“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, 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.’” (Mt 23:37-39)
These are the Master’s finishing words in His strong rebuke to the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem, the scribes and the Pharisees who sit on Moses’ seat. (v. 2)
The learned in Israel teach that whenever a name is repeated twice in the Scriptures, it is always an expression of great love and endearment. For example, when Abraham lifted the knife to slay Isaac on the altar, “the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham! … now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.’” (Ge 22:11-12) It was the same with Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus when Yeshua said to him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (Ac 9:4)
So when Yeshua says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem”, it is a revelation of His deep love for the city, including the religious leadership that was about to condemn Him to death. Just as Saul of Tarsus who became such a mighty instrument in His hand, the religious leaders in Jerusalem are the ones who will one day welcome Yeshua back to the city, saying to Him: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
In fact, Paul wrote that he who was such a learned Pharisee in Jerusalem and who persecuted the disciples of Messiah was as one untimely or prematurely born. (1 Co 15:8) Paul was before his time, a picture of what in the end times will happen to the learned scribes and Pharisees in Jerusalem, who sit on the seat of Moses. They are the ones destined to take the lead to welcome the Messiah back to Jerusalem! After all, Yeshua said: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” (Jn 5:46) You don’t believe in Yeshua instead of Moses, but actually because of Moses.
This means that we can expect to see a mighty work of God among the rabbis in Israel in the end times. In fact it has already begun and we need to continue to pray for it fervently with great faith.
“And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.” (Zec 12:10-11)
