Messianic Response:

That statement is true and false, because there is a bigger picture here.

Yes, Jews have died at the hands of some sinful Gentiles; however, according to God, ALL have sinned and come short of earning God's praise (Romans 3:23). We could trace all the way back to Adam, the first sinner, and lay the blame on him. We could also lay the blame on the Jews themselves who were "dispersed throughout the nations" because of their disobedience (as revealed throughout the Old Testament. We could say that if Israel had not been guilty of sinning, then the Holocaust might never have happened, as the Jews would still have been under Hashem's protection.

Ezekiel 36:19-21: 19 I scattered them among the nations and dispersed them throughout the countries; I judged them in keeping with their manner of life and actions. 20 When they came to the nations they were going to, they profaned my holy name; so that people said of then, 'These are ADONAI'S people, who have been exiled from his land.' 21 But I am concerned about my holy name, which the house of Isra'el is profaning among the nations where they have gone.

Throughout history the Jews have always suffered and/or died for various reasons - the biggest being that Satan absolutely HATES God's Chosen and has knocked himself out to kill them off. He used that "whack job" Hitler to try to finish off the Jews for good - but God turned it around and used it for HIS glory! Yes millions died - but we have to remember: God ALLOWED it happen; nothing happens without His consent. While this doesn't seem fair, GOD is God, and we are His creation with whom He can do whatever He chooses. But, because of the Holocaust, the world briefly felt sorry for the Jews which made one of God's end-time prophecies come true in 1948 when Israel was returned to its rightful owners:

Ezekiel 36:8-10 prophesied that Israel would be restored as a nation and repopulated with its people: "'But you, O mountains of Israel, will produce branches and fruit for my people Israel, for they will soon come home. I am concerned for you and will look on you with favor; you will be plowed and sown, and I will multiply the number of people upon you, even the whole house of Israel. The towns will be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt."

The prophet Ezekiel said that the Jews would return, rebuild and repopulate their fallen cities. In 1948, there were about 600,000 Jews living in Israel. Today there are about seven million, with many more returning each year. (As an aside, many people try to make fun of believers by pooh-pooing the fact that "there have always been religious kooks telling us that the world was coming to an end, and it's STILL HERE!" They obviously didn't know that God does everything in order and in HIS timing. The world [as we know it] couldn't have "come to and end" until ALL the prophecies have been fulfilled. "The end" couldn't come before Israel became a nation once more....)

Messianic Response:

Zechariah 9:9-10 - 9 Rejoice with all your heart, daughter of Tziyon! Shout out loud, daughter of Yerushalayim! Look! Your king is coming to you. He is righteous, and he is victorious. Yet he is humble - he's riding on a donkey, yes, on a lowly donkey's colt. 10 I will banish chariots from Efrayim and war-horses from Yerushalayim. The warrior's bow will be banished, and he will proclaim peace to the nations. He will rule from sea to sea, and from the [Euphrates] River to the ends of the earth.

You quote Zechariah 9:9 and can't see that this describes Yeshua? (Check out 48 Dead-On Messiah Prophecies to see all the prophecies He fulfilled!) According to Daniel, there would be 483 years between the decree to rebuild the wall and the city of Jerusalem in troublesome times before Messiah would be cut off for the sins of the people. Exactly 483 years after the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its walls, Yeshua of Nazareth offered himself to the nation of Israel. He rode into the city on a donkey to the rejoicing of the people, just as the prophet Zechariah had predicted! He was humble, He was righteous, He was everything the Tanach foreshadowed. And He WILL rule from sea to sea to the ends of the earth when he returns to defeat the antichrist at the battle of Armageddon: See The Signs of Christ's Return, and Endtime Questions.

According to mathematician Professor Peter Stoner: the prophecies Yeshua fulfilled are "dead-on" accurate and that the probability of at least 48 OT prophecies about Yeshua being fulfilled in one person is the incredible number of 10^157 power!

Quote from Stoner:

For example, what's the likelihood of a person predicting today the exact city in which the birth of a future leader would take place, well into the 21st century? This is indeed what the prophet Micah did 700 years before the Messiah. Further, what is the likelihood of predicting the precise manner of death that a new, unknown religious leader would experience, a thousand years from now - a manner of death presently unknown, and to remain unknown for hundreds of years? Yet, this is what David did in 1000 B.C.

Again, what is the likelihood of predicting the specific date of the appearance of some great future leader, hundreds of years in advance? This is what Daniel did, 530 years before Christ.

If one were to conceive 50 specific prophecies about a person in the future, whom one would never meet, just what's the likelihood that this person will fulfill all 50 of the predictions? How much less would this likelihood be if 25 of these predictions were about what other people would do to him, and were completely beyond his control?

For example, how does someone "arrange" to be born in a specific family?

How does one "arrange" to be born in a specified city, in which their parents don't actually live? How does one "arrange" their own death - and specifically by crucifixion, with two others, and then "arrange" to have their executioners gamble for His clothing (John 16:19; Psalms 22:18)? How does one "arrange" to be betrayed in advance? How does one "arrange" to have the executioners carry out the regular practice of breaking the legs of the two victims on either side, but not their own? Finally, how does one "arrange" to be God? How does one escape from a grave and appear to people after having been killed?

Indeed, it may be possible for someone to fake one or two of the Messianic prophecies, but it would be impossible for any one person to arrange and fulfill all of these prophecies.

Messianic Response:

Remember: We are trying to figure all this out from a human standpoint. It's just like the way God sees time - "a day is like a thousand years" and vice versa to God, meaning TIME from God's viewpoint is irrelevant. He can see the present, past, and future in any order He chooses. We can't. Since Yeshua was in HUMAN form, he naturally had human feelings, urges, and desires. His soul, however, was GOD - and this is what kept Him from sinning. Deep down, He KNEW who He was and the soul part of Him was a lot stronger than the human "shell". However, when you're nailed to the cross and already in an agonizing pain that none of us could possibly understand unless we were to undergo this ourselves, our flesh is bound to respond. If you touch a hot stove, you're gonna remove your hand real fast because that's how your body protects itself. Yeshua's physical body was experiencing horrendous pain and I believe that that pain was so great that it is easy to imagine how His FLESH complained to the Godhead: "How could you DO this to me? You KNOW this hurts! WHY do I have to endure this? Why can't you just take my soul away right now so I can't feel this pain anymore? WHY did You choose ME to die at the hands of these ingrates?....."

Over the last couple of years several people have written to The Refiner's Fire about this very thing, and we have responded with the following: Is Yeshua God?. In part, the response provides this food for thought:

Jesus fully bears the judgment on sin - i.e. separation from God. Carried on Him were all the sin and the sins of humanity, the rebellion, the disobedience, the waywardness, the self-centeredness, the deception, the cruelty, the neglect - our sins, so the Godhead had to turn away for a moment. And so He experienced the darkness, "My God . . ."

• He entered the darkness so we might know light.
  
  
• He received raw hate so we might know unconditional love.
  
  
• He accepted ridicule so we might feel acceptance.
  
  
• He experienced loneliness so that we will never be alone.
  
  
• He partook of pain so we may have hope of healing.
  
  
• He experienced death so we might have eternal life.

Furthermore:

• Yeshua, as the word of God incarnate, represents God's choice to take on a human nature. In taking on a human nature, God could hunger, thirst, become tired, and even suffer a mortal death. Having human nature also implies possessing humanity. When Yeshua prays in the New Testament, it is His humanity (not deity) that prays. The notion of God calling to His own name is not foreign in the Torah. In Genesis 22:15, God swears by His own name to Abraham.
  
  
• As one scholar puts it, God emptied himself into man when He became Yeshua. By doing so, God chose to confine Himself to the limitations of man – both physical and emotional. On the cross, Yeshua calls out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Yeshua's humanity, having taken on the full burden of human sin and pain, echoes the exact words of King David in Psalm 22. God's self-limitation in human form, therefore, led to His uniquely human experiences.
  
  
• One way to conceptualize this relationship is with the human body. The mind communicates with the hand commanding it to lift a stone. If the stone is hot, the nerves in the hand will send a signal to the mind and will command the hand to retract. While in one sense the mind is separate from the hand, they are still part of the same entity. Similarly, Yeshua and the Creator are ONE entity fulfilling specific roles. In fact, God even refers to the Messiah as the “arm of the Lord” in Isaiah 53.
  
  
• It is important to remember that God takes on many forms in the Torah to communicate with human beings. God appeared as a donkey, a pillar of cloud, a pillar of fire, a burning bush, and as a man (in Genesis 18:1-2).