Malbim's Messianic Miscalculations

This article is the result of me falling down a rabbit hole. Wanna know when the Malbim says Moshiach will come and the dead will be resurrected? Read on.

This week's Torah content is sponsored by Avital, in gratitude to Hashem for completing an intense seven-week course, and with the hope that the time spent studying will now be devoted to more Torah learning.

A link to a printer-friendly version can be found at the very end, for paid subscribers only.

Lest anyone misread the intent of this image, allow me to explain: it’s is a visual representation of why I’m keeping this article behind a paywall. I do not want people viewing the Malbim this way, but I worry they might.

Malbim's Messianic Miscalculations

Preface

Let me start by establishing a firm baseline: I am not into eschatological prognostications (despite the high Scrabble value of those words). I subscribe to the methodological guardrails laid out by Rambam in Hilchos Melachim u’Milchamos 12:2 regarding all aggadic (homiletical) teachings about Moshiach and the End of Days:

As for all these matters and others like them—no one knows how they will occur until they occur, for these things were concealed even to the prophets. Nor do the Sages have a received tradition about them, but only what can be inferred from the verses. Therefore, there is disagreement about them. In any case, neither the sequence of these events nor their precise details is a fundamental principle of the religion.

A person should never occupy himself with the words of the aggados [about the Messianic era], nor should he dwell on the midrashim stated about these matters and the like, and he should not treat them as fundamental—for they do not lead to fear [of God] or to love [of God]. Similarly, he should not calculate the end times. The Sages said: “The minds of those who calculate the end times will become addled.” Rather, he should wait and believe in the general idea, as we have explained.

And yet, while researching the cessation of the korban tamid on the 17^th of Tammuz (as part of my attempt to answer the questions raised in my article, 17th of Tammuz 5783: Which Tamid Ceased? Part 1: Questions), I stumbled upon the Malbim’s extensive treatment of the messianic timeline and—for better or worse—I couldn’t look away.

I'm keeping this one behind a paywall for two reasons—and no, one of them is not “in case the Malbim got it right.” He was definitely wrong. There’s no risk of disclosing any actual secrets about the End of Days here.

The first reason is the sheer length and complexity of the Malbim’s commentary, combined with my self-imposed standards of accuracy and precision. I spent an embarrassing amount of time poring over the relevant excerpts, translating most of them, and trying to map out his chronology and the labyrinthine reasoning that generated it. I even enlisted an eagle-eyed student to comb through the entire thing with me, spotting errors or gaps in my understanding. Yet I’m still not confident that what I wrote is entirely correct. (To be fair, that might be due to transcription errors—either by the Malbim or his publishers—which result in contradictions within the timelines. At least, that's what ChatGPT insists whenever I press it repeatedly from multiple angles about how to resolve these contradictions.) Because I don’t want to put content out there unless I can fully stand by it, I’m keeping it behind a paywall. For those subscribers who have access: take what you read with a grain of salt. Trust, but verify.

The second reason may or may not be valid. I like the Malbim a lot, but what he’s written here doesn’t exactly cast him in the best light. To the uninitiated, he might come off as fanatical or foolish—like zealous Christians who try to predict the apocalypse, or our own messianic-minded coreligionists—and I don’t want to amplify that impression by exposing these (comparatively) understudied commentaries to the full light of day. Sure, anyone determined enough to find the Malbim’s views will find a way. I can’t stop that, but I don’t have to make it easy.

I know the Malbim isn’t the only one who’s tried to decode these messianic prophecies. Saadia Gaon and Abravanel did too, and I hold them in equally high esteem. That’s what puzzles me. I simply don’t understand how these great rabbis throughout the ages justified such calculations. How confident were they in their theories? Why commit them to writing? What did they hope to accomplish? How would they feel if they knew they were wrong? If their goal was to strengthen emunah (belief), wouldn’t their failure risk doing the opposite?

Maybe I’m projecting my own discomfort onto the Malbim. Maybe he’d want his predictions shared, even if they ultimately missed the mark. Still, there’s something unsettling about watching a thinker of his caliber put so much at stake and get it so wrong. And because I don’t want to diminish his stature in the eyes of readers who haven’t encountered his greatness firsthand (as I have), I’m keeping this one behind a paywall.

Malbim’s Messianic Timeline

I’ll preface this by saying that what I cite and paraphrase here amounts to only about a quarter of what the Malbim actually wrote on these topics. I’ll share bits and pieces of his reasoning to give you a taste of his approach, but my main goal is to distill the important dates in his timeline. I’m omitting most of his proofs, layers of reasoning, and instances of redundant lines of evidence. I’m also skipping his detailed discussion of the eschatological prophecies he believed had already unfolded before his time.