“‘Behold, the days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘When I will raise up for David a righteous Sprout; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land'” (Jer 23:5).

People tend to think of Messianic prophecy in the Hebrew Bible only as specific predictions about who the Messiah will be and/or what he will do. Jeremiah’s prediction of Israel’s Messiah, however, also offers us important insights on the way Israel’s prophets read and interpreted the historical books in the Bible. Literally every word of Jeremiah’s prophecy has been taken from somewhere else in the Scripture, namely, stories about David in 1-2 Samuel. By calling the Messiah “Sprout” we know that Jeremiah was reading David’s last words and considered them to be Messianic (2 Sam 23:5; “Sprout” in Jer 23:5 comes from word “grow” in 2 Sam 23:5). By saying the Messiah will “act wisely,” we know that Jeremiah had been reading about David’s wisdom and regarded this royal wisdom as a significant virtue of the coming Messiah (1 Sam 18:5, 14-15, 30). By saying the Messiah will “do justice and righteousness” in the land, we also know that Jeremiah regarded David’s just and righteous reign as a prefiguration of the Messiah’s reign in the future (2 Sam 8:15).

Story-Shaped Insights

What lessons can we learn from Jeremiah way of reading earlier Scripture (i.e., 1-2 Samuel)? First, we learn to see a much larger, broader, and detailed picture of the identity of the Messiah. For if we only consider direct prediction about the Messiah as Messianic prophecy, our understanding of Messianism in the Hebrew Bible will be terribly impoverished. The so-called Messianic hope will be reduced to only a handful of verses. Second, we learn that the prophets’ inspired insights about the Messiah were informed and shaped by the historical narratives. Stories about David, and about other heroes of the faith as well, are not there simply to tell us about things which happened in the past, but also to foretell of things that will happen in the future, only on a much greater scale.

For if we only consider direct prediction about the Messiah as Messianic prophecy, our understanding of Messianism in the Hebrew Bible will be terribly impoverished.

Third, we learn to better understand why the New Testament authors regarded the Messiah as THE most important message in the Hebrew Bible. Like the prophets before them, the apostles saw, and correctly so, Yeshua’s image reflected in the stories about Israel’s heroes of the past. Reading David, the prophets and apostles saw Yeshua. By sitting down at the feet of the prophets to learn how to read the Hebrew Bible, we will learn how to read and understand the New Testament too!

“As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow” (1 Pet 1:10-11).