Masuah

“ For our part, we cannot fly; we neither know the country, the language, nor the watering-places, and we shall not attempt it. We have plenty of different sorts of fire-arms, and your servants have often seen at Masuah we are not ignorant in the use of them. We, it is true, may lose our lives, that is in the hand of the Almighty; but we shall not fail to leave enough on the spot, to give sufficient indication to the king and Ras Michael, 62 who it was that were our assassins, Janni of Adowa will explain the rest. ”

“ The United States fulfils the rôle of the Tribe of Manasseh. Therefore, to understand the prophecies, Providence, and the present movement of nations, as well as the future lot and destiny of each, we must read the Scriptures in this light. God has made the children of Israel and throne of David His executive, in time, on earth. They are His executive for civilisation, evangelisation, order, and conquest. Through them God will conquer the world to an universal peace. As Moses was to God, so is Israel. Moses being a Divine executor, was to the people a god—so is Israel to all mankind. ”

“ If there had been no Mosaism, so to say, there could have been no Messiah. So far from being opposed either to the form or spirit of the religion of Israel, the proclamation of the Messiah was its necessary complement, and could only be intelligible by confirmation of its truth and maintenance of its validity. Christianity—belief in the Messiah—in its earlier phases, drew its whole nourishment from roots that sank deeply into Mosaism. ”

“ It is presumed to be quite safe to say, that at every period of any considerable extent of the Jewish Church, after its establishment in Canaan, and more especially after the reign of Solomon, the majority, notwithstanding the writings of Moses and the instructions of the prophets, were under great delusion and error respecting the Messiah and his kingdom; and at the Advent, those who were in the right were few in number compared with the busy scribes, the ostentatious Pharisees, and those doctors of the law who, sitting in Moses’ seat, taught the traditions and commandments of men. ”

“ But Manasseh, who became king when Isaiah was an old man, was opposed to all these new ideas. Most of the people of Judah probably agreed with him. They still clung to the belief that the one sure way for a nation to be prosperous was to offer sacrifices to the most powerful gods. Now the kingdom of Judah, in spite of all their worship of Jehovah, was still subject to the empire of Assyria. Great sums had to be paid every year as tribute. "What fools those prophets are!" men said, as they talked together in the streets. "See how much stronger the Assyrian gods are than Jehovah!" ”

“ Aaron took a tool and moulded it, and the people said, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt!"
Then they offered sacrifices to the golden calf, and feasted, and rose up to dance.
"And the Lord said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for the people have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. Now, therefore . . . let Me alone, that I may consume them!"
But Moses besought the Lord most earnestly to turn from His anger, and asked Him to remember His servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and begged Him to forgive the sin of His people. ”

“ But, to go behind even the Dean’s stand-point, we shall better comprehend the era of which, under God, Samuel was the author, by noting the immense importance of that specific Mosaic ordinance which not only made it possible, but which proves that an all-wise prolepsis governed the whole law of Moses. We generally conceive of the Mosaic system as one of unlimited hecatombs and burnt-offerings. On the contrary, it was a system restricting and limiting the unsystematized primeval institution of sacrifice, which had done its work by passing into the universal religions and rituals of Gentilism. ”

“ In the prophetic Scriptures, a divine as well as human nature is attributed to the Messiah; and yet every polytheistic idea is excluded by the assumption of his essential unity with the Most High God. It was expected that the Angel or Revealer of Jehovah, who had often before made himself occasionally visible, and acted as the Mediator between God and the people, in all their transactions, would assume human nature in the person of the Messiah, and redeem and bless both Jews and Gentiles. ”

“ When the Unseen, the Eternal, the Divine Essence, caused the Day Star of Muḥammad to rise above the horizon of knowledge, among the cavils which the Jewish divines raised against Him was that after Moses no Prophet should be sent of God. Yea, mention hath been made in the Scriptures of a Soul Who must needs be made manifest and Who will advance the Faith, and promote the interests of the people of Moses, so that the Law of the Mosaic Dispensation may encompass the whole earth. ”

“ Again Moses tells them, "Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb and a by-word among all nations, whither the [Pg 450] Lord shall lead thee." The amazing sufferings of the Jews, and their existence through them; their obstinate attachment to their own religion; and the manner in which they have constantly believed in impostors declaring themselves to be the Messiah,—must ever be an "astonishment" to all who read their history: and, whether justly or unjustly, their avarice, usury, and hard-heartedness, did everywhere become a "proverb." ”

“ The expectation of a coming Messiah was not confined to the Jews: through the long captivity of the Jews, the writings of the prophets had become known throughout many lands, and there was therefore at this time, in all the countries of the East, a general idea that a King would shortly be born in Judæa, who should rule over all the world. Balaam, who was well known in those countries of which we are speaking, had said, "there shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall arise out of Israel" ”

“ The weak Manasseh was a leader in a wide-spread reaction against the exalted religious and ethical teachings of the prophets. The old Canaanite cults were largely revived and the worship of Babylonian and Assyrian deities was introduced even into the temple at Jerusalem. Silenced by persecution, the faithful prophets and priests devoted themselves to putting the principles proclaimed by Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah into definite laws that would shape the daily life of the people. ”

“ The mosque seemed to rock with the shouts which followed these words, and as soon as the cries of the people had subsided, the voice of Ishmael, now louder and more tremulous than before, rang through its vaults again.
"Deep in the heart of man, my brothers, is the expectation of a day when the Almighty will send His Messenger to purify and pacify the world and to banish intolerance and wrong. The Jews look for the Messiah, the Christians for the divine man of Judæa, and we that are Moslems for the Mahdi and the Christ. ”

“ He told him that he had a son-in-law, Manasseh, who was brother to the high priest Jaddua; and that there were many others of his own nation, now with him, that were desirous to have a temple in the places subject to him; that it would be for the king's advantage to have the strength of the Jews divided into two parts, lest when the nation is of one mind, and united, upon any attempt for innovation, it prove troublesome to kings, as it had formerly proved to the kings of Assyria. ”

“ It is evident, then, that we must forsake all such imitations and beliefs so that we may not commit this error. We must investigate reality, lay aside selfish notions and banish hearsay from our minds. The Jews consider Christ the enemy of Moses, whereas, on the contrary, Christ promoted the Word of Moses. He spread the name of Moses throughout the Orient and Occident. He promulgated the teachings of Moses. Had it not been for Christ, you would not have heard the name of Moses; and unless the manifestation of Messiahship had appeared in Christ, we would not have received the Old Testament. ”

“ Being accepted as a ruler and a deliverer, he and his prophet, accompanied by the elders of Israel, presented themselves before Pharaoh. Moses announced himself as the bearer of a message to him from the Lord God of Israel, saying, "Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness". This demand astonished Pharaoh exceedingly. "Who", said he "is the Lord, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go. Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, hinder the people from their works? Get you to your burdens." ”

“ When Moses appeared surrounded with glory, and, as it were transfigured on Mount Sinai, afraid lest the Israelites, always superstitious, should consider him as a god descended upon the earth, the Lord, amid a flame of fire, declared at the same time from on high, " I am that I am, and thou shalt worship only me." Moses himself appears before the people with only the tables of the law in his hands, as if to let them know that, notwithstanding the glory with which they had seen him arrayed, he nevertheless was only the minister, and not the author of the holy law ”

“ Though he was brought up so grandly in a palace, he did not forget that he was a Jew, one of the Children of Israel. He was very sorry to see his relations so cruelly treated, and sometimes he would walk down to the part of the town where the Jews lived, and would look at them as they toiled at the hard work which Pharaoh gave them to do.
One day Moses saw one of the Egyptians being very unkind to a Jew, and he ran to them and defended the Jew, and killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand; he thought the Jews would understand that God was going to send him to deliver them. ”

“ A very strange thing happened in Jerusalem and Judah when both the good King Hezekiah and the great prophet Isaiah died and young Manasseh came to the throne. The many religious and social reforms that were instituted by Hezekiah under the guidance and inspiration of Isaiah, and which saved the country from the ravages of the Assyrian conqueror, were brought to a sudden halt by King Manasseh. ”

“ And so he called for Mosiah, named after his grandfather, and said to him,
"My son, I want you to make a proclamation throughout all the land of Zarahemla. Tell the people to assemble tomorrow, when I will proclaim that you are now a king and ruler over this people, whom the Lord our God has given us.
Tomorrow I will also give this people a name to distinguish them from all the people the Lord God has brought out of Jerusalem. I will do this because they have been diligently keeping the Lord's commandments. It will always be their name unless they become sinful. ”

“ In the Mishna [692] it is related that the Rabbi Simeon Ben Azai found in Jerusalem (2nd cent.) a genealogy, wherein it was written that Manasseh killed Isaiah. Manasseh said to Isaiah, “Moses, thy master, said, There shall no man see God and live. [693] But thou hast said, I saw the Lord seated upon His throne. [694] Moses said, What other nation is there so great, that hath God so nigh unto them? [695] But thou hast said, Seek ye the Lord while He may be found.” ”

“ I have before observed, that the sanctions of the Mosaic law, were temporal rewards and punishments; those of the New Testament are eternal. These last, as they are so infinitely more forcible than the first, were reserved for the last, best gift to mankind—and were revealed by the Messiah, in the fullest and clearest manner. Moses, in this book, directs the method in which the Israelites were to deal with the seven nations, whom they were appointed to punish for their profligacy and idolatry ”

“ This fear became real when a Jewish apostate preached to the congregation that Mahomet is mentioned in the462 Torah, and that Islam was a new, divinely announced revelation, which was intended to supersede Judaism. In addition, at just about this time, there appeared a Jewish enthusiast in Yemen, who proclaimed himself to be the forerunner of the Messiah, endeavored to instil in the Jews the belief that their affliction was the harbinger of the speedy approach of the Messianic empire, and bade them hold themselves in readiness for that event, and divide their property with the poor. ”

“ There were more Jews in Egypt and Asia Minor than in Palestine. Faction had followed faction; revolution had followed revolution till the Chosen People were the prey to any conqueror from Egypt to Persia; and so there grew up the hope of a Redeemer, a Messiah, a royal son of the line of David, to throw off the conqueror’s yoke and lead them to victory. Such a Messiah, the prophets and the scrolls of the prophets foretold. ”

“ Such a career would undoubtedly perplex and confound all the preconceived opinions of Jewish orthodoxy. The prosperity of Manasseh would have presented as great a problem to them as the miseries of Job. They looked to temporal prosperity as the reward of righteousness, and to acute misery as the retribution of apostasy and sin. ”

“ With the Talmud, the anonymous period of Hebrew literature may be considered to end. Henceforward important works are produced not by schools but by particular teachers, who, however, no doubt often represent the opinions of a school. There are two branches of work which partake Masorah. of both characters, the Masorah and the Liturgy. The name Masorah (Massorah) is usually derived from masar, to hand on, and explained as “tradition.” According to others [5] it is the word found in Ezek. xx. 37, meaning a “fetter.” Its object was to fix the biblical text unalterably. ”