Punishment for the rejecters of Jesus (pbuh)

Question:
Why were the Kafirs of Jesus not punished by God? Why there never came a storm of stones or flood to punish the Kafirs of Jesus, like in the cases of previous prophets?

Response:
The punishment mentioned in Qur’an for the Kafir (disbeliever) of a Rasul (messenger) is ignominy: “And Allah will frustrate the plans of the disbelievers.” (Qur’an; 8:18) “Indeed those who fight against Allah and His messengers are destined to be the most disgraced.” (Qur’an; 58:20) The other aspect of this decision is triumph for the messenger and his followers: “Allah has written it down: Most certainly I will prevail -- I and my messengers.” (Qur’an; 58:21) Given these decisions, all enemies of the messengers were to be punished in a way that they would receive treatment of insult and ignominy in this world and the hereafter. This punishment could take two forms: immediate punishment from God, ending the earthly life of disbelievers or insult for them from God through enabling them to survive in a manner that they get punished regularly. While enemies of Nuh, Hud, Saleh, Lut, Shuaib, and Musa, alaihissalsaam, were given to meet with the first form of punishment, the enemies of Eesaa, alaihissalaam, faced the second form of it. The manner they have been given to go through the punishment is mentioned in Qur’an thus: “And I shall ensure that those who ascribed to your (Eesaa’s) name remain dominant until the Day of Judgment over those who disbelieved you.” (Qur’an; 3:18)

The apparent reason why the disbelievers of Eesaa were given to face the second form of punishment was that the Almighty wanted their fate to remain an ongoing sign for the rest of the mankind to witness. Also, probably because the Jews, the disbelievers of Eesaa, were believers in oneness of God, even if through lip service alone, they were not punished to extinction. Moreover, since they were already being dealt with on the basis of a different covenant, which has been partly mentioned in Qur’an (see Qur’an; 2:40; 17:4), the stipulations of that covenant were followed while the general principle of the fate of disbelievers was also not ignored. And Allah knows the best.

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