third century of our era, and contains the strange and almost blasphemous notices that
the prophecy of Zechariah,17 concerning the mourning for Him Whom they had pierced,
referred to Messiah the Son of Joseph, Who would be killed in the war of Gog and
Magog;18 and that, when Messiah the Son of David saw it, He 'asked life' of God, who
gave it to Him, as it is written in Ps. ii.: 'Ask of Me, and I will give Thee,' upon which God
informed the Messiah that His father David had already asked and obtained this for
Him, according to Ps. xxi. 4. Generally the Messiah, Son of Joseph, is connected with
the gathering and restoration of the ten tribes. Later Rabbinic writings connect all the
sufferings of the Messiah for sin with this Son of Joseph.19 The war in which 'the Son of
Joseph' succumbed would finally be brought to a victorious termination by 'the Son of
David,' when the supremacy of Israel would be restored, and all nations walk in His
Light.
16. Sukk. 52 a and b.
17. Zech. xii. 12.
18. Another Rabbinic authority, however, refers it to the 'evil impulse,' which was, in the
future, to be anni hilated.
19. See especially Yalkut on Is. ix. vol. ii. par 359, quoted at length in Appendix IX.
It is scarcely matter for surprise, that the various notices about the Messiah, Son of
Joseph, are confused and sometimes inconsistent, considering the circumstances in
which this dogma originated. Its primary reason was, no doubt, controversial. When
hardly pressed by Christian argument about the Old Testament prophecies of the
sufferings of the Messiah, the fiction about the Son of Joseph as distinct from the Son of
David would offer a welcome means of escape.20 Besides, when in the Jewish
rebellion21 under the false Messiah 'Bar Kokhba' ('the Son of a Star'22) the latter
succumbed to the Romans and was killed, the Synagogue deemed it necessary to
rekindle Israel's hope, that had been quenched in blood, by the picture to two Messiahs,
of whom the first should fall in warfare, while the second, the Son of David, would carry
the contest to a triumphant issue.23
20. Comp. J. M. Gloesener, De Gemino Jud. Mess. pp. 145 &c.; Schöttgen, Horæ Heb. ii.
pp. 360-366.
21. 132-135 A.D.
22. Numb. xxiv. 17.
23. So also both Levy (Neuhebr. Wörterb. vol. iii. p. 271 a) and Hamburger (Real. Encykl.
f. Bib. u. Talm., Abtheil.ii.p.768). I must here express surprise that a writer so learned and
independent as Castelli (II Messia, pp. 224 -236) should have argued that the theory of a
Messiah, son of Joseph, belonged to the oldest Jewish traditions, and did not arise as
explained in the text. The only reason which Castelli urges against a view, which he
admits to be otherwise probable, is that certain Rabbinic statements speak also of the
Son of David as suffering. Even if this ere so, such incons istencies would prove nothing,
since there are so many instances of them in Rabbinic writings. But, really, the only
passage which from its age here deserves serious attention in Sanh. 98 a and b. In
Yalkut the suffering Messiah is expressly designated as the Son of Ephraim.