THE VIDEOS AND ARTICLES BELOW ARE A REBUTTAL TO JEWS
FOR JUDAISM PRESENTED IN THE ABOVE VIDEO WITH GUEST JULIUS CISS
"And
I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a
spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they
have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only
child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.
ZECHARIAH 12:10
Y E S H U A
IN THE TANAKH
(The Name of JESUS in the Old Testament)
Arthur E. Glass
In dealing with my Jewish brethren for the past many years in Canada, the United States,
Argentina and Uruguay. I had one great difficulty, and it was this: My Jewish people would
always fling at me this challenging question,
"If Jesus is our Messiah, and the whole Old Testament is about Him,
how come His name is never mentioned
in It even once?"
I could never answer it satisfactorily to their way of thinking, and I admit I often wondered why His name was not actually written in the Old Bible. Oh, yes, I could show them His divine titles in Isaiah 7:14, 9:6 and Jeremiah 23:5,6, and even the word MESSIAH in several places; but the Hebrew name that would be equal to Jesus, that I could not show. Then one day the Holy Spirit opened my eyes, and I just shouted. There was the very NAME, Jesus, found in the Old Testament about 100 times all the way from GENESIS to HABAKKUK! Yes, the very word - the very NAME - that the angel Gabriel used in Luke 1:31 when he told Mary about the Son she was to have. "Where do we find that NAME?" you ask. Here it is, friend: Every time the Old Testament uses the word SALVATION (especially with the Hebrew suffix meaning "my," thy," or "his"), with very few exceptions (when the word is impersonal), it is the very same word, YESHUA (Jesus), used in Matthew 1:21. Let us remember that the angel who spoke to Mary and the angel who spoke to Joseph in his dream did not speak in English, Latin, or Greek, but in Hebrew; and neither were Mary or Joseph slow to grasp the meaning and significance of the NAME of this divine Son and its relation to His character and His work of salvation. For in the Old Testament all great characters were given names with a specific and significant meaning.
For example, in Genesis 5:29, Lamech called his son Noah [Comfort], saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and tell of our hands. In Genesis 10:25, Eber calls his firstborn son, Peleg [Division]; for in his days was the earth divided. The same is true of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob (changed to Israel-God's Prince), and all of Jacob's sons (see Genesis, chapters 29-32). In Exodus 2:10, Pharaoh's daughter called the baby rescued from the Nile, Moses [Drawn-Forth]: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water. And so we can go on and on to show the deep significance of Hebrew names.
Now then, when the angel spoke to Joseph, husband of Mary, the mother of our Lord, this is what he really said and what Joseph actually understood: And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus [YESHUA (SALVATION)]: for he shall save [or salvage] his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21). This text was so forcibly brought home to my soul soon after I was converted over 24 years ago, that I saw the whole plan of the Old Testament in that one ineffable and blessed NAME.
So let us proceed to show clearly the Hebrew name YESHUA
(Greek = Iesus English = Jesus) in the Old Testament.
(Greek = Iesus English = Jesus) in the Old Testament.
When the great Patriarch Jacob was ready to depart from this world, he by the Holy Spirit was blessing his sons and prophetically foretelling their future experiences in those blessings. In verse 18 of Genesis 49 he exclaims, I have waited for thy salvation, 0 Lord! What he really did say and mean was, "To thy YESHUA (Jesus) I am looking, 0 Lord"; or, "In thy YESHUA (Jesus) I am hoping (trusting), Lord!" That makes much better sense.
Of course YESHUA (Jesus) was the One in Whom Jacob was trusting to carry him safely over the chilly waters of the river of death. Jacob was a saved man, and did not wait until his dying moments to start trusting in the Lord. He just reminded God that he was at the same time comforting his own soul.
In Psalms 9:14, David bursts forth, I will rejoice in thy salvation.
What he actually did say and mean was, "I will rejoice in (with) thy YESHUA (Jesus)."
What he actually did say and mean was, "I will rejoice in (with) thy YESHUA (Jesus)."
In Psalm 91:14-16 God says, Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high [raise him above circumstances], because he hath known my name. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life [eternal life] will I satisfy him, and show him my [YESHUA (Jesus)] salvation. Of course. That promise is realized in Revelation 22:3, 4: And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it: and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see HIS face.
In Isaiah 12:2, 3 we have something wonderful. Here SALVATION is mentioned three times. The reader will be much blessed by reading these glorious verses in his Bible, but let me give them as they actually read in the original Hebrew with Jesus as the embodiment and personification of the word SALVATION: Behold, might (or, God the mighty One) is my YESHUA (Jesus-in His pre-incarnation and eternal existence); I will trust and not be afraid:, for JAH-JAHOVAH is my strength and my song; He also is become my YESHUA (Jesus).... And the WORD (Jesus incarnate) became flesh, and dwelt among us. (John 1: 14). ... Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of YESHUA [Jesus - waters of salvation flowing forth from Golgotha]."
Something very interesting occurred one spring in St. Louis: I was visiting in the home of our friends, Brother and Mrs. CharlesSiegelman, and another Jew was present there. He claimed Jewish orthodoxy for his creed. Of course the conversation centered around Him Who is the Center of all things -- Jesus. This good Jewish brother opposed the claims of Yeshua in the Old Testament verbally, and in a friendly fashion, most violently. His best offensive weapon, he thought, was to fling at me and at all of us there the well-known challenge: "You can't find the name of 'Jesus' in the Old Testament;" and this he did.
I did not answer him directly, but asked him to translate for us from my Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 62:11. Being a Hebrew scholar, he did so with utmost ease, rapidly, and correctly; and here is what and how he translated that text verbatim: Behold, Jehovah has proclaimed unto the end of the world. Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold thy YESHUA[ Jesus] cometh; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. Just then he crimsoned as he realized what he had done and how he had played into my hands, and he just fairly screamed out, "No! no! You made me read it 'thy YESHUA' Jesus], Mr. Glass! You tricked me!" I said, "No, I did not trick you, I just had you read the Word of God for yourself. Can't you see that here SALVATION is a Person and not a thing or an event? HE Comes, 'HIS reward is with HIM, and His work before him.' Then he rushed at his own Old Testament, talking away frantically saying, "I'm sure mine is different from yours." And when he found the passage, he just dropped like a deflated balloon. His Old Testament was, of course, identical. All he could use as an escape from admitting defeat was to deny the divine inspiration of the book of Isaiah.
Then skipping on to Habakkuk, we have the greatest demonstration of the NAME "Jesus" in the Old Testament; for here we have both the name as well as the title of the Savior. In Habakkuk 3:13 we read literally from the original Hebrew: Thou wentest forth with the YESHA [variant of ESHUA-Jesus] of [or for] thy people; with YESHUA thy MESSIAH [thine Anointed One: i.e., with Jesus thy Anointed] thou woundest the head of the house of the wicked one [Satan]. Here you have it! The very NAME given to our Lord in the New Testament - JESUS CHRIST! So don't let anyone - Jew or Gentile - tell you that the Name JESUS is not found in the Old Testament. And so when the aged Simeon came to the Temple, led there by the Holy Spirit, and took the baby Yeshua in his arms, he said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation [YESHUA (Jesus)] (Luke 2:29-30). Certainly! Not only did his eyes see God's Salvation - God's YESHUA (Jesus) - but he felt Him and touched Him. His believing heart beat with joy and assurance as he felt the loving heart of God throbbing in the heart of the holy infant YESHUA.
And thou shalt call his name Jesus (SALVATION = YESHUA);
for he shall save [salvage] his people from their sins!
for he shall save [salvage] his people from their sins!
Yesha’yahu – Isaiah 53:1-12
How about you? Have you received your Redeemer, the Stone whom the builders rejected?
In Him is life, light and joy and in His sacrifice is forgiveness of sin.
For further information contact
Jesus in the Old Testament
By Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Ph.D.,
President Emeritus
President Emeritus
There is no finer teacher on whether Jesus is to be found in the pages of the Old Testament than the teaching of our Lord Jesus himself.
He it was who said in John 5:39, “You [Jewish people] diligently study the Scriptures [which at that time were the 39 books of the Tanak/Old Testament].... These are the Scriptures that tes- tify about me.” That should settle the question.
But even more famously, Jesus rebuked Cleopas, and that other unnamed disciple, as they walked along the road to Emmaus on that first Easter Sunday, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the [Old Testament] Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:25-27).
Even King David predicted the resurrection of Jesus back in 1000 B.C. as he, too, saw what was ahead, namely, that Jesus would not be “abandon[ed] ... to the grave, nor [would he] let his Holy One see decay” (Ps 16:8-11; Acts 2:30- 31). Therefore, it is not unexpected that we, too, should find Jesus present in the events and the predictions found in the Old Testament.
It is only right that we should find that Jesus was both actually present in the Old Testament
and accurately predicted, and that he would come first as our Savior, and then in a later sec- ond coming, would appear as the King supreme over all the earth. Such an unusual state of affairs is possible because he was, he is and he is the One to come. But sad to say, all too many miss both his real presence in the Old Testament narrative and the numerous predictions of both his first and second advents/comings. To remedy this, let us turn first to those places where he appeared in a Christophany in the Old Testament times. Then we will sample some of the numer- ous predictions of his comings.
Old Testament Appearances of Christ
Jesus is first seen in the Old Testament as the person who appeared as “the Angel of the Lord” in his sudden confrontation with Sarah’s maidser- vant, Hagar (Gen 16:7). Thereafter, he continued to appear intermittently throughout the earlier books of the Old Testament. These real occur- rences, initiated by God, were characterized by the fact that they were convincing revelations of his person and work, as much as they were also
transitory, fleeting, but audible and clearly visible appear- ances. He came temporally in the form of a human, much before his final incarnation as a babe in Bethlehem, yet this same “Angel of the LORD” is called and is addressed often as “the LORD/Yahweh” himself (Gen 12:7; 17:1; 19:1; etc.).
This “Angel of the LORD” was a title that stood for his office, but it did not describe his nature. The Hebrew word for “angel” (mal’ak) had the basic idea of one who was “sent,” a “messenger.” Of the 214 usages of the He- brew term used for “angel,” about one-third of them refer to what is labeled by theologians as a “Christophany,” a temporary appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. It is certain, however, that this special angel of the Lord is divine, for Hagar “...gave this name to the LORD, who spoke with her [as the Angel of the LORD]: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ as she observed, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Gen 16:13). 1
Other instances of Jesus’ appearances in the Old Testa- ment can be seen representatively in Genesis 22:11, 15, where it was the Angel of Yahweh who spoke from heaven to Abraham when Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, and stopped him from proceeding. Again, it was the Angel of Yahweh who appeared to Moses in the flame of fire in Exodus 3:2. Throughout the dialogue at that burning bush, it was also declared that he was no one less than “Yah- weh,” who spoke at that time, causing Moses to hide his face from him (Ex 3:6).
Later, it was the same Angel of the Lord who appeared to the wife of Manoah (Judg 13:2-25), mother of Samson, whom she reported to her husband was indeed a “man of God” that had appeared to her. When Manoah asked for the “Angel of the LORD” to also appear to him as he had appeared to his wife, the Angel repeated the appearances and his conversations to him, after which he ascended in the flame of the altar (Judg 13:20), implying the sacrifice was in worship of the Lord himself! Moreover, this “An- gel” is regarded as a “Redeemer,” who saves Israel from evil (Isa 63:9).
How can readers of the Old Testament doubt that these sample instances, along with a host of other such descrip- tions in the earlier Scriptures, were anything less than pre-incarnate appearances of our Lord Jesus in real flesh, even if it was in those days only a temporary in-flesh-ment/ incarnation for the immediate needs of the people until he would come and take on flesh permanently? Oftentimes Jesus came to earth to help his people in their distress and their need for direction. The only examples of the Angel of Yahweh turning against Israel occur in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21, where the Angel is the agent of God’s punishment of David, because he disobeyed God and conducted a national census.
Old Testament Predictions of the Coming Messiah
In addition to the real presence of Jesus as the Angel of the Lord/God, J. Barton Payne2 listed some 574 verses in the Old Testament that had direct personal messianic foretellings. Payne found 127 personal messianic predictions involving some, 348 verses that had any or all types of real and typological prophecies of Jesus’ first or second coming. This number was exceeded only by Alfred Edersheim,3 who noted that in some 558 rabbinic writings in pre-Christian times, there were some 456 separate Old Testament/Tanak passages used to refer to the Messiah or to messianic times!
In my own book, The Messiah in the Old Testament,4 I was able to identify 65 direct predictions of Jesus’ com- ings in the Old Testament. Few will dispute that there are at least six direct Messianic predictions in the Pentateuch: Genesis 3:15; 9:27; 12:2-3; 49:8-12; Numbers 24:15-19; and Deuteronomy 18:15-18.
Eve was promised in Genesis 3:15 that a male descen- dant from her line would crush the head of the serpent, i.e., the Devil himself, and win completely over evil, as the prince of evil, Satan, would be finally vanquished. Then in Genesis 9:27, God would come and live/dwell in the tents of Shem, the Semitic peoples. But which one of the Semites did God intend: the Arabs or the Jewish people? Abraham settled that question, for God called him to go from Ur of Mesopotamia to Israel, and he was to be a blessing for all the nations on earth in Genesis 12:3.
This promise could be narrowed down even further for the tribe of Judah. Son number four of Jacob would be the one God would invest with the scepter of ruling and the one from whom the line of Messiah would descend (Gen 49:8-12). In fact, this coming one from Judah would be “A star [that would] come out of Jacob, a scepter [that would] rise out of Israel” (Num 24:17). Moreover, the Messiah who would come would also be a “prophet” (Deut 18:15) as well as a “king” (Ps 72).
If the book of Job is to be placed in the period of the patriarchs (c. 2100 – 1800), as we believe he is to be placed, then there are four texts in Job that should be added to the six in the Pentateuch. There Messiah is called an “angel” and a “Mediator” (Job 33:23-28).
Add to these 10 direct Messianic prophecies another five from the times both prior to and during the Davidic period. He is seen as the “Anointed” one in 1 Samuel 2:1-10 and the “faithful Priest” in 1 Samuel 2:35-36. But the most outstanding text by far is the Davidic Covenant text found in 2 Samuel 7 (repeated in 1 Chron 17) and elaborated on in Psalm 132, which pointed to the dynasty/house of David as the place where God would originate his throne, dynasty and kingdom forever. The promise given to King David was so astounding that David cried out in 2 Samuel 7:19c that “This is the law/charter for [all] humanity.” In other words, God had just now conferred on David an enlargement of the promise he had originally made with the patriarchs.5
There is not enough space to relate how 11 Psalms celebrate the person and work of the coming Messiah, but even though he would be rejected (Ps 118), and betrayed (Pss 69, 109), die and be resurrected (Pss 22, 16), he would come as Conqueror and Enthroned Ruler (Pss 2, 110), as Planner and Groom (Pss 40, 45), and as Triumphant King (Pss 68, 72).
In addition to the previous 15 direct references to the coming Messiah, there are some 39 predictions of the Mes- siah in the Old Testament prophets. A sample of these announcements before they happened would include these facts. First, it was predicted that Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isa 7:14; cf. Mt 1:33). His birthplace would be Bethlehem (Mic 5:2; cf. Mt 2:1, 6), and John the Baptist would be his forerunner (Isa 40:3-5; Mal 3:1; cf. Mt 3:3, Mk 1:3; Lk 3:4-6).
It was further announced ahead of time that Messiah would enter Jerusalem [what turned out to be Palm Sun- day] in Triumph as the crowd shouted “Hosanna” (Zech 9:9-10; Ps 118:25-26; cf. Mt 21:9; Mk 11:9; Lk 19:38; Jh 12:13). But in less than a week, he would be betrayed [by one of his own disciples, Judas, as it turned out] (Ps 69:25; cf. Acts 1:20).
Messiah’s side would be pierced (Zech 12:10; cf. Jh 19:37), and he would suffer vicariously for the sins of the world (Isa 53:6, 9, 12; cf. I Pt 2:21-25; Rom 4:25). Even more dramatically accurate was the fact that Jesus would be killed with the “wicked” ones (Isa 53:9a, note the plural noun in Hebrew) [as he hung between two thieves], yet he would be buried with the rich one (Isa 53:9b, note its singu- lar form in the Hebrew).
But that was not the end of the matter for the predic- tions about Jesus in the Old Testament, for Messiah would return to earth a second time (Daniel 7:13; cf Mk 13:26; Lk 21:27), and he would one day rule in the city of Jerusalem as King of kings, as the nations would go up to that city to be taught in his ways, never more to “train for war any- more” (Isa 2:3-4).
As far as the case for the Messiah in the Old Testament is concerned, the relationship between the Old and New Testaments is one of strong continuity and a progressive revelation. The seminal seeds of the doctrine of the person and work of Jesus bloom and blossom in the New Testa- ment even though the Old Testament often carried in semi- nal seed form much that eventually developed out of the Old. What a gracious, revealing God, and what a wonder- ful gift of a Savior who has come to earth once, but who is due to return once more in all his fullness and glory!
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