That the Lord came to deliver the house of Israel out of the hand of their enemies, and then to reign over them, appears from the promises, generally, of God to His people by the prophets. But most especially and distinctly is this the subject of that noble strain of prophecy which commences with the 7th chapter, and closes with the 7th verse of the 9th chapter of Isaiah. At the time when that prophecy was delivered, Syria and Ephraim were confederated against Judah, and Isaiah was commissioned to sustain the courage of the house of David by an assurance that the confederacy should not prevail. In token of this, the prophet's two children, as well as the promised Immanuel, are set up as signs; and the discomfiture of the then present confederacy was the pledge of the discomfiture of every confederacy that might be formed against the house and throne of David, so as to secure to it in the end (though for a long, dreary, and dark season it might lie in ruins and dishonor) rest and glory, wheel “the Child” should be “born” and the “Son given,” Whose right it was on that throne to sit, and to “order and establish it forever.” The parable of “the wicked husbandmen,” in like manner, distinctly instructs us in the same doctrine—that the mission of the Son of God, was, as to one of its purposes, to keep the Jewish nation still in the possession of the vineyard, under the care and government of Him Whose inheritance it was, and for disallowing Whose title to which, and for this only, it has been taken from them.
Thus the day of the redemption and kingdom of Israel has been delayed because of their unbelief, because they could not discern the glory of the kingdom in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
Before, however, the Lord Jesus would formally pronounce upon their present loss of the kingdom, it appears to me that He would call forth, from the nation of Israel, a formal rejection of Him in the fully manifested character of their King, so that they might be left without excuse. Hence arises the scene of His last solemn entry into their city, which was transacted, as we shall see, in the style and with the actions of the true Son of David, the rightful King of Israel. In connection with this solemn entry will be found all the scenes recorded in Matt. 21-23, which I distribute and interpret as follows:
The Royal Visitation.-21:1-14.
We learn that, in the purest days of the Jewish government, the principal men in Israel used no animals but asses (Judg. 5:10; 10:4; 12:14), horses not being introduced till the corrupt times of Solomon. The Lord, then, when assuming the style of “King of Israel,” of course took every feature, however minute, which belonged to the only pure and true form of such a character, and therefore orders His disciples to bring an ass's colt to Him. And besides, this was Messiah's exhibiting Himself as King, just as the prophet had before presented Him (Zech. 9:9), and His being “meek and lowly” was as kingly a feature as any other. For Moses had provided, that the king, who should hereafter be appointed to rule over Israel, should not surround himself with such circumstances and pomp as might lift up his head in pride above his brethren, and Christ, the King, would doubtless conform Himself to the model thus furnished by Moses (Deut. 17:14).
The actions of spreading their garments and strewing branches of trees in the way were expressive of the honor in which the multitude held Him, and the joy with which they saluted Him. His garments were now, as it were, smelling of myrrh, aloes, and cassia. The people hailed Him as King (Luke 19:38), called Him “the Son of David,” and thus recognized His title to the throne of David (Mark 11:10). The palmy multitude, as it were, was keeping the feast of Tabernacles. They took their triumphant acclamations from Psa. 118 that place of the scriptures which represents the nation of Israel, bringing into His glory the Head Stone, Which had been previously rejected by the builders; so were they doing now, welcoming Messiah to His kingdom, and, as said by the prophet, “the shout of a King was among them” (Num. 23:21). All this, it may be, they neither understood nor intended, but they were divinely moved to take the part which they did, in order that the whole scene might be the presentation of their King, in full form, to the city and nation of the Jews, in the person of Him who was just coming among them. On the Lord's entry into the city, Jerusalem was moved with wonder at the sight, saying, “Who is this?” But when they learned that this was “Jesus, the Prophet of Nazareth, of Galilee,” we may presume that many began to despise the Galilean King. The Lord at once goes up to the temple, and there performs a solemn action, strikingly characteristic of “King of Israel,” —He purifies the house of God.
Such had been one of the functions, and was properly alone within the due exercise of the royal authority. We find the best kings of Judah reforming the religion of the people in their days—witness Hezekiah and Josiah; and here, in virtue of the same kingly authority, the Lord takes upon Him the same action.
There, too, in the temple, He heals the lame and the blind, thus giving further evidence that He was exhibiting, in His person, the virtues which the prophet had pointed at as belonging to Messiah, and to Messiah in His kingdom (Isa. 35:5, 6). Nothing then was now wanting—the decisive moment was come, and inquisition was now in making, “would they reverence the Son?”
Israel's Rejection of Their King. 21:15-22.
The enmity of the principal men, who were the organs and representatives of the people, now declared itself; and they formally disallow their rightful Lord and King. They were “sore displeased” in the Son of David, and cast out the Heir of the vineyard. Thus they counted themselves unworthy of the kingdom. The Lord rebuked them by a passage taken from the 8th Psalm, which on this occasion was most seasonable, being calculated both to rebuke the Jews, by giving them, for the present, the place of the enemy and the avenger, and also to present Him, the rejected Messiah, in His full and proper glories before them (see Heb. 2:8).
Having then shut them up under the rebuke and condemnation of this Psalm, the Lord “left them and went out of the city;” thus formally disclaiming it, at least for the present, as the place of His throne.
On His return, the next morning, by a very significant symbolical action He warns His disciples of the judgment which was now, in consequence of His own having thus refused to receive Him, soon to be executed on the Jewish church and nation. He performs the act of the Lord of the vineyard, described before by Isaiah, which clearly was designed to represent the judgment of the apostate Jewish system under the hand of Messiah. He then further instructs His disciples in the important truth, that the Jewish system was about to be superseded by a dispensation among them as His disciples, the characteristic energy or virtue of which, was to be faith; to which, and not to the temple, was to be committed the exercise of God's power upon earth. The mountain of the Lord's house was now to be cast into a troubled sea; the kingdom to be taken from the Jews of that day and given to a nation, the holy nation of that elect remnant of the last days, who shall have faith in Him, the rejected Stone (1 Peter 2:6-9), bringing forth the fruits thereof.