Do messianic prophecies have to occur immediately or can they all be fulfilled over a longer period of time before and after his arrival?

Question

We have a wide swath of prophecies and information regarding the messianic age and the events which are to happen both prior and during mashiach.

My question is whether the timelines of such events have been established or if it is an open ended timeline?

Examples of what I mean:

• Mashiach will reign at a time where there is universal awareness and knowledge of God.
• The ingathering of the exiles back to Haaretz Yisrael.
• The world will be at eternal peace and harmony.
• Ressurection of the dead.

These are just some of the examples of the events which are prophesized to happen.

Do these events have to all happen immediately around one another or can they occur over a much longer period of time?

Could for instance, the Jews ingather and remain in Israel for 200 years. Then the world enters a period of universal knowledge of God. Then 100 years after that we attain world peace and harmony.

I'm asking if the timeline of these events all need to correspond with one another or if there can be a much wider window of time for each to happen in its own way?

Answer 1

People often confuse a lot of different parts of the future. Here's what has to happen within one lifetime: Rambam, Laws of Kings and their Wars 11:5:

If a king will arise from the House of David who diligently contemplates the Torah and observes its mitzvot as prescribed by the Written Law and the Oral Law as David, his ancestor, will compel all of Israel to walk in (the way of the Torah) and rectify the breaches in its observance, and fight the wars of God, we may, with assurance, consider him Mashiach. If he succeeds in the above, builds the Temple in its place, and gathers the dispersed of Israel, he is definitely the Mashiach. He will then improve the entire world, motivating all the nations to serve God together, as Tzephaniah 3:9 states: 'I will transform the peoples to a purer language that they all will call upon the name of God and serve Him with one purpose. If he did not succeed to this degree or was killed, he surely is not the redeemer promised by the Torah. Rather, he should be considered as all the other proper and complete kings of the Davidic dynasty who died.

So we need one flesh-and-blood human who, before dying, does the following:

• Gets Jews to keep the Torah
• Fights wars of G-d
• Builds the Temple
• Gathers the dispersed Jews

The timeline after that is a lot more open-ended.

But somebody who got the first two bullet points and then died before any of the other ones, we can't say "well they hit the Messiah checklist, and other points will happen later." Someone's only the Messiah if they hit all four.