Its survival is probably due to Ezekiel, the jn-iest- prophet, herald of restoration, of hope and of re- constructive effort. This prophet was an earnest student of Israel's past, and read its records and its oracles. The inffuence not only of his great elder contemporary Jeremiah, but also of the ear- lier prophets Hosea and Isaiah, is unmistakable. The influence of the first and the last is clear in Ezk 34'^3-3i < ^nj i -^vill set over them a shepherd, and he shall feed them, even my servant David ; . . . and I the Lord will be a God unto them, and my servant David a prince in their midst.' Here, as in the case of Jer 2^^'^, David represents a suc- cession of Davidic descendants sitting on his throne. When we turn to Ezekiel's ideal scheme of the restored Jewish theocracy (chs. 40-48), we find that the secular pi-ince of Davidic lineage falls into the background, and his functions are subordinated to the ecclesia-stical routine. The same fate in the early post-exilic period befalls the somewhat shadowy, if stately, figure of Zerubbabel in Zee 4 and 6 (cf. Hag 2-'-^), who was soon destined to sub- side into the background in the presence of Joshua the high priest, the natural and legitimate head of the newly constituted Church-nation. In truth, the Messianic King rapidly becomes a vanished ideal of pi'ophecy. In the closing verses (i-i-20) of Zephaniah (obviously an addition belonging to the late-exilic or early post-exilic period) it is Jahweh who is Israel's King in the midst of His people, their mighty Hero who wards off the nation's foes (vv.i'^-is).
■ When we turn to tlie BcuUro-Immh (40-55), we find that an entirely new ideal, to which reference has already been made, had displaced the earlier and older one created by Isaiah. In place of the national - Messianic King we have the national- prophetic ideal of the Suffering Servant of Jahweh, through whose humiliation and sorrow the sinning nation shall find peace. God's anointed king, who is not of Davidic descent at all, but the Persian Cyrus, is the chosen instrument for accomplishing the Divine purposes with respect to His servant Jacob (4428 45'-^). We shall have to note bow- profoundly the Deutero-Isaianic portraiture of the Suffering Servant came in later times to modify the Hebrew ideal of the Messiali, and to constitute an entirely new conception which the Hebrew race only partially and very slowly assimilated, and whose leaven worked powerfully in the Messianic ideal of the ' Son of Man ' in the consciousness of Christ and His immediate followers.
When we pass to the Trito-Isniah (56-66), which probably arose in the years that immediately pre- ceded the advent of Nehemiah, we find that the old ideal of the Davidic Messiah, which Ezekiel and Haggai attempted with poor success to revive, has altogether disappeared. Not even in the lyrical collection (60-62) is the faintest note to be heard of a Messianic Jewish King. The prophecies of Malachi are equally silent. We have to wait for centuries — perhaps as late as the declining days of the Hasmonaeans — before the Davidic Mes.sianic King definitely and clearly reappears.
Before we pass to the Greek period (B.C. 300 and later), it is necessary to refer briefly to a series of OT passages of a Messianic or reputed Messianic character. (1) Gn 315 (belonging to the earlier Jahwistic document, Ji) can only by a strained interpre- tation be regarded as Messianic at all. The seed of the woman and the serpent (representing the power of evil) are to be en-
M1>S1A11
MESSIAH
173
gaged in prolonged conflict, in which both suffer injury. In this strusgle it is not expressl\ stated which side will triumph (so DillurannX (2) Gu 4tH>' is exceedingly obscure. The ren- dering, ' as long as one coiues to Shiloh ' (Hitzig, Tuch). is doubt- ful in point of Hebrew usage, and ditficiUt to sustain historically : ' luitil one comes to Shiloh ' seems quite as ditiicult to sustain historically. The Greek versions attribute to the phrase an ob>cure Messianic reference, but interpret ""^C as a late Hebrew compound form witli a relative, which can be accepted only after making violent assumptions.* Giesebrecht ingeniously proposed to read in place of .l>r the form ~Sr2 " his ruler." He rightly argues that to read .T^ as the LXX presupposes, imn!e<lialely followed by i"?i, constitutes a very awkward and intolerable combination. t If we a<"cept tliis emendation, the jvissage may be regarded as Messianic. But it is most probably an insertion moulded on Ezk iV^, for it stands in no immediate relation to the verses that precede or follow.; (3) 2S T-"". Here vv.15- •* are the expression, placed in the mouth of the prophet Nathan, of the sentiment of reverence to the House of David, which took its rise in the latter }>art of the Mh centurj-. Biidde refers this s|>eech of Nathan and the following prayer of David to a later period than the other more primitive sections of the historical narrative, and we may reasonably follow him in ascribing this passage to the 7th cent. — not improbably the same period as that in which Jer 23*-=' and 30® arose,} (4) Nu 24i" ' A star hath marched ('? gleameil) out of Jacob, and a sceptre hath arisen out of Israel, and hath broken in pieces the sides (temples) of Moab, and hatli destroyed all the sons of Seth " ( ). The text is here difficult, and many points are uncertain. The entire series of Balaam's oracles are brought tt^elher by the redactor of the J and E documents, and the reference of the lyric passage just dted may be either to Da\id (2 S S^) or to Omri (cf . insc. of Mesha, lines 4-S, and art. ' Omri " in Hastings' DB\i Its Messianic interj-retaiion by early Christian writers (Justin Mart>T, IrensusX as well as by Rabbi A^jdha, who re- ferred it to Bar Co^rhba in the days of Hadrian (cf. also the Targums of Onkelos and Jon.), need not detain us. (5) Dt l!^^ ' A prophet shall Jahweh thy God raise up unto thee from thy midst from lh\ brethren, like unto me. To him shall ye hearken.' Tliis passage is quoted in .\c 322 rS7 as having an individual Messianic reference. But the contest (cf. the verses that immediately precede) clearly proves that the reference is general, and not individual. The Israelites are not to yay heed to the magician or sootlisayer, but to God's true prophet, like Moses, whom He will raise up in Israel from time to time (see Driver's Com. in /CO- (6) I.astly. we have a series of Psalm passages. Pss 2 (esp. v.^ff-). 72. SO. 110 may be taken as the most conspicuous examples of the revived Messianic expectation. They all belong to the Greek jieriod. Ps 2, like Ps 1 (both without superscriptionX was evidently placed by the redactors at the head of the Psalm collection, and belongs to a late period. Ps 2, like Ps 110, originates from the Maccabsan days, when the old conception of the national deliverer from foreign enemies, which was created by Isaiah after Judali's emergence from a desperate crisis, once more revived.