Language Studies

Difficult Sayings

John the Baptist and Jesus - John is Elijah
Matthew 11:14

"And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come." (Matthew 11:14)

This particular section in Matthew, normally paralleled in Luke 7 or 16, is not mentioned by Luke. However we have the wonderful contradiction in John 1:21 when John denies that he is Elijah or the Prophet to come and in Matthew 17:12 // Mark 9:13 where Jesus says that Elijah has already come, so if he wasn't John who was he?

The Skeptik's Annotated Bible, written by a disillusioned ex-Christian, highlights this verse (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/elijah.html) as an example of a glaring contradiction, one of many that leads him to believe that the Bible is "unworthy of belief" (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/preface.html).

Lachs^F1 thinks that "If you are willing" is a Hebrew turn of phrase meaning either 'if you wish' or 'may I suggest', not necessarily implying that the hearers have to be willing in order to understand it. Although when paralleled with the stronger phrase "he who has ears to hear" in the very next verse (Matthew 11:15) it would seem to suggest otherwise. "He who has ears to hear" tends to imply "to him who has understanding", for the Hebrew verb "to hear" also means "to understand" and also, consequently, "to obey". So Matthew's Jesus is neither conveying doubt nor eliciting belief but offering a truth to be understood that not all would accept.

Jewish expectation of Elijah's return was eagerly awaited because he would presage the end. Elijah had not actually died but been taken up in a whirlwind and like Enoch who “was not” and Moses whose body disappeared, was considered one of the apocalyptic end time figures. The Apocrypha speaks of it in Sirach 48:10, again in the pseudepigraphic Enoch 90:31. The New Testament hints at it in Mark 6:14-15; 8:27-28; 9:11; 15:36 apart from the passages we've already mentioned. Similarly post-biblical Jewish literature, those unwilling to receive it in the time of Jesus, continued to discuss it (Shekhalim 2.5; Sotah 9.15; Baba Metzia 1.8; Eduyoth 8.7).

We have already noted that John denied he was Elijah (John 1:21) but this may have only been genuine or even false humility. For John visibly identified himself with Elijah by dressing in camel hair and a leather girdle (2 Kings 1:8 // Mark 1:6) and by upsetting royalty (Ahab // Herod)!

How could John be Elijah? Hebrew thought speaks of a "son of peace" as a peaceful one, a son of the prophets as one discipled in the schools of the prophets. To call John Elijah was to say that he was in Elijah's mould and character, not necessarily Elijah himself returned, let alone reincarnated^F2 .

Perhaps the solution lies in Luke who elsewhere does not reproduce the apparent John-Elijah contradiction. Luke records the angel's declaration over John's conception:

"He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." (Luke 1:17)

John is not Elijah but like Elisha and Phinehas^F3 before him had the spirit of Elijah and partially fulfils the prophecy of Malachi particularly in his preparatory "coming before" and "turning the hearts of the fathers to the children", although there is no direct evidence of the latter, just the angel's word for it.

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." (Malachi 4:5-6; cf. Ecclesiasticus 48:1-10)

John is Elijah, just as Jesus is the returning shepherd-king David foretold in many prophecies. Jesus is not David, but if you are willing, he comes in the spirit of David.

FOOTNOTES:
F1: S.T.Lachs, A Rabbinic Commentary on the New Testament, KTAV, 1987, p.193
F2: Reincarnation seems to have been almost believed by some early Christians based upon this verse, cf. Tertullian, De Anima, 35.
F3: Jewish tradition was equally happy to call Phinehas by the name of Elijah because of his zeal (Baal Hatturim in Numbers 25:12; Kimchi in 1 Chronicles 9:20; Targum Jonathan to Exodus 6:1)

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