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.

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 21st 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 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 1st 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 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.

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.

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 3rd 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 1st century Jewish mind than this, 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 1st 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 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 1st 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 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 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 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 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, 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.