Messiah than pure wine---
not to see the uncovering of nakedness or the shedding of
innocent blood.
His teeth are purer than milk---
not for eating what is torn or stolen.
So his mountains are red (from vines) and his winepress red
from wine
and his hills white from grain and sheepfolds |
|
--- Targum,
pseudo-Jonathan on Gen 49:10-12 |
220. |
The First-born |
7 |
"Sanctify unto me all
the first-born" (Exod 13:1)
Rabbi
Nathan said:
--"The Holy One, blessed be He!, told Moses:
-- 'Just as I made Jacob a first-born, as it is said:
--'Israel is my son, my first-born" (Exod 4:22),
so will I make the king Messiah a first-born, as it is said:
--Also I will affirm him [David] 'the first-born'
(Ps 89:28). |
|
--- Midrash,
Shemoth
Rabbah 19.7 |
221. |
Servant teaches
the Nations |
1 |
See my servant
the
Messiah whom I bring near,
my chosen one in whom my Word [Memra] takes
delight;
I will place my Holy Spirit upon him
and he will reveal my Torah to the nations. |
|
--- Targum,
Jonathan on Isa 42:1 |
222. |
Good News of
God's Kingdom |
9 |
Go up on a high mountain,
you prophets who bring good news to Zion!
Lift up your voice in strength, you who bring good
news to Jerusalem.
Lift it up (and) do not fear. Say to the cities of
the house of Judah:
--"The kingdom of your God is revealed!" |
|
--- Targum,
Jonathan on Isa 40:9 |
223. |
Servant Exalted |
13 |
See, the Messiah my
servant shall prosper;
he shall be lifted up and thrive and grow strong. |
14 |
How many days the house of
Israel hoped for him!
Their appearance was dark among the nations;
their bright countenance was darkened among the
sons of men. |
|
--- Targum,
Jonathan on Isa 52:13-14 |
224. |
The Messiah ends
Suffering |
8 |
From pain and punishment
(the Messiah) will gather our exiles.
And who can recount the wonders
which shall be performed for us in his days?
For he shall take the dominion of the nations away
from the land of Israel,
and he shall account to them the sins that my
people committed. |
|
--- Targum,
Jonathan on Isa 53:8 |
225. |
The Branch |
22 |
Thus says the Lord God:
--"I will myself bring near a child*
from the kingdom of the house of David,
which is likened to a tall cedar,
and I will raise him up from his sons' sons.
With my Word [Memra] I will anoint him
and I will establish him like a high & lofty mountain. |
23 |
I will establish him on the
mountain of the Holy One of Israel..
and he shall gather armies and build forts and be a mighty
king.
All the righteous shall rely on him,
and all the humble shall dwell in the shade of his
kingdom. |
|
--- Targum,
Jonathan on Ezek 17:22-23 |
* |
Aramaic yaniq is a
wordplay on yoneqeth ["branch"] in the
Hebrew text. |
226. |
Eras of Torah
& Messiah |
|
The Tanna debe Eliyyahu*
taught
The world is to exist for six thousand years:
The first two thousand years are to be void;
the next two thousand years are the era of the Torah;
and the last two thousand years are the era of the
Messiah.
Because of our many sins, some of the (final era) has already
passed
(and still there is no Messiah). |
|
--- Babylonian
Talmud, Aboda
Zara 9a |
* |
Tanna debe Eliyyahu: a
haggadic midrash variously dated from the third to the tenth
century CE. Despite the calculations, this tradition could
have originated in the early Christian era, since some rabbis
included the patriarchs in the era of Torah. |
227. |
Messiah: Future
or Past? |
|
Rabbi
Hillel (II) said:
--"There will be no Messiah for Israel,
since they already enjoyed him in the days of
Hezekiah [cf. Isa 9:6-7]
Rabbi
Joseph said:
--"May his Lord forgive Rabbi Hillel!
When did Hezekiah live? During the
first temple!
But Zechariah prophesied during the second temple and said:
--"Rejoice abundantly, daughter of Zion! Shout out,
daughter of Jerusalem!
Look! Your king comes to you!
He is righteous and delivered, humble and riding
on an ass,
and on a colt, the foal of an ass." (Zech 9:9). |
|
--- Babylonian
Talmud, Sanhedrin
99a |
228. |
Name of the
Messiah |
|
Rab
(Abba Arika) said:
--"The world would not have been created except for
David."
(Rabbi)
Samuel (bar Abba) said:
--"For Moses!"
Rabbi
Johanan (bar Nappacha)
said:
--"For the Messiah!"
What is his name?
The school of Rabbi
Shila said:
--"His name is Shiloh, for it is said:
--'until Shiloh come' (Gen 49:10)!"
The school of Rabbi
Jannai said:
--"His name is Yinnon, for it is said:
--'He shall endure forever,
before there was a sun his name is Yinnon' (Ps
72:17)!"
The school of Rabbi
cHanina
said:
--"His name is cHanina, for it is said:
--"as I will not give you favor [chanina]'
(Jer 16:13)!"
Others say his name is Menachem, the son of
Hezekiah, for it is said:
--'For the comforter [Menachem]
is far from me,
the one who revives my soul" (Lam 1:16b)!"
But the rabbis say:
--"His name is the leper teacher, for
it is said:
--'Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows
yet we deemed him stricken [nago'a:
"plagued", esp. leprosy],
laid low by God and suffering" (Isa 53:4)! |
|
--- Babylonian
Talmud, Sanhedrin
98b |
229. |
A Suffering
Messiah |
|
Rabbi
Joshua ben Levi met
Elijah
standing at the the door of Rabbi
Simeon be Yochai's
tomb.
He said to him:
--"Will I inherit the world to come?"
(Elijah) said:
--"If the Lord here [adon hazeh] is willing!'
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi explained:
--"I saw two but heard a third voice."
Then he said said to (Elijah):
--"When will the Messiah come?"
(Elijah) said to him:
--"Go, ask him yourself!"
--"And where does he sit?"
--"At the gate of the city."
--"And what sign [simenia] will reveal him to
me?"
--"He sits among the poor who suffer sores [chalaim
= "diseases].
and all of them loosen and bind (their bandages) together.
But he loosens one and rebinds it, saying:
'If I am wanted, I will not be delayed!'"
(Joshua) went back (to the gate and) said to him:
--"Peace be with you, my Lord and Master!"
(The Messiah) said to him:
--"Peace be with you, son of Levi!"
(Joshua) said to him:
--"When will you come, Lord [mar]?"
He said to him:
--"Today!"
(Joshua) came back to Elijah (who) said to him:
--"What did he say to you?"
(Joshua) said to him:
--"(He said:) 'Peace be with you, son of Levi!'"
(Elijah) said to him:
--"He promised you and your father the world to come!'
(Joshua) said to him:
--"He told me a lie! For he said he would come today but
he did not come!"
(Elijah) said to him:
--"He told you thus:
'Today, if you will hear his voice" (Ps 95:7) |
|
--- Babylonian
Talmud, Sanhedrin
98a |
230. |
When will the
Messiah come? |
|
Rabbi Johanan
(bar Nappacha)
said:
--"The son of David will come only in a generation
that is altogether innocent or altogether guilty."
In a generation that is altogether innocent, as it is written:
--"And your people shall be righteous,
they shall inherit the land forever" (Isa 60:11)
In a generation is altogether guilty, as it is written:
--"And he saw that there was no man
and he wondered that there was no one to intercede"
(Isa 59:16). |
|
--- Babylonian
Talmud, Sanhedrin
98a |
|