Isaiah's Prophecies and Jewish Interpretation

Isaiah's Prophecies and Jewish Interpretation
Question from Tom Perrone on 4/11/2008:

Hi:

The Book of Isaiah contains approximately 153 prophecies that emerged 750 years before Jesus Christ. Jesus painstakingly and deliberately fulfilled every one. Do you have any insights why Jews do not identify this unmistakable link and accept that Jesus Christ is God and Savior? I do not understand how any serious Jewish scholar nor religious follower can carefully study Jesus's fulfillment in connection with Isaiah's prophecies and conclude that Jesus is merely a great prophet.

Thank you.
Answer by David Gregson on 5/9/2008:

Three reasons occur to me why the larger number of Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah. First, He didn't meet their expectations as a political Messiah, who would restore the Kingdom of David by military means. Secondly, they didn’t expect the Messiah to be God in the flesh, which is what Jesus claimed to be. Thirdly, He undermined the authority of the Jewish leadership, motivating them to seek His death.

Having rejected Jesus, the Jewish scholars were bound to interpret prophetic texts in ways that didn’t seem to point to Him. There had been a long running disagreement among rabbis over whether Isaiah’s Suffering Servant prophecies should be applied to the Messiah. If they were messianic, they seemed in conflict with prophecies foretelling the glorious reign. The Essenes solved the problem by looking for two Messiahs. The majority of Jews interpreted only the glorious prophecies as messianic, and applied the Servant prophesies instead to Israel, suffering for the sins of the world. What no one seems to have anticipated is that the Messiah would come twice.

It was Jesus who revealed that He would both suffer and come again in glory. But He revealed this only to those who believed in Him. The rest were left to their own devices, how best to interpret the Prophets without condemning themselves for their unbelief.