마태복음 Chapter 21

Translation: ESV

1

Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples,

Key Message

Jesus orchestrates the triumphal entry deliberately, fulfilling prophetic geography; the Messiah comes from the east, from the Mount of Olives, as the prophets anticipated.

▸The triumphal entry is carefully orchestrated by Jesus himself — he sends disciples to fetch the animals, demonstrating foreknowledge and control.

The triumphal entry is carefully orchestrated by Jesus himself — he sends disciples to fetch the animals, demonstrating foreknowledge and control. Bethphage ('house of unripe figs') was a village on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives, about one mile from Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives overlooks Jerusalem from the east and was the site of Zechariah's prophesied messianic coming (Zechariah 14:4).

Related Verses

On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east.Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples.
2

saying to them, 'Go into the village in front of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me.'

Key Message

Jesus' foreknowledge and sovereign command reveal him as the Lord who has authority over all creation; the animals are brought as to their rightful owner.

▸Jesus' foreknowledge of the donkey and colt — 'you will find.

3

'If anyone says anything to you, you shall say, "The Lord needs them," and he will send them at once.'

Key Message

Jesus enters Jerusalem as Lord — not as supplicant or subject — claiming sovereign authority over the animals and their owner, and preparing the way for his royal entry.

▸The password 'The Lord needs them' is remarkable: Jesus uses the title 'Lord' (ho Kyrios) of himself — the divine title — and assumes that this title alone will be sufficient explanation and authorization.

4

This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet, saying,

Key Message

Jesus' entry into Jerusalem is not improvised but purposefully fulfills ancient prophecy; Scripture is being enacted in real time.

▸Matthew's fulfillment formula signals that the triumphal entry is not merely a political demonstration or a crowd-pleasing gesture but the deliberate fulfillment of prophetic Scripture.

5

'Say to the daughter of Zion, "Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden."'

Key Message

The Messiah comes in humility, not in military triumph; his donkey-throne is the anti-thesis of imperial power — the servant-king who brings peace, not conquest.

▸The Zechariah 9:9 citation begins with the address to 'the daughter of Zion' (Jerusalem personified as a woman, a common prophetic convention) and then describes the coming king: humble (praus — the same word as Jesus in 11:29, 'I am gentle and humble in heart'), mounted on a donkey.

6

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them.

Key Message

Faithful obedience to Jesus' specific instructions is often the means by which his purposes are accomplished; the disciples' compliance enables the prophetic entry.

▸Simple obedience: they went, found what Jesus said they would find, and did as directed.

7

They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them.

Key Message

The disciples' offering of their own cloaks is a spontaneous act of royal honor — they prepare the way for their king with what they have.

▸The disciples put their cloaks on the animals (making improvised saddles) and Jesus sits on them — on the cloaks, or more literally on the animals (the Greek is ambiguous).

8

Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road.

Key Message

The crowd's spontaneous royal welcome reflects genuine messianic hope; the question is whether they understand the kind of Messiah Jesus is.

▸The crowd spreads cloaks and tree branches on the road — a royal welcome.

9

And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, 'Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!'

Key Message

The crowd's Psalm 118 acclamation is both prayer and proclamation: they pray for salvation and bless the one who comes to bring it — the Messianic king.

▸The hosanna acclamation is drawn from Psalm 118:25-26, a Hallel psalm sung at Passover and Tabernacles.

10

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, 'Who is this?'

Key Message

Jesus' entry shakes Jerusalem — spiritually, politically, and eventually literally; the question 'Who is this?' is the question the entire Gospel has been answering.

▸Jerusalem is 'stirred up' (eseisthē — shaken, from seismos, earthquake; used of the earthquake at the crucifixion, 27:51, and at the resurrection, 28:2).

11

And the crowds said, 'This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee.'

Key Message

Popular identification of Jesus as 'the prophet' is a beginning but not an end; true Christology requires acknowledging him as more than a prophet — as Messiah and Son of God.

▸The crowd's answer identifies Jesus as 'the prophet.

12

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

Key Message

Jesus' temple action is prophetic judgment: the house meant for prayer for all nations has been transformed into a barrier and a commercial center; he restores it to its intended purpose.

▸The temple cleansing is a prophetic action — a symbolic and physical enactment of divine judgment on the corruption of Israel's worship.

13

He said to them, 'It is written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer," but you make it a den of robbers.'

Key Message

The temple must be a house of prayer for all peoples (Isaiah 56) or it faces the judgment that destroyed the first temple (Jeremiah 7); Jesus fulfills both prophet's vision.

▸Jesus interprets his action with two Scripture citations: Isaiah 56:7 (the positive vision — a house of prayer for all peoples) and Jeremiah 7:11 (the prophetic accusation — you have made it a den of robbers).

14

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

Key Message

The cleansed temple immediately becomes a place of healing for the excluded; Jesus' kingdom work reverses the old system's exclusions.

▸Immediately after the temple cleansing, the blind and lame — precisely the people excluded from the temple by priestly purity regulations (2 Samuel 5:8: David's instruction that 'the blind and the lame shall not come into the house') — come to Jesus in the temple and he heals them.

15

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, 'Hosanna to the Son of David!' they were indignant

Key Message

The same evidence produces worship in children and indignation in the religious authorities; the heart's orientation determines what it sees when it encounters Christ.

▸The chief priests and scribes witness the healings ('wonderful things' — ta thaumasia) and the children's hosannas and are indignant (ēganaktēsan — the same word as the ten disciples in 20:24).

16

and they said to him, 'Do you hear what these are saying?' And Jesus said to them, 'Yes; have you never read, "Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise"?'

Key Message

God often receives praise from the weakest and most unexpected voices when those who should praise remain silent; the children's hosanna is divinely prepared.

▸Jesus answers the authorities' challenge with Psalm 8:2 (LXX) — 'Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise.

17

And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

Key Message

Jesus commutes from Bethany during the Passion Week — the pattern of entering Jerusalem to teach and minister, then withdrawing; he does not stay in the city that will kill him.

▸Jesus leaves Jerusalem for Bethany — the village of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, about two miles east of Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives.

18

In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry.

Key Message

Jesus' genuine humanity — his real hunger — is the context for the fig tree encounter; he does not perform judgments from an untouched divine remove but from the vulnerability of real human experience.

▸Jesus' hunger is a reminder of his genuine humanity.

19

And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, 'May no fruit ever come from you again!' And the fig tree withered at once.

Key Message

The fig tree's impressive leaves without fruit symbolizes the temple system's impressive religious form without spiritual substance; judgment is immediate and complete.

▸The fig tree in full leaf normally signals ripe or near-ripe fruit (fig leaves appear with or after the fruit).

20

When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, 'How did the fig tree wither at once?'

Key Message

The disciples' question about the mechanism leads to Jesus' teaching on faith; the miracle's 'how' is less important than the principle it illustrates.

▸The disciples' astonishment at the immediate withering sets up Jesus' teaching on faith and prayer.

21

And Jesus answered them, 'Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, "Be taken up and thrown into the sea," it will happen.'

Key Message

Faith that does not waver has access to God's power for the seemingly impossible; the issue is not the size of our faith but its undivided orientation toward God.

▸Faith without doubt can move mountains — the same hyperbolic language Jesus used in 17:20 (mustard-seed faith).

22

'And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.'

Key Message

The promise of answered prayer is grounded in faith — trust in God that shapes what we ask and how we ask; prayer is not command but relationship.

▸The promise of prayer: whatever you ask, believing (pisteuontes — with faith), you will receive.

23

And when he entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came up to him as he was teaching, and said, 'By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?'

Key Message

The authority question is the central question of the passion week; Jesus' answer will expose his challengers' dishonesty and the illegitimacy of their opposition.

▸The authority challenge from the chief priests and elders is a formal, institutional demand for Jesus' credentials.

24

Jesus answered them, 'I also will ask you one question, and if you tell me the answer, then I also will tell you by what authority I do these things.'

Key Message

Jesus' counter-question exposes the questioners' bad faith; genuine inquiry deserves a genuine answer, but those who ask dishonestly will not answer honestly either.

▸Jesus' counter-question is a rabbinic debate technique: a question answered with a question, designed to reveal the questioner's hidden assumptions and inconsistencies.

25

'The baptism of John, from where did it come? From heaven or from man?' And they discussed it among themselves, saying, 'If we say, "From heaven," he will say to us, "Why then did you not believe him?"'

Key Message

Those who are not genuinely seeking truth find themselves caught between fear of God and fear of public opinion; the inability to answer an honest question is itself a revealing answer.

▸Jesus' counter-question about John's baptism creates an impossible dilemma.

26

'But if we say, "From man," we are afraid of the crowd, for they all hold that John was a prophet.'

Key Message

Fear of human opinion is the defining characteristic of those who oppose Jesus; they cannot answer honestly because they are governed by fear rather than truth.

▸The other horn of the dilemma: if they say John's authority was merely human, the crowd will turn against them — because the crowd holds John to be a prophet.

27

So they answered Jesus, 'We do not know.' And he said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.'

Key Message

Dishonest inquiry receives no answer; Jesus will not authenticate himself to those who have disqualified themselves from the answer through bad faith.

▸Their answer 'We do not know' (ouk oidamen) is dishonest — they do know what they think but are unwilling to say it.

28

'What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, "Son, go and work in the vineyard today."'

Key Message

The parable answers the authority question: who truly does the Father's will? Not those who say 'yes' and do nothing, but those who start with 'no' and turn to obedience.

▸The Parable of the Two Sons begins the trilogy of challenge-parables (21:28-22:14) that answer the authority question indirectly.

29

'And he answered, "I will not," but afterward he changed his mind and went.'

Key Message

Repentance is measured not by initial words but by eventual action; the one who says 'no' but ultimately goes does the Father's will.

▸The first son refuses explicitly ('I will not' — ou thelō) but then 'changed his mind' (metamelētheis — repented, had a change of heart) and went.

30

'And he went to the other and said the same. And he answered, "I go, sir," but did not go.'

Key Message

Verbal compliance without corresponding action is hypocrisy; saying 'Lord, Lord' without doing the Father's will is the sin of the second son — and of the religious authorities.

▸The second son says 'I go, sir' (egō kyrie — using the polite, respectful address) but does not go.

31

'Which of the two did the will of his father?' They said, 'The first.' Jesus said to them, 'Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you.'

Key Message

The kingdom reversal: repentant sinners who act on faith enter the kingdom before religious authorities who comply in word but not in deed.

▸The religious authorities answer correctly — 'the first' — and immediately receive the most shocking application in the Gospels: tax collectors and prostitutes (the most extreme social and moral outsiders) are entering the kingdom ahead of the chief priests and elders.

32

'For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him.'

Key Message

Seeing others respond to God's call without being moved to respond oneself is the deepest form of hardness — culpable, evidence-resistant stubbornness.

▸John came 'in the way of righteousness' — a righteous life and a righteous message.

33

'Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants and went into another country.'

Key Message

The vineyard parable indicts those who have been entrusted with God's people and have abused that trust; stewardship is accountable, and the owner will return to demand it.

▸The Parable of the Tenants is Jesus' most direct allegorical statement about Israel's rejection of God's servants and the coming judgment.

34

'When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit.'

Key Message

The servants sent for fruit represent the prophets; their treatment by the tenants mirrors Israel's history of prophetic rejection.

▸The owner sends servants at harvest time to collect his share — the legitimate expectation of a landlord from his tenants.

35

'And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.'

Key Message

The history of prophetic persecution is being rehearsed; the pattern of rejecting and killing God's messengers culminates in the rejection of the Son.

▸The tenants' treatment of the servants — beating, killing, stoning — is a compressed history of the prophets' fate at the hands of Israel's leadership.

36

'Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them.'

Key Message

God's patience is extraordinary — he sends more messengers even after the first are rejected; divine persistence continues in the face of repeated human rejection.

▸The owner persists in sending servants even after the first group is mistreated — a portrait of God's persistent patience with Israel.

37

'Finally he sent his son to them, saying, "They will respect my son."'

Key Message

The sending of the son is God's ultimate appeal; where all servants have been rejected, the son comes as the final and definitive word.

▸The climactic sending is the son — the owner's last resort and his best hope.

38

'But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, "This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance."'

Key Message

Recognition of Jesus' identity does not guarantee a welcoming response; the tenants recognize the heir and kill him precisely because they recognize him — the darkest form of rejection.

▸The tenants recognize the son as the heir — and this recognition produces not repentance but murderous calculation.

39

'And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.'

Key Message

The parable prophetically anticipates the passion: ejection from the city and death outside are the Son's fate at the hands of those who should have honored him.

▸The son is thrown out of the vineyard and killed — a detail that corresponds to Jesus being crucified outside Jerusalem ('outside the gate,' Hebrews 13:12).

40

'When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?'

Key Message

Jesus turns the parable into a question requiring his opponents to pronounce their own judgment; true prophetic confrontation often makes its hearers their own judges.

▸Jesus turns the parable into a question requiring the audience to pronounce their own judgment — the same technique Nathan used with David (2 Samuel 12:1-7).

41

They said to him, 'He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.'

Key Message

The religious authorities pronounce their own judgment; the transfer of the vineyard to other tenants signals the transfer of kingdom responsibility to those who will bear its fruit.

▸The religious authorities answer their own judgment correctly: the wretched tenants deserve wretched death, and the vineyard will be given to others who will faithfully render the fruit.

42

Jesus said to them, 'Have you never read in the Scriptures: "The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes"?'

Key Message

The rejection of Jesus by the religious establishment is the prelude to his resurrection exaltation; the rejected stone becomes the foundation of a new reality — this is the Lord's doing.

▸Jesus applies Psalm 118:22-23 to himself — the stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone (or capstone).

43

'Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.'

Key Message

The kingdom is transferred from those who claim it by heritage to those who bear its fruits in practice; kingdom membership is defined by fruitfulness, not birthright.

▸The explicit application: the kingdom will be taken from the current stewards (the religious leadership of Israel) and given to 'a people producing its fruits' (ethnei poiounti tous karpous autēs — a nation/people bearing its fruits).

44

'And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.'

Key Message

The rejected stone is both foundation for those who receive it and judgment for those who resist it; there is no neutral response to Jesus.

▸The double warning about the stone: falling on it produces brokenness; having it fall on you produces crushing.

45

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.

Key Message

Understanding that one is the target of Jesus' prophetic words does not guarantee repentance; the chief priests understood and hardened their hearts further.

▸The religious authorities understand that the parables are directed at them — they are the two-sons who say 'yes' but don't go, the tenants who killed the servants and the son.

46

And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.

Key Message

Fear of human opinion delays but does not prevent the crucifixion; it will take Judas's betrayal to give the authorities the private opportunity they need.

▸The final verse of chapter 21 completes the pattern: they want to arrest Jesus but fear the crowd.