Bible Commentaries
Luke 19

Verses 1-28

Luk 19:1-28

Commentary On Luke 19:1-28

Galen Doughty

Luke 19:1-4 - Jesus now entered Jericho and because of the healing of the blind man the crowd must have swelled in numbers and in excitement and anticipation. Jesus was the Messiah and he would lead them to a new future! If Messianic fervor was rampant in the crowd many of them would have believed Jesus had come to save them from the Romans. People were seeing what they wanted to see in Jesus, believing what they wanted to believe rather than taking Jesus as he was and as God had sent him.

Jesus is now passing through Jericho, apparently not staying in the city. Zacchaeus wanted to see him, probably because he had heard about how Jesus had accepted tax collectors and had one for a disciple. Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector in the region around Jericho which meant he was very wealthy because Jericho had a healthy trade in balsam and date palm trees for which it was famous. Its economy was healthy and that meant plenty for the Roman tax coffers that Zacchaeus was in charge of collecting. He was a symbol in Jericho of Roman power, influence and oppression and was one of the most hated men in the area because of it. He was also short and because he could not see Jesus over the crowds in front of him he ran along the route Jesus was taking and climbed up into a sycamore -fig tree. This was a little different than a regular sycamore but was a fairly large tree with many spreading branches which would make it easy to climb. Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus and he was waiting for him when he passed by.

What he expected to see or want Jesus to do Luke does not tell us. I don’t think it entered into Zacchaeus’ mind what actually happened!

Luke 19:5-7 - Jesus reaches the spot, stops and looks up at Zacchaeus. What was going through the crowds’ mind, especially those who hoped Jesus would be the kind of Messiah that would free them from the Romans? Zacchaeus was a symbol of everything they hated about Roman occupation. He was a collaborator and traitor to his own people! Was Jesus going to use him to set an example as to what happens to traitors?

I think the crowd thought so when Jesus begins by saying, Zacchaeus come down immediately or come down with haste. In other words get down here now! Did the crowd think Jesus is going to give Zacchaeus what’s coming to him? But Jesus finishes his sentence. I must stay at your house today! That was something they did not anticipate, nor did Zacchaeus! He was inviting himself to dinner at Zacchaeus’ house! Luke says Jesus was passing through Jericho. The verb for passing through in v.1 is in the imperfect tense, continuous action in the past. I think Jesus changed his mind about staying in the city when he saw Zacchaeus in the tree. That is why he invites himself to Zacchaeus’ home. There was nowhere else he was going to stay in Jericho, but now Jesus wants to save Zacchaeus! Zacchaeus wants to be saved! He comes down from the tree and welcomes the Lord with joy. What must have been going through his head? Jesus wants to fellowship with me! These people all hate me but Jesus wants to fellowship with me! He accepts me and loves me! In that moment Zacchaeus’ heart changed and so did his life.

The crowd however is stunned and some begin to grumble. He has gone to be the guest of a sinner! How could Jesus do this? What is he thinking? This man is a traitor and Jesus shows he accepts him! What kind of Messiah is this? Were doubts beginning to creep into people’s minds who just a few shorts moments ago had believed Jesus was the Messiah, especially after they had seen him heal the blind man? Jesus wasn’t acting like any Messiah they understood. They wanted to paint Jesus into a box and say Jesus you have to be this way because this is the way Messiah is supposed to be. Jesus shows he will not be captive to peoples’ expectations of him. His overriding concern is to be who the Father sent him to be, not what people expect.

Luke 19:8 - The people grumble and are not sure about Jesus. They are angry at him for accepting someone they hate and someone they believe he should have judged. Zacchaeus sees Jesus in a totally different way. He is forever changed and he demonstrates it before Jesus, his disciples and his guests who have gathered at his home.

He stands up and declares that half his wealth he will give away to the poor and if he has cheated anyone he will pay them back four times the amount he had stolen. Various laws in Exodus and Leviticus say someone who steals from another needs to make restitution. Usually they must pay back the amount plus a fifth of the value or at least the same value. In the case of a sheep they must pay back five head for the one that was stolen. In any case four times the amount is beyond what the Law normally would demand. It was an extravagant effort at restitution and along with the giving of half of his wealth to the poor. Zacchaeus was demonstrating the fruit of a repentant and changed life. Plus he does it publicly in front of Jesus for everyone to see! Where before wealth and power had been his gods now Jesus is Lord and everything has changed. What the ongoing implications were for life in Jericho no one at that moment knew but I believe because of Zacchaeus’ changed life and position in the city things got better and Zacchaeus’ witness for Jesus and the Kingdom was amazing!

Luke 19:9-10 - Jesus commends Zacchaeus’ actions. He does not say don’t get carried away with this. In fact Zacchaeus incredible newfound generosity is exactly what the Kingdom produces in people. The Pharisees worried about tithing their garden herbs and thought they were righteous and generous. Zacchaeus is commended for giving half his wealth away to the poor!

Most importantly Jesus says salvation has come to this house today because Zacchaeus is a true son of Abraham! He is whole and forgiven. Jesus assures Zacchaeus that he is saved! Then he says that he came to seek and to save lost people like Zacchaeus. Those who heard him must have marveled at Jesus’ words. A man no one loved; a man everyone detested and no one believed could be part of the Kingdom of God was now transformed before their eyes and declared a full son of Abraham! In many ways this is a greater miracle than the healing of the blind man at the outskirts of Jericho. Zacchaeus is healed too in a far more profound way. Jesus reiterates his purpose and mission as Messiah; to seek and save lost people! He didn’t come to judge Roman collaborators; he came to save broken and lost people and bring them into a right relationship with him through his acceptance and forgiveness and then transform their lives. These are the themes of the three great parables of Luke 15. Zacchaeus is an illustration of what happens when lost people are found.

Jesus seeks lost people to save them. Sometimes they are looking for him like Zacchaeus was curious about Jesus. Sometimes they don’t even know him like the man born blind in John 9. If we are to be about Jesus’ Kingdom business then we need to be seeking lost people too and bringing them to Jesus so he can save them and transform them. Lost people matter to God, therefore they matter to us! Like Jesus and Zacchaeus however we need to understand that the lost people God seeks will not be popular. In fact they will often be people no one wants to be around or wants to see saved. They want them to be judged by God not restored. The pride and arrogance of "normal" people often gets in the way of what God wants to do.

Luke 19:11 - Luke’s introduction and Jesus’ parable imply an already-not yet theme of the Kingdom. The king goes away to receive his Kingdom while telling his servants to work until he comes back. He does return, rewards and accounts are settled and his enemies who opposed him are killed. This is a mini-picture of history and tells us disciples are to bear fruit for the king until he returns to take up his kingdom.

Jesus is trying to correct the crowd’s misunderstanding of how the Kingdom of God would come and what Jesus was going to do in Jerusalem when he got there. Many believed, including probably the disciples that Jesus was going to Jerusalem to be proclaimed Messiah and to take up power and kick out the Romans. Some, like any Zealots among them probably believed the time for God’s holy war had come because Messiah was here. Jesus was warning them that the Kingdom would not come as they expected. I think that is why Palm Sunday was so confusing for many people. It seemed like Jesus was going to take up power because he allowed himself to be proclaimed Messiah but as the week went on and Passover approached he didn’t do what they wanted him to do or thought he would do. It is possible that is one of the reasons the crowds turned on him and were so easily manipulated by the high priests to kill Jesus.

Luke 19:12-13 - A nobleman is called away to a distant land to receive his kingship and then return. This is very much like the situation with the Herods and Rome. He will be crowned king and rule under the distant country’s authority but he will have the rule and the authority of a king.

He calls ten of his servants and gives each one of them a mina, about three month’s wages worth of money. He then commands them to put the money to work until he returns. He will return! There is risk involved in this. If the king is delayed or loses favor with the empire then the servants will be on the wrong side and could lose not only the money but their lives. In v.14 we learn there is opposition to the nobleman and many in his country don’t want him to be king. Working for the future king could be difficult.

Jesus’ lesson is that working for him is risky. The conditions are not always the best but we can trust that he is the king and he will return. In the meantime we have a job to do, produce fruit for the king; get a return on his investment in us!

Luke 19:14-15 - Many of his subjects hated the nobleman and did not want him to be their king. They sent a delegation after him pleading with the emperor not to crown him king. The nobleman is made king however and returns to rule! When he comes back he sent for his ten servants to see what they had gained with the money he had given them.

Many of the Jews hated Jesus and didn’t want him to be king and Messiah, especially the chief priests, Sadducees and many Pharisees. They rejected him as Messiah during his earthly ministry and continued to reject him after the resurrection and the disciples’ proclamation of the gospel. When he returns there will be no more time for deciding because it will be too late. Jesus is Lord now and has gone into heaven to receive his Messianic crown and authority. When he comes back it will not be to a referendum as to whether the Jews or anyone else in the world wants him to be king and Messiah. He will come with his own referendum toward us as to whether we have accepted his lordship and worked for him while he was away or not! Jesus will come to settle accounts some day and that includes with us. What were we doing for him while he was away? What did we do with the resources he gave us before he left? Did we bear fruit for the king?

Luke 19:16-19 - The king calls in his servants one by one to give an accounting of what they had done with the mina he had left them. The first comes in and reports the king’s mina has earned ten more. Notice he says the king’s mina; he doesn’t say I have earned ten more. This is very much like the whole concept of spiritual gifts later in Paul’s epistles. God’s Spirit gives us gifts and as we use them we bear fruit. However, it is the Spirit’s power within in us that does the work. We are merely obedient to God.

We bear fruit and then God rewards us for what he did through us! Jesus, your mina has earned ten more! Well done my good servant, you have been faithful in a little now be over ten cities! The reward is way out of proportion to the good deeds. That is grace! God gives us gifts; we obediently use them and bear fruit for him and then he rewards us lavishly for using his power to accomplish what he wants us to do. It wasn’t us, it was him all along and he rewards us!

The second servant comes in and he says your mina has earned five more! The king commends him and says take charge of five cities. The rewards are way out of proportion to the actions and yet they are proportional in terms of the fruit. Also the king rewards the one who had raised five more minas. He doesn’t say why couldn’t you be like the guy who earned ten? He gives him an implied well done too!

The king’s rewards to his servants imply unbelievable rewards by Jesus when he returns. I think we will be overwhelmed by his grace and favor. The rewards here also imply further work for him that is greater than the work we do now. It is one thing to invest three months wages and see it grow. It is quite another to rule over ten cities in the name of the king! Jesus raises the issue of what we will be doing in his Kingdom when he returns!

Luke 19:20-21 - The third servant is brought in and he misjudges the king completely. He sees him as a Bedouin raider. He has hidden the mina and buried it. He is afraid of the king and sees him as a hard man who takes out what he does not put in and reaps what he does not sow. The New Living translates this phrase you take what isn’t yours and harvest what you didn’t plant! He thinks the king is a thief and a brigand, a pirate!

The third servant is the person who calls themselves a Christian but does not really know the king. They don’t really know Jesus. They see him as something he is not and so live in fear of him not love for him. They foolishly refuse to invest in his Kingdom and bury the talents they have been given!

Luke 19:22-23 - The king is furious with the third servant. He says he will judge him by his own words and his own mistaken picture of the king. He declares him a wicked servant. If he really thought the king was a thief and a brigand then he should have invested the mina with the bankers and earned interest on it while he was gone! To do this would have been illegal for a Jew. If he was such a thief what was the problem? The man is not consistent in his own picture of the king nor is his behavior even guided by that mistaken skewed picture. He did what he did because he didn’t want to work. It was all about him!

There will be some in the church Jesus will judge this way when he returns. They will be ones he will say, depart from me I never knew you!

Jesus in giving us the picture of the wicked servant implies it is extremely important that our understanding of Jesus be correct. If it is skewed then we don’t know him. If it is off then we don’t serve him. Who Jesus is, the Messiah and Son of God is critical for our salvation and future rewards!

Luke 19:24-27 - The king says to his servants standing nearby, take the man’s mina and give it to the one who has ten. The servants say he already has ten! The king then says, to everyone who has more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing even what he has will be taken away. This is all about a relationship with the king. The one who had earned ten minas will be rewarded again and again with more! The one who did not invest at all and hid the money and thought the king was a thief; he will be judged and thrown out and deprived of even the little of what he had.

Then Jesus completes the chilling ending to the story. The king commands the servants bring in his enemies who hated him and didn’t want him to be king over them. He tells them bring them in and slay them before me. Execute them right here! This is the price of those who reject Jesus’ Messiahship. This is what will happen to those who refuse to bow the knee and accept him as Lord and Savior. They will be killed, judged, cast out into hell. Jesus will reward his people when he comes and there will be great rejoicing. He will also judge those who think they know him among his people and he will judge those who refuse him. All of this will occur when he comes again in his power and glory!

Luke 19:28 - This verse marks the end of the Travel Narrative. Jesus has now come to Jerusalem and is about to enter it on Palm Sunday. The last pericope in the Narrative is the parable of the nobleman in the far country, a parable about the delay in the coming Kingdom of God and how disciples should respond to it. The Narrative began in 9:51 with Jesus resolutely setting out for Jerusalem and the parables of the cost of following Jesus, followed by the sending out of the 70.

It ends here in Luke 19:28 with him arriving at the outskirts of Jerusalem right before what is commonly referred to as Palm Sunday.

Verses 29-48

Luk 19:29-48

Commentary On Luke 19:29-48

Galen Doughty

Luke 19:29-34 - As he came near to Bethany which is high up on the eastern slopes of the Mt. of Olives he sends two disciples into the village to get a donkey colt. Jesus tells them they will find a colt that no one has ridden. Untie it and bring it to him. If someone asks you about it say the Lord needs it. This appears to be a pre-arranged ride and a password type signal with the owners of the colt. Was it Lazarus, Mary and Martha? They lived in Bethany and Jesus knew them well. That is certainly possible. Why all the cloak and dagger however? Why not just say go to Lazarus’ house and pick up the colt? It could be Jesus is protecting them because of official opposition. It is also curious that the signal is the Lord needs it. That is not a title Jesus used for himself, yet it was a title many of his followers used. Jesus most often used rabbi or Son of Man. Here he uses Lord.

The two disciples go into the village and find the colt just as Jesus had said. He must have sent someone on ahead to make arrangements or he had gone secretly without the disciples’ knowledge. The disciples proceed to untie the colt when the owner asks what they are doing. They reply the Lord needs it and the owner lets them take the colt.

If Jesus had pre-arranged to take the colt in order to ride into the city then he is consciously thinking about Zechariah’s prophecy that the Messiah would enter Jerusalem riding on a donkey as the king of peace. Jesus is going to make a statement about the kind of Messiah he is going to be. This runs counter to much of the expectations of the people at the time who were looking for the conquering military hero who would drive out the Romans. But his actions in Jerusalem also will hurt the Sadducees corrupt temple system which will drive the Sadducees and Pharisees together in order to be rid of him. It was all part of God’s plan!

Luke 19:35-38 - The disciples bring Jesus the colt and they sit Jesus on it. Were they thinking of the prophecy? It is difficult to tell. As Jesus goes over the summit of the Mt. of Olives and begins to descend the road down to the Kidron Valley and up to the Temple Mount people start spreading their cloaks before him on the road. As he crests the hill and begins to descend people start joyfully praising God for all the miracles they had seen Jesus do. They are caught up in the moment and begin to praise God using the words of Psalms 118:26, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Only they change one word and shout, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, has the one who comes and not the king. The crowd is proclaiming Jesus as Messiah and king! They add the phrase peace in heaven and glory in the highest which echoes the words of the angelic chorus to the shepherds on the night of Jesus’ birth. It also reinforces Jesus’ focus as the prince of peace; the one who will bring peace between God and humanity and between people and people. He is consciously riding the donkey into Jerusalem and being hailed as the king of peace. The crowd either senses it or is stirred by it or is being swept up in the moment and utters praise to God that they do not understand but the Spirit motivates in them. There are so many undercurrents in this passage!

The bottom line is Jesus is being hailed as the Messiah and prince of peace as he enters Jerusalem for the last time. He is accepting the proclamation of the crowd that he is the Messiah.

Luke 19:39-44 - Some Pharisees in the crowd demand that Jesus rebuke his disciples for allowing him to be hailed Messiah and for praising God the way they are doing. It is possible that they came with Jesus over the Mt. of Olives and have been traveling with him. Jesus replies if they keep quiet the very stones will cry out! Jesus knows this is his moment when the people hail him as Messiah. He relishes it knowing what is coming at the end of the week. God wanted his Son to be proclaimed Messiah that day. If the people had not praised him then God would have moved nature itself to proclaim him. I think the Pharisees are shocked by Jesus’ answer and confused.

They would have understood that Jesus was approving of the people’s change in Psalms 118! They knew this was the last and greatest of the Hallel Psalms that were sung by all the people at the end of the Passover ritual that would come in five days. These Psalms fueled the peoples’ Messianic fervor and Jesus was allowing the people to use them and to change them to declare him Messiah! What were they going to do with Jesus? He was getting very dangerous and out of control!

Jesus comes to a place where he can look over the city. Tradition says this is the location of the Dominus Flavit Church on the slopes of the Mt. of Olives above the Kidron Valley and the Garden of Gethsemane. When Jesus comes there he weeps over the city. Isaiah 22:4 has a prophecy of the prophet weeping over Jerusalem because of the coming judgment upon the city. Jesus weeps because of the coming judgment by the Romans in 70. He gives a prophecy of that time.

Jesus knows the crowd is hailing him as Messiah now but they will be swayed by the religious leaders in five days to crucify him. He grieves over the city that they will reject him and what would make for peace for God’s people the Jews. Now after they reject their Messiah his way will be hidden from them. Jesus then turns to 70 and a prophecy of the Roman siege. The Romans will build siege works all around the city to take it, which they did. They will kill people both young and old, which they did. They will tear down the walls until not one stone is left upon another, which they did. All because the people did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them. He doesn’t say my coming to you, or Messiah’s coming to you, but God’s coming to you. Jesus is declaring himself the Son of God, God in human form, God come in the flesh! It must have been unsettling for the Pharisees listening to him. What did the disciples think? They were on a high. Jesus was being hailed as the Messiah and he is saying he will be rejected again and talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. What was going on?

Luke 19:45-48 - Jesus enters the temple. Mark has Jesus coming to the temple on Palm Sunday looking around and then going back out to Bethany. The next day, Monday, he comes and cleanses the temple. Matthew and Luke give the impression that Jesus cleansed the temple on the afternoon of Palm Sunday but the Greek is ambiguous enough that it could be the next day. Mark’s chronology may be correct and Matthew and Luke condense the account here. John has Jesus throwing out the money changers at a Passover early in his ministry. If that is the case then Jesus doing it here during Holy Week was the second time he had done it in his ministry. Plus this is after people had proclaimed him Messiah as he rode into the city on a donkey in fulfillment of Zechariah 9. That makes him far more dangerous now to the Sadducees and Pharisees than he was early in his ministry!

He begins to drive out the money-changers from the temple and those who were selling sacrifices etc. This business was all controlled by the family of Annas and Caiaphas, the high priestly family. Pilgrims would come from all over to worship at the temple but the temple had determined that they would only accept temple coins so the pilgrims had to exchange their coins for temple coins. When they did a surcharge was added to the exchange and the profits flowed. Then because the temple had standards for what could and could not be sacrificed the people would take their new temple money and buy animals for sacrifice that met the temple standards. Of course that essential trade was also controlled by Annas and Caiaphas. It all looked very spiritual but underneath it was nothing but greed. Jesus saw through it and understood what was happening. So did many others in Jerusalem, including many Pharisees. They may have been secretly pleased that Jesus was exposing and correcting something that was so repulsive to faithful Jews, yet Jesus was now so dangerous to their power that the Pharisees were forced together with the Sadducees to try and get rid of Jesus and kill him. The Essenes had withdrawn to the desert because they were so fed up with the whole temple system and saw it as completely corrupt. If news reached Qumran about the events of Palm Sunday and Monday the Essenes were probably pleased with the news.

Jesus drives out the sellers and uses two quotes from the prophets, one from Isaiah and one from Jeremiah. Isaiah’s is my house shall be a house of prayer from Isaiah 56. Mark includes the whole quote and adds for the nations. Matthew and Luke truncate the quote and end with house of prayer. The point is worship and prayer is God’s focus for his temple not greed and ritual. Plus the temple system excluded people, especially the Gentiles. The prophetic hope of Israel saw the Gentiles coming to God to worship him. Jesus by his actions and words is affirming that vision for God’s house and rejecting the Sadduceean vision of the temple. The quote from Jeremiah is from the temple sermon in chapter 7, where Jeremiah famously indicts Judah for their empty rituals and the official theology that said as long as we have a king from David’s line sitting on David’s throne and the temple of the Lord where God put his name then Jerusalem is safe from all her enemies! Jeremiah was showing how empty that theology was and how sinful their attitudes were. Now Jesus, who IS the king from David’s line, the Messiah, is saying the same thing! Their rituals are empty and the high priests have made the temple a place of extortion and robbery not prayer and evangelism! Jesus’ vision of the temple is far different from the Sadducees!

Jesus continues to teach in the temple every day that week and the Jewish religious leaders kept trying to find a way to arrest him and kill him but the people were hanging on his every word and they couldn’t find an opportunity. It would have caused a riot! So rather than take him by force they return to the old strategy of trying to trap him and lose face among the people. It hadn’t worked up until that point but they return to it because they don’t have any other ideas. Not until Judas comes to them to betray him do they find a way to be rid of Jesus.

Questions by E.M. Zerr For Luke Chapter Nineteen

1. Through what city did Jesus pass ?

2. What man was there?

3. State his occupation.

4. What was his financial standing?

5. What was his desire?

6. State his handicap.

7. How did he overcome it ?

8. What did Jesus tell him to do ?

9. Tell what Jesus purposed to do.

10. Describe the actions of Zaccheus.

11. Why did some object?

12. What two things did Zaccheus agree to do ?

13. Which was to be done first?

14. What difference would it make?

15. In return what did Jesus bestow?

16. Forasmuch—what?

17. For what was Christ come?

18. What called forth the next parable?

19. Tell what the nobleman went to secure.

20. Before going what arrangement did he make?

21. Describe the actions of the citizens.

22. On his return what call was made?

23. Were all equally responsible?

24. What quality could each have?

25. What had the third man done?

26. State reason.

27. What should this reason have caused him to do?

28. State the punishment for this man.

29. How is something taken from nothing?

30. What is to be done to the rebels ?

31. To what people does this specially apply?

32. What city are they now approaching?

33. Where did he pause?

34. On what errand were 2 disciples now sent?

35. Describe the animal sent for.

36. What explanation to make to the owner?

37. Tell how the colt was saddled.

38. Who then mounted it?

39. How was the way prepared?

40. What mount is he now approaching?

41. How did the disciples acclaim him?

42. State the demand of the Pharisees.

43. Why not grant it?

44. What caused Jesus to weep?

45. Tell the ignorance he charged upon the city.

46. Who were destined to besiege it ?

47. What was to be done to the walls ?

48. How were the children of the city to fare?

49. What did Jesus now do in the temple ?

50. Tell what he quoted.

51. Where and how often did he teach?

52. What was attempted?

53. Tell why it was not done.

Luke Chapter Nineteen

By Ralph L. Starling

Zacchaeus, a Publican climbed a Sycamore tree.

Being small and the crowd large, he couldn’t see.

Jesus seeing him said, “I’m going home with thee!”

Some murmured, “He is going with sinners to eat.”

Jesus said, “I came to seek sinners and save the lost,

God’s Kingdom is at hand and is to be sought.”

Another parable could give them some answers

To their questions and their surmisings.

Finishing the parable he went up to Jerusalem.

At Mount of Olives He called two disciples to him

To go to the city and bring a colt back to Him.

If asked, “Why?” say, “Our Lord has need of him.”

They prepared the colt with blanket and clothes.

The colt had never been ridden but didn’t bolt.

The multitude gathered and paved His way

With branches and voices singing his praise.

Some of the Pharisees told them not to shout.

Jesus said, “If they did, the stones would cry out.”

As Jesus drew nigh and beheld the city

He wept over it with great pity.

For time was coming they would be surrounded

Along with their children be laid to the ground.

Jesus went to the Temple and what did He see?

“My house of prayer is now a den of thieves.”