Lesson 69 - Matthew 21

[Music] the first 20 chapters of matthew have set the stage for what we're going to encounter beginning in chapter 21. those chapters could 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 is time of a blooming self-awareness the countless miracles of compassionate healing that that he's 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 this 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 twelve 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 three days now chapter 21 immediately switches the scene from the road going by jericho which was chapter 20 to yeshua's entry into the city of jerusalem for the biblical feasts of passover unleavened bread and first fruits there he's going to meet his destiny and change the course of human history in doing so he will right or wrong that occurred in the garden of eden so let's read this chapter together i want you to open your bibles to matthew chapter 21 matthew chapter 21. as they were approaching yerushalayim they came to bet perhay beth page on the mount of olives yeshua had sent two talmudim his disciples two disciples with these instructions go into the village that's ahead of you and you will immediately find a donkey tethered there with its cult untie them and bring them to me and if anyone says anything to you tell him the lord needs them and he will let them go at once this happened in order to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet say to the daughter of zion look your king is coming to you riding humbly on a donkey on a cult the offspring of a beast of burden so the disciples went and did as yeshua had directed them they brought the donkey in the cold put their robes on them yeshua sat on them crowds of people carpeted the road with their clothing while others cut branches from trees and spread them on the road the crowds ahead of him and behind shounded 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 when he entered yerushalayim the whole city was stirred who is this they asked and the crowds answered this is yeshua the prophet from nazareth in the galil yeshua entered the temple grounds and he drove out those who were doing business there both the merchants and their customers he upset the decks of the money changers knocked over the benches of those who were selling pigeons and he said to them it has been written my house will be called a house of prayer but you're making it into a den of robbers blind and lame people came up to him in the temple and he healed them but when the head kohanim the head priest and the torah teachers saw the wonderful things he was doing and the children crying out in the temple please deliver us to the son of david they were furious and they said to him do you hear what they're saying yes you replied of course haven't you ever read from the mouths of children and infants you have prepared praise for yourself well with that he left them and he went outside to the city of bethenya where he spent the night the next morning on his way back to the city he felt hungry and spotting a fig tree by the road he went up for uh went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves so he said to it may you never bear fruit again and immediately the fig tree dried up and the talmudim saw this and they were amazed how did the fig tree dry up so quickly they asked and yeshua answered them yes i tell you if you have trust and don't doubt you will not only do what was done to this fig tree but even if you say to this mountain go throw yourself into the sea it'll be done in other words you will receive everything you ask for in prayer no matter what it is provided you have trust he went into the temple area and as he was teaching they had kohanim and the elders of the people approached him and demanded what do you have that authorizes you to teach these things who gave you this saka and yes you answered i too will answer you ask you a question and if you answer it then i will tell you by what i do these things the immersion of yochanan the immersion of john where did it come from from heaven or from a human source well they discussed it among themselves well if we save from heaven he'll say then why don't you believe him but if we say from a human source well we're afraid of the people for they all regard yokanan as a prophet so they answered yeshua we don't know and he replied then i won't tell you by what so i do these things but give me your opinion a man had two sons he went to the first and said son go on work today in the vineyard the answer i don't want to but later he changed his mind and he went the father went to his other son and said the same thing and this one answered i will sir but he didn't go which of the two did what was what his father wanted the first they replied that's right yeshua said to them i tell you that the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of god ahead of you foreign came to you showing the path to righteousness and you wouldn't trust him the tax collectors and prostitutes trusted him but you even after you saw this you didn't change your minds later and trust him now listen to another parable there was a farmer who planted a vineyard put a wall around it he dug a pit for the wine press he built a tower then he rented it to tenants and left and when harvest time came he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the crop but the tenants seized his servants this one they beat up that when they killed another they stoned so he went he sent some other servants more than the first group they did the same to them finally he sent them his son saying well my son they'll respect but when the tenants saw the son they said to each other this is the air come let's kill him and take his inheritance so they grabbed him threw him out of the vineyard and killed him now when the owner of the vineyard comes what will he do to those tenants and they answered him he will viciously destroy those vicious men and rent out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the crop when it's due well yeshua said to them haven't you ever read in the tanakh the very rock which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone this has come from adonai and in our eyes it's amazing therefore i tell you that the kingdom of god will be taken from you it will be given to the kind of people that will produce its fruit as the head priest and the parushim the pharisees listened to his stories they saw that he was speaking about them and when they set about to arrest him they were afraid of the crowds because the crowds considered him a prophet but bible scholars deemed the opening words of chapter 21 as the beginning of the passion narrative and truly jesus's ride up the jericho road into the eastern gate of jerusalem across the mount of olives is the path to the cross as we've done throughout our study in matthew it's 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 21st century that mark's gospel was used by luke and by matthew for much of their as much of their source material now i find that to be without merit as i've stated on earlier occasions through not only is there no historical evidence for the claim of the priority of mark but in fact the very earliest church fathers say straight away that matthews 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 it was the primary source for luke and for matthew well 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 okay that is mark's gospel was always intended as a gentile friendly gospel 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 the red-haired stepchild for the for roman christianity that regularly complained over new testament books that they deemed to jewish and as a result the more conspicuously jewish oriented books like james and hebrews were excluded and then re-included from bibles in long cycles over the centuries now this is not to diminish the gospel 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 what kind of of readership each gospel was originally created there is nothing wrong with mark writing a gospel account for the life of 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 not a not a negative then we can better understand the reasons for the choice of events each gospel author highlighted 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 and we're going to do that so we can have a balanced approach but we're only going to do that in small chunks as the amount of information is just too great to take in all at once we're also going to go at it in sections in matthew 21. because this chapter can be divided up when there's several distinct events that are rather obvious it makes it easier for 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 about the commerce that was inappropriately going on there next is jesus cursing the fig tree this is reported in verses 18 through 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 this is in verses 23 to 27. this is followed by verses 28 through 32 with a parable about a man with two sons who weren't reliable and then another different parable from verse 33 to the end of the chapter about the wicked tenets 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 a such an attack they didn't like that too much now because each of these recorded events has its meaning so deeply rooted in the jewish culture of the first century significant explanation is required to extract it so here we go open your bibles up to mark chapter 11. mark chapter 11 just a few pages ahead of where you are in matthew 21 mark chapter 11 we're only going to read the first 10 verses mark chapter 11. as they were approaching yerushalayim near betpay that's bethpage in bet anya bethany by the mount of olives yeshua sent two of his talmudim with these instructions go into the village ahead of you and as soon as you enter it you will find a cult tied tied there that has never been ridden untie it bring it here if anyone asks you why are you doing this tell him the lord needs it and he will send it here right away well they went off and found a cult in the street tied in a doorway they untied it the bystanders said to them what are you doing untying that cold and they gave the answer yeshua had told them to give and they let them continue they brought the colt to yeshua and threw their robes on it and he sat on it many people carpeted the road with their clothing while others spread out green branches which they had cut in the fields those were who were ahead and those behind shouted please deliver us blessed is he who comes in the name of adonai blessed is the coming kingdom of our father david and you in the highest heaven please deliver us now we're told in matthew 21 verse 1 that as jesus and his disciples and no doubt a growing crowd following him approached jerusalem some having followed jesus all the way from the galilee the first and the first encounter they first encountered the enclave of beth page in hebrew it's bait page and the name means house of figs the suburb of jerusalem was located on the side of the mount of olives so why would jesus and his sizable entourage be entering jerusalem from the mount of olives because the road from jericho went that way and therefore it makes its entry into jerusalem through what's called the eastern gate later in the gospel of matthew we'll find jesus staying overnight with a family in bethpage now i characterized bethpage as a suburb of jerusalem but you know in reality when people that era spoke of jerusalem and their minds jerusalem included the enclave of bethpage you know it's it's exactly like in southern california where residents might say when asked where they live they live in los angeles they live in l.a 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 the only way you even know which town or city you're in is if you encounter a street sign that tells you so it's just easier to say los angeles which is known worldwide and few southern californians would think that you meant you actually lived within the formal city limits of the incorporated city of los angeles well at the time of the biblical feasts especially that a passover and then later on in the fall of sukkot the city of jerusalem swelled tenfold with the number of people there i mean the increase was of course due to the scores of thousands of jewish pilgrims that journey to the holy se city to celebrate what is called the pilgrimage feasts there are three of the 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 two exiles israel had suffered the assyrian in the 8th century and then later the babylonian in the sixth centuries bc all but the two tribes of judah and benjamin were now entirely dispersed and scattered all over the asian and european continents even to north africa so for the majority of israelites they would never make a journey to the temple in their lifetimes and the jewish diaspora only infrequently due to the the great cost the danger the 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 of 2-10 perhaps one of the three special pilgrimage pilgrimage feasts of passover shavuot and sukkot in that year so it's 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's here for now is passover now although we won't get into the details of it for the moment it's 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 see the prophet zechariah especially speaks of the mount of olives as the place where great end times events will occur which of course includes the involvement of the messiah and speaking of symbolism it's also 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's not as though christ was being driven forward towards his fate by some invisible hand and him not having any idea what was coming next or that by divine serendipity he would just do this and that he understands that the prophets of old were quite specific in some things about what the messiah would do where he would do them even at some times what he would say in order to prove that he was indeed that foretold messiah yeshua did those things now before he enters the eastern gate yeshua sends two of his 12 disciples ahead to beth page to fetch a donkey and a young offspring called a cult or a foal now here we have a discrepancy between mark and matthew mark has yeshua saying to his disciples go into the village ahead of you and as soon as you enter it you will find a cult tied there that has never been ridden untie it and bring it here in other words mark has jesus requesting but one animal only a foal while matthew has been requesting two why the difference there's no scholarly consensus on this however some newer understandings do help to untangle this a little bit because verse 7 and matthew 21 also says yeshua rode on them plural so are we to think that jesus rode up to the gate of jerusalem straddling two donkeys that is a strange picture well without doubt what matthew is speaking about and what yeshua is requesting is to bring about the fulfillment of zechariah 9 9 which says rejoice with all your heart daughter of zion shout out loud daughter of yerushalayim look your king's 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 cult now hebrew sages well they 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 it's cold so we're talking about a full-grown female donkey and her baby donkey now common sense then is 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 would have actually been ridden but is there any kind of evidence that such a scenario could be the case well actually there is in the mission above batra 5'3 we find that a mother donkey could only be sold or used for work along with its full see a mother donkey and her baby they were seen as one a single connected unit now obviously since this matter of a donkey and its full is jewish tradition halluca then matthew would have been aware of it well mark perhaps he was not or if mark was aware he might not have found it helpful to mention the issue issue of the mother donkey along with its cult 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 well he took it for granted that his jewish audience already understood the reason behind the mention of two donkeys if mother and it's cold and why they obviously would have remained together so christ sends two disciples into bethpage and in for knowledge says they're going to find this mother in its cult tied up and there to bring them to him understand this for knowledge while of course having a divine element to it is also jesus firmly expecting that it's going to happen because he is the one that zechariah 9 9 prophesied about so he has no doubt that his disciples are not going to find that mother in gold and that they will be able to bring it to him for his temporary use jesus also says that if anyone says anything about the donkeys they're to say the lord needs them and he'll let them go at once well depending on which bible version you're using this verse as it has it in the complete jewish bible says the lord needs them that's big l lord or other bible versions the lord needs them that's little l lord or in other versions the master needs them see the greek being translated is curios and it has no inherent religious or spiritual sense to it the issue is that when we use big l lord then of course the christian sense of it is jesus is being addressed as the divine lord and savior little el lord it's a little bit more difficult for english speakers to deal with because about the only way that that form of word is used in the western societies is in the religious sense or perhaps maybe in england is an aristocratic title but in fact what the little l lord actually means is better expressed as the third option of master because master denotes a person who teaches a person who leads a flock see that's the sense of it that's meant here the big l lord is reading centuries later christian thoughts back into it so what was the crowd's acclamation of respect for him not that they saw yeshua as divine or as their messiah now verse 4 explicitly voices what i have been saying to you about the motive behind jesus doing the things he was doing saying the things he was saying orchestrating them because it says in matthew 21 4 this happened in order to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet the prophet was zechariah see it must not go unnoticed that mark makes no mention of christ fulfilling prophecy it makes me suspect that he may not 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 tanakh and in halakhah so he recognizes what's happening he comments on it because you see verse 4 now verse 4 is matthew's personal conclusion about what all this business is about the way christ entered jerusalem and the two donkeys he requested to what it all amounts to there's even more to unpack about the first century jewish mind than this concerning yeshua's entry into the city i'm going to say briefly and embellish it later but i just want you to tuck this away okay just tuck this away for the time being solomon king david's son he rode into gihon on a donkey to be anointed as israel's next king the king david solomon yeshua connection it's all been front and center throughout matthew's gospel and it continues when yeshua says say to the daughter of zion look your king is coming to you riding humbly on a donkey on a cult the offspring of a beast burden who is the daughter of zion who's the daughter of zion it's the people of jerusalem let's talk about jerusalem for a little while see much too often bible commentators take the terms israel and jerusalem as synonymous that is when it concerns the latter days and end times and messianic prophecies sometimes we're going to hear things about them happening to jerusalem other times we'll hear about happening to israel i can tell you without hesitation that we must not see jerusalem and israel as interchangeable terms okay let's begin with the obvious the infrastructure and the stone walls and the paved streets of jerusalem are not the point of most of the prophecies about the dru about jerusalem it's about the residents of jerusalem or even more specifically about the religious leadership of the jews but of course reside in jerusalem as the ancient and ongoing capital city of israel and frankly spiritual center of the world now i'm going to use the following illustration that i hope can make what i'm trying to tell you more clear let's equate the term israel with the united states let's also equate jerusalem with washington d.c now the united states on the one hand is merely a piece of geography washington d.c well that's 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 dc means in practice is the leaders the human beings who govern us now for the jews in the first century and earlier it was only the temple within the city of jerusalem where the leadership congregated the religious leadership and made governing decisions just as within washington dc it's 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 dc and the capitol building as kind of a given context it works the same in the bible so while jerusalem is 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 in the end times so when yeshua says zion he is setting a tone which the people who hurt him understood as incorporating an end times motif in what he was saying now remember okay due to the roman occupation most jews already thought they were living in the end times so this wasn't a big leap for them now the remainder of what jesus says is look your king is coming to you writing humbly on a donkey and on a cold 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 i mean this sounds like sedition and it's the very thing 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 writing humbly the greek word is preos and the complete jewish bible choice of the word humbly as the translation for it isn't the best rather the better choice is meek meek because prayers means to have a mild disposition a gentleness of spirit so he is announcing his coming not as a victorious military leader like david but rather he is coming how meekly he's coming peaceably so clearly sedition and an uprising with a motive of ejecting the hated romans from the holy land and him becoming israel's first reigning jewish king in many centuries well that was just off the table so when the disciples returned with the mother donkey and her cold we read the disciples put their garments on them and jesus climbed aboard now the words to in verse 7 are and he sat upon them most commonly bible commentators say that them that jesus sat upon was the two donkeys but since i've shown you that that makes no sense then them must be referring to the garments that the disciples placed on the donkeys that is yeshua sat on the garments he sat on them but then we read in verse 8 that the crowd started laying their garments down on the road for christ's mount to walk upon others went and gathered tree branches and adopt meaning palm branches to line the road what's the meaning of these actions but first important question who makes up the crowds it means mostly the crowds that had followed jesus from the galilee and then others he kind of picked up along the way now remember it was passover and thousands of pilgrims were traveling to jerusalem on that road it would not have been the residence in jerusalem because with them he'd had very limited interaction well 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 second kings 9 11 through 13. yahweh returned to the servants of his lord and one of them said to him is everything all right why did this meshuggah why this crazy person come to you and he answered them you know the kind and how they babble they said you're being evasive come on tell us the truth then he says this is exactly what he said to me and how he said it here's what adonai says i have anointed you king over israel at this they hurried each one to take his cloak and put it under yahoo at the top of the stairs then they blew a shofar and proclaimed ye who was king so using their garments their cloaks in this way was among jews are rarely used but it was a recognized and customary gesture of acclamation of a very important person biblically it was usually used in association with a king now this might be the first time we find yeshua placing himself above others by riding on an animal in a symbolic way that sort of separates him from the people he's been among and he's so selflessly served so who exactly did these excited crowds think he was what did he represent to them see verse 9 says the crowds roared please deliver us to the son of david blessed is he who comes in the name of adam and i you in the highest heaven please deliver us first of all where in the complete jewish bible it reads you in the highest heaven the word heaven is not there in the greek other translations do a little job because they say hosanna 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 the son of god see this has a substantial effect on the way that matthew characterizes how the crowds outside of jerusalem perceive jesus outside of jerusalem and so the acclamation that they shouted towards him what it was meant to convey see the key word hosanna which you find in english deliver us or save us it comes from the hebrew hoseana which is really two words which can literally mean either save now or save we pray save now is a rather odd statement in the current circumstance and save we pray fits a little better it could well mean what is most often it's most often taken to mean it is that the crowd is 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 the pilgrimage festivals and what message it means to convey in the term hoseana 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 simply means praise now remember just because a couple of words literally may mean something else in every language we have what we call expressions expressions it makes no sense if the individual words are taken literally but the words taken together as a unit well that communicates a recognized meaning give you some examples go fly a kite don't let the cat out of the bag oh no we're in a pickle now see i could go on for some time with expressions like this but if a person of another country or another language tried to translate my english words literally tried to understand them as meaning something fully literal well they'd be far off the mark and pretty confused so it seems that in some circumstances the hebrew words hoseana were but an acclamation of praise in other words perhaps a better translation in english in the modern way of how we use words all right verse 8 should read praise to the son of david blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord prays in the highest see eusebius and jerome both took it to mean this see it's hard to know for certain which way it was meant as a praise or a plea to deliver to rescue see the problem here for me is that this thing that they said towards yeshua is but an often used verse that's taken from the hallel which is psalm 118. and it's become very nearly a chant because while it was supposed to have originally been used for the sukkot ceremony it became so popular that it was used at all the biblical festivals including at passover and i'm afraid we're just going to have to leave it there it's entirely possible that some of them those yelling out those words towards christ meant it one way and some meant it the other way it's entirely possible on the other hand this is yet another time that we hear people calling out the familiar son of david towards christ and each time we 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 an exorcist of demon possession par excellence this is precisely how jesus was viewed by the crowds because this precisely fits with how he presented himself it's all by all the things he actually said and did now remember still as of the time of his entry into jerusalem the only people to whom he had confessed that he was israel's messiah was his inner circle of twelve and they were to keep this as a tight secret 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 well he was a builder an intellectual a healer a diplomat his hebrew name 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 see he's part of the mold in which the crowds see yeshua that is yeshua carries the spirit of solomon with him as what the son of david not the not the spirit of king david himself and yet when we indeed 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 the father's wrath matthew says the whole city shook as jesus approached this is not to be taken literally the greek word is essie and although it literally means the effects of a strong earthquake it's an expression that is the equivalent of the english expression about a startled now deserted disoriented person being all shook up so they all shook up residents of jerusalem asked the question found in verse 10 who is this who is this now notice this is important 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 asking this question who is this does not mean what's his name rather it means what ought we to make of this fellow this is actually kind of an 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 say she'd say just who do you think you are young man now i'm fairly convinced she knew who i was rather more she meant who does your high and mighty attitude make you think you are that you can act that way that's what she meant so now the indignant residents of jerusalem adopt a negative perception of christ as a person who unsettles their lives he's an unwanted troublemaker therefore in verse 11 now the response to the disgruntled and unimpressed residents of jerusalem comes from the crowds and who are they mostly those galileans that have been following yeshua for some days and to answer the question of who is this who is this what do they respond with this is yeshua the prophet from nazareth in the galil now 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 they didn't have much use anyway for galileans because they regarded them as rough uncouth and not particularly intelligent one asked to wonder what the adoring crowd was mentally picturing when they characterized jesus as a prophet i suspect it was meant in connection to moses deuteronomy 18 15-19 adonai will raise up for you a prophet like me from among yourselves from your own kinsmen and you are to pay attention to him just as when you were assembled at horev and requested adonai your god don't let them hear the voice of adonai my god anymore or let them let me see this great fire ever again if i do i'll die on that occasion adidas said to me they are right in what they're saying 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 whoever doesn't listen to my words which he'll speak in my name will have to account for himself to me 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 little did i know just how right they were well i can do no better to conclude our lesson on the triumphal entry tend to lift the quote from the davies and allison commentary on this passage that so i think profoundly sums up what we've been reading and studying it says this 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 acclamation that jesus does receive is from those going up to the capitol not 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 time as yeshua enters the temple and he shakes things up yet again [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Torah Class

Views: 1,807

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Beatitudes, Hebrew Heritage, Parables, Torah Class, Bible, Bible Study, Christ, Christian, Christianity, God, Hebrew Roots, Jesus, Jews, Matthew, New Testament, Seed of Abraham, Sermon on the Mount, Son of God, Tom Bradford, Yeshua

Id: adaIh345ZJg

Length: 58min 54sec (3534 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021