Mashiach ben Yosef

Everyone knows the name Mashiach ben David. Fewer people know there is a second Mashiach in the Gemara, the son of Yosef, and that the prophet Zechariah saw him.

Four craftsmen

Zechariah is shown four horns that scattered Judah, and then four craftsmen who come to break them. The Gemara names the craftsmen.

מַאן נִינְהוּ אַרְבָּעָה חָרָשִׁים? מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן דָּוִד, וּמָשִׁיחַ בֶּן יוֹסֵף, וְאֵלִיָּהוּ, וְכֹהֵן צֶדֶק

Who are the four craftsmen? Mashiach ben David, Mashiach ben Yosef, Eliyahu, and the righteous Kohen. Sukkah 52b

Redemption arrives as a team. Mashiach ben Yosef stands beside ben David, with Eliyahu, the man with two keys, in the same line.

The one they mourn

Zechariah describes a great mourning in Jerusalem, every family apart. The Gemara asks who is being mourned, and one answer is him.

עַל מָשִׁיחַ בֶּן יוֹסֵף שֶׁנֶּהֱרַג… ״וְהִבִּיטוּ אֵלַי אֵת אֲשֶׁר דָּקָרוּ וְסָפְדוּ עָלָיו כְּמִסְפֵּד עַל הַיָּחִיד״

Over Mashiach ben Yosef, who was killed… “They will look to me, to the one they pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.” Sukkah 52a, on Zechariah 12:10

Ben Yosef is the one who goes first and pays for the opening. The verse calls him yachid and bechor, only one and firstborn, and Moshe’s blessing of Yosef opens on that same word, bechor.

The ox and the flame

בְּכוֹר שׁוֹרוֹ הָדָר לוֹ וְקַרְנֵי רְאֵם קַרְנָיו בָּהֶם עַמִּים יְנַגַּח יַחְדָּו אַפְסֵי אָרֶץ

His firstborn ox, majesty is his, and his horns are the horns of a wild ox; with them he gores the nations together, to the ends of the earth. Devarim 33:17, Moshe’s blessing of Yosef

Four horns scattered Judah in Zechariah. Yosef is blessed with horns of his own. The craftsman who breaks the horns comes from the tribe that carries them.

וְהָיָה בֵית יַעֲקֹב אֵשׁ וּבֵית יוֹסֵף לֶהָבָה וּבֵית עֵשָׂו לְקַשׁ

The house of Yaakov will be a fire, the house of Yosef a flame, and the house of Esav straw. Ovadiah 1:18

Yaakov is the fire. Yosef is the flame, the part that leaps and reaches. Anyone who lights a wick knows the difference: the fire is in the oil, and the flame is what you see.

Yosef is Zion

יוֹסֵף and צִיּוֹן share a number: 156. The dreamer and the place the world was founded from carry the same count.

וַתִּקְרָא אֶת שְׁמוֹ יוֹסֵף לֵאמֹר יֹסֵף ה׳ לִי בֵּן אַחֵר

She named him Yosef, saying: may Hashem add for me another son. Bereishit 30:24

His name is a request for one more. The author reads that as the key to the two Mashiachs: ben Yosef and ben David are two faces of one redemption, and Mashiach ben David is himself also ben Yosef. Yosef the dreamer hints at it in the first book, and the series builds toward it. The reading is the author’s own and is marked as his.