689. The Children's Song

Matthew 21:15  •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 8
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Matthew 21:15. The children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David.
The Jewish children, when very young, were taught to wave the branches of palm and boughs of myrtle and willow bound together, which were used at the Feast of Tabernacles; and also, while shaking them, to join in the chorus of Hosanna. It is a fact worth noticing, we think, that these children shouted Hosanna, not simply in childish imitation of the multitude. (verse 8,) but in recollection of what they had been taught to do; and although this was not the Feast of Tabernacles, yet when they heard the shout of Hosanna they were ready to respond. The point which the text illustrates is, the custom of early training the Jewish children in the worship of God. Lightfoot (Horae Hebraicae) quotes on this subject from the Gemara: “The rabbis teach that so soon as a little child can be taught to manage a bundle he is bound to carry one; so soon as he is known how to veil himself; he must put on the borders; as soon as he knows how to keep his father’s phylacteries, he must put on his own.”