that is in Sepharad (7750 N=Spain, i. e. the Redemption will come in the days of the Spanish Jewish exiles) shall possess the cities of the South," i. e. Palestine. We are now living in the closing hour-the Ne'ilah hour-of the exile. 76 The key to the discovery of the date is found in Dan. 12.11: "And from the time that the continual burnt offering shall be taken away, and the detestable thing that causeth appallment set up, there shall be 1290 days." Abraham Halevi is quite original in his calculations. These 1290 day-years are to be reckoned not from the destruction, which occurred in 3828 A. M., but from the year 4000 A. M. It was not intended that any years of the fourth millennium should be included in the figure 1290. Accordingly we should add 172 years (4000-3828) to 1290=1462. To be exact we should add 175 years, for the continual burnt offering was actually taken away 31⁄2 years before the destruction," or in the year 3825 A. M. This would give 1465 years (1290+175) as the duration of the exile. In other words, the Messiah may be expected in the year 1530 c. E. (65+1465).78 The "time, times and half a time"79 according to Halevi, yields the same figure 1465. The first "time" refers to the Egyptian exile which lasted 430 years.80 The second "time" refers to the duration of the first Temple, which was 410 years. Hence "times" (plural) equals 820 years. The third "time" refers again to the Egyptian exile. Hence "half a time" equals 215 years. Total 1465 years. 81 76 Op. cit., p. 18a. 77 Dan. 9.27: "And for half of the week (=31⁄2 years) he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease." 78 כללן של דברים שהאלף שחרב בו הבית אין בו אפילו שנה אחת מן האלף מאתים ותשעים.... ושיעור דברי הכתוב כך הוא כי מעת הוסר התמיד ועד שיעקר השיקוץ ויהיה שומם יעברו ימים ועוד יעברו אלף שנים והוא האלף החמישי ועוד מאתים ותשעים שנה.....ויש משהוסר התמיד עד שנת מאתים ותשעים לאלף ששי אלף ות'ס'ה שנים. Op. cit., pp. 8b-9a. 79 Dan. 7.25 80 Ex. 12.40. 81 Op. cit., pp. 9b-10a. The figure "2300 evenings and mornings "82 is to be interpreted in the same sense as the figure 1290. The 2000 years refers to the fourth and fifth millennia and the 300 years to the first 300 years of the sixth millennium. At that time (i. e. 5300 or 1540 c. E.) the last act in the Messianic drama of restoration—the rebuilding of the Temple-will be accomplished. Therefore, Scriptures says: "then shall the sanctuary be victorious."83 אהיה אשר אהיה א'ה'י'ה' The figure 133584 should likewise be interpreted in the same sense as the foregoing, namely, 1335 years after the completion of the fourth millennium, i. e. 5335 or 1575 C. E. This will probably be the year of the Resurrection. 85 Having established his calculation on an adequate and "scientific" interpretion of Scriptures, Halevi now feels free to indulge himself in some Gematriot, which while not decisive are yet as "dessert to a meal." The first Gematria is TN ("I am that I am").86 The first ''''s indicates that the length of the Egyptian exile would be 210 years.87 The second '''s gives the length of the last exile, 1465 years. 88 He also found Gematriot in Ex. 17.15 (where yields the number 1460) and in Is. 34.6 ( na where =5292 or 1532 c. E.). Halevi adduces the astrological calculations of his brother-in-law, Abraham Zacuto, to substantiate his calculations. According to Zacuto, a major conjunction of the planets Saturn and Jupiter occurred just prior to the birth of Moses. Fourteen hundred and sixty-one years elapsed 82 Dan. 8.14. 83 Op. cit., pp. 12b-13b. Halevi finds a Gematria for the year 1540 in the last two words of the Book of Daniel: 1''''''n 'r'p=5300=1540 C. E. (p. 136). 84 Dan. 12.12. 85 Op. cit., p. 14 a-b. 86 Ex. 3.14. 87 This is arrived at on the basis of the permutation 32'N, N=10; n=50; '=100; n=50; total 210. 86 This is arrived at first by taking the normal numerical value of '''', which is 21. Add to this the value of the letters according to the permutation 210; total 231. Add to this the value of ''' where the equals 1000, the equals 50, the equals 100 and the equals 50=1200; total 1431. Add again the value of ' according to the permutation איבר of = 71 or 34. Grand total 1465. (Op. cit., p. 15b.) from that time until the destruction of the second Temple. A period equal in length will lapse before the beginning of the final Redemption, i. e. 1529 c. E.89 Abraham Halevi also wrote a commentary on the Nebuat ha-Yeled, "The Prophecy of the Child," an Aramaic apocalypse of unknown date and origin in which five Messianic prognostications are put into the mouth of a prodigy child named Naḥman Katofa.9 On the threshold of this eventful decade-1530-1540vested with such rich Messianic hopes by Halevi, Zacuto and, to a degree, also by Abarbanel, the two amazing figures of the 16c.-Reubeni and Molko-appeared. 3. Solomon Molko (c. 1500–1532), the Marano Kabbalist, mystic and pseudo-Messiah, whose career was contemporaneous with that of David Reubeni, applies himself in some of his sermons, which were published in 1529 under the title of Sefer ha-Mefoar, to Messianic calculations. According to Molko, Job is the prototype of Israel. The Gematria of ''''' is equal to ''" in its minor value (1919). His three friends are Edom, Ishmael and Amon. The phrase, "And the Lord returned the captivity of Job" (42.10), really refers to the captivity of Israel.91 In Job, 38.1 and 40.6, the letter Nun in the word is written short and not final. This is intended to inform us that the proclamation which the Lord will make out of the storm of the exile will concern the inverted letters of the Nun in the Torah. 92 These Nuns are found in con 89 Op. cit., pp. 14b-15a 90 In the third prophecy two dates are given: "From the South he (the Arabs) will increase and greatly will he multiply, and in the year 125 (Sel. Era 813-4) will he multiply, and in 1100 (Sel. Era 788-9) will he shine forth." Steinschneider mentions a manuscript of the Nebuat ha-Yeled in the Bodleian library, which contains the Messianic date of 1530 (Die Geschichtslit. der Juden, I, p. 170, No. 314). Halevi may have edited this Prophecy. 91, ed. Amsterdam, 1709, pp. 17a, b. 92 Num. 10.34, 36. The inverted Nuns of Numbers must have been employed as Messianic data by others also in the sixteenth century; for Abraham Halevi in his Mashre Kitrin alludes to such a practice and warns his readers against evident attempts to ascribe such interpretations to the Zohar (see p. 5b). nection with two sentences which concern the coming of the Messiah: "Rise, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered"; "Return, O Lord, unto the ten thousand of the families of Israel."93 When the two short Nuns of Job are combined with the two inverted Nuns of Numbers, thus ] and [], they form two final Mems. These Mems really belong at the end of the words "na (Job. 24.23, should be "na) and 1” (Dan. 12.13, should be ''). The final Nuns of these two words belong to the above two . Just as these Nuns were torn from their rightful place, so Israel was torn from its home, and just as these return to their proper place, so Israel will return to its home, when Elijah will announce the blessed Redemption. Just as Elihu, in the story of Job, appears suddenly, just so suddenly will, Elijah appear in Rome. Elihu, whose name has the is mentioned ,אַלְיָהוּ - אֶלִיהוּ) same letters as that of Elijah seven times in Job referring to the 7,000 years of the world's duration. Five times the name Elihu is written with an Aleph (T), pointing to the fifth millennium, at the close of which Elijah will appear. When you take the value of the two inverted Nuns and add to it the value of the two small Nuns of » plus the two Nuns of Numbers, which are out of their place, which together equal 300 (50x6=300), and add the sum to 5,000 A. M. = 5.300 A. M.= 1540 c. E., you will have discovered the Messianic year. Molko ends his calculations by saying: "I have no permission to reveal that which is hidden, but our deliverance is near at hand and will be revealed to all soon in our own days." 95 In a letter to his friends Molko paraphrases Prov. 3.2-18, "A time to be born and a time to die, etc.," as prophetic of the whole history of Israel, and concludes that the present time is the ab ny-the period of divine 23 This passage in Numbers was already regarded as especially significant by the Rabbis, who looked upon it as a holy book in itself (Yad. 3.5). See .שבאותה הפרשה נכללה קדושה רבה וסוד עולם :p. 2la ישי משיחו,also Abarbanel 94 32.2, 4, 5, 6; 35.1; 36.1. 95 Op. cit., p. 31b. love-in which the Lord is about to fulfil his promise of Redemption, suggested in Jer. 31.3: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with affection will I draw thee to me again.” 96 4. Mordecai ben Judah Dato (1527-1585), Italian rabbi and Kabbalist, author of Migdal David (still in manuscript), expressed the conviction that the Messiah would appear in the year 1575. His Messianic prognostications are quoted by his contemporary, Azariah dei Rossi:97 "And more particularly do we know that a famed Kabbalist and scholar, Mordecai Dato, wrote a special book named after his brother, Migdal David, in which he convincingly proved that the great hope of Israel for the beginning of Redemption and the rebuilding of the Temple will be fulfilled in the year 1575." Dei Rossi adduces two of Dato's methods of calculations. In the one, Dato bases his figure on the Messianic prophecy found in the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 28,98 and in the other on the Midrash ha-Ne'elam in the Zohar.99 The passage in P. R. E. reads: "The rule of these four kingdoms will only last one day, according to the day of the Holy One... except for two-thirds of an hour (of God)." דברי הימים למלכי צרפת quoted from Joseph Cohen's אגרת שלמה מולכו See 98 Indivin n'a abdi II, p. 106. Abraham Abulafia already spoke of the mystic significance of these inverted Nuns employed by Molko (see Arına nia’nı yav Jellinek's in Philosophie und Kabbala, I, p. 3). The number 50 seems to have had a great mystic significance, based, probably, on the "50 gates of understanding" (ny) already found in the Talmud. Philo, who was much given to number mysticism, called the number 50 "the most holy and natural of number" (De Vita Contemplativa, chap. viii). The Zohar declares that the Redemption from Egypt occurred in the "jubilee group" ( 0). The exodus from Egypt is mentioned 50 times in the Bible; 50 days elapsed from the exodus to the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai, and the jubilee period is composed of 50 years .(II, p. 85b,פ' יתרו) In later generations this belief in the redemptive quality of the letter Nun, and especially of the inverted Nuns, was still held. Moses ben Menahem, writing at the close of the 17c., declared: "All redemption and all eman .(כל הגאולה והחירות יוצאים מאלו הב' נונין) "cipation emanated from these two Nuns See л nр", ed. Dessau, 1699, p. 49c. 97 □ry 18, ed Wilna, 1865, Chap. XLIII. 98 See supra, p. 38. "9 See supra, p. 92, |