What Does The Hebrew Bible Say About The Coming Messiah?

Isaiah also foresaw that the Messiah would have a divine nature. In a birth announcement, Isaiah gave the royal names of the future messianic king: “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6). These glorious titles of deity indicate that the Messiah would be God himself.

MESSIAH’S LIFE

Isaiah foretold the characteristics of the Messiah’s life. In the messianic age, “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy” (Is 35:5-6). So when the Messiah would make his appearance, he was to be a miracle worker. Isaiah also predicted that the Messiah’s teaching would “bring good news to the poor . . . [and] heal the brokenhearted” (Is 61:1). Despite these many signs, Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would also be “despised and rejected by men” and that his own people would confess that “we didn’t value him” (Is 53:3).

MESSIAH’S DEATH

Daniel 9:26-27 predicted the time of the Messiah’s death. He would be “cut off” before AD 70, when the Romans would “destroy the city [Jerusalem] and the sanctuary [the temple].”

King David foretold that the Messiah would die by crucifixion, saying, “They pierced my hands and my feet” (Ps 22:16). So David predicted the Messiah’s crucifixion more than three hundred years before that manner of execution was known.

More significant than the time or manner of his death, Isaiah predicted that the Messiah’s death would be as a substitution for humanity’s sin. The Servant of the Lord would be “pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities” (Is 53:5). The Lord would punish him “for the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6). The Servant would have “willingly submitted to death,” and as a result, “he bore the sin of many” (Is 53:12).

MESSIAH’S RESURRECTION

The prophets not only foretold the Messiah’s death, they anticipated his resurrection as well. In Isaiah 52:13–53:12, after describing the Messiah’s substitutionary death, Isaiah promised that the Lord would “prolong his days” (Is 53:10). David also expressed his own confidence that God would “not abandon [him] to Sheol” because the Messiah, God’s “Faithful One,” would not “see decay” (Ps 16:10).

MESSIAH’S RETURN

The Hebrew Scriptures present the Messiah in two ways: as a Suffering Servant and as a victorious and righteous King. Although this has confused many, the difficulty is resolved by recognizing that the prophets anticipated two appearances of the Messiah. First, he would come as an atoning sacrifice for sin. Second, he would come to establish his righteous kingdom.

One of the passages that links the two comings is Zechariah 12:10. It speaks of the Messiah coming to deliver Israel at the last battle and then “they will look at me whom they pierced.” These verses depict the Messiah’s second coming as the victorious King but also recognize his first appearance as the Pierced One.

Mathematician Peter W. Stoner calculated the probability of one person fulfilling not all the messianic predictions of the Bible, or even the ones mentioned in this article, but just eight messianic predictions. He found that the probability would be 1 in 10¹⁷ or 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000. The likelihood of this occurring is comparable to covering Texas with 10¹⁷ silver dollars, marking only one of them, stirring the mass of dollars, and then having a blindfolded man randomly pick up the marked silver dollar. This is the likelihood of Jesus of Nazareth randomly fulfilling only eight of the Messianic predictions of the Hebrew Bible.