The Peaceful King Arrives, Matthew 21:1-10
This section of Matthew (21:1-9) is the description of Jesus' sometimes called “triumphal entry”. This is not a triumphal entry; this is not the entry of a king who has conquered, it is the peaceful entry of a King who has presented Himself for acceptance by His people.
When He does this there is a response from the crowd that is with Him and that is greeting Him as He comes into Jerusalem. That crowd quotes from Psalm 118:26. We have seen that this is a descriptive praise psalm written by the leader of Israel at the time to the temple in order to praise God for the fact that the temple has been built and that they had been restored from captivity, and God is going to use them like the stone that has been rejected. They are now going to be the chief corner stone--the head of the corner as it states literally—that will be the centerpiece of His plan for the salvific redemption of the world, but also the ultimate redemption which comes when the Messiah returns and establishes His kingdom.
So the psalm itself definitely has a messianic overtone and application even though it is directed towards a historical event.
Psalm 118:24 is a verse that is often misquoted, taken out of context and related to any nice day that people are excited about. That is not what this is talking about. In fact, in Luke 19 as Jesus comes off of the top of the Mount of Olives, the text says that it is before He begins the descent from the Mount of Olives when the people begin to spread the palm branches and sing from Psalm 118. Part of the way down He stops and weeps over Jerusalem. That is the flow of events.
And He says, Luke 19:42 NASB “If you had known in this day [of your revelation]...” What is being connected here in these dots is that the historical context of Psalm 118 when they say, “This is the day the Lord has made”, is that it is talking about God re-establishing the nation to fulfil His redemptive plan. It is not talking about the beautiful, wonderful day in the neigborhood. We trivialise too much in our evangelical churches today because we don't take the time to study the Word.
When Jesus makes this statement, “in this day of your revelation”, He is making an application from Psalm 118 as He is presenting Himself as the King. The ultimate fulfilment of this prophetic type, this pattern, comes when the Lord returns in the day of the Lord at the end of the Tribulation period when he establishes His kingdom. This concept of “this day” is a profound concept related to the salvation plan of God.
The Psalm 118 response from the people is because they understand what is going on. They understand that the Messiah has come. He is the King and they recognize it and call Him the Son of David, and that He is the one who is coming in the name of the Lord.
They say, “save now” (v. 25). The Hebrew word is hoshianah, which means to deliver. They have been redeemed; they have been delivered from the exile. They are not going to disappear on the ash heap of history like the Philistines, the people of Tyre and Sidon, and so many others who were defeated by the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. God has delivered them in time but they are calling upon Him to carry it through to the end, to soteriologically save them and establish the kingdom. So this has great significance when the crowds are singing this as Jesus is coming in.
Psalm 118:27 states, “The LORD is God ...” It is a praise to God. He returns back to praising Yahweh for what He has done. “... and He has given us light [illuminated us] ...” And then in response to what God has given in terms of illumination we need to praise Him with a thanksgiving offering. “... Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.”
It is interesting that is the description of the sacrifices in Leviticus it never mentions tying the sacrifice down. It makes sense when you look at how large these animals were, and when we see the alters that are found archaeologically they have these horns, that was a part of their function, to tie down the sacrifice.
When this was sung at the end of the last supper that the Lord observed with His disciples they were singing about what was about to transpire. He as the sacrifice was going to be bound t the altar as he was nailed to the cross on Golgotha.
Then we have the closing praise in Psalm 118:28, 29 NASB “You are my God, and I give thanks to You; {You are} my God, I extol You.” This builds to the initial to the repetition of the initial exhortation to the congregation. “Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.”
The whole psalm is about the goodness of God in restoring the nation to its place in God's plan.
With that background let's look at what is taking place in Matthew chapter twenty-one. Remember that Jesus started to come up from the Jordan. He stopped in Jericho where He healed two blind men, and in 20:29 we are given a description that as they went out of Jericho a great multitude followed Him. So He has quit an entourage, an enormous group of people were following Him.
When this transpires is the subject of a lot of debate. Traditionally it is called Palm Sunday. If it occurred on Sunday then the crucifixion would have to have occurred on Thursday. I am inclined to that view. If you go with the traditional view that the crucifixion occurred on Friday, then this would have had to occur on Monday.
This was begun in the morning and they are going to make their ascent to Jerusalem. Jericho is at about 950 feet below sea level and the Mount of Olives is at about 3000 feet, so this quite a climb, and it covers about 10-12 miles.
Matthew 21:1 NASB “When they had approached Jerusalem and had come to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples”. Bethphage means the house of figs. This was an area that was fairly well irrigated—fig trees call for a lot of water—and the hillside was covered with fig trees.
Under the Ottoman Empire an egregious tax was imposed on every tree a person had on his property. The way to reduce property tax was to cut down all the trees. So they deforested all of the area.
Matthew 21:2 NASB “saying to them, 'Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied {there} and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to Me. [3] If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and immediately he will send them'.” In other words, whoever owns the animals is probably a believer, and immediately he is told the Lord has need of them they immediately acquiesce.
At this point we are introduced to another prophecy. We have to do another background check on this prophecy from Zechariah 9:9. Actually his passage involves three prophecies: the prophecy from Zechariah 9:9, the prophecy from Psalm 118, and then an unmentioned prophecy--not mentioned in the text but is a fulfilment of a prophecy.
Matthew 21:4 NASB “This took place to fulfil what was spoken through the prophet: [5] 'SAY TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, ‘BEHOLD YOUR KING IS COMING TO YOU, GENTLE, AND MOUNTED ON A DONKEY, EVEN ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A BEAST OF BURDEN'.” This is from Zechariah 9:9.
Zechariah 9:9, 10 is the prophecy in question. 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. [10] I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.”
Verse 10 is obviously talking about final conquest; it is a second coming verse. But Matthew quotes verse 9 as being fulfilled at the first advent. This is not uncommon. In the Old Testament we often find prophecies related to the Messiah that are fulfilled at the first coming, we find some that are fulfilled only at the second coming, but there are a few where there is a split fulfilment. What is meant by a split fulfilment? The first part of a verse is the first part of the prophecy that is fulfilled at the first coming and the second part is fulfilled at the second coming.
We have a well-known example of this in Isaiah 61:1, 2. In Luke chapter four the Lord Jesus Christ stands to read from the daily reading of the Torah in the synagogue in Nazareth. He picks up the scroll and reads from Isaiah 61:1 and only half way through verse 2, and He stops. That is because that first verse and a half is fulfilled in the first advent, but the rest of verse two, the day of vengeance of our God, is fulfilled at the second coming. That is an example of split fulfilment: first part fulfilled at the first coming; second part fulfilled at the second coming.
When we compare Zechariah 9:9 with Matthew 21:5 we notice that there are some differences and some similarities. Matthew is primarily quoting from the LXX, which accounts for a little bit of the difference, but what we have in Zechariah is: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout {in triumph,} O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you ...” But Matthew skips over the next line: “He is just and endowed with salvation”. Why? Because he knows He is going to be rejected. He knows that in the context salvation in the context is deliverance from the enemies of Israel and the establishment of His rule. That is not going to happen as Jesus enters into Jerusalem; that part is not relevant. What is important is that the King is presenting Himself. He is lowly, humble, riding on the foal of a donkey.
When we look at how Zechariah 9:9 is set up, in the context the first eight verses are fulfilled historically already by the invasion of the foreign king who comes from the north. Alexander the Great would have fulfilled this. In vv. 9, 10 as Zechariah shifts ahead he is pointing out that ultimately Israel is going to be delivered by her own King, and there are these two verses, one related to the first coming and one to the second coming.
In the Old Testament they didn't understand that there would be these two comings. They had prophecies related to a suffering Messiah, and they had prophecies related to a ruling Messiah. In the Judaism of the late second temple period they tended to ignore the suffering Messiah passages and emphasize only the glory passages. The problem was that they thought they could have the crown before the cross. But the reality is that the cross had to come first, so that the crown could be established. They did clearly understand in both of these quotes that Zechariah 9:9 was a messianic passage.
But by the time of the second temple period they had decided that there were two messiahs. There would be the son of David, and there was one who the son of Joseph. Instead of two comings they saw two messiahs.
In this section of Zechariah there are a number of different things said related to the Messiah—related to His coming, establishing His kingdom—but one of the prophecies later on in Zechariah 13:7 we are told in the middle part of the verse: “Strike the Shepherd that the sheep may be scattered”. That is the scattering that takes place that we read about in Luke. A famine came about two or three years after the crucifixion and the church began to scatter to Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth.
The prophecy in Zechariah is clearly messianic, clearly talking about what is happening, and Jesus is fulfilling this showing that He is the rightful King.
Matthew 21:6, 7 NASB “ The disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them, and brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them; and He sat on the coats.”
Matthew 21:8 NASB “Most of the crowd spread their coats in the road, and others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in the road. [9] The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, 'Hosanna to the Son of David; BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; Hosanna in the highest!'”
The fact that they brought palm branches has caused some people (usually liberals who don't trust the text) to say that this was an event that really occurred at the Feast of Tabernacles where they would spread palm leaves and build little palm huts to live in temporarily. That occurred on October. Some people say that Matthew is taking this out of context and putting it at the beginning of the Feast of Passover.
This is not a very compelling argument at all because this was a standard operating procedure that we find from the time of the return from the exile. It is mentioned in the book of Maccabees of kings who would enter into a city, and it was standard operating procedure to put palm branches down on the road as a way of honoring the king who entered into the town.
The fact that Jesus is going to ride this unbroken colt demonstrates that He is in control and in authority over His creation. All authority has been given to Him. As the Son of Man He is showing His control over creation (Psalm 8:4-8). This colt allows Jesus to ride him into the city.
As He goes into the city the people's response is typical of welcoming a king--welcoming in peace, not in conflict. We can go back to the time of David for examples of kings entered into Jerusalem riding on a donkey in order to demonstrate that they were peaceful and demonstrating the quality of their reign. Riding on a horse was a sign of conquest, so Jesus is riding on a colt, not a horse; and this is clearly a fulfilment of the Zechariah chapter nine passage. So He is basically forcing the religious leaders of Jerusalem at this point to make a decision to either accept Him as the King or not.
As we will see in the coming chapter they immediately seek to do something about it, but are fearful the reaction of the crowds. But they have already determined that they are going to put Jesus to death.
Jesus rides in on the donkey, indicating that He is coming in peace, that He is going to have a peaceful administration. There were also some of the judges who rode on donkeys. This is clearly a picture of peace and harmony. What will happen though is that He will be killed and His followers will be scattered.
Luke 19:39 NASB “Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, 'Teacher, rebuke Your disciples'.” They don't like what the crowds are doing. This is a huge crowd. According to Charles Ellicot, who quotes from Josephus, he makes the statement that the number of lambs sacrificed in the first century was around 260 to 270 thousand lambs in Jerusalem at the time of Passover. One lamb would be sacrificed for one family, so if you had an average size family of ten people it would indicate 2.7-million people in Jerusalem for Passover.
That was a huge crowd when the average population of Jerusalem at this time was well under one hundred thousand. The pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for Passover would have covered the hillsides.
Another thing that people mention is that these people must have been awfully fickle because there were the number of people who were welcoming Jesus as the King, and then within four or five days they are going to be shouting for Barabbas, rejecting Jesus and calling upon Pilate to crucify Jesus. But that doesn't mean they are the same people.
Remember there was a multitude of people travelling with Jesus from Jericho up to the Mount of Olives. It was those people who were primarily the ones spreading the palm branches and singing and welcoming Him into Jerusalem. Many of the others there who were camped along the Mount of Olives would have come up and said: Who is this?
Matthew 21:10 NASB “When He had entered Jerusalem, all the city was stirred, saying, 'Who is this?' [11] And the crowds were saying, 'This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee'.” It is interesting that Matthew uses the same word translated “multitude/crowds” that he uses at the end of chapter twenty, indicating those who were following Jesus.
But as Jesus is descending the Mount of Olives, we read in Luke 19:41-44 NASB “When He approached {Jerusalem,} He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in this day [special time], even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes'.” Because of their negative volition they had rejected His messianic claims.
Then He warns them of what will happen in terms of future judgment.
Luke 19:43 NASB “For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, [44] and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” So He is clearly making the claim that He is the Messiah.
The third prophecy that is significant for understanding this is the prophecy that is not mentioned in any of the Gospels. But it is the fulfilment of one of the most remarkable prophecies that we find in the Old Testament, and that is the prophecy of Daniel's seventy weeks in Daniel chapter nine.
What is the last statement that Jesus makes here in Luke 19:44? It is “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.” The assumption there is that they should know the time of the visitation. They had been given the information so that they could figure out the chronology.
Remember that at the time Jesus was born there were two individuals who met His parents when they brought Him into the temple to dedicate Him: Simeon and Anna. They understood the time. How would they understand it? They understood the prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27. What we have there is a decree, a time frame for Israel.
Daniel 9:24 “Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy {place.} [25] So you are to know and discern {that} from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem ...”
We know that that command was Artaxerxes' decree that is mentioned in Nehemiah 2:1-8. It was the decree to go out and finish building the walls of Jerusalem. That would complete it. The temple had been built, other things had been built, but the walls, the defensive wall had not been built, so Artaxerxes tells Nehemiah to go back and complete it.
From that point (which we can date to March 5th, 444 BC) forward, the 69 weeks would be 69x7 (it is literally 69 times seven), then multiply that by 360 days, which is the number of days in a prophetic year, we come up with 173,880 days. When you add 173,880 days to March 444 BC (take out the zero because there is no zero the way we count from 1 BC to 1 AD) takes you to March 30th AD 33. This is the day of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. This fulfils that time. It is after this that the Messiah will be cut off. That was some five or six days later.
“... until Messiah the Prince {there will be} seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress.
Daniel 9:26 “Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary...”
After the entry, when the clock stops, then the Prince is cut off, then there is judgment on the city, and then there is an undetermined time (the church age) before the Antichrist appears. Then seven years later the Messiah returns. That is one of the great prophecies of Scripture from which we can say that we know when the Messiah was going to come.
This is why Jesus said that this was their time but they didn't recognize it. The issue for us is to understand is that what Jesus did wasn't happenstance; God planned it out. The chronology works down to the details, and when Jesus enters into Jerusalem it has been predetermined from eternity past. He is presenting Himself as the King.
What we will see in the coming chapters in the opposition to the King as He is tried. Because the day that he enters in is on the 10th of Nisan, the day that the Passover lamb for the families in Jerusalem would be selected. Then on the 14th the lamb is sacrificed.
Jesus fulfils the chronological typology. He enters, He offers Himself on the 10th, and then He will be sacrificed on the 14th.