to the Law, the Prophets and the Writings—to the whole ancient scripture of God’s people. In particular, Israel’s scriptures were pointing to one great ‘arrival’. Many in Jesus’ day were expecting a ‘Messiah’—a national leader, a warrior king perhaps. But behind and underneath this hope there was a deeper hope again. Prophets like Isaiah and Ezekiel, and in the more recent period prophets like Zechariah and Malachi, had insisted that one day God himself would come back, to ‘visit and redeem his people’.