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THE ADVENT OF THE MESSIAH
Lesson 1
The Promise of the Messiah: The Prophecies

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Eternal Lord and Father,

You have loved humanity as a father loves his children. Even when Your first children became disobedient and turned away from Your guiding hand, taking upon themselves the sovereignty over their lives in deciding what was good and what was evil, You did not abandon them for what they deserved. Instead, You laid the foundation for the path to salvation in Your promise that one day, a man, born from a woman, would break the power of Satan and restore men and women to the destiny for which You created them: eternal fellowship with their Eternal Father. Send Your Spirit to guide us, beloved Father, as we study the events in the history of humanity that became the hinge upon which all of salvation history turns: the Incarnation and birth of the Son of God. We pray in the name of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Blessed in the name of Yahweh is He who is coming! We bless you from the house of Yahweh. Yahweh is God; He gives us light.
Psalm 118:26-27 NJB
(circa the 11 century BC)

All Biblical passages are from the NJB (New Jerusalem Bible) or the NABRE (New American Bible Revised Edition) unless otherwise noted as from the RSVCE (Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition), the IBHE/IBEG volumes I-V (Interlinear Bible Hebrew-English or Greek-English), or LXX (Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament). In translations other than the NJB, the words LORD or GOD in capital letters represent the divine name, YHWH, rendered with vowels as Yahweh. All capitalized pronouns either refer to God the Father or God the Son. LORD or GOD in capital letters represents God's Divine Name, the tetragrammaton YHWH, with vowels, rendered as "Yahweh."

The word "advent" comes from the Latin adventus, meaning "an arrival." For centuries, the children of Israel faithfully awaited the arrival of the promised Davidic Redeemer-Messiah. God first promised a future Redeemer when man fell from grace in Eden. He cursed the serpent and promised that the power of Satan (Rev 12:9) over humanity would one day end: Accursed be you of all animals wild and tame. On your belly you will go, and on dust you will feed as long as you live. I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring [seed] and hers [her seed]; it will bruise your head and you will strike [bruise] its heel (Gen 3:14-15, NJB; [...] = literal Hebrew wording in the IBHE, vol. I, page 7).

In the Greek version of this Old Testament text (translated in the 3^rd century BC), instead of the indefinite Hebrew pronoun "it," the Greek version reads: "he will bruise your head, and you will bruise (the same Hebrew verb in both phrases) his heel" (LXX). Jews and Christians understand this passage as the first promise of a future redeemer, born of a specific woman and wounded in his struggle with Satan but who will wield a mortal blow against him in the final battle. The same expression appears in Psalm 41:9 and John 13:18, where Jesus quotes Psalm 41:9, referring to the violence committed against Him in His Passion

In his Latin Vulgate translation of Genesis 3:15, St. Jerome (late 4^th - early 5^th century AD) translated the indefinite Hebrew pronoun "it" by using the feminine pronoun instead: "she will bruise your head" since in the Messianic interpretation of the passage both the Messiah and his mother appear together as victors over Satan (New Jerusalem Study Bible, page 21, note "c."). The Messiah's mother is "the woman," out of all women in salvation history, chosen to bear the new Adam who would redeem all humanity from the power of sin and spiritual death (1 Cor 15:45-49). The early Church Fathers called Genesis 3:15 the Protoevangelium, the "first good news" (CCC# 70, 410-11).

The answers to the questions are at the end of the lesson.

Question #1: When in the Gospels did Jesus use the title "woman" for His mother, a reference that Christians understand as identifying His mother as "the woman" of Genesis 3:15? See Jn 2:4; 19:26 and Rev 12:5, 17.

The Fathers of the Church referred to Mary as the "new Eve" of the new Creation in Christ Jesus. The Virgin Mary is the promised "woman" of the Protoevangelium, and she is the Second Eve. The virgin Eve led humanity into sin through her disobedience, but the Virgin Mary made salvation available through her fiat ("let it be done") of obedience at the Annunciation (Lk 1:38). Just as the first Eve cooperated in humanity's fall from grace, the second Eve (the Virgin Mary) cooperated in the redemption and salvation of the entire human race (CCC# 411).

Catechism of the Catholic Church # 494: "As St. Irenaeus wrote, Being obedient she became the cause of salvation for herself and for the whole human race.' Hence not a few of the early Fathers gladly assert ... The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience: what the virgin Eve bound through her disbelief, Mary loosened by her faith.' Comparing her with Eve, they call Mary the Mother of the living' and frequently claim, Death through Eve, life through Mary'" (Catechism quoting Saints Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Jerome).

Question #2: Did God promise to send Israel another liberator like the first great prophet, Moses? What were the conditions of that promise? See Deuteronomy 18:15-19 and Matthew 17:5.

The golden age of the United Kingdom of Israel was during the reigns of King David and his son, Solomon.
Question #3: God formed an eternal covenant with David and his heirs. What was the covenant promise God gave David? See 2 Sam 7:10-17; 23:5; 1 Chron 17:7-14; 2 Chron 13:5; Sir 45:25. What is the implication of that promise concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the heir of David according to the angel Gabriel's statement to the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation? See Mt 1:1 and Lk 1:32.

In the LORD's covenant with David, He promised that the Old Testament prophets would provide a link to the promised Redeemer-Messiah. Prophets like Isaiah (8^th century BC), Jeremiah, and Ezekiel (6^th century BC) prophesied that the Redeemer-Messiah would be a descendant of King David (note: Jesse was the father of David; see 1 Sam 16:1, 11-13). See the prophecies of a Davidic Messiah in Isaiah 11:1-2a, 10; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Ezekiel 34:23 and 37:25c-28 (all quotations are from the NJB).

• A shoot will spring from the stock of Jesse; a new shoot [branch = netzer] will grow from his roots. On him will rest the spirit of Yahweh (Is 11:1-2a).
•  That day, the root of Jesse, standing as a signal for all the peoples, will be sought out by the nations, and its home will be glorious (Is 11:10).
• I shall raise up one shepherd, my servant David, and put him in charge of them to pasture them; he will pasture them and be their shepherd (Ezek 34:23).
• David my servant is to be their prince forever. I shall make a covenant of peace with them, an eternal covenant with them. I shall resettle them and make them grow; I shall set my sanctuary among them forever. I shall make my home above them; I shall be their God, and they will be my people. And the nations will know that I am Yahweh the sanctifier of Israel, when my sanctuary is with them forever (Ezek 37:25c-28).

Perhaps no other prophet gave as many Messianic prophecies as the 8^th century BC prophet Isaiah. Beginning with Isaiah 7:14, a prophecy quoted by St. Matthew and applied to Jesus in Matthew 1:23, Jesus fulfilled all the prophecies in the Book of Isaiah.

*Some manuscripts omit Mark 15:28, which reads: And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, "And he was counted among the wicked," quoting Isaiah 53:12.

The Kingdom of Israel plunged into civil war after the death of David's son, King Solomon. Ten Israelite tribes rejected the rule of the House of David, and the kingdom was divided into the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah, composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (930 BC). The Northern Kingdom, ruled by nine royal families, was destroyed by the Assyrians in the 8^th century BC. The Assyrians then exiled the ten tribes of Israelites into Assyrian-dominated lands to the east. Then, they imported five pagan peoples and resettled them in the former territory of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (722 BC; see 2 Kings 17:5-6, 24-41). These people became the Samaritans.

Question #4: Why did God withdraw His protection from the Northern Kingdom and allow the Assyrians to conquer the ten tribes of Israel and send them into exile, never to return as a unified people to their ancestral lands? See 2 Kings 17:5-18.

Davidic kings continued to rule the Southern Kingdom of Judah. God was faithful to His covenant promise to David, but the Southern Kingdom of Judah was seldom blessed by Davidic kings who were loyal and faithful to God's commands.

Question #5: What promise did the Prophet Isaiah make to a bad Davidic king in the 8^th century BC? The Apostle Matthew applied this prophecy to the birth of Jesus. See Isaiah 7:14.

In Hebrew, ha almah, with the definite article "the," identified the promise of a particular virgin (St. Matthew would quote this passage and apply it to Jesus and the Virgin Mary in Matthew 1:23, using the Greek word parthenos, "virgin," the same Greek word found in the Septuagint Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14). Then, pointing to his young son, Isaiah gave Ahaz a sign of his present deliverance and the elimination of the Arameans as a threat to Judah (Isaiah 7:16-17). The only other reference to the mother of the Messiah in the Old Testament appears in Micah 5:2/5:3 in the passage that identified Bethlehem as the site of the Messiah's birth. The prophecy reads: But you (Bethlehem) Ephrathah, the least of the clans of Judah, from you will come for me a future ruler of Israel whose origins go back to the distant past, to the days of old. Hence Yahweh will abandon them only until she who is in labor gives birth, and then those who survive of his race will be reunited to the Israelites. He will take his stand and he will shepherd them with the power of Yahweh, with the majesty of the name of his God, and they will be secure, for his greatness will extend henceforth to the most distant parts of the country (Micah 5:1-4/ 5:2-4, NJB; emphasis added). This passage linked Isaiah's prophecy to the Incarnation and the second great Pentecost when God took possession of Jesus's disciples of the New Covenant Church, praying in the Upper Room in Jerusalem in AD 30.

In 587/6 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon's Temple. The Babylonians captured Davidic King Zedekiah and forced him to watch the murder of his sons before blinding him (2 Kings 25:7). Then Zedekiah, the last Davidic king of Judah, and his people surviving people were taken away into exile. The covenant people of Judah were condemned to live in exile for seventy years in the lands of Babylon (2 Chron 36:17-21), as prophesized by the Prophet Jeremiah (Jer 25:10-11; 29:10).

Before the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, the Prophet Jeremiah removed the Ark of the Covenant, the focus of worship for the covenant people, from the Jerusalem Temple. Upon the Ark of the Covenant, God's invisible presence resided with His people (Ex 25:10-22; 26:33-34; 40:34-35; 1 Kng 8:6, 21). Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave on Mt. Nebo (2 Mac 2:1-6). However, he prophesied that in the promised Age of the Messiah, the Ark would no longer be necessary as the center of worship; the holy people would not miss it, nor would another be made to replace it (Jer 3:16-17).

Although the Jews re-created all the other articles of sacred furniture for the restored Temple after their return from exile, they did not rebuild the Ark of the Covenant. The gold-covered box that was the earthly Ark has not been seen since Jeremiah hid it in an unknown location of Mt. Nebo. The first century AD Jewish priest/ historian, Flavius Josephus, recorded that both Roman General Pompey (63 BC) and Prince Titus (AD 70) entered the Sanctuary of the Temple and found there was no Ark of the Covenant (The Jewish Wars, 1.7.6; 6.4.7; Antiquities of the Jews, 14.4.4). The Holy of Holies was only an empty room from the time of the Second Temple, after the return from the Babylonian exile. There are images of the sacred articles of furniture that Titus looted from the Jerusalem Temple on the Arch of Titus in Rome; there is no image of the Ark of the Covenant.

Arch of Titus

Question #6: Why did God withdraw His protection from Judah? The prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel used prophetic imagery to describe Israel's relationship with Yahweh in covenant unity and express Israel's violation of her covenant duties and obligations. In the following passages, what symbolic images did Jeremiah use to express covenant unity and covenant infidelity? See Jeremiah 2:1-3, 9-13; 3:6-10; 5:19 and Ezekiel 16:1-23, 59-60.

Question #7: Did God ever withdraw His covenant promise to David that his throne would be eternal and that his kingdom would last forever? See Numbers 23:19-20a; Psalms 100:5; 103:17-18; 105:8; Ezekiel 16:60; Romans 11:29.

Faithful to His covenant promise to David, God restored the repentant people of Judah to their homeland at the end of their seventy-year exile (Jer 29:10-14). The Persians conquered Babylon (539 BC), and the Persian King Cyrus issued an edict of return (2 Chronicles 36:22-23) in 538 BC, allowing the Jews and all people conquered by the Babylonians to return to their ancestral lands. The citizens of Judah, however, did not return to Judah as an independent people. Instead, they were citizens of the Persian Empire, ruled by Persian-appointed governors. King Cyrus generously encouraged the Jews to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem and re-established their rites and rituals of worship (2 Chronicles 36:22-23; Ezra 1:2-4).

Judah last functioned as an independent state for a brief hundred years, from 164-63 BC. The Maccabean Revolt broke the rule of the Greek Syrian kings and established Judah as an independent state ruled by the descendants of the Maccabees, the priest-kings known as the Hasmoneans. These kings were, however, not descendants of the great David with whom God made His eternal covenant.

Judah ceased to exist as an independent state after the Roman conquest of 63 BC and became the Roman province of Judea. The Romans ruled Judea with the same force and efficiency they dominated their other Roman territories. The resources of Judah, both human and material, were ruthlessly exploited for the glory and wealth of Rome. In 37 BC, Rome established an Idumean ally, Herod son of Antipater, as the Roman client King of Judea, and he ruled successfully but brutally. Rome even allowed the Jews to practice their religion as long as they offered the daily sacrifice of a bull to honor the Emperor at the Jerusalem Temple and displayed the emblem of the Roman eagle over the main gate entrance.

Once again, under the domination of a pagan Empire, the covenant people began to long for the Messiah-Redeemer and looked for the fulfillment of the promised signs of the prophets. Some events led religious Jews to believe the coming of the Messiah was imminent. First, the prophecy of the 70 weeks-of-years made to the prophet Daniel in Daniel chapter 9 (490 years) as a period to be fulfilled before the coming of the "Anointed One" (Messiah) was completed. Then, too, the Jews had calculated that there were 2,000 years from Adam to Abraham and 1000 years from Abraham to David's conquest of Jerusalem. Now, another 1000 years had passed since David had established Jerusalem as the city of God, making the time from Adam to Abraham 2,000 years and from David to their present 2,000 years.

In addition to these signs, the fourth world kingdom to dominate the covenant people prophesied by Daniel was ruling over the people of God after the succeeding empires of the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans (Daniel 2:38-40). The time was ripe, and the people were expecting the Redeemer-Messiah to come as a Prophet like Moses (Dt 18:15-19), a Priest like Phinehas (Num 25:11-13; Sirach 45:23/28-24/30), and a King like David (2 Sam 7:11-16; 23:5; Sirach 45:25/31).

It was time for the Redeemer-Messiah to come, free His people from their Roman oppressors, and establish Daniel's fifth kingdom through which the Messiah would not only govern the holy people of God but through which He would rule a kingdom that would have sovereign power over all the nations of the earth forever (Dan 2:44-45; 7:13-14, 27). Daniel foresaw the day when kingship and rule and the splendors of all the kingdoms under heaven will be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High, whose royal power is an eternal power, whom every empire will serve and obey (Daniel 7:23).

According to God's command, the Jews offered the daily Tamid sacrifice in two liturgical worship services, morning and afternoon, for the sanctification and atonement of the covenant people (Ex 29:38-42; Num 28:4-8) and the other sacrifices of the Sinai Covenant at the Temple in Jerusalem. They faithfully studied the Scriptures in their Synagogues, especially the final prophecies of Yahweh's holy prophet, the post-exile prophet, Malachi ("my messenger"). He was a prophet the Jews identified with the priestly scribe Ezra, who led the second migration of Jews out of Babylon in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Esther's stepson, Persian King Artaxerxes I (ruled 464-423).

Question #8: What prophecies did this mid-fifth-century BC post-exile prophet make concerning a sign related to the advent of the Messiah? What was the "sign"? In Scripture, a "sign" is always a visible indicator of a greater blessing promised by God. Read the Book of Malachi beginning in Chapter 3. Malachi is the last book of the prophets in the Old Testament.

With great expectations, the covenant people watched for the coming of Elijah. They awaited his announcement of the Redeemer-Messiah, the new Moses and heir of King David promised to liberate them from their bondage to the Romans in the same way the first Moses redeemed the children of Israel from the Egyptians. Therefore, during the annual feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread (Nisan 14^th and 15^th -21^st), which celebrated Israel's liberation in the first Exodus, the people looked for the one who was promised to come and inaugurate a new Exodus liberation and a new Davidic Kingdom.

For the Jews of the 1^st century BC/AD Judea and the faithful remnant of Israelites from Galilee, the holy festivals of Nisan 14^th to the 21^st looked back in history to when God redeemed the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. However, the festivals also looked forward to a future redemption and reunification of Israel when the Messiah came to free His people from bondage and oppression by the Roman Empire.

Jewish scholar Hayyim Schauss taught for more than twenty-five years at the Jewish Teachers Seminary in New York, the College of Jewish Studies, and the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. In 1938, he wrote of the deep longing 1^st century Jews felt for the promised Messiah at the festivals of Passover (Pesach)/Unleavened Bread: "The highest point in the evolution of Pesach came in the last century of the second Temple when the Jews suffered from the heavy oppression of the Romans. During this period, the Messianic hope flamed up, and in the minds of the Jews, the deliverance of the future became bound up with the first redemption in Jewish history: the deliverance from Egypt. Jews had long believed that in the deliverance to come, God would show the same sort of miracles that he had performed in redeeming the Jews from Egypt. This belief gained added strength in this period of Roman occupation and oppression. Jews began to believe that the Messiah would be a second Moses and would free the Jews the self-same eve, the eve of Pesach. So Pesach became the festival of the second as well as the first redemption; in every part of the world where Jews lived, especially in Palestine, Jewish hearts beat faster on the eve of Pesach, beat with the hope that this night, the Jews would be freed from the bondage of Rome, just as their ancestors were released from Egyptian slavery" (The Jewish Feasts, page 47).

Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled this Messianic expectation at the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread in the spring of AD 30, but He came to free God's people not from bondage to Rome but from the greater bondage to sin and death.

Answers to questions:
Answer #1: Jesus calls His mother "woman" in John 2:14 at the wedding at Cana when Mary made a request that inaugurated His public ministry and again in John 19:26 when Jesus, from the altar of the Cross, gave His mother to the "beloved disciple" to be his mother. The "beloved disciple" in John 19:26 represented all Christ's faithful disciples, making Mary the mother of the New Covenant children of God (Rev 12:5, 17) who would continue the struggle against Satan until the climax of the final battle in the Second Advent of the Messiah.

Answer #2: Yahweh promised that He would send, from among the brothers of Israel (a member of the covenant people), a great prophet like Moses. The people were commanded to listen to this future prophet's words and do whatever he told them, or they would be answerable to God. God's voice from Heaven identified Jesus as His Son at the Transfiguration event and commanded them to "Listen to Him."

Answer #3: God promised David an eternal kingdom; an eternal kingdom requires an eternal king.

Answer #4: The Israelites of the Northern Kingdom were unfaithful to the covenant they ratified with Yahweh at Sinai. Violations included worshipping pagan idols and offering them sacrifices, murdering innocent children by sacrificing them to false gods, and continually violating God's commands and prohibitions. Instead of being a "light" of truth and righteousness to the nations surrounding them, they wanted to be like their pagan neighbors.

Answer #5: Judah was in danger of being attacked by the Arameans. Standing in the presence of King Ahaz with Isaiah's young son (Isaiah 7:3), the prophet told the King of Judah that God would spare his kingdom and encouraged the king to ask for a sign from God to verify his deliverance. When the king refused to ask for a sign, the prophet gave him a future sign of deliverance when the virgin from the House of David would give birth to a son.

Answer #6: Like the Northern Kingdom, Judah worshipped false gods and abandoned her covenant with Yahweh. Jeremiah expressed covenant union in terms of a marriage covenant with Israel, the faithful Bride, and Yahweh, the divine Bridegroom. When Judah practiced idol worship, Yahweh's Bride became an adulterous wife who murdered His children by offering them to false gods (both physically and spiritually).

Answer #7: No; although man, as God's covenant partner, is often unfaithful, God is always faithful to His covenant promises.

Answer #8: Two significant passages promise a "sign" before the advent of the Messiah. The "sign" is a messenger who will come in the spirit of the Prophet Elijah, the 9^th century BC prophet whom God sent to call the people of Israel to repentance (1 Kng 17- 2 Kng 2:11):

• Look, I shall send my messenger to clear a way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his Temple; yes, the angel of the covenant for whom you long, is on his way (Malachi 3:1, NJB).
• Look, I shall send you the prophet Elijah before the great and awesome Day of Yahweh comes. He will reconcile parents to their children and children to their parents, to forestall my putting the country under the curse of destruction (Malachi 3:23-24/4:5-6, NJB).

Catechism references (*indicates Scripture is quoted or paraphrased in the citation):
Genesis 3:15 (CCC 70*, 410*, 489*)

2 Samuel 7 (CCC 709*); 7:14 (CCC 238*, 441*); 7:18-29 (CCC 2579*); 7:28 (CCC 215, 2465*)

1 Chronicles 17:13 (CCC 441*)

John 2:13-14 (CCC 583*); 19:26-27 (CCC 501*, 964, 2605)

1 Corinthians 15:45-47 (CCC 411*, 504*)

Revelation 12 (CCC 1138*); 12:17 (CCC 501*, 757*, 2853)

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