Beginning with the puzzle of which “scriptures” Jesus claims direct his fate and demise, I detail the many parallels between Matthew’s arrest narrative and the Absalom revolt in the Davidic succession narrative– in both, the Davidic figure is betrayed and oppressed. After surveying Davidic messianic figures who were either the beneficiaries of divine violence or themselves militant leaders, I argued that, by contrast, Matthew draws upon a text in which David, like Jesus, suffers without retaliating, thus helping him make the case for his humiliated Davidic messiah.