Luke 19:28-48

19:28-34 | That Jesus miraculously anticipated the arrangements for an animal to ride underscores His control over these events. A colt no one had ever ridden was suitable for a king. Jesus was entering Jerusalem as Israel’s true King (1 Kgs. 1).

19:35-37 | Only Luke mentions Jesus’ descent from the Mount of Olives, indicating that He remained outside the city. The people spread their clothes on the road before Jesus, much as the supporters of Jehu had done after God told him that he would become king of Israel (2 Kgs. 9:13).

19:38-39 | Luke omits the Hebrew word Hosanna, which all three other Gospel writers use (Matt. 21:9; Mark 11:9; John 12:13). The word literally means, “Save us!” Luke apparently omits it in order to avoid confusing his Gentile readers. He does, however, reproduce the words of the angels at Jesus’ birth: Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! (2:14). Clearly the crowd looked to Jesus as their Messiah, and the Pharisees understood this. To them though, this acclamation was blasphemy.

19:41-44 | Ironically, Jerusalem means “City of Peace.” Only Luke includes the story of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. He wept because of: (1) the great privileges that were being abused; (2) the great possibilities that had been rejected; and (3) the great punishment He knew was coming on the city and its people. Jerusalem had abandoned its faith, rejected the Messiah, and would be laid to waste with terrible judgment. This was their day of opportunity – Jesus had made Himself available to them, but they nailed Him to a cruel Roman cross.

19:41 | The NT records three occasions when Jesus wept: (1) He wept at Lazarus’ tomb (John 11:35); (2) He wept over the future of the unrepentant city of Jerusalem (19:41); and (3) He prayed with “strong crying and tears” (Heb. 5:7) in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before His arrest and crucifixion.

19:42 | From the time of David onward, Jerusalem was the center of Israel and of her religion. But as Jesus looked at it, the temple was no longer a place of glory, holiness, and wonder but a picture of the terrible decay in the Jewish religious system.

19:45-46 | The temple priests were in the employ of the high priest and had their table set up all over the courtyard. Jesus cleansed the temple of the money-making schemes influenced by Annas. Although Annas ruled as high priest for only a few years (beginning in AD 6), he saw to it that a number of his close family members retained the job so they could continue to deceive the public.

19:45 | The temple from which Jesus drove the merchants and moneychangers was the third in Israel’s history. Solomon’s temple took seven years to build; Zerubbabel’s temple, built by the exiles who returned Judea from Babylon, took even less time. But Herod the great’s temple, which was built to placate the Jews in Jerusalem, took 84 years to complete 20 BC-AD 64). It came under Roman siege in AD 67 and was destroyed and burned in AD 70 when Titus captured Jerusalem.