Catholic Bible 101

21st Century Catholic Apologetics for Mary's Spiritual Warriors

Jesus Prophecies in the Old Testament

One of the ways that we know that the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit is the way that it predicts the future, known as prophecy.  There are many, many prophecies in the Bible, and some pertain to the Messiah, or anointed one, who is to come and save Israel and the world from the devil and the sin of Adam and Eve.  Below are just a few of the obvious prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus.  The fact that all of these prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus is proof positive that Jesus was the Messiah.  The odds against any one man randomly fulfilling all of these prophecies is a million to one!

 

 

One of the great proofs that the Bible is divinely inspired is that things that are foretold hundreds of years before they happen are fulfilled.  Only God could know these future events.  Here are some of them:

 

Wisdom 2: 12-20: "Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.  He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.  We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."

 

Sounds exactly like what the Sanhedrin and the Zealots said about Jesus.  And they certainly did test him with insult and torture. 

Isaiah 7:14: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. 

This prophecy foretells that Jesus (Immanuel means “God with us”) will be born of a virgin. 

Isaiah 50: 5-7: The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious, I turned not backward.  I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard; I hid not my face from shame and spitting.  For the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been confounded; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. 

Once again, this sounds like what happened to Jesus during the crucifixion.  Jesus was mocked and spit upon by the Roman guards, but yet was not put to shame. 

Isaiah 53: 1-12: Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Isaiah 53 is probably the most pointed reference to the suffering servant, Jesus, in the Old Testament.  By His stripes we are healed ! 

Isaiah 60:6:A multitude of camels shall cover you,the young camels of Mid'ian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come.  They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the LORD. 

Here we see in Isaiah 60:6 the prophecy that Gentiles shall come bearing gold and frankincense, a prophecy that was fulfilled by the 3 Wisemen at the Birth of Jesus - Gold is for royal kings, Frankincense is used during worship of God, and Myrrh is used for burial.    Interestingly, the 3 gifts indicate who Jesus really is!.

Isaiah 61:1: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,  because  he has anointed me to  preach  good  news  to  the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of  sight  to the blind, to set  at  liberty  those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."

Jesus Himself proclaims that Isaiah's prophecy above refers  to  him,  in  Luke 4:18-19. 

Daniel 7:13-14: I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man,and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Daniel's vision above references to the "son of man", which is the name that Jesus gave to himself.  

Micah  5:2  : And  thou  Bethlehem  Ephrata,  art  a  little  one  among  the thousands of Judah,  out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and  his  going  forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.

Here we see that the future ruler of Israel, will be born in Bethlehem, a name that means “House of Bread”. 

Psalm 22: 2:  O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins.

Psalm 22:7-9: But I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.  All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head.  He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him.

Psalm 22:12-19 : Depart not from me. For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me.  Many calves have surrounded me: fat bulls have besieged me.  They have opened their mouths against me, as a lion ravening and roaring.  I am poured out like water; and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels.  My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death.  For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet.  They have numbered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me.  They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots.

Psalm 22, written hundreds of years before Jesus by David, very closely describes the agony of Jesus on the cross, even down to the fact that the Roman soldiers cast lots for the clothes of Jesus. 

Zechariah 11:12-13: Then I said to them, "If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them." And they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.  Then the LORD said to me, "Cast it into the treasury" -- the lordly price at which I was paid off by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and cast them into the treasury in the house of the LORD.

Zechariah 11:12-13 predicts that the Lord would be sold for 30 pieces of silver, which came true when Judas betrayed Jesus to the Pharisees. 

Ezekiel 34:11-16:"For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.  As a shepherd seeks out his flock when some of his sheep have been scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the fountains, and in all the inhabited places of the country.] I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on fat pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel.  I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord GOD.  I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will watch over; I will feed them in justice.

Daniel 7:13-14: I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man,and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.  And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

The above 2 scriptures from Daniel and Ezekiel were fulfilled by Jesus, when he said in Luke 19:10:  "For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost."

 

2 Samuel 4-5a, 12-14a, 16:  The Lord spoke to Nathan and said: "Go, tell my servant David, 'When your time comes and you rest with your ancestors,  I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his kingdom firm.  It is he who shall build a house for my name.  And I will make his royal throne firm forever.  I will be a father to him,  and he shall be a son to me.  Your house and your kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever."

Here in 2nd Samuel Nathan the prophet is to tell David all about Jesus, which came true about 1000 years in the future. 

Zechariah 9:9: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass,on a colt the foal of an ass. 

Here we see the prophecy that was fulfilled by Jesus on Palm Sunday, when he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey.

In Deuteronomy 18, Moses predicts that the Messiah will come, and be like him.

15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed— 16 just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They have rightly said all that they have spoken. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. 19 And whoever will not give heed to my words which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.


 

 

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