Our Tragic Mistake

by Rachmiel Frydland

This tract is available from Messianic Literature Outreach

The annals of history are full of facts and stories of tragedies that came about as a result of mistaken identity. In the Hebrew Scripture these tragedies begin with the story of Lamech, who tells his wives of a tragic happening, saying:

According to traditional interpretations, Lamech went hunting and instead of killing the animal he unintentionally killed his own son. What a tragedy of mistaken identity! Then we have the story of Joseph who was unjustly accused by Potiphar's wife, and suffered incarceration for many years.

A Jewish tradition, recorded in the Aramaic Targum on the Book of Esther, tells us that for many years Solomon was dethroned as king in Jerusalem and a demon named Ashmadai was ruling in Solomon's disguise, while the true king went from city to city claiming in the words of Ecclesiastes 1:12: "I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem." In a similar vein there is the popularized story of the prince and the pauper in which the pauper, temporarily disguised in the clothes of the prince, is made prince while the true prince becomes a pauper.

A more recent story has it that Fritz Kreisler, the violinist, was in Hamburg one evening with an hour to spare before taking his boat to London where he was to play in the following evening. So he wandered into a music shop. The proprietor asked to see his violin which he carried under his arm. In a moment he disappeared and then reappeared with two policemen. One laid his hand on Kreisler's shoulder and said, "You are under arrest." "For what?" asked Mr. Kreisler. "You have Fritz Kreisler's violin." "Well, I am Fritz Kreisler." "Come, come," said the policeman, "you cannot pull that on us. Come to the station." Mr. Kreisler avoided arrest by finding a record of his music in the shop and he begged to be given his violin and then he replayed the music.

There are many serious incidents of such mistaken identity in the history of our people. This was especially the case when Israel asked Aaron to make a golden calf and identified it with the God of Israel, saying, "These are thy gods (or literally, "This is they God") O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." (Exodus 32:4) Five hundred years passed and another great tragedy happened to our people when the physically and mentally attractive Absalom persuaded the people of Israel to follow him and reject his father, King David. Again thousands of our people perished because of this mistake. The full story is recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures in 2 Samuel chapters 17 and 18.

Messiah's Mistaken Identity

Could a majority of our people also make a mistake in identifying the Messiah? Surely we have made mistakes in this regard.

The story of Simon Bar Kosiba's messianic claims in 135 A.D. is well known. For a long time we had only a fragmentary knowledge of him based on a few coins and some references to him in the Talmud. Since he was known also as Bar Kochba, some students of history thought this might have been his true surname which had been later changed to Bar Kosiba when the Jewish leaders convinced themselves that he was not the Messiah (for the word Kosiba can be related to the Hebrew root of koseb or kozev which meant lie, lying or liar). However, with new archaeological findings in Israel, including a number of letters that Simon Bar Kosiba wrote to various commanders, we know for certain that his true name was Simon Bar Kosiba -- Simon of the city or town of Kosiba. The leaders of Israel, however, were so impressed with his temporary victories over the Romans and with his persecutions of those Jews who believed in Jesus of Nazareth, that even the greatest Jewish rabbinical authority of his day, Rabbi Akiba, applied the Scripture in Numbers 24:17 to him, where Balaam prophesies that "I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth."

The Hebrew word for star is Kochab; hence, the Jewish leaders began to refer to this man as Simon the Star -- Shimeon Bar-Kochba. How bitter was their disappointment in him whom they admired even when he boasted that he did not need God's help and that all he wanted from God was that God not help his enemies! Only after his complete defeat did our Jewish leaders realize that his true surname, Bar Kosiba, should have been a warning to them and their eyes should have been opened to the falseness of his claims. Perhaps the Lord Jesus had him in mind when He warned His followers, saying, "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his name, him ye will receive." (John 5:43)*

Could We Be Mistaken Again?

Yes, we could be mistaken again, especially if we prefer to follow man's view of Messiah instead of God's view as revealed in His Word. The majority of Jewish Orthodox exegetes follow the views of the great thirteenth-century philosopher Maimonides. His view is that the hallmarks of Messiah are that He is to fight Israel's battles and be victorious, and He is to force the Jews to keep Torah (Mosaic Law) as interpreted by the rabbis (Halacha). In such a case any of the successful Israeli military leaders could claim to be Messiah as long as they are religious.

But, we will not be mistaken if we accept the plain teachings of God's Word and seek there the hallmarks for Messiah. They are clear as to the identity of the Messiah. Messiah must fulfill the picture which the prophets drew of Him. Let us just list a few of them.

Solution of His Identity

*These are only a few of the identifying marks of Messiah as described by the prophets and by the patriarchs. There should be no doubt left now in your mind that these were all fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. In the course of the last nineteen centuries, hundreds of thousands of our people have come to believe in His Messiahship because of these and other proofs. Millions of Gentiles turned away from their idols of wood and stone, and from their man-made philosophies, and came to trust the God of Israel, our own Jewish Messiah, and to believe in our Jewish Scriptures, both Old and New Testament.

Surely this is the time for us to cry out together and His first Jewish followers, saying, "WE HAVE FOUND HIM (the Messiah) OF WHOM MOSES IN THE LAW, AND THE PROPHETS, DID WRITE, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE SON OF JOSEPH." (John 1:45)