"Who has believed (trusted in, relied upon, and clung to) our message [of that which was revealed to us]? And to whom has the arm of the L-rd been revealed?

For [the Servant of G-d] grew up before Him like a tender plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He has no form or comeliness [royal, kingly pomp] that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.

He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.

Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by G-d [as if with leprosy].

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

In Hebrew

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Quick link to Paul Wilbur "Adonai"

Jews for Jesus

The Author Speaks

If I remember correctly, it was the summer of 1985, June I think, when a group of us from Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts were attempting to fly from Athens, Greece to Tel Aviv, Israel about the time a plane was hijacked over Athens. A listing of major airline disasters involving commercial passenger airlines lists the date as June 14, 1985, with the crash site as Athens, Greece, the airlines as TWA and the aircraft as a 727, fatalities one. The U.S. State Department said we could fly and then said we couldn't fly, until they finally broke us into two groups to fly separately. I was in the group that was to fly later. I was missing precious days in Israel.

When I finally got there, I got sick right away to the point that I couldn't travel. My whole team went to southern Israel. It was up to me to get to Jerusalem myself to meet them. After a few days it was time to go although I was still weak. A pastor accompanied me on the bus and told me to get off at the Jaffa Gate which I did. Now I was on my own. As I walked down into the Arab market, I realized I was going downhill. I told the L-rd, "If I'm going in the wrong direction, and I have to walk back up, I'll faint, and then I don't know what will happen. You'll have to lead me right to it." "It" was the Lutheran Hospice. My thought was to walk up through a construction area that had road blocks and piles of sand and stones and knock on the first door and have them call the Lutheran Hospice to come and get me. When I put my finger on the buzzer to ring it, I looked below and the name on the door was "Lutheran Hospice." I rested there for some time.

Finally, on a Friday afternoon, in the heat of the day, feeling that I was missing my entire time in Israel, I went out with a map in search of adventure. At one point I had my map opened wide and I was trying to figure out where I was. A young man dressed in a black coat, black hat, with curls on the sides of his head said, "Are you lost?" I said, "No." He replied, "Did you know you are on Mount Zion?" I said, "No." He said, "Would you like to see David's tomb?" I said, "No." He said, "Are you a Christian?" I looked at him and said, "Yes," wondering what was coming next. He said, "Will you please explain to me your faith in Jesus?" I answered, "Oh, come on, you want me, a Christian, to tell you, a Jew, that Jesus is G-d? Why waste both of our time?" He answered, "Forget that I am a Jew. Please explain to me your faith in Jesus." He had found a New Testament in the trash and was reading it. He said, "I've done as much as I can, I do not yet believe and I need someone to help me." I said, "Only if we can find some shade!" He took me outside the Old City of Jerusalem on Mount Zion where there was a place to sit. Cars and buses which had just passed the Jaffa Gate and were now heading toward the Mount of Olives and were passing by us below.

He did not know it but about two months before this the L-rd had woken me up early and asked me, "How would you lead a Jew to Me?" I said, "I have no idea!" but he woke me up early enough that I finally thought of something. In the Old Testament King Saul, the first human king Israel had (so that Israel could be like the other nations and have a king they could see, essentially rejecting G-d himself as their only king), got into trouble because he wandered out of his office as king and took over the functions of a priest, thus disobeying the limits of his command and call by G-d. Saul was rejected by G-d as king and G-d selected David, who also had many wanderings, but he was always sorry from his heart and did an about face in his behavior. He also suffered judgments from G-d, but was not rejected as Saul was. Saul lost his kingship, he lost his relationship with the Sprit of G-d by whom he had danced and prophesied, he lost his sanity, and he finally lost his life.

In contrast with Saul who lost all with no means to recover, we today by faith in Jesus, the descendant of David, can be filled with the Holy Spirit of G-d without loss or interruption. Jesus died once for all , taking our sins and wrongdoings upon himself (Isaiah 53 above), so that we are "justified" as Abraham was, by believing G-d and taking his promises at his word, which we say is "Just as if I'd" (justified) done only right. What the blood of animals could not do except to point the way from the temporary to the permanent solution, the blood of Jesus did do completely. We can be in the position, that even if we do wrong, he is our peace; he is our link to the Holy One.

(Genesis 15:6) "Abram believed the L-ord, and he credited it to him as righteousness." In Hebrew

The young man asked me what G-d had done for me recently. I told him about my feet walking right to the door of the Lutheran Hospice when I could not possibly have known where it was. He liked that. He wanted to hear me pray, so I prayed in English for a while. He began to pray in Hebrew, a language I could not understand at that time. When he stopped, I said, "What did you pray?" He said, "I asked that the Spirit of G-d would come into my life exactly as he had come into your life. I asked him that he would lead you around Israel to witness to others. I asked him to protect you wherever you go." He said some other things but my mind was unable to take it in, I was so surprized at what he said. Then he stood and said to me, on Friday afternoon, with the Sabbath approaching, "I'm so glad I met you, now my heart is truly prepared for the Sabbath!" I am getting goose bumps as I write this. Here he had committed his life to Christ on Mount Zion, being an Orthodox Jew. I knew that trouble was ahead for him, since he must either keep his decision to follow Jesus secret or face social rejection. I also knew I must not see him again since he was a single Orthodox Jew and I was a single Christian. I went to a book store and gave them his phone number. They said they would call him exactly one time. I don't know what happened after that. Is it not written, "Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the L-rd will take me up [adopt me as His child] Psalm 27:10." (Amplified Bible)

It is not unusual to be told that no one can know G-d, we can only obey his commandments (613 of them). I always ask, "Who said that?" I know who said that, but it is not recorded in the Torah, the Prophets, or the Writings. The opposite is voiced by Jeremiah who said, we will find him if we seek him with out whole heart.

Jeremiah 29:10-14
10For thus says the L-rd, When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and keep My good promise to you, causing you to return to this place. 11For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the L-rd, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome. 12Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you. 13Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you, says the L-rd, and I will release you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and all the places to which I have driven you, says the L-rd, and I will bring you back to the place from which I caused you to be carried away captive. Jeremiah 29:10-14 (English, Amplified Bible)

Jeremiah 29:10-14 in Hebrew In Hebrew

And Jeremiah continued speaking of a new covenant G-d himself would usher in...

Jeremiah 31:31-34
31Behold, the days are coming, says the L-rd, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, says the L-rd. 33But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, says the L-rd, I will put My law within them, and on their hearts will I write it; and I will be their G-d, and they will be My people. 34And they will no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the L-rd, for they will all know Me [recognize, understand, and be acquainted with Me], from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will [seriously] remember their sin no more. English, Amplified Bible

Jeremiah 31:31-34 In Hebrew

Through this new covenant Jeremiah says everyone will know the L-rd, (Jeremiah 31:34), from the least to the greatest. It will be heart knowledge. You can know, "Now my heart is truly prepared for the Sabbath." From this, I think the rabbis will be the last to know him, that there will be a grassroots movement of "nobodies" knowing the L-rd. It's "way cool" if G-d will remember our wrong doings and failures to do right no more! Why turn it down?

Could G-d really come to earth and redeem us himself? Could he come in the flesh?

What I think or say is of no value whatsoever! What does the prophet say?

Isaiah 9:6-7
6For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty G-d, Everlasting Father [of Eternity], Prince of Peace. 7Of the increase of His government and of peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from the [latter] time forth, even forevermore. The zeal of the L-rd of hosts will perform this. English, Amplified Bible

Isaiah 9:6-7 In Hebrew

Someone who is called a son, someone who is born, someone who is also called Mighty G-d, someone who is also called Everlasting Father, someone who is also called the Prince of Peace, is coming to establish justice and righteousness from the time of his coming and for all time after that.
Isaiah 53 which we looked at above, declared his life would be filled with difficulty, rejection, and death by G-d's own hand. But he would see the light of life again and his soul would be satisfied because he would justify many, bearing their iniquities.

Why would I think that this one could be Jesus Christ of Nazareth? I look to Daniel for that. Daniel knew that Jeremiah prophesied that there would be 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Daniel knew that the 70 years was nearly up and he was praying to G-d, asking him not to delay in returning his people to Israel as he had promised.

Daniel 9:24-27
24Seventy weeks [of years, or 490 years] are decreed upon your people and upon your holy city [Jerusalem], to finish and put an end to transgression, to seal up and make full the measure of sin, to purge away and make expiation and reconciliation for sin, to bring in everlasting righteousness (permanent moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation) to seal up vision and prophecy and prophet, and to anoint a Holy of Holies. 25Know therefore and understand that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem until [the coming of] the Anointed One, a Prince, shall be seven weeks [of years] and sixty-two weeks [of years]; it shall be built again with [city] square and moat, but in troublous times. 26And after the sixty-two weeks [of years] shall the Anointed One be cut off or killed and shall have nothing [and no one] belonging to [and defending] Him. And the people of the [other] prince who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood; and even to the end there shall be war, and desolations are decreed. 27And he shall enter into a strong and firm covenant with the many for one week [seven years]. And in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and offering to cease [for the remaining three and one-half years]; and upon the wing or pinnacle of abominations [shall come] one who makes desolate, until the full determined end is poured out on the desolator. English, Amplified Bible

Daniel 9:24-27 In Hebrew

Here were clues as to when Isaiah 53 was going to come true, a bigger answer to prayer than Daniel had expected. Deliverance from Babylon was on the way, but a greater deliverance from sin was coming BEFORE the city and the sanctuary in Jerusalem were to be destroyed (70 CE) and AFTER 62 x 7 (434) weeks of years from the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem (445 BCE). -445 + 434 = 11 BCE. I'm providing links for you to see what others have said about Daniel's timing revealed by G-d. However, I'm kind of simple. I'm happy to bracket 11 BCE to 70 CE and say somewhere in there the Messiah, the Anointed One, came, did what G-d sent him to do, and then Jerusalem was destroyed. I encourage you to list all the candidates for Messiah in this time period and compare their lives to what Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Daniel have said about him. Then you tell me who the Jewish Messiah is.

Jerusalem was pretty much a smashed city that was not under Jewish rule nor occupied mainly by Jewish people from 70 CE until 1948 CE. That says to me that 70 CE was the destruction Daniel was talking about. It may be difficult not to list Jesus Christ of Nazareth on your probably short list of candidates for Messiah. I encourage you to play with the math and use "weeks" of seconds, "weeks" of minutes, "weeks" of hours, "weeks" of days, "weeks" of weeks, "weeks" of years, "weeks" of decades of years, "weeks" of centuries, "weeks" of millennia and see where the prophecy lands in time.

When a Jewish person chooses weeks of years and does the math and says Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the only possible person who could have been the Messiah, I say, "No, that couldn't be. If Jesus were the Messiah, the Jews would have believed in him, but they didn't, so it couldn't possibly be Jesus of Nazareth." If you remember, that's how Isaiah 53 began: "who hath believed our report?" "Who?" If you are shouting to me that Jesus Christ is the only person who could possibly be the Messiah, then I will say very quietly, "That's why I believe" but not until then. Until then I will only tell you, "It couldn't be Jesus."

Here are the links to help you come to your own conclusion. I found them on Google.com.

Check out what Maimonidies is purported to have advised!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"1a. Maimonides (Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon): "Daniel has elucidated to us the knowledge of the end times. However, since they are secret, the wise [rabbis] have barred the calculation of the days of Messiah’s coming so that the untutored populace will not be led astray when they see that the End Times have already come but there is no sign of the Messiah" (Igeret Teiman, Chapter 3 p.24.)"
(scroll down about 3/4ths of the length of the page to see the quote directly above)

Jews for Jesus: the Messiah had to come before 70 CE (AD)

The Torah observant messianic Judaism view

A Jewish Calculation about the 70 weeks of Daniel

. The Spirit of G-od is ready to throw a welcome party for you!

The L-ord rejoicing over his people, his Am Israel according to Zephaniah 3:14-17.

Zephaniah 3:14-17 in Hebrew

This painting hangs on the wall of a community place of worship in the Silicon Valley, painted by a member, inspired by the joy that the L-ord remembers the stranger and the alien, those who were not of Israel, but join with her and her Messiah, and inherit her promises! Thank you for being so faithful and preserving the Torah, the Writings, and the Prophets!

The Mystery Hid from the Ages (Colossians 1:26, the New Testament)

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Weather in Israel in Hebrew

Weather in Israel in English

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Daniel 7:13-14 (WLC: consonants and vowels)

חָזֵה הֲוֵית בְּחֶזְוֵי לֵילְיָא וַאֲרוּ עִם־עֲנָנֵי שְׁמַיָּא כְּבַר אֱנָשׁ אָתֵה הֲוָה וְעַד־עַתִּיק יֹומַיָּא מְטָה וּקְדָמֹוהִי הַקְרְבוּהִי׃ .13 וְלֵהּ יְהִיב שָׁלְטָן וִיקָר וּמַלְכוּ וְכֹל עַמְמַיָּא אֻמַיָּא וְלִשָּׁנַיָּא לֵהּ יִפְלְחוּן שָׁלְטָנֵהּ שָׁלְטָן עָלַם דִּי־לָא יֶעְדֵּה וּמַלְכוּתֵהּ דִּי־לָא תִתְחַבַּל׃ פ .14 "

Daniel 7:13-14 (WLC: consonants and vowels)

  חָזֵה הֲוֵית בְּחֶזְוֵי לֵֽילְיָא וַאֲרוּ עִם־עֲנָנֵי שְׁמַיָּא כְּבַר אֱנָשׁ אָתֵה הֲוָה וְעַד־עַתִּיק יֹֽומַיָּא מְטָה וּקְדָמֹוהִי הַקְרְבֽוּהִי׃ .13 וְלֵהּ יְהִיב שָׁלְטָן וִיקָר וּמַלְכוּ וְכֹל עַמְמַיָּא אֻמַיָּא וְלִשָּׁנַיָּא לֵהּ יִפְלְחוּן שָׁלְטָנֵהּ שָׁלְטָן עָלַם דִּי־לָא יֶעְדֵּה וּמַלְכוּתֵהּ דִּי־לָא תִתְחַבַּל׃ פ .14 "

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Daniel 7:13-14 (Amplified Bible)

13 "I saw in the night visions, and behold, on the clouds of the heavens came One like a Son of man, and He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. 14And there was given Him [the Messiah] dominion and glory and kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away,
and His kingdom is one which shall not be destroyed."

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Last updated: 01/20/2017

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Background Music: Ancient of Days
(click here for sound)

Daniel 7:13-14 (Amplified Bible)

Blessing and honor, glory and power

Be unto the Ancient of Days

From every nation, all of creation,

Bow before the Ancient of Days.

Every tongue in heaven and earth

Shall declare Your glory

every knee shall bow at your throne in worship

You will be exalted Oh God

And your kingdom shall not pass away,

Oh Ancient of Days!

2x (above)

Chorus

Your kingdom shall reign over all the earth

Sing unto the Ancient of Days

Your kingdom shall reign over all the earth

Sing unto the Ancient of Days

2x (above)

Every tongue in heaven and earth

Shall declare Your glory

Every knee shall bow at your throne in worship

You will be exalted Oh God

And your kingdom shall not pass away,

Oh Ancient of Days!

Oh Ancient of Days!

Oh Ancient of Days!

Oh Ancient of Days!

Oh Ancient of Days!

Musical instruments pick up the beat...

Chorus

Your kingdom shall reign over all the earth

Sing unto the Ancient of Days

Your kingdom shall reign over all the earth

Sing unto the Ancient of Days

5x (above)

ancientofdays2(1).mid