Understanding Alfred Edersheim’s “The Law in Messianic Times”

What will happen to the Law of Moses in the time of the Messiah?  This was an open question in Jesus’ day.  And it still generates strong opinions today.  Does the Law of Moses have any legitimate place in the Christian Church?  What about for Messianic believers in Jesus?  And what about in the Messianic age to come?  You may think your church or Christian organization is exempt from such controversies.  But if your church teaches that Jesus did away with the Law of Moses, how does it explain continued obedience to the Ten Commandments?  This “moral law” as some call it is still nevertheless a part of the Law of Moses.  So is the Law of Moses in force today or not?

The famous Messianic scholar Alfred Edersheim laid out some important insights into these questions in the 14th appendix of his classic The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.  Unfortunately, his style of writing and the difficulty of tracking down his references cause many to skip over this little gem.  So to make it more accessible, I’ve written a brief summary with explanatory comments, complete with internet links to his rabbinical references in English.  His original writing is also linked below.  (A few of the links require you to sign-in to archive.org and to “borrow” the book in order to read it.  The references that I can’t find at the indicated location are marked with a “?”.)

Edersheim may not answer all our questions.  But he helps us understand the background to this discussion among the Jewish people.  Hopefully, this short summary will make it easier to grasp his main points and to find many of his references.

Can We Command God? Isa. 45:11 (Q&A)

Q:  A classmate sent me an online poster titled “You Will Command Me” (Tetzavuni) and said we can command Jesus to do healing, not ask!  The poster has different translations of Isa. 45:11, including the original Hebrew.  Is this true?  How to explain the Hebrew here? –Ruth C.

NOTE:  The poster includes an English translation from the Darby Bible:  “Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: Ask me of the things to come; concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands, command ye me” (Isa. 45:11)

A:  It’s certainly true that many translate the end of this verse as “you command me concerning the works of my hands.” But meaning is derived from context, and so we need to look at the context to figure out what this means.   

The passage appears in the middle of a prophecy about Cyrus, the Persian ruler who defeated the Babylonians (in 539 BC).  God says that he will “subdue nations” before Cyrus, even though Cyrus doesn’t know the God of Israel:  “though you have not known me” (Isa. 45:1,4).  And why will God support Cyrus in this way?  In order to prove that “besides me there is no God” (Isa. 45:5-6).  Not only does the prophecy mention Cyrus by name, it also mentions that he will rebuild Jerusalem and let the Jewish exiles go free (Isa. 45:13).  These are tremendous miracles that actually happened more than a hundred years after Isaiah’s prophecy was given.

Why did God want to kill Moses? Exo. 4:24-25 (Q&A)

Q:  About Exodus 4:24-25:  Why did God want to kill Moses? And why did Zipporah cut off her son’s foreskin and cast it at Moses’ feet? Why did she say Moses is truly a “bridegroom of blood”? –Ruth C.

A:  Zipporah called Moses a “bridegroom of blood” because of the circumcision of their son (Exo. 4:26).  This refers to the small amount of blood produced in a circumcision.  But we know little else about this incident. 

It’s especially puzzling that the Lord wanted to put Moses to death, since he was in the process of going to Egypt to do exactly what the Lord had asked him to do (Exo. 4:24).  But something similar happened to the prophet Balaam when he went to prophesy over Israel.  He, too, was on his way in obedience to the command of God (Num. 22:20).  But even though he was obeying God, God was angry with him (Num. 22:22).  In the Balaam story, it’s clear that God wanted to put fear in Balaam’s heart to make sure that he only spoke the words that God wanted him to speak (“and the word that I speak to you, only that will you speak,” Num. 22:35).  So perhaps this is also what God was doing with Moses.  We know that people often go through a big spiritual struggle when God is calling them to do some great thing, and this seems to be what Moses was going through. 

The Lament of the Land (Micah 7)

The warning of coming judgment is a common theme in the Bible.  But only in a few places is this expressed as the land itself crying out because of the sins that have taken place on it (Isa. 33:9; Jer. 12:4, 23:10; Hos. 4:3, Joel 1:10; Zech. 12:12).  Here in Micah, the land speaks directly to lament the tragedies it has suffered and those that were coming in the future.

This unusual prophecy caught the imagination of Jesus.  He quoted a portion of it in his own prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem (Matt. 10:34-36, Luke 12:51-53).  It’s outcry of the land contains an important message for us today when people and nations are once again at risk of spoiling their land through sin and incurring the judgment that will follow.

Micah spoke shortly before the devastating Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom of Israel.  This northern kingdom, which had broken away after the time of Solomon, ruled the northern ten tribes for two hundred years.  But almost immediately, it began a dangerous spiritual decline. Micah’s message came at a time of political turmoil:  The northern kingdom had been ruled by five rulers in the space of twenty years.  Two of these had ruled for less than a year, and three of them had gained the throne by murdering its former occupant.  False prophets filled the land with false hope (Micah 3:5-7).  And this spiritual and moral corruption was spreading south to Judah.  But despite the judgment and destruction that Micah warns was coming, in the end God will restore his people.

The Lament of the Land is the climax and final chapter of the book of Micah (Micah 7):

Why was Joseph buried in Shechem? (Q&A)

 Q:  I was rather astonished to realize, in reading Joshua 24, that they buried the bones of Joseph in Shechem instead of in the cave of Machpelah, where Sarah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were buried...  Do a word-search on Shechem and you'll find that it is a rather nefarious place. Why did they bury him there?  I was also a little distressed to realize that Stephen, in the book of Acts, says that Abraham bought the land in Shechem, but Moses wrote that it was Jacob that bought land there. –Sarah P.

A:  Welcome to the tension between the north and the south in Israel.  This tension goes all the way back to the division of Saul’s kingdom in the time of David, a division that reemerged when the kingdom was divided again after the death of Solomon.  It then reappears in the time of the New Testament in the tension between the Samaritans in the north and the Judeans in the south.  Among these tensions were some different and conflicting traditions. 

What does this have to do with Shechem?  Let’s begin with the burial place of the twelve patriarchs, the sons of Jacob, one of whom was Joseph.  Acts 7:16 implies that they were all buried in Shechem:  “And they [the antecedent of “they” is “our fathers” in vs. 15] were removed to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had purchased for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.”*  That the brothers were buried in Shechem certainly makes sense, as the children of Israel under Joshua came into possession of this area before they did of Hebron.  And it seems logical that they would bury the others where Joseph was buried: “And they buried the bones of Joseph, which the sons of Israel brought up from Egypt, at Shechem” (Joshua 24:32).  However, the Bible only mentions the bones of Joseph being brought along in the Exodus: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him” (Exo. 13:19).  Nothing is said, except in the book of Acts, about the burial of his brothers.

If the Philistines were Greeks, why did they worship Dagon? (Q&A)

 Q:  In my devotions the other day I was reading about when the Philistines captured the ark, and how God showed the Philistines that he was greater than Dagon…  If the Philistines were Greeks, why don’t we see them worshipping any of the Greek gods – only Dagon? --Sarah P.

A:  You’re right that the Philistines have now been identified as Greeks of some kind—or at least that they developed from an original core of Greeks that settled in what is today Israel and intermarried with the local population.  This is the result of both DNA analysis, pottery analysis, and the similarity of cultural practices that point to a connection with Greece and/or other areas of Greek influence (such as Cyprus, Crete, and western Turkey).  These include the bronze greaves worn by Goliath, the Philistine hero that was defeated by David (1 Sam. 17:6), and even Goliath’s call to one-on-one combat (representative warfare), otherwise unknown in the area.  However, the connection with the Philistines is at a very early time in Greek history known as the Mycenaean Age (15th-11th cent. BC).  This was long before the Classical Age of Greece (5th-4th cent. BC) with its well-known Greek gods (the Olympian gods).  It was even before the Archaic Period (8th-6th cent. BC) in which the Greek alphabet first appears.  (See diagram)

The Pater Noster Church, Jerusalem

The Unfinished Reconstruction of the Eleona Church (foreground)
in front of the Pater Noster Church (facade at back partially hidden by a palm tree);
the cave is under the platform in the foreground

      ·         The Traditional Location of Jesus’ Endtimes Teaching on the Mt. of Olives 

                 (the “Olivet Discourse,” Matt. 24-25, Mark 13, Luke 21)

·         Site of the Byzantine Eleona Church (the “Olive Grove” Church, also known 

           as the Church of the Disciples)

·         Site of a Crusader-era chapel associated with Jesus’ teaching of the Lord’s Prayer

·         Currently the location of the Pater Noster Church commemorating Jesus’ teaching 

           of the Lord’s Prayer as well as the partly rebuilt Eleona Church.

Biblical events remembered here:

(1) Jesus’ Endtimes Teaching (the “Olivet Discourse,” Matt. 24-25),

(2) Jesus’ Teaching of the Lord’s Prayer