Some Prophecies About the Death of the Messiah Fulfilled by Christ
The following prophecies are taken from the book of Isaiah in the Old Testament, Chapters 52:13 to 53:12. From ancient times the Jews believed that these verses were written about the Messiah. This is partly due to the use of the word 'Servant', a Messianic title. (See Driver and Neubauer, The Fifty-Third Chapter of Isaiah According to the Jewish Interpreters). The oldest manuscript of Isaiah dates to about 125 BC. So the verses were written well before Jesus was born. Yet they foreshadow events surrounding Christ's crucifixion with amazing accuracy.
The Isaiah Scroll dates to around 125 BC
Prophecy: "...his appearance was so disfigured, beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness." Isaiah 52:14
Fulfillment: Prior to being crucified Jesus was scourged with a Roman flagellum. This was a special kind of whip made of multiple strands of leather impregnated with pieces of metal and bone. The pieces of metal and bone tore into the victim's body. Jesus' body would have been marred beyond ordinary human likeness. This was what Mel Gibson was trying to show in his film, The Passion, though it was impossible to re-create the real extent of the injuries.
Confirmation: The Roman writer Tacitus (AD 56-117) records that Christ was executed by sentence of Pontius Pilate. His readers would have understood this to mean crucifixion, the standard death penalty for a non-Roman. I inquired as to the historicity of scourging prior to crucifixion, on the website www.allexperts.com . Historians there told me that scourging was consistent with Roman practices of the day.
Filming the Passion
Prophecy: "...he was pierced for our transgressions..." Isaiah 53:5
Fulfillment: Nails were hammered through Christ's hands and feet to secure him to the cross. Though many translations of the Bible have "wounded" instead of "pierced", the original Hebrew word is mecholal, from chalal which means "to pierce" or "to bore through". At the time when Isaiah wrote, there was no crucifixion in Israel. Execution was by stoning which did not involve piercing. So Isaiah gets it right against the odds.
Confirmation: The remains of Yehochanan, a first century crucified man have been found. Iron nails had been driven through his heel bones and possibly his upper arms.
Bones of a 1st century crucified man
Prophecy: "By oppression and judgement he was taken away." Isaiah 53:8
Fulfillment: The Hebrew text implies that a decision of judgement would be made in connection with the death of the Messiah. Pontius Pilate gave in to the Jews and sentenced Jesus to be crucified.
Confirmation: The Roman writer Tacitus (AD 56-117) records that Christ was executed by sentence of Pontius Pilate.
An inscription bearing Pilate's name
Prophecy: "For he was cut off from the land of the living..." Isaiah 53:8
Fulfillment: Isaiah has already said that the Messiah would be judged, disfigured and pierced. Now he says that he would be killed.
Confirmation: As above.
A proposed site of the crucifixion
Prophecy: "He grew up like a tender shoot out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him." Isaiah 53:2
Fulfillment: According to the NIV Study Bible, these words speak of his humble origins in typically Jewish style. This verse together with the one below, can be seen as implying that people would not be attracted to Jesus because of his humble origins. Matthew's gospel records that people had a problem in accepting Jesus' authority because they knew he was "the carpenter's son".
Confirmation: This fact would have been embarassing to the early church, so it is unlikely that Matthew would have made it up.
Prophecy: "...he was despised and we esteemed him not." Isaiah 53:3
Fulfillment: This is an astonishing prophecy. Isaiah is writing as a Jew. Jesus was rejected by the Jews who pressured Pontius Pilate into crucifying him. Furthermore, though there are about 2 billion Christians around the world today, only a very small percentage of Jews believe in Jesus. So it is an on-going prophecy. The Bible says that the Jews will one day realise that Jesus is the Messiah (Zechariah 12).
Confirmation: Not necessary.
Jewish devotions at the Western Wall
Prophecy: "...yet we considered him stricken by God." Isaiah 53:4
Fulfillment: The crowd that mocked Jesus while he was on the cross would have considered his fate a punishment from God.
Confirmation: The Jews used to hang the bodies of criminals from trees after they had stoned them. This was to show that they were under God's curse. They applied the same reasoning to someone who had been crucified.
Prophecy: "...though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering..." Isaiah 53:10
Fulfillment: The Jews used to sacrifice animals as a compensation for sin, when they broke God's commands. Isaiah is saying that the Messiah will act as a guilt offering, compensating for all our sins once and for all. Therefore Isaiah is actually prophesying the spiritual meaning of these events. This is what billions of people would one day believe.
Confirmation: Billions of people today and throughout history believe that Christ died for our sins.
Prophecy: "he ... was numbered with the transgressors." Isaiah 53:12
Fulfillment: Jesus was crucified with a thief on either side. He was therefore literally numbered with the transgressors.
Confirmation: The crucifixion would have been witnessed by thousands of people. Jerusalem was bustling with pilgrims attending the Passover and the Romans crucified people in a prominent position where people would see them. So it is unlikely that the early church would have made this detail up, because thousands of witnesses would be able to contradict it.
Instruments of crucifixion
Prophecy: "...yet he did not open his mouth." Isaiah 53:7
Fulfillment: The gospels present Jesus as saying little or nothing in his defence. He does not explain to Pilate why he did the things he did and said the things he said.
Confirmation: It is hard to find evidence for such a detail outside the Bible. All four gospels generally agree on the point. One of the expectations of the Messiah was that he would be a teacher of wisdom. So we might expect the early church to have invented some words at the trial if they had been in the buisness of faking the record.
Prophecy: "he ... made intercession for the transgressors." Isaiah 53:12
Fulfillment: On the cross, Jesus cried out "Forgive them Father for they do not know what they are doing."
Confirmation: Again this is a difficult detail to confirm. If one attaches any credibility at all to the gospel portraits of Jesus, this detail is in line with his own interpretation of his ministry.
Prophecy: "...he was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich." Isaiah 53:12
Fulfillment: Matthew's gospel records that Joseph of Arimathea, a rich disciple, asked for Christ's body and placed it in his own tomb.
Confirmation: Once again it is difficult to find evidence supporting this detail, except to say that it would probably have been known which tomb Christ had been buried in. In the first century, news travelled fast by word of mouth. So the early church would have risked contradiction if they had invented this detail.
The Garden Tomb, argued by some to be the tomb of Christ
Prophecy: "My Servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted ... and kings will shut their mouths because of him." Isaiah 52:13-15
Fulfillment: These verses anticipate that after his death, the Messiah would be raised to life, highly exalted and considered greater than any earthly king. Today, nearly 2 billion Christians, Jews and Gentiles, consider Jesus to be greater than any king on earth.
Confirmation: Not necessary.
Another two prophecies from Isaiah, this time from Isaiah chapters 49 and 50. These can be linked to the Messiah because they are part of the 'servant songs'.
Prophecy: "I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting." Isaiah 50:6
Fulfillment: Jesus was beaten up by the Roman soldiers before he was taken away to be crucified. He was mocked by the crowd and the Roman soliders. Spitting on someone made them ritually unclean according to the Jewish religion, which is why people spat on Jesus. At the time when Isaiah wrote, offenders were killed quickly by stoning, without much opportunity for them to be mocked by the people. Crucifixion changed this by making the dying victim a public spectacle. Isaiah gets it right against the odds.
Confirmation: These practices were in line with the culture of the day.
Prophecy: "I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth." Isaiah 49:6
Fulfillment: At the time when Jesus was born, there was not much outside interest in the Jewish faith. The Jews were a little known people on the Eastern extreme of the Roman empire. Yet today, after his death on the cross, Gentiles (non-Jews) all over the world see Jesus as their light and inspiration. The words of Jesus are read more, studied more and reproduced more than any other literature.
Confirmation: Not necessary.
This next set of prophecies come from the book of Daniel in the Old Testament. The book claims to have been written in the 6th century BC. Some have argued that the book was really written around 170 BC. However, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, scholars had authentic samples of Hebrew and Aramaic text to work with. It became apparent from its style of writing that the book of Daniel was written before this late date. Though the book contains some Greek words, these are the names of musical instruments that could have been brought to Babylonia by merchants at an early date.
Daniel 9:25-26 reads:
"Know and understand this:
From the issuing a the decree to rebuild and restore Jerusalem until
the Anointed One, the ruler comes,
there will be 7 'sevens' and 62 'sevens'.
It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.
After the 62 'sevens', the Anointed One will be cut off and have nothing.
The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary."
Christians believe that this passage contains the following prophecies:
Prophecy: The passage says that the "Anointed One" (Messiah) would come after an order to rebuild Jerusalem was issued and Jerusalem was "rebuilt with streets and a trench". (In Bible times, cities had a defensive trench around them.)
Fulfillment: The Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BC. The Persian king Artaxerxes II gave an order in 445/444 BC that Jerusalem would be rebuilt. Though other Biblical cities such as Nineveh have been destroyed and never rebuilt, Jerusalem was indeed rebuilt and the Messiah (Jesus) came after this, as foretold.
Prophecy: The "Anointed One" would be "cut off" or killed and "have nothing".
Fulfillment: Jesus was killed and the expression he will "have nothing" accurate reflects the fact that he was not accepted as an earthly king, and his body lay in the cold tomb for 3 days. Today About 2 billion people today believe that Jesus is their spiritual ruler. Christians believe that Jesus will return to rule over an everlasting kingdom.
Prophecy: After the death of the Messiah, "The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary".
Fulfillment: Jerusalem and it's temple were destroyed by the Romans about forty years after Jesus was crucified.
The soldiers who laid siege to Jerusalem had been under the command of the general, Vespasian. Then Vespasian was called to Rome to become the new Roman Caesar. So there is a case for saying that Vespasian was the "ruler who will come".
Vespasian
Prophecy: "After the 62 sevens." The passage contains a lot of numbers which appear to be some system of estimating time. Some scholars think they can demonstrate that Daniel predicts the exact year of the crucifixion using this system, some five centuries in advance.
Fulfillment: An overview of this argument can be found
here.
A final prophecy from Zecharaiah. (Copies of Zechariah were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, so we know that the book was written well before the time of Christ.)
Prophecy: "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son."
Fulfillment: Christians believe that this verse was written about Jesus. It predicts that: 1) The Messiah would be pierced. 2) When Jesus returns, the Jews will realise that their ancestors killed the Messiah. The Jews caused Jesus to pierced by pressuring the Romans into nailing him to a cross. Jesus has not yet returned, but it is interesting to note that many Jews are beginning to put their faith in Jesus as a partial fulfillment of this verse. Jews who believe in Jesus sometimes call themselves 'Messianic Jews'.
Think About It
If I selected 20 people at random and asked each of them to make a prediction about events surrounding my future death - will I die in a car crash? or of old age? what will people's reaction to me be at the time? etc - there would not be 20 correct answers, though there may be a few lucky guesses.
But these 20 prophecies about the death of the Messiah in Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah apparently did come true.
1) He would come after an order to rebuild Jerusalem and the completion of that rebuilding.
2) His humble origins would discourage people from accepting him as the Messiah.
3) He would be rejected by his own people.
4) He would face a judgement.
5) He would be silent before his accusers.
6) He would be beaten, spat upon and mocked.
7) He would be disfigured.
8) He would be pierced (Isaiah).
9) He would be pierced (Zechariah).
10) He would be killed (Isaiah).
11) He would be killed (Daniel).
12) The year of his death predicted.
13) He would be considered stricken by God.
14) He would be numbered with the transgressors.
15) His death would have a meaning connected with atonement.
16) He would make intercession for his persecutors.
17) He would be buried in a rich person's tomb.
18) After his death Jerusalem would be destroyed again by a "ruler who will come".
19) He would be considered greater than any king after his death.
20) He would become a 'light' to the Gentiles.
I believe that these prophecies are God's way of showing that people are put right with him through what Jesus did on the cross, namely, paying the price for our sins. God did not just appoint people such as Paul to expound the message of the cross after the event; he also ordained people to foretell what he was about to do in advance. Therefore people are put right with God by receiving Jesus as Lord and Saviour. A simple guide for doing this can be found here.
An interesting church website
