Questions Jews Ask

Orthodox Question 08: How Can a Suffering or Dying Messiah Fit with a Reigning Davidic King?

Abstract

The Orthodox Jewish objection is weighty: classical Jewish expectation looks for the Messiah to be a living Davidic king who restores Israel, builds or restores the Temple, gathers the exiles, establishes Torah faithfulness, defeats Israel's enemies, and brings the nations to acknowledge the God of Israel. Maimonides gives especially clear form to this expectation in Mishneh Torah, Melachim uMilchamot 11. From that perspective, a crucified Messiah can sound not merely surprising but self-contradictory. If the Messiah is supposed to reign, how can he suffer and die? If he is supposed to complete redemption, how can his death be followed by centuries of continued exile, violence, idolatry, and Jewish suffering?

A Christian answer must not weaken the Jewish question. Christians should acknowledge that the Hebrew Bible really does promise a Davidic ruler, public justice, Israel's restoration, and worldwide knowledge of God. The Christian claim is not that these expectations are false, but that they are fulfilled in two stages: first through Yeshua's suffering, atoning death, resurrection, and heavenly enthronement; then through his future visible return and completed reign. Christians read Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Zechariah 12, and Daniel 7 as part of a larger scriptural pattern in which the righteous representative of Israel suffers, is rejected, is mourned, is vindicated, and receives dominion. This reading stands or falls on the resurrection. If Jesus of Nazareth remained dead, Orthodox objections remain decisive. If God raised him from the dead, as the eyewitness testimony in 1 Corinthians 15, Luke 24, John 20, and Acts 2 claims, then the suffering of the Messiah is not a disqualification from Davidic kingship. It is the hidden path by which the Davidic king deals with sin and death before bringing the visible kingdom to completion.

The Orthodox Question Stated Fairly

An Orthodox Jew does not usually object to the idea of righteous suffering in general. Jewish memory is full of righteous suffering: Joseph in prison, Moses rejected by his brothers, David hunted by Saul, Jeremiah opposed by his own people, the martyrs of Israel, and the long grief of exile and persecution. The sharper objection is about the Messiah's office. The Messiah is not simply a suffering saint. He is the anointed Davidic king. If he dies before completing the messianic tasks, why should he be called Messiah at all?

That question is strengthened by Maimonides. In Mishneh Torah, Melachim uMilchamot 11, Rambam describes the future Messianic king as one who restores the Davidic dynasty, builds the Temple, gathers the dispersed of Israel, and renews Torah observance in its proper public order. He further argues that if a Davidic claimant does these things successfully, he may be identified as the Messiah with certainty; if he is killed before succeeding, he is not the Messiah promised by the Torah. This is one of the clearest classical Jewish formulations of the objection to Jesus.

Christians should not dismiss that formulation as silly or superficial. It is rigorous within its own halakhic and covenantal framework. The prophets do not present the final redemption as merely private spirituality. They speak of Zion, Jerusalem, the nations, peace, justice, Davidic rule, knowledge of God, and the transformation of public life. Any Christian answer that says, "Jesus is Messiah because he inspires people inwardly, so the visible promises do not matter," is not a serious answer to Orthodox Judaism.

The Christian answer must therefore do two things at once. It must affirm that the Messiah is truly the Davidic king who will reign, judge, restore, and bring the nations under the knowledge of Israel's God. It must also explain why suffering and death are not incompatible with that kingship. Christianity answers by saying that the Messiah's mission has an order: first the king bears the deepest covenantal crisis, sin and death; then, having been raised and enthroned by God, he will complete the visible reign promised by the prophets.

This is not an attempt to replace Jewish expectations with a gentile religious abstraction. Jesus, or Yeshua, was a Jew of Israel, proclaimed by his earliest Jewish followers as the Son of David, the Son of Man, the servant who suffers, and the risen Lord. The Christian claim is an intra-Jewish claim that later went out to the nations: Israel's Messiah has come first in humility and will come again in glory.

Classical Expectations of a Reigning Davidic King

The Hebrew Bible gives Christians no permission to erase the Davidic hope. The covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7 promises a royal house and a throne bound to God's purposes for Israel. The Psalms speak of the Lord's anointed, the king who represents the people. The prophets look for a righteous ruler from David's line who will establish justice and bring peace. Jeremiah speaks of a righteous Branch for David. Ezekiel speaks of Davidic shepherd imagery. Isaiah speaks of government, peace, justice, and the throne of David. Jewish expectation that the Messiah reigns publicly is therefore not a later invention without biblical foundation.

Maimonides gives this expectation a halakhic structure. In the Chabad presentation of Melachim uMilchamot 11, the Messianic king is described as renewing Davidic sovereignty, building the Temple, and gathering Israel's dispersed. He is associated with the restoration of Torah observance in the land, including sacrificial and sabbatical structures. In this account, the Messiah is known by accomplishing the public tasks of redemption.

From a Christian perspective, the question is not whether those tasks matter. They do. The question is whether the Bible also contains another line of expectation that must be held together with Davidic triumph: the line of rejected righteousness, suffering representation, atonement, mourning, and vindication. Christians argue that Scripture includes both lines, and that only the death and resurrection of Yeshua bring them into a coherent unity.

This is where misunderstandings often arise. Christians sometimes speak as if Jews expected only a political deliverer and Jesus corrected them by offering a spiritual kingdom. That is too crude. The Hebrew Bible's hope is never merely political in a shallow sense. It is covenantal. It includes forgiveness, holiness, justice, worship, land, peoplehood, creation, and the nations. Similarly, the Christian kingdom is not merely inward. The New Testament expects resurrection, judgment, renewed creation, and the public lordship of Messiah. The disagreement is not over whether the Messiah reigns; it is over how and when that reign is manifested.

Christianity says that Jesus already reigns by resurrection and exaltation, but his reign is not yet visibly consummated. He is already enthroned; not all enemies have yet been placed under his feet. He has already conquered sin and death in principle; death has not yet been abolished from human experience. He has already opened the way for the nations to worship Israel's God; the nations are not yet healed in final righteousness. This "already and not yet" structure is the central Christian answer to the Orthodox objection.

Why Suffering Is Not Foreign to Israel's Story

Before turning to specific texts, it helps to notice that suffering before vindication is not foreign to the Hebrew Bible. Joseph is rejected by his brothers, sold, falsely accused, imprisoned, and then raised to authority through which he saves many lives. Moses is rejected before he becomes deliverer. David is anointed before he reigns, then spends years in humiliation and danger before public enthronement. The prophets often suffer because of their fidelity. Israel herself suffers among the nations while still bearing God's election.

None of these examples proves that the Messiah must die. But they establish a biblical pattern: God's chosen representative may be rejected and suffer before public vindication. Election and suffering are not opposites. In many biblical narratives, suffering is the path by which God's servant is revealed.

David is especially important. He is anointed king long before he sits securely on the throne. Between anointing and reign comes exile, threat, apparent defeat, and refusal to seize kingship by force. Davidic kingship, at its root, already includes the pattern of the anointed one who suffers before reigning. Christians see Jesus as the greater Son of David who passes through that pattern in its deepest form.

The same logic applies to Israel's vocation. Israel is called God's son and servant, chosen to bear witness among the nations. Yet Israel suffers deeply. The nations misread Israel's suffering as rejection, but Scripture repeatedly insists that God remains faithful to his covenant. Christians believe the Messiah embodies faithful Israel. If the Messiah represents Israel, then it is not strange that he should enter Israel's suffering, bear Israel's vocation, and then be vindicated by God for the sake of Israel and the nations.

An Orthodox reader may say that these are patterns, not proofs. That is fair. Christians should not pretend that Joseph, Moses, David, or Jeremiah by themselves force the conclusion that Jesus is Messiah. The claim is cumulative. These patterns prepare a category in which suffering and divine calling can coexist. The resurrection then identifies Jesus as the one in whom the pattern reaches its climax.

Isaiah 53 and the Representative Servant

Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is central to this discussion. Christians have historically read the suffering servant as fulfilled in Jesus: despised, rejected, bearing griefs, wounded in relation to others' sins, silent before oppression, cut off from the land of the living, and afterward vindicated. Orthodox Jews commonly respond that the servant is Israel. That response deserves serious respect, because Isaiah does call Israel God's servant in nearby contexts, and Israel's suffering among the nations is a real and enduring theme.

The Christian answer should not be, "The servant cannot be Israel." A better answer is that the servant can be understood representatively. Biblical figures often embody the people. A king can stand for the nation. A priest acts on behalf of Israel. A prophet may carry Israel's burden. If the Messiah is the faithful representative of Israel, then servant language can include Israel and reach climactic personal expression in the Messiah.

There are also features of Isaiah 53 that invite more than a flat corporate reading. The servant appears to suffer innocently in relation to the sins of others. He is rejected and yet ultimately exalted. His suffering has a healing or atoning significance. He seems to have a destiny beyond being "cut off." Christians believe these features correspond with the death and resurrection of Yeshua. The point is not that every Jewish reader must see this apart from the New Testament. The point is that, if God raised Jesus, Isaiah 53 becomes a powerful lens for understanding why Messiah's suffering was not failure.

The representative idea matters for Davidic kingship. A king does not only rule over the people; he also represents them. If the people are alienated by sin, the righteous king must address that alienation. Christians argue that Jesus did this not by abandoning royal identity, but by exercising it in servant form. He reigns by first serving, suffers not as an accidental victim, and dies not as a failed claimant, but as the king who bears the covenantal burden of his people and the world.

Orthodox readers may still object that a dying Messiah is not Rambam's Messiah. Christians can acknowledge the disagreement. But the Christian question to press is this: if God vindicated the suffering servant by resurrection, would that not require reconsidering the apparent contradiction between suffering and kingship? Christianity says yes. The resurrection is God's verdict that the rejected servant is also the true king.

Psalm 22 and the Davidic Sufferer

Psalm 22 is a Davidic lament that moves from abandonment to praise. It includes public mockery, bodily anguish, surrounding enemies, and a final movement toward worship and the nations acknowledging the Lord. Christians connect it to Jesus because he quotes its opening cry from the cross and because the passion narratives echo its themes.

An Orthodox reader can rightly say that Psalm 22 first belongs to Israel's Psalter. It is not a simple label reading, "This is about Jesus only." It gives voice to a sufferer in Israel, likely within a Davidic setting. Jewish worship can use it as a prayer of distress and trust without accepting Christian claims.

Christian interpretation does not need to deny that original setting. Instead, Christians read Davidic psalms as royal and prophetic patterns. David is both an individual and the fountainhead of messianic hope. His sufferings, prayers, and deliverances become part of the vocabulary by which the greater Son of David is understood. When Jesus prays Psalm 22 from the cross, Christians hear more than a cry of pain. They hear the Davidic Messiah entering Israel's lament and trusting the God who will answer.

It is important not to rest the entire Christian case on one disputed phrase in Psalm 22 about hands and feet, because Jewish and Christian translations differ there. The broader pattern is enough: the righteous Davidic sufferer is mocked, appears abandoned, remains oriented toward God, and is finally associated with praise that reaches beyond Israel to the nations. That pattern fits the Christian proclamation of crucifixion and resurrection.

Psalm 22 also helps answer the kingship objection. Davidic identity is not incompatible with suffering. The anointed one may be surrounded by enemies before deliverance. The king may pray from weakness before public praise. If Jesus is the risen Son of David, then his use of Psalm 22 is not an admission of messianic failure; it is the Messiah's faithful prayer from within the suffering that precedes vindication.

Zechariah 12 and Mourning for the Pierced One

Zechariah 12 is a difficult passage, and Christians should approach it carefully. The chapter speaks of Jerusalem, the nations, divine deliverance, and profound mourning. It includes language about looking upon one who has been pierced or thrust through, followed by lamentation comparable to mourning for an only son or firstborn. Christian readers have often connected this text to the crucifixion of Jesus, especially because the Gospel of John echoes Zechariah in its passion narrative.

Jewish interpretation of Zechariah 12 is not uniform in every detail, and the Hebrew raises complex questions about pronouns and referents. Some Jewish readings connect the mourning to a slain figure in Israel, sometimes in relation to messianic or military contexts. Christians should not flatten the passage into a simplistic prediction. Still, it is significant that Zechariah can hold together Jerusalem's deliverance and mourning over a pierced figure. That combination makes room for the idea that Israel's redemption is connected with grief over one who has suffered.

For Christian apologetics, Zechariah 12 does not stand alone as a proof that Jesus is Messiah. It contributes to the larger pattern: the deliverance of Jerusalem, the house of David, the spirit of grace and supplication, looking, piercing, and mourning. Christians see in the crucifixion and later Jewish and gentile recognition of Yeshua a beginning of this pattern, with fuller fulfillment still future.

The text also connects suffering with Davidic themes. Zechariah 12 speaks repeatedly of the house of David and Jerusalem. The mourning is not detached from royal and covenantal identity. Christians therefore see it as another indication that messianic redemption may include not only victory over enemies but also repentance, recognition, and grief over the rejected one.

An Orthodox Jew may respond that Christian use of Zechariah 12 depends too heavily on the New Testament. Christians can grant that the New Testament shapes the reading. The question is whether the resurrection gives the New Testament writers authority to read Israel's Scriptures this way. If Jesus rose, then John's appeal to Zechariah is not arbitrary Christian invention; it is part of apostolic witness to the meaning of the crucified Messiah.

Daniel 7 and the Reigning Son of Man

Daniel 7 is one of the strongest bridges between suffering and kingship because it speaks clearly of dominion. Daniel sees beastly kingdoms, the heavenly court, and one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days. This figure receives dominion, glory, and kingship, and all peoples, nations, and languages serve him. The chapter also interprets the kingdom as given to the holy ones of the Most High.

Jewish readers often emphasize the corporate interpretation: the son-of-man figure represents faithful Israel or the holy ones, in contrast with beastly empires. That reading has real textual support. Christians should not deny it. But a corporate interpretation does not exclude a representative individual. In biblical symbolism, a single figure can represent a people, and a king can embody the destiny of the holy ones. The beasts may represent kingdoms and kings; the human-like figure may likewise represent both the faithful people and their royal representative.

Jesus' use of "Son of Man" language in the Gospels is therefore important. Christians understand him to identify his mission with Daniel's heavenly figure, but in a surprising way: the Son of Man suffers, is rejected, is killed, rises, and receives authority. The resurrection and ascension are the Christian claim that Daniel 7 has begun to be fulfilled. The crucified one has been brought before the heavenly throne and given dominion.

This answers part of the Orthodox objection. Christians do not say Jesus is Messiah instead of being king. They say he is king already, but his kingship is presently hidden in heaven and manifested on earth through witness, repentance, forgiveness, and the gathering of Jews and Gentiles to Israel's God. The final public form of Daniel 7 remains future, when every rebellious power is judged and the kingdom is manifest.

That may still be unsatisfying from a Maimonidean standpoint, which wants visible completion as the criterion. Christianity accepts the pressure of that objection. Its answer is that the resurrection is itself the decisive visible act of God that identifies the king before all visible consequences have been completed. The king has been enthroned; the full pacification of the realm awaits the appointed time.

Two-Stage Fulfillment: Inauguration and Consummation

The phrase "two-stage fulfillment" can sound like an excuse unless it is grounded in Scripture and resurrection. Christians should be clear: if Jesus simply died and his followers later reinterpreted failure as success, the Orthodox objection would stand. But the New Testament does not present the cross as success apart from resurrection. It presents crucifixion as apparent defeat reversed by God's act of raising Jesus.

The two stages are therefore not "failed Messiah, then postponed explanation." They are suffering and glory, humiliation and exaltation, servant work and royal manifestation. Luke 24 presents this pattern directly: the Messiah had to suffer and then enter his glory. Acts 2 proclaims that God raised Jesus and exalted him, making him both Lord and Messiah. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 places death, burial, resurrection, and eyewitness appearances at the center of the apostolic message.

In the first stage, Jesus deals with sin and death, inaugurates the new covenant, gathers a renewed people, pours out the Spirit, and brings the nations into worship of Israel's God. This is not the whole of redemption, but it is a real beginning. Historically, through the proclamation of a crucified and risen Jew, millions of gentiles turned from idols to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, read Israel's Scriptures, prayed Israel's Psalms, and confessed Israel's Messiah. Christians must say this with humility because Christian history also includes grave sins against Jews. Still, the worldwide turning of nations toward Israel's God through Yeshua is not a small fact.

In the second stage, Christians expect Jesus to return visibly, raise the dead, judge evil, restore creation, and bring public peace and justice. This future hope is not optional. Without it, Christianity would indeed have spiritualized away the prophets. The Christian claim is that the visible Davidic reign is delayed, not denied.

This structure also helps explain why Jesus can die and still be Messiah. Death would disqualify him if death had the final word. But Christianity says death did not hold him. The resurrection means that the Messiah's death is not the end of his royal mission. He is not a dead claimant remembered fondly; he is the living king who passed through death and now reigns.

Resurrection Eyewitness Evidence as the Christian Warrant

Everything depends here. Christians should be frank: the cross alone would not establish Jesus as Messiah to an Orthodox Jew. A crucified man, abandoned by followers and crushed by Rome, would look like another failed claimant. The reason Christians continue to confess Jesus as Messiah is that they believe God raised him bodily from the dead and that this was attested by eyewitnesses.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 is especially important because it preserves an early summary of the apostolic proclamation. Paul says he delivered what he received: Messiah died for sins, was buried, was raised, and appeared to Cephas, the Twelve, more than five hundred brothers and sisters, James, all the apostles, and finally Paul. This is not framed as a private mystical insight. It is public witness language. It names individuals and groups. It connects death and resurrection with the Scriptures.

The appearance to James matters because the Gospels suggest that Jesus' family did not straightforwardly believe in him during his ministry, yet James later became a leader in the Jerusalem community. The appearance to Paul matters because Paul had opposed the Jesus movement. These are not the easiest people to explain as wishful thinkers. Christians argue that resurrection appearances best explain the transformation of frightened disciples, skeptical family, and a persecutor into public witnesses willing to suffer for their proclamation.

Luke 24 adds the interpretive dimension. The risen Jesus teaches that the Messiah's suffering and glory were written in Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms. This does not mean every messianic text was obvious before the event. It means the resurrection opened the disciples' eyes to a pattern that had been there but was not fully understood. John 20 emphasizes eyewitness encounter, including the movement from doubt to confession. Acts 2 shows Peter publicly proclaiming in Jerusalem that God raised Jesus and exalted him as Lord and Messiah.

This is the Christian warrant for reading Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Zechariah 12, and Daniel 7 messianically around Jesus. The warrant is not that Christians prefer a suffering Messiah because it is emotionally moving. The warrant is that God allegedly acted in history to vindicate the crucified Yeshua. If that did not happen, the Christian case fails. If it did happen, then classical Jewish expectations must be expanded to include a suffering and rising Messiah before visible final reign.

Maimonides and the Christian Disagreement

Maimonides is often quoted against Jesus, and rightly so in the sense that Rambam's criteria do not identify Jesus as the completed Messiah. Christians should not pretend otherwise. In Rambam's framework, a claimant who is killed before completing the messianic tasks is not the Messiah. That is a direct contradiction of Christian faith.

The Christian response is not to say that Maimonides did not understand Judaism. He did. Nor is it to say that public messianic tasks are irrelevant. They are not. The Christian response is that Maimonides, writing centuries after Jesus and without accepting the resurrection, naturally evaluates messianic claims by visible completion in history. Christianity evaluates Jesus by the resurrection as God's anticipatory verdict before final completion.

In other words, the disagreement is not merely over a checklist. It is over whether God has already revealed the Messiah by raising him from the dead. If the resurrection is rejected, Rambam's conclusion follows logically. If the resurrection is true, then the criterion of completed visible success cannot be the only possible criterion, because God has identified the Messiah before the end of the story.

This does not make the Christian answer easy for an Orthodox Jew. It asks for a major reconfiguration of expectation. But it is not incoherent. The Hebrew Bible itself contains unresolved tensions: royal triumph and righteous suffering, Israel as servant and an individual representative, present election and future vindication, earthly kingship and heavenly dominion. Christianity says these tensions are resolved in Yeshua: the Davidic king suffers as servant, rises as firstfruits, reigns as Son of Man, and will return to complete the promises.

A Direct Christian Answer

How can a suffering or dying Messiah fit with classical Jewish expectations of a reigning Davidic king? The Christian answer is that the Messiah's reign is real, but it comes through suffering before glory. Yeshua is not presented as a replacement for the Davidic king, but as the Davidic king whose mission is deeper than political deliverance alone. He must confront sin, death, exile, and estrangement from God at their root. His death is therefore not the cancellation of kingship, but the servant form of kingship. His resurrection is God's vindication that he is indeed the Messiah and Son of God. His future return is the completion of the visible Davidic reign promised by the prophets.

Orthodox Judaism is right to insist that Messiah must bring public redemption. Christians should agree. The world as it stands is not the final messianic kingdom. War, idolatry, antisemitism, death, and injustice remain. Therefore Christians must not claim that all messianic expectation is already visibly fulfilled. But Christians also insist that something decisive has happened: the crucified Jesus was raised, witnessed by many, proclaimed first by Jews in Jerusalem, and confessed as Lord by communities that came to worship the God of Israel through him.

If Jesus remained dead, a suffering Messiah would not solve the Orthodox objection. It would intensify it. But if God raised Yeshua from the dead, then the categories change. The Messiah can suffer because he is the representative servant. He can die because he enters death to defeat it. He can be hidden for a time because he is enthroned in heaven like the Son of Man in Daniel 7. He can delay final visible redemption because mercy and mission are gathering Jews and gentiles before the day of consummation. And he can still be the reigning Davidic king because resurrection means he lives forever to complete what he began.

The Christian invitation is therefore not to abandon Israel's hope, but to see it concentrated in the crucified and risen Messiah. The king has come in humility; the king will come in glory. The servant has suffered; the Son of Man has been enthroned. The nations have begun to turn to Israel's God; the fullness of peace is still awaited. That is the Christian reconciliation of a suffering Messiah with a reigning Davidic king.

References