LECTURE CI.. LUKE XIX. 28-40. "And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem. 29. And it came to pass, when he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, 30. Saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which at your entering ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. 31. And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him. 32. And they that were sent went their way, and found even as he had said unto them. 33. And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? 34. And they said, The Lord hath need of him. 35. And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon. 36. And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way. 37. And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen; 38. Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord peace in heaven, and glory in the highest. 39. And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples. 40. And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." WE formerly considered how, having left Jericho and the house of Zaccheus, and having proceeded so far on the way to Jerusalem as to be "nigh" to it, our Lord, in order to dispel the delusive expectation that he was to assume a temporal kingdom, and that, too, immediately on his arrival at the capital, spoke the parable of the ten pounds, in which he taught that, instead of remaining long on earth, for any purpose whatever, he was soon to leave it, and afterwards to return to reign, and to reckon both with his servants and with his enemies, in a different manner from what their carnal views led them to suppose. In immediate connection with this, it is said in the first verse of the passage now under consideration, " And when he had thus spoken he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem." We found that at an earlier stage of this journey, and before he reached Jericho,* * Mark x. 32. "as they" (the disciples) "were in the way going up to Jerusalem, Jesus went before them: and they were amazed; and as they followed, they were afraid." Nor does his courage fail now that they are near the city, and within sight of its battlements. Well knowing what awaited him there, he advanced in the front of them all, with the noblest resolution and devotedness, having a baptism of suffering and of blood to be baptized with, and being greatly straitened till it should be accomplished. Let us admire the zeal and love he thus manifested for us; and let us, in our measure, and according to the calls that are made on us, go forward, with similar courage and cheerfulness, to act and suffer for his sake. Though it was impossible for one who spoke and acted as Jesus did not to attract very general notice, he had hitherto shunned publicity, and retired when the rage of his enemies threatened his life. Now, however, the time was come when he was to be made perfect through suffering, and exalted through the deepest humiliation; and the more generally the public attention was drawn towards him, the better for the diffusion of the knowledge of his history and character, and for the subsequent success of his cause. For this reason, therefore, as well as for the fulfilment of ancient prophecy, he resolved to make what is commonly called his triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Of this important event an account is given by all the four evangelists. Our Lord, however, did not enter Jerusalem immediately, and on the very day he accomplished this journey; but he stopped for the night in Bethany, which was in its immediate neighbourhood, and made his entry into the capital the day after. This appears from the history as given by John in his 12th chapter. In the 1st verse of that chapter, he says, "Then Jesus, six days before the passover, came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom he had raised from the dead;" and then John states, in the 12th verse, that our Lord's entry into Jerusalem took place "on the next day." Now that the history of redemption is drawing towards its crisis, we find dates and other circumstances recorded with increasing distinctness and particularity; and to mark these with as much accuracy as the harmony of the inspired authors enables us to reach, ought to be as interesting and edifying, as it is dutiful and becoming. We are now come to what is commonly called the Passion week; that is, the week of Christ's sufferings unto death. And what a week was this! what a week for the spiritual welfare and eternal salvation of men! its events how numerous, and yet how interesting! how tragical, and yet how glorious! Even after carefully perusing the histories of the evangelists, and several commentators, considerable difficulties present themselves to many readers as to the proper arrangement of these events, and the days on which they occurred. The following is the substance of the conclusions to which, whether they be all absolutely certain or not, I have come, after much reading and careful reflection. First of all, some of the difficulties arise from not properly distinguishing the different meanings which may be scripturally attached to the words "day" and "passover," and the way of reckoning them. The word day is sometimes used as distinguished from night, and sometimes for the period of twenty-four hours; and it is evidently not in the former, but in the latter sense we must understand it, when it is said, Jesus came to Bethany "six days before the passover." It is to be remembered, however, that the Jews reckoned their day, in this sense, not as we do, from midnight to midnight, nor, as some other nations, from sunrise to sunrise, but from sunset to sunset. The law* ran thus, “From even unto even shall ye celebrate your Sabbath;" and, of course, the other days of the week were counted in the same way. The passover, again, may signify the sacrificing and eating of the paschal lamb on the evening of the 14th day of the month, that is, when the 14th passed into the 15th; or it may signify the first day of twenty-four hours of the feast, which was from sunset of the 14th to sunset of the 15th, which first day, like the last of the feast, was a day of holy convocation; or it may signify the whole feast, which lasted a week, or seven full days, that is, from sunset of the 14th day of the month, to sunset of the 21st. It may be proper to observe, that some writers erroneously say that Jesus Christ was crucified at the same moment that the paschal lamb was slain; this error betrays inconsideration or rashness of theory; for it is manifest that he partook of the paschal lamb himself. He was crucified, however, on the following day, which was called the first day of the feast. Now, it is acknowledged that he rose again from the dead on the first day of the week, which is hence the Christian Sabbath, and which is also called Sun* Lev. xxiii, 32. day; but, counting backwards to the third day before that, it is farther acknowledged that he suffered on the Friday. It is also, as already stated, certain that he ate the passover lamb the night before, and it is surely natural to suppose, that he did so at the season appointed for the whole nation by the law, which directed that the lamb should be killed in the evening, or towards the going down of the sun, on the 14th day of the first month of the ecclesiastical year. That month bore the name of Abib, but after the time of Ezra, and the return from the Babylonish captivity, was called Nisan, and it corresponded with part of our months of March and April. The lamb was also directed to be eaten the same night.* Now, we have just read from John, that Jesus came to Bethany "six days before the passover.' Some commentators of great respectability, understanding by the word "passover" here, the first day of the feast, or the Friday, the 15th of the month, and counting back from that six days, including both extremes, conclude that Christ came to Bethany on the first day of the week, which is now the Christian Sabbath, and entered Jerusalem in triumph on the Monday. Others, however, understanding by the word passover,' in John, the killing of the paschal lamb on the 14th day of the month, which was Thursday, and counting backwards from that six days, also including both extremes, conclude that the day on which John speaks of him as being at Bethany was the Jewish Sabbath, or our Saturday, and that the day on which he entered Jerusalem was the first day of the week, which is now the Christian Sabbath. This is the more commonly received reckoning of the two.† It was on this supposition that, when human inventions were multiplied, there was founded the observance of what was called Palm-Sunday, on which branches of palms were carried in commemoration of what took place on the occasion referred to. This reckoning, too, is thought by many good judges to harmonize better than the other with the account of the transactions of the days which intervened between this event and our Lord's death. 66 * See Exod. xii.; Deut. xvi. 1-8. Dr Macknight has a long dissertation to prove that Christ anticipated the usual time of the passover by a day-an opinion held by many, but, I am persuaded, erroneously. See Lightfoot's Harmony; and Calmet and Stackhouse on the articles "Passover," and "Jesus Christ." Doddridge, on John xii. 1, 2, holds that Christ's "entrance into Jerusalem must have been on the first day of the week," and the entertainment given to him in the house of Simon, in Bethany, "on the evening of the day before, when the Jewish Sabbath was over." But Dr Adam Clarke adopts the other opinion. "And it came to But let us proceed with the history. pass, when he was come nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, at the mount called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples." Bethany was a considerable village situated at the foot of the Mount of Olives, about fifteen furlongs,* that is, nearly two miles, from Jerusalem. Bethphage was another smaller village in the same direction, somewhat nearer Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives lay to the east of the city, and was parted from it by the valley of Jehoshaphat, through which flowed the brook Kidron, or Cedron. As our Lord was now leaving Bethany, where he had lodged during the preceding night, it is thought that his coming nigh to Bethphage and Bethany, means his drawing near to the place where these villages met. From this spot he despatched two of his disciples on an errand, and he waited there till they returned. He sent them away, "saying, Go ye into the village over against you; in the which, at your entering, ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither." In Matt. xxi. 2, it is mentioned that Jesus told them they would find an ass and a colt, and directed them to bring them both. The other three evangelists, however, mention only the colt, or foal, doubtless because it was on the colt that Jesus rode. On that colt no man had ever sat. Here observe, that, according to the ceremonial law, and the commonly received opinion of most nations, those animals, if not the only ones which could be used in any case, were considered peculiarly fit and acceptable for sacred purposes, which had never been put to any labour, either in the yoke or in riding. The ordinance of "the ashes of the heifer sprinkling the unclean," required the heifer to be a red one, "without spot, wherein was no blemish, and upon which never came yoke." In the expiation of the uncertain murder, the elders of the city nearest the spot where the body of the murdered man was found, were directed to take, for the purpose, heifer which had not been wrought with, and which had not drawn in the yoke." When the Philistines sent back the ark of God, they sent it "on a new cart," drawn by "two milch kine on which there had come no yoke:" and the men of Beth-shemesh "clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt-offering unto the Lord."+ Many traces of a similar kind are found in heathen authors. Ovid's account of the origin of the city of Thebes, however Numb. xix. 2; Deut. xxi. 3; 1 Sam. vi. 7. *John xi. 18. VOL. III. K 66 an |