Elijah, the Great Priest at the End of Captivity

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 40:10 takes the consecration of the altar of burnt offering and turns it into a prophecy. Anoint the altar, the meturgeman says, on account of the crown of the priesthood of Aharon, and his sons, and of Elijah, the great Priest who is to be sent at the end of the captivity.

Aharon and Elijah on the same altar

The meturgeman links three figures in one line. Aharon is the first High Priest, the brother of Moshe, whose sons will carry the service forward. Elijah the prophet — the fiery one who did not die but was caught up in a chariot of flame (2 Kings 2:11) — is here renamed. He is called the great Priest.

This is striking. The Hebrew Bible does not call Elijah a priest. It calls him ish haElohim, the man of God. The meturgeman promotes him. The altar that Aharon first served, the targumist teaches, will one day be served again by Elijah, returning at the end of the exile.

The end of captivity

The Aramaic phrase is sof galuta — the end of the exile. Every generation of Jews in galut, from Babylon to Spain to today, has read these words as a promise. Exile ends. The altar will burn again. The priest who walks into the future sanctuary will have Aharon's vestments and Elijah's fire.

The rabbis later taught that Elijah is the herald of the Messiah, the one who announces redemption. The meturgeman adds another role to that list. Elijah is also a priest — the one who will relight the altar when the long captivity is over.

Why the altar carries this weight

The altar of burnt offering was the outer altar, the place where sacrifice ascended in fire. Of all the sanctuary's pieces, it was the most physical, the most visible, the most bloodied. The meturgeman ties the end of exile to exactly this piece. Redemption, he implies, will not be ethereal. It will happen on a concrete altar. Someone will light the fire. That someone, the targumist promises, will be Elijah.

The takeaway: the altar consecrated in the wilderness was already prepared for its future. The fire Aharon lit will be lit again, and the one who lights it is already remembered by name.