Moses Foretold The Messiah 1400 Years Before Jesus was Born

Before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the coming Messiah was foretold in the Old Testament.  Depending on the source, it is said that anywhere from about 40 to over 500 Old Testament verses refer to Jesus Christ. (Christ is the Greek word for Messiah.) [1] 

Christianity, Judaism, and several other religions regard Moses as the human author of the Pentateuch – which comprises the first five books of the Christian Holy Bible.  Christianity’s inclusion of the Books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy in the canon of scripture testifies to our belief that these books are inspired by Holy Spirit, and that they are God’s Word. 

The NIV Study Bible dates the life of Moses from 1526 to 1406 BC.  It bases the time of Moses on 1Kings 6:1, and dates the Pentateuch to that time period. [2] 

The Book of Genesis, then, was written about 1400 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.  In the power of the Holy Spirit, Moses foretold the defeat of Satan by our Savior.  He prophesied that The Messiah would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that He would be from the tribe of Judah: 

Then the LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

Cursed are you more than all the livestock,

And more than any animal of the field;

On your belly you shall go,

And dust you shall eat

All the days of your life;

And I will make enemies

Of you and the woman,

And of your offspring and her Descendant;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise Him on the heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15 NASB)

Now the LORD said to Abram,

“Go from your country,

And from your relatives

And from your father’s house,

To the land which I will show you;

And I will make you into a great nation,

And I will bless you,

And make your name great;

And you shall be a blessing;

And I will bless those who bless you,

And the one who curses you I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

(Genesis 12:1-3 NASB)

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines.  And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you.  Live for a time in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham.  I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,  because Abraham obeyed Me and fulfilled his duty to Me, and kept My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.”

So Isaac lived in Gerar. (Genesis 26:1-6 NASB)


Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he happened upon a particular place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and made it a support for his head, and lay down in that place. And he had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. Then behold, the LORD was standing above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (Genesis 28:10-15 NASB)

 

“The scepter will not depart from Judah,

Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,

Until Shiloh comes,

And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

(Genesis 49:10 NASB)

Moses spoke of how it was Isaac’s descendants who would inherit the promises God made to Abraham:

Now Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking Isaac. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave woman and her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be an heir with my son Isaac!” The matter distressed Abraham greatly because of his son Ishmael. But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and your slave woman; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for through Isaac your descendants shall be named. (Genesis 21:9-12 NASB)

Abraham’s obedience to God’s command to sacrifice Isaac was a pattern of the sacrifice God was to make of His “one and only Son” to save us from sin and death:

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.  And Abraham reached out with his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.”  He said, “Do not reach out your hand against the boy, and do not do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”  Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by its horns; and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in the place of his son.  And Abraham named that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven,  and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,  indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand, which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.  And in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” (Genesis 22:9-18 NASB)*

 

 Do you believe in miracles?  It is a miracle that these verses have been preserved intact for us to read 3400+ years after they were written.  It is a miracle that they prophesy about events before they happened.  It is a miracle that one life, that of Jesus of Nazareth, fulfilled hundreds of prophesies given centuries before He was born in Bethlehem.  The probability of this happening by chance is miniscule.

*Acknowledgements:
All verses quoted were copied from https://biblehub.com/nasb_/genesis
The Jack Van Impe Prophesy Bible was used in identifying the verses used.
(Jack Van Impe Ministries https://www.jvim.com/ )

 

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[1] https://www.dictionary.com/browse/christ

[2] Palmer, Edwin H., et al. The NIV Study Bible. Zondervan, 1985.