s glory, and all evil will pass away before his face and depart; but the
word of the Son of Man will be strong before the Lord of Spirits.

[Sidenote: Enoch 51:1, 2]
And in those days will the earth also give back those who are treasured up
within it, and Sheol also will give back that which it has received, and
hell will give back that which it owes. And he will choose the righteous
and holy from among them; for the day of their redemption is at hand.

I. The Growth of Israel's Messianic Hopes. Eternal hopefulness is a
marked characteristic of the Hebrew race. Throughout most of their history
the greater the calamities that overtook them the greater was their
assurance that these were but the prelude to a glorious vindication and
deliverance. This hopefulness was not merely the result of their natural
optimism, but of the belief, formed by their experiences in many a
national crisis, that a God of justice was overruling the events of
history, and that he was working not for man's destruction but for his
highest happiness and well-being. It was their insight into the divine
purpose that led the Hebrew prophets to break away from the popular
traditions that projected backward to the beginnings of history the
realization of man's fondest hopes. Instead they proclaimed that the
golden era lay in the future rather than the past. The hopes of Israel's
prophets regarding that future took many different forms. Often the form
was determined by the earlier experiences of the nation. At many periods
the people looked for a revival of the glories of the days of David. In
later days, when they were oppressed by cruel persecutions, they revived
in modified form the dreams that had been current in the childhood of the
Semitic race, and thought of a supernatural kingdom that was to be
inaugurated after Jehovah and his attendant angels, like Marduk in the old
Babylonian tradition of the creation, had overcome Satan and the fallen
angels. Israel's messianic hopes were also shaped and broadened by the
teachings of the great ethical prophets. A growing realization of the
imperfections of the existing order led them to look ever more expectantly
to the time when the prophetic ideals of justice and mercy would be
realized in society, as well as in the character of the individual. These
different expectations regarding the future are broadly designated as
messianic prophecies. The word "messianic," like its counterpart "Messiah"
(Greek, "Chr