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§33 The Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem (John 12:12–19)

The next day the scene changes. The narrator picks up the story from the point of view of the growing Passover crowds in Jerusalem. The crowd received news that Jesus was on his way into the city (v. 12). How this news reached them the text does not say—until later (vv. 17–18). Not even the reader has been told in so many words that Jerusalem was Jesus’ destination—though an attentive reader would have guessed. Before analyzing the reasons for the crowd’s action or attempting to link the scene with the preceding one, the narrator simply describes, as briefly as possible, what the crowd did and what Jesus did. As they came out to meet him with palm branches, shouting praises to God and blessings on their coming king, Jesus found a young donkey and sat upon it (vv. 13–14a). That is all there is to the account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The rest (vv. 14b–19) is commentary.

The comments of the narrator are in three parts: a Scripture citation (vv. 14b–16), an added note distinguishing two crowds and explaining which was which (vv. 17–18), and a significant last reflection on the whole scene by the Pharisees, functioning like a chorus in a Greek drama (v. 19). The Scripture citation is a very free quote of Zechariah 9:9, much freer than Matthew 21:5. (Matthew is the only other Gospel to include this quotation in its account of the entry.) The significance lies in the correspondence between certain words in the quotation and certain words in the accompanying narrative (including the crowd’s exclamation in v. 13). On the one hand, the passage in Zechariah had been written about him, and on the other, the crowd had done these things to him (v. 16). The correspondence centers on two words: comes (i.e., he who comes, v. 13; is coming, v. 15; cf. also Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, v. 12) and king (i.e., King of Israel, v. 13; your king, v. 15). A subsidiary correspondence exists between sat in verse 14 and seated in verse 15, also between young donkey in verse 14 and donkey’s colt in verse 15. The correspondences point to the theme of Jesus the coming king seated on a donkey as on a throne. Jesus’ kingship has been mentioned only twice before in this Gospel, once in a more or less positive way (1:49), and once negatively (6:15). But in the passion narrative it will become the dominant category in which Jesus and his claims are presented—for the last time—to the world (cf. 18:33–38; 19:12–16, 19–22). The accent on kingship in the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem suggests that in a very real sense (just as the Passover notice in 11:55 intimated) the Passion narrative is already under way.

The appropriateness of the Zechariah quotation, and therefore of kingship as the proper category for understanding Jesus, was only apparent to his disciples, the narrator adds, after Jesus was glorified (v. 16). Glorified is an expression embracing in itself both Jesus’ death and his resurrection. His glorification is complete only when he has been raised from the dead (and the Spirit is ready to come, 7:39), yet it begins as soon as he first looks death in the eye (12:23; cf 11:4). Verse 16 is an acknowledgment that the interpretation of the triumphal entry represented by the Scripture quotation is postresurrection (like the interpretation of the temple cleansing given in 2:17, 22), yet the future impinges on the present. The “glorification” is about to begin (v. 23); the paradoxical nature of Jesus’ kingship is about to be revealed (vv. 24–33).

Left unanswered in verse 12 was the question of what precipitated the joyous welcome in the first place. How did the great Passover crowd learn that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem? Verses 17–18 were appended to the narrative to answer that question, but in so doing they raise questions of their own. First, they complicate the picture of the triumphal entry with their distinction between the crowd that was with him and those who met him with palm branches. Second, because of an uncertainty in the text, they leave in doubt the identity of the first of these groups. If the crowd that was with him was (as NIV indicates) with him when (Gr.: hote) he raised Lazarus from the grave, it must have been the crowd that came to comfort Martha and Mary (11:19, 31, 33), many of whom afterward believed in Jesus (11:45). But according to some ancient manuscripts, “the crowd that had been with Jesus” reported to the crowd assembled in Jerusalem for Passover “that” (Gr.: hoti) Jesus had raised up Lazarus. In this case it is more plausible to identify the former crowd as the crowd that had gone to Bethany to see Jesus and Lazarus (v. 9) and then, presumably, returned to Jerusalem again. Although the manuscript support is not as strong for this reading as for the other, it provides continuity between the triumphal entry and what precedes it. If the crowd mentioned in verse 9 is not the same crowd that brings back its testimony in verse 17, it is hard to see why it is in the text at all. On the other hand, the group of Jewish leaders who consoled Mary in chapter 11 have already served a definite function in the unfolding story (11:45–46), and their testimony has already had its effect (v. 11). The additional factor that brought about the triumphal entry seems to have been the verification provided by the crowd visiting Bethany in verse 9. Because of the strange placement of verses 17–18 (almost as if they were an afterthought), and especially because of the textual uncertainty, this “explanatory” footnote makes the account of the entry more confusing than it would otherwise be. The one thing it brings out clearly, however, is that Jesus’ royal welcome into the city (and therefore all that happened afterward) was directly traceable to the raising of Lazarus from the grave. Jesus’ promise is being fulfilled: The illness of Lazarus has resulted in “God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it” (11:4).

The last wry comment belongs to the Pharisees (v. 19). To them it must have seemed that Caiaphas’ dire prediction was coming true. Everyone was acting as if they believed in Jesus (cf. 11:48); the whole world was following in his train. The narrator senses the irony of their remark and uses it to full advantage. Jesus himself had once asked, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Now he stood, with the world at his feet, about to lose his own life—“so that the world may live” (cf. 6:51). The paradox has now been introduced, but its many dimensions remain to be explored.