The "Prophecies of the Child" was written by Nachman Chatupha at the age of 12 in 497 AD, shortly before he died. He was born on Rosh HaShanah, 485AD. He gave an interesting prophecy many interpret as applying to the Statue of Liberty and its symbolic meaning, which I'll cover in Part 2 of this.
His first name means either "comfort" or "repent / regret". His last name means to snatch, pluck or RAPTURE. His last name is a word common to both Hebrew and Aramaic and it is used in the Aramaic version of the New Testament everyplace the Latin uses the word "rapture" (See my study on this for Luke 18:11 , Acts 19:29 , 2 Cor 12:2..4 , 1 Thess 4:17 , Rev 12:5). So his name could be interpreted as meaning either "Comfort of the Rapture" or "Repentance / Regret of the Rapture".
He lived in Baram of Galilee and is viewed as a prophet by Rabbinical Judaism. It is said he wrote in Aramaic because the people of his culture would not understand Aramaic and he wanted to hide the info from the unlearned. That sure is news to the history revisionists that try to tell us that Israel replaced Hebrew with Aramaic in Yeshua's time - but just one of MANY historical references to that effect. After all, most Jewish boys would be studying Hebrew at that age if they didn't speak it natively. So apparently he already knew Hebrew and enough of the differences between Hebrew and Aramaic to know how to word what he says so that a native Hebrew speaker would not easily understand it, which means minimizing the use of vocabular common to both languages.
His prophecies deal with the nation of Israel and what will happen in the End Times and the rise and fall of Armilius, the Jewish term used for the "Anti-Christ" or "False Messiah" that will rise up and rule the entire world before the Messiah sets up his kingdom on earth.
There are two different text types to his writings, and both have multiple ways what he said could be interpreted. So this leaves some ambiguity about what he really said in some places. I believe it is possible that part of the reason for this is that some of what he wrote was hard to believe for many rabbinical Jews and they re-interpreted / re-wrote what he said to better fit their theology.
His Prophecies were published in the following places:
- Shulcan Aruch, first published in 1550.
- Abraham Ben Eliezer HaLevi (1540-1600 AD) wrote a Commentary on "The Prophecies of the Child" that was published in the 16th century and recently re-published in Israel in 2005.
- Nagid UMitzvah [נגיד ומצוה], first published in 1712 AD. (Page 195 of last printing)
- Otser Midrashim [אוצר מדרשים], published in 1915 AD, reproducing what was in Nagid UMitzvah.
- Ancient scrolls prior to widespread publication
Nagid UMitzvah and Otser Midrashim agree nearly letter for letter, but the printed version from Abraham Ben Eliezer HaLevi differs from the other two in a number of readings. His prophecies are very poetic.
Was he a believer in Yeshua?
Nothing in his writings tell us that he did or did not specifically. However there is one passage that is of high interest to those who believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, because near the end of his last prophecy, he made this statement....
" שולטן משיח נהרה דמפרש בספרא יפח בארמילוס יהא בעפרא שביב ממרומים יפול בארמין וינער דמכעיסין בצלמין לעתיק יומין "
(From Nagid UMitzvah & Otser Midrashing, Prophecy 5:ש)The first sentence could be rendered,
The King Messiah will return from a journey.
There are more than one ways to translate this, and some of them hint at a Divine Messiah from another dimension more strongly than other potential translations / interpretations do. But I decided to keep it simple for now.
The rest says,
He will blow-on6 Armilus. He will be in the dust, surrounded10 by the Romans. He will fall in Aramia (Syria / Arabia), and he will tremble from the wrath of the Image of the Ancient of Days."
(10In the note for 10, I assumed that where he wrote שביב (flame,spark), it was a mispelling of סביב(encircle, surround, etc). If not, it was a mispelling for השביב (cause to ignite). In Aramaic and Hebrew, ס and ש can both be used to make an "s" sound .))The version of this published in Abraham Ben Eliezer HaLevi's Commentary reads a little different, but first let me focus on what this tells us about him based on the Nagid UMitzvah / Otser Midrashim version, which I consider to be the more superior version. I think the Abraham HaLevi version may have re-interpreted passages because the actual text did not make sense from a Rabbinical Jewish standpoint, although from a Messianic Jewish standpoint it might be much easier to understand what he is saying.
Note that he says:
- Calls the Messiah the "Image of the Ancient of Days"
- Describes him as blowing on Armilius (the false prophet or "lawless one")
The term "Image of God" was used by Philo (20BC-40AD), who believed the Messiah to be the Divine Son of God, and called Him the "Word" or the "Image" of God in various places, even though Philo did not believe that Yeshua was the Messiah, since his theology denies certain basic Christian elements of faith. For example, Philo claimed that the Messiah could not die. But Philo still had the same concept of the Messiah as Christians who believe that the Messiah is the Divine Son of God. Nachman would appear to at least have the same concept of the Messiah as Philo, if not the same concept of Messiah as Christianity.
While the New Testament says in 2 Thess 2:8 that "the lawless one will be revealed that the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth", it is not the only place where he could have gotten the idea that the Messiah will "blow on Armilius". Isa 11:2 reads like this,
- "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked" (Masoret Isa 11:2)
But some copies of Targum Yochanan render it this way in Aramaic...
- "...with the breath of his lips He will slay the evil Armilius." (Aramaic Targum Johnathon/Yochanon)
In other words, Targum Johnathon is interpretting "wicked" as not being a multitude of various wicked people, but a specific wicked person, namely, Armilius. But if this tradition is where Nachman got the idea, it is still clear that Isa 11:2 is talking about G-d in the passage. So if he got the idea from Isaiah 11, it means that he sees the Messiah as being G-d in the flesh. If he got the idea from the New Testament, obviously he believes in the idea that Yeshua is the Messiah. If he got the idea from a vision or personal prophetic source, then he is confirming the validity of the New Testament as an indepedent source. So whatever the case might be, this passage is very striking.
Orthodox Judaism might try to interpret the phrase "צלמין לעתיק יומין " to mean "images to the Ancient of Days" rather than "Image of the Ancient of Days". However, that interpretation does not fit with the rest of the sentence describing Armilius as "trembling" from it's wrath. He's not going to be afraid of anyone, let alone a statue. But that is why the Rabbinical tradition changes the word "tremble" as well. This may or may not have had an effect on why Abraham ben Eliezer HaLevi interpretted the handwriting of the manuscript differently than Nagid UMitzvah / Oster Midrashim by rendering this passages as,
"שולטן משיח נהרא דמפרש בספרא יפח בארמילוס ויהא שביב ממרומין יפול באומין ויבער דאכעסון בצלמין לעתיק יומין"
(נבואת הילד דף נז, תשס״ה/2005)There are multiple differences between how Abraham interprets the manuscript and how Otser Midrashim interprets it. For example, Otser Midrashim says Armilus will die in "Aramia", which could refer to any Aramaic speaking region of his day, which would now be thought of as "Arabia" or "The Mid-East" in modern English terminology. Abraham ben Eliezer HaLevi interpretted the handwriting as saying he would die in "Oman". The difference in Aramaic is simply the differencfe between "אומין" and "ארמין" or whether the scribe wrote "ו" or "ר". Both can look similar depending on a person's handwriting.
HaLevi renders "בער" (burn) where other sources renders "נער" (tremble), which could be purely a difference of interpretting the handwriting. HaLevi comments on this passage to say that fire would come down from heaven to kill Armilus, but this interpretation conflicts with Targum Johnathon, and the rest of the passage, describing the final event as the Messiah killing Armilius with the breath of his mouth. So whether you interpret this as "בער" (burn) or "נער" (tremble) there is a conflict problem unless you accept the idea that there IS an "Image of the Ancient of Days", and that is what Nachman is referring to here. Either way, HaLevi's rendering of the passage resulted in a text that was so unnatural he felt the need to explain it to the reader.
So in a nutshell, the interpretation of this passage has enough ambiguity to it that someone could conclude both ways and conclude he probably did believe in Yeshua as the Messiah, or at least had the same philosophy as Philo. Or one could find another way to intepret this passage in line with Jewish philosophies that reject Yeshua as the Messiah, but not without a lot of unnatural explaining to do.
Commentary by Abraham HaLevi
There are places where Abraham HaLevi's interpretation of the prophecy seems as if the linguistics are driven by the interpretation. One such example would be in Prophecy 1:ע, where it says this...
ע) עפא עזא ונפל עזיזא ובטלה גיזה ודו שלטת שמיא וגזא
It shall sprout intensely and fall intensely and cease cutting and it shall rule over the heavens and cut off10.
I've translated the last (10th) word "גזא" as "cut off". Jastrow's Aramaic dictionary says "גזא" is Aramaic for "cut off" and provides examples in the Talmud. But Abraham HaLevi says "גזא" is an Arabic word and that "גוזא" is "גידון" in Hebrew. He interprets this in such a way as to draw a correlation with another prophecy by Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai about a tower falling as a sign that the end of days are near. But since this is an Aramaic sentence I see no reason to go beyond the idea that this is an Aramaic word in an Aramaic sentence.
Shalom,
Joe