The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah
Alfred Edersheim
1883
Appendix 8
RABBINIC TRADITIONS ABOUT ELIJAH THE FORERUNNER OF THE
MESSIAH
To complete the evidence, presented in the text, as to the essential difference between the
teaching of the ancient Synagogue about 'the Forerunner of the Messiah' and the history
and mission of John the Baptist, as described in the New Testaments, we subjoin a full,
though condensed, account of the earlier Rabbinic traditions about Elijah.
Opinions differ as to the descent and birthplace of Elijah. According to some, he was
from the land of Gilead (Bemid. R. 14), and of the tribe of Gad (Tanch. on Gen. xlix. 19).
Others describe him as a Benjamite, from Jerusalem, one of those 'who sat in the Hall of
Hewn Stones' (Tanch. on Ex. xxxi. 2), or else as paternally descended from Gad and
maternally from Benjamin.1 Yet a third opinion, and to which apparently most weight
attaches, represents him as a Levite, and a Priest - nay, as the great High-Priest of
Messianic days. This is expressly stated in the Targum Pseudo-Jon. on Ex. xl. 10, where
it also seems implied that he was to anoint the Messiah with the sacred oil, the
composition of which was among the things unknown in the second Temple, but to be
restored by Elijah (Tanch. on Ex. xxiii. 20, ed. Warsh. p. 91 a, lines 4 and 5 from the
top). Another curious tradition identifies Elijah with Phinehas (Targum Pseudo-Jon. on
Ex. vi.18). The same expression as in the Targum ('Phinehas - that is Elijah') occurs in
that great storehouse of Rabbinic tradition, Yalkut (vol. i. p. 245 b, last two lines, and col.
c). From the pointed manner in which reference is made to the parallelism between the
zeal of Phinehas and that of Elijah, and between their work in reconcil ing God and Israel,
and bringing the latter to repentance, we may gather alike the origin of this tradition and
its deeper meaning.2
1. This question is fully discussed in Ber. R. 71 towards the close. Comp. also Shem. R.
40. For fuller details we refer t o our remarks on Gen. xlix. 19 in Appendix IX.
2. I cannot agree with either of the explanations of this passage offered by Castelli (Il
Messia, p. 199), whose citation is scarcely as accurate as usually. The passage quoted is
in the Par. Pinchas, opening lines.
For (as fully explained in Book II. ch. v.) it is one of the principles frequently expressed
by the ancient Synagogue, in its deeper perception of the unity and import of the Old
Testament, that the miraculous events and Divine interpositions of Israel's earlier history
would be re-enacted, only with wider application, in Messianic days. If this idea underlay
the parallelism between Phinehas and Elijah, it is still more fully carried out in that