The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (CXV) Isaiah

“And I, [know] their works and their thoughts, I come to gather all the nations and tongues. And they have come and seen My glory. And I have set among them a sign, and have sent out of them those escaping unto the nations (Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, drawing bow, Tubal and Javan, the isles that are far off) who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they have declared My honor among nations.” (66:18-19)

The Creator will reveal His power also among the nations that never believed in Him as the God of Israel. They all will declare that He indeed had announced His Redemption before He revealed it to His Prophets.

“And they have brought all your brethren out of all the nations, a present to the Lord. On horses and on chariot, and on litters and on mules, and on camels unto My holy mountain Jerusalem, said the Lord. As the sons of Israel bring the present in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord.” (66:20)

This verse is a clear reference to the in-gathering of the Jewish exiles. After the final confrontation of the nations against Israel, God's revealed Presence will make the nations recognize Israel's mission in the world as defined in the Torah, and reiterated by the Jewish Prophets. Thus the nations will bring the remnants of the Jews as a present to God.

Once all the Jews gather in their land, they will bring their offerings to the Temple of Jerusalem, the holy mountain of God's house. These offerings will be presented in the clean vessel of the new consciousness He will give us.

“And also of them I take for priests, for Levites, said the Lord. For, as the new heavens and the new earth that I am making are standing before Me, an affirmation of the Lord, so remain does your seed and your name.” (66:21-22)

God will reestablish the daily offerings in the Temple of Jerusalem through the Levites and priests as of before. New offerings by the new consciousness under new heavens and in a new earth before the Creator. Again, He reaffirms it, along with His promise to make Israel His eternal nation endlessly from generation to generation.

“And it has been from month to month, and from Sabbath to Sabbath, come do all flesh to bow themselves before Me, said the Lord.” (66:23)

The Sabbath is also reaffirmed as the time and space of uniting with our God, and as the eternal bond between He and Israel.

“And they have gone forth, and looked on the carcasses of the men who are transgressing against Me. For their worm dies not, and their fire is not quenched. And they have been an abhorrence to all flesh!” (66:24)

Humankind will see the remains of men and nations as the negative traits and trends that oppose and transgress against the goodness God's Love wants to make prevail in His Creation. They will be removed from human consciousness, and such removal will be permanent and a non-dying worm, and as fire that is never extinguished.

They will be alien as an abhorrence to all flesh, for only goodness will prevail as the promised destiny God decreed for His Creation since the beginning of time. This destiny was transgressed by our ancient ancestors, but God will restore it as He affirms it.

This is the Seventh Day of God's Creation that He left for the last, as we celebrate every Friday evening to welcome it.

“For that is the source, from which to bless. From the beginning, chosen before time. Last in deed, but first in [God's] thought.” (From the Jewish prayer book)

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (CXIV) Isaiah

“Do I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth? Said the Lord. Am not I He who is causing to beget? I have also restrained, said your God. Rejoice ye with Jerusalem and be glad in her all ye loving her. Rejoice ye with her for joy, all ye are mourning for her.” (Isaiah 66:9-10)

God creates, controls and conducts His entire Creation, and wants the children of Israel to rejoice in their connection with Him that is Jerusalem, those who love her. All of the Jews who have mourned for Jerusalem must be happy and rejoice in her, for she is destined to be rebuilt along with her Temple forever. Let's all Israel rejoice in God's word and promise.

“So that ye suck, and have been satisfied from the breast of her consolations. So that ye wring out, and have delighted yourselves from the abundance of her glory. For thus said the Lord: 'Lo, I am stretching out to her peace as a river, and as an overflowing stream the honor of nations. And ye have sucked, on the side ye are carried, and on the knees ye are dandled.” (66:11-12)

The breast of Jerusalem's consolations is precisely the new consciousness that will come forth for our Redemption. Its unfathomable qualities will satiate our yearnings of the knowledge of God in which we will delight eternally in its endlessness. The expansion of our consciousness as an overflowing stream of peace as completion and totality.

The nations as our lower traits and trends will honor this new consciousness by carrying us and supporting us in our assimilation of knowing the revealed Presence of God in us.

“As one whom his mother comforts, so do I comfort you. Yea, in Jerusalem ye are comforted. And ye have seen and rejoiced has your heart, and your bones as tender grass do flourish. And the hand of the Lord has been known unto His servants, and He has been indignant with His enemies.” (66:13-14)

God's Love will be totally revealed to us as He promises in these verses. We will be comforted in unfathomable ways to be known through our new consciousness in which evil nor negative traits and trends exist no more. This reminds us Moses' plea to the Creator, quoted by king David.

“Let Your work be revealed unto Your servants, and Your splendor (lit. way) on their sons.” (Psalms 90:16)

In order for this to happen, the “indignation” of God with His “enemies” also has to occur, for this new consciousness does not cohabit with anything different from God's promise for the Messianic era.

“For, lo, the Lord in fire comes, and as a hurricane His chariots to refresh in fury His anger. And His rebuke in flames of fire. For by fire and by His sword the Lord does judgment with all flesh. And many have been the Lord's pierced ones'.” (Isaiah 66:15-16)

We must understand that God's Love is as fire, the catalyst that will transform our current consciousness tampered by darkness and negativity into the golden and uplifting qualities of Love's ways and attributes as the material manifestation of God's Love.

Fire and sword are the proper allegories to make us aware of God's power to make His will prevails. He has done it before with His messengers and Prophets that He transformed to serve Him as He pleases.

“Those sanctifying and cleansing themselves at the gardens, [one] after one in the midst, eating flesh of the swine. And of the abomination, and of the rat, together are consumed. An affirmation of the Lord.” (66:17)

Idol worship as ego's fantasies and illusions derived from negative traits and trends will disappear from human consciousness. Those are the lower ideas, ideologies, thoughts, feelings and emotions we make lead our lives as the gardens devoted to idolatry. The swine, the abomination and the rodent as symbols of the abject consciousness will cease to exist, as God affirms it.

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (CXIII) Isaiah

“I also, I fix on their vexations and their fears I bring in to them. Because I have called, and there is none answering. I spoke, and they have not hearkened. And they do the evil things in My eyes, and on that which I desired not, [they have] fixed.” (66:4)

Here is another reminder that even our worst nightmares are part of God's creation. He takes credit for our vexations and fears as we trapped our consciousness in ego's fantasies and illusions. Hence we see that our own creations come back to us as the natural outcome of cause and effect.

God calls on us in the innermost goodness of our existence, to point out our stubbornness that even if we are fully aware that our happiness and fulfillment are in Love's ways and attributes, we don't choose back to them. We rather live in what is contrary to our essence and true identity, that which is evil in God's eyes. We entrapped ourselves in the fixation of fantasies and illusions.

“Hear a word of the Lord, ye who are trembling unto His word. Said have your brethren who are hating you, who are driving you out, because of My Name: 'Honored is the Lord, and we look on your joy', but they are ashamed.” (66:5)

The Prophet refers in this verse to those who emulate and delight themselves in the ways of the nations, Jews and non Jews. Isaiah warns those who live by and in God's ways, attributes and commandments, the ones who tremble at His word to be aware of those who hate them and want to drive them out of their land.

This is what the nations as negative traits and trends want by keeping us away from what is opposite to them. We see this in the international alliance that pretends to restrain the Jewish presence in the land of Israel, to divide Jerusalem and to oppose the reconstruction of its Temple.

The message is for the Jewish people to trust or follow the ways of our enemies, for ultimately these are the ones that will be ashamed of their antisemitism when the Final Redemption arrives. They call on the Name of the Lord, but they hate us. The same goes for those among our brethren, the self-hating Jews that serve and feed the hatred of the enemies of Israel.

“A voice of noise is from the city, a voice from the temple, the voice of the Lord giving retribution to His enemies. Before she is pained she has brought forth. Before a pang comes to her, she has delivered a male [Israel]. Who has heard anything like this? Who has seen anything like these [the children of Israel]? Is earth caused to bring forth in one day? Born is a nation at once? For she has been pained, Zion also has borne her sons.” (66:6-8)

Jerusalem is reaffirmed as the time and space of the awareness of our permanent connection with God. In the Temple where we bond with our Creator, He speaks to us and His voice is His will. From the Temple as the highest level of consciousness we initiate the transformation required to enter in the Final Redemption and the Messianic era. In the awareness of our connection with God we remove the dark side of our consciousness where our enemies dwell.

In this connection God gives retribution to our enemies that are also His enemies as the negative traits and trends He does not want in our lives. This removal is indeed a painful process as the pains of a woman in labor.

The Prophet refers to both Jerusalem as our highest awareness of God's Love, and Israel as the bearer of the new consciousness promised by Him. Coming to the Messianic era is a lengthy and painful process that ends as the joyful birth of a male. Hence the allusion of the earth and all that lives in it were not created in one day, and the nation of Israel that did not come to be at once.

The birth of the Final Redemption occurs as nothing previously seen or conceived, for it will be eternal. Hence its arrival requires enough time for us to learn and assimilate the goodness of Love's ways and attributes as the rules and conductors of every aspect and facet of life. These are the sons of Zion/Jerusalem, for from the awareness of our permanent connection with God all goodness is brought forth. Thus we also assimilate that Zion's sons are all the children of Israel.

The Messianic Consciousness in Jewish Prophecy (CXII) Isaiah

“Thus said the Lord: 'The heavens are My throne and the earth My footstool. Where is this, the house that ye build for Me? And where is this, the place [of] My rest?” (Isaiah 66:1)

God ask us about our bond and connection with Him, which are the foundation of our Jewish identity. The heavens represent a dimension that is beyond human understanding, for from there the Creator directs all that we perceive through our senses and conscience. The material creation is ruled by a force that transcends its limitations by time, space and vital essence. This force emanates from the Creator, and we call it here His Love. Thus we understand that the material world is His footstool, the latter as the “place” under His rule.

The Jewish people are God's messengers to make His will in the Torah prevail as He commands it. Hence He asks for our Covenant with Him that rests in the inner chamber of the place we build for Him, that represents the awareness of our permanent connection with Him. This question is about us, our Jewish identity, and the reason and purpose of our lives in world.

God asks us to return to Him, to reestablish and implement goodness as our common bond with Him. He asks us to fulfill the destiny the Torah commands us to be, have and manifest, for that is the place of His “rest”. Here we also see another clear reference --also beyond our comprehension-- to the Sabbath as a fundamental principle of the connection of Israel with God.

The answer to God's question-request is to return to His ways and attributes as our essence and identity, for by doing this we do His will. Hence the building of the Temple of Jerusalem is the material manifestation of our willingness and determination to fulfill His promised Final Redemption, and the advent of the Messianic era.

“And all these My hand has made, and all these things are, an affirmation of the Lord! And unto this one I look attentively, unto the humble and bruised in spirit, and who is trembling at My word.” (66:2)

The Creator reminds us that all that exists is the works of His will, including His Redemption as His greatest gift for eternity. For this we have to rid ourselves from the fantasies and illusions we create out of ego's beliefs and feelings of lack that lead us to haughtiness, anger, envy, lust, coveting, indifference and indolence.

In order to permanently dwell in the realm of Love's ways and attributes that characterize the Messianic era, we must empty the vessels of our discernment, mind, feelings and emotions, from negative traits and trends, and turn them into vessels of humbleness.

Only then we can fill them with Love's ways and attributes, for these only dwell in the vessels of humbleness and in the reverence we owe to our Creator. Again let king David remind us about this.

“The boastful do not stand themselves before Your eyes. You hate all workers of iniquity.” “(...) Because the wicked boasts of the desire of his soul, he blesses the covetous and despise the Lord.” (Psalms 5:5, 10:3)

The bruises of our heart and soul are the negative traits and trends we inflict in our consciousness, and in our pain and suffering we atone to finally realize that Love's ways and attributes are the true home of our happiness and joy. God sees the bruises of our afflictions and appreciates the atonement that brings us back to humbleness as the vessel for His Redemption. Humbleness enables us to tremble before God's Love and His word.

“Who that slaughtered the ox smote a man, who that sacrificed the lamb beheaded a dog. Who that is bringing up a present, the blood of a sow, who that is making mention of frankincense, is blessing iniquity. Yea, they have fixed on their own ways, and in their abominations their soul has delighted.” (Isaiah 66:3)

God warns us about playing games with ourselves, and turning hypocrisy into a lifestyle. He reminds us that Judaism as our true lifestyle opposes praying to Him while living by and in negative traits and trends. Bringing sacrifices and offerings to Him does not give us license to transgress His Commandments. This is tantamount to becoming like the “nations” that fix their own ways and rules, and delight in them.

This warning is part of the same message God gives us if we want His Redemption. Only if we are able to remove what keeps us in our own daily hell, we will be also able to enter the heaven-like times of the Messianic era.