Monday, December 26, 2022
Luke 19:28 - 40
Luke 19:28 - 40 28 And when he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29 When he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount that is called Olivet, he sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village in front of you, where on entering you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever yet sat. Untie it and bring it here. 31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say this: ‘The Lord has need of it.’” 32 So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them. 33 And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34 And they said, “The Lord has need of it.” 35 And they brought it to Jesus, and throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36 And as he rode along, they spread their cloaks on the road. 37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”
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Questions:
ReplyDelete1. What was the colt for?
2. How did Jesus know the colt was going to be there?
3. Why did they throw their cloaks on the colt?
4. Why did the Pharisees want the disciples to be quiet?
5. What's the significance of Jesus response that the very stones would cry out?
https://hartmangroupdevotionsmark.blogspot.com/2018/10/mark-111-11-as-they-approached.html says:
ReplyDeleteThe people who cheered Jesus’s arrival in Jerusalem had an agenda. They wanted a Savior, all right, but they wanted the Savior they had envisioned in their own mind. This Savior would do certain things: kick the Romans out of the Holy Land, lower taxes, and lead the Jews back to the glory days of King David when they were a prosperous and sovereign state. They liked the idea of Jesus and they were willing to accept Him as their king, but they had their own specific ideas of what this king ought to be doing for them.
Jesus had no such agenda. Look back over all of the things that Jesus said and taught during His time on earth. He never talked politics; He never said He was going to kick the Romans out of the Holy Land. When asked point-blank about taxation, Jesus said that was not His concern ("Render unto Cesar the things Cesar’s.") Jesus never promised prosperity or said that He intended to restore the state of Israel back to its former glory.
Jesus clearly was not seizing power, lowering taxes, or doing any of the super-hero things that the crowds expected. They were disappointed, and in their disappointment, they wanted this Jesus destroyed.
When false teachers tell us about a different Jesus than the one in the Bible, it causes the same results. People project their own aspirations onto Jesus, only to be disappointed … and then turn into God-haters. Some of the most vehement and vitriolic atheists on earth are people who were once in the church and many of them were taught a false Jesus.
At the time of Jesus the palm branch was the national symbol of Israel. Simon Maccabeus conquered the Jerusalem castle in 142 B.C., the Jews took repossession of it carrying palm branches. And, when Palestine revolted against Rome in A.D. 132-135 the palm was the symbol for resistance and was imprinted on the Jewish currency.
What did He do? Did He call for a war council, a strategy meeting? No. "He left them," says Scripture, "and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night." (Mt 21:17). What a let down! It became clear to the crowds that Jesus was rejecting what they were offering Him: an earthly kingdom established by force and blood.
https://hartmangroupdevotionsmark.blogspot.com/2018/10/mark-111-11-as-they-approached.html continued:
ReplyDeleteJesus and his disciples approach Bethphage and Bethany, towns on the edge of Jerusalem. Bethany was about two miles (3.2 km) east of the city on the Mount of Olives. Zechariah 14:4 has the final messianic battle occurring on the Mount of Olives.[1] Bethphage is Aramaic for house of unripe figs, perhaps Mark's foreshadowing of the story of the fig tree.
This is to fulfill Messianic prophecies, such as Zechariah 9:9, which is quoted in every Gospel except Mark. (Hosanna means "save us please").
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Sanders estimates
that the Passover was attended by 300,000–400,000
Jewish pilgrims.
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The purpose for riding into Jerusalem on a donkey was to fulfill prophecy, and thereby, to proclaim His identity as Messiah.
So what's happening here is very intentional; it's very calculated. The prophecy is:
Zechariah 9:9 (NASB) Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
The Rabbis had a real problem with this verse. They saw the single advent of the Messiah as an advent of triumph and victory. How would it be that the King would enter Jerusalem in such a lowly manner. Eventually, the Rabbis reconciled this by stating in the Babylonian Talmud: "If Israel was worthy, the Messiah would come on the clouds of heaven, if they were not worthy, lowly and riding upon an ass."
Jesus is not telling His disciples to engage in "grand theft donkey," but is taking up a friend on his long-standing offer. Notice that once the disciples say, "The Lord needs it," there is no further argument. The owners are happy to have the Lord use their possessions for His work.
During Jesus' day, Jerusalem had a population of around 25,000. The estimates of the size of the Passover crowd range from 180,000 on the low end to 3 million on the upper end.
This crowd was crying out, "Hosanna!" Unlike its use in many choruses in today's churches throughout the world, "Hosanna" is not an expression of praise, but of prayer, supplication, pleading, and almost desperation. That Hebrew phrase is only found one solitary place in the whole Scripture:
Psalms 118:25 (NASB) O LORD, do save, we beseech Thee; O LORD, we beseech Thee, do send prosperity!
https://hartmangroupdevotionsmark.blogspot.com/2018/10/mark-111-11-as-they-approached.html continued:
ReplyDeleteQuestions and findings:
1. Why did Jesus send the disciples ahead to bring the colt back. Couldn't have Jesus got a colt anywhere?
The colt had to have certain parameters. It needed to have been never ridden. It also needed to be a colt that Jesus could borrow.
2. So the people were just OK with the disciples taking the colt?
The owner probably knew and loved Jesus, perhaps even recognized the disciples, and was glad to be of service to Jesus.
3. What were the people thinking when they spread their cloaks and branches on the road?
The people have been expecting the Messiah to come for a long time, and the Passover was ripe for messiah fever. They were hoping Jesus was this Messiah, and that He was coming to deliver them from the Romans.
4. What was the significance of what the people were shouting and did the people understand it? Or what was this crowd's mentality?
The people knew that they were welcoming the Messiah into Jerusalem. Unfortunately, they completely misunderstood what the Messiah was all about. They probably didn't catch all the fulfillment of scripture though. They probably caught the symbolism of the donkey foal, though.
5. Why did Jesus return to Bethany?
That's where He was staying (very likely with Lazarus, Mary and Martha). Also, He still had a week left. If He would have stayed in Jerusalem, the Romans would have nabbed Him and/or the Jewish leaders would have killed Him. The timing had to be right for everything to fall into place just so.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-35.htm says:
ReplyDeleteThe ass in the East is not a despised animal , and it is only because it was despised by Gentiles that Josephus substitutes for it ‘horse’ or ‘beast of burden,’ and the Seventy soften it down into ‘foal,’. The Gentile world abounded in sneers against this narrative, and had all sorts of absurd stories about the Jews and the ass, or ass’s head, which they were supposed to worship. The Christians were also called ass-worshippers, and this calumny is alluded to in one of the hideously blasphemous wall caricatures.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-38.htm says:
ReplyDelete"Hosanna," that is, "Save now," the words of Ps 118:25, which were understood to refer to Messiah; and so they add, "to the Son of David, blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord (Ps 118:26), Hosanna in the highest." This was the very loftiest style in which He could be saluted as the promised Deliverer.
https://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-40.htm says:
The stones would ...cry out - It is "proper" that they should celebrate my coming. Their acclamations "ought" not to be suppressed. It would be impossible to restrain the people, and improper to attempt it. The language here is strong proverbial language to denote that fact. We are not to suppose, therefore, that our Saviour meant to say that the stones were "conscious" of his coming, or that God would "make" them speak, but only that there was "great joy" among the people; that it was "proper" that they should express it in this manner, and that it was not fit that he should attempt to repress it.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-19-commentary says:
ReplyDeleteConstable adds that "The Triumphal Entry is only the second incident in Jesus’ ministry that all four evangelists recorded, the first being the feeding of the 5,000. This indicates its great importance in God’s messianic program."
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Jesus deliberately evokes a demonstration. Jesus forces the members of the Sanhedrin to change their timetable, so that it will harmonize with his (and the Father's) timetable. The enthusiasm of the crowds with respect to Jesus will hasten the crisis.
He also shows the crowds what kind of Messiah He is, namely, not the earthly Messiah of Israel's dreams, the One who wages war against an earthly oppressor, but the One Who came to promote and establish "the things that make for peace" (Luke 19:42), lasting peace: reconciliation between God and man (Ro 5:10-11), and between a man and his fellow man.
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A colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat - If you were raised on a ranch or farm, you know that it was not generally safe to sit on a colt that had never been ridden (i.e., unbroken), lest you soon find yourself bucked off and on the ground!
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QUESTION - Why would a king ride a donkey instead of a warhorse (Zechariah 9:9-10)?
ANSWER - In the ancient Middle Eastern world, leaders rode horses if they rode to war, but donkeys if they came in peace.
https://www.preceptaustin.org/luke-19-commentary continued:
ReplyDeleteJosephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that one year a census was taken of the number of lambs slain for Passover and that figure was 256,500.
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So while Jesus' entry is traditionally referred to as the "Triumphal Entry," little did the crowd know that the "triumph" by their King would not be over a political kingdom (Rome), but would be a resounding victory over a spiritual kingdom, Messiah forever defeating sin, death and the devil! In His second "Triumphal Entry" Jesus will return not riding a donkey and coming in peace, but riding "a white horse...and in righteousness judging and waging war...for from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.” (Rev 19:11,15-16)
Questions and findings:
ReplyDelete1. What was the colt for?
Kings of old would ride a colt into a city in times of peace, and a war horse when they conquered a city. Jesus was showing the people that He was coming in peace this time as their king. The next time Jesus comes back it will be on a war horse.
2. How did Jesus know the colt was going to be there?
Some commentators speculate that it was arranged ahead of time, while other's say Jesus used supernatural knowledge. Either way is fine with me. However, I think that while Jesus was on earth, He put aside His qualities of omniscience and omnipotence. If Jesus did use supernatural knowledge, He gained it in the same way we would - via the Holy Spirit.
3. Why did they throw their cloaks on the colt?
That's what they did to welcome kings of the past.
4. Why did the Pharisees want the disciples to be quiet?
They recognized what was going on and was afraid of Rome's reaction. The people were rebelling against Rome. (That is, in their minds. In Jesus' mind He was not replacing Rome at this time).
5. What's the significance of Jesus response that the very stones would cry out?
It sounds like Jesus was referring to a past prophecy or statement. It's possible that He was referring to Habakkuk 2:11–12:
11 For the stone will cry out from the wall,
and the beam from the woodwork respond.
12 “Woe to him who builds a town with blood
and founds a city on iniquity!
Jesus could have also been referring to something in their traditions or in second temple Jewish literature.
One commentator speculates that Jesus is referring to the future (70 A.D.) destruction of Jerusalem.
Otherwise, without knowing if/where Jesus is quoting from, I don't think we can know what Jesus was referring to. My opinion is that it goes beyond a surface reading. Jesus wasn't just coming up with this out of the blue.