The triumphal entry to Jerusalem

Some detail:

In Matthew’s recounting of the entrance into Jerusalem, (he) specifically draws attention to a number of Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in Jesus.

In the first verse of Matthew’s recounting of the entrance into Jerusalem, we hear that Jesus and the disciples were in Bethpage. Bethpage is one of the last villages on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, and is located on the Mount of Olives.

The village is significant in the context of Old Testament prophecy, as Zechariah prophesied that this would be where God’s kingship over the entire world would ultimately be revealed (Zechariah 14:4-9). This is especially important to remember in light of the great kingship prophecies that would be fulfilled as Jesus continued into the city of Jerusalem.

Jesus (is) riding a colt on which no one has ever sat. In the Old Testament, it is often specified that an animal meant for a sacred purpose must not have been put to any ordinary use before. This stipulation can be found in Numbers 19:2, Deuteronomy 21:3 and 1 Samuel 6:7.

Pope Benedict XVI said that it may seem harmless to today’s reader, “but for the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus it (was) full of mysterious allusions.”

In sending two disciples to acquire the colt because “the master has need of it,” Jesus is claiming the right of kings. This also brings to mind Genesis 49:10-11, in which Judah is promised the scepter, the ruler’s staff.

In this passage, it is said that Judah binds his donkey to the vine. “The tethered donkey, then,” says Pope Benedict, “indicates the one who is to come, ‘to (whom) shall be the obedience of the peoples.’” 

Here again, Jesus is claiming for himself the rights proper to kingship, which would not have been missed by his contemporary Jews.

Matthew explicitly quotes Zechariah 9:9: “Exult greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout for joy, O daughter Jerusalem! Behold: Your king is coming to you, a just savior is he, humble, and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (see Matthew 21:5). 

Jesus is displaying kingship, but he is the king of peace, of simplicity, of humility.

“Jesus is indeed making a royal claim,” Benedict writes. “He wants his path and his action to be understood in terms of Old Testament promises that are fulfilled in his person. The Old Testament speaks of him — and vice versa: He acts and lives within the word of God, not according to projects and wishes of his own.”

The narrative tells of the crowd covering the ground with their cloaks and palm branches as Jesus passed them by. This gesture is another that is fraught with symbolism and meaning from the Old Testament.

The spreading of cloaks and branches is an image of enthronement in the line of King David, hearkening back to 2 Kings 9:13 and 1 Maccabees 13:51: “The Jews entered the citadel with shouts of praise, the waving of palm branches, the playing of harps and cymbals and lyres, and the singing of hymns and canticles, because a great enemy of Israel had been crushed.”

Pope Benedict writes that shouts of “Hosanna!” fill the air. Over the course of Jewish history, the connotations of “Hosanna” developed from a prayer of supplication to one of praise, “joyful praise of God at the moment of the processional entry, hope that the hour of the Messiah had arrived, and at the same time a prayer that the Davidic kingship and hence God’s kingship over Israel would be re-established.” 

Jesus has now entered the holy city of Jerusalem, and made clear the divine claim to kingship.

Leaving the Christian triumphal march for a moment … and it can be called that as that was its avowed purpose, those strewing palm fronds could hardly know how the thing would play out.  

Actually, a glance back at ancient Egypt should have given some indication … it was pretty nasty:

Seqenenre Tao II and Ahhotep I

Seqenenre Tao II is the last of the original line of Egyptian Pharaohs who was forced to live in exile in Thebes, king only of Upper Egypt, while the Hyksos invaders dominated Lower Egypt. 

He lived at the same time as the last great Hyksos ruler Apophis Ier. He was married to Ahhotep I, who was also his sister. Ahhotep was another powerful queen. An ambiguous sentence on a stela devoted to her indicates that she may even have rallied troops: 

 

She is the one who has accomplished the rites and taken care of Egypt... She has looked after her soldiers, she has guarded her, she has brought back her fugitives and collected together her deserters, she has pacified Upper Egypt and expelled her rebels.

Seqenenre and Ahhotep had two sons, Kamose and Ahmose, whom they taught to dream of defeating the Hyksos. In fact, Seqenenre battled the Hyksos, although indecisively, during his lifetime. 

Kamose and Ahmose succeeded to the throne after their father's death; it may even be that Kamose reigned for a short time, but he was very soon killed in battle, and it was Ahmose who succeeded to the throne. He was only about ten years old, so his mother reigned as regent for some years; the stela refers either to this period or to the later period when she helped Ahmose in his government and in his conquests. 

It is to be remembered that the last Hyksos Pharaoh, Apophis (possibly enraged because, as a Hyksos Pharaoh, he never had access to the secret king-making rites of the legitimate pharaonic line) apparently wrote to Seqenenre Tao to demand that he suppress his hippopotamus pool for keeping him awake at night - in his Delta capital of Avaris, four hundred miles down river! 

The story of this letter is contained in a papyrus from later in the New Kingdom, which breaks off in the middle, with Seqenenre wondering what on earth he should respond. 

Let there be a withdrawal from the canal hippopotami which lie at the east of the City, because they don't let sleep come to me either in the daytime or at night. 

Seqenenre Tao was mummified in most unusual circumstances. His skull shattered by three symmetric blows, he was interred next to a miserable-looking gentleman, possibly or probably the perpetrator of the blows, who underwent various miseries before joining his sovereign in the netherworld. 

The mummies were found in Deir el-Bahri in 1881. 

First Theory: Seqenenre Tao dies of battle wounds from a bronze Hyksos battle axe. 

Second Theory: Seqenenre Tao may be the original for the story of Hiram Abif. He may have been ambushed in his three doored Theban temple by envoys of Apophis demanding to learn the king-making secrets (of which the hippopotami were a part), and purposely or accidentally killed by them.

This second theory is that embraced by the higher levels of Masonry, also revisited with the theatre of the three juewes … Jubela, Jubelo and Jubelum … on the Dallas triple overpass at the end of Dealey Plaza.  The thing was dripping with symbolism.

What is this “secret of kingmaking”? No less than the function and power of God, captured at the point of life or point of death, hence sacrifices. 

So Jesus of Nazareth riding in on that donkey was a direct challenge to the “fallen” side of Jewry, the one which planned to usurp God, just as with the Tower of Babel and the Large Hadron Collider.

In short, those people are utterly insane in their quest … and now here it is again being played out globally.  We have a ringside seat.

Coming back to the three Jubels, this next bit I’m not linking to, as it starts the road to numerology among other things:

In the ritual of Master Mason, Hiram Abif was slain by three ruffians collectively termed The Juwes … these three represent the Midheaven, the Ascendant and the Descendent position of the sun. The solar motif is picked up because their collective name has the gematria value of 1908 and thereby measures a Seal of Solomon with sides of 318, hence Ηλιος – the Sun. They also, in some fashion, personate the new moon because 1908 divided by three is 636, value of Η Νου Μηνια – The New Moon. The conjunction of the sun and the new moon are a central part of the ritual of Master Mason.

The only thing I will say about that road is that Chris Rea had a song about it.  One interpretation of the triumphal entry to Jerusalem is that Jesus went the whole route down that road … to death … possibly to hell itself … and out He came again at the end of it … hence the true meaning of “triumphal”.