Matthew 23:39 - "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord"



THE CONTEXT (KJV)...

Mat 23:29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,
Mat 23:30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
Mat 23:31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Mat 23:32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?
Mat 23:34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:
Mat 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zechariah son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.
Mat 23:36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

(continued below)

The context is that Jesus is fed up, He has scathed them for quite some time. Jesus told them they kill everyone He sends to them just like their fathers did. Jesus told them that in His grace he would send even more wise men unto that generation, but that He knows they will kill them too. And it was true, Jesus sent Paul, Barnabus, Ananias, many prophets, one "Jesus" son of Ananus was sent four years before the Siege of Jerusalem began in mid 65 AD.

So Jesus said He will therefore charge that generation of all the righteous bloodshed on earth, from A-Z, Jesus made it very clear they in their generation who would be charged of ALL this blood, saying: "Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon THIS generation."

(continued)

Mat 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Mat 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

The LORD God Almighty had tried over and over to redeem his people gently for more than 4000 years since Moses led his people out of Egypt, many times sending prophets, but she kept killing them. Enough is enough, Jesus is fed up. The LORD is standing in the court of the temple. He makes the decree to leave their holy house (the temple) desolate. This is not to be taken lightly, I am surprised that a peal of thunder did not sound at that very moment!

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Jesus had ONE more thing to say to them:

*Mat 23:39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
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THE SKINNY...

This is the context, Jesus was fed up, He was saying He would not return to speak to them again unless they had a change of heart, realizing he HAD come in the name of the Lord. And Jesus did not enter that Temple, or speak to them again. He had it with them. He made the decree of desolation upon their "holy house".

Now to continue from Mat 23:39, the Son of God then turned His back to them and walked out. Jesus left the Temple.

The next thing we read in chapter 24, Jesus looks at the Temple and speaks more of His decree of desolation upon that same Temple:

(continued)

* Mat 24:1-2 And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

And within that same generation, just like Jesus said over and over, in many different ways, just about forty years later, Jerusalem was trodden by the Gentiles and the Temple in Jerusalem was made desolate. Not one stone was left upon another because there was gold between each one and the Romans pried apart each and every one for the gold, thus, fulfilling Jesus' words.

Many say Mat 23:39 refers to a second coming in the flesh, but as you know, Jesus did not contradict Himself, and just after Jesus said this he said that He would not be seen "here" or "there":

Mat 24:23 Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

*Mat 24:25 Behold, I have told you before.

Mat 24:27 For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

Not here or there, but everywhere, as the lightning lights up the sky all around you.

Again...

Luke 17:22-24 And he said unto the disciples, The days will come, when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And they shall say to you, See here; or, see there: go not after them, nor follow them. For as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day.

Jesus, He reigns in the kingdom of God, the kingdom is inside of me. The Kingdom of God, what a mysterious thing!


Part Two - The Feast Song


What did Jesus mean, when He said in Matt 23:39, "you will not see me again, until you say; Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord".

Was this some reference to the Jews praising Jesus as the Messiah?  Is that what Jesus was saying here?  Or was it something else entirely, that had nothing to do with them addressing Him (Jesus) personally?

Look at the context of Matthew 23.  It is about judgment against the Jewish workers of the Temple, the whole system.  What sense does it make that this one verse would be about them praising Him?  Especially given that Matthew 24 is a continuation of Matthew 23 (so is ch25)?  All of those verses speaking about judgment and right in the middle of it, one verse about Jews prasing Him?  That doesn't make any sense.

So what was Jesus saying in that verse then?  What was He referring to then?

In Matt 23:39, Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 118:26, which is part of the "Song of Ascent", or a "Song of Degrees".  This was not at all about them being blessed by being saved nationally by His return, but about when His return would happen and He was quoting a Psalm.  In other words, this was not a statement about "how" it would happen, but "when" it would happen.  And the historical significance of the fact that it is a quote of this Psalm and what this Psalm signifies must be noted.

This Psalm was actually sung to pilgrims by the inhabitants of Jerusalem, as the travelers approached the city of Jerusalem to observe one of the three sacred feast days of the Jewish Calendar.  All Jewish males had to travel to Jerusalem three times a year for these highest of Holy Days. So you see, this was not a people praising Jesus, but a song noting a blessing for "he who comes in the name of the Lord".

It is what was called, "an antiphonal hymn" and was for joyful occasions, when there was to be a procession to the Temple, a welcoming of the procession by those inside and the solemn offering of a sacrifice upon the altar there.  It has connections with the great pilgrim feasts of Judaism, but especially the "Feast of Tabernacles".  Psalm 118, especially v26, was a song that was especially associated with the three great feast days of Israel.

The Jews had three major "pilgrimage" feasts.  There was three times a year when every Jewish male that was of age was required by Mosaic mandate to travel to Jerusalem and worship the Lord (Exodus 23:17).   Those feasts are sometimes called by different names, but they are generally known as the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.   Passover is also known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  
Technically, the Feast of Unleavened Bread began on the day after Passover, but was so linked with it that many times, the terms were used interchangeably.  Pentecost is the Feast of First fruits and the Feast of Tabernacles is also called the Feast of Booths and the Feast of In-Gathering (Exod 23:14; Lev 23).

The point to going over all of this, is that it was Psalms 118 that was sung to the pilgrims as they approached the city of Jerusalem to observe these feasts.  Thus on three different occasions, once at the beginning of the year, once almost two months later and again in the seventh month, Psalm 118:26 would be heard throughout the streets of Jerusalem: "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord".

As for the connection to Matthew 23:39, there is little controversy among commentators that Jesus, in Matthew 23:29-38, predicted the judgment on Jerusalem in AD 70.  But these same commentators believe that v39 somehow strikes a dissonant cord to that message of doom, offering instead a "silver lining" to the dark cloud of pronounced judgment.  They say that in this verse, "The Lord Jesus said Israel would not see Him again until that nation affirmed (in repentance), that He was indeed the Messiah!".

That is not however, correct.  In fact, v39 was a statement of Jesus predicting the time of His coming in judgment *against* Israel.  It is very clear that the point of Jesus' statement in v39 is *when* he would come: "you will not see me again *until* you say...".

Jesus' return involved judgment and He Himself limited that judgment to the Jews and placed it not world wide, but in Jerusalem and Judea (Matt 21:33-46; Luke 21:20-22, et al). When would he come in judgment?  Within that same generation (Matt 4:34/Luke 21:32) and at the time when they would be singing the Song of Degrees (Psalm 118:26).

Jesus was saying he would return in the judgment He had just pronounced during one of the three Feast Days of Israel, which is when they would be singing that Song. Jesus was not saying; "All national Jews must be signing praise to Me before I can return." He was telling them that His return would be during one of the days that they sang that Feast Song.



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