The Sean McDowell Show - 10 Prophecies That Convinced a Jewish Man Jesus Is the Messiah

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

What are the strongest Old Testament prophecies that point to Jesus as the Messiah? My guest is Jeff Morgan, a former secular Jew who does street evangelism with Jewish people in Israel. He hears the objections every day, in Hebrew, from people who grew up reading these texts. Jeff and I walk through 10 prophecies and address the common Jewish objections to each passage and shows where rabbinic sources themselves (Rashi, the Talmud, Targum Jonathan) connect these texts to a messianic figure. CHECK OUT: Logos Bible 60 Day Free Trial (https://logos.com/mcdowell) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [smdcertdisc] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://x.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sean_mcdowell?lang=en Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org   Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

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You do street evangelism to Jews all the time. And it's important to educate the Jewish people and let them know that this is a promise made to the Jewish people. Jesus said, I've come only for the law sheep of the House of Israel. When Jewish people hear that, they say, wait a second, he came for us. Yes, he came for us. But his message was universal, going to back to Abraham, that through his descendancy, through his line, the whole world will be blessed. The Jewish people to look at the text as it is. and I want their mind to start thinking about it.

I'm not trying to prove that this person is wrong. I'm trying to show them what scripture says and have them come to a conclusion that they can go test. Don't take my word for it, but look at what the text says. Now go investigate. I trust that God will do the work. What are the top 10 prophecies from the Hebrew scriptures that point to Jesus? Our guest today is street evangelist Jeff Morgan,

who grew up in a secular Jewish home, turned to New Age practices, and then became a follower of Yeshua, Jesus, at 46. He is here to walk us through the top 10 prophecies written hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, which are fulfilled in his life and his death. We've done shows before this. The first time we've met in person, thanks for coming to Biola's campus to talk about this. It is so good to be here with you, Sean. Am I shorter than you thought I'd be? You know what? Actually, I love when I see somebody, I was like, all right, cool.

This is what happens when you meet someone for the first time, but it's an honor to be here. We've had some great conversations in the past. But before we get started, I have something for you. All right. Straight from Chinatown. Authentic with the warning label on the back with the, you know, cancerous chemicals in, no, but here's it. Okay, all right, thank you.

Take one. All right, take one out of here. Yeah, yeah, give one. Yeah, give one. Okay. Got it. I want to take that one. This might actually be empty.

Are you serious? Oh, that's funny. Yeah. We'll throw that back in there. Okay. Because the only thing you can really be sure of with a fortune cookie, what you're getting, is a cookie. Okay.

And with that warning label on the back, I don't even really know if that's true or not. So open yours up. Open it up. All right. This thing is going to go everywhere. Here we go. All right. All right.

What does your say? Mine says, there are big changes for you, but you will be happy. That's what it says. Mine says, others see you as a wise person. Wow. Wow, that's deep. Dude, when I was younger, I would go to Chinese restaurants with my family. Okay.

And I'd always ask for extra fortune cookies because I'd open them until I found the one I wanted. And then I'd keep that one as kind of like hope for the future. And I think that that's kind of how a lot of people treat biblical prophecy. They look at it and say, well, if this fits my expectation and present moment need, then I'll believe it. But if it doesn't, something has to be different or change. And I think that's the way, you know, a lot of people look at biblical prophecy, and I just want to make sure that we realize that the Tanakh itself or the Old Testament, basically God trains us on what to expect. And the fact that it doesn't happen maybe in our timeline or in our lifetime doesn't mean that he's not working and that we can't see it. So we can actually go to the text and test it for ourselves.

I love that. So rather than picking, choosing the ones we want, if we go to the text and let it speak. it's going to paint a picture, so to speak, of the Messiah that we see in Jesus. Totally. I mean, there's categories in there. There's real places, real timing, patterns over time, so that we know what to expect. And as we look back into specific prophecies, we can see that not only is the God of Israel working through specific prophecies and Jesus fulfilling them, that it's a process. And I hear it all the time on the streets. You've heard it from some of your Jewish. Jewish guests before that, you know, Jesus can't be the Messiah because he didn't fulfill this and this. He didn't fulfill any prophets. I've heard that too, which is just mind-blowing. But that it didn't all happen at once. And when you really look into the patterns of the Hebrew

scriptures, you realize nothing ever happens all at once. And so we're going to go through that. I don't know if I have time to get into some of the assumptions that are made within rabbinic Judaism about prophecy. But it kind of sets the stage for what we're going to be getting into. If that's helpful to set it up, then lay the groundwork we need to have. And I want our audience to know that I had a suspicion of some of these prophecies you might select, but you come out of a secular Jewish home. You do street evangelism to Jews all the time.

So this is really your lane. So kind of set us up with what we need to know before we dive into these 10. Yeah, it sounds good. And, you know, yes, I do come from a secular Jewish family, but I had a very, very Jewish life, very Jewish upbringing. It wasn't religious per se, but it was very Jewish identity focused. And I have a lot of guests on my show and friends who were Orthodox Jews and ultra-Orthodox Jews coming out of Orthodox Judaism to faith in Jesus. Not leaving their Jewish identity behind, rather stepping into the promises of God for the Jewish people. I love that. When I had you

the last time, I think I referred to you as a former Jew and got a million emails. I was like, I'm so sorry, I will walk that one back and not do it again. It's important. So keep going. It's important because as Jewish people are automatically skeptical about the gospel and Jesus and those that preach the gospel, simply because of, you know, hundreds of years of persecution from the church in the name of Jesus. And we know that that's not true Christianity and true followers of Jesus wouldn't do those things. So there's a skepticism, and it's important to educate the Jewish people and let them know that this is a promise made to the Jewish people. Jesus said, I've come only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. And when Jewish people hear that, they say, wait a second, he came for us.

Yes, he came for us, but his message was universal, going back to Abraham, that through his descendantsy, through his line, the whole world will be blessed. Love it. So there's an assumption within rabbinic Judaism that when the Messiah comes, all prophecies, supposed to be fulfilled at once. World peace, Israel regathered, the temple rebuilt, and universal knowledge of the Torah. Now, we can debate whether those things are, some of those things are actually happening, which, in my opinion, is quite obvious. You have Israel regathered physically first. Yeah, we do. And that's happening. You have seven million Jews living in the land of Israel before 1948. That wasn't happening. I mean, we've been in exile for 2,000 years. And here we are, once again,

in our own homeland, you have the universal knowledge of Torah. Come on. Come on, man. I mean, there's billions of Christians all over the world throughout the last two millennia who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, because of Jesus, the Jew who, born in Bethlehem, came out of Nazareth, fulfilled biblical prophecy, and has become a light to the nations. So we can debate whether some of these prophecies are actually happening or not. But that's not really how God works in the Tanakh, You know, and if you take examples like Abraham, for instance, I love these examples. He gets a massive promise, right? A great nation, your name will be great.

Blessings, not just for you, but for the whole entire world. And what happens is descendants end up enslaved in Egypt, right? So you can almost hear it, right, from the people. You know, Abraham can't be the one, right? Look at us. We're suffering. We're struggling. We're in Egypt.

We're in bondage. he couldn't have been the one, you know, where's the great nation? Right? Exactly the opposite happened. So the problem isn't necessarily the promise. It's the expectation of the timing. Great distinction. Yeah, same thing with Moses, right?

What should have taken 11 years to get from Egypt to Kedesh Barnea or, you know, into the promised land, took 40 years. You know, because of the people's mistrust of the promise. You know, as it says in Exodus 1411, it is because of the, you know, because of the promise. it is because there are no graves in Egypt that you've taken us away to die here in the wilderness. Would that we have died in Egypt, let us choose a leader and go back? Listen to what the people of Israel are saying

to the chosen one, chosen to deliver them out of Egypt. They complain, they resist, and they even talk about replacing Moses and stoning him. Can you believe it? They call Moses our father today. Talk about from rejection to acceptance. Right?

And you can hear the words, you know, This can't be right. Brought us out of Egypt, it's a disaster. You know, he can't be the chosen one. So you have rejection and then fulfillment. Last one before we get into the prophecies. King David, right? What was he promised?

An eternal throne, an eternal kingdom. Your throne shall be established forever. You know, 2nd Samuel 7, a forever kingdom. And what happens? The kingdom divides. The kings fail. And eventually everything falls apart and the people go into exile. and you can almost hear it, right?

David can't be the one given the promise. Look what happened to us. The kingdom's divided. We're in exile. We're suffering. We're struggling. So the same conclusion could be made about David. But again, the problem isn't the promise.

It's the expectation of the timing and the unfolding of the fulfillment. And that's exactly what I hear today, Sean, on the streets of Israel. Same objections. Exactly. Jesus can't be the Messiah. He didn't bring world peace. He didn't rebuild the. third temple, he didn't gather the exiles, and he didn't bring universal knowledge of the Torah.

Okay, clearly happening. And after he came, things got worse, right? Rome annihilated us, you know, exiled us. We were dispersed throughout the world, right? Jesus can't be the Messiah. The opposite happened. But that's the same voice we've heard for 2,000 years from our Jewish people, right so even Elijah the prophet that people love and admire today he says the people have forsaken your covenant and killed your prophets with the sword this is our history so instead of asking like did everything happen all at once the better question is did the fulfillment begin in the way the text describes and that's what we're going to be getting into today with these prophecies because if it did then rejecting Jesus before its fullness its fullness its

It's not a new thing. It's the biblical pattern. Man, that is beautiful. I'm so glad you set it up that way from the scriptures themselves. And if we see it rightly, we would expect to the very things you described, which I think leads us to get into some of the specifics. And this first one is probably one of the most well-known, fulfilled prophecies, but it makes sense to start here because we're talking about the birth of Jesus. So tell us about Micah 5, too. It's a great passage. And I think one that is overlooked by most Jews as something that's just minor and something that's easy to fake. It's something that's easy to make up. But I'm going to read the passage right here.

In Hebrew, it's Micah 5-1. It says, but you, Bethlehem Ephrata, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth from me, one who is ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from old from ancient days. Okay. We have a location, Bethlehem. It's a small town, David's hometown, kind of inconspicuous, and this is pointing to a Davidic ruler, right? But then there's this Hebrew phrase in there that you can't get around. You can't avoid it. It says in Hebrew, me keedem, mi yamayolam. And what that actually means is, in most translations, the most minimal translation that you can have from that Hebrew to English is from ancient times from the days of old, right?

That's the most minimum, right? But this can also be translated as the days of eternity, right? And both of those fit, and they both can work. And so when you're reading this, you're looking through that, and you're like, that's not really typical language of a king. It pushes beyond normal origins for a earthly ruler. a normal earthly ruler. So can we find a messianic interpretation for this passage in Jewish history, in rabbinic Judaism? Because that's important. And I bring up rabbinic Judaism, not to say that we're in

alignment, we agree with everything, but that the common objection is that Christian interpretation has never existed within Judaism. And you've heard this ever. And that's not true. It's not true. It's within Jewish history. There may be disagreements between rabbis, but the fact that, and I'll just bring up one here. Yeah, give me example. His name is Rashi. Okay.

You've heard that name before. Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki, an 11th century Jewish commentator, one of the most respected voices in traditional Judaism. A lot of times when Jewish people read the Old Testament, they're reading it framed by Rashi's interpretation. You have the Old Testament in the middle, framed by Rachi's interpretation.

So you go back and forth. What did I read? What does he say it means? And what he says here, that this verse, Micah 5-2, refers to the Messiah, son of David. Wow. Yeah. And we know what Jesus was called in the New Testament, Son of David. And that wasn't even debated during that time, whether he was called Son of David or whether he was some of David.

But the objection that it's made is that this refers to King David. Okay. King David. Okay. The response is David's never described in this way. You can't choose your birthplace, right? And meaning you can't choose your birthplace so that the response to the objection is, well, Jesus, you know, put himself there. But you can't choose where you're born.

And the language here, it stretches beyond lineage. Okay. Okay. This is a ruler coming forth from Bethlehem, whose origins of old, of ancient days, or even eternity. So it stretches beyond normal lineage. So when we look at Jesus, he's born in Bethlehem. Matthew 2, verse 1 says now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea and the king, in the days of Herod the king, you have here a birthplace, but you also have an additional bit of information that gives you a time period that you can actually test. Are there historians, scholars that were writing at the time of Herod that maybe wrote about him?

And there are. Right. And so the fulfillment of this prophecy, you have a specific birthplace, a Davidic line, and we can get into, you know, you've probably heard, well, Dave, you know, Jesus wasn't from the Davidic line because he didn't have an earthly father. That's debatable. But this isn't for this podcast, and I have a great answer for it anyway. kind of want to get into it. But there's an unexpected origin, you know, from this little inconspicuous town, and language beyond normal kingship.

So that's how Jesus fulfills this prophecy. You could say, oh, it's a simple prophecy. Came out of Bethlehem. Anyone comes from Bethlehem. Anyone could have come out of Bethlehem. Yes, but you don't have anyone that came out of Bethlehem that says, I'm the Messiah. And that's an important detail. All right.

Before we move on the second one, we're spending, I don't know, five, six minutes on each one of these. If our viewers and listeners like, you know what, I would love an hour deep dive or so on each one of these. Comment and let us know we could come back and do a deep dive series, take all the objections you're referring to. But the key of Micah 5-2 is that there's precedent within rabbinic writers and thinkers. Spring is one of the most meaningful seasons of the year. We celebrate the resurrection of Christ at Easter. We honor the moms who shaped us. we cheer on graduates stepping into their future, and we thank the dads who led the way.

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is, and is specifically in the place of Bethlehem. Peace those together, we're starting to make a pretty good case for Jesus being the Messiah. Yeah, and that's just the beginning. Okay, all right, awesome. Okay, so let's jump to another one, maybe the most famous prophecy from the Old Testament, that your ministry is actually named after. We'll come back to that. Yep.

Isaiah 53. Yes, yes. This is a wonderful one. It actually begins in Isaiah 52, verse 13, goes through Isaiah 53, 12. This is about the suffering service. servant. Okay, I'm just going to start by reading some text here. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up. Okay, this is Isaiah 52, verse 13. Those two words high and lifted up, Ram and Nisa, those are Hebrew for high and lifted up and only used for God in the book of Isaiah.

Okay? So this is talking about the servant who will be high and lifted up. Then he was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrow. rose, but he was pierced or wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Okay? So some people read this and immediately come to faith. Because they're like, why is he in our Hebrew scriptures? And all of a sudden something changes and shifts in the mindset, because the clear reading, without the rabbinic interpretation surrounding it lends the person to simply say, this looks like Jesus. I'll go on the streets of Israel and read this passage to Jewish people who've read the Tanakh. And they're like,

I don't exactly know where that's from, but it sounds like the New Testament and it sounds like Jesus. Wow. Exactly. And so that's my point. I don't tell them where it's from. Yeah, you just read him a text. There's a, there's some Hebrew words in, in here. And it says, mecholal mipshahenu. And what that means is wounded for our. transgressions. I'm not even going to press on the word pierced because the word mecholal means wounded, but in this context, it can mean pierced. It can mean pierced. But the direct translation is wounded. Still the same context. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was oppressed, yet opened not his mouth. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. He had done no

violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see, and be satisfied, by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted, righteous. Okay. This is describing someone very specific. Okay. It's describing a human-like figure, singular, male, and the objection, which I would say is more of a modern objection.

I'm not saying modern as in the last 50 years. you know, the last thousand years. Okay. That this is describing Israel as the suffering one. But then you read the text. Did you say, I can push it into that category, that it's Israel suffering, but it doesn't quite fit. And why doesn't it fit? Because Isaiah in the servant songs, Isaiah 42 through 53, there are two. servant categories. One, you have the suffering servant of Israel failing, and then you have the

suffering servant who restores Israel. So in Isaiah 42, you see Israel failing. Israel's in exile. Israel's a sinful nation. And then you have in Isaiah 49, for instance, a servant that restores Israel, connected to Israel, distinct from Israel as a name. but from within Israel. So when you look at it, Israel cannot restore Israel and suffer for Israel in the same way. There are many in the Jewish world that will say, there's nobody that takes my sins,

no one dies or suffers from me, and that's why we have to get into some of the Jewish sources. Okay. Let's do it. So we have what's called Targum Yonatan. You may have heard this before, Targum Jonathan. It's an early Aramaic interpretive translation of the Hebrew Bible. It's used in synagogues.

And it paraphrases scripture to make it understandable. This is ancient. And in Isaiah 53, it explicitly connects the servant to Messiah. Wow. Yeah. Sanhedron 98B, which is a part of the Babylonian Talmud, is a central part of Jewish rabbinic text, and in that discussion, the rabbis connect the Messiah with suffering, calling him the leper scholar, in reference to Isaiah 53. So the concept of a suffering

Messiah is not foreign, and it exists within Jewish thought. That's amazing. So both of these, the birth of Jesus, Micah 5, 2, which obviously at that time was understood as a messianic figure by at least some, and then the suffering of one, which will lead to the righteousness of many, also has early ancient attestation of being a messianic figure. Correct, correct. And in the New Testament, we have the fulfillment in 1st Peter 2, 24. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. Okay.

So this isn't just suffering, but it's bearing sin and taking on what belonged to us. right so the fulfillment you have rejected suffered for others bear sins he's innocent right no done no violence no deceit in his mouth you can't you Israel cannot be the suffering one the suffering servant in this passage silent dies brings healing justifies many okay it's pretty clear unless it doesn't fit your expectation mm right unless you want to get a different fortune cookie that doesn't match what the text says arguably from your example. Okay. That's right. All right. In some ways, these two could be a sufficient case pointing towards Jesus within themselves, arguably. But we have eight more. So we've gone from a minor prophet to a major prophet. Now we're

going to the Psalms. Psalm 22. Very prophetic. The Psalms are very prophetic. We're going to start with Psalm 22 where David, King David writes, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Okay, 22, verse 1. And when Jesus is on the cross, he says this. And people can use this against him. Oh, you know, he can't be the son of God. He can't be the Messiah. You know, look at him.

He's crying out to God, why have you done this to me as if he didn't understand, right? But what is he really doing, right? It's not a cry of distress. As the Psalm unfolds, it becomes increasingly specific that Jesus is referring people to this Psalm. Why? Because it says here, all who seek me, sorry, all who see me, mock me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. This is the people looking on saying. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him for he delights in him. So you have a public mocking centered on trust in God. Okay. Let God deliver him, you know.

If he delights in the Lord, let the Lord deliver him. It goes on to say, dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. And then this debated phrase, here it comes, they've pierced my hands and feet. That's the phrase. Now in Hebrew, we have Kearu, Yadai, viraglai. Now, Kearu is they've dug, pierced, dug out, right? This is the word for Kearou. They have.

It's past, plural, they have, dug, my hands and feet. Or they have pierced my hands and feet. Now, in some Dead Sea scrolls, it's debated whether the word is Kearu or Kearri. And if you change it to Keari, it means like a lion. And that, if you insert like a lion,

it takes away the whole pierced reference, and it becomes, like a lion, my hands and feet. And that's the modern Jewish objection to this part pointing to Jesus. Interesting. That it doesn't mean pierced my hands and feet. Guys, get over the cross thing, get over the, you know, stop doing these weird metaphors that Christians are inserting into the text. But this is very, very highly debated, okay, this word.

Because this shift in word, because you have, Kearou, and the final letter of Kearu is a vav, and it's a symbol, it's a simple, it's a simple line. Now, Kearri ends in a yod, which is a little line. Is it the little line or the

bigger line? We don't exactly know. However, the Kearu, they've pierced my hands and feet. You have a subject, you have a verb, and you have an action of what's happening. Okay. In, like a lie in my hands and feet, there's a

verb missing there. And so if anyone's going to, you know, accuse someone of pushing something into the text, it would have to be more on that line because it doesn't quite fit grammatically or syntax-wise. Okay, so some later masoretic readings or traditional Jewish Hebrew scripture readings would read it as like a line in my hands and feet. But what, if we grant that, that sounds pretty traumatic. There are lions at my hands and feet. So, okay, was he Mal? by lions and how... Okay, so it's still pretty dramatic. It doesn't change the context of this part.

So the Septuagint, you're familiar with the Septuagint, the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek by Jewish scholars before the time of Jesus. Some people debate was, was that finished before Jesus came? Sure. There's evidence that it is because it's quoted in the New Testament. And I believe it's also quoted by historians before the time of Jesus, the Septuagint, right?

not just the Torah, but the entire Old Testament. It was completed over centuries. And that matters because it's not a Christian translation. It reflects a Jewish reading before the time of Jesus, right? David continues on and it says, I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them. And for my clothing, they cast lots.

Okay? This isn't general suffering. This is tremendous detail. Okay. The objection to this, this is just David. it's describing his own suffering poetically. But there's so much detail here.

King David certainly suffered, right? Yeah. Was rejected. He hid. He was hunted. But this language goes beyond anything recorded in his life, right? There's no account of King David having his hands and feet mauled or pierced, his garments being divided, casting lots,

and this exact combination of public humiliation. It doesn't fit David's life. No. So either this is. is like a hyper-specific poetic exaggeration, or it's pointing beyond David. And then we get into the fulfillment. Oh, I love it. Okay. So this one is less that there was early messianic expectation tied to this passage. But we know Jesus was from the line of David, and there's specifics given to David that we don't see to match up in his life that we do see described in the life of Jesus.

So minimally very suggestive beyond the Psalm itself. Right. So let's go to the next one. Zachariah 1210, back to a minor prophet. Tell us about that one. Okay. So Zachariah 1210 is wonderful. I use this on the streets of Israel as well.

I will read this to people. And they'll say it sounds like Jesus talking about, you know, from the New Testament, right? And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, a spirit of grace and please for mercy. so that when they look upon me on him who they've pierced they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son

and weep bitterly over him as one weeps over a firstborn common Jewish objection God doesn't have a son and if it is a son they're talking about Israel as Israel's referred to as his son right so here's the Hebrew the Hebittu Eli

at Asher Dakaru they will look upon me whom they've pierced. Okay? Anyone that reads Hebrew and understands Hebrew, they will look upon me whom they've pierced. This is God speaking. The first question I ask is, how do you pierce God?

It's a good question. And the text is really, really interesting here, okay? Like I said, this is God speaking, and he says, I will pour out and they will look upon me, but then it shifts to him whom they they've pierced. Him whom they've pierced. So you have God speaking, yet describing a pierced figure who is distinct, yet still somehow identified with him. Okay. Okay. We have this happening a lot in the Tanakh with the angel of the Lord, but that's not today. Yeah. Yeah. And what's the response?

National mourning, right? Like mourning for an only son. Like mourning for a firstborn. Okay. This passage is very pregnant with symbolism. It's very specific. And the main objection, this is a symbolic of Israel's suffering. Okay? It's the main objection. So my response to that,

or the text's response to that, don't believe me, is that the text is describing, it's not describing collective suffering. It focused on a specific figure whom they've pierced, who the people of Israel, have pierced, and the mourning is directed toward that individual, not towards the nation itself.

And in this one, we all have Jewish forces as well. Oh, we do. Okay. Yeah. So in Sukha, 52A, which is a tractate in the Babylonian Talmud, it discusses this very first verse. And one of the interpretations given is that the mourning is for a slain Messiah, often referred to as Messiah, son of Joseph. Okay. Why son of Joseph? Because in the Jewish mindset, you have to make sense of we do have a suffering figure here. We do have a killed figure here. That only makes sense if we push it into a different category of, okay, well, the family, Joseph suffered. He was from the tribe of Ephraim. You know, they relate the suffering Messiah killed from the tribe of Ephraim. And so that's why he's the son of. Joseph. So they have to deal in the text with this suffering one. And that's one of the ways that

they deal with it. So even in a Jewish tradition, this verse is connected to a messianic figure who is killed. Spring is full of special days. Easter, Mother's Day, graduation and Father's Day, and Crosswalk has made it easier than ever to find the perfect faith-filled gift for every one of them. The Crosswalk's Spring Gift Guide is your one-stop destination for meaningful gifts, your love. loved ones will treasure from Bibles and devotionals to books that inspire. It's all right there at crosswalk.com. Visit crosswalk.com today and find a gift that speaks to the heart. So we have the fulfillment now in the gospel account.

The New Testament applies this directly in John 19, where after Jesus pierced it says, they will look on him whom they've pierced. And then in Revelation 1, it picks up again, pointing forward to a future moment of recognition and mourning. And this, the idea isn't just the act in itself. It's also the recognition, the mourning, and turning to God, which fits a broader pattern, right? Rejection first, like we talked about in the beginning, in the intro, then recognition later. And so the fulfillment is we have a specific pierced individual, language connected to God himself, not collective, but personal focus.

Deep mourning for an only son. Jewish sources link it to a slain Messiah. New Testament applies this directly to the crucifixion, and it leads to repentance and recognition. That's amazing. So there's at least two sources we've seen so far that are understood within Jewish sources to a suffering and or slain Messiah to the referred to piercing, at least one clearly in Zachari, which maybe adds some credence to the interpretation in Psalms 22. Maybe.

That's a severed debate that we could have. But let's move on now. To me, this is one of the most fascinating ones. My dad actually wrote an entire book on some of the prophecy from the book of Daniel years ago. Daniel 924 through 27. And if you will, tie in Haggai 5-6, because there's a connection here. Okay. So that's great.

This is one of the most structured prophecies in the Tanakh. And I love it because it gives us a timeline, right? Sometimes, I'll hear this, Sean, this is the truth. I speak to a lot of Orthodox Jews. We're not allowed to read this passage because we're not allowed to know when the Messiah comes. Interesting. Okay.

Right. Okay. This is not just description. It's a timeline. Daniel says, 70 weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity.

Then it gets very specific. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem, you have a decree, right, to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, or Messiah, a prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks. Okay, this is Daniel 9, verse 25. So first here you have a decree to rebuild Jerusalem, right? Then a measured period of time. When did this decree come?

Most scholars believe that this was in the mid-400s from Artaxerxes from Persia, gives a decree to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Now this is a measured period of time. Then the Messiah appears, an anointed one, okay? Then Daniel says, and after 62 weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. Now here's the Hebrew. Yikarret

Messiah. And that means Messiah will be cut off. And we know that in Jewish tradition, in biblical tradition, cut off means killed. Okay? So the Messiah will be cut off,

not crowned, you know, not coming in glory at this time, but will be cut off and killed. Now, when this timeline is worked out, and you know this, and your dad knows this,

these seven weeks are understood as seven weeks of years, okay? Or seven, seven-sevon, 70 weeks of years, which leads to a span often calculated as 173,883 days, roughly, sure, sure, from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem, from Artaxerxes in the mid-400s. So where does this prophecy land? Right in the first century, some say even around 30 AD. Okay. And then Daniel continues. And the people of the prince who is to come, okay? You have the prince that's being cut off. He's already dealt with. And the people of the prince

who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary and its end shall come with a flood. Okay. Now here's what's clear. Romans, the Rome destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD. Okay. 40 years after Jesus was born, 37 years, whatever, after his crucifixion resurrection. So the sequence here is unmistakable, okay? The Messiah comes, the Messiah is cut off and killed, then Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed. And that anchors this prophecy to the second temple period before 70 AD when the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans. Okay.

We have objections. Yes. And we have fulfillment. Okay. What are some of those objections? Well, Messiah is the word for anointed one. Just means an anointed one. It could refer to anyone, right?

A lot of people were called anointed ones. But even religious Judaism knows the difference between a Messiah and the Messiah, and even King Messiah, which they call Melech Hamashiyah, King Messiah. So what is its fulfillment? It's tied to a specific countdown, a specific location, Jerusalem, and tied to the destruction of the Second Temple. So this is not just any figure. This is historical. It's a pinpoint timeline. Now, what's amazing about that is that Jesus comes in his earthly ministry.

And what's, this is really, really fascinating. Okay. Within Jewish Talmudic literature, they'll say this wasn't Jesus, right? They'll say, you know, this is not, you know, the timeline is not, doesn't line up. The timeline means something else. There was a different decree. It wasn't him, right? But within Jewish literature, in the Talmud, you have a period of time 40 years before the destruction of the second temple.

Okay? From 30 to 70. Strange things were happening in the temple. Okay? You know Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Certain things happened. that showed the people that God accepted the atoning sacrifice for sin and that the people were forgiven.

Those signs were not happening for 40 years between the time of Jesus and the destruction of the Second Temple. The lot that was supposed to rise in the hand of the high priest in the right hand that showed God's favor and acceptance was not rising. The crimson thread that was supposed to turn white that showed that the sins were forgiven was not turning white. The doors of the temple were open and the closed doors meant, you know, security, safety,

and the temple doors were open. The westernmost candelabre, the light on the menorah, was not continuously lit. These are all signs showing God's favor, and God was accepting sacrifice for 40 years. These were not happening until the destruction of the Second Temple. Now, you could say that that's coincidence. I'm not going to say that traditional Judaism,

says that Jesus was the Messiah because this happened, but it's evidence that within Jewish history and Jewish tradition, something very strange was happening in the temple, showing that the traditional Jewish sacrifice was not accepted after Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection. That's fascinating. It is fascinating. So we're going to move straight into Haggai, because you wanted to talk about that. And, you know, Daniel gives us a timing, but Haggai adds something very crucial about the same temple.

Okay? Haggai says, the later glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts. And in this place, I will give you peace declares the Lord of Host. Now, he's speaking about the Second Temple, okay? But you know, historically, was the Second Temple greater? No. No, wasn't greater. There was no arc of the covenant.

There's no what Christians would call the Shikina glory or the Shechina in Hebrew, which is the same. manifestation of God's presence, and even within Jewish tradition, this is acknowledged. So how could this temple be greater than the first temple? Great question. Right. So if you combine Haggai with Daniel, Daniel says the Messiah comes before the temple is destroyed. Haggai says that same temple will have greater glory, right?

So the only way that both of these are true is that the glory of the temple is a structural glory. It's not more gold and jewels and more beautiful to the eye but that it's a personal visit by the living God. Jesus enters that temple.

He teaches in it. He confronts the leadership in it. He identifies himself in it from within its authority structure. He's asked, are you the Messiah? Son of David and he says,

yes, I am and you will see the son of man coming on the clouds and they knew exactly what he was talking about. They tore their garments, blasphemy, and they wanted him killed. So this temple is greater, not because of gold, but because of a presence of someone.

And I want to stop for a second, relate this to my own personal testimony. Please. Because I was in New Age spirituality for 20 years, two decades, meditating, clearing my mind, trying to find peace, enlightenment, because I was horribly anxious. Horrible anxiety, and all I was looking for was peace.

And what I thought that peace was was the absence of someone. Sorry, absence of something. Get rid of the thoughts, get rid of the location, get rid of the relationships, you'll find peace. Get rid of the noise. But what I realized was that peace wasn't the absence of something. It was the presence of someone. And that blew my mind.

And when we talk about that in this time, the Messiah will bring peace to the temple, I instantly felt peace when I came to faith in Jesus. I was filled with God's spirit. I felt peace. I realized the peace was a presence of someone, not an absence of something. So here's a cool historical note from within Jewish tradition itself. In the Talmud, tractate Yoma 39. B, which discusses temple practices, it records, like we said before, that 40-year period.

Okay? That's where it is in the Talmud, where all these strange things were happening. So these were seen as signs that something was not functioning as it had before. And when Jesus shows up, right, he makes very prophetic claims. He makes very powerful claims about who he is. and he is visiting and within this temple structure, right? How is this temple more glorious than the first temple? Well, we believe that the presence of God was there in human form.

Do you have anything you want to add to that? Oh, I love that. I would say so far we've been looking at some clues, like the birthplace of the Messiah, that the Messiah would suffer. We have references to when the Messiah would come. Now we're kind of shifting into some evidence. that the Messiah may be divine.

Now, this doesn't really suggest this. It fits with the larger case that we're making. Some of the prophecies we'll get into, like namely Isaiah chapter 9, go even further in this regard. But we've done five. Before we move to six, maybe just kind of sum up for us in like a longer tweet of here's the key things that we know from the Old Testament about the Messiah coming from these first five passages. Okay, so we have the birthplace of a messianic figure in Bethlehem, right? Perfect. We have the fact that he was, you know, a bruised reed, we have a suffering servant who is

from Israel, but distinct from Israel. Good. A righteous one had no violence in his mouth who was suffering for the sins of the people, taking upon himself the transgressions of the people, and when the people is mentioned is talked about Israel. You have a specific timeline by which the Messiah is supposed to come. I often say this, Sean. If it's not Jesus, we don't have a Messiah.

We don't have one because there are specific prophecies that must be fulfilled while genealogical records are available and before the destruction of the Second Temple. If he's not the one, we don't have one. There's really only one candidate for that. And so that's kind of what brings us here, and that the second temple is more glorious than the first temple. It's destroyed. It no longer exists. The first temple was probably mind-blowing. You know, you think of Solomon. If he was alive today, he would be a trillionaire. The most rich, the richest man on the planet, right? So obviously the second temple, more glorious,

it can only really be in one way that the presence of God was actually there as Jesus. So that's what we have up into this point. I love it. Now, before we jump into the sixth, when you were saying that, like, I felt this emotion go over my body in this sense of, like, I believe Jesus is the Messiah. But just piecing it together with such clarity the way that you did is powerful. Got like goosebumps just seeing.

I think it's clear. Brothers with eyes to see it and ears to hear, but we're only halfway there on these 10. And there's more than the 10 we're going to cover and discuss. Let's keep going. All right. So Zachariah 9-9, back to a minor. prophet, take it away.

All right. So, in Zechre 9-9, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming to you. Righteous and having salvation is he. Humble and mounted on a donkey, on a cult, excuse me, the foal of a donkey.

I love when the word salvation is used because you look up in the Hebrew and what does it say, Yeshua, the name of Jesus, right? That doesn't mean that this is the name of Jesus. They're saying this is Jesus here. Okay. I just love that word in there.

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So this is a public, visible scene. It's not symbolic language, but a moment people would recognize, okay? Your king is coming to you into Jerusalem, and the description of the king is unexpected, right? What are the people expecting at that time when they're being oppressed by Rome? A conqueror, a deliverer, free us from our enemies. Yep, right? But he's righteous. He brings salvation. He's humble. Not on a war horse coming in, but on a donkey. Right. And in the biblical world, horses are tied to war and conquest, while donkeys were used by kings in a time of peace.

So when Zacharii describes a king coming on a donkey, it's not weakness. It's a deliberate picture of a non-militaristic peace-bringing king. Okay? that's what these two animals represent. So it's a different kind of kingship. Sometimes we go on the streets and we ask people, what to you is the perfect king? Well, that he would take my life into consideration, that he would go on the battlefield and defend me and die for me. Does that usually happen with kings?

No, throughout his street, no. They think for themselves, and they send other people out to do that work for them. So the objection here is that this could be staged, right? Someone could deliberately ride a donkey. right? And I don't shy away from that. I'm going to actually say yes, right? That's exactly the point, because prophetic acts in the Hebrew Bible are often intentionally enacted, right? They're meant to be seen. Okay. Isaiah did it, Jeremiah did it, Ezekiel did it. They all acted out their messages in public.

Some of the things that they did were as signs of things to come. So the question is not, could it be staged? The question is, does it match the prophetic pattern, and does it happen in the right context? So you can't stage how the public reacted to him. Okay. And when you look at the context, this is in Jerusalem, during the Passover, a major feast, and this is a highly visible moment, right? And in the Gospel of Matthew 21 versus 4 and 5, it says, this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets saying,

say to the daughter of Zion, behold, your king is a king is like, coming to you humble and mounted on a donkey. Jesus deliberately enters Jerusalem this way, publicly, during the Passover. And what do we know about Passover? The lamb that was slain, blood was put on the altar to atone for sins that death would pass over. Okay? This is extremely pregnant with symbolism here. This happens in front of the crowds, and they recognize it, right?

And what do they do? Their response is immediate. Hosanna to the son of David. Right? And here we have the Hebrew. Hosia. Hosia. Save, please, or save us now. Okay, that's what it means.

And it comes from Psalm 118, verse 25. Save us, we pray, O Lord. And by the first century, it had become a shout of praise and hope for deliverance. And this is what they're saying when Jesus enters in on his donkey. This is a public recognition, right? So what do we have here in its fulfillment? public visible entry into Jerusalem, intentional prophetic act, identifies himself as king, humble, not military, recognized by the crowds, and it fits the setting and the expectation.

I love it. Now, of course, if Jesus did this intentionally, and he wasn't the Messiah, then he's an absolute fool for arranging his life in a way to get crucified. But I do find it interesting that I've been challenged in conversations that Jesus never claimed, to be the Messiah, or as you can point towards Acts 236, where he's referred to as the Messiah, John 426, where in reference to the woman at the well, he says, you know, basically the one speaking to you, I am he. So writing, you know, the synoptic gospels report that Jesus rode a donkey in, this isn't the words, I am the Messiah, but is a claim to be the Messiah.

Yeah. So on one hand, you might find skeptics that want to write it off and say, Jesus didn't claim to be the Messiah. Okay, we have evidence that he did. But then people say, well, he was just staging this, which the response is, no, he's claiming to be the Messiah. That's the point. Exactly.

It's a messianic claim. It is. Let me add an analogy to that. If I was to tell you, I'm not going to tell you this word, but, you know, I'm going to describe someone to you. he rides on the top of a rocket. He goes out into outer space. You know, he wears a helmet and a pressurized suit,

and he does experiments in space. What would you call that? Elon Musk, maybe. Good. Keep going. Obviously, an astronaut. Yeah, yeah. My six-year-old got that.

And I didn't use the word astronaut, but you know from the description what it is. And that's exactly how the Tanakh, you know, people expect so much more because it doesn't fit their personal, you know, present situation. this and I need to get that from scripture. But the Tanakh and the New Testament paint a picture of Jesus. And if you were to lay out the description of Jesus, you know, he forgives sins, right,

raises the dead. He himself was risen from the dead and stayed alive, right? If you list out the things that Jesus did himself, you would say, well, walked on the water, has control of the weather, right? Who does that other than God? By his description, you would say, oh, yeah, that's obviously God, but that's how Jesus is described. So if you lay out Jesus' description, you can say, okay, that doesn't fit a normal mortal man. Love it. One observation before we move on. We have prophecies like Michael 5-2, where Jesus is born, that he can't control, and then prophecies like Zachariah 9-9 that he can control. We have both, which I think helps make a comprehensive case. And there's, and there's nothing wrong with a prophet making a public display of what

is supposed to be happening. Exactly. Well said. Okay. So this is the only one we're going to move to next. The oldest one in this list, actually from the Torah. Yeah. There's others in the Torah. Maybe the first could be Genesis 315, which is another conversation. But Deuteronomy 1815 is a very important passage. Let's look at that one. I love it, right? The parallels are striking. So Moses says the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers, from your brothers, right? It is him you shall listen, Deuteronomy 1815. And then again, it says, I will raise up for them a prophet like you, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And that's Deuteronomy 18, 18.

So a prophet like Moses, okay, what does that actually mean? It's not just another prophet, right? this is someone specifically like Moses, right? And that matters because Moses isn't just any prophet. Moses is like a category. He's the prophet. He's the category in and of himself. And the Torah itself says,

there has not arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. This is already towards the end of Deuteronomy in chapter 34. So you can claim that it was something else, a line of prophets, and so on and so forth. But that doesn't add up because of this specific verse as well. but you have an expectation, which also means a future figure will match or exceed the uniqueness of Moses. So let's look at the pattern of Moses' life, and this is really amazing.

He was born under a death decree. Pharaoh orders the killing of the Hebrew infants. He's preserved as a child. He's called out of Egypt, leads the people through the water, the Red Sea, goes into the wilderness for a period of testing. He ascends on a mountain, Mount Sinai, receives and delivers the law, acts as a mediator between God and the people, and delivers them from slavery into a covenant. Okay? So that pattern is like the template for Moses, the category for Moses, right?

And what's the objection? Well, this just refers to the line of prophets in general or Joshua. Okay, I hear that. And what's the response? response is that if that were the case, Deuteronomy 34, 10 wouldn't say no prophet like Moses has arisen. So even after many

prophets, the category remains open. Okay? So let's now look at Jesus in that framework. This is beautiful. Born under a death decree. Yep. Okay. Herod orders the killing of infants. Called out of Egypt. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Matthew 215 says, I called my son. So Joseph was given a dream by an angel to leave because Jesus was going to be hunted by King Herod. Jesus passes through the water in his baptism,

goes into the wilderness for 40 days of testing, he ascends a mountain and teaches, but instead of saying, thus says the Lord, or watch what the Lord will do, he says, but I say to you. Okay? He's not just delivering law.

He's speaking with direct authority and clarifying the Torah. This is a really, really important point because not only does the category line up, it's elevated, and even in religious Judaism, in Midrash and Talmud, the Messiah will teach Torah

or reveal hidden things. So the argument isn't if Messiah will bring greater clarity to the Torah, but who will be the one doing it? Okay. Next. He mediates. Okay. This is my blood of the covenant. What did Moses do when he made the covenant with the people? What did he sprinkle on them? Sprinked the blood. He sprinkled the blood on the people, right? Here comes Jesus. This is the blood of the new covenant. Okay. Where do we find the expression of new covenant in the Old Testament? Jeremiah 31, which we'll get into in a second. He mediates the new covenant, and he delivers not just from political bondage, but from sin. So this isn't just a similarity, right?

It's an escalation that brings much more clarity to what Moses brought. That's amazing. I love that. All those factors, especially you have Pharaoh killing all the babies, Herod killing all the babies, a deliverer, a rescuer. You know, what's interesting is Moses is the deliverer of the people of Israel. And he's, on one hand, he's Hebrew, but he's also Egyptian. Jesus is the deliverer of mankind.

He's human, but he's also God. It's an interesting connection as well, just to maybe add to the case that you're making. Beautiful. Now, you mentioned Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34 about the new covenant. Let's go there and keep the case moving forward. All right, so I'm going to start with an argument. Okay. Why do we need a new covenant?

We got the old covenant, right? Why are you calling it new, and you know, you're calling our covenant old, right? A lot of Jewish people, they respond to that emotionally, right? Yeah. Why are you calling our covenant old? And my response to that is, well, we're not calling your covenant old. God is, right? Because he says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord.

Well, I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. not like the covenant that I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand out of Egypt. The covenant that they broke, not like Sinai. It's clear. It's explicit. In Hebrew, when it says,

I will make a new covenant, we have Brit Khadashah. I use that a lot in my videos when I'm talking to Jewish people on the streets. Where does the Brit Khadasha the new covenant come from? Well, the Christians brought it. No, it actually is prophesied in the book of Jeremiah.

Oh, and then they read it, and they go, and you see the wheels spinning and the eyes opening and they just kind of like just processing. And sometimes that's all you need to do for a minute when you're talking to someone. This phrase matters because it goes way out of its way to say not like Sinai, which is the Mosaic covenant. And then it explains what's different. What's different about the new covenant? I'll put my law within them. I'll write it on their hearts.

I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Okay. So this covenant is internal. First we have the old covenant. And whenever you have a covenant that comes, so like Abraham was given a covenant, right, which was older than the Mosaic covenant, which was older than the Davidic covenant,

which is older than the new covenant. So every time you have a new covenant, the previous one is older. It doesn't mean it's bad or wrong. It makes sense. They're all essential. They're all part of God's plan. And so this transformation that's happening

from this new covenant, it's not just instructional, right? Do these new laws, do these new things. It's a personal, internal transformation. And it's centered on forgiveness and not repeated sacrifice. Okay, every year, what do we have? Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, right?

But the new covenant talks about the removal of sin, the end of transgression. And that's what's so beautiful about it. I will forgive your sins and remember them no more. Not continued sacrifice. not let's do it again next year, right? So the text here is explicit, and we have a Hebrew word for new covenant, not renewed. We get that argument, too. Oh, that's important. It's going to be renewed.

It's going to be fixed, right? No, we see new. It's explicit. It means Khadash is new, not Mechudash, which is renewed. So not like the covenant that I made with their father, so there's the contrast, not a newer version, not Sinai 2.0. Okay? This is a new covenant. At Sinai, The covenant was written on stone and Jeremiah written on the heart. Sinai mediated externally. Jeremiah, there's an internal knowledge of God. Sinai, ongoing sacrifice, Jeremiah, forgiveness fully granted. This isn't a reset.

This isn't a renew. This isn't a refresh of the old. He's describing something new, a major, major shift. When Jesus comes into Jerusalem on the Passover, he lifts the cup, and he says, this is the new covenant in my blood. ushering in the new covenant that was promised to us, referring directly to Jeremiah 31. He says this in Luke 2220. He's not continuing Sinai. He's inaugurating what Jeremiah described. That's amazing. The key that you said this a few times is this is not replacing the Abrahamic covenant.

No. It's very clear that it's the covenant at Sinai. Right. And their sins will be remembered no more. So it's fulfilling the Exodus covenant and all those that come before, but it's a fresh new covenant. And you made a great point because there were certain covenants that were unilateral. God made a covenant with Abraham. This is going to happen with or without you, bro.

Whatever you do, this is happening. That's right. my word will happen. My word will go forth and it will happen. Now, what was the Sinai covenant? It was a bilateral covenant. It was conditioned upon the people. Hi, everyone. If you've been injured in an accident that was not your fault, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions for free. Call now and find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. Call 800-712-2-2-3300. I'm here with spokesman John Wolfe. So, John, tell everyone listen. Who should call right now? Well, Maria, first off, thank you for having me here. It's always nice to answer the listener's questions. Now, as far as who should call in,

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800-7-1-2-2-3-300. Advertisement sponsored by Legal Help Center. may not be available in all states, not available in California. His response, they broke the covenant over and over again. Thus, says the Lord, I will bring a new covenant to the house of his God, because he's full of mercy and grace. Right? He wants to save his people. And this new covenant is also unilateral.

He says it's going to happen. That's right. And of course, if Jesus and Messiah, we believe he did, it happened clearly on the cross when he paid the debt for sin. We have two more. These are two of my favorites, by the way. So we're going back to the book of Daniel. We talked about Daniel chapter 9 before, so we're going two chapters earlier, but it fits in the theme because of what it's referring to. So take us to Daniel 7, 13 through 14.

Great. So this is really a wonderful prophecy, because it ties into what we spoke about in the beginning. How do prophecies unfold? What is the pattern? We're going to discuss that a little bit later, okay? Daniel 7, verse 13 through 14, is a future fulfillment that Jesus quotes. Okay. And if he fulfilled the rest, we can count on him for doing this.

It says, one like a son of man coming with the clouds, and to him was given dominion, and all people should serve him. Okay, a son of man, like a son of man. And in Hebrew, son of man is Ben Adam, which translates into human being. One like a human being coming with the clouds. And whose prerogative is it to ride the clouds? It's the Lord's prerogative. It's divine, right?

So he's coming with the clouds, and to him was given dominion, and all people should serve him. Now, people can gloss over the word serve him, and in Daniel, a lot of Aramaic is used. That word in Hebrew, Aramaic actually, is Yifalchun, okay? It sounds like Hebrew. It's very similar to Hebrew, and the root of that word is Pela Medchette, which is Plach, which means service to God in a way that's higher than regular human service. worship given to God, right? And that used, that word, or from that root, pilach or plach, is used elsewhere in Daniel for unique service to God. So when it says here that to him was given

dominion and all peoples, including the nations, shall serve him. When I talk to people on the streets, I'm like, how is it that billions of Christians throughout history and millions and millions of Christians today believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. How is that possible, if not for Jesus? And they're like, huh, good point. It's a great question. So what's the objection to this? Well, some interpret the Son of Man as symbolic of Israel once again. But even then, the figure is described in a highly individual term, coming with the clouds of heaven, receiving dominion and being served in a way that echoes the language used for God in the book of Daniel. So the question becomes whether this is just a symbol or a representative figure who embodies that role.

And what's the response? Well, it's talking about a individual figure, receives divine level service or worship, right? So when Jesus uses the title, Son of Man, he's not just saying human being. That was like his favorite description or title for himself because he knew it. how biblically in the Tanakh it referenced the Messiah. So he's not just saying a human being, he's quoting directly or drawing directly from Daniel 7, verses 13 for 14, where the son of man comes with the clouds of heaven and is given authority, dominion, and a kingdom where the nations shall serve him.

And in the clearest moment is at his trial. Okay, when he says, like I said before, you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of the power and coming with the clouds of heaven. and what do the religious teachers do? Tear their clothes. Tear their clothes, right? Blasphemy. And they wanted to kill him.

Right? So this is a direct reference to Daniel 7, and combined with Psalm 110, okay? The reaction is immediate. He's accused of blasphemy. They understood exactly what he was declaiming, not just authority, but a share in God's own authority and rule. Okay. So what do we have for the fulfillment? This divine authority was claimed by Jesus. Like you said, oh, he never claimed to be a Messiah. Oh, yes, he did. And people knew that. Even the Son of Man. It was a well-known term to describe this figure, this messianic figure.

Yeah, there's clear examples where Jesus claims to be Messiah. In the example of riding a donkey into town or in John 420. And this is an example of claiming to a Messiah, but claimed to be the divine figure. of Daniel chapter 7 at his trial, which would make sense toward the end of his life saying, let me just sum it all up and be super clear. That's what he's put to death for, is his claims that he makes. And of course, there's political reasons tied into that. But I think about your point, about this is a figure that deserves the highest level of worship. You have an Acts 10.

You have people that, you know, Cornelius wants to worship Peters, like, stand up. I'm also man. Evan Revelation, worshiping an angel, nope, do not worship an angel. Jesus allows it, and he invites it and makes it clear that he is that figure that goes back to Daniel 7, pretty powerful, fulfill prophecy and claim. Yeah, and what does Thomas call him when he sees the hands and, you know, the pierce, the side, you know, puts his hands on the holes, you know, my Lord, my God. And Jesus doesn't deny that claim.

Amen, good stuff. All right, so one more. Yep. And I've actually been studying through Isaiah and just reading Isaiah 9 and 11 and 14. So this is fresh in my mind. But I'm curious for you to break down Isaiah 96 and why it's so important. Yeah, this is another one of the passages that I'll read to people on the streets. And I get a lot of criticism for it.

Oh, you're bringing this out. You're tricking Jews and, you know, you're opening up the passage. But it's not tricking. It's I want the Jewish people to look at the text as it is. And I want their mind to start thinking about it. I'm not trying to prove that this person is wrong. I'm trying to show them what scripture says and have them come to a conclusion

that they can go test. Don't take my word for it, but look at what the text says. Now go investigate it. I trust that God will do the work. I don't have to bring someone from A to Z in one conversation. I want to make Jesus known.

So this is what's fascinating and this is a passage that a lot of Jewish people grow up hearing. It says, for to us a child is born, for to us a son is given. The government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called, wonderful counselor, mighty God,

everlasting father, prince of peace. Okay? What a claim. Okay. It's not abstract. This is a human figure, a child, a son, a ruler, right?

But then the names, they start stacking up. Yeah. You know what I mean? A son called mighty God. You know, wonderful counselor, everlasting father, prince of beast. Now, when you stop for a second, you say a child called mighty God, that's strange, right? In the Hebrew, we have the Hebrew here, El Gibbo. Okay, mighty God. El Gibbo, that's what, what that means in Hebrew. And it shows up again and again

just one chapter later in the book of Isaiah 1021, where it clearly refers to the Lord himself using the same word. So Isaiah, he's not just using light language. He's not just saying Godlike or heroic. He's saying mighty God, a son called God, okay? And titles that are reserved only for God himself. So now you have this tension. And what a lot of Jewish people do when they read scripture, and there's a tension there like you have with Angel of the Lord,

like you have with the sun being called, they'll force it into, sorry, they'll force it into one category. But instead of avoiding the tension, it's important to sit in the tension and allow the tension to be there. And so here's the question I put on on the table, right? What category do we have for that? Because if we flatten it, like we put it into one category, we lose the weight of all the language. But if we take it seriously, Isaiah is opening the door to something bigger than a normal king. So it's not a contradiction. It's just complex.

A ruler who's truly human, yet described in ways that put. into identity of God himself. In the Tanakh, we have this angel of the Lord figure. We're not going to talk about that today. But he speaks as God, in the first person as God, does only things God can do, identified with God, yet distinct from God. That tension is there.

And what I'm encouraging Jewish people to do is to not erase the tension, but to sit in it and try to work through it, not through, this is what I think it means, but what is the pattern in the Bible? show. That's great. So this is not a New Testament idea being forced backwards. Okay. So the common arguments against this is that it's about Hezekiah, okay, not a future Messiah. Isaiah is describing a near-term Davidic king in his own time. Okay. Another argument is that the names don't

mean the names don't mean the child is divine. These names are God. Actually, the mighty God, the eternal father is calling him the Prince of Peace. But again, anybody that knows Hebrew reads the passage in Hebrew and whenever you had v Iqar Shimon, his name will be called

you have the names following. It happens all throughout the Tanakh. When someone is given a name, Ikarashimou and then the names come. This is exactly the same syntax. His name will be called and then the names follow. So you can take the names after that, put them in

front and say, well, the mighty God, the everlasting father, the wonderful counselor is calling him the Prince of Peace. Doesn't work. It's a mistranslation. Okay. So, like I just talked about the Hebrew naming patterns, okay? And it says also that there's no explicit Messiah term in the passage. Okay, that's fine, but it's not, and it's not necessarily about an ultimate redeeming figure.

But we understand, and we're going to get into this as the final thing here, prophetic pattern. Right? You can recognize someone based on who they are, what they do, how they're described, and what they fulfill. Not necessarily, you know, he never said he was God. It's like, okay, but I don't have to say I'm an astronaut for you to know what I do. I just, I'll give you an explanation of who I am and what I do. You'll know. You'll know. You'll know. So, Hezekiah doesn't fit the scope. Okay. There's no eternal reign. There's no global peace. There's no lasting transformation. El-Gibor. Mighty God is not a light title. It's used in the book of Isaiah in 1021, clearly for God himself. The grammar naturally places the title on the child, not on God as a separate subject. Hebrew names usually point to God,

not identify someone as God. It's a very, very big objection. All kinds of people have the name of God in their names in Hebrew. You've got, you know, God is my this, and God is my Savior, and God is my light, and God is this. And yes, you have names, this is a common objection.

You have names in Hebrew that have the word L in them. But nobody is called God. Big difference. Very big difference. You have descriptions versus the title. Like titles, yeah. Exactly. So verse 7 expands the scope to endless rule, justice forever, far beyond any historical king.

So of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. This is the continuation of the passage. on the throne of David and over his kingdom. There will be no end. To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. And one thing that I love is the last sentence of this passage. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Hello, I'm David Jeremiah. As America marks 250 years, we thank God for this nation and for the freedom we enjoy. we also remember that freedom is never free. It has always been purchased at a great cost. We honor the courage and sacrifice of those who gave greatly so that liberty could live on. And as we remember their sacrifice, we are reminded to cherish what we have been given, to live with gratitude, and to look to the Lord with humble hearts.

May we never take these blessings for granted. And may God continue to watch over and give his grace to our nation. All fulfilled in that time. This was a prophecy back then. Then why the future prophetic pointing. Why the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. This is a future pointing to something coming fulfilled in a future time. Love it. Good stuff. Now, I have one last question for you about typology,

but maybe one more time we did this at five, kind of step back for somebody who goes, okay, give me the tweet of these 10 what they lie up, just lying together kind of the key hooks about what we should expect in this coming Messiah. Okay. So we have, from the beginning, we have a place where the Messiah is supposed to be born, come out of. We have a suffering servant who is of the people, but distinct from the people, innocent, taking upon the sins of others. We have kingly predictions of the timing of Messiah, King Messiah coming, before this destruction of the Second Temple.

We have the kingly prophecy of the humble king coming to deliver peace into the city, riding on a donkey, lowly and humble on a donkey, coming in. we have titles of a son being born who is called Mighty God. We have a prophet like Moses who not only fits the description, the category of Moses, but elevates and makes the Torah even more clear, which within Jewish tradition we know the Messiah is supposed to do. We have a new covenant that is promised to us in Jeremiah 30. where Jesus comes to Jerusalem, lifts the cup on the Passover. What an amazing time period to do that. Inaguating the new covenant.

And we have the, I don't want to ruin your short video here. Oh, no, you're doing awesome. I don't need a clip on this. I just need you to piece them as a whole, piece them together. Right. And we have Jesus inaugurating that new covenant. amazing during the Passover yeah so you can edit that out oh i'm not worried about the it's asking you to do 10 in a row is like impossible but just for people to get a sense of how

many details we have right by the way from minor prophets major prophets from the psalms yeah we also have from deuteronomy from the Torah yeah and there's plenty of others we could have taken like even in genesis 49 about from the line of judah for example from the seat of the woman And we've only really touched a small percentage of these. But talk about typology because sometimes there's a confusion about what this means and how it helps us make sense of the Old Testament better. Yes. There's a pattern that happens throughout the Hebrew scriptures.

That if you ignore and think of the Torah, for instance, as a law book, instead of a narrative with laws in it and a process that the Lord is taking, the people through, you're going to miss these beautiful patterns that repeat over and over again. So some people will say, oh, there's 300 over 300 Messodianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled or is going to fulfill all of them. But when you really look at Scripture, the entirety of scripture is prophetic. It's a huge prophecy in and of itself. There's the pattern. God sends his servants. They're rejected. They're mocked. They're beaten. They're killed. Again, Elijah, they have killed your prophets with the sword.

Moses is rejected. David is overlooked and hunted. The prophets are ignored, persecuted, and even killed, right? Then, recognized later. And you don't hear this today. You know, our people rejected Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses, and Elijah, and so on. Therefore, we reject them today, too. No. Rejection is the pattern. Okay, you see it happening over and over and over again. The recognition comes later. Like I said, I'm going to bring it back to the beginning. The people were promised a great nation through Abraham. There they were in Egypt, being persecuted, enslaved. If someone looked at that prophetic prophecy of Abraham getting the covenant of becoming a great nation,

they could have easily said, cannot be. Look at us. look at us. The recognition comes later. So when people say Jesus didn't fulfill prophecy, the Tanakh does not support that at all. It blows my mind, right? It rests on expectations that are later,

that are not explicitly stated in the Tanakh as expectations of what the Messiah is supposed to do, rebuild the third temple and so on and so forth. But if you follow the text, you don't just get one piece, you get a convergence of so many, like you just said, so many different things, from so many different prophecies,

in fact, the Tanakh itself trains us to know what to expect. So when I talk to people, I'm not saying, don't believe me, don't accept one prophecy, you know, look at them entirely as a unit altogether, the Tanakh as a whole, because eventually it stops being out, being about whether one detail can be debated. You know, let's talk about this one word.

Let's talk about, what does the pattern show? And it becomes whether this whole picture can realistically point anywhere else other than Jesus. And if you expect him to come and fulfill everything all at once, you're taking the entirety of a prophetic pattern and saying irrelevant. It has to fulfill my expectations based on my current situation. Back to the fortune cookie to bring it full circle. Full circle. So I think what's remarkable here is you said,

the evidence as a whole from examples that might be considered more typological, like Deuteronomy 18, where you kind of look at the life of Moses, see how it maps on the life of Jesus in remarkable ways, as well as like Zacharyon 9-9, right in a donkey, Micah 5-2 being born in Bethlehem, we have such a range of different kinds of prophecies from different books, from different times. And the question is not, does Jesus fulfill exactly what I would expect? Right. But does he fulfill this as a whole?

And is there any other figure that's close? And I think the answer to that is no. There's no other figure that's even close to what Jesus has done, especially to bring it full circle. I've heard Dennis Brager say, Jewish, of course, that he believes God used Jesus to take the Torah to the world. which is so interesting to hear him say that, which we would say is a part of the prophecy fulfilled in Jesus.

I love Dennis. But there's so much more. I love Dennis. And I would encourage him to remember when Jesus says, I've come only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel in the Book of Matthew. I've come only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. So to say that Jesus came for the Gentiles, it's shoving it into a category.

and not dealing with the tension that the text actually brings, right? Well, you know, you can take the son and who's called mighty God, but no, it creates attention for me, so I'm going to put it into a different category. And that's what a lot of people do, because they don't want to accept the fact that actually he could actually be the Messiah. And when people, you know, I suggest a plain reading of the text. On your own, a lot of religious Jews come to faith in Jesus

by reading the Tanakh for the first time by themselves without the surrounding... Preconceptions. Interpretation. Love it. That's great. Tell us how people can follow you and what you're doing now. I have a ministry called Highway 53, based on Isaiah 40 verse 3, the highway of our God, and the means of salvation, which is through Isaiah 53, the suffering servant takes upon our sins.

and we are healed. So Highway 53 came out of that. I served with Jews for Jesus for six years and moved on to, I felt God leading me into a place of more independence and, you know, onto a new project. And they can follow me at my YouTube channel, Highway 53. I have also a website, Highway 53.org. You can contact me and the emails there and come find me on YouTube. Well, I want all my followers listening or watching to follow you.

You're one of the best YouTubers that I know. Wow. You just know how to make interesting titles, great thumbnails, make videos come alive, and they're interesting and they're relevant. So you're a great communicator. Thank you. May God just continue to bless and expand your ministry. Friends, I've covered prophecy some on this channel. If you're listening, it's going, wait, here's some ideas for you that would be helpful.

Let us know. Do you want to deep dive on these? Maybe we'll come back and carve out a couple days. I'm not committing you, but if it's helpful enough, people weigh in. And we could do a deep dive on each one of these and take like all the objections to Zachariah 1210, all the objections to Micah 5-2 and really lay this out. If this is helpful to my viewers and listeners, let us know. Don't forget to hit subscribe because we've got a lot more apologetics coming your way.

And if you thought about studying apologetics, we would love to have you at Talbot School theology. We do a deep dive on evidence for the scriptures, evidence for intelligent design. I teach a class on evidence for the resurrection. We talk about prophecy. information is below. Last thing, if you're like, I'm not ready for master's, we have a certificate program with some of the best in the world where we walk people through lectures and just basic assignments to learn apologetics in the description of my video. There's a significant discount. So check it out. Jeff, thanks for making the trip all the way from Israel and you're

doing other things in town, but this has been an absolute treat. We'll do it again. It's been a pleasure to be. I'll be happy to come back. Thanks, Sean. Thank you. My name is Jen, the host of the Bible Explained, and I believe that reading the Bible shouldn't be a chore. It should be fun. Each weekday morning, you're going to hear me dive into Scripture, sharing insights from cross-references, ancient history, and even Hebrew and Greek,

all in a simple, approachable way to help you see the Bible like never before. Grab your coffee and join me on the Bible Explained. Now available on Life Audio.com and your favorite podcast app.