Bible Study series: Mark 11:1-11. He was destined to die, but for now the people honor him.
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Let’s begin.
Scripture: Mark 11:1-11
1 When they were getting close to Jerusalem and in the vicinity of Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples 2 and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and just as you are entering it, you will find a colt which has been tied and on which no one has ever ridden. Untie and bring it. 3 And if someone tells you, ‘What are you doing?’ say: ‘The Lord needs it.’ And then send him back here immediately.” 4 So they left and found a colt tied to the outside door on the street and untied it. 5 Some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?” 6 But they told him just what Jesus said, and they gave permission to the disciples. 7 They brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments on it; then he sat on it. 8 And many people spread their garments on the road, while others did so after cutting leafy branches from the fields. 9 They went ahead and followed, crying out:
Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
10 Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!
Hosanna in the highest!
11 And so he entered Jerusalem and into the temple. After looking around at everything, he entered Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late. (Mark 11:1-11)
Comments:
Jesus now enters Jerusalem, and he takes symbolic action and engages in debate. Mark 11:1-13:37 can be divided into three parts:
(1).. Jesus’ royal entrance into Jerusalem and challenging the religious authorities through symbolic actions of clearing out temple and cursing fig tree (11:1-25);
(2).. A series of conflicts and debates with religious authorities (11:27-12:44);
(3).. Olivet Discourse, where Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple and Second Coming (13:1-37). (Wessel and Strauss, p. 881)
1:
Bethphage (“house of figs”) was a suburb of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley, on the southeast slope of the Mount of Olives. Jerusalem came in sight at this village You can google a Bible map, nowadays, so go for it. From the east, the Roman road was seventeen miles (23.3 km) and climbs about 3000 feet (914.4m). Pilgrims often came from there for Passover.
Bethany: about 1.5 miles (3 km) east of Jerusalem. Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived there (Luke 10:38-42; John 11:1).
Mount of Olives: a ridge that goes north to south about 1.8 miles long (3 km), east of Jerusalem, above the valley of Kidron, about 100 feet (30 m) high. A large number of olive trees grew on it.
“two disciples”: we don’t know who they were. Neither Luke 19:28 nor Matt. 26:17 name them. Could one of them be Judas who kept the money sack (John 12:6)? Maybe he did other practical business things, but we don’t know whether he was one of the two. Luke 22:8 says that Jesus commissioned Peter and John to prepare the Passover meal, so maybe Jesus asked them to carry out this mission. .
Let’s discuss what a disciple is in general terms.
The noun is mathētēs (pronounced mah-they-tayss). and it is used 261 times in the NT, though many of them are duplicates in the three synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. BDAG is considered by many to be the authoritative Greek lexicon of the NT, and it says of the noun (1) “one who engages in learning through instruction from another, pupil, apprentice”; (2) “one who is rather constantly associated with someone who has a pedagogical reputation or a particular set of views, disciple, adherent.”
2-3:
Now Jesus gives them instructions: Go to the village opposite to or ahead of us; enter the village; a colt will be tied up there, and no one has sat on it; untie it and lead it here; if the owners ask why you are untying it, tell them the Lord needs it.
“Lord”: This is another hint at Mark’s portrayal of Jesus’ deity; though subtler than John’s portrayal, it is still present. Incidentally, Matt. 21:23 says a donkey with her colt was tied up and the two disciples were to bring both of them. Again Matthew likes to speak in “twos” (4:18, 21; 8:28; 9:27; 20:30). Go to his Gospel to find out possible explanations in the triumphal entry. Mark and Luke simply omit these details. Yes, the authors of the three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) were inspired by the Spirit and gave themselves permission to omit or keep whichever details suited their purposes.
Lane points out that an animal that was devoted to any sacred purpose must not be used in an ordinary sense (Num. 19:2; Deut. 21:3; 1 Sam. 6:7). The donkey had never been ridden because it was about to carry the rightful king in an extraordinary and sacred mission.
In any case, it happened just as Jesus prophesied.
How did Jesus know these bits of information? One could answer the question in two ways: (1) The first is by natural methods. Maybe he sent a team ahead to scout around for such a colt. But then how did Jesus know that no one sat on the colt? (2) Jesus received detailed knowledge through the Spirit that he could not receive it just in his humanity. God looked from heaven in his omniscience and revealed these pieces of information to his Son.
Here are two other theological questions: (1) Did his divine nature shine through his humanity, so that he got this information by his own (hidden) omniscience? (2) Or did the Spirit alone reveal this information to him by the Father’s will? Both interpretations are in view here: The Spirit revealed it, and his divine nature shone through his humanity. But if you want to conclude that the Spirit alone revealed this detailed knowledge without Jesus’s divine nature shining through his humanity, then you are in the company of other Bible interpreters.
What’s my opinion? As it happens, the dominant image throughout the four Gospels is that Jesus worked these visible miracles and gifts of knowledge by the Spirit’s anointing. But I am surely open to the conclusion that his divine nature shone through his humanity, as well. Jesus stayed in close contact with his Father. “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. I am in the Father, and the Father is in me” (14:9-10). Jesus “can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son does also” (John 5:19). “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
I cover this issue more thoroughly and Phil. 2:6-8 in this post:
4. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Took the Form of a Servant
It is remarkable that we too, by the anointing of the Spirit, can receive such detailed information about our lives and even about the lives of others.
Yes, this is the gift of the word of knowledge.
2. Gifts of the Spirit: Word of Knowledge
However, let’s not push this interpretation too far. He may have known the man by an earlier connection that we don’t know about.
In any case, the whole episode refers to Zechariah’s prophecy:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zech. 9:9, ESV)
Zech. 9:10 says the Messiah comes conquering. So verse 9 is about the humble king, and verse 10 is about Jesus’ conquering Satan himself, satanic beings, disease and nature itself. He’ll conquer the world of men at his Second Coming.
They draped the garments on the colt.
See my post on Messianic prophecies:
That link has a table of OT and NT prophecies in parallel columns. But Jesus fulfilling prophecies goes more broadly than a table. He also fulfills the types and shadows and themes of Scripture, like the animal sacrifices and salvation and even Israel itself, who failed. Jesus, in contrast, is in the process of fulfilling God’s mission.
4-6:
Mark says that no one had ever ridden on the colt before (11:2). Matthew knew from first-hand knowledge of the event of two animals, and he says that Jesus rode on the colt.
Mark may have in mind this royal prophecy about Judah all the way back in Genesis:
10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until tribute comes to him;
and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.
11 Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
and his vesture in the blood of grapes. (Gen. 49:10-11, ESV)
Riding a donkey signified that his entry was one of peace, not coercion. Further, he was Jerusalem’s rightful king and Messiah, which is indicated by this action parable. In Israel’s history, donkeys were the mounts of kings; in addition to Gen. 49:10-11, also see 2 Sam. 15:30; 16:1-2; 17:23; 19:26. The colt refers to the kingship of Jesus, as the son of David.
7-10:
In Jesus’s ministry, he intended to keep the crowds down and stop the loud acclamations, whether those who were healed (1:44; 5:43; 7:36; 8:26) or the disciples (8:30; 9:9), or demons (1:25, 34; 3:11-12). “Now, however, he takes intentional steps that reveal his status as the Messianic King of the Jews” (Strauss, p. 483).
John’s Gospel says they got palm branches (12:13). Matthew’s Gospel says they cut branches from the trees. (Luke is silent.) So we can conclude that some pilgrims brought palm branches from Jericho (available year round because of the lower elevation than Jerusalem), while others got branches here and there, like the Garden of Gethsemane. Also, we are not required to believe that “many people” = thousands who lifted up branches. A few hundred (if that many), some from Galilee and others from Judea, are enough to send the message that the king is coming.
The crowd shouted Hosanna, which means literally means “help!” or “Save, I pray!” (Decker). It comes from Ps. 118, part of the Hallel psalms (Pss. 113-118) sung during this season. The crowds connected these psalms to Passover.
25 Save us, we pray, O Lord!
O Lord, we pray, give us success!
26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
We bless you from the house of the Lord. (Ps. 118:25-26, ESV)
Originally, the people celebrated the psalmist entering the Lord’s temple. He is blessed when he comes in the name of the Lord. Now this verse is applied to and fulfilled in the Messiah.
Son of David was a popular Messianic title; it reflects the future age when the eyes of the blind would be opened and the ears of the deaf would be unstopped and the lame would leap like a deer (Is. 35:5:5-6). Jesus was ushering it in right now, in part. Later in his ministry he will correct the popular view and say that if the Messiah really was David’s son, then why does David call him Lord (Mark 12:35-37)?
See my post on this title:
3. Titles of Jesus: The Son of David and the Messiah
The crowd of his followers, following him from Galilee in the north during the pilgrimage, celebrated his arrival, while the crowd in Jerusalem may have heard of him by reputation. The whole city was “shaken” or “stirred up.” Why? To the people of Jerusalem, the Galileans seemed to be foreigners. Jesus was from the north as far as the Jerusalemites were concerned (but see vv. 10-11, next). Jerusalem had a population of 30,000 in normal days but increased to 180,000 during Passover. People were camping all over the city, along the roads and in the fields, lodging wherever they could. (France in his commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, p. 771).
“leafy branches”: it could be translated “consist of leaves,” “leafy branches,” “tall branches,” or “stalks of grain.” These plants could be easily cut form nearby fields. Only John says palm branches (12:13) (Wessel and Strauss on vv. 7-9).
11:
Nothing happened, except that Jesus scoped out the city and temple and sized them up. He was not on a sight-seeing tour, as a tourist. Rather, he was examining his Father’s house, as the king and Messiah. It did not look good. His big plans would come the next day. The silence in this verse makes Mark’s readers feel that something ominous is about to happen, something decisive, a game-changer. They were right, of course, since the readers knew Jesus had already predicted his suffering, death and then resurrection. How would the suffering and death happen? Jesus is about to launch into an action parable with a fig tree, and then clear out the financial side of the temple. He will challenge the temple authorities in other ways too.
Strauss: “Jesus’ approach to Jerusalem, traditionally called the triumphal entry, is his first public declaration that he is indeed the Messiah. Though Jesus makes no explicit claim, his acquisition of the colt of a donkey to ride into Jerusalem is no doubt an intentional fulfillment of Zech. 9:9, which predicts the coming of Israel’s Messiah” (p. 477).
Garland: “Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem marks the end of his avoiding the crowds and his secrecy and the beginning of open confrontation with opponents in the temple. … Jesus does not tour the temple as a tourist, dazzled by its glittering gold, glistening white marble and gigantic stones. Nor does he visit out of pious reverence; he offers no prayers or sacrifice. Jesus had identified himself as the Lord who requires a mount (11:3)” (pp. 428-30).
Bottom line: Jesus is now king and Lord and Messiah. He and his Father own the temple, and any temple authority who puts him on trial and condemns him to death is unjust. “He comes as Lord and King inspecting his domain. On the next day he will render his judgment” (Strauss, p. 483).
Lane on v. 11: “Just as the leaves of the tree concealed the fact that there was no fruit to enjoy, so the magnificence of the Temple and its ceremonies conceals the fact that Israel has not brought forth the fruit of righteousness demanded by God. Both incidents [clearing out an area of the temple and the fig tree] have the character of a prophetic sign which warns of judgment to fall upon Israel for honoring God with their lips when the heart was far from him (cf. 7:6).” This explains his cursing the fig tree.
Lane reminds us that John 12:16 tells us that the disciples did not understand the Messianic significance at first, until after Jesus was glorified (after the resurrection and ascension). True, but they did understand when Mark and Matthew and Luke wrote, so the interpretation of the Messianic and kingly arrival is still valid.
GrowApp for Mark 11:1-11
1. God gives us moments of victory and triumph. Tell your story of at least one.
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1. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels: Introduction to Series
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