DISSERTATION IV. 2$9 Jewish Church, and Fleming's Christology, and Dr. Owen's Exercitations on the Hebren s, particularly the9th and 10th. IV. The " memra" or word, is sometimes described by them as the Son of God ; so the targum of Jerusalem ; God. iii. 22. " The word of Jehovah said, here Adam whom I created is the only begotten son in the world, as I am the only begotten Son in the high heaven. Allix, page 288. Dr. Affix also shews, that they called the Messiah the Son of God ; as on Ps. lxxx. 15. where the psalmist says, the " branch which thou madest strong for thyself," the targum reads the words, " for thy Son's sake," and interprets them, " even for the sake of king Messias." This seems to be intimated in other places of the targums, and in other ancient Jewish writings And it is sufficiently manifest, that the Jews, in the days of our Saviour, supposed the Messiah to be the Son of God ; Mat. xxvi. 63, 64. Luke xxii. 76: though it doe's not so evidentlyappear by any of these Jewish writings, as Dr. Allix imagines, that they believed the Messiah to be a Son in the godhead itself. This leads me on to the next particular. V. " Memra" is sometimes used by these Jewish authors to signify the Messiah. Dr. Allix bath spent a good part of his 16th chapter in the proof of this subject, and there is some weight in it: Though it must be acknowledged his proofs in this point are'not so evident and express as one would expect, nor sufficient alone to convince an impartial andclose inquirer. The learned Mr. Fleming therefore acknowledging the insufficiency of Dr. Affix's allegations, run through the targums himself, in those places where hethought it most probable to find any thing of this nature. See Christology, vol. I. page 139. and at last he fell upon some passages that seemed very plainly to relate to Messiah. One is this ; Gen. xlix. 18. My soul waits for thy Salvation, O God. Which the Jerusalem targum paraphrases thus, My soul expects not the redemption of Gideon, which is a temporal salvation, nor the redemptionof Samson, which is a transient salvation; but the redemption which thou didst promise should come through thy " memra" to thy people. Which be- ing compared' with the context in the targum, chews, that he means the redemption that should come through the Messiah. And, indeed, this is the chief proof that the targums any where by the C° memra" can mean the Messiah, viz. that what they attribute to the " memra" in one place, they attribute to the Messiah in another, for both these names are frequent in their writings. The defence of this application of the names, see in Fleming's Christology, vol. E page 141, 142. Yet this learned author would have it noted also, that there are some few passages in the targums, wherein it is as plain, that the Messiah is distinguished from the " memrá" of God, Vol. vt. T
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=