All this is to be gloriously set right, when the Lord turneth the captivity of Zion, and the Messiah cometh. But when may He be expected, and what are the signs of His coming? Or perhaps the question should thus be put: Why are the redemption of Israel and the coming of the Messiah so unaccountably delayed? It is here that the Synagogue finds itself in presence of an insoluble mystery. The explanations attempted are, confessedly, guesses, or rather attempts to evade the issue. The only course left is, authoritatively to impose silence on all such inquiries - the silence, as they would put it, of implicit, mournful submission to the inexplicable, in faith that somehow, when least expected, deliverance would come; or, as we would put it, the silence of ever-recurring disappointment and despair. Thus the grand hope of the Synagogue is, as it were, written in an epitaph on a broken tombstone, to be repeated by the thousands who, for these long centuries, have washed the ruins of the Sanctuary with unavailing tears.
5. Why delayeth the Messiah His coming? Since the brief and broken sunshine of the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, the sky overhead has ever grown darker, nor have even the terrible storms, which have burst over Israel, reft the canopy of cloud. The first capitivity passed, why not the second? This is the painful question ever and again discussed by the Rabbis. [811] Can they mean it seriously, that the sins of the second, are more grievous than those which caused the first dispersion; or that they of the first captivity repented, but not they of the second? What constitutes this repentance which yet remains to be made? But the reasoning becomes absolutely self-contradictory when, together with the assertion that, if Israel repented but one day, the Messiah would come, [812] we are told, that Israel will not repent till Elijah comes. [813] Besides, bold as the language is, there is truth in the expostulation, which the Midrash [814] puts into the mouth of the congregation of Israel: Lord of the world, it depends on Thee that we repent.' Such truth, that, although at first the Divine reply is a repetition of Zechar. i. 3, yet, when Israel reiterates the words, Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned,' supporting them by Ps lxxxv. 4, the argument proves unanswerable.
Other conditions of Israel's deliverance are, indeed, mentioned. But we can scarcely regard the Synagogue as seriously making the coming of Messiah dependent on their realisation. Among the most touching of these is a beautiful passage (almost reminding us of Heb. xi.), in which Israel's future deliverance is described as the reward of faith. [815] Similarly beautiful is the thought, [816] that, when God redeems Israel, it will be amidst their weeping. [817] But neither can this be regarded as the condition of Messiah's coming; nor yet such generalities as the observance of the Law, or of some special commandments. The very variety of suggestions [818] [819] shows, how utterly unable the Synagogue felt to indicate any condition to be fulfilled by Israel. Such vague statements, as that the salvation of Israel depended on the merits of the patriarchs, or on that of one of them, cannot help us to a solution; and the long discussion in the Talmud [820] leaves no doubt, that the final and most sober opinion was, that the time of Messiah's coming depended not on repentance, nor any other condition, but on the mercy of God, when the time fixed had arrived. But even so, we are again thrown into doubt by the statement, that it might be either hastened or retarded by Israel's bearing! [821]
In these circumstances, any attempt at determining the date of Messiah's coming would be even more hypothetical than such calculations generally are. [822] Guesses on the subject could only be grounded on imaginary symbolisms. Of such we have examples in the Talmud. [823] Thus, some fixed the date at 4000 years after the Creation - curiously enough, about the era of Christ - though Israel's sin had blotted out the whole past from the reckoning; others at 4291 from the Creation; [824] others again expected it at the beginning, or end, of the eighty-fifth Jubilee - with this proviso, that it would not take place earlier; and so on, through equally groundless conjectures. A comparatively late work speaks of five monarchies - Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome and Ishmael. During the last of these God would hear the cry of Israel, [825] and the Messiah come, after a terrible war between Rome and Ishmael (the West and the East). [826] But as the rule of these monarchies was to last altogether one day (= 1000 years), less two-thirds of an hour (1 hour = 83 ½ years); [827] it would follow, that their domination would last 944 4/9 years. [828] Again, according to Jewish tradition, the rule of Babylon had lasted 70, that of Medo-Persia 34, and that of Greece 180 years, leaving 660 4/9 years for Rome and Ishmael. Thus the date for the expected Advent of the Messiah would have been about 661 after the destruction of Jerusalem, or about the year 729 of the Christian era. [829]