The Perean Ministry ~ Part 2

In our last post, we followed Yeshua as He left Yerushalayim to go to Perea. In this post, we continue to examine His Perean Ministry as He Laments Over Yerushalayim.

Yeshua Laments Over Yerushalayim

³¹ Just at that moment, some P’rushim came up and said to Yeshua, “Get out and go away from here because Herod wants to kill you!” ³² He said to them, “Go, tell that fox, ‘Pay attention: today and tomorrow I am driving out demons and healing people, and on the third day I reach my goal.’ ³³ Nevertheless, I must keep traveling today, tomorrow, and the next day; because it is unthinkable that a prophet should die anywhere but in Yerushalayim.

³⁴ “Yerushalayim! Yerushalayim! You kill the prophets! You stone those who are sent to you! How often I wanted to gather your children, just as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you refused! ³⁵ Look! God is abandoning your house to you! I tell you; you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of Adonai!’”  ^[1]

Some interpreters believe these P’rushim were trying to frighten Yeshua into Judea so that the Sanhedrin could exercise control over Him. Compare the attempt of Amaziah, priest of the golden calf at Beit-El, to scare the prophet, Amos, out of Isra’el into Judea; he too failed (Amos 7:10–17). But such devious motivation need not have been present, for not all P’rushim wanted to do Him in; these may have thought enough of Him to warn Him. Some were “not far from the Kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34), and some came to faith in Yeshua and remained P’rushim (Acts 15:5), among them Sha’ul (Acts 23:6).

The threat of Herod Antipas (Mattityahu 14:1) was real. Although he wanted to see Yeshua perform a miracle (23:8), he regarded Him as a dangerous leader like Yochanan the Immerser (Mark 6:14–16), whom he had killed. Yeshua’s answer, like Sha’ul’s to Agav (Acts 21:13), is that negativism will not dissuade Him from following God’s plan.

To refute the theology developed later by the Church, which teaches that God is no longer interested in the Jewish people, Yeshua here gives the condition for the salvation of national Isra’el, as distinct from the salvation of individual Jews and Gentiles. In these verses, at the end of His ministry, He addresses the nation of Isra’el, speaking to its capital, Yerushalayim, and thus continues the Tanakh’s tradition of corporate salvation, which will come when Isra’el as a country blesses the Messiah, who comes in the name of Adonai. The fact that Yeshua will not return until Isra’el receives national salvation is a powerful motivator for evangelizing Jewish people; in fact, Jewish evangelism can hasten His coming.

In our next post, Yeshua Continues to Minister in the Perean Province.

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^[1]  Luke 13:31–35 (see also Mattityahu 23:37-39).