Mark 11:7 Commentary and Bible Study

Not only the twelve, but others were involved. There were many disciples there, and many who were coming to Jerusalem on pilgrimage and had accompanied him along the road. They are throwing their garments on this animal and on the road in front of him, and the crowds are building up. Garments are precious at all times but particularly in those days. You had an outer garment and you had it for years and you were poor people and these were extraordinary things to do. The excitement was running high and people were just throwing their garments as well as branches cut down from the trees in the way, so that the colt, the donkey, ridden by Christ would not touch the road. He was so important.. For the moment, they so believed – this is the Son of David. Sadly, they didn't fully understand. They thought that when Messiah came, the great descendant of David, even more the great descendant of Adam, the great descendant of Abraham and the patriarchs; when the long, long expected and the long-prophesied Messiah came – the only figure in human history ever to be so prophesied – he would be merely a political human deliverer, who would make Israel great and dominant. They didn't realise yet – not even the inner disciples – that he would be a Saviour from sin, one who would reconcile us with God the Father. All that understanding would come after Calvary. Everything would then become clear to them, but they don't see that yet. Nevertheless, the great crowd acclaim him. They treated him like a royal person and so he made his way from Bethany, down the side of the Mount of Olives and into Jerusalem. He knew exactly what he was doing and he was being treated as a king. The crowds were building up: those who travelled with him from Jericho, the pilgrims. Others were streaming out (John 12:12-13) of the East Gate of Jerusalem and came to meet him. So there were crowds before him, crowds behind him and he is conducted into the city. Luke adds, ‘And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen’ (Luke 19:37). Many of them had been eye witnesses to his miracles, and perhaps some had benefited personally. What they remembered caused them to rejoice, and to welcome him into the city as their ‘King’ (Luke 19:38), an unmistakable reference to the Messiah, and yet they did not really know him. They knew much about him, but that was not enough, and the majority would soon turn against him in spite of what they knew, and call for his death. Those who had not trusted in him for salvation were unstable, and too easily swayed by the opinions of others and the pressures of the tense situation. Christ knows every heart, and although he was saddened for them and we are about to read that he wept over the city, he was not surprised.