King of the Jews and the Jewish people

The relationship between the King of the Jews and the Jewish people is very complex and generally quite often misunderstood both by those who do believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and by those who reject that claim.

The student of rabbi Gamaliel the Elder, Saint Paul, has written significantly about this relationship in one of his major texts surviving to us in the canonical New Testament, the Letter to Romans. This is not the subject of my little study now for we know that the Jewish man from the party of the Pharisees, Saul from the city of Tarsos, was chosen by the King to tell about Him to gentiles, gojim. These were early on freed from the kashrut requirements and other Mosaic laws and are not expected to be circumcised. Christianity according to Paul is another religion, another covenant. (Apostolic decision on the matter was taken in Jerusalem perhaps in the late 40'ies after the birth of Christ Acts 15:1-35)

That the King was rejected by His people is the foundation of everything and source of salvation to the Jews and Greeks and men and women and slaves and free (Gal 3:23). This also is not the subject of the blog.


King of the Jews speaks to His people  
In Luke 21:20-24 His Majesty speaks in most severe way to the people who have rejected Him but the sad text has a magnificent ending


Destruction of the city of the Great King, Jerusalem, by the Romans
“When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 

Hatred of the Jews (anti-Semitism) and Diaspora
There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations.

Crucial role of the Jews in world history
Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.


Times of the Gentiles
Now there is no end of gentile people who think this and that about the role of the Jews and their national movements and religion and everything. The gojim have learned to know something about the people of God through the long years of Diaspora but mostly the Jews have kept to themselves even when not being forced to a ghetto.


There are many who do not think that the Jewish people have anymore any role in any divine plans for this planet. There are many who do think that they do have and among them some rather powerful Christian groups in the United States.


What people think is one thing.


What the King of the Jews says about His people is another thing.


He has brought them back to the Promised Land and there are preparations for the rebuilding of the House of God where it once stood and where there is now the Wailing Wall for Tisha beAv.


What are these times of the gentiles Luke, writing to a pious Sadducee, most excellent Theophilus who may be related to rabbi Gamaliel the Elder. 


Jerusalem trampled by the gentiles until their times are fulfilled.
ἄχρι πληρωθῶσι καιροὶ ἐθνῶν


kairoi ethnon - the Greek work kairos has many meanings but we might understand it here as an epoch.


The King sees world history in sequences of events centered in Jerusalem.


There is that hiatus, when His people are away, and then the city of Jerusalem will no more be trampled by the gentiles, but is back in the hand of His people.



Mysterious message
Those were told to the people and are of interest also to the gentiles.

King of the Jews has a mysterious message to His people whom they can understand but which is difficult for us gentiles to grasp in its depth.

The overall meaning is, however, clear and shows that the future of the people of Israel is in the hand of their God and it is not a future they are particularly waiting for right now and a future that is hard for the gentiles to believe.

The King of the Jews has spoken:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Matthew 23:37-39

But then they will see Him again.