Part Two

We are studying the Torah to see in its words and narrative the footprints of Messiah Yeshua of Nazareth. As we study Torah we will follow the system of interpretation common to ancient Judaism and the teachings of Yeshua (Jesus) and his disciples.

These ancient, time-tested tools of Hebraic scholarship are traceable to the time of the Prophets in the Old Testament and the Jewish sages of Babylon after the exile. They were used by the writers of the New Testament to show the Messiahship of Yeshua and bear witness to his authenticity as the Holy One Israel expected.

The system of interpretation today is called PaRDeS, an acronym for a four-part method of Bible interpretation.

• The P stands for pashat, meaning the simple or plain meaning.
• The R stands for remez, meaning a hint or allusion to something else in the text than what the text plainly means.
• The D stands for d’rosh, the practical application of the text to our lives.
• The S stands for sod (pronounced sood), and it means something hidden in the text that takes the Holy Spirit to reveal, usually about the Messiah.

Using the method of PaRDeS, we will take a closer look than what the naked eye may see in the Bible text. We will show how God prepared us to receive and understand the Messiah when He appeared the first time in the first century and what we should expect when He reappears the second time. It’s all in the Torah, of course, the basis for all teachings of the Messiah. The footprints of Yeshua in the Torah are obvious from the text to those who see with the eyes of revelation. Revelation by the Holy Spirit to open our eyes of understanding is necessary, though, to see the hints or allusions (remez) in the biblical narrative. Sometimes, though the witness of Messiah is present, it is hidden like a secret waiting to be found, tucked away within the text to be discovered by the help of the Holy Spirit. When we discover what is hidden by the revelation of the Holy Spirit we are using the principle of hermeneutics called sod.

With our hermeneutical method stated, we continue our study of Torah with its first verse, Genesis [Bereishit] 1:1. We look to see other vignettes of Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) revealed in the Torah and, especially, in the text of study for today. The text of Genesis 1:1 reads:

`#r ~yIm:ßV'h; taeî ~yhi_l{a/ ar"äB' tyviÞarEB.
i>Beresheit bara Elohim Aleph-Tav HaShammayim ve-Aleph-Tav haeretz

Beresheit (“in-beginning-of”)
bara (“created”)
Elohim (“God”; plural of Eloha used to amplify with absolute, infinite intensity)
Aleph-Tav (usually a pointer to the direct object; interpreted also as a reference to the
     Messiah—the Aleph and the Tav, i.e., “the First and the Last”)
HaShammayim (“the heavens”)
ve-Aleph-Tav (“and-Aleph-Tav”)
haeretz (“the earth”’ literally means “the runner”; cf. the poetic parallelism in Psalm
     147:15:
He sends his command to the earth;
                    his word runs swiftly.

In our last lesson we demonstrated how the ancient sages studied using all four methods of PaRDeS in their interpretation. We uncovered:

• the peculiarities and meanings of the numbers 7, 8, 10, 12, 37 and 73 in the first verse
• the peculiar form of the first word of the Bible, bereishit which literally means “in-the-beginning-of,” not “in the beginning” as commonly translated. We saw that this peculiar word construction begged for a word that was missing in the text, or better said, was hidden. The hidden word in this first verse of the Bible is clearly understood by reading the Prophets and Writings of the Bible. We find the Prophets and Writings detailing God’s purpose in creation to relate to his creation through the written Torah and the Living Torah, namely, the Messiah who created the world as God’s Word in power and wisdom.

In this lesson we will explore other truths found in Genesis 1:1 that are traceable through the Prophets and Writings of the Old Testament and through the New Testament. We will also see these truths at times explained in ancient Jewish literature.

Primitive Hebraic Concept of the Messiah from the Torah

From the Torah, ancient Jewish sages understood that the Messiah would appear in the fourth millennium as the suffering servant of God. Where possibly could this teaching be derived? How did ancient Bible interpreters come up with this conclusion based on the biblical text, notably the Torah?

What’s more, some Torah scholars before the time of Yeshua HaMashiach [Messiah Jesus] taught that He would appear as a suffering servant in the likeness of Joseph [Yosef], son of Jacob [Ya’acov]. You recall how Joseph [Yosef] was innocent of the charges of his brothers, how he suffered betrayal at their hands, how he was sold for twenty pieces of silver to the Midianites, how his body was put in a pit, how his garments were splattered with blood as evidence of his death, and how he descended into Egypt as a prisoner. From Joseph’s life experience conclusions were drawn that the Messiah to come would suffer like Joseph in innocence. A core belief became that Joseph’s life, indeed, was a historical pattern by which the real Messiah could be recognized when He comes. This gave rise to calling the expected Messiah “Mashiach ben-Yosef,” or “Messiah son of Joseph.”

We have two concepts that converge in primitive Hebraic beliefs about the Messiah, all taken from the Torah. First, Messiah would appear in a specific era, that is, the fourth millennium. Second, He would appear in fulfillment of the pattern of Joseph’s life of suffering and exaltation.

The Number Four: the Fourth Word, Day, Generation and Millennium

We want to consider how the old Hebrew sages drew their conclusions that the Messiah would appear for the first time on earth as we understand after the pattern of Joseph [Yosef], but in the fourth millennium. The beginning of the answer lies in Genesis 1:1 with the fourth word of the seven word sentence—Beresheit bara Elohim Aleph-Tav HaShammayim ve-Aleph-Tav haeretz.

The fourth word: Aleph-Tav. The fourth word in the sentence is Aleph-Tav. It is not really a word at all, but a combination of the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. When this fourth word is encountered by a Bible translator, especially in English, it is omitted. So in all English versions of the Bible, unless we can read the Hebrew Bible, we don’t even know this combination of two Hebrew letters is missing from our Bible. Our Bible translators did not translate or refer to these two letters because normally they function in combination as a marker in the biblical text to point to the direct object. But ancient Hebrew sages saw the Aleph-Tav in this particular case to be more than a marker to point to the direct object. Instead, they saw a message hidden in the two-letter combination that pointed to a hidden Person yet to be revealed, not a direct object. They concluded this Person was the Messiah.

You will recall that the Bible writers saw in the meaning of the first word of the Bible—bereishit (“in-the-beginning-of”)—a hidden Wisdom that they believed was the personification of the Messiah. The number one was attached to the Messiah as not only the Wisdom of God, but also the true eternal Light revealed in the first day of creation. John makes this connection of Messiah to the first day of creation when writes in the second paragraph of his Gospel:

Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made.
In him was life,
and that life was the light of all men.
The light shines in darkness,
but the darkness has not understood it.
(John 1:3-5)

Now, in the fourth word of the first sentence, we find again the view that here is another personification of the Messiah, the letters Aleph-Tav.

The first letter aleph is the initiator, or author, and the last letter tav is the finisher. Does this call to remembrance a Scripture? In Hebrews 12:2, the writer of Hebrews says that Yeshua is the author and finisher, the author and perfecter of our faith. What this means Hebraically is that Yeshua is the Aleph and the Tav, the First and the Last. The writer of Hebrews describes Yeshua to be the fourth word in Genesis 1:1—the hidden Person to be revealed who is called Aleph-Tav.

Clearly we recall the words of Messiah Yeshua [Jesus] in Revelation 1:8 where He identifies Himself as the personification of the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet—the Aleph-Tav. Our English Bibles use the Greek translation of the Hebrew, having Yeshua to say in Greek, “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” In the Hebrew and Aramaic languages of Yeshua, of course, He said, “I am the Aleph and the Tav.”

The attachment of the number four to the Messiah. The ancient Hebrew language, as it was for all Semitic languages, did not have a numeric system apart from the alphabet. Each letter, therefore, also represented a numeric value. Rather than being peculiar, it was normal for Hebrew people to add up the number values of a word or sentence and find interesting and curious number combinations. This is the science of gematria. So it was not a difficult thing to associate a number with a word, or vice versa.

When the fourth word of the seven words of the first verse of the Bible was found to be a mysterious letter combination of aleph and tav, and then interpreted to be the personification of the Messiah, it was not a quantum leap to associate the number four with the patterns, promise and revelation of the Messiah in a similar way as was done with the number one to associate Wisdom and Light with the Messiah. Consider, for example:

• The four materials of the Tent of Meeting, three being metals (gold, silver and brass) and one being non-metal (wood) were Messianic
• The four coverings of the Tent of Meeting, three animal skins (goats’ hair, rams’ skins and badger skins) and one vegetative (linen) were Messianic
• The four decorations of the curtain in the Tent of Meeting, three being colors (blue, purple and scarlet) and one a pattern (the cherubim) were Messianic
• The four orders of the priesthood, three were the sons of Gershon, Kohath and Merari (the Levites), and one being Aaron and his sons
• The four sides of the altar of incense of praise and prayer were Messianic
• The camp of Israel in the wilderness was four-square, a Messianic stamp upon Israel
• “The Fourth Man” in the fire with the three Hebrew young men (Daniel 3:25), a Messianic implication
• The Four Gospels bearing witness of the Messiah, the first three being similar and the Fourth Gospel being unique
• The four-fold praise of the Lamb of God in heaven by redeemed humans: (1) blessing, (2) honor, (3) glory and (4) power unto Him who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb (Revelation 5:13)

This obvious attachment of the number four to the promised Messiah caused great interest, especially among the prophetic writers of the Old and New Testaments in how to see the Messiah through the lens of the Torah. After seeing the Messianic promise in the fourth word, Aleph-Tav, then it was natural to seek how the number four played out in other Torah passages. Most obvious to consider next was how the fourth day of creation hinted or alluded to the Messiah.

The fourth day of creation: sun and moon. On the first day of creation God said, “Light come forth, and light came forth” (Genesis 1:3). Light came forth before anything was made. This first light is amply found in ancient Hebraic texts as associated with the revelation of the Messiah to create the world. We need only to look at John’s opening paragraphs in his Gospel, or the Apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians:

For God, who said,
“Let light shine out of darkness,”
made his light shine in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God
in the face of Messiah.
(2 Corinthians 4:6)

Now we must reckon not only the number one as being Messianic in light of the first day of creation, but we also must consider the association of the Messianic number four with the fourth day of creation.

In associating the Messiah with the fourth day as well as with the first day, we see two types of light. The first type of light is revealed, not created on the first day. It is called forth. This light, we learn from the Bible, is eternal in nature. It was called forth before the beginning of material creation amidst the backdrop of darkness and chaos. On the fourth day, lights were created with the sun being the greater light and the moon the lesser light to reflect the sun at night. The stars also were made (see Genesis 1:14-19).

From this, it was deduced that the Messiah who is the Light of the world and is eternal in the heavens, would come as the greater Light of the world in created form. The lesser light that reflects Him would be his people Israel.

Where do we find biblical evidence for this view?

From Jewish literature the metaphorical connection of the Messiah with the fourth day of creation is well attested. The prophet Malachi, likewise, found a remez, or hint in the biblical text that anticipated a full revelation of the Messiah later on in history. He wrote prophetically of the coming Messiah in Malachi 4:1-2 (in Tanakh, Malachi 3:19-20), finding metaphorical significance in comparing the Messiah to the greater light created on the fourth day, namely, the sun:

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace;
and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff;
and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,”
says the LORD of hosts,
“so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

But for you who fear My name,
the Sun of Righteousness will rise
with healing in his wings [kanaph];
and you will go forth and skip about
like calves from the stall.

Not only did Malachi associate the Messiah as the One who would come as a created person who would be the greater light in Israel and among all peoples. The rabbis followed suit, agreeing with Malachi’s prophecy and assertion that the coming Messiah would be revealed to Israel as a created light among men, the Man of Light, comparable to the sun being created on the fourth day of creation amidst darkness. In this comparison of Messiah to a light created among men, the light of Israel to the nations, he was the Sun of Righteousness, the Day Star, the Bright and Morning Star—a reference to the sun.

The Apostle Peter also, taking his cue from the prophets, compared Yeshua to the greater light of the fourth day of creation:

And so we have the prophetic word made more sure,
to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place,
until the day dawns and the Morning Star arises in your hearts.
(2 Peter 1:19)

Likewise, John’s vision of the Messiah Yeshua [Jesus] in Revelation 22:16 quotes Yeshua saying:

I, Yeshua, have sent my angel to testify to you
these things for the churches.
I am the root and the descendant of David,
the Bright Morning Star.

In Revelation 2:26-28 , Yeshua, now glorified in heaven, said to the church in Thyatira about the metaphorical name of Messiah as the Morning Star:

He who overcomes,
and he who keeps my deeds until the end,
to him will I give authority over the nations;
and he shall rule them with a rod of iron,
as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces,
as I also have received authority from My Father;
and I will give him the Morning Star.

Thus, we learn that the prophets and apostles who wrote the Bible associated the coming of the Messiah to the fourth day of creation. But the writers of the Bible were not alone in their association of Yeshua, the Messiah, with the fourth day of creation. The ancient sages and rabbis did likewise.

In the ancient Jewish commentary known as Midrash Exodus Rabbah in 31:10, a rabbinic commentary is given on Exodus [Shemot] 22:25 about lending money to the poor without charging interest. In the story that follows, the question is raised by Moses to God about how long a garment of a poor person can be kept as a pledge of payment. Moses asked if the pledge should last forever if the loan is not repaid. The LORD replied to Moses: “No, only until the Sun appears.” The rabbinic commentary immediately explains: “That is, till the coming of the Messiah; for it says, ‘But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in its wings’ (Malachi 3:20).”

Now that we’ve shown that a hint or allusion to the Messiah is found in the fourth word of Genesis 1:1, and also in the fourth day of creation, we should look for another association in Genesis of the number four to the Messiah. And we find it in the fourth generation of Abraham.

The fourth generation after Abraham: Joseph.Joseph, son of Jacob, grandson of Isaac, great grandson of Abraham was the fourth generation from Abraham. Why is this significant?

From several Jewish writings we learn of the ancient expectation among the Jewish nation of Israel that the Messiah would come as a suffering servant of God in the likeness of Joseph who suffered at the hands of his brothers, was betrayed by them, was sold for twenty pieces of silver, was placed in a pit and presumed to have a premature death cutoff from his family forever. The phrase, thus, was derived and applied to the Jewish Messianic worldview that the Messiah would be called a “son of Joseph.”

But the question is why and how did they choose to see the Messiah as foreshadowed in Joseph, son of Jacob. What bore heavily on this conclusion that the Messiah to come must have features common and parallel to the story of Joseph’s life?

The answer, in large part, lies in the association of the number four to the Messiah as found in Genesis 1:1. The fourth word, Aleph-Tav, became generally accepted among the Torah scholars to be a reference to a hidden Person to be revealed at the right time, the Messiah of Israel. The fourth day of creation gave evidence that He would be a great light who would call forth, as the Apostle Peter says, “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Now that Abraham was called of God out of the land of darkness to the promised land that God gave to him and his descendants, the fourth generation after Abraham was a significant generation. The second generation was that of Isaac and Ishmael. The third generation was Jacob and Esau. The fourth generation was that of the twelve sons of Jacob and the five sons of Esau. A Messianic figure would be expected to be among the twelve sons of Jacob of whom God renewed his covenant with Abraham concerning the land. Which son was a Messianic figure?

The answer lies in finding the one who bore the sin of Abraham. The Torah taught that the sins of the father would be visited upon the children up to the fourth generation. This does not mean that every child will bear the burden of his great grandfather, but in Abraham’s case, Joseph bore his sins. How do we know this to be true? It is in the pattern.

You recall that Abraham sinned against God when he disobeyed the LORD by trying to take God’s promise of a son into his own hands. At his wife Sarah’s request, and according to ancient custom when a wife is barren, he took Hagar, an Egyptian servant of his wife Sarah, as his concubine for her to bear a son for him. She did bear a son whom Abraham named Ishmael. When Ishmael was a teenager, because of household tensions between Sarah and Hagar, Abraham drove Hagar and his son into the desert where, under normal conditions, they would perish. The whole episode is one of great trial for all.

In the midst of this terrible situation, God showed up and preserved Hagar the Egyptian and her son, Ishmael, from dying in the desert.

What does this have to do with Joseph four generations later? For starters, Ishmael became a strong leader of a people called the Ishmaelites. Abraham abandoned Ishmael, driving him away. Four generations a caravan of Ishmaelites purchased Joseph from his brothers who betrayed him at the peril of his life. And where exactly is this caravan of Midianites going with their new servant named Joseph?They're going to the home land where their great grandmother Hagar came from when she was purchased as a servant for Sarah, namely, Egypt. Hagar was purchased from Egypt by Abraham for Sarah. Four generations later Joseph is purchased from Abraham’s great grandsons to be sold into servanthood in Egypt. What goes around, as the saying goes, comes around. Joseph is the victim of Abraham’s sin, bearing his great grandfather’s sins to their termination four generations later. Joseph was the sin bearer for Abraham. Therefore, he is a suffering servant of God.

Therefore, when the Messiah arrived, it was expected that He would suffer for the sins of others like Joseph did for Abraham’s sin. Indeed, Messiah Yeshua is the sin-bearer for all generations, including all in the past, present and future.

The sin of Abraham, therefore, was visited on Joseph. We find an interesting order of names that highlight the eras from Abraham to Messiah Yeshua. The first generation is (1) Abraham, Then (2) Isaac, (3) Jacob, (4) Joseph, (5) Judah, (6) David and (7) Messiah Yeshua of Nazareth. Not only does Yeshua, the adopted son of Joseph, complete the pattern of suffering found in Joseph’s life, by bloodline He is also the son of David, son of Abraham—the seventh watershed figure in the Messianic lineage who completes all things in Himself as the Savior of the world.

So far we’ve considered from the basis of the fourth word in Genesis 1:1, the homiletical approach of Bible writers and Jewish sages in regard to the fourth word of the seven words of Genesis 1:1. From the fourth word, Aleph-Tav, we’ve looked at the fourth day of creation as Messianic, the fourth generation after Abraham as Messianic, and now we turn our attention to the fourth millennium of recorded history according to the Hebrew calendar.

The fourth millennium: Messiah’s advent. We see the pattern of expectancy of the Messiah in the number four:

• Fourth word, a hidden Person waiting to be revealed at the right time as Messiah
• Fourth day of creation, the hidden Person becoming the greater light that lights up the world, freeing whosever come to Him from darkness
• Fourth generation after Abraham, a suffering sin-bearer
Fourth millennium, the era of his advent

Attributing time values to the seven words. One of the interesting details about Genesis 1:1 is that its seven words became regarded as time markers, representing epochs of time that counted down the advent of the Messiah. Torah teachers of old began to count the seven words as seven ages, or, more specifically, as one millennium per word totaling seven millenia. A millennium, of course, is a thousand years. Torah teachers began to see seven thousand years of time in the seven words of Genesis 1:1, attributing a time value to each word.

One day as a millennium, a millennium as one day. In time, a phrase arose among those who diligently studied Torah during the time of the Old Testament writers. In Psalm 90:4 we become acquainted with it: “For a thousand years in your eye are like a day that passes, or a watch in the night.”

Underlying this statement was a play on words: “An aleph day with the LORD is the same as an eleph of years.” What do we make of this? The aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, as we know. Its numeric value is one in the Hebrew way of counting letters as numbers. When counting with the Hebrew alphabet, eventually the counting cycles back to the starting letters. So letters have to be able to have more than one numeric value. When counting to the number one thousand, the alphabet runs out of letters. It must recycle to the beginning letter for the value of one thousand. So it returns to the letter aleph. To distinguish the meaning of aleph as one and not one thousand, the first vowel sound of aleph is changed from an “ah” sound to an “eh” sound, hence, the word eleph. Our word elephant comes from the Hebrew word for one thousand.

With this distinction in mind between an aleph meaning one and an eleph meaning one thousand, we get the Hebraic context of what the Apostle Peter meant when he wrote in 2 Peter 3:8: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” Or paraphrasing, “With the Lord, an aleph day is like an eleph of years, and an eleph of years is like an aleph day.” From this comparison of different numeric values taken from the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet, it was also thought possible that the order of words as in Genesis 1:1 could take on time values, each word representing a thousand years.

Near the time of the first century before Yeshua was born to Mary [Miriam], a great expectancy for the advent of the Messiah arose. The end of the third millennium was near. The first three words of Genesis 1:1 were nearly complete according to their ascribed time values. The four thousandth year represented by the fourth word, Aleph-Tav, was almost at hand.

What made the four thousandth year so exciting and promising was precisely because the fore-drawn conclusion among many Jews was that the two letter word Aleph-Tav meant the Messiah. During this approaching time of the fourth millennium that the prophet Isaiah talked about Immanuel, i.e., the Messiah who would be “God with us.” The prophet also raised awareness that He would also be the “Prince of Peace” [Sar Shalom] (see Isaiah 7-9). The prophets Jeremiah, Hosea, Zechariah and Daniel also brought forth the Messianic oracles of God, including Daniel’s famous prediction of time the Messiah would appear, known today as “Daniel’s Seventy Weeks.”

Would Messiah delay, or speed his offer of the kingdom? As the anticipation of the coming Messiah increased among some, doubts also increased among other Jewish people. A view arose to explain from a prophecies of Isaiah that the Messiah may delay his coming if Israel failed to meet God’s standard of righteousness. In Isaiah 59:22, the prophet announced the promise of the coming Messiah:

“A Redeemer will come to Zion,
and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,”
declares the LORD.

A few verses below this announcement is the key Scripture that suggests a possible delay. The LORD announces through the prophet that the Messiah’s appearance on earth brings, at long last, peace for redeemed Israel as well as her elevation among all the nations as the place of Messiah’s habitation:

Violence will not be heard again in your land,
nor devastation or destruction within your borders;
but you will call your walls salvation,
and your gates praise.
No longer will you have the sun for light by day,
nor for brightness will the moon give you light;
but you will have the LORD for an everlasting light,
and your God for your glory.
Your sun will no longer set,
nor will your moon wane;
for you will have the LORD for an everlasting light,
and the days of your mourning will be over.

Then all your people will be righteous;
they will possess the land forever,
the branch of my planting,
the work of my hands,
that I may be glorified.
The smallest one will become a clan,
and the least one a mighty nation.
I, the LORD, will hasten it in its due [appointed] time.
(Isaiah 60:18-22)

The last line of the prophecy is the one that raised the eyebrows of Torah scholars of a possible delay. The LORD said, “I, the LORD, will hasten it in its due time.”

The Jewish Talmud is a collection of old sayings and teachings by Jewish sages and rabbis, some before the time of Messiah, but most after his coming. In the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, 98a Rabbi Alexandri pointed out that an earlier rabbi, Joshua ben Levi, found a contradiction in this verse about the timing of the Messiah’s coming. Here’s how the contradiction was explained:

R. Alexandri said: R. Joshua b. Levi pointed out a contradiction:
“It is written, ‘in its time [will the Messiah come],’
while it is also written, ‘I [the Lord] will hasten it!’
—[meaning,] if they [the people of Israel] are worthy,
I will hasten it [i.e., the day of the LORD]:
if not, [He will come] at the due time.”

From this interpretation, it is obvious that R. Joshua b. Levi has in mind the speeding up of the Day of the LORD. However, among other sages the view became that if the people of Israel did not repent for their individual and national sins as required in Deuteronomy 30:1-6, God would hold back Messiah from coming at all. As a matter of fact, this was the view of the rabbis of the first century who rejected the offer of God’s kingdom by Messiah Yeshua. They said Messiah failed to come because, if He had, He would have restored the kingdom of God to Israel. This viewpoint remains the adamant view of Rabbinic Judaism. Here’s how one dejected rabbi explained it in Tractate Sanhedrin 97b in the Talmud:

Rab said: All the predestined dates [for redemption] have passed,
and the matter [now] depends only on repentance and good deeds.

Rabbi Johanan bar Nappacha's comments show that the status of Israel's spiritual attitude determines the manner in which the Messiah comes. His words are recorded in the Talmud:<

R. Johanan also said:
"The son of David will come only in a generation
that is either altogether righteous
or altogether wicked.
In a generation that is altogether righteous,
as it is written, ‘Thy people also shall be all righteous:
they shall inherit the land for ever.’
Or altogether wicked,
as it is written, ‘And he saw that there was no man,
and wondered that there was no intercessor;’
and it is [elsewhere] written,
‘For mine own sake, even for mine own sake,
will I do it.’”
(B. Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a)

But this was not the only view among the early sages and rabbis. Some held that the Messiah would still come on schedule according to the time values of the seven words of Genesis 1:1. The Messiah would not be delayed at all. What would be delayed would be his appearance to usher in the Messianic kingdom when he would restore Israel. He would still come, but his first appearance would be as the suffering Messiah who comes to offer the message of repentance and the kingdom to those who repent in this live while the fullness of the kingdom would be delayed until his second coming.

In this case, as Zechariah prophesied in 9:9, He would come as the salvation of Israel in great humility, riding “upon a donkey, the foal of a donkey.” The Talmud confirms this rabbinic teaching from earliest times:

R. Alexandri said: R. Joshua opposed two verses:
“It is written, ‘And behold, one like the son of man came
with the clouds of heaven’
while [elsewhere] it is written, ‘Behold, your king comes to you . . .
lowly, and riding upon an ass!’
—[meaning,] if they [the people of Israel] are meritorious,
[he will come] with the clouds of heaven;
if not, lowly and riding upon an ass.”
(B. Talmud, Sanhedrin 98a)

R. Joseph said: “Yet Zechariah,
prophesying in the days of the second [Temple], proclaimed,
‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion,
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem,
behold, your king comes unto you!
He is just,
and having salvation, lowly,
and riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt, the foal of an ass."
(B. Talmud, Sanhedrin 99a

The fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy about the Messiah coming to Jerusalem riding on a donkey instead of the clouds of heaven (see Zechariah 9:9) is recorded in all four Gospels: Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-10; Luke 19:29-38; and John 12:12-15. The event was well-documented for history's sake, and for the sake of his people, Israel, and the nations of the earth

When Yeshua stood at his trial before the high priest [Cohen HaGadol] He answered the dilemma posed by his coming first riding on a donkey. Several Torah scholars questioned whether He was the Messiah, failing to grasp the significance of his coming in this manner: "I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."

Getting back to Isaiah 60:22a, to take this prophecy to mean a delay, or worse, a backing out of the appearance of the Messiah was wrong. What God offered, rather, is to speed up the Day of the LORD if Israel chooses to repent as a nation, as a whole, and receive the righteousness of God offered in Messiah Yeshua, the Suffering Servant like Joseph. Then the Messiah will come earlier the second time, not later, as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Yeshua hints at this as well in his apocalyptic message about the end times and the restoration of the Kingdom of God on earth when He said: "If the LORD had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them" (Luke 13:20).

While a growing number of Jews have repented in this generation, having received faith in Messiah Yeshua, to date Israel has not repented as the nation. But we have this steadfast word of the LORD that durintg Israel's cataclysmic times near the end of history as we know it, the days will be shortened for the sake of the elect. Meanwhile, the second coming of the Messiah remains on schedule as predetermined by our heavenly Father for the appointed time.

While in ancient times some sages and rabbis misinterpreted the passage, others got it right. The Messiah would not delay his coming at the beginning of the fourth millennium. He would come as the Aleph-Tav as hinted at in Genesis 1:1 and confirmed by the prophets of old. He did come as the Savior of Israel, and of the nations, lowly, riding on a donkey, on the foal of a donkey according to Zechariah 9:9.

Messiah came at the beginning of what we now call the first century in the year of our Lord. He was born of a virgin named Mary [Miriam], who was betrothed in marriage to a man, of all names, named Joseph [Yosef]. She was of the lineage of David as her betrothed husband. When she conceived of the Holy Spirit the Messiah, a convergence of the rarest possibilities occurred. Her son would be an adopted son of Joseph and a son of David by direct descent.

The fulfillment of the embedded prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, the Aleph-Tav in Genesis 1:1 at the beginning of the fourth millennium happened on schedule. He will return the second time as the King of kings and Lord of lords to rule the nations from Jerusalem for a thousand years. Messiah’s return will be at the proper time appointed by our heavenly Father if Israel as a whole continues to resist the offer to repent and receive the kingdom earlier.

This due or proper time for the second appearance of Messiah is prophesied in Genesis 1:1 with the two placements of the mysterious word Aleph-Tav. Isaiah, as does the other prophets of the Bible confirm it, but as a time we do not know for certain. We are not at loss such that the Day of the LORD would catch us unaware. We are able through Bible study to recognize the season for the Messiah’s second coming. We do have reliable, time-tested hints found in the seven words of Genesis 1:1 that suggest each word has a time value of one thousand years.

We must not ignore the Hebrew calendar and its adding up of the years. We are closing in on the sixth millennium as the fifth millennium of the Hebrew calendar winds down. We aren’t that far away.