When we think of Methuselah, the first thing that usually comes to mind is that he lived to be 969 years old, the oldest man recorded in the Bible. I had never given much thought to what his name meant until I started this series. However, upon studying his name and how it ties to Messiah, it is sobering.
Methuselah or Methuwshelach (Meth-oo-sheh-lakh) מְתוּשָלַח was defined in two different ways, but both with the same result. According to a blog post on https://www.oneforisrael.org/ entitled, “Why Bother Reading the Lists In the Bible?” they list the meaning as “His death shall bring”. From that alone, I am sure you can guess the time of Yeshua’s life that this post is going to cover. When we look at the Brown Driver Briggs Hebrew Lexicon, we do not find this same meaning, but what is listed ties directly to the death of Yeshua.
The name Methuselah is made of two other Hebrew words. מַת [math] meaning man, and שָלַח [shelach] meaning dart. Methuselah thus translates to “man of the dart”. We will be taking a closer look at the word shelach and see its deeper meaning.
Shelach means missile, weapon, dart, or sprout, shoot. It is the word sprout that I want to look at first. In the Hebrew scriptures, there are what is known as the “sprout prophecies” and while a different word for sprout, tsemach צֶמַח is used in them, I could not help but find it interesting that the meaning sprout is tied to both words. Here is what the scriptures say about tsemach.
· Listen, cohen gadol (high priest) Y’hoshua, both you and your colleagues seated here before you, because these men are a sign that I am going to bring my servant Tzemach (“Sprout”). Zechariah 3:8
· And tell him, ‘Adonai-Tzva’ot says: “There is coming a man whose name is Tzemach (“Sprout”). He will sprout up from his place and rebuild the Temple of Adonai. Yes, he will rebuild the Temple of Adonai; and he will take up royal splendor, sitting and ruling from his throne. There will be a cohen before his throne, and they will accept each other’s advice in complete harmony. Zechariah 6:12-13
· “The days are coming,” says Adonai when I will raise a righteous Branch for David. He will reign as king and succeed; he will do what is just and right in the land. In his days Y’hudah will be saved, Isra’el will live in safety, and the name given to him will be Adonai Tzidkenu (The Lord our righteousness). Jeremiah 23:5-6“The days are coming,” says Adonai when I will raise a righteous Branch for David. He will reign as king and succeed; he will do what is just and right in the land. In his days Y’hudah will be saved, Isra’el will live in safety, and the name given to him will be Adonai Tzidkenu (The Lord our righteousness). Jeremiah 23:5-6“The days are coming,” says Adonai when I will raise a righteous Branch for David. He will reign as king and succeed; he will do what is just and right in the land. In his days Y’hudah will be saved, Isra’el will live in safety, and the name given to him will be Adonai Tzidkenu (The Lord our righteousness). Jeremiah 23:5-6
We see Yeshua-Jesus represented by the word “sprout”, and while it isn’t the same Hebrew word tied to Methuselah, I cannot believe that it is a coincidence.
Let us now turn our attention to the other definitions of shelach, missile, and weapon. I can imagine that your mind has already made the leap concerning this but let us walk through Yeshua’s last hours before His death taking a deeper look at the “weapons” used against Him.
Then, if the wicked one deserves to be flogged, the judge is to have him lie down and be flogged in his presence. The number of strokes is to be proportionate to his offense, but the maximum number is forty. He is not to exceed this; if he goes over this limit and beats him more than this, your brother will be humiliated before your eyes. Deuteronomy 25:2-3
Each of the gospel accounts tells of the flogging Yeshua took, however, none of them actually speak of the number of lashes. It is believed that the number was 39 due to this scripture in Deuteronomy. We also know that Paul spoke of receiving 39 lashes five different times in his second letter to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 11:25). Although this punishment was administered at the hands of the Romans, it appears as if they followed the Jewish law concerning the number given. As the Sanhedrin believed Yeshua was a false prophet, it stands to reason they would have handed down the maximum number allowed by Jewish law.
When I stop and reflect on this moment of Yeshua’s life, I am always taken back to the scene in The Passion of the Christ, and after they led Him away, His mother on her knees wiping and cleaning up the blood. She would have been covered in that precious, life-saving blood. As the mother of four amazing boys, I cannot imagine what that moment was like for her, let alone the moments that followed, but THIS moment to watch that weapon fall upon her child over and over and knowing He had to walk this road, He had to fulfill His calling of salvation, to me it is unfathomable. Oh, how I hurt when my children are hurting emotionally, or physically and the literal, physical pain I will have in my chest for them. What a weight that woman had to bear to have to stand and do nothing as He went through the most horrific suffering one can imagine.
I must pause at this point and share something that just presented itself to me, that I hadn’t thought of or studied before writing. The first is a promise in Isaiah 54:17. No weapon formed against you will prosper and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgement. The enemy thought that he would defeat Messiah using the weapons of judgment at the crucifixion. The flogging, the crown of thorns, the nails, and even the cross itself did not prosper against Yeshua as anticipated. Instead, they brought victory and life everlasting, condemning the enemy. The second thing that came to my mind concerns His being flogged. When those lashes came down upon His back, they cut his body to pieces. It tore His back apart. It separated muscle from bone and shredded His joints, tendons, and ligaments. John chapter 1 tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” and the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 4 For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword – piercing right through to a separation of the soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” There is nothing that we will ever go through that He did not go through Himself, and just as the lashes on His back separated His flesh, the “joints and marrow”, the Word does the same for us spiritually. His Word is the sword of the Spirit, designed to cut away the things of the flesh so that we may walk in the newness of resurrected life.
One of my favorite teachings about the crown of thorns was done by Rabbi Jason Sobel. He takes this cruel weapon of mockery all the way back to Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve stole from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To Adam, he said, “Because you listened to what your wife said and ate from the tree about which I gave you the order, ‘You are not to eat from it.’ The ground is cursed on your account, you will work hard to eat from it as long as you live. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat field plants.” (v 17-18)
The Gospels tell us that a crown of thorns was woven and placed on His head and that He was mockingly hailed as King of the Jews. (Matthew 27:29, Mark 15:17, John 19:2) What they did not understand was that He was undoing the curse upon the land, He was redeeming creation as they did this. When He took that crown upon His head, His precious blood, the blood of salvation poured over those vicious and brutal thorns. The lyrics of the song say, “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow, no other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus”. t only does His blood wash away our sins when we call upon Him, but His blood also washed over all of creation, cleansing it as well.
Psalm 24 beautifully describes the King of Glory. All of creation belongs to Him. Yeshua is the King of Kings, the Eternal One, the One who breaks every curse.
1(0) A psalm of David. (1) The earth is Adonai’s and all that fills it – the world, and those dwelling on it. (2) For He founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. (3) Who may go up on the mountain of Adonai? Who may stand in His holy place? (4) One with clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully. (5) He will receive a blessing from Adonai, righteousness from God his salvation. (6) Such is the generation seeking Him, seeking your face, even Jacob! Selah (7) Lift up your heads, O gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors: that the King of glory may come in. (8) “Who is this King of glory?” Adonai strong and mighty, Adonai mighty in battle! (9) Lift up your head, O gates, and lift them up you everlasting doors: that the King of glory may come in. (10) Who is this King of glory?” Adonai-Tzva’ot – He is the King of glory! Selah
If you have ever held a hammer in your hand, and used it for any type of project, you know the distinct sound of metal on metal, driving into wood. It is hard to even imagine human skin and bone placed in between wood and nail. Again, to sit and picture in my mind that He endured this after a severe beating, and having thorns crushed into His head, is heartbreaking. It is said that all scripture is written for the sake of Messiah, and the fact He was born into a time when the method of execution was crucifixion was not a mistake. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 reads, If someone has committed a capital crime and is put to death, then hung on a tree, his body is not to remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him the same day because a person who has been hanged on a tree has been cursed by God – so that you will not defile your land, which Adonai your God is giving you to inherit. Again, we see Messiah taking the curse of the fall upon Himself by the method with which He was killed.
According to a recent Torah Portion Guide by Rabbi Jason Sobel, the word curse, qalal קָָָלַל, means “to curse, to treat lightly, to esteem lightly or to be of little or no account” and “signifies declaring something insignificant or contemptible”. (Sign up for Rabbi Jason’s Weekly Torah Portion Guide Here)
Isaiah 52:13-53 is probably the most well-known prophetic passage of scripture concerning the Messiah, but there is one verse that describes this idea of qalal or curse. Isaiah 53:3 reads People despised and avoided him, a man of pains, well acquainted with illness. Like someone from whom people turn their faces he was despised; we did not value him.
As His hands and feet were pierced, so was His side. The prophet Zechariah foretold that the Messiah would be pierced in Chapter 12 verse 10. And I will pour out on the house of David and on those living in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) a spirit of grace and prayer; and they will look to me, whom they pierced. John’s account of the crucifixion quotes this prophecy in chapter 19 verse 37, but in his vision of the Revelation of Yeshua, he once again mentions the fact Messiah was pierced. Look! He is coming with the clouds! Every eye will see him, including those who pierced him; and all the tribes of the Land will mourn him.” Revelation 1:7
Every act of the crucifixion was deliberate and intentional. Not by man, but by the design of God. Once again, let us look at it from the teaching of Rabbi Jason and his book Mysteries of the Messiah.
Every detail in Jesus’ crucifixion connects to undoing the fall. His hands were pierced because our hands stole from the tree. His feet were pierced to fulfill the promise of Genesis 3:15 that the heel of the messianic Seed would crush the serpent’s head. His pierced side made atonement for the sin of Eve, the one taken from man’s side, who let Adam into temptation. – Mysteries of the Messiah page 32
The name Methuselah is one that I will never just read and pass by again. It is one in which I will see the sacrifice of my Savior and what He willingly did to reverse the curse of the fall of man and creation. Whether we look at the meaning “man of the dart” or “His death shall bring”, we see the sacrifice of Messiah in both. Thank you, Yeshua, thank you, Jesus, for such love, for such sacrifice, and for saving a wretch like me.
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