On December 9, 2015, 6:18

David Guzik
am

Matthew Chapter 21

Matthew 21 – The
Beginning of Jesus’
Last Week
A. The triumphal entry.
1. (1-6) Jesus instructs His
disciples regarding preparation
for His triumphal entry into
Jerusalem.

Now when they drew near Jerusalem, and

came to Bethphage, at the Mount of
Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,
saying to them, “Go into the village
opposite you, and immediately you will
find a donkey tied, and a colt with her.
Loose them and bring them to Me. And if
anyone says anything to you, you shall
say, ‘The Lord has need of them,’ and
immediately he will send them.” All this
was done that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophet, saying:

“Tell the daughter of Zion,

‘Behold, your King is coming to you,
Lowly, and sitting on a donkey,
A colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

So the disciples went and did as Jesus

commanded them.

a. When they drew near Jerusalem:

Jesus knew that the religious leaders
were going to arrest Him and
condemn Him and mock Him and
scourge Him and deliver Him to the
Romans for crucifixion (Matthew
20:19). Yet He had the courage to not
only enter Jerusalem, but to enter in
as public a way as possible. This
contrasts to His previous pattern of
suppressing publicity.

i. If Jesus had not deliberately

suppressed the popular
enthusiasm over Him and His
credentials as Messiah – if Jesus
had wanted it, this would have
happened long ago and many
times.

ii. “Jesus could not have chosen a

more dramatic moment; it was
into a city surging with people
keyed up with religious
expectations that he came.”
(Barclay)

iii. “The applause and the crowds

were not manipulated; they would
have occurred in any case. But the
ride on a colt, because it was
planned, could only be an acted
parable, a deliberate act of self-
disclosure…Secrecy was being
lifted.” (Carson)

b. You will find a donkey tied, and a

colt with her: Jesus would ride upon
the younger of these animals, the colt.
He told the disciples how they would
find these animals, and instructed
them to bring both animals.

i. The Hebrew text of Zechariah 9

mentions one animal, not two. “If
we assume that Matthew
understood Hebrew, the full
quotation a!rms that Jesus rode
on the ‘colt,’ not its mother. Mark
and Luke say the animal was so
young that it had never been
ridden. In the midst, then, of this
excited crowd, an unbroken animal
remains calm under the hands of
the Messiah who controls nature.”
(Carson)

ii. “Mark tells us that the colt had

never before been ridden (Mark
11:2), so that it would be only
prudent to bring its mother as well
to reassure it among the noisy
crowd.” (France)

iii. “Hath need of them: not for any

weariness: he who had travelled on
foot from Galilee to Bethany, could
have gone the other two miles; but
that he might enter into Jerusalem
as was prophesied of him,
Zechariah 9:9.” (Poole)

iv. “What a singular conjunction of

words is here, ‘the Lord’ and ‘hath
need!’ Jesus, without laying aside
his sovereignty, had taken a nature
full of needs; yet, being in need, he
was still the Lord and could
command his subjects and
requisition their property.”
(Spurgeon)

c. All this was done that it might be

fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet: Here, Jesus deliberately
worked to fulfill prophecy, especially
the prophecy of Daniel’s Seventy
Weeks, which many feel Jesus fulfilled
to the exact day on His triumphal
entry (Daniel 9:24-27).

i. “It is possible that Matthew

presents these verses as having
been spoken by Jesus.” (Carson)

d. Your King is coming to you, lowly,

and sitting on a donkey: Jesus came to
Jerusalem in humility, yet with
appropriate dignity. Instead of coming
on a horse as a conquering general, He
came on a colt, as was customary for
royalty. He came to Jerusalem as the
Prince of Peace.

i. “Asses were of old beasts that

great persons used to ride on,
Judges 10:4; 12:14. But after
Solomon’s time the Jews got a
breed of horses; so as only poor
people rode upon asses, mostly
reserved for burdens.” (Poole)

ii. “Therefore for those with eyes

to see, Jesus was not only
proclaiming his messiahship and
his fulfillment of Scripture but
showing the kind of peace-loving
approach he was now making to
the city.” (Carson)

iii. “This entry into Jerusalem has

been termed the triumph of Christ.
It was indeed the triumph of
humility over pride and worldly
grandeur; of poverty over a!uence;
and of meekness and gentleness over
rage and malice.” (Clarke)

2. (7-11) Jesus receives and

encourages adoration as the
Messiah.

They brought the donkey and the colt,

laid their clothes on them, and set Him on
them. And a very great multitude spread
their clothes on the road; others cut down
branches from the trees and spread them
on the road. Then the multitudes who
went before and those who followed cried
out, saying:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of
the LORD!’
Hosanna in the highest!”

And when He had come into Jerusalem,

all the city was moved, saying, “Who is
this?” So the multitudes said, “This is
Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of
Galilee.”

a. Laid their clothes on them…spread

their clothes on the road; others cut
down branches from the trees and
spread them on the road: All this was
done to honor Jesus as a great,
triumphant person coming into
Jerusalem in the season of Passover.

i. Wiseman says of the spreading

out of garments for Jehu in 2 Kings
9:13: “The act of spreading out the
garment was one of recognition,
loyalty and promise of support.”
(Wiseman)

ii. “Carrying palm and other

branches was emblematical of
victory and success. See 1
Maccabees 13:51; 2 Maccabees 10:7;
and Revelation 7:9.” (Clarke) On
the twenty-third day of the second
month, in the year one hundred and
seventy-one, the Jews entered the
citadel with shouts of jubilation,
waving of palm branches, the music of
harps and cymbals and lyres, and the
singing of hymns and canticles,
because a great enemy of Israel had
been destroyed. (1 Maccabees 13:51)

iii. In one way, this crowd was

glorious. “It is a mark of Christ’s
presence when the church
becomes enthusiastic. We
sometimes hear complaints about
revivals being too exciting.
Perhaps the censure is deserved,
but I would like to see a little of
the fault. This age does not
generally sin in the direction of
being too excited concerning
divine things. We have erred so
long on the other side that,
perhaps, a little excess in the
direction of fervor might not be
the worst of all calamities; at any
rate, I would not fear to try it.”
(Spurgeon)

iv. In another way, this crowd was

ridiculous – in worldly eyes.
“Why, if Pilate himself had heard
about it he would have said — ‘Ah!
There is nothing much to fear
from that. There is no fear that
that man will ever upset Caesar;
there is no fear that he will ever
overturn an army. Where are their
swords? There is not a sword
among them! They have no cries
that sound like rebellion; their
songs are only some religious
verses taken out of the Psalms.’
‘Oh!’ says he, ‘the whole thing is
contemptible and ridiculous.’”
(Spurgeon)

b. Hosanna to the Son of David! This

was open Messianic adoration of Jesus.
They look to Jesus for salvation
(Hosanna means “save now!” and was
addressed to kings, as in 2 Samuel
14:4 and 2 Kings 6:26). They openly
give Jesus the titles appropriate for the
Messiah (Son of David… He who
comes in the name of the LORD).

i. Jesus received and indeed

encouraged this worship. Again,
this was because this is the day that
the LORD has made (Psalm 118:24),
the day when the Messiah came as
Savior to Jerusalem in fulfillment
of Daniel’s prophecy.

ii. “‘Hosanna’ transliterates the

Hebrew expression that originally
was a cry for help: ‘Save!’… In
time it became an invocation of
blessing and even an acclamation…
The people praise God in the
highest heavens for sending the
Messiah and, if ‘Hosanna’ retains
some of its original force, also cry
to him for deliverance.” (Carson)

iii. “Essentially it is a people’s cry

for deliverance and for help in the
day of their trouble; it is an
oppressed people’s cry to their
saviour and their king.” (Barclay)

iv. “‘Vox populi, vox Dei’ they used

to say; but the saying is false: the
voice of the people may seem to be
the voice of God when they shout
‘Hosanna in the highest’; but
whose voice is it when they yell
out, ‘Crucify him, crucify him’?”
(Spurgeon)

c. When He had come into Jerusalem,

all the city was moved: Jesus also
showed that He wasn’t afraid of chief
priests and Pharisees. He knew they
were plotting to kill Him, yet He came
openly to the city as Messiah.

i. “When the Magi came looking

for the King of Jews, ‘all
Jerusalem’ was troubled (Matthew
2:3). Now when the king arrives all
the city is stirred.” (France)

ii. “How strange is it that these

same people…should, about five
days after, change their hosannas
for, Away with him! Crucify him!
Crucify him! How fickle is the
multitude! Even when they get
right, there is but little hope that
they will continue so long.”
(Clarke)

iii. It was here, before He entered

the city, that He looked over the
city and wept, knowing the
judgment that would come upon
Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44).

iv. “Our Lord loves his people to be

glad. His tears he kept to himself,
as he wept over Jerusalem; but the
gladness he scattered all around,
so that even the boys and girls in
the streets of Jerusalem made the
temple courts to ring with their
merry feet and gladsome songs.”
(Spurgeon)

d. This is Jesus, the prophet from

Nazareth of Galilee: This continues
the earlier identification of Jesus with
Nazareth (Matthew 2:23). It would
sound strange to many – especially to
the religious establishment – that a
prophet would come from the obscure
and unnoted city of Nazareth.

i. “When our Lord grants revivals

to his church, the congregations
and the multitude outside begin to
ask, ‘Wherefore this stir? What
meaneth all this? Who is this
Christ, and what is his salvation?’
This spirit of inquiry is eminently
desirable. It is just now a matter to
be sought for by importunate
prayer.” (Spurgeon)

ii. “They had not profited so much,

or made so far progress in the
mystery of Christ, as to know him
to have been born a
Bethlehemite.” (Trapp)

B. Jesus cleanses the

temple.
1. (12-13) Jesus forcibly stops the
commercial desecration of the
temple.

Then Jesus went into the temple of God

and drove out all those who bought and
sold in the temple, and overturned the
tables of the money changers and the
seats of those who sold doves. And He
said to them, “It is written, ‘My house
shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you
have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”

a. Drove out all those who bought and

sold in the temple: This seems distinct
from the cleansing of the temple
courts mentioned in John 2:13-22,
which happened towards the
beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry.
Yet the purpose was the same; to drive
out the merchants, who in cooperation
with the priests cheated visitors to
Jerusalem by forcing them to purchase
approved sacrificial animals and
currencies at high prices.

i. Barclay notes, “A pair of doves

could cost as little as 4p outside
the Temple and as much as 75p
inside the Temple.” This is almost
20 times more expensive.

ii. Yet Jesus’ anger was against all

those who bought as well as those
who sold. “Sellers and buyers
viewed as one company – kindred
in spirit, to be cleared out
wholesale…The tra!c was
necessary, and might have been
innocent; but the trading spirit
soon develops abuses which were
doubtless rampant at that period.”
(Bruce)

iii. What Jesus did was important

more as an acted-out parable than
for what it accomplished in itself.
“There is no indication, nor is it
likely, that any lasting reform was
achieved; no doubt the tables were
back for the rest of the week, and
Jesus took no further action.”
(France)

iv. France says that there was a

contemporary expectation that the
Messiah would cleanse the temple,
both approving it after the pagan
conquerors (such as Antiochus
Epiphanes and Pompey), but also
from the false worship from God’s
own people.

v. “I do not believe we shall

thoroughly purify any church by
Acts of Parliament, nor by
reformation associations, nor by
agitation, nor by any merely
human agency. No hand can grasp
the scourge that can drive out the
buyers and sellers, but that hand
which once was fastened to the
cross. Let the Lord do it and the
work will be done, for it is not of
man, nor shall man accomplish
it.” (Spurgeon)

b. My house shall be called a house of

prayer: The merchants operated in the
outer courts of the temple, the only
area where Gentiles could come and
pray. Therefore, this place of prayer
was made into a marketplace, and a
dishonest one (a ‘den of thieves’).

i. Mark’s record contains the more

complete quotation of Jesus’
reference to Isaiah 56:7: Is it not
written, “My house shall be called a
house of prayer for all nations?”
(Mark 11:17). The point was that
Isaiah prophesied, and Jesus
demanded that the temple be a
place for all nations to pray. The
activity of all those who bought
and sold in the outer courts made
it impossible for any seeking
Gentile to come and pray.

ii. “In that uproar of buying and

selling and bargaining and
auctioneering prayer was
impossible. Those who sought
God’s presence were being
debarred from it from the very
people of God’s House.” (Barclay)

2. (14) Jesus carries on God’s

compassionate work in the
temple courts.

Then the blind and the lame came to Him

in the temple, and He healed them.

a. The blind and the lame came to

Him: The bold action of Jesus when He
drove out the merchants and money
changers from the temple courts did
not discourage the needy from coming
to Him.

i. The blind and the lame were

restricted to the court of the
Gentiles; they could not go closer
to the temple and could not go to
the altar to sacrifice. After purging
the court of the Gentiles of
merchants and robbers, Jesus then
ministered to the outcasts who
congregated there.

b. And He healed them: After driving

out the moneychangers and the
merchants from the temple courts,
Jesus didn’t establish “The Society for
the Cleansing of the Temple.” He got
back to doing the business of the
Messiah, a significant part of which
was showing the power of God in the
context of compassion and mercy.

3. (15-17) The indignation of the

Jewish leaders.

But when the chief priests and scribes

saw the wonderful things that He did, and
the children crying out in the temple and
saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
they were indignant and said to Him, “Do
You hear what these are saying?” And
Jesus said to them, “Yes. Have you never
read, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and
nursing infants You have perfected
praise’?” Then He left them and went out
of the city to Bethany, and He lodged
there.

a. They were indignant: This was their

response to the wonderful things that
He did, and to the praise of children
for Jesus in the temple courts. The
hypocrisy of the religious leaders is
evident. Greed and theft in the temple
didn’t bother them, but praise to Jesus
did.