Whose son is Messiah ben Joseph? If you’ve read my earlier posts, you’ll know that Messiah ben Joseph is the slain messiah of the rabbis. But where does he come from? Or, to put it another way, whose son is Messiah ben Joseph?
THE SON OF JOSEPH
His familiar Hebrew name—as it appears in the Talmud and in later midrashim—is ‘Mashiaḥ ben Joseph’. This suggests that he is a descendant of the great patriarch Joseph, the same Joseph who went down into Egypt in the time of famine.
Likewise, his name is also ‘Messiah ben Ephraim’ or, in Aramaic, ‘Meshiḥa bar Ephraim’. This implies that he is a descendant of Joseph’s son Ephraim. And, if he is a descendant of Ephraim, then he must ultimately be a descendant of Joshua ben Nun. For, there is only one genealogical line descending from Ephraim to Joshua. So anyone who is a son of Ephraim must also be a son of Joshua.
THE TARGUMS
The Targum Yerushalmi to Exodus 40.11 speaks clearly of his descent from Ephraim and Joshua:
You shall anoint the laver and its base, and consecrate it for the sake of Joshua, your attendant, the head of the Sanhedrin of his people, by whose hand the land of Israel is to be divided, and of Messiah bar Ephraim, who will proceed from him, and by whose hand the house of Israel will conquer Gog and his horde at the end of days.
ותרבי ית כיורא וית בסיסיה ותקדש יתיה מטול יהושע משומשנך רבא דסנהדרין דעמיה דעל ידוי עתידה ארעא דישראל למיתפלגא ומשיחא בר אפרים דנפיק מיניה דעל ידוי עתידין בית ישראל למנצחא לגוג ולסיעתיה בסוף יומיא
Another little-known targum to Lamentations, from Ms. Moscow-Guenzburg 333, fol. 149b, strongly implies his descent from Joseph and Ephraim, when it refers to him as the ‘King Messiah of the House of Joseph of the House of Ephraim’.
MEDIEVAL VIEWS
In the early tenth century, Sa‘adya Gaon called him ‘a man from the sons of Joseph’ (Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 8.5).
Later still, Isaac Abravanel says that “This Messiah will be from the tribe of Ephraim which is from the tribe of Joseph” (Mashmia yeshu‘ah, fol. 74. col. 1). Later still, in the early seventeenth century, Naftali Hertz ben Yaakov Elchanan said, “This Messiah is from the tribe of Ephraim and from the seed of Yerovam [Jeroboam ben Nebat]” (Emeq ha-melekh, 137, col. 3). And Manasseh ben Israel says “his name is Ben Ephraim, because he is born of the tribe of Ephraim” (Sefer Mikveh Israel, Fol. 48. col.).
So it all seems quite simple. Messiah ben Joseph is a descendant of Joseph, through the line of Ephraim, Joshua, and Yerovam.
NOT THE SON OF JOSEPH
The only problem is that there are some texts which give quite a different view. Pesikta Rabbati §36 dates probably from tannaitic times, that is, from just after the destruction of the temple. This is what it says of him:
The Holy One, blessed be he, contemplated the Messiah and his works before the world was created, and then hid away his Messiah under his throne of glory until the generation in which he will appear.
Satan said before the Holy One, ‘Rav shel olam, for whom is the light which is put away under your throne of glory?’
He replied, ‘For him who will turn you back and put you to utter shame.’
Satan said, ‘Rav shel olam, show him to me.’
He replied, ‘Come and see him.’
And when he saw him, Satan shook, and he fell upon his face and said, ‘Surely this is Messiah who will cause me and all the princes of the nations to be swallowed up in Gehenna, as it is said, He will swallow up death for ever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces’(Isa. 25.8).
In that hour the princes of the nations, [the tutelary deities] in agitation, will say to him, ‘Rav shel olam, who is this through whose power we are to be swallowed up? What is his name? What kind of a being is he?’
The Holy One, blessed be he, will reply, ‘He is the Messiah and his name is Ephraim Messiah Tsidqi, who will raise up himself and raise up his generation, and who will give light to the eyes of Israel and deliver his people. (Pesikta Rabbati 36.1).
A PRE-EXISTENT MESSIAH
This is a striking text. It says that the Ephraim mashiaḥ tidkqi is a pre-existent being, who dwelt within the divine throne of glory, before he came to earth.
The text goes on to tell how Messiah Ephraim will descend to earth and endure mortal torments to atone for the sins of Israel.
The Holy One, blessed be he, made an agreement with him [Messiah Ephraim]. He said, ‘Those whose sins are stored up with you will bring you into an iron yoke and make you like this calf whose eyes are dimmed [with pain]. They will force your spirit into a yoke, and because of their sins your tongue will cleave to your jaws (Ps. 22.15). Are you willing for this?’
He replied in his presence, ‘Rav shel olam, with gladness of soul and rejoicing of heart I take it upon me, on the condition that not one will perish from Israel.
So Pesikta Rabbati does not see Messiah ben Ephraim as a son of Joseph. Rather, it sees him as a pre-existent heavenly man descending to earth to atone for the sins of Israel. Some suggest that this is a Christian interpolation in the Pesikta Rabbati compendium. But that is impossible. Pesikta Rabbati features much anti-Christian polemic. Its editor would not have allowed Christian texts into his document.
OTHER EARLY TEXTS
If we follow this up, we find that earlier texts tend to agree with Pesikta Rabbati rather than with the targums.
Sibylline Oracles 5.256–259 speaks of a man who stopped the sun ‘who will come again from heaven’. The mention of him stopping the sun shows clearly that this is a Joshua figure. (Joshua is the only person in the Bible to stop the sun, at Joshua 10:12-14.) The fact that he is to ‘come again’ from heaven, suggests that he has already come once from heaven. So this is the second coming of a Joshua Messiah who has already come once and returned to heaven.
In the third century BC, the translators of the Septuagint text of Isaiah saw the servant-figure of Isaiah as one of unknown parentage. For they translated Hebrew dor-ô in Isaiah 53.8 as “Who can speak of his lineage?” (Greek: tên genean autou tis diêgêsetai) This implies again that he is a heavenly man.
THE VIEW OF THE BIBLE
When we get to the Hebrew text of the Bible. Zechariah says that the Eternal says that he himself is pierced in the piercing of Zechariah’s Joseph-like king (12.10). In the Psalms, the ‘blessed man’ of Psalm 1 becomes the king of Psalm 2, and blurs into one called Yehoseph (Ps. 81.6), conflating Joseph and the Tetragrammaton. The ‘goings-forth’ of Micah’s Ephraimite moshel who is to be born in Bethlehem are ‘from eternity [olam]’.
And, when we arrive right back at the source, in Genesis 49, Jacob foretells that a hero will arise like Joseph. But he does not say that the hero is to be Joseph’s genetic descendant. Rather, he is to be a Shepherd-Rock from Shaddai.
For more on this subject, see my book Messiah ben Joseph (2016).
WHOSE SON IS MESSIAH BEN JOSEPH?
To sum up, rabbinic literature has two distinct views about whose son Messiah ben Joseph is. One view is that he is the son of Joseph, Ephraim, and Joshua. The other view is that he is a heavenly man who descends to earth. Both views are ancient. Yet, within the Bible itself, Messiah ben Joseph’s heavenly origins seem to be implied.