RE: I would guess their aversion to Christ comes from the deep-seated Jewish belief that the messiah would be a warrior king who would destroy Israel’s enemies.
So, how do they interpret Isaiah 53 - THE SUFFERING SERVANT?
I have no idea. I’m not an expert on Judaism, and a Jew I’m sure could give you some answer.
One must keep in mind the conditions under which Christ arrived during His ‘first’ coming.
The nation was occupied by the Romans and desperately in need of deliverance from them. The people were desperately looking for the ‘warrior’ Messiah and not for the ‘suffering servant’.
Jewish theology also accounts for two ‘messiahs’, one of which is the ‘son of David’ their earlier ‘warrior king’ and another ‘Messiah Ben Joseph’ the ‘suffering Servant’.
The book of Zechariah describes both:
Zechariah 9:9-10 — A King of Peace
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
And He will speak peace to the nations;
And His dominion will be from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Zechariah 14:2-4 — A King of War
Later, however, Zechariah gives another description of the coming king, a picture quite different from that of chapter 9. Let’s take a brief look at the context for his statement:
“For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.”
This picture is very much like an epic battle scene from a movie full of bloodshed and tragedy and triumph. Then in verses 8-9 we read:
“And in that day living waters will flow out of Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and the other half toward the western sea; it will be in summer as well as in winter. And the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day the Lord will be the only one, and His name the only one.”
The Jews in Jesus’ time were looking for the ‘Supreme Ruler’ over all the Earth to deliver them from the Romans and not the High Priest to deliver them from their sins and restore their relationship to God the father.
Indeed as long as the yearly day of atonement was held in the Temple with the yearly sacrifice which ‘covered the sins of the people’ from the previous year, the Jews could see no further need for deliverance ‘from their sins’.
“RE: I would guess their aversion to Christ comes from the deep-seated Jewish belief that the messiah would be a warrior king who would destroy Israel’s enemies.
So, how do they interpret Isaiah 53 - THE SUFFERING SERVANT?”
Depends on the person, I’ve heard various approaches from Jews on Isaiah 53. The last one was that the ‘suffering servant’ is Israel itself, though there are obvious problems once you examine the actual words of the chapter.