Question 39
Where is Jesus in the Old Testament?
Read the Old Testament to Jewish people in Israel without telling them where it’s from, and they say it’s the New Testament. Four street videos did exactly that, and it went the same way every time. That tells you something: Jesus is all over the Old Testament.
“New Testament. New Testament. New Testament.”
The teams read Isaiah 53:5 out loud. In the KJV: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” Then they asked one question: is this from the Tanakh or the New Testament?
A group of Orthodox Jews answered at once: “New Testament. New Testament. New Testament.” In another video, a man was asked what it sounds like. His answer was “Jesus.” Another guessed New Testament because it sounded like they were talking about Jesus, and when he heard it was the Old Testament, he said “no way.” One young man explained his guess: in the New Testament “we put our sins on him,” but “in the Old Testament... we take it for ourselves.” Then they told him it’s Isaiah, written about 700 years before Jesus was born.
Next they read Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given... and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” New Testament again, every time. One man pushed back, “Hashem don’t have no son”, and then found out it’s Isaiah. When someone said it might be about David, the interviewer answered that David wouldn’t be called mighty God and he wouldn’t be called everlasting father.
Zechariah 12:10 got the same answer: “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son.” New Testament. Then they read Romans 1:16, which really is from the New Testament, and the man got it right. He knew what the New Testament sounded like. He just didn’t know his own Scriptures said the same thing.
One woman said it best: people think Christianity is a Western religion with nothing to do with Judaism, “but this is so close to Judaism it’s crazy.”
“The Forbidden Chapter”
A ministry in Israel, Tree of Life, sat down with Israelis to read Isaiah 53 in Hebrew. Their video says part of the chapter used to be read in synagogues as the Haftarah (the yearly reading from the prophets) until the rabbis took it out. Today it’s called “the forbidden chapter,” and most Jews have never read it.
The video also says that for 1,700 years after Isaiah wrote it, the rabbis read this chapter as being about the Messiah, and it names Sanhedrin 98 in the Talmud, the Yalkut Shimoni, the Zohar and the Rambam.
They read verse 3, “He is despised and rejected of men,” and one of them said, “This is... speaking about the Messiah... It is really powerful!” They read verse 4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs.” Then they asked who in history fits all of it: born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), come before the Temple fell in AD 70 (Daniel 9), rejected by His own people, then suffering, dying and rising. “No one comes to mind right now.” When they said the name, Yeshua, one of them answered, “I don’t trust him at all,” and then, “These are words suitable for Jesus.”
Another said that when the conversation turns to Yeshua, there’s already a kind of “barrier.” People don’t want to even think about Him.
Why they don’t see it
Some said it straight. “I have my Torah and that’s it. I don’t look in other places.” “I’m not allowed to read” the New Testament. One Orthodox teen said he’s never read it, and the believer interviewing him answered, “If someone tells me I’m not allowed to read something... that makes me skeptical.”
The Bible already described this. Isaiah was told the people would “see ye indeed, but perceive not” (Isaiah 6:9). Paul said, “even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:15-16). It’s “blindness in part,” and it’s only “until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in” (Romans 11:25). The interviewers called it a veil, the same word Paul used.
What Isaiah 53 actually says
Read it slowly and line it up with the cross.
“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
“Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4).
“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7). Before the chief priests, Jesus “answered nothing” (Matthew 27:12).
“He made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death” (Isaiah 53:9). He died between two criminals (Luke 23:33) and was buried by “a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph” (Matthew 27:57).
“He was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). On the cross He prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34), and Mark says, “the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors” (Mark 15:28).
The rest of the Old Testament
The videos pointed people to these too:
Where He’d be born. “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah... out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting” (Micah 5:2).
How He’d be born. “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14).
How He’d die. “They pierced my hands and my feet... They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture” (Psalm 22:16, 18). David wrote that about 1,000 years before the cross, and the soldiers “parted his garments, casting lots” (Matthew 27:35).
When He’d die. “Shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary” (Daniel 9:26). The Messiah had to come before the Temple was destroyed, and it was destroyed in AD 70.
The new covenant. “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31).
Jesus said it Himself: “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). When the Ethiopian read Isaiah 53, he asked, “of whom speaketh the prophet this? of himself, or of some other man? Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus” (Acts 8:34-35).
From the comments
Thousands of people wrote under these videos. A few stood out:
A woman wrote that she read Isaiah 53 for the first time in 1979, and when she was told it was written 700 years before Yeshua, she “felt a sword go into my heart.” Over 12,000 people liked that comment.
Someone read the Messiah passages from Isaiah, Daniel and Malachi to an Orthodox Jewish friend, and she reacted the same way the people on the street did.
Jewish believers spoke up: a woman born again at 20 who is now 66, and others who called themselves completed Jews.
A Somali man from a Muslim background wrote that Jesus appeared to him, and believers from Iran wrote that the videos moved them to tears.
Over and over, people prayed the same prayer: lift the veil.
Say it like this
“Let me read you something, and you tell me where it’s from. ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities... and with his stripes we are healed.’ Sounds like the New Testament, right? It’s Isaiah 53, written 700 years before Jesus. The Old Testament tells you where He’d be born, that they’d pierce His hands and feet, and that He’d die before the Temple fell. Read it to Jewish people and they say it sounds like Jesus. How can Jesus not be the Messiah? That’s the real question.”
Keep reading: What does Judaism actually say about Jesus? · Don’t all religions lead to the same place? · Wasn’t Jesus just a good teacher?
