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| Matthew's Story of the Entry into Jerusalem. Difficulties Involved in It for Those Who Take It Literally.
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17.
Matthew’s Story of the Entry into Jerusalem. Difficulties
Involved in It for Those Who Take It Literally.
We have now to take into consideration the statements of
the other Gospels on the expulsion from the temple of those who made it
a house of merchandise. Take in the first place what we find in
Matthew. On the Lord’s entering Jerusalem, he
says,5063
“All the city was stirred, saying, Who
is this?” But before this he has the story of the ass and
the foal which were taken by command of the Lord and found by the two
disciples whom he sent from Bethphage into the village over against
them. These two disciples loose the ass which was tied, and they
have orders, if any one says anything to them, to answer that
“the Lord has need of them; and immediately he will send
them.” By these incidents Matthew declares that the
prophecy was fulfilled which says, “Behold, the King cometh, meek
and sitting on an ass and a colt the foal of an ass,” which we
find in Zechariah.5064
When, then,
the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them, they brought the
ass and the colt, and placed on them, he says, their own garments, and
the Lord sat upon them, clearly on the ass and the colt. Then
“the most part of the multitude spread their garments in the way,
and others cut down branches from the trees and strewed them in the
way, and the multitudes that went before and that followed cried,
Hosanna to the Son of David, blessed is He that cometh in the name of
the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.” Hence it was that
when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was moved, saying, Who is
this? “and the multitudes said,” those obviously who went
before Him and who followed Him, to those who were asking who He was,
“This is the prophet Jesus of Nazareth of Galilee. And
Jesus entered into the temple and cast out all those that sold and
bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money-changers
and the seats of them that sold doves: and He saith unto them, It
is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer; but ye make it
a den of robbers.” Let us ask those who consider that
Matthew had nothing but the history in his mind when he wrote his
Gospel, what necessity there was for two of the disciples to be sent to
the village over against Bethphage, to find an ass tied and its colt
with it and to loose them and bring them? And how did it deserve
to be recorded that He sat upon the ass and the foal and entered into
the city? And how does Zechariah prophesy about Christ when he
says,5065
“Rejoice greatly, thou daughter of
Zion, proclaim it, thou daughter of Jerusalem. Behold thy king
cometh unto thee, just is He and bringing salvation, meek and sitting
on an ass and a young foal”? If it be the case that this
prophecy predicts simply the material incident described by the
Evangelists, how can those who stand on the letter maintain that this
is so with regard to the following part also of the prophecy, which
runs: “And He shall destroy chariots from Ephraim and horse
from Jerusalem, and the bow of the warrior shall be destroyed, and a
multitude and peace from the Gentiles, and He shall rule over the waters as
far as the sea, and the rivers to the ends of the earth,”
etc. It is to be noted, too, that Matthew does not give the words
as they are found in the prophet, for instead of “Rejoice
greatly, thou daughter of Zion, proclaim it, thou daughter of
Jerusalem,” he makes it, “Tell ye the daughter of
Zion.” He curtails the prophetic utterance by omitting the
words, “Just is He and bringing salvation,” then he gives,
“meek and sitting,” as in the original, but instead of
“on an ass and a young colt,” he gives, “on an ass
and a colt the foal of an ass.” The Jews, examining into
the application of the prophecy to what is recorded about Jesus, press
us in a way we cannot overlook with the enquiry how Jesus destroyed
chariots out of Ephraim and horse from Jerusalem, and how He destroyed
the bow of the enemy and did the other deeds mentioned in the
passage. So much with regard to the prophecy. Our literal
interpreters, however, if there is nothing worthy of the appearance of
the Son of God in the ass and the foal, may perhaps point to the length
of the road for an explanation. But, in the first place, fifteen
stades are not a great distance and afford no reasonable explanation of
the matter, and, in the second place, they would have to tell us how
two beasts of burden were needed for so short a journey; “He
sat,” it is said, “on them.” And then the
words: “If any man say aught unto you, say ye that the Lord
hath need of them, and straightway he will send them.” It
does not appear to me to be worthy of the greatness of the Son’s
divinity to say that such a nature as His confessed that it had need of
an ass to be loosed from its bonds and of a foal to come with it; for
everything the Son of God has need of should be great and worthy of His
goodness. And then the very great multitude strewing their
garments in the way, while Jesus allows them to do so and does not
rebuke them, as is clear from the words used in another
passage,5066
“If these
should hold their peace, the stones will cry out.” I do not
know if it does not indicate a certain degree of stupidity on the part
of the writer to take delight in such things, if nothing more is meant
by them than what lies on the surface. And the branches being cut
down from the trees and strewn on the road where the asses go by,
surely they are rather a hindrance to Him who is the centre of the
throng than a well-devised reception of Him. The difficulties
which met us on the part of those who were cast out of the temple by
Jesus meet us here in a still greater degree. In the Gospel of
John He casts out those who bought, but Matthew says that He cast out
those who sold and those who bought in the temple. And the buyers
would naturally be more numerous than the sellers. We have to
consider if the casting out of buyers and sellers in the temple was not
out of keeping with the reputation of one who was thought to be the Son
of a carpenter, unless, as we said before, it was by a divine power
that He subjected them. The words addressed to them, too, are
harsher in the other Evangelists than in John. For John says that
Jesus said to them, “Make not My Father’s house a house of
merchandise,” while in the others they are rebuked for making the
house of prayer a den of robbers. Now the house of His Father did
not admit of being turned into a den of robbers, though by the acts of
sinful men it was brought to be a house of merchandise. It was
not only the house of prayer, but in fact the house of God, and by
force of human neglect it harboured robbers, and was turned not only
into their house but their den—a thing which no skill, either of
architecture or of reason, could make it.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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