Hosanna!

The Coming Kingdom of David, the Messiah.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the crowds shouted:

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming Kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!” (Mark 11:9–10; cf. Matt 21:9; John 12:13)

At first glance, the second line—“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”—might seem to acclaim an abstract political reality detached from the man riding before them. In fact, it is a profound messianic confession. In first-century Jewish expectation, the restoration of the Davidic kingdom and the arrival of the promised Davidic Messiah were inseparable. The crowds were not blessing a disembodied purely "spiritual" kingdom; they were blessing the royal agent through whom the real, physical kingdom would come—Jesus of Nazareth.

The Jewish Principle of Agency (Shaliah)

This identification rests on the ancient Jewish legal and theological principle of authorized agency (shaliah):

“A man’s agent is equivalent to himself” (m. Berakhot 5:5; b. Qiddushin 41b, et al.).

An accredited representative acts with the full authority and legal identity of the one who sent him. When the sender is God and the mission is the establishment of the kingdom promised to David (2 Samuel 7), the agent—the Messianic Son of David—is functionally identified with the kingdom itself.

The kingdom does not literally descend from heaven (as some disembodied cloud or light), the Kingdom will be established when God’s appointed Davidic vice-regent is revealed and enthroned. That is why the crowd can look straight at Jesus—fulfilling Zechariah 9:9—and cry:

“Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

In their enrapture, the future kingdom of God is not detached from the person before them; the royal agent and the kingdom he will establish are one.

The Messiah as "David"

The prophetic hope repeatedly portrays the future Davidic ruler not merely as David’s successor, but as “David” himself raised up in the latter days:

• Hosea 3:5 – “Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king…”

• Jeremiah 30:9 – “They shall serve the LORD their God and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.”

• Ezekiel 34:23–24; 37:24–25 – God will appoint “my servant David” as the single shepherd and everlasting prince over a reunited Israel.

In these texts, “David” is clearly not the historical king (who died centuries earlier) but the promised descendant who so perfectly fulfills the Davidic covenant that the prophets can typologically call him “David” (just as Elijah typologically stands for John the Baptist or the coming prophet). The Aramaic Targums consistently render such passages as referring to “King Messiah” or “the Messiah, son of David.”

Jeremiah 30:9 is especially striking. The restored people “shall serve the LORD their God and David their king.” The parallel is deliberate: serving Yahweh and serving the Davidic king are placed on the same plane. Therefore, Yahweh and David are inseparable. A few verses later (30:21), this ruler is described as one who arises “from among them,” a “majestic one” (’addîr) whose heart is bold enough to “approach” God on behalf of the people—an extraordinary fusion of the sender and the one he sends shown through covenant agency.

David himself serves as the great biblical type of this coming deliverer-king: rejected and persecuted (hunted by Saul; struck on the cheek, Micah 5:1) before final exaltation and enthronement. The Messiah will recapitulate and surpass David’s story, shepherding Israel (Ezek 34), executing justice and righteousness (Jer. 23:5), reuniting the tribes, and reigning forever in a kingdom of unsurpassed glory (Isa 9:7; 11:1–10; 55:3–5).

Conclusion

Mark 11:10 is therefore far more than empty enthusiastic crowd noise. It is a theologically loaded confession rooted in Israel’s past promises and the Jewish understanding of divinely authorized agency. By the consistent logic of the shaliah principle, “the coming kingdom of our father David” and the coming of Jesus the Davidic Messiah herald the one and the same event.

The crowds—whether they fully understood the implications or not—proclaimed nothing less than the coming of the Kingdom of God through its ultimate Agent, the humble yet triumphant Son of David now riding into the royal city to claim his throne.

Two millennia later, that messianic shout still echoes. As Christians await “the great and awesome day of the LORD” (Joel 2:31; Mal. 4:5), the apostles and churches around the world add their voices to the ancient cry, exclaiming:

"Maranatha!" (1Cor 16:22)

“Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20)