Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
Luke 19:28-48, The king rides down to the city and weeps over it
Jesus rides a borrowed colt down the Mount of Olives while his disciples spread their cloaks and praise the king who comes. Seeing the city, he weeps over the siege to come, then drives the sellers out of the temple.
Luke 19:28-48, in every translation this tool compares.
As he approaches Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, Jesus sends for an unridden colt, and his followers spread their cloaks and loudly praise God, hailing him as the coming king. When Pharisees demand he silence them, he says the very stones would shout if they did. Seeing the city, he weeps and foretells its siege and total destruction because it missed the moment of God's visit, then clears the temple of traders and teaches there daily while the leaders plot his death.
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- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/passover-pilgrims\/","n":"Passover and the pilgrim crowds","s":"The spring festival that retold God's rescue of Israel from Egypt. Jerusalem filled with pilgrims, and hopes of freedom ran high.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/jerusalem-destroyed-ad-70\/","n":"The war with Rome and the fall of Jerusalem","s":"In AD 66 Judea rose against Rome. By AD 70 Roman armies had starved and burned Jerusalem, destroyed the temple and sacrificed to their standards where it had stood.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/temple-and-courts\/","n":"The temple and its courts","s":"Herod's huge rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, believed to be God's dwelling, laid out in courts that kept Gentiles, women and Jewish men at set distances.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/chief-priests-and-council\/","n":"Chief priests, elders and the council","s":"The Jerusalem aristocracy of priestly families and elders who ran the temple and the Sanhedrin and dealt with Rome.","r":""}
Kings, like Roman soldiers, could commandeer animals (the cultural backgrounds notes), and Strauss, in the Zondervan backgrounds commentary, thinks that likelier than animals kept for travelers to hire; Keener adds that the owners might simply have seen it as hospitality to a famous teacher. Officials rode donkeys in civil, not military, processions, and cloaks on the road hailed a king, as in 2 Kings 9:13 (Keener and his notes). The cry comes from Psalm 118:26, part of the Hallel sung at Passover (Keener and his notes). Luke leaves out the palm branches, probably because Gentile readers would not know them as a nationalist symbol (Strauss). Josephus describes how Titus decided "they must build a wall round about the whole city", and when the city fell, "Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and temple" (the ESV Study Bible draws the link). How far the city was leveled is read differently: Keener calls not one stone on another prophetic hyperbole, since the city was not leveled completely until after AD 135, while Strauss quotes Josephus that Titus leveled it so completely that visitors would have "no ground for believing that it had ever been inhabited."
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Luke 19:30, 19:31, 19:35, 19:36, 19:38, 19:39, 19:46 and 19:47
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Luke 19:30-34, 19:35, 19:38, 19:39-40, 19:41-42, 19:43, 19:44, 19:46 and 19:47
- ESV Study Bible, study note on Luke 19:43-44
- Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 5.12.1-3 and 7.1.1, trans. William Whiston
- Mark L. Strauss, Luke, in Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, on Luke 19:29, 19:30, 19:36, 19:40, 19:44 and 19:45
