The LORD our Righteousness - "YHWH Tsidqenu"
"The LORD our Righteousness"
Buried within the pages of the book of Jeremiah lies one of the most precious and revealing prophecies of the Messiah to be found within the bounds of the Hebrew scriptures. In it, we see revealed that the Messiah, the Branch whom God was going to raise to fill the throne of David, would be given the name of the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, YHWH Tsidqenu. As we will see below, this phraseology points us to the divine nature of the Messiah, specifically that He was to be YHWH Himself. Below, this shall be briefly explored, and some of the more common Jewish objections to this proposition will be examined.
Let us look at the passage in question,
"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jeremiah 23:5-6)
From what is said in this passage, we see that this portion is specifically Messianic in content. This is seen both from the term "Branch", and from the Davidic ancestry of the King who was to be raised up.
The name "Branch" is almost universally accepted as Messianic, both by Jews and Christians alike. This term is a metaphor, literally meaning "shoot" or "sprout", and signifies the new life that Messiah was to bring to the Davidic monarchy, which was presumed dead. Further, the implications of the name were that Messiah would bring new life to all mankind, not just to His people Israel. This description as "Branch" appears several times in the Hebrew scriptures. It appears in Isaiah 4:2, where the Messiah's presence in the coming Kingdom is described as "beautiful" and "glorious". In Isaiah 11:1, the Branch is said to come from the "stem of Jesse", and is filled with the Spirit of God. In Jeremiah 33:15, the Branch again is said to come from the royal line of David. Yet, this same Branch from the royal line is termed God's servant in Zechariah 3:8, and is described as a man who will carry out God's work in Zechariah 6:12.
The rabbis recognised that Branch was a name for the Messiah. R. Y'hoshu'a notes this as a name for Messiah from Zechariah 6:121. Rav Huna also refers to this as a Messianic name2, with Buber concurring in his commentary notes on that statement3.
Likewise, the instances in Jewish rabbinical literature in which the Messiah is explicitly understood to be descended from David are too numerous to list more than a sampling here. Moses Maimonides pointed to the statements of Numbers 24:17 when he wrote,
"And there he says: 'I see him but not now', this refers to David; 'I behold him but not nigh', this refers to King Messiah; 'A star shall step forth out of Jacob', this refers to David; 'and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel', this refers to King Messiah."4
Rav Y'huda taught that the Messiah would be "another David", and that the Messiah and the first David would rule as King and viceroy, respectively5. The Aramaic Targum of Jonathan b. Uzziel likewise interprets Jeremiah 23:5 specifically in the sense of the Messiah's descent from David, even translating "branch" as "Messiah"6. Levey notes that in his Targum, Jonathan expands the name "LORD our righteousness" to read "may vindication be accomplished for us by the Lord in His day", a paraphrasical explanation of "YHWH Tsidkenu" which the commentator felt impelled to explain because of the Messianic idea contained in the verse7. Thus, the interpretation of Jeremiah 23:5-6 as Messianic would seem to rest on a solid Biblical foundation, and is also supported by the understanding of Jewish traditional theology.
Most interesting to our point here is that many of the rabbis recognised that the Messiah would be God. R. Abba bar Kahana explicitly stated that the Messiah's name would be "LORD (Adonai)", and quotes Jeremiah 23:6 as evidence8. Smith remarks that the Jewish teachers frequently interpreted this name in Jeremiah 23:6 as a personal name of the Messiah (rather than as a title for Israel or Jerusalem) in the Targumim, Midrashim, and Talmud9. In the Peshikta Rabbah, we find the statement,
"You find that at the beginning of the creation of the world King Messiah was born [and] that he emerged in the thought [of God] even before the world was created..."10
The sentiment that the Messiah, or His name, was pre-existent as a thought or word of God is found widely across the rabbinical literature. In many cases, the statements imply a pre-existence of the Messiah, which, if one understands the Hebrew scriptures correctly, therefore implies the deity of the Messiah, as the Tanakh is quite explicit in stating that before God created the world, nothing else existed with Him. The Genesis Rabbah explains the Messiah as being one of six things preceding the creation of the world, with the Messiah being cast as one of these which arose in the thought of God11. In this same work, R. Shim'on ben Laqish explicitly states that the "spirit of God" mentioned in Genesis 1:2 as hovering over the face of the waters is the spirit of King Messiah, and appeals to Isaiah 11:2 ("And the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him") for support12. The Babylonian Talmud likewise records that it was taught that the name of the Messiah was one of seven things created before the world, and that his name would endure forever, relying upon Psalm 72:17 for support13. The First Book of Enoch reiterates that the Messiah (there called the "Son of Man") was hidden in God from the beginning, before the creation, and even that the kings and rulers of the earth worship the Son of Man, setting their hopes in him and petitioning for mercy at his hands14, something directed appropriately only to God. Perhaps most explicitly of all is the statement found in R. Simeon b. Yochai's comments on the Zohar,
"There is a perfect Man, who is an Angel. This Angel is Metatron, the Keeper of Israel; He is a man in the image of the Holy One, blessed be He, who is an Emanation from Him; yea, He is Jehovah; of Him cannot be said, He is created, formed or made; but He is the Emanation from God. This agrees exactly with what is written, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Of jmx dwd, David's Branch, that though He shall be a perfect man, yet He is ‘The Lord our Righteousness.’"15
Throughout the Targumim, we see the Lord and His name being referred to with the term "Memra" (Aramaic for "word"), which has been attributed to the discomfort of the Targumists with the many places where the Lord appears to be dealing with Himself in a uniplural sense (ex. Exodus 17:16) or where there seemed to be anthropomorphic references to God (ex. Deuteronomy 30:8, Jeremiah 30:11). In Ezekiel 34:24, as in other passages, where the prophet says, "...I the LORD have spoken it", Jonathan renders, "I, the Lord, have decreed this by my Memra". Elsewhere, the Memra which appears in the Targumic commentaries appears to take on distinct functions itself. For example, in Genesis 19:24, the Hebrew text says, "The LORD rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven." Grammatically, the Hebrew here seems to indicate that two separate Jehovahs are fulfilling two distinct roles. The Targum of Jonathan at this verse substitutes "The Memra of the LORD" for the first of the two Jehovah's in the verse, indicating the Targumist's understanding that the two actors described with the name "YHWH" were distinct in person from each other, yet intimately connected in essence, hence his use of the Memra, or Word.
In many other places, the Memra of the LORD in the Targumim takes on personality and characteristics of God Himself, indicating the understanding of the Targumists that the Memra could be equated WITH God, while yet dealt with as a separate personality. At various points, the Memra is praised and prayed to as God16, it speaks to men17, it is to be trusted in with the same sense as trusting in God Himself18, it is an active agent in creation19, and is even said to be God20. This all would seem to indicate a view of the Memra of the Lord as an hypostatic agent of the Lord, whereby the Lord's word takes on separate and distinct function while yet retaining the essential charactre and being of the Lord Himself21.
From this, we can see in the literature both that the Messiah was pre-existent before creation as a thought or word of God, and that the idea of hypostasis of aspects of the Lord's personality was a known quantity in Judaism. This concept seems to be explored by Baron in his analysis of Zechariah. He notes,
"Perhaps in no other single book in the Old Testament is Messiah's Divinity so clearly taught as in Zechariah. In the second chapter (8-11) the prophet calls Him Who is to come and dwell in the midst of Zion, Whom the Jews always understood to be the Messiah, by the name Jehovah. This passage must be a very difficult one to the Jew or Unitarian, for here the prophet represents two Persons, both of Whom he calls by the Divine title Jehovah, though One is sent by the Other to accomplish some mission on the earth."22.
We note, of course, that there are several other portions of the Hebrew scriptures where God appears to have a uniplural nature, with multiple persons yet each with the same revealed essence. The angel of the LORD which appears to Hagar is a distinct personality from the invisible LORD, yet is identified with Him and addressed as the LORD (Genesis 16:7-13). Manoah, the father of Samson, dealt with the angel of the LORD, and stated that he had seen God (Judges 13:22). Both of these would be impossible in light of the narrative in Exodus 33:18-23 (where it is said that no man can see God and live) unless what they were seeing was the hypostasis of God's Word, manifested in the flesh as a theophany. Further, we see in Isaiah 48:12-16 that the LORD is speaking, yet says that "the Lord GOD, and his Spirit" had sent him, which implies three different personalities of God in action in this passage. Also, in Zechariah 3:1-5, the angel of the LORD commands that Joshua the high priest be clothed with clean garments, saying "Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee...." (v.4), which is forgiveness and cleansing from sin which only God can give. Thus, the uniplurality of God appears on numerous occasions in the Hebrew Scriptures, and is often intimately connected with the manifestation of divine hypostasis in the form of the angel of the LORD, who is from God and yet is God, a messenger who yet is of the essence of the author of the message, treated as God Himself.
It is in Jeremiah 23:5-6 that we see these two concepts, pre-existent Messiah and divine hypostasis, united into one person who was to be God incarnated into the flesh, a physical manifestation of the Word of God, just as is taught in the Brit Chadassah in John 1:1,14. In this passage, we see the King being raised up, the Branch identified by both Jew and Christian as the Messiah, given the name "Jehovah our Righteousness", a name which firmly teaches that the Messiah would manifest the divine trait of righteousness, both in His actions as ruler and in His own intrinsic charactre. Yet, because of the understanding derived from Hebrew scriptures themselves (and recognised on numerous occasions by the rabbis as well as by Christian theologians) that the name and charactre of the Messiah would be pre-existent and divine, we can understand that Jeremiah 23:5-6 is teaching that the name of the Messiah was to be "YHWH Tsidqenu". As Laetsch has stated, the name given is itself a statement of the Messiah's nature and essence.
Buried within the pages of the book of Jeremiah lies one of the most precious and revealing prophecies of the Messiah to be found within the bounds of the Hebrew scriptures. In it, we see revealed that the Messiah, the Branch whom God was going to raise to fill the throne of David, would be given the name of the LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, YHWH Tsidqenu. As we will see below, this phraseology points us to the divine nature of the Messiah, specifically that He was to be YHWH Himself. Below, this shall be briefly explored, and some of the more common Jewish objections to this proposition will be examined.
Let us look at the passage in question,
"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS." (Jeremiah 23:5-6)
From what is said in this passage, we see that this portion is specifically Messianic in content. This is seen both from the term "Branch", and from the Davidic ancestry of the King who was to be raised up.
The name "Branch" is almost universally accepted as Messianic, both by Jews and Christians alike. This term is a metaphor, literally meaning "shoot" or "sprout", and signifies the new life that Messiah was to bring to the Davidic monarchy, which was presumed dead. Further, the implications of the name were that Messiah would bring new life to all mankind, not just to His people Israel. This description as "Branch" appears several times in the Hebrew scriptures. It appears in Isaiah 4:2, where the Messiah's presence in the coming Kingdom is described as "beautiful" and "glorious". In Isaiah 11:1, the Branch is said to come from the "stem of Jesse", and is filled with the Spirit of God. In Jeremiah 33:15, the Branch again is said to come from the royal line of David. Yet, this same Branch from the royal line is termed God's servant in Zechariah 3:8, and is described as a man who will carry out God's work in Zechariah 6:12.
The rabbis recognised that Branch was a name for the Messiah. R. Y'hoshu'a notes this as a name for Messiah from Zechariah 6:121. Rav Huna also refers to this as a Messianic name2, with Buber concurring in his commentary notes on that statement3.
Likewise, the instances in Jewish rabbinical literature in which the Messiah is explicitly understood to be descended from David are too numerous to list more than a sampling here. Moses Maimonides pointed to the statements of Numbers 24:17 when he wrote,
"And there he says: 'I see him but not now', this refers to David; 'I behold him but not nigh', this refers to King Messiah; 'A star shall step forth out of Jacob', this refers to David; 'and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel', this refers to King Messiah."4
Rav Y'huda taught that the Messiah would be "another David", and that the Messiah and the first David would rule as King and viceroy, respectively5. The Aramaic Targum of Jonathan b. Uzziel likewise interprets Jeremiah 23:5 specifically in the sense of the Messiah's descent from David, even translating "branch" as "Messiah"6. Levey notes that in his Targum, Jonathan expands the name "LORD our righteousness" to read "may vindication be accomplished for us by the Lord in His day", a paraphrasical explanation of "YHWH Tsidkenu" which the commentator felt impelled to explain because of the Messianic idea contained in the verse7. Thus, the interpretation of Jeremiah 23:5-6 as Messianic would seem to rest on a solid Biblical foundation, and is also supported by the understanding of Jewish traditional theology.
Most interesting to our point here is that many of the rabbis recognised that the Messiah would be God. R. Abba bar Kahana explicitly stated that the Messiah's name would be "LORD (Adonai)", and quotes Jeremiah 23:6 as evidence8. Smith remarks that the Jewish teachers frequently interpreted this name in Jeremiah 23:6 as a personal name of the Messiah (rather than as a title for Israel or Jerusalem) in the Targumim, Midrashim, and Talmud9. In the Peshikta Rabbah, we find the statement,
"You find that at the beginning of the creation of the world King Messiah was born [and] that he emerged in the thought [of God] even before the world was created..."10
The sentiment that the Messiah, or His name, was pre-existent as a thought or word of God is found widely across the rabbinical literature. In many cases, the statements imply a pre-existence of the Messiah, which, if one understands the Hebrew scriptures correctly, therefore implies the deity of the Messiah, as the Tanakh is quite explicit in stating that before God created the world, nothing else existed with Him. The Genesis Rabbah explains the Messiah as being one of six things preceding the creation of the world, with the Messiah being cast as one of these which arose in the thought of God11. In this same work, R. Shim'on ben Laqish explicitly states that the "spirit of God" mentioned in Genesis 1:2 as hovering over the face of the waters is the spirit of King Messiah, and appeals to Isaiah 11:2 ("And the spirit of the Lord will rest upon him") for support12. The Babylonian Talmud likewise records that it was taught that the name of the Messiah was one of seven things created before the world, and that his name would endure forever, relying upon Psalm 72:17 for support13. The First Book of Enoch reiterates that the Messiah (there called the "Son of Man") was hidden in God from the beginning, before the creation, and even that the kings and rulers of the earth worship the Son of Man, setting their hopes in him and petitioning for mercy at his hands14, something directed appropriately only to God. Perhaps most explicitly of all is the statement found in R. Simeon b. Yochai's comments on the Zohar,
"There is a perfect Man, who is an Angel. This Angel is Metatron, the Keeper of Israel; He is a man in the image of the Holy One, blessed be He, who is an Emanation from Him; yea, He is Jehovah; of Him cannot be said, He is created, formed or made; but He is the Emanation from God. This agrees exactly with what is written, Jeremiah 23:5-6, Of jmx dwd, David's Branch, that though He shall be a perfect man, yet He is ‘The Lord our Righteousness.’"15
Throughout the Targumim, we see the Lord and His name being referred to with the term "Memra" (Aramaic for "word"), which has been attributed to the discomfort of the Targumists with the many places where the Lord appears to be dealing with Himself in a uniplural sense (ex. Exodus 17:16) or where there seemed to be anthropomorphic references to God (ex. Deuteronomy 30:8, Jeremiah 30:11). In Ezekiel 34:24, as in other passages, where the prophet says, "...I the LORD have spoken it", Jonathan renders, "I, the Lord, have decreed this by my Memra". Elsewhere, the Memra which appears in the Targumic commentaries appears to take on distinct functions itself. For example, in Genesis 19:24, the Hebrew text says, "The LORD rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven." Grammatically, the Hebrew here seems to indicate that two separate Jehovahs are fulfilling two distinct roles. The Targum of Jonathan at this verse substitutes "The Memra of the LORD" for the first of the two Jehovah's in the verse, indicating the Targumist's understanding that the two actors described with the name "YHWH" were distinct in person from each other, yet intimately connected in essence, hence his use of the Memra, or Word.
In many other places, the Memra of the LORD in the Targumim takes on personality and characteristics of God Himself, indicating the understanding of the Targumists that the Memra could be equated WITH God, while yet dealt with as a separate personality. At various points, the Memra is praised and prayed to as God16, it speaks to men17, it is to be trusted in with the same sense as trusting in God Himself18, it is an active agent in creation19, and is even said to be God20. This all would seem to indicate a view of the Memra of the Lord as an hypostatic agent of the Lord, whereby the Lord's word takes on separate and distinct function while yet retaining the essential charactre and being of the Lord Himself21.
From this, we can see in the literature both that the Messiah was pre-existent before creation as a thought or word of God, and that the idea of hypostasis of aspects of the Lord's personality was a known quantity in Judaism. This concept seems to be explored by Baron in his analysis of Zechariah. He notes,
"Perhaps in no other single book in the Old Testament is Messiah's Divinity so clearly taught as in Zechariah. In the second chapter (8-11) the prophet calls Him Who is to come and dwell in the midst of Zion, Whom the Jews always understood to be the Messiah, by the name Jehovah. This passage must be a very difficult one to the Jew or Unitarian, for here the prophet represents two Persons, both of Whom he calls by the Divine title Jehovah, though One is sent by the Other to accomplish some mission on the earth."22.
We note, of course, that there are several other portions of the Hebrew scriptures where God appears to have a uniplural nature, with multiple persons yet each with the same revealed essence. The angel of the LORD which appears to Hagar is a distinct personality from the invisible LORD, yet is identified with Him and addressed as the LORD (Genesis 16:7-13). Manoah, the father of Samson, dealt with the angel of the LORD, and stated that he had seen God (Judges 13:22). Both of these would be impossible in light of the narrative in Exodus 33:18-23 (where it is said that no man can see God and live) unless what they were seeing was the hypostasis of God's Word, manifested in the flesh as a theophany. Further, we see in Isaiah 48:12-16 that the LORD is speaking, yet says that "the Lord GOD, and his Spirit" had sent him, which implies three different personalities of God in action in this passage. Also, in Zechariah 3:1-5, the angel of the LORD commands that Joshua the high priest be clothed with clean garments, saying "Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee...." (v.4), which is forgiveness and cleansing from sin which only God can give. Thus, the uniplurality of God appears on numerous occasions in the Hebrew Scriptures, and is often intimately connected with the manifestation of divine hypostasis in the form of the angel of the LORD, who is from God and yet is God, a messenger who yet is of the essence of the author of the message, treated as God Himself.
It is in Jeremiah 23:5-6 that we see these two concepts, pre-existent Messiah and divine hypostasis, united into one person who was to be God incarnated into the flesh, a physical manifestation of the Word of God, just as is taught in the Brit Chadassah in John 1:1,14. In this passage, we see the King being raised up, the Branch identified by both Jew and Christian as the Messiah, given the name "Jehovah our Righteousness", a name which firmly teaches that the Messiah would manifest the divine trait of righteousness, both in His actions as ruler and in His own intrinsic charactre. Yet, because of the understanding derived from Hebrew scriptures themselves (and recognised on numerous occasions by the rabbis as well as by Christian theologians) that the name and charactre of the Messiah would be pre-existent and divine, we can understand that Jeremiah 23:5-6 is teaching that the name of the Messiah was to be "YHWH Tsidqenu". As Laetsch has stated, the name given is itself a statement of the Messiah's nature and essence.
Comment
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Comment by Eric M. Mackey on February 7, 2009 at 5:06am
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So Anna,
You are not saying that Jesus is the eternal God. He emanates from God and was in God's thoughts prior to the foundation of the world. But He is not totally God--"From this, we can see in the literature both that the Messiah was pre-existent before creation as a thought or word of God"--"You find that at the beginning of the creation of the world King Messiah was born [and] that he emerged in the thought [of God] even before the world was created..."
This is complex. But I see right through it. You are bound to trip some Christians up if they are still listening to you at this point. By the way, I could not clearly determine that you are saying the Messiah has already come. And why would you take so much stock in the writing and thinking of the very people who turned Christ away when He came in the flesh?
Eric.
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