The king comes to Jerusalem: Zacchaeus, the minas, the colt and the temple

Luke 19 closes the long travel narrative (9:51-19:44) of the third Gospel and brings Jesus to Jerusalem. Church tradition from the second century names the author as Luke, the physician and companion of Paul (Colossians 4:14; Philemon 24), who also wrote Acts. Some critical scholars doubt that he knew Paul, and the Gospel does not name him. It is addressed to Theophilus (1:3) and is usually thought written for Greek-speaking Gentile readers who needed assurance about what they had been taught.

This chapter bears on the dating of the Gospel. In 19:41-44 Jesus foretells that enemies will surround Jerusalem, level it and leave no stone on another. The Roman army besieged and destroyed the city in AD 70. Many scholars date Luke to the 80s, partly on the view that the details reflect what happened, and partly because they think Luke used Mark. Others hold that Luke wrote earlier, in the early 60s, and that Jesus' words use the ordinary language of siege found in the Old Testament prophets (for example Isaiah 29:3; Ezekiel 4) and that a prophet could foresee judgment on the city. The class notes the question and does not depend on it.

The chapter has material found only in Luke (Zacchaeus, the nobleman and his citizens) and material shared with the other Gospels. The triumphal entry appears in all four (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; John 12:12-19), and the temple action in all four, though John places it at the start of the ministry (2:13-22). The parable of the minas resembles Matthew's parable of the talents (25:14-30). Scholars debate whether they are two parables or one shaped differently. In Luke the parable is told for a reason given in 19:11: because Jesus was near Jerusalem, and the people thought the kingdom of God would appear at once. Luke 19 is the hinge between the journey and the last week.

Luke 19 joins a narrative of a conversion, a parable, an act of prophetic symbolism, a lament and a temple action. The parts are linked by the theme of the king. The Zacchaeus story ends with the Son of Man seeking the lost. The parable of the minas is about a man who goes away to receive a kingdom and returns to reckon with his servants and his enemies, and the entry shows the king arriving. Luke wants his readers to see that Jesus is a king and that his kingdom does not come in the way the crowds expect.

Two interpretive principles matter.

• First, the parable of the minas should be read within its stated purpose (19:11): the kingdom will not appear immediately, and there is an interval in which the servants are to work. Its parts are not all allegories, but the nobleman who goes away and comes back as king, servants who are accountable and citizens who reject him fit what the Gospel says elsewhere about Jesus' departure and return. Some scholars see a reflection of the journey of Archelaus to Rome in 4 BC to be confirmed as ruler, opposed by a Jewish delegation, which Josephus records. If so, the story used a well-known event that the hearers knew.
• Second, the prophecy over Jerusalem is in the language of the prophets, who use the siege and fall of cities as the form of God's judgment. The lament is both prediction and grief, and it should be read as the voice of a prophet who weeps, as Jeremiah did.

Verses 1–10

Jesus is passing through Jericho. A man named Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector and rich, wants to see who Jesus is. He is short and the crowd blocks him, so he runs ahead and climbs a sycamore-fig tree. The name Zacchaeus is probably a form of a Hebrew name meaning 'pure' or 'innocent', an irony for a tax collector. Jesus stops, looks up, calls him by name and says that he must stay at his house today. The word 'must' is the language of divine purpose. Zacchaeus hurries down and welcomes him gladly. The crowd grumbles that Jesus has gone to be the guest of a sinner, the same objection as in 15:2. Zacchaeus stands and tells the Lord that he gives half of his possessions to the poor and, if he has defrauded anyone, pays back four times as much. The Law demanded fourfold repayment for a stolen sheep (Exodus 22:1) and a fifth added for a confessed wrong (Leviticus 6:5). The Greek verbs are in the present tense. Some scholars read it as a description of his regular practice and others as a resolution made on the spot. Either way he repents in deeds. Jesus says that today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. He restores to Zacchaeus the standing that others had denied him. Then comes the statement of Jesus' mission: the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Verses 11–27

A nobleman goes to a far country to receive a kingdom and then return. He calls ten servants, gives each a mina, a sum of money worth roughly three months' wages, and tells them to trade with it until he returns. His citizens hate him and send a delegation to say they do not want him as king. When he comes back with royal power he asks for the accounts.

• The first servant has earned ten minas and is put in charge of ten cities.
• The second has earned five and is given five cities. A third brings back his mina wrapped in a cloth. He had been afraid of a harsh man who takes what he did not deposit. The king answers from his own words: if he knew that, why did he not put the money in the bank? The mina is taken and given to the one with ten. The king explains that to everyone who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken. The enemies who did not want him as king are brought and killed in front of him. In Matthew 25 the master gives talents, there is no rival kingdom and no hostile citizens. Luke's version links reward and judgment to the coming of the king.

Verses 28–40

Jesus goes ahead, going up to Jerusalem. Near Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives he sends two disciples to a village to find a colt tied, one that no one has ever ridden. If anyone asks, they are to say that the Lord needs it. They find it as he said. They throw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it, and people spread their cloaks on the road. As he comes down the Mount of Olives the whole crowd of disciples begins to praise God joyfully for all the miracles they have seen. They call out a blessing on the king who comes in the name of the Lord and proclaim peace in heaven and glory in the highest. The words come from Psalm 118:26, the psalm of pilgrims coming to the temple, and Luke adds the word king. Some Pharisees ask him to rebuke his disciples. He answers that if they were silent the stones would cry out. The saying echoes Habakkuk 2:11, where even a stone in the wall cries out. The Mount of Olives is the place where Zechariah 14:4 sets the coming of the LORD.

Luke does not quote Zechariah 9:9, which Matthew (21:5) and John (12:15) cite. A king who comes humble and riding a colt is nevertheless the picture behind the scene. Luke omits the shout Hosanna and the branches that Mark and John record (only John calls them palms), and has the heavenly song of Luke 2:14 in a new form.

Verses 41–44

Coming near, Jesus sees the city and weeps. If only, he says, you had known on this day the things that make for peace, but now they are hidden from your eyes. Days will come when enemies will build an embankment, surround the city, hem it in on every side and level it, with its children inside. They will not leave one stone on another because Jerusalem did not know the time of her visitation. Visitation is the word family Luke uses for God's coming to his people (1:68, 78), which shows what is lost.

Verses 45–48

Jesus enters the temple and begins to drive out those who were selling. He quotes the Scriptures: my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers. The first part is from Isaiah 56:7, where the temple is to be a house of prayer for all peoples, and the second from Jeremiah 7:11, where the prophet condemned those who treated the temple as a shelter while they broke the commandments. Jesus then teaches daily in the temple. The chief priests, scribes and leading men seek to destroy him, but cannot find a way because all the people hang on his words.

The chapter shows the kingdom of God in three forms: grace to the lost, accountability for the interval and the arrival of the king in judgment and mercy. Zacchaeus receives salvation as a gift, and its sign is his changed use of money. This agrees with the Old Testament pattern in which God seeks his people (Ezekiel 34:11-16) and with Paul's teaching that salvation is by grace and produces good works (Ephesians 2:8-10). Salvation is called a coming of grace to a house, and Abraham's family is defined by faith (compare Romans 4:11-12).

The parable teaches that between the king's departure and return, his servants are to work with what he has entrusted to them, and that he will return to reward and to judge. The New Testament elsewhere holds that Christ will come again (Acts 1:11; Matthew 25:31-46). The lament over Jerusalem shows that rejecting the visitation of God brings judgment, and that God grieves over it. The temple scene continues a prophetic theme, that worship must be matched by justice and that God's house is meant for all nations (Isaiah 56:7).

Luke 19 presents Jesus as king and as the Lord who comes to his own place. The entry matches Zechariah 9:9, which Matthew 21:5 and John 12:15 quote outright, and the crowd's greeting cites Psalm 118:26. This is fulfilment. The colt that no one has ridden suggests a sacred and royal use, as in Numbers 19:2 and 1 Samuel 6:7, and the Lord who needs it speaks with a king's right to requisition. The route down the Mount of Olives recalls Zechariah 14:4, and the weeping over the city recalls Jeremiah and Jesus' lament in Luke 13:34.

In the temple Jesus acts with a right that belongs to the one to whom the house belongs. By joining Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 he claims the temple as God's house and judges those who misuse it. Malachi 3:1 had promised that the Lord whom Israel sought would suddenly come to his temple. Luke does not quote Malachi here, so the connection is an echo. The Zacchaeus saying that the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost takes up God's own promise in Ezekiel 34:16. And the parable shows the king who goes away and returns, a pattern that Acts 1:9-11 then confirms for the ascension and the return.