Big Idea: As Jesus approaches Jerusalem, his disciples hail him as king, but he weeps over the city’s failure to grasp its opportunity for salvation.

Understanding the Text

At last the journey that began in 9:51 has reached its goal. From here on the story will be set in and around Jerusalem. At its heart will be the confrontation between Jesus, the expected Messiah, and the Jerusalem authorities, who reject his claim, and that confrontation is already symbolized here by the contrasting reactions of the disciples and the Pharisees to his deliberately symbolic mode of arrival. The sense of impending judgment on Jerusalem and specifically on its temple in 19:41–46 prepares for the more detailed prediction of its destruction in chapter 21. The material in 19:47–48 leads into the following n…