THE BOOK OF MATTHEW
Lesson 69, Chapter 21
The first 20 chapters of Matthew have set the stage for what we'll encounter
beginning in chapter 21. Those chapters could almost be set apart and in
summation titled "How We Got Here From There". Thus far we have learned
much about Yeshua's beginnings as a newborn, His time of a blooming self-
awareness, the countless miracles of compassionate healing He performed,
His unmatched wisdom and instruction on the Torah and the Prophets that was
intended to reform the Tradition and Synagogue-based Judaism of His time,
which explains a growing tension between He and the Jewish religious
authorities that intend on maintaining the religious status quo. Finally He reveals
to His inner circle of 12 men from Galilee the divine purpose for which He was
sent by His Father in Heaven to accomplish: His death and then rising alive from
the grave in 3 days.
Chapter 21 immediately switches the scene from the road by Jericho (which was
chapter 20) to Yeshua's entry into the city of Jerusalem for the biblical feasts of
Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits. There He will meet His destiny and
change the course of human history. In doing so He will right a wrong that had
occurred in the Garden of Eden. Let's read this chapter together. Open your
Bibles to Matthew chapter 21.
READ MATTHEW CHAPTER 21 all
Bible scholars deem the opening words of chapter 21 as the beginning of the
Passion Narrative. Truly Jesus's ride up the Jericho road into the Eastern gate of
Jerusalem, from across the Mount of Olives, is the path to the cross.
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As we have done throughout our study of Matthew, it is important for a couple of
reasons that we examine other Gospel accounts (called the Synoptics) that
speak of the same series of events. It is the general academic belief in the
21
st
century that Mark's Gospel was used by Luke and by Matthew for much of
their source material. I find that to be without merit. As I have stated on earlier
occasions, not only is there no historical evidence for the claim of the priority of
Mark, but in fact, the very earliest Church Fathers say straightaway that
Matthew's was the first Gospel written and Mark came later. Nowhere within
ancient Church documents is there a claim that Mark's Gospel was first; such an
assertion is a quite recent one. Why, then, is there this widely accepted
academic mantra that Mark's Gospel is the superior and was the primary source
for Luke and Matthew? Setting aside their opinionated textual and literary
criticisms, in the end, it is because Mark's Gospel is clearly gentile oriented and
equally clearly has had some later Christian additions to it (which most of these
same Bible scholars readily acknowledge). That is, Mark's Gospel was always
intended as gentile friendly, regularly finding fault with the 12 Jewish Disciples,
and so in time it became the go-to Gospel for the gentile Church institution. On
the other hand, Matthew's Gospel was always intended for a Jewish audience,
displayed a more balanced narrative towards the Disciples, and this fact made
Matthew's Gospel kind of the red-haired stepchild for Roman Christianity that
regularly complained over New Testament books that seemed "too Jewish". As a
result, the more conspicuously Jewish-oriented books like James and Hebrews
were excluded and re-included from Bibles in long cycles over the centuries.
This is NOT to diminish the Gospels of Mark or Luke in any way but rather to
make a distinction between them. Understanding this distinction helps us to
realize in what context and for what purpose and kind of readership each Gospel
was originally created. There is nothing wrong with Mark writing a Gospel
account of the life Christ for an interested gentile audience, and it doesn't make
what he says as inaccurate. It's only that when we can grasp the reality of
differences among the Gospels (and see it as a net positive and not a negative),
then we can better understand the reasons for the choice of events each Gospel
author highlighted, and the way in which each writer presented them. Therefore
we will read portions of this same event of Christ's entry into Jerusalem and what
immediately proceeded from it in Mark's Gospel account for a balanced
approach. But we will do that in small chunks as the amount of information is too
great to take in all at once.
We will go at it in sections of Matthew 21 because this chapter can be divided up
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into several distinct events that are rather obvious; it makes for easier study. The
opening 11 verses cover Yeshua's entry into Jerusalem known in Christendom as
the Triumphal Entry. Verses 12 -17 tell about His storming into the Temple to
express His deep displeasure with the commerce that was inappropriately going
on there. Next is Jesus cursing the fig tree; this is reported in verses 18 -22.
Afterward is a tense encounter between Yeshua and the Temple and Synagogue
authorities over the source of His authority to teach and to do what He's doing as
a master of a flock of disciples in verses 23 -27. This is followed in verses 28 -32
by a Parable about a man with 2 sons who weren't reliable, and then another and
different Parable from verse 33 to the end of the chapter about the wicked
tenants of a landowner, and how the moral of the story was obviously aimed at
the Chief Priests and the Synagogue Elders and Scribes who didn't appreciate
such an attack.
Because each of these recorded events has its meaning so deeply rooted in the
Jewish culture of the 1
st
century, significant explanation is required to extract it.
So here we go. Open your Bibles to Mark 11.
READ MARK CHAPTER 11:1 - 10
We are told in Matthew 21 verse 1 that as Jesus and His disciples, and no doubt
a growing crowd following Him, approach Jerusalem (some having followed
Jesus from the Galilee), they first encounter the enclave of Bethpage. Its Hebrew
name was Beit-Pagei. The name means "house of figs". This suburb of
Jerusalem was located on the side of the Mount of Olives. So why would Jesus
and His sizeable entourage be entering Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives?
Because the road from Jericho went that way and therefore makes its entry into
Jerusalem through the Eastern Gate. Later in the Gospel of Matthew we'll find
Jesus staying overnight with a family in Bethpage.
I characterized Bethpage as a suburb of Jerusalem, but in reality, when people of
that era spoke of Jerusalem in their minds Jerusalem included the enclave of
Bethpage. It's exactly like in Southern California where residents might say when
asked where they live, that they live in Los Angeles. However, the actual City of
Los Angeles doesn't cover a very big area. Rather the many suburbs surrounding
Los Angeles have grown together into one giant population center and the only
way you can even know which town or city you are in is if you encounter a street
sign that tells you. So it is just easier to say Los Angeles (which is known
worldwide) and few Southern Californians would think that you meant that you
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actually lived within the formal city limits of the incorporated City of Los Angeles.
At the time of the biblical feasts, especially that of Passover and later in the Fall
of Sukkot, the city of Jerusalem swelled 10 fold in the number of people there.
The increase was of course due to the scores of thousands of Jewish pilgrims
that journeyed to the Holy City to celebrate what is called the Pilgrimage feasts.
There are 3 of these biblical feasts wherein the Law of Moses requires every
Jew... or at least a representative of every Jewish family... to make a journey to
the Temple. Of course due to the 2 exiles that Israel had suffered (the Assyrian in
the 8th century B.C. and then later the Babylonian in the 6th century B.C.) all but
the 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin were now entirely dispersed and scattered all
over the Asian and European continents, and even to North Africa. Thus the vast
majority of Israelites would never make a journey to the Temple in their lifetimes,
and the Jewish Diaspora only infrequently did due to the great cost, danger, and
time involved to travel so far. Even Jews living in the Galilee that was but a few
days walk to Jerusalem only occasionally made that trip and certainly if they did,
it was only to attend perhaps one of these 3 special pilgrimage feasts of
Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot in a year.
So it is also important to understand that in all of the Synoptic Gospel accounts,
we'll only find the Galilean resident Jesus in Jerusalem of Judea for the
occasions of the biblical feasts. And the one He is here for now is Passover.
Although we won't get into the details of it for the moment, it is good for us to
recognize that there was much-intended symbolism involved in Yeshua entering
Jerusalem from the eastern side by traveling over the Mount of Olives. The
Prophet Zechariah especially speaks of the Mount of Olives as the place where
great End Times events would occur, which of course includes the involvement of
the Messiah. And speaking of symbolism, it also is important to take much of
what Jesus does in the remainder of the Book of Matthew within the context of
Him playing out, in an orchestrated manner, the prophesied events spoken of by
some of the ancient Hebrew prophets. I say this to you because it is not as
though Christ was being driven towards His fate by some invisible hand, and Him
not knowing what would come next. Or that by divine serendipity He would do
this and that. He understands that the Prophets of old were quite specific in some
cases about the things the Messiah would do, where he would do them, and
even at times what He would say. In order to prove that He was indeed that
foretold Messiah, Yeshua did those things.
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Before He enters the Eastern Gate, Jesus sends 2 of His 12 disciples ahead to
Bethpage to fetch a donkey and its young offspring (called a colt or a foal). Here
we have a discrepancy between Mark and Matthew. Mark has Yeshua saying to
His disciples: (CJB Mk. 11:2) "Go into the village ahead of you; and as soon
as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there that has never been ridden.
Untie it, and bring it here. In other words, Mark has Jesus requesting but 1
animal (only a foal), while Matthew has Him requesting 2. Why the difference?
There is no scholarly consensus on this, however, some newer understandings
help to untangle this a little because verse 7 in Matthew 21 also says that Yeshua
rode on "them". Plural. So are we to think that somehow Jesus rode up to the
gate of Jerusalem straddling 2 donkeys?
Without doubt what Matthew is speaking about, and what Yeshua is requesting,
is to bring about the fulfillment of Zechariah 9:9.
CJB
Zechariah 9:9
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.
Hebrew sages took the meaning of this passage in Zechariah to indicate that the
mysterious person spoken of came into Jerusalem on two donkeys: the mother
and its foal (its colt). So we're talking about a full-grown female donkey and her
baby donkey. Common sense then, as now, is that no one (except perhaps a
small child) would ever climb onto the back of a baby donkey. So it would seem
that while there were two animals involved only the larger more mature one was
actually ridden. But is there any kind of evidence that such a scenario could be
the case? In fact, there is.
In the Mishna Bava Batra 5:3 we find that a mother donkey could only be sold or
used for work along with its foal. A mother donkey and her baby were seen as
one... a single connected unit. Obviously, since this matter of a donkey and its
foal is Jewish Tradition (Halakhah) then Matthew would have been aware of it
while Mark perhaps was not. Or if Mark was aware, he might not have found it
helpful to mention the issue of the mother donkey along with its colt to a gentile
audience unless he took the time to explain the context for it (like I'm explaining it
to you). Matthew on the other hand took it for granted that his Jewish audience
already understood the reason behind the mention of 2 donkeys: a mother and its
colt and why they must remain together.
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So Christ sends 2 disciples into Bethpage and in foreknowledge says they will
find this mother and its colt, tied up, and they are to bring them to Him.
Understand: this foreknowledge while of course having a divine element to it, is
also Jesus firmly expecting that because He is the One that the Torah and the
Prophets have been pointing to, and therefore the One that Zechariah 9:9
prophesied about, He has no doubt that His disciples will find that mother and
colt and that they will be able to bring them to Him for His temporary use. Jesus
also says that if anyone says anything about taking the donkeys that they are to
say:(CJB Matt. 21:3) 'The Lord needs them'; and he will let them go at
once."
Depending on which Bible version you might be using, this verse says (like the
CJB) the Lord needs them (that's big L, L), or the lord needs them (that's little l,
L), or the master needs them. The Greek being translated is kurios and it has no
inherent religious or spiritual sense to it. The issue is that when we use the big L
Lord, then of course the Christian sense of it is Jesus is being addressed as the
divine Lord and Savior. Little L lord is more difficult for English speakers to deal
with because about the only way that form of the word is used in our Western
societies is in the religious sense or perhaps in England as an aristocratic title.
But in fact, what the little L lord actually means is better expressed as the
3
rd
option of "master" because master denotes a person who teaches and/or
leads a flock of followers. That is the sense it is meant here. The big L Lord is
reading centuries later Christian thoughts back into to it. So it was the crowd's
acclamation of respect, not that they saw Yeshua as divine or as their Messiah.
Verse 4 explicitly voices what I have been saying to you about the motive behind
Jesus doing the things He was doing and saying the things He was
saying: (CJB Matt. 21:4) This happened in order to fulfill what had been
spoken through the prophet,... The prophet was Zechariah. It must not go
unnoticed that Mark makes no mention of Christ fulfilling prophecy. It makes me
suspect that he may not have even been aware of those prophecies, or perhaps
because he thought it wouldn't have meant much to his gentile Roman audience.
Matthew being the scholarly Jew, writing for Jews, has proved himself to have
been well trained in both the Tanach and Halakah. So he recognizes what is
happening and comments on it because verse 4 is Matthew's personal
conclusion about what all this business about the way Christ entered Jerusalem
and the 2 donkeys He requested amounts to.
But there's even more to unpack about the 1
st
century Jewish mind than this,
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concerning Yeshua's entry into the city. I'll say it briefly and embellish it later, but
I want you to just tuck this away for the time being. Shlomo, Solomon, King
David's son, rode into Gihon on a donkey to be anointed as Israel's next king.
The King David, Solomon, and Yeshua connection has been front and center
throughout Matthew's Gospel and it continues here when Yeshua
says: (CJB Matt. 21:5) "Say to the daughter of Tziyon, 'Look! Your King is
coming to you, riding humbly on a donkey, and on a colt, the offspring of a
beast of burden!'
Who is the "daughter of Tziyon"? It's the people of Jerusalem. Let's talk about
Jerusalem for a little while. Much too often Bible commentators take the terms
Israel and Jerusalem as synonymous. That is, when it concerns Latter Days and
End Times and Messianic prophecies, sometimes we'll hear things about them
happening to Jerusalem and at other times to Israel. I can tell you without
hesitation that we must not see Jerusalem and Israel as interchangeable terms.
Let's begin with the obvious: the infrastructure and stone walls and paved streets
of Jerusalem are not the point of most of the prophecies about Jerusalem. It is
about the residents of Jerusalem or even more specifically about the religious
leadership of the Jews that of course reside in Jerusalem as the ancient and
ongoing capital city of Israel and the spiritual center of the world.
I will use the following illustration to try to make this more clear. Let's equate the
term Israel with the United States and Jerusalem as Washington, D.C. The
United States on the one hand is merely a piece of geography. And Washington,
D.C. is the place, the geographical location, where our national government
resides. Yet in reality what the United States means in practice has to do with we,
the people, who occupy it. And in reality, what Washington, D.C. means in
practice is the leaders, the human beings, who govern us. For the Jews of the
1
st
century (and earlier) it was only the Temple within the city of Jerusalem where
the religious leadership congregated and made governing decisions; just as
within Washington, D.C., it is the Congress building where the leadership
congregates and makes governing decisions.
So as Americans we can make a distinction between the USA and our capital
city, as well as a further distinction between the capital city and the pinpoint
location where governing actually occurs. And when we talk about our nation and
the governance, we can use all kinds of terms to discuss it but any teen or adult
carries the understanding about the USA, Washington, D.C., and the Capital
building as a given context. It works the same in the Bible. So while Jerusalem is
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of course part of Israel, as Israel's capital it can be spoken of a little differently
than the rest of Israel. And while the Temple is within the city of Jerusalem, yet
the Temple can be spoken of a little differently than the rest of Jerusalem. Thus
when Yeshua says "Tell the daughter of Zion" He means "Tell the people of
Jerusalem". So we must not expand this to mean "Tell the people of Israel". Yet
even more, Zion is a term that is associated in Bible prophecy with redemption
and with the Latter Days and the End Times. So when Yeshua says Zion, He is
setting a tone (which the people who heard Him understood) as incorporating an
End Times motif. Remember; due to the Roman occupation most Jews already
thought they were living in the End Times so this was not a big leap for them.
The remainder of what Jesus says is: (CJB Matt. 21:5 ) 'Look! Your King is
coming to you, riding humbly on a donkey, and on a colt, the offspring of a
beast of burden!' Now this pronouncement is simply loaded with explosive
ramifications. The term "king" would have set the Roman and Jewish leadership
on edge. This sounds like sedition and is the very thing that the Romans were
always on the lookout to prevent. But to Jews, "king" indeed meant the Messianic
king of Israel; the next King David. However, Yeshua throws a curveball into His
words when He says He is riding humbly. The Greek word is praus and the CJB
choice of the word humbly as a translation isn't the best. Rather the better choice
is meek because praus means to have a mild disposition, and a gentleness of
spirit. So He is announcing His coming not as a victorious military leader like
David but rather He is coming meekly. He is coming peaceably. So clearly
sedition and an uprising with a motive of ejecting the hated Romans from the
Holy Land and becoming Israel's 1
st
reigning Jewish King in many centuries was
off the table.
So when the disciples return with the mother donkey and her colt, we read that
the disciples put their garments on them and Jesus climbed aboard. Now, the
words to end verse 7 are: "and He sat upon them". Most commonly, Bible
commentators say that the "them" that Jesus sat upon was the 2 donkeys. But
since I've shown to you that that makes no sense, then the "them" must be
referring to the garments that the disciples placed on the donkeys. That is,
Yeshua sat on the garments. But then we read in verse 8 that the crowd starting
laying their garments down on the road for Christ's mount to walk over. Others
went and gathered tree branches (no doubt meaning palm branches) to line the
road. What is the meaning of these actions? But first, who make up the crowds?
It means mostly the crowds that had followed Jesus from the Galilee and others
He picked up along the way. Remember: it was Passover and thousands of
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pilgrims were traveling to Jerusalem on that road. It would not have been
residents in Jerusalem with whom He has had very limited interaction.
The act of one taking off their garment (this means a cloak of some kind) and
putting it on the roadway was a means by which a common Jew could welcome
someone of great status. In that era one's garments symbolically represented the
person. So to put one's garment at a king's feet was to publicly demonstrate
personal submission to that king.
CJB
2 Kings 9:11-13
11
Yehu returned to the servants of his lord, and one of
them said to him, "Is everything all right? Why did this meshugga come to
you?" He answered them, "You know the kind and how they
babble."
12
They said, "You're being evasive. Come on, tell us the truth."
Then he said, "This is exactly what he said to me and how he said it: 'Here
is what ADONAI says: "I have anointed you king over Isra'el."'"
13
At this,
they hurried each one to take his cloak and put it under Yehu at the top of
the stairs. Then they blew the shofar and proclaimed, "Yehu is king!"
Using their garments in this way was, among Jews, a rarely used but recognized
and customary gesture of acclimation of a very important person; and biblically it
was usually used in association with a king. This might be the first time we find
Yeshua placing Himself above others by riding on an animal in a symbolic way
that separates Him from the people He has been among and so selflessly
served.
So, who, exactly, did the excited crowds think Jesus was? What did He represent
to them? Verse 9 says that the crowds roared: (CJB Matt. 21:9) "Please!
Deliver us!" to the Son of David; "Blessed is he who comes in the name of
ADONAI!" "You in the highest heaven! Please! Deliver us!" First: wherein the
CJB it reads, "...you in the highest heaven", the word heaven is not there in the
Greek. Other translations do a better job when they say: "hosanna in the
highest". Second: some more context. We must recognize that for the Gospel
writer Matthew, Yeshua enters Jerusalem as the Son of David and decidedly
NOT as the Son of Man or as the Son of God. This has a substantial effect on the
way Matthew characterizes how the crowds outside Jerusalem perceived Jesus
and thus what the acclimation they shouted towards Him was meant to convey.
The keyword hosanna comes from the Hebrew hosi ana that is really two words,
which can literally mean either "save, now" or "save, we pray". "Save now" is
rather odd in the current circumstance and "Save, we pray" fits better and could
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well mean what it is most often taken to mean: it is the crowd pleading with
Yeshua to deliver them from the hands of the Romans.
Yet some Hebrew linguists say that looking at Psalm 118, and its use in all of the
Pilgrimage festivals, and what message it means to convey in the term hosi ana,
is that while in some cases it is meant in the sense of "deliver us", it is far more
likely in Christ's entry into Jerusalem in this scenario that it simply meant "praise".
And remember, just because a couple of words literally may mean something
else, in every language we have what we call "expressions" that make no sense
if the individual words are taken literally; but the words taken together as a unit
communicate a recognized meaning. "Go fly a kite". "Don't let the cat out of the
bag". "Oh no, we're in a pickle now". I could go on for some time with
expressions like this, but if a person of another country and language tried to
translate those English words literally, and understand them as meaning
something fully literal, they would be far off the mark and very confused. So it
seems that in some circumstances the Hebrew words hosi ana were but an
acclamation of praise. In other words, perhaps a better translation in English in
the modern way we use those words, verse 8 should read: "Praise to the Son of
David. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Praise in the highest".
Eusibius and Jerome both took it to mean this. It's hard to know for certain which
way it was meant... as a praise or as a plea to deliver, to rescue.
The problem here, for me, is that this thing they said towards Yeshua is but an
often used verse taken from the Hallel... Psalm 118... and had become very
nearly a chant because while it was supposed to have originally been used
during the Sukkot ceremony, it became so popular that it was used at all the
biblical festivals including at Passover. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. It's
entirely possible that of the many yelling out those words towards Christ that
some meant it the one way, and some the other.
On the other hand, this is yet another time that we hear people calling out the
familiar "Son of David" towards Christ. Each time we have run across this in
Matthew I have explained that what this must have conjured up for those saying it
is the image of King Solomon, who indeed was King David's biological son. This
is because Solomon was remembered as the wisest of the Wisdom teachers, a
Torah expert, a miracle healer and exorcist of demon possession par excellence.
This is precisely how Jesus was viewed by the crowds because it precisely fits
with how He presented Himself and by the things that He actually said and did.
Remember: still as of the time of His entry into Jerusalem, the only people to
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whom He had confessed that He was Israel's Messiah was His inner circle of 12,
and they were to keep this as a tight secret. Even then, as we'll see it play out,
exactly what that meant to the disciples was pretty hazy. So the crowds didn't just
suddenly, out of the blue, surmise on their own that Yeshua was their Messiah
and God's Son.
Here's something else to keep in mind. King David and King Solomon were as
opposite from one another as the colors black and white. King David's persona
and reputation was as a ferocious warrior leader who won countless battles
against Israel's many enemies. King Solomon was a builder, an intellectual, a
healer, and a diplomat. His Hebrew name, Shlomo, is connected to the Hebrew
root word shalom. Solomon, then, was King David's peace child and this is why
God refused to allow King David to build a Temple but rather He decided that
Solomon would do that. So King Solomon is part of the mold in which the crowds
see Yeshua; that is, Yeshua carries the spirit of Solomon with Him... as the Son
of David... not that of King David himself. And yet, when indeed we arrive at the
End Times and Messiah Yeshua returns, we know from the Book of Revelation
that He will not come back in the spirit of the peace child Solomon (as with His
entry into Jerusalem), but rather it will be in the spirit of the invincible and ruthless
warrior David that will carry out God's wrath.
Matthew says that the whole city shook as Jesus approached. This is not to be
taken literally. The Greek word is esiesthe and although it literally means the
effects of a strong earthquake, it is an expression that is the equivalent of the
English expression about a startled and now disoriented person being "all shook
up".
So the all-shook-up residents of Jerusalem ask the question found in verse 10:
"who is this"? Notice: this is not the "crowds" that have been following Yeshua
and laying their garments on the road that are saying "who is this?", but rather
this is referring to the flabbergasted and annoyed residents of the city of
Jerusalem. "Who is this?" doesn't mean "what is His name". Rather it means
"what ought we to make of this fellow?" It's actually a kind of indignant remark. It
would be the equivalent of something my mother used to say to me when I was a
teen, more times than she should have had to. She'd say; "Just who do you think
you are, young man?" I'm fairly convinced that she knew who I was. Rather she
more meant, "who does your high and mighty attitude make think you are that
you can act that way?" So now the indignant residents of Jerusalem adopt a
negative perception of Christ as a person who unsettles their lives... an unwanted
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trouble maker.
Therefore in verse 11 the response to the disgruntled and unimpressed residents
of Jerusalem comes from the crowds (mostly Galileans) that have been following
Yeshua for some days. To answer the question of "who is this", they respond
with: (CJB Matt. 21:11) "This is Yeshua, the prophet from Natzeret in the
Galil." While for the proud Galileans their very own "prophet from Nazareth" was
a wonderful thing, the residents of Jerusalem had dealt too many times with
would-be prophets coming to town during festivals that did nothing but stir up
trouble. And, they didn't have much use for Galileans anyway because they
regarded them as rough, uncouth, and not particularly intelligent.
One has to wonder what the adoring crowd was mentally picturing when they
characterized Jesus as a prophet. I suspect that it was meant in connection to
Moses.
CJB
Deuteronomy 18:15-19
15
"ADONAI will raise up for you a prophet like
me from among yourselves, from your own kinsmen. You are to pay
attention to him,
16
just as when you were assembled at Horev and
requested ADONAI your God, 'Don't let me hear the voice of ADONAI my
God any more, or let me see this great fire ever again; if I do, I will
die!'
17
On that occasion ADONAI said to me, 'They are right in what they are
saying.
18
I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their
kinsmen. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I
order him. 19 Whoever doesn't listen to my words, which he will speak in
my name, will have to account for himself to me.
Perhaps those crowds weren't certain of it, but it had been a great hope for a
long time in Israel's history that such a prophet like Moses would appear, and
Yeshua bore all the earmarks of him. Little did they know how right they were.
I can do no better to conclude our lesson on the Triumphal Entry than to lift a
quote from the Davies and Allison Commentary on this passage as it so
profoundly sums up what we have been reading and studying.
"....The daughter of Zion for whose sake Jesus comes does not
comprehend the tumult before her gates or understand that her king has
come and that prophecy has been fulfilled. Even the momentary
acclimation that Jesus does receive is from those going up to the capital,
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not from those within it... As Jesus leaves the sympathetic pilgrims to
encounter the hostility of the holy city He is exchanging His royal mount for
a criminal's cross. His exit will not be as His entrance."
We'll continue next week as Yeshua enters the Temple and shakes things up yet
again.


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