The Secret Codes in Matthew: Examining Israel’s Messiah, Part 16: Matthew 21:1-46, by Kevin M. Williams
“Baruch haBa, B’Shem Adonai,” blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord is a phrase heard in synagogues around the world to open a wedding ceremony! Truly, the long awaited Bridegroom had come! But more important is the biblical reference:
The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief corner stone.
This is the LORD’S doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
O LORD, do save, we beseech Thee; O LORD, we beseech Thee, do send prosperity!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the LORD; We have blessed you from the house of the LORD.
The LORD is God, and He has given us light; Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar
(Psalm 118:22-27).
A number of remarkable things are taking place. Within Judaism, to refer to a verse is to call upon the entire context of the passage. Their calls invoked the entirety of Psalm 118.
1. The multitudes were directly, and by inference to the Psalm, making public proclamations that the chief cornerstone had arrived, that God had accomplished this, and it was a marvel to behold!
2. By calling him not merely the Son of Man, but the Son of David indicated a collective belief that the King had come to his city, a promised and anointed (messianic) King who could heal and raise the dead.
3. By crying “Hosanna,” found in Psalm 118 but hidden in the English translation, they were pleading “save us!” to the only one in all of humanity past, present, or future, who could redeem them.
4. They were hailing the sacrifice for Passover was coming soon. In fact, John Lightfoot writes, “The taking to themselves the Paschal lamb, for this was the very day on which it was to be taken, according to the command of the law, Exodus 12:3; “In the tenth day of this month, they shall take to them every man a lamb” (Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Vol. 2, Hendrickson Publishers, 1997, p. 271).
Further, Psalm 118:27 says that the people are to “Bind the festival sacrifice,” hailing back to the promise of Isaiah 53:10, that the Suffering Servant would offer himself up as a “guilt offering.”
5. Interestingly enough, when boughs of palm braches were taken during the Feast of Sukkot (booths or tabernacles) in that day and age, they were called Hosanna(s). By waving the boughs of palms, crying and carrying Hosanna, and inciting the title, Son of David, they were in fact, crying, “Save us, Messiah!” (Lightfoot, 271.).
For the Jewish person on the streets that day who was not a part of the multitude, the significance of the event could not be missed. Psalm 118 is called the “Great Hallel,” the “great praise” and was sung every year at Passover. From the earliest memories of every child to every adult, the Great Hillel, would be a familiar Psalm, particularly during Passover.
Some missed the significance, however. We read in Luke 19:39, “And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to Him, ‘Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.’” But Yeshua would not. Instead he answered them, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out.” The prophet Habakkuk writes, “Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, and the rafter will answer it from the framework” (3:11). Why? A warning. In verse 10 the prophet wrote, “You have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many people; so you are sinning against yourself.”
Category: Biblical Studies, Pneuma Review, Winter 2005
Followers
Fans
