Wrong

Submitted by Sohail (United Kingdom), Dec 18, 2006 at 17:11

Israel cannot be the thing Isaiah 53 spoke of because it is grammatically incorrect and awkward while Israel was never ‘sprinkled' for all nations. Sprinkled signifies sacrifice for sins. If you don't believe me then study Leviticus in which the term sprinkle pertains to sacrifice. Israel was never sacrificed for the sins of the Gentiles and Israel certainly wasn't blameless!

In Isaiah 53:8 it says that this person will have descendants but Jesus didn't have any.

1. The Messiah is preceded by Elijah the prophet who, with the Messiah, unifies the family (Malachi 4:5-6), which is contradicted by Jesus in Matthew 10:34-37. 2. The Messiah re-establishes the Davidic dynasty through the messiah's own children (Daniel 7:13-14). But Jesus had no children.

The Elijah was John the Baptist. This was revealed during the Transfiguration. Before you start saying that John 1 says that John denied being Elijah, let me explain who Elijah is. In Malachi 4:5, it reads, ""See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.".

John the Baptist denied that he was the Elijah in the Gospel of John and anyway it says in Malachi 4:5 that God will send a dreadful day but where is this dreadful before Jesus came.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 talks about the New Covenant. God is saying that Jesus will make the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit will speak through us. The Gospel testifies to this as well.

The KJV says:

31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their G-d, and they shall be my people.34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

The third verse is quite specific -- this is the covenant: my "law," (actually "Torah" in Hebrew, which is better rendered as 'teaching' than as 'law'), will be in everyone's heart, and (fourth verse) no one will teach anyone else about G-d, because all will know G-d. Since Jesus didn't bring this about, he can't be this new covenant.

This is another verse which you have tooking out of its context.

The LORD says to my Lord:
"Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet." (Psalm 110:1 NIV

This is a perfect example of the old adage "it loses something in the translation." At first glance, this would seem like G-d is talking to Himself. However, this simply is not the case. The name, which KJV capitalizes above, is the designation for the four-letter sacred name of G-d. The "Lord" which is not entirely capitalized above is the Hebrew word "adoni," which means "my master." In modern spoken Hebrew, it is used as one would use the word "sir" in English.

King David, while not allowed to build the Temple, did everything he could to prepare the way for it to be built, and among the things he did was compile the book of Psalms to be sung by the Levites in the Temple. This Psalm was meant to be sung by the Levites, and thus reflects their point of view, for they would call their king "adoni."

You say that Isaiah 9:6 does not mean that the Messiah is God himself (despite what the Jews believed).

In the Hebrew, this passage is in the past tense! For example, the word which the Christian Bibles render as "his name shall be called" is the two words "vayikra shemo," which properly translated, should be "called his name" or "his name was called." The word "vayikra" is the first word to appear in the book of Leviticus, and a quick check will show that all Bibles render "vayikra" there properly, in the past tense.

This passage is, in reality, about the wonders performed by the Lord for Hezekiah, king of Judah. "Hezekiah" means "Strong/mighty is G-d." This passage is Isaiah's praise of the Lord for his salvation in the affair of Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem. We find an allusion to this in that the rare usage of the term "the zeal of Lord" is used elsewhere in reference to Hezekiah's victory.

The fact that the New Testament doesn't even quote this passage shows what a weak proof text it is.

Sohail

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".