The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan does not describe a gentle Messiah. It describes a warrior king who ends the reign of tyrants. "How beauteous is the King, the Meshiha who will arise from the house of Jehuda! He hath girded his loins, and descended, and arrayed the battle against his adversaries" (Genesis 49:11).

The image comes from the Hebrew verse about Judah "washing his garments in wine" — a line that already hinted at a winepress of judgment (echoed in Isaiah 63:1-3, where the Holy One comes from Edom with garments stained like one who treads grapes). The Aramaic makes the picture explicit. The Messiah's robes are soaked because he has just ended a war.

"Slaying kings with their rulers; neither is there any king or ruler who shall stand before him. The mountains become red with the blood of their slain; his garments, dipped in blood, are like the outpressed juice of grapes."

The vision is fierce, but it is not bloodlust. In Jewish tradition, the Messiah does not inaugurate his reign by asking the wicked to reform. He defeats the powers that oppress Israel, the tyrants who slaughter the innocent, the empires that grind widows and orphans. Only then does peace come. The Targum's Messiah is beautiful precisely because he finishes what human justice could not.