X-Dreamers
Bible chapter guide
Luke 19
In Jericho Jesus stays with Zacchaeus, who gives half his goods to the poor. He tells the parable of the minas, rides down the Mount of Olives to the praise of his disciples, weeps over Jerusalem, and drives the traders out of the temple.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
What happens in this chapter
Passing through Jericho, Jesus looks up at Zacchaeus, a rich chief tax collector who has climbed a sycamore to see over the crowd, and invites himself to his house; Zacchaeus promises half his goods to the poor and fourfold repayment to anyone he has cheated. Near Jerusalem Jesus tells the parable of a nobleman who goes abroad to receive a kingdom and leaves ten servants a mina each. At the descent of the Mount of Olives the disciples praise God aloud, and when some Pharisees tell him to rebuke them he answers that the stones would cry out. Then he sees the city and weeps over it, foretelling a siege that will leave not one stone on another, and goes into the temple to drive out the traders.
What the lab shows, and where to look
Zacchaeus has no scene in the Holy Week lab; Jericho is a card in Places of Jesus, which shows it as the Herodian oasis town on the pilgrim road up to Jerusalem. The week itself starts with the entry: open the descent and walk the road down the western slope of the Mount of Olives. The line of that road is the lab's own, since the Gospels name no path. Then switch to the weeping moment, where the road comes over the slope and the whole city lies open across the Kidron; this moment is Luke's alone. The size of the crowd and their clothes are the lab's choice, and no figure, Jesus included, is given a face. The Temple Mount lab has its own view across the valley from the same hill.
- Jericho · Places of Jesus
- The entry into Jerusalem · Holy Week in Jerusalem
- The entry into Jerusalem: Weeping over the city · Holy Week in Jerusalem
- The View from the Mount of Olives · The Temple Mount
Questions people ask
Where did Jesus weep over Jerusalem?
Luke says only that it happened as Jesus came near and saw the city, after the descent of the Mount of Olives had begun (19:37, 41). From the western slope the city and the temple are in full view across the Kidron, which is why the lab sets the moment where its road comes over the hill. The exact spot is not known; a modern church on the slope, Dominus Flevit, marks it by tradition.
Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem?
He gives the reason himself: the city has not known "the things which belong unto thy peace" and did not recognise the time of its visitation (19:42, 44). He goes on to describe a siege: a barricade, the city hemmed in, and not one stone left on another. Rome besieged Jerusalem and destroyed it in AD 70; Luke's chapter records the warning, not the event.
What kind of tree did Zacchaeus climb?
Luke's word is sykomorea, the sycomore fig: a broad, low-branched fig tree common in the warm Jordan valley around Jericho and easy to climb. It is not the European sycamore maple or the American plane tree that the English name suggests. The text says only that Zacchaeus ran ahead and climbed it because Jesus would pass that way.
See it in the Labs
- Holy Week in JerusalemThe entry into Jerusalem: Weeping over the city · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
- Holy Week in JerusalemThe entry into Jerusalem · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
- The Bible Time MapJerusalem destroyed by Rome · The Bible Time MapOpen
- Places of JesusMount of Olives · Places of JesusOpen
- The Temple MountThe View from the Mount of Olives · The Temple MountOpen
- The Temple MountThe Temple Mount: view from The View from the Mount of OlivesOpen
- The Temple MountThe Court of the Gentiles · The Temple MountOpen
- Holy Week in JerusalemCleansing the Temple · Holy Week in JerusalemOpen
Places
Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Textually stated
Jesus rode a colt, and the people spread their cloaks and cut branches on the road ahead of him.
All four Gospels tell the entry.
- Textually stated
Only John names palm branches. Matthew and Mark speak of branches cut from the trees or the fields, and Luke mentions only cloaks.
The name Palm Sunday comes from John 12:13; the scene mixes palm fronds with other branches.
- Textually stated
Mark alone keeps the words "of all nations" from Isaiah 56:7. The outer court was the one part of the temple Gentiles could enter.
Josephus and two surviving Greek inscriptions warn foreigners not to pass the barrier into the inner courts.
- Plausible
Our road runs from the ridge of the Mount of Olives down its western slope and across the Kidron. The Gospels name Bethphage, Bethany and the descent of the Mount of Olives, but not the exact path.
Bethany lies over the ridge to the east, so any road from it to the city crosses the Mount of Olives.
- Plausible
Which day, and how many times?: Mark says Jesus only looked around the temple on the evening of the entry and cleansed it the next day; Matthew and Luke tell the cleansing straight after the entry, without marking a new day. John tells a cleansing near the start of Jesus' ministry. Many readers see Matthew and Luke as shortening the sequence; for John, some see a second, earlier cleansing and others a story placed by theme.