Then Yehoshua Knowing...

What does it mean, "You will seek me and not find me"?



Yochanan/John 6

:15 

Therefore, Yehoshua, knowing that they are about to come and to seize him that they might make him king by force, departed alone again to the mountain, withdrawing by himself.



Comment

The record shows that everything that happened to Yehoshua was about the people's desire for an anointed Prophet King like Moshe. Indeed, they looked for a son of David, but one like Joseph/Yehosef, who would rule over all nations through the power of his personal righteousness and unique relationship with HaShem.

Indeed, Yehoshua would be that Anointed One, but the people would have tried to make him that King by force. This is what the rulers of the Jews who lived in the territory of Judea were determined to prevent from happening. Yehoshua, in obedience to the direct order that he received from God, his father, determined to use the will of the rulers as his own way of escaping the will of the people to make him King by force. 



Yochanan 7:34-36 based on OJB


34 You will seek me and not find me and where I am you are not able to come.
 35 Therefore, those of  the territory of Yehudah said to themselves, Where is this man about to journey that we will not find him? Surely he is not about to sojourn to the Golus, those in exile to be found among the Yevanim (the Greeks) to teach the Yevanim? [Mishle/Proverbs 1:28]
  36 What is this word which he said, "You will seek me and will not find me and where I am you are not able to come"?

Comment

This pattern of dramatic tension between the people and the rulers of the Jewish Nation around Yehoshua that was set up during his ministry to Israel on earth can be seen to repeat throughout history.  This tension was later taken over in the relationship between the people of the nations who were drawn to Yehoshua/Jesus, on the one hand, and the later rulers of the Jewish nation, the rabbis, on the other hand.  Like in the case of the Jews of the Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem, where so long as the people saw his power they wanted to make him the king of Israel by force — and the rulers determined to do whatever they needed to do to stop this — so a Christian society developed manifesting itself in forms like the Christian Roman Empire, the Crusades as well as many more subtle forms that wanted to make Yeshua/Jesus King by force.  

Against this effort, the rabbis continued to stand firm, simply by refusing to acknowledge or accept him as the king or Messiah of Israel.  And Yehoshua himself, according to the purpose of God, continued to use this effort of the leaders of the Jewish nation to his own ends.  For he will remain concealed at the right hand of God and will never be revealed by God to the world openly until Jerusalem with her Torah leaders become  ready to embrace him.  And they will not become ready to embrace him, certainly, until the many peoples who follow after him cease trying to make him to be the king of Israel by their own force.