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John 12: Donkey and Vine

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When Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, he isn't just fulfilling a single prediction from Zechariah.

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Why Did Jesus Ride a Donkey? Tracing Donkeys, Vines, and Two Divided Brothers from Genesis to John 12

Show Notes

In the eighth and final episode of their series on the Gospel of John, David and Christine turn to the triumphal entry in John 12:12-19 and ask the question: why a donkey? The answer runs from Jacob's deathbed in Genesis 49, through a talking donkey in Numbers, a dead prophet and a well-behaved lion in 1 Kings 13, and on to Zechariah's promise of a returning king. What emerges is not a single prediction that Jesus fulfills, but a centuries-long picture of two estranged brothers being made one again in the grave of a resurrected King.

Why the Crowds Formed: A King Who Could Raise the Dead

The triumphal entry may be the highest point of public enthusiasm in the whole of John's Gospel, and John tells us exactly why. A large crowd came to Bethany not only for Jesus but to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead (John 12:9). The next day, another great crowd already gathered for Passover heard Jesus was on his way and went out to meet him (John 12:12). News of a four-day-old corpse walking out of a tomb had spread like wildfire, and the people escorting Jesus into Jerusalem were escorting a man who had pulled another man out of the grave.

What those crowds were expecting is impossible to pin down with precision, and the honest answer is probably all of it at once. There was probably a political calculation: if we have a King who can raise the dead, then we can finish Rome with an undefeatable army. There was also something more canonical. Raising the dead was the signature work of Elijah and Elisha, and expectation of a returning Elijah figure was tightly bound to messianic hope. Jesus had just outdone both prophets in raising someone who was dead for four days. While there had been many Messiahs who had made claims of grandeur in Judea, Jesus had credentials no one else could produce.

Ezekiel's Dry Bones and the Promise to Rejoin Judah and Ephraim

John has been quietly tracking the book of Ezekiel through his Gospel, and by the time Lazarus walks out of the tomb, we have arrived at Ezekiel 37. Yahweh asks the son of man whether the dry bones can live, and here is a Son of Man making the bones of Lazarus live. Israel's national death is in view too, not just individual death. A people dispersed among the nations, mourning that their bones are as dry as the desert, is raised by God's Spirit and reassembled into an order of the highest degree: not merely living humans, but an army in formation.

Immediately after the bones live, God tells the prophet to take one stick and write on it "for Judah," take another and write on it "for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim," and join them into a single stick held in his hand like a scepter (Ezekiel 37:15-19). Resurrection, then reunion. John follows this pattern, recounting how after Lazarus is raised, Jesus withdraws to a town called Ephraim (John 11:54). Right after that, Caiaphas prophesies without knowing what he is saying, that Jesus would die for the nation and also gather the scattered children of God to make them one (John 11:51-52). Ezekiel 37 promised that when God opens the graves, he will put his Spirit in his people and settle them in their own land (Ezekiel 37:13-14). John has just shown a King who raises bones and reunites brothers, and then rides into King David’s capital city.

Psalm 118, Palm Branches, and the Day Yahweh Has Made

The crowd shouts, "Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel" (John 12:13). When Scripture quotes Scripture, the quotation is like the first few bars of a much longer song, and the whole song is meant to play in your head. This one is Psalm 118, the climax of Israel's Hallel, and it is all over John 12. Psalm 118 is about Israel, the priests, and God-fearing outsiders all confessing that God's love endures forever, which is covenant language for his faithfulness to the promises made to Abraham and to David. It is about a king surrounded by enemies who cuts them off in God's name and declares, "I will not die but live." It is about the gates of righteousness swinging open, which is both a king riding in to sit on his throne and a sanctuary opening for Yahweh to return and dwell with his people. It is about a stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone, a humiliation that turns into glory. And it ends with a festal procession carrying boughs up to the horns of the altar, a sacrifice bound at the very moment the King is welcomed (Psalm 118:27).

One line deserves special attention. "This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it" is not primarily a lesson in gratitude, but language signifying enthronement. This is the day Yahweh has triumphed, the day that belongs to him, the day his rule and his love are shown to endure forever. Set that next to John's Gospel, where Jesus repeatedly says his hour has not yet come, and where Martha confesses that her brother will rise on the last day. Now the hour has come. The day has arrived, and the One riding in is himself the resurrection and the life.

The palm branches are also significant. Palm trees were depicted on the walls of the tabernacle and temple, an Edenic image of God dwelling with his people. Branches and boughs were also how Israel built shelters for the Feast of Booths, remembering that God tented among them while they tented in the wilderness. And after the Maccabean revolt recovered the desecrated temple, the people held that feast with palm branches, ivy, and dancing in the courts. John has just walked us through the Feast of Dedication in chapter 10, commemorating this very event. The Maccabean parade had everything except a king on a donkey. Now there is someone on the donkey, which means the crowd is staging a theological celebration and a political provocation under Rome's nose. The leaders therefore conclude that the whole world has gone after him and that this man has to be stopped (John 12:19).

Genesis 49: Where the Donkey Story Starts

Zechariah did not invent the image of a king on a donkey, and he did not receive it out of thin air. He inherited a picture that had been painted on, layer by layer, since Genesis. The first colors go down in Jacob's deathbed prophecy over his sons, which is a last will and testament as well as genuine prophecy. Judah is praised, his hand is on the neck of his enemies, and he is a lion's cub who crouches, lies down, and is roused (Genesis 49:8-9). The scepter will not depart from him, and the obedience of the nations belongs to him. Then comes the strange line: he tethers his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch, and washes his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes (Genesis 49:11).

Tying a donkey to a grapevine is a terrible idea. Ask anyone who owns both, and they will tell you the donkey eats the grapes and then wanders off. Which means the image is either foolishness or a flex, the ancient equivalent of parking an expensive car in an open field because you can afford whatever happens to it. It signals messianic abundance, a Solomon-era world where there is so much to go around that losing a few grapes is beneath notice. But the imagery goes further. Thirteen verses later, Joseph is described as a fruitful vine near a spring whose branches climb over a wall, a vine that archers attack with hostility (Genesis 49:22-23). Joseph is the vine. Judah's donkey is tied to Joseph.

That knot holds the rest of the story together. Genesis has been tracing a promised offspring who will crush the serpent's head since Genesis 3:15, running through Isaac, who possesses the gates of his enemies after willingly laying down his life, and on to Jacob's twelve sons whose descendants become the twelve tribes of Israel. Joseph is the clearest Messiah figure in the book: the chosen son betrayed, crushed, presumed dead, raised to a ruler's right hand, and sought out by the nations in famine. Judah is the chief betrayer who sold him, and also the brother who finally offers his own life in place of Benjamin. Joseph and Judah are reconciled, and Judah then leads his father out of mourning and into a land of plenty, just as the tribe of Judah will later lead Israel into the promised land.

The picture keeps getting detail added to it. Balaam, after being corrected by a talking donkey, prophesies a king and repeats Jacob's lion imagery almost word for word, then sees a star coming out of Jacob and a scepter rising out of Israel to crush the heads of his enemies (Numbers 24:7-9, 17). The two faithful spies who trust God and enter the land are Caleb of Judah and Joshua of Ephraim, the donkey and the vine refusing to be parted while ten other tribes want to stone them. Then David arrives, a Judahite shepherd who kills lions, unites the tribes, subdues the nations, and receives the promise of a son who will reign forever. Solomon rides a donkey into his own coronation. The rough sketch finally has a face.

1 Kings 13: A Lion, a Donkey, and Two Sets of Bones in Exile

Then it tears in two. Jeroboam is introduced as an Ephraimite, and he is placed in charge of the forced labor of the house of Joseph (1 Kings 11:26-28). A son of Joseph enslaving the house of Joseph is a fracture waiting to widen. The prophet Ahijah tears a new cloak into twelve pieces, ten tribes follow Jeroboam north, Judah and Benjamin stay south under Rehoboam, and the vine of Joseph curls in on itself. Ephraim's name means fruitful and Manasseh's means forgetting, and the fruitful house of Joseph forgets who it belongs to. Worse, the northern break with brothers becomes a break with God as Jeroboam sets up altars for idol worship. The rupture is both vertical and horizontal.

What follows in 1 Kings 13 is one of the strangest stories in Scripture, and it reads like a parable of everything that has just gone wrong. A man of God from Judah comes to Bethel and confronts Jeroboam at his altar, announcing that a coming son of David named Josiah will tear these shrines down (1 Kings 13:2, fulfilled in 2 Kings 23). Jeroboam stretches out his hand to seize him and it shrivels; a withered branch on a withering vine, until the Judahite prays and it is restored. Jeroboam offers him a meal, but the Judahite has been told not to eat bread or drink water in that place, because sharing a table there would mean covenant fellowship with idolatry. He refuses and leaves.

On the road he meets an old prophet from Bethel who has ridden out after him on a donkey with the same invitation. He refuses again, until the old prophet claims an angel authorized it. The text says plainly that he was lying (1 Kings 13:18). It is the serpent's offer all over again, a deceptive voice and forbidden food, and the Judahite gives in. Then God speaks through the very prophet who deceived him, exactly as he once spoke through Balaam, and announces that this man will not be buried with his ancestors. He is going into exile in death, away from the land of promise. And the line that was supposed to crush the serpent's head, hold the scepter, and rise like a roused lion is the line going into the grave.

He rides off on a borrowed donkey, and a lion kills him on the road. Then the unexpected happens. The lion neither devours the prophet’s dead body, nor does it touch the donkey. Lion, donkey, and corpse simply stand together beside the road until it becomes a local attraction. Here is a dead Judahite who did not restrain himself and ate in idolatrous company, and beside him a wild lion that holds its appetite in check, coexisting with the donkey in a way that should be impossible. Hope is being held out, but it is held out over a dead body, and no one yet knows how the hope will be achieved.

The ending is staggering. The old prophet of Bethel retrieves the corpse on his own donkey, lays it in his own tomb, mourns over him, and calls him "my brother" (1 Kings 13:30). Then he instructs the next generation to lay his bones beside the Judahite's bones when he dies, because the word this man spoke against the altar in Bethel will certainly come true (1 Kings 13:31-32). This is not Joseph asking to be carried home to the promised land. This is an Ephraimite asking to be buried in exile, next to Judah. Wherever the lion of Judah sleeps is where he wants to lie down, because that lion will be roused. The one place the fractured relationship between these brothers is healed is the grave.

Zechariah's Returning King and the Greeks Who Wanted to See Jesus

After exile, the prophet Zechariah speaks to a remnant of Judah so small it can barely be called a people. The idols are gone, but so is the dynasty, and Ephraim has vanished into the nations. In that setting Zechariah says: rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion, your King comes to you, triumphant and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9). It is as if the donkey that carried dead Judah into exile is coming back up the road with a living King on its back. And the verses on either side confirm what that King is coming to do. He cuts off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem and commands peace to the nations (Zechariah 9:10). Because of the blood of the covenant, prisoners of hope are freed from the waterless pit, and Judah is bent like a bow with Ephraim fitted to it like an arrow (Zechariah 9:11-13). God promises to strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph, restoring them as though he had never rejected them, until Ephraimite hearts are glad as with wine (Zechariah 10:6-7). Not merely repaired, but stronger for having been torn.

So when Jesus finds a young donkey and sits on it (John 12:14), the fighting between brother and brother that split into two kingdoms is brought to an end by a King who is also their God in the flesh. And the moment the entry ends, some Greeks show up wanting to see Jesus, and they come to Philip and Andrew, the disciples with Greek names from up north (John 12:20-22). Ephraim is arriving. Jesus responds by announcing that his hour has come and immediately starts talking about his death: unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single seed, but if it dies it produces many seeds (John 12:24). Fruitful. Many. Ephraim. Jesus heals the rift between the brothers when he enters the grave. When the Son of Man is lifted up, the ruler of this world is driven out and all people are drawn to him (John 12:31-32). He is the true Josiah who cleanses defilement and expels the deceiver who has been dividing brother from brother since the beginning.

This is the good news the donkey has been carrying since Genesis. Jesus is the True Vine, his Father is the gardener, and the invitation is to abide in him, the true Israel, the One who successfully joins donkey to vine, brother to brother, and God to humanity (John 15:1-5). He is God who became our brother in flesh and blood, absorbed everything we could throw at him, joined us in our exile, and roused himself like a lion to bring us home to the city where God dwells with his people. Which means the way our own divisions heal is not complicated, but costly. Greater love has no one than laying down his life for his friends. We meet each other at the cross, in the grave of self-denial, in the small death that repentance and swallowed pride always require. Put your bones next to Jesus' bones and you will be alright. Be buried with him in the waters of baptism and you will be raised up. And while the light is here, trust the light, and become children of light (John 12:35-36). Judah was promised a star. Now anyone can be one.

Transcript

David: [upbeat music] Well, welcome everyone to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. We are potentially in our last episode on John for the time being. I think the last episode was episode seven, appropriately.

Christine: We're done then, right?

David: I think so. But now this has to be new creation, episode eight for John.

Christine: Oh, okay. Starting a new cycle at seven.

David: Yeah, exactly.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So we are gonna look at the triumphal entry, Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and we're going to look at why a donkey, how is that fitting into the biblical story, and gonna see how it traces all the way back to Genesis, and how Jesus is fulfilling something that was said to Jacob's son, Judah, a long, long, long time before this happened, and how people have been expecting this for a long time. And we'll look at other wonderful, beautiful things, but ultimately, we're going to be sitting in John 12 and looking how Mary has just anointed Jesus, as we talked about in the last episode. If you missed that, please go back and listen to it. We talked about all the different meanings of what it means for Mary to anoint Jesus, and by all I mean all the ones that we talked about, not all of them as in it was completely comprehensive. And one of those meanings was that she was anointing him like a king ready to ride in to take his city as his bride, and that is what Jesus does next. So when you think, Christine, about the triumphal entry, and this can be like childhood to modern day, what... When you're like, "Triumphal entry," what comes into your head or what are the ideas that start to circulate for you?

Christine: I think of shouts of hosanna. I think of illustrations that I've seen of the triumphal entry complete with all the elements of obviously the centerpiece is Jesus sitting on a donkey, and in front of the donkey there are coats and palm branches that Jesus is walking on, and surrounding them are people waving palm branches and shouting, and it's a jubilant moment in the Bible.

David: Mm.

Christine: That's kind of what I, what I think of when I picture it.

David: Yeah. I, I, I try to think back, uh, to like the flannelgraph version of my life or like the Sunday school version of, of my life, and I just don't think this story loomed large in my imagination or my church's teaching at all.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: It wasn't until much deeper into my more mature Bible study and even professional Bible study that this began to be like, oh, this is a humongous gospel moment.

Christine: Oh, interesting.

David: And gospel in the purest form of the announcement of a king coming to a kingdom. This is the moment.

Christine: It is. It's huge.

David: Yeah.

Christine: I mean, even triumph alludes to that 'cause it's a Roman term for a triumphant king coming to a city and being escorted in by all this entourage of people welcoming him, so.

David: Yeah. And so-

Christine: It is in a sense the gospel.

David: Right.

Christine: 'Cause that's what we announce. Jesus is coming. Get ready to welcome him.

David: Yeah. And so Jesus follows this, not only biblical, but cultural, I don't know if trope is the right word, but, uh, pattern of a king coming into a city on a beast of peace like a donkey, being celebrated and ushered into the center of the city to consummate a victory and a kingship is like not just something that the Bible shows us actually happens in its own literature, but this was something that happened across culture, in Rome even. And so this was a, uh, something that everybody knew it was going on.

Christine: Yeah, or thought they did. [laughs]

David: Thought, [laughs] yeah. There's plenty of reversals of expectations-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... that, that will be happening here.

Christine: Yeah, 'cause this, it, it is maybe the highest point you could say maybe in John in terms of the crowds and stuff, and it is coming right off the heels of Jesus' greatest sign miracle, which was raising Lazarus from the dead, which all four gospels record the triumphal entry. And we see people escorting Jesus in with a bunch of joy and fanfare, and you might think, oh, is this Passover stuff? Well, John kind of gives the reason why everyone's so excited and escorting Jesus in. It's because he literally resurrected a corpse.

David: Hmm.

Christine: And so people are like, "This is insane. Rome is dead. We've got a resurrecting king, and this is our moment." And so there is a lot of hype, a lot of enthusiasm. If you met someone who rose, raised someone from the dead, there'd be crowds around that person too.

David: Right.

Christine: So there's a lot going on.

David: When these crowds form around Jesus because he's raised Lazarus from the dead, is this, and it, it might be a yes, but, uh, for both, but I, I like explanations about both if you have them. [laughs] Is, is this just a wow, this man, kind of like with, with when he multiplied the bread and the fish. This man can make infinite food. Let's follow him. But also, oh, he's repeating some of the Yahweh actions from feeding the people in the wilderness. Maybe he, there's more to this man. In the same way here, it's like here's a guy who, who can raise the dead. We could have an unstoppable army against Rome 'cause if they killed us, we could just pop right back up. All that's going on in the excitement, or is, were there, were there expectations around a messianic figure tied to resurrection? Like, are, are they thinking more canonically, biblically, or are they just thinking politically, power? You know, like why the crowd is my, is my, is my question.

Christine: I think all of what you said is valid there.

David: Hmm.

Christine: Because if we just go to the text, we see in John 12 verse 9 that there's a large crowd of Jews who found out where Jesus was and came there, not only because of him, but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 'Cause there are people who are just spreading the news of Lazarus' resurrection like wildfire so that people are coming to see Lazarus. People are coming to see Jesus, and that term large crowd is very similar to the text that we are starting in today, which is the next day a great crowd that had come for the feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, and then they are coming out. So there's a crowd that's accompanying Jesus. There's a crowd that go- that's going out to Jesus. What every single person is expecting there-

David: Right

Christine: ... is obviously-

David: We don't know

Christine: Yeah, impossible to ascertain, but the contexts of someone who just resurrected a corpse. Someone pulled a man out of Sheol language-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... like there's, someone was dead four days and this person raised him from the dead. This is better than Elijah. This is better than Elisha.

David: Right.

Christine: There's all that going on, and then obviously people around Passover and, you know, God save us from the Romans, there would be a lot of hope for a messianic figure that would show up. And yes, Messiahs were a dime a dozen, but Jesus is the next hope that a lot of people have for maybe that actually happening this time, are all my guesses. [laughs]

David: Yeah. I think I'm swimming in the same water and just trying to, trying to see if there was anything that popped up with like... But I, I can't think of a, a discrete, like we're gonna see a very discrete prophecy about a king riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, and it's like, okay, here it is.

Christine: Yes. So-

David: But it's not like, and then right before he gets on the donkey, he raises a dead man, right? It's like, there's not quite that, but there's patterns. You mentioned Elijah and Elisha. These are, these are men who are tied to resurrection-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... um, and who even in John's own gospel, I believe, but especially in the, in the wider corpus, that people were tying this expectation of a new Elijah to the messianic hope.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And John's like, "Yeah, I'm the one pointing to [laughs] the, the new one coming." And you all of a sudden see this new Elijah-like figure doing a resurrection, and that only enhances the expectation that not only is this guy claiming to be this type of figure, and he's been doing signs like Elijah, but this kind of a sign, a resurrection sign, is the ultimate sign of someone with the spirit of Elijah, the spirit of Elisha.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So that's interesting. And I know we've been tracking John at least as we've been writing about it. I don't know how much we've put on the podcast actually about how much John tracks with Ezekiel.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And he's brought us up here to the story of Lazarus. He's been tracking with Ezekiel to the story of, was it Ezekiel 37 and the Valley of Dry Bones?

Christine: Yes.

David: Right?

Christine: Yeah, and that's very pertinent here-

David: Hm

Christine: ... for multiple reasons.

David: Okay.

Christine: That, well, you brought up the resurrection of the dry bones and the whole question of, "Son of Man, can these bones live?"

David: You know.

Christine: "O Sovereign Lord, you know." But here's a Son of Man who is making the bones of Lazarus live, and what happens right after that in Ezekiel is this promise of unification of Judah and Ephraim-

David: Right

Christine: ... which is-

David: The, the two divided kingdoms of Israel? Yep.

Christine: Yes, yes, which is also a resurrection 'cause it's not just the people themselves, but it's the nation. Like, as a nation, Israel died, and there is this mourning and this lamentation that we are dispersed among the exiles, or as exiles among the Gentiles. Our bones are as dry as the desert. What hope is there left for us? And the new creation spirit says there is. [laughs] And, and through Ezekiel's prophecy, the Spirit of God breathes life into them and assembles their chaos into order-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... and not just order, but order par excellence. They aren't just resurrected as humans, but they are resurrected as an army ready for battle.

David: Yeah.

Christine: The pinnacle of human organization. [laughs]

David: So it's interesting. I, I actually do wanna double-click on Ezekiel real quick, and if you guys listening here think this is a strange little rabbit hole to go down, you're about to see why bringing up the divided kingdom is, is really a big deal. But right after Jesus raises the dry bones of L- [laughs] of Lazarus in a sense in his resurrection in chapter 11, in verse 54, we read this: "Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness, and he rem- remained there with his disciples." And so right after the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37, where he sees these dry bones come back to life, the word of the Lord comes to him and tells him to take a stick and write on it, "For Judah," and the Israelites associated with it, and then take another stick and write on it, "For Joseph," the stick of Ephraim, and all the house of Israel associated with it, "and join them together into one stick so that they might become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, 'Will you not show us what you mean by these?' say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: I am about to take the stick of Joseph,' which is in the hand of Ephraim, 'and the tribes of Israel associated with it, and I will put the stick of Judah upon them and make them one stick, in order that they may be one in my hand.'" So we have this picture of the divided kingdoms of North and South Israel, of Judah and Joseph, or also known as Ephraim, that have been separated in this broken kingdom when this new king comes and raises the dead, that he will join the two kingdoms and hold them in his hand like a scepter, like a shepherd's staff, and he will rule over them. And so it makes a lot of sense for John and his audience that after a resurrection miracle, a king rides into town and starts fulfilling Judah, Joseph, Ephraim prophecies of unity, which we're gonna see.

Christine: Yes, because if you go just a little earlier to what you're reading in Ezekiel, in Ezekiel 37:13 right after the army is raised, it says that, "Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them.

David: Hm.

Christine: I will put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and I have done it," declares the Lord. And so you have all that in your mind, and then you look at John 11 where he raised Lazarus from the dead, and right after that, after that raising, the Jews are planning to destroy him, and Caiaphas makes a prophecy that he does not on his own. And John says in 51 about Jesus dying, "He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one."

David: Well, there you go.

Christine: So- We are teed up for Jesus fulfilling Ezekiel 37 in the resurrecting of bones and the unification of Judah and Ephraim, and he rides in triumphant.

David: Wow. Okay. So John is teeing us up for this moment in a lot of ways.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so verse 13 of chapter 12, we've read verse 12 so far. And so they took branches, and this they is the great crowd that we were talking about earlier who had come to the festival. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, "Hosanna. Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel." Woo.

Christine: Well-

David: Lots here

Christine: ... good rule of thumb, when scripture quotes scripture, you go back and read not just only what is directly quoted, but the entire context. [laughs]

David: That's right.

Christine: Because what you just read, David, the, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," is straight out of Psalm 118.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: And Psalm 118 is all over John 12, and we probably can't get into all of the ways, but it is all about a king being celebrated by Jews and non-Jews who are God-fearers. It is about palm branches and a sacrifice leading up to the altar. It's about an entrance into the city of God, and there's just, every line is all over this [laughs] moment.

David: Yeah. So let's take a peek then at Psalm 118, thinking about what is that Psalm, if it's not just, as you said, and it's a good rule of thumb to just go, well, John only wants us to think about those exact words quoted, [laughs] right? It's like you sing the first few bars of a song, and you know the rest of the song that I'm, I'm referencing.

Christine: Yeah, or maybe even the whole musical.

David: Exactly.

Christine: If I just, yeah.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Uh-huh.

David: Yeah. If you say 2-4-6-0-1 to me-

Christine: Oh, you've got a whole-

David: I've got a whole world in my head

Christine: ... two hours.

David: Yeah, that's right.

Christine: Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah.

David: Les Miserables for anybody who doesn't know.

Christine: My favorite-

David: And so-

Christine: ... s- musical

David: ... as we do that, you know, you have these people, and I wanna come back to the palm branches and everything that they're waving around and shouting. But they, they quote Psalm 118 here. What's the sense that they're evoking when they bring Psalm 118 into a room, into a moment, as in, as if I went, you know, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. I'm bringing-

Christine: [laughs]

David: ... Star Wars into a moment.

Christine: Yes.

David: And all that happens there, you know. They're bringing Psalm 118 into the moment. What's Psalm 118, and what are they evoking?

Christine: Wow. It's, it feels like the whole Bible, so I can try to do a speed reel of it. But palm ba- branches being waved is Eden coming back. It's an Edenic picture of God dwelling with His people, of victory over enemies, of being w- in the house of God with God. And Psalm 118 is about all kinds of peoples praising God, Israel saying, "His love endures forever," Aaron saying, so that would be the priests, and then even God-fearers saying, "His love endures forever." So Psalm 118 is about God's love enduring forever, which is also-

David: Hmm

Christine: ... an Edenic picture of God loves His-

David: Yep

Christine: ... human images and-

David: I'm just gonna pause you on your speed run and, and-

Christine: Go

David: ... and, and bless and as you go here. We have this idea of the covenant promises of God being fulfilled in His coming king and uniting all His people, both the God-fearers, the priests, His people, in one. We've already talked about those themes here. So His steadfast love endures forever, uh, not always, but a lot of times refers to His faithfulness to His covenant and the promises He's made to His people. And so it's like, okay, hosanna, He's come to save us because He's gonna be good to His promise that He made to Abraham, that He made to David, and He's gonna bring all people together.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Okay?

Christine: God.

David: So that's happening in the, in the background.

Christine: God dwelling with humanity. Yeah, saving people from death. That is in Psalm 118 of not fearing man or not fearing what man can do to me because God can rescue me. I will not die, but I will live. I'm paraphrasing the gist of Psalm 118, but there's this king who comes in, who's surrounded by enemies, but in the name of God, he destroys them and cuts them off. And then he-

David: Yeah, which makes me think of some of the expectations we mentioned earlier about Rome and having a king that can resurrect. It's like, man, I might die, but I will live, and our enemies surround us, but that's okay. We got the king right here.

Christine: Yes, shouts of joy and victory because the Lord's right hand has done mighty things, and I will not die but live and proclaim what the Lord has done, and open the gates of righteousness, I will enter and give thanks to the Lord. It's kind of a song of ascent, too. It's a triumphal accompanying of God into His sanctuary with His people surrounding Him, so.

David: Opening the gates is kingly language of a king riding into the city to sit on his throne.

Christine: Yes.

David: But it's also temple language of opening up the sanctuary for Yahweh to return and dwell in His place. Like, almost like the, the Ark of the Covenant, which is the mobile throne of God, entering the tabernacle in the temple once again.

Christine: Yes.

David: Okay.

Christine: And, uh-

David: I mentioned the Ark of the Covenant, and I [laughs]... Did you go and-

Christine: You went there. You went there. Oh. Yeah, 'cause David and the Ark of the Covenant, uh, God is entering the city.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And nobody's gonna die today from holiness, and it's just mind-blowing, but that's, that's another conversation.

David: Wow.

Christine: Sorry.

David: No, it's cool.

Christine: Not sorry. [laughs]

David: No, I like the nuggets.

Christine: And then there's so many strange reversals of, again, being surrounded by enemies, but then being delivered as though from death or maybe actually from death. There is this strange reversal that's almost a riddle of the stone that the builders reject becomes the capstone. So there's this humiliation. There's this casting out that suddenly becomes glory, which is kind of the story of Israel, of, in terms of resurrection. It could be Lazarus' story. It's Jesus' story, who is the true Israel.

David: Yeah, it's interesting the irony with the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. As the celebrants are singing this song, they are probably putting themselves in that line, being like, you know, we, Israel, we're the, the one that all the nations rejected, and, and we've been kind of this sidelined nation, but we're gonna become the chief cornerstone of a new kingdom, an eternal dynasty that God's gonna build right here. And Jesus is like, "I'm the stone the builder rejected, and you're about to reject me."

Christine: Yes.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And he will quote that explicitly to the temple leaders in other gospels, and it's, it hurts them.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And they decide, okay, we will reject you [laughs] sadly as a result. But there's- This petition of Lord save us, which is Hosanna, but this is in, you know, Psalm 118, and this is the day the Lord has made, which isn't necessarily creation language unless creation language is enthronement language. Like, this is the day the Lord has made is the day God has triumphed, the day that is His.

David: Mm.

Christine: So it's the Lord's day, it's like His hour has come. We kind of talked about that, and we will rejoice and be glad in it because He has triumphed over His enemies as the rest of the Psalm unfolds. And-

David: I need to pause there. This is the day the Lord has made is triumph language.

Christine: Yes.

David: This is-

Christine: This is the Lord-

David: This is-

Christine: This is He's in charge

David: ... new to me. So, okay, yeah, the whole, this is new to me.

Christine: New probably because, yeah, in Sunday school we grew up with, like-

David: This is the day

Christine: ... this is the day.

David: Yeah, totally.

Christine: This is... Yeah, I'll sing that in five languages.

David: [laughs]

Christine: It's, it's great, and it's true.

David: Right.

Christine: Like, yes, God makes every single day, but this is the day the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it, is not a lesson in thankfulness or even in Sabbath, unless you know that Sabbath is enthronement, and this is the day God is victorious and enthroned, and He is reigning, and His rule endures forever, His love endures forever. That is what is being celebrated and proclaimed in the phrase, "This is the day the Lord has made."

David: Wow.

Christine: So. [laughs]

David: I mean, there's so many questions I want to ask that I'll ask you off air, I think.

Christine: [laughs]

David: But for now, for, 'cause they have nothing to do with John 12 maybe, but for John 12, what's interesting with this is all the Johannine ideas of it's not my hour yet, it's not my time yet, and now it is. The hour has come. The time has come. The day has come.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And the day, you know, "Oh, I know," Martha says, "you'll raise them up at the last day. I am the day. I am the resurrection and the life, and now this is the day that the Lord has made. I'm coming in to conquer and claim and rule and reign."

Christine: It's the day of Yahweh-

David: Oh

Christine: ... which all the prophets talk about. And, you know, in Acts, Peter will be like, "Remember Joel? Remember Zechariah? Remember..." Well, speaking of Zechariah, we're gonna go there.

David: We are gonna go there.

Christine: But on that day is language that John uses and is pulling from the Psalms and the prophets signifying the hour of God, the day of the Lord has come.

David: I'm just happy.

Christine: [laughs]

David: And I'm, I'm happy now. I'll never get to, I'll never, like, roll over that phrase again.

Christine: [laughs]

David: I will, I will sing that song-

Christine: You'll blow a-

David: ... as a victory chant now. Yeah, I'll, I'll blow a horn.

Christine: Do it. That is what it is.

David: Yeah.

Christine: I will. [laughs]

David: This is the day that the Lord has made.

Christine: Cue David-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... bursting into Sunday school with a shofar.

David: Yeah, exactly. [laughs] Okay. Wow.

Christine: Yeah. And then before we-

David: Yes, keep going

Christine: ... leave this Psalm, the very ending is with boughs in hand, bind the festal sacrifice, or join in the festal procession, depending on the translation, but it's going up, entering into the temple, the horns of the altar. So there's a sacrifice imagery there that is prevalent 'cause we talked about, you know, even in the last episode that Jesus is being prepared to offer a sacrifice, and He is also the king, and He is the king that even was rejected or will be rejected but will come out triumphant in, in that irony of the rejected stone will become the cornerstone that the new Jerusalem will be built upon.

David: Wow.

Christine: So that's fun. [laughs]

David: What, what I... Obviously, there's a ton there, and you left 95% on the floor, I know. But just taking all of that in, this is a conquering, enthronement celebration song of the day when the king will ride in, when the festivities will be at their highest. It's the end of the Hallel. Like, this is th- this is the, the-

Christine: That's right

David: ... the climax of Israel's hallelujah hymnal, and they're, they're singing this song because the king is coming to bring all people in, silence their enemies, raise them from the dead, sit enthroned in a new day of the Lord that He has made, and the people will rejoice in a festival meal with Him. It's like-

Christine: Shouts of joy and victory.

David: There's a story.

Christine: Yes. It's like God wants us to be happy.

David: Oh, it's so cool.

Christine: [laughs]

David: Okay, so this is what they're feeling and singing and thinking and connecting themes to-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... as Jesus rides in. And it's also interesting, the palm branches thing. You mentioned a number of images that's tied to Eden. You know, it's tied to the temple itself, right? The tabernacle.

Christine: Palm trees were depicted in the imagery of the tabernacle and temple.

David: That's right. This imagery of palm branches and ivy and different types of materials like this were used by Israel to celebrate the Feast of Booths, too, where-

Christine: That's right, yeah

David: ... they would form their booths out of these things to remember that they were wanderers in the wilderness, and it also had a lot to do with, it spoke to the temple because God dwelt in a tent as they dwelt in tents, but now they're asking God to come dwell in the temple and, and, and abide with them as He abided with them in the wilderness. And so appropriately then, you can read about this in 1 and 2 Maccabees, after the temple is desecrated, which we had just left the Feast of Dedication with John in chapters-

Christine: That's right

David: ... uh, 19 to 11 or so. After the, the temple is desecrated and the, and the Maccabees get the temple back, after it's dedicated, they hold the Feast of Booths there, and the people enter into the courts with, like, great festal dancing and songs.

Christine: Hm.

David: And both in 1 Maccabees 13:49 to 51-ish, and then later in 2 Maccabees 10, we get to see this procession happening, and they're waving palm branches and ivy and everything like this as a celebration that God is moving back into the temple is their hope here, that this temple is now clean again, ready for the king to come. Like, ready for the king to ride into the city. The problem is there's no king riding in yet.

Christine: Hm. So this would have been a rather recent memory for those in Jerusalem-

David: Yes

Christine: ... celebrating this.

David: That's right.

Christine: And only this time the difference is there is someone riding in.

David: There's someone on the donkey. [laughs]

Christine: Wow.

David: And they're wondering, is this the king we've been waiting for? Is this the one who will get rid of the enemies that are surrounding us, that will raise us as a country from the dead, and rule and reign and bring unity and, and all these wonderful things? And so they're performing, it's a theological one, but it's also a political stunt. In evoking under Rome's nose [laughs] the parade that they put on for the Maccabees.

Christine: Yeah, which aggravates the Jewish leaders who are like, "This is getting us nowhere. See how the whole world has gone after him." That is their response to the whole triumphal entry and seeing Jesus, and they're like, "Yeah, we gotta put this guy down 'cause he's creating a revolt."

David: That's right.

Christine: "The crowd loves him."

David: Yeah. Like we, like we've looked at earlier in 11:45 and so on, they are worried about Rome's reaction to the chaos that Jesus is bringing and the uproar he's bringing. It's not gonna ha- help that they're repeating Maccabean parades in Rome-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... under, under Rome. And so all that's happening here. And after we read about Psalm 118, that this is the song that the people are singing as they wave their palm branches, we read this verse in, in verse 14. "Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, as it is written, 'Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.' His disciples did not understand these things at first. But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written of him and had been done to him." The-

Christine: So it's the marriage of the king in his city. Do not be afraid, O daughter of Zion. See your king is coming, seated on a donkey's co- colt. It reminds me also of Psalm 45, which is a royal wedding song-

David: Mm

Christine: ... of daughter and king and all that, and you can go read that. But what's important then is to, like we did with Psalm 118, if you wanna get the full picture of what John is doing, 'cause he's just, you know, singing the first few bars of an entire story that he wants to, like, put into your head. When you go and read not only Zechariah 9, but basically the whole half of Zechariah [laughs] beginning and even at the end of chapter 8, you see all of Holy Week unraveling-

David: Mm

Christine: ... essentially.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: And predicted and rounded out and painted by Zechariah, you know, [laughs] hundreds of years before Jesus. And then you realize that even Zechariah is building on foundations that he had. He's not creating a new picture with this donkey riding in.

David: Yes.

Christine: He is building on an image that's even older than he.

David: Yeah. And so this is what I wanna emphasize here as we, as we dive into this donkey image. Even as the idea, like I shared earlier, I wasn't super familiar with the, quote-unquote, "triumphal entry" as a young kid, and then as I started to study my Bible, I was like, "Oh, this is a big deal." And I remember the moment where I, I was like, "Wait, it was predicted that he would ride in on a donkey?" And having my mind blown, like-

Christine: Wow

David: ... you know, those early sparks of seeing how-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... Old Testament prophets saw and beheld Jesus-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... centuries before.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It's-

Christine: Like Psalm 22, "They pierced my hands-

David: Right

Christine: ... and my feet."

David: Oh, man.

Christine: I was like, what?

David: What? And they cast lots for my clothing.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Oh, my gosh.

Christine: This is all about Jesus.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And I remember those early sparks. But it's so much deeper and, and really that, I don't wanna say that's a unhelpful way to think about it, but it is definitely an, like for me, an elementary way to think about it, that there's something far richer going on here. And I'm s- saying that to myself because [laughs] about a week or two ago, I asked Christine, I was like, "All right, Christine, you gotta help me," because I'm like, I know there's more going on here than just he's riding on a donkey 'cause Zechariah said he would. But that's kind of the end of my story-

Christine: Mm

David: ... that I have in my head. Now, I have some cultural things we've talked about in the past with, well, kings ride donkeys, especially after victory, and he's riding in. Okay, cool. Solomon rode on a donkey. This other king rode on a don- He's recapitulating the story of Israel. Okay, I can see those cultural things happening here. There's kingship, and that really helped round this moment out for me. But I was like, I know there's a bigger donkey story [laughs] in the Bible.

Christine: Bigger donkey story.

David: Pardon, pardon my, my, uh, shortcut there. And you kind of walked me through it. And so we're, we're in a sense just going to redo that conversation for our friends listening with us here, and hopefully I can help a little bit more this time. [laughs] But as you said, Zechariah, and, and, uh, no one would think he's inventing it, right? It's not that he's inventing it, but it's not only that he's just receiving a vision of it. "Oh, I saw it."

Christine: Yeah.

David: He is using the very well-populated world of the biblical imagination of the prophets that came before him, and of Moses, and, um-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... of the Torah to go, "I know what the Messiah will look like when he comes, and it has something to do with a donkey." [laughs]

Christine: Yes. Immensely. Uh, I like to think, this picture just came into my mind, but in terms of layered prophecies-

David: Mm

Christine: ... and images that are at a distance and hard, you can imagine that the closer you get, the more detail you can see. Or if you have a blank canvas and someone comes and puts a few colors on it, and then later someone else comes and adds a bit more color, and then someone else comes and then adds some details and some lines, where you're like, "I'm beginning to see this picture more and more clearly." It's always informing and rounding out a picture handed down to you that you develop even further. And so whether that's this literary image or this prophecy of, a, you know, figure coming, and we see dimly now, but the closer we get, the more we can see. Zechariah, too, is not beginning with a blank-

David: That's right

Christine: ... palette. He has a worldview that's populated with all these images that he then, again, guided by the Spirit and his time, he sees, "Okay, there's a clearer picture now that I want to describe about this king coming to Jerusalem," to what in his time was, you know, a demolished temple, a desecrated temple, and this king is coming and riding on a donkey and bringing in exiles, and he has this thing about staffs as well we talked about in Ezekiel. So basically, just go read all of Zechariah. [laughs]

David: [laughs] But let's go back to where this donkey story begins. [laughs]

Christine: [laughs] Okay. Well, we ... So this is kind of, it's a fun theme, but we- Can't touch on all of them, especially if I'm the one leading us through.

David: [laughs]

Christine: 'Cause I do not know all of the connections, and as you read, you might even just be listening, think, "Oh, my gosh, that reminds me of that donkey story. Why didn't they mention that?" Well, 'cause we don't know it right now, or I didn't think of it [laughs].

David: Right.

Christine: So as you like to say-

David: As a cursory trace through, or-

Christine: Yes, yes.

David: What do I like to say?

Christine: We have to go back to Genesis. [laughs]

David: We, oh, I do like to say that. [laughs] You're very right.

Christine: 'Cause-

David: Back to Genesis

Christine: ... back to the beginning.

David: Always a good place to start a story.

Christine: Indeed.

David: In the beginning. Genesis 49, yeah?

Christine: Yes.

David: Or 48, or depends on if we're talking about Joseph or Judah first.

Christine: Oh, my goodness.

David: [laughs]

Christine: I, so I am not good at speaking linear, linear, linearly.

David: Linearly.

Christine: I can't even say a word that, yeah, I guess-

David: You don't even want to know how to pronounce the word. You, you, you don't wanna talk it, you don't wanna talk linearly so badly.

Christine: [laughs] I want to be helpful.

David: [laughs]

Christine: But apparently I can't even speak, so God help me. But we're at the end of Genesis, in Genesis 49, and yeah, 48 will be important, too, but in 49 Jacob is aging and old, and he has this last will and testament to his children, his sons, that he wants to give them. So this is not just a last will and testament in the sense of, like, "I'm gonna bless you, my sons." It is also prophecy.

David: Yeah.

Christine: This kind of-

David: When the, when the patriarchs give their last will and testaments, it's prophetic

Christine: ... the patriarchs are prophets.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yes. They saw God. They beheld God, and that's a whole idea. So Jacob talks about each of his sons in very different ways, and you see this kind of unravel as this biblical story goes on. And we're gonna jump to the story of Ju- or the words about Judah, beginning in verse eight of 49. Judah's name means praise, and so funnily enough, "Judah, your brothers will praise you," is a very apt thing to say [laughs] about Judah.

David: Praise, you'll be praised.

Christine: Yes. You are, you are well-named, and your hand will be on the neck of your enemies, which that is an interesting thing to recall, 'cause that's not the first time we've seen a picture like that in Genesis. The-

David: You're thinking Genesis 3:15?

Christine: Yes, and even maybe things spoken of Isaac in Genesis 22. There's this promised seed of a question we have right at the beginning of Genesis with the fall and this prophecy, this first prophecy. There's going to be a son who will crush the head of the serpent. So that's a vague, you know, first palate kind of thing.

David: Right.

Christine: And even Genesis develops that more and more, and so we get another version of that with a little more detail of, okay, Abraham's children will be like the stars. Oh, they'll be rulers of heaven. Okay. And your offspring will possess the gates of his enemies. Okay.

David: That's to Isaac.

Christine: That's to Isaac, who has this covenant promise-

David: Yep, after-

Christine: ... of the stars

David: ... he willingly lays down his life.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Christine: So there's a resurrection there, which that's Isaac's second resurrection, basically, and there are all these images stacking onto each other. And so even here, now that prophecy seems to gets, seems to get carried on to Judah here with all the other brothers that we have seen, and even a focus being on Joseph, which Joseph will come later. But Judah is likened to a lion's cub. "You return from the prey, my son, like a lion. He crouches and lies down like a lioness. Who dares to rouse him?" There's Judah's association with the image of a lion, and even the lion that lies down and is raised, so there's a resurrection thing there, but this is a lion figure. And then importantly, "The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs, and the obedience of the nations is his." So Judah has a scepter, and nations will obey him. He will tether his donkey to a vine. Oh, here we are. There's a-

David: There's a donkey.

Christine: There's a donkey and a vine.

David: People were worried that we, we tricked them-

Christine: Neat

David: ... and we weren't gonna actually talk about donkeys for a little while.

Christine: No, but Christine just has to talk about everything.

David: [laughs]

Christine: He will tether his donkey to a vine, his colt to the choicest branch. He will wash his garments in wine, his robes in the blood of grapes. His eyes will be darker than wine, his teeth whiter than milk.

David: Jacob's last will and testament prophecy about Judah.

Christine: Yes. So what we need to carry with Judah in our minds now is this image of a lion that lies down and is roused somehow, and how that's a scary thing [laughs], the scepter that doesn't depart from him or that will come to a final resting place with him. Nations will bow to him. He will tie his donkey to a vine, which is an interesting picture that we can-

David: [laughs]

Christine: ... just meditate on for a little bit. But-

David: So what I'm hearing here is we, ever since the beginning of the story, we have a promise that one of Eve's offspring will rise up and destroy the head of the serpent, the, the enemy of the people.

Christine: Through a wounding, yes.

David: Through, through a wounding. He will, he will bruise his heel, the, the heel of the seed, but the seed will crush the head of the serpent, and we've been tracing that theme throughout Genesis. Oh, it, oh, it's, it, it's preserved in Noah, and you follow it over to Abraham, and then Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Well, now Jacob has 12 children. What's the promised seed? How does that work? It's a nation, but it's also a son.

Christine: Yes, and Jacob's family is nothing if not dysfunctional.

David: [laughs]

Christine: And so we have this big question of who is the firstborn here, because Reuben forfeits his place, Levi and Simeon kind of forfeit theirs, and these are the first three sons of Jacob. And then there is Judah, who is next. And so it seems like Judah gets the firstborn privilege there. But Joseph also is the second to last born, but from Jacob's favorite wife.

David: Yes, and yeah.

Christine: But also, he's the prince among his brothers, but then Judah has a scepter. So- It's unclear 'cause it's unclear

David: It's unclear 'cause it's unclear, and I promise we're getting to donkeys.

Christine: [laughs]

David: Um, but it is interesting here the tension, in a sense, between Joseph and Judah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And their story alone-

Christine: Yes

David: ... airs this tension out.

Christine: 100%.

David: Where Judah is the one who hands- or is he the one who has the idea to hand Joseph over to the slavers?

Christine: Yeah, so Judah is kind of the figurehead of the brothers who rebel against Joseph, who is the father's favorite, who is the firstborn with two coats and things like that. And of course, this makes his older brothers hate him for that.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And they all want to murder him. There's mutiny in all of them.

David: Yeah.

Christine: But Judah kind of stands up as this chief traitor or chief betrayer of the chosen son. [laughs]

David: He sounds like more of the serpent and less like the seed.

Christine: Yes. Yes.

David: He's looking to consume maybe the chosen one 'cause Joseph is the one who's having these dreams about his brothers bowing down to him.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so as the reader of Genesis, you're wondering, oh, is this the, the promised seed? Is this the one to whom all nations will bow? And oh, he's kind of like a star-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and things are gonna bow to him, so okay, maybe he's the Abrahamic promise who's gonna come and crush everything and, oh, no, he's getting crushed. And look-

Christine: Yeah, and-

David: ... oh, is this the wounding that we were expecting?

Christine: Well, and Joseph fulfills that pattern very well, the best out of everyone in Genesis-

David: Right

Christine: ... I think, and that's why most of Genesis is about Joseph.

David: Yeah.

Christine: He fulfills this paradigm of this chosen seed getting crushed and then being raised and coming back from the dead. Even Jacob himself says, "My son is alive, back from the dead," basically.

David: Right.

Christine: And-

David: And he rises up to the right hand of Pharaoh, and the nations flock to him for help-

Christine: Yes, and-

David: ... in a time of famine

Christine: ... and he gives his family an inheritance. He's the ruler among his brothers literally. He's got the ring and the power and all of that-

David: Yep

Christine: ... and it's-

David: But then whenever Judah and his brothers meet Joseph and want to go, like, go back and, and all that funniness [laughs] ensues, Judah's the one who steps up and offers his own life for the sake of his brother, who Joseph basically threatens to keep as a ransom price for their departure.

Christine: Yes, and so we see Judah's story be... Yeah, Judah and Joseph juxtaposed are just phenomenal. Just go look at chapter 38 and 39, but that'll be your adventure. The idea of Joseph and Judah reconciling at the end is a big tension that is resolved there because, yeah, Judah tells his brothers at the beginning, "Let's not shed any blood. Let's just sell our brother to slaves, and then we'll deceive our father." They are tricksters, just like their father. They deceive their father with goat's blood and a coat, and, um, Jacob thinks that Joseph is a goner, but then Joseph comes back. And Judah, who first betrayed his brother, is now willing to stand in for his youngest brother, Benjamin, and, um, the next, probably the next favorite, and he even says, like, "My father's life is tied up in this boy. If we lose him, we lose our father." So Joseph sees this change of heart in Judah, and as you said, he offers to stay himself instead of [laughs] his brother, Benjamin. And yeah, and it's beautiful, and then Joseph can't handle it anymore. He reveals himself-

David: Right

Christine: ... to his brothers, and there's this beautiful reconciliation of what you meant for evil, God meant for good.

David: Mm.

Christine: And he's been blessed.

David: Yeah, and so you have this... The, the reason we're going down this quick little rabbit trail here is because, one, why Judah? Why is he the one singled out? Okay, it seems like the firstborn stuff has passed to him, and he's played a big role in both the betrayal and the restoration of and with Joseph.

Christine: Yeah.

David: But also, Joseph has been the paradigmatic son of the promise.

Christine: He's the Christ figure.

David: He's the Christ figure.

Christine: Yeah.

David: So what, why isn't the promise just going to him? Well, it kind of is, but it's also going to Judah. Why? And we're gonna find out it's because of this storied future that these brothers' descendants are going to have as representatives of the southern and northern kingdoms of Israel, Judah in the south and Joseph, later named Ephraim, in the north, Israel in the north. And they are literally going to sever, and for the kingdom of God and the promise of God to come, as we're going to explore, these two have to become one again.

Christine: If you're looking at the imagery alone, you see that fulfilled even here because what is the imagery attached to Joseph? Verse 22 of 49, "Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall." And then it just, "With bitterness, archers attacked him. They shot at him with hostility." It talks about how he is broken down but then restored, but-

David: So-

Christine: ... Joseph is a vine

David: ... so and Judah has to tie himself to a vine.

Christine: Exactly.

David: He's like, "You're not going anywhere without your brother."

Christine: Exactly.

David: [laughs] That's so cool.

Christine: That's so cool, and you just think, oh, tying his donkey to a vine. That's a stupid thing to do if you know anything about donkeys.

David: So we... Hold on. I have to pause here.

Christine: Yeah, go ahead.

David: You know I have to pause here.

Christine: Go ahead. Yeah.

David: So we were kind of just thinking about what a, what a weird image. Like h-

Christine: [laughs]

David: ... you will tie your donkey to a vine, and I'm like, I don't know enough about donkeys and owning a vineyard or anything like that to understand this image.

Christine: [laughs]

David: And that night, funnily enough, um, we are in the same community group at church, and we go to our friend's house who hosts a community group, and they have a small little homestead.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And they have a few animals and-

Christine: They have an orchard-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... a garden-

David: And they just planted-

Christine: ... and donkeys

David: ... a vineyard too.

Christine: Yes.

David: Like, a s- very small, kinda one trellis-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... vine, and they have a donkey.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And so I was like, "I have to ask Mike what he thinks this would mean." And I [laughs] said, "Mike, what, what would you say i, if I used an idiom that said, 'Oh, he tied his donkey to a grapevine?'" And he goes, "Well-"

Christine: He looked at you so funny. [laughs]

David: He did, and he was like, "Well, the donkey would eat all my grapes and then run away."

Christine: Yep.

David: And, and, and so, like, what Christine said was, "You'd have to be kind of stupid to do this, or you would have to have so much wealth, so many vines, and such wide tracts of lands and number of donkeys that you don't care if your donkey runs free and some of your grapes get eaten."

Christine: Yeah, it would be a flex. Like-

David: It's a flex.

Christine: Yeah, like- ... parking a very expensive car in a wheat field or something.

David: Yeah.

Christine: It's like if you can afford to do that and risk a fancy car getting broken into or damaged or stolen, then you clearly have money to spend.

David: You're either stupid or you're-

Christine: You're either stupid or filthy rich.

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Christine: So stupid rich or stupid stupid, I don't know. But the, the idea, and that, that stands. It's like tying your donkey to a vine. Now, okay, vine is connected to Israel, the nation of Israel. It's connected to Joseph, it's connected to Judah, but even the idea of tying the donkey to a vine is like, okay, a king doing that-

David: Mm

Christine: ... a king of Israel doing that 'cause it's a vine, it implies abundance. It implies messianic abundance. That there is just so much to go around. Think Solomon era-

David: Right

Christine: ... where silver is, like, trash. It's, it's signifying a time of such abundance that people can afford to just tie a donkey to a vine and let the donkey eat the grapes and then run away. [laughs]

David: It's wild.

Christine: So-

David: Well, I was just thinking, too. I hadn't seen this before so just push back on me if I'm not seeing this well here. But he ties his donkey's colt, he ties to choice vines, and he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes. And Joseph is a vine that Judah's tied to, and he is attacked fiercely. And so it feels like that Joseph being the vine that's attacked, it's his grapes that are getting squished and crushed-

Christine: Mm

David: ... that's then coating the donkey. [laughs] You know, like his, it, that, all that feels like it's-

Christine: Interesting

David: ... swirling around each other. Anyway.

Christine: I th- I think that speaks more to Jesus' own sacrifice.

David: Definitely.

Christine: Like he's-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... you know, he's offering his own blood, but I mean, it's worth it.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Jesus is the vine.

David: Exactly.

Christine: So-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... John-

David: Jesus is the vine

Christine: ... 15.

David: Joseph is pointing to Jesus.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yes.

Christine: Yes. And so there's, there's just a lot going on there, and this is the type of literature that scripture is. You chew on it and you're like, "Oh, there's a flavor I didn't see-

David: Right

Christine: ... earlier." And-

David: So all of this-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... to say, dear friends and listeners, [laughs] this is where the donkey starts.

Christine: [laughs]

David: This is the, that's the quote.

Christine: And it walks ac-

David: That's the quote of the episode.

Christine: This is where the-

David: This is where the donkey starts, right here.

Christine: [laughs]

David: But this is where we get the imagery of the donkey, that it is this promise tied to Judah and to Joseph.

Christine: Yes.

David: And so we're waiting for this figure who's a ruler, a son of Jacob, a son of Judah, who will come and tie some kind of vine, blood, grape, Joseph messianic figure to a donkey and do something. And we get the first layer of the picture, right? It's fuzzy.

Christine: Yeah, and reign over the nations. We see that.

David: And reign over the nations.

Christine: Yeah.

David: That's right.

Christine: Yes, and so we see Judah take precedence over his brothers in a leadership kind of way in Genesis because after that reconciliation with Joseph in Pharaoh's court, Judah is the one who brings his father out of death and mourning, too-

David: Right

Christine: ... and he brings his father and unites him to Joseph.

David: Judah leads the procession out of famine and into abundance.

Christine: Of plenty, yes.

David: Oh.

Christine: So he's at the head of his brothers, and then when we go into the Exodus and after the Exodus how God arranges the tribes of Israel, the sons who Jacob prophesied about, their descendants, who by the way are as many as the stars in the sky, Judah is leading the way.

David: Yes.

Christine: He is the leader among his brothers.

David: As he led his father into a land of plenty, so the tribe of Judah will lead the people into a land of plenty.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yes.

Christine: Yeah, and to the very same land.

David: Yes.

Christine: Yeah. It's, oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And so the donkey will pause [laughs] in N-

David: Do, I don't think donkeys have paws, Christine.

Christine: They do not. They're unclean animals-

David: [laughs]

Christine: ... with hooves. And one of them speaks, actually, in Numbers.

David: In Numbers.

Christine: I know, and it's the owner of said talking donkey that I want to quote here because if we remember-

David: The scepter

Christine: ... the scepter and the imagery connected to Judah, if we go over to Balaam's Oracles, there are two that I think connect this theme and develop it. So in Numbers 24:7, Balaam is prophesying about Israel, whom another king sent to curse, and he's like, "I can only bless these people." And he speaks of them. "Their king will be greater than Agag. Their kingdom will be exalted." And a little bit later, this king, "Like a lion, they crouch and lie down. Like a lioness, who dares to rouse them?"

David: There you go.

Christine: Now, that sounds very similar to Jacob's prophecy.

David: Jacob's prophecy about, about Judah.

Christine: About Judah.

David: Yep.

Christine: So, and then a little bit later in Balaam's fourth oracle in verse 17, "I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob." There's a ruler of the heavens. "A scepter will rise out of Israel. He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skulls of all the sons of Sheth. Edom will be conquered. Seir, his enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong. A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city." It's-

David: It's like almost every single thing that was in [laughs] Jacob's prophecy about Judah-

Christine: Yes

David: ... Balaam, after hearing a talking donkey, also sees and says.

Christine: Yes, yes.

David: [laughs]

Christine: So at this point, the Bible has talking donkeys and pagan prophets who are-

David: Listening to Yahweh

Christine: ... saying the same thing that a patriarch is saying. So the Bible's weird, but that's why-

David: That's why it's so fun

Christine: ... it's interesting.

David: And so again, then, this is just emphasizing this broader picture that Z- like, that we're saying Zechariah didn't invent or see for the first time. Jesus didn't just use a, you know, the cultural appropriation of I'm gonna ride in on a donkey and make a political point. This is a story that traces all the way back to Genesis through Numbers and even in other places of the Bible.

Christine: Yes, and so interestingly, the next part I think that is important just to mention in passing is, again, this relationship of Judah and Joseph is the two spies who are faithful and who enter the promised land.

David: Yes.

Christine: Their names are Caleb and Joshua, and they are from which two tribes?

David: It's gotta be Judah and it's gotta be Joseph or Ephraim.

Christine: Yes.

David: Yeah, yeah.

Christine: That's correct.

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so we see- Judah and Ephraim

David: Being the faithful two brothers

Christine: Being together, like refusing to part from God and each other-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... surrounded-

David: The vine and-

Christine: ... by 10 other tribes who are wanting to stone and go back to Egypt, and there's this, yeah, this vine and-

David: The vine and donkey are hanging out

Christine: ... are ... Yeah. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Christine: And that's weird that I know what you s-

David: [laughs]

Christine: ... mean by that. But the vine [laughs] and the donkey are refusing to be parted here.

David: That's right.

Christine: And-

David: And they're wanting to go in and take the people to the land of plenty.

Christine: Yes. Yes.

David: And they trust that, hey, God has said we can, we'll, we'll put our feet on their necks.

Christine: Yes.

David: Even Balaam said that.

Christine: Yeah. So there's-

David: We got this

Christine: ... this donkey and vine theme in Judah and Joseph is, it's, it keeps developing, and you can't quite put your finger on it, but it's like, oh, there's a thread here we can-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... keep following.

David: And then is it, is this the time to jump to Da- like post David now, or is there something in between before we get to the donkey and the v- vine going separate ways?

Christine: Well, I would say we need to stop at David for sure. The donkey has to stop with David. [laughs]

David: It does.

Christine: Because David is the fulfillment of-

David: Mm

Christine: ... Judah's proph- he is the one who unites all the tribes.

David: He does.

Christine: And, you know, Israel is the vine, and we have imagery of Israel being the vine that God plants.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: That's especially prominent in the prophets, so I don't want to get anachronistic. But with the whole-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... scripture in our head, David, who also conquers lions and then unites the tribes, and he is a shepherd. He is the king from Judah's line who inherits these promises and is the first true king of Israel.

David: And he's a Judahite.

Christine: Yes. He is from the tribe of Judah. So we see this happen, and then he gets these promises of his son will reign forever, which is, again, like star language, crushing the heads of enemies, uniting, like, you know, nations are conquered by David. He expands the borders of Israel way farther than Saul ever could. He establishes peace on every side, and then his son Solomon inherits all this. And you mentioned Solomon rides in on a donkey, and it's, yeah, it's all developing more and more. Now we have like a face to put to the Judah-

David: Mm

Christine: ... scepter thing of, okay, here we are. We have Judah's offspring, Judah's descendant reigning over the tribes among his brothers, and everyone loves him.

David: Yeah. That rough sketch that we got from Jacob about Judah, where there was a little bit of color on the palette that Balaam came and filled in, and the entry into Canaan started to fill in. We start to see a picture, and now, oh, it's a face, and it's King David.

Christine: Yes. And we're like, "Okay, we've arrived," until we get to David's son, who doesn't do as good a job as he should have, despite all the wealth and wisdom that he acquired. The next place to go, I think, which is interesting and prevalent, is 1 Kings 11:26, because this is where we're gonna get a split. Do you remember Jeroboam?

David: I do, and I remember Rehoboam too.

Christine: Do you remember where Jeroboam is from?

David: Jeroboam, I mean, if I had to just take a guess, 'cause I don't actually remember, it would have to be, uh, the tribe of Ephraim.

Christine: You're right.

David: Yeah. I mean, just tracing the theme, it just writes itself.

Christine: You're right.

David: Because Jeroboam is the one who rebels against Rehoboam, the Judahite in the-

Christine: Yes

David: ... south-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and goes and creates a separate kingdom in the north-

Christine: Yes

David: ... and st- and sets up idols for the people to worship. And 10 tribes of Israel go with Joseph, Ephraim, Jeroboam in the north, while two tribes, Judah and-

Christine: Benjamin

David: ... Benjamin, stay in the south with Rehoboam in the David kingdom.

Christine: Yes. And in Kings, it's only Judah that's mentioned.

David: Mm.

Christine: So if we look at 1 Kings 11, we are introduced in verse 26 to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, who rebelled against the king. This is King Solomon's. He was one of Solomon's officials, an Ephraimite from Zeredah, and his mother was a widow named Zeruah, which is interesting that widowhood is mentioned there, 'cause without a father, without an identity that he attaches to, he can attach himself. There's al- already something broken there, some severance that is just something to note-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... at the very least. But Jeroboam first has really good standing with Solomon, who is the Judahite or the one who the scepter belongs to, and he is in charge of the forced labor of the house of Joseph. So-

David: Oh, so-

Christine: There's slavery-

David: [laughs] Wait, hold on

Christine: ... where Joseph is in charge.

David: So Solomon the Judahite is in charge, and he puts an Ephraimite, a son of Joseph-

Christine: Mm-hmm

David: ... over the slave labor of the house of Joseph? Is that what you said?

Christine: Yeah. He is put in charge of the whole labor force of the house of Joseph.

David: Whoa.

Christine: So Solomon is enslaving his own people-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and the house of Joseph, interestingly, and puts an Ephraimite in charge of that. So again, like this man without a father is enslaving, like Ephraim is enslaving Joseph. There's-

David: Oh, I understand. I, I see what you're saying. There's a man without a father. This is Jeroboam the Ephraimite. He doesn't have a father, and so he enslaves his father, Joseph, and the people of Joseph, but he's an Ephraimite, which is the son of Joseph. And so there's-

Christine: Yes

David: ... a role reversal here and a fracturing that's happening.

Christine: There's a, there's some sort of a fracture, which-

David: Mm

Christine: ... again, there's, there's a lot to sit-

David: So as you're reading-

Christine: And-

David: ... this, you're like, "Oh, I can see the cracks of division starting to form and the broken relationships between family-

Christine: Yes

David: ... that are about to occur."

Christine: Yes. The vine is turning in on itself.

David: Yeah.

Christine: The vine of Joseph.

David: Mm.

Christine: Because when we think of Joseph as the vine, you know, his name means at, to add or added on, because when he was born, Rachel said, "May God Add to me another son, and is granted that in Benjamin. And then Joseph, he has sons born to him in his exile in Egypt, and he names the firstborn Manasseh because he says that, "God made me forget my troubles in my father's house in a foreign land." And Manasseh means forgetfulness or forgetting, so Manasseh's named for that. And then Ephraim is born, who's the second son, so Joseph said, "God has made me fruitful in a foreign land." And Ephraim's name means fruitful. So vine that keeps getting added onto, fruitful, is now kind of curving in on itself, so there's a brokenness in Joseph's house that will mean the vine and the scepter relationship will also be problematic. 'Cause right here we have the two of them kind of reigning, but in a way that's sort of fractured, like you said.

David: Right, and that fractured, broken relationship is about to fully reveal itself in what happens with Jeroboam next. After Solomon's reign ends, Jeroboam, or Rehoboam I should say, takes up the kingship from Solomon.

Christine: Yeah.

David: But people do not like him, and so they rebel, and chief among those rebels is this guy again, Jeroboam.

Christine: Ephraimite, yeah.

David: Yeah. And so there's this tension that develops between the Judahite and the Ephraimite.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And they end up becoming separated, even through a prophecy and a sign act of ripping a cloak into 12 pieces.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And 10 of the tribes go up with the Ephraimite Jeroboam in the north, and that becomes the northern tribe.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And then Judah goes to the south.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so-

Christine: Both of their names mean increase, actually.

David: Oh, fascinating.

Christine: So there's even this competition almost now-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... like who's gonna come up top. But yeah.

David: And so you have this separation of brothers, and it's like-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... man, we had the promise that the donkey and vine were gonna be joined together, and we kind of had the paradigm of Caleb and Joshua doing that in the promised land. It's gonna look good. It all came together in David, and now it's ripped apart literally into these different factions. And then heartbreakingly and devastatingly, the Ephraimites, the northern 10 tribes under Jeroboam, start giving themselves over not only to a disunity between brothers, but a disunity between God and man, and there's a vertical breaking as well as a horiz- horizontal one because they start engaging in idol worship. And it's at this time that we get this fascinating story in chapter 13 of 1 Kings that kind of parable-izes, [laughs] if I can use that word. Gives a story of what this fractured relationship and idol worship and syncretism between pagan gods and Yahweh and all this stuff is going to do in Israel's history. So everybody listening, buckle up with us real quick. We're about to enter into a strange story, um-

Christine: It's very strange

David: ... but it's very cool, and we're gonna see lions and donkeys and prophets, oh my.

Christine: Yes, and David's gonna lead the charge here because when I tried to tell the story, it took way too long. [laughs] So-

David: [laughs] We're giving them the behind-the-scenes version here.

Christine: Yes, so David, after hearing the story and talking through it, what is... Yeah, walk us through it.

David: I will try my best. Okay, so this is pretty new for me here. So there's this story that we hear about a man of God who comes from Judah. So this is the Judah prophet, and I'm, I will call him the Judahite, but the, the man from Judah. And again, this, these are gonna be our categories here. We need to be thinking about Ephraimites and Judahites. So we have a man from Judah, and he comes to Bethel, which is a land tied to idol worship, and he meets Jeroboam.

Christine: Yes.

David: And so, uh, we have a Judahite coming and meeting an Ephraimite, and he's like, Jeroboam's like in the middle of idol worship. [laughs] Like he's, he's-

Christine: He's at the altar

David: ... he's at the altar. And the Judahite man of God comes and tells him that the word of the Lord has come to him and has told him that there's gonna be a son of David that comes that's gonna destroy all these pagan altars that Jeroboam's been putting up, and that a Judahite is gonna come and basically wreak havoc in Ephraim against all these false gods.

Christine: Well, problem solved. Yay.

David: Right. [laughs]

Christine: That's, that's the solution.

David: That would be the solution.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And he even says, it's, his name's gonna be Josiah, and hey, what do you know? That actually happens at the end of 2 Kings.

Christine: Yes.

David: Like, this happens. He's gonna break your altars and all this stuff. Jeroboam's like, "I'm not having it. I don't, I'm not for this." And so he reaches out his hand and tells him to leave, and miraculously, Jeroboam's right hand, the hand of his power and the sign of his leadership, shrivels up like a little shriveled vine because if Ephraim's-

Christine: Which is scary

David: ... Joseph is like the vine. Just like, and that freaks him out, and so he's like, "Oh, pray for me. Intercede for me." And his arm's restored.

Christine: Reminds me of something that a son of David did in the temple with a man with a shriveled hand.

David: That's very true.

Christine: Yeah.

David: Well, I know.

Christine: Interesting. There's a king healing problems in the temple. Anyways-

David: I know, there you go

Christine: ... carry on.

David: And so the Judahite prophet prays to God, and, uh, Jeroboam's hand is restored, and, and now Jeroboam's like, "Hey, thank you. Come and have a meal with me." And here we learn that the word of the Lord that had told the Judahite prophet to come and share this, this prophecy with Jeroboam also told him while he's in this foreign land, this land of idolatry, "Don't eat bread or drink water." And basically what he's saying here is, "Don't have table fellowship with these syncretistic pagan worshipers who are doing idolatry." Number one, you'd be joining them in some kind of covenantal, you know, hospitality table fellowship way, and number two, you might be actually eating food that was sacrificed at these altars and stuff. Like, we don't want to be doing any kind of relationship with this idolatry that's going on here. And so-

Christine: Just to recap, the man from Judah had one job: go to the altar, prophesy against it-

David: And get out

Christine: ... and leave.

David: Yeah. [laughs]

Christine: By a different way, no less.

David: Mm-hmm.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And so rightfully so, the, the Judahite prophet says no God said not to do that, and he leaves.

Christine: Yes.

David: He did it.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Well, on his way back, he runs into another prophet.

Christine: From Bethel who hears that this happened and then finds out where the man from Judah went and goes after him on his donkey.

David: He hears this happens, and the Bethel prophet tracks down the Judah prophet.

Christine: Yes.

David: On a donkey.

Christine: Yes.

David: Okay. And he tells him-

Christine: The same invitation

David: ... the same invitation, "Come and eat with me." And he's, he, he sticks his ground, the Judahite prophet is like-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... "No, I was told not to."

Christine: Yeah.

David: "The word of the Lord said no."

Christine: Temptation by food.

David: Mm.

Christine: Interesting. Okay. Keep going.

David: Reminding us of serpentine deceiver, tree of knowledge, deception offers. He says no eventually, or initially I should say, but then the Bethel prophet says, "Ah, but an angel of the Lord," not the word of the Lord himself, but an angel of the Lord, "has told me that it's totally okay and you need to eat this food with me." [laughs]

Christine: But he was lying, the text says in verse 18. [laughs]

David: So we have a, you know, a sketchy angel, maybe fallen angel. Don't really know, that's not said, but-

Christine: It's-

David: ... deceiving. We have a deceiving angel in a sense here.

Christine: Yeah, or at least what the prophet says.

David: Right.

Christine: So it's like an angel coming by the word of the Lord.

David: Yeah.

Christine: So the second tier revelation is saying, "No, come nonetheless because this man needs hospitality."

David: Yeah. And so the Judahite prophet gives in, is deceived, and eats of the food that he is not supposed to eat.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: [laughs] So i- and in that, the, the problem with that is this is a picture of Judah, the people of Israel in the South, giving in to the idolatry of Northern Israel and falling in to the same trap of deceptive demon pagan idol worship that Jeroboam and the Ephraimites had fallen into.

Christine: It's kind of what happened to Solomon, no less, because he listened to his foreign wives who led him astray, and here's this man standing in for Judah who's listening to the deceptive words of this Bethel prophet, who's the kind of outcome of this, yeah, this severance that's already happening and has happened, and he goes and listens anyway.

David: Yeah. And-

Christine: So, so they're at table and something happens.

David: Yes, they're at table, and the word of the Lord shows up and basically says, "I did not tell you that this was okay to do." [laughs]

Christine: He shows up and speaks through the old prophet who initially was deceiving, so yeah.

David: Whoa.

Christine: It's just cra- it's-

David: Which does remind me of Balaam. Yeah.

Christine: It is a Balaam thing again.

David: Good grief.

Christine: This old prophet has a donkey.

David: [laughs] My brain hurts.

Christine: I'm sorry. [laughs]

David: [laughs]

Christine: I am not making this easy for you. [laughs]

David: No, but it's fun. Yes, and so the, the prophet originally sent to deceive is now speaking truth, like the last donkey riding prophet who did the same thing named Balaam. Okay, fun. And he tells him, the, the prophet of Bethel tells the Judahite prophet ... It would be helpful if these guys had names and not just titles, but-

Christine: And I think it's important that they don't

David: ... it's important that they don't because they're representative of all of Judah and all of Ephraim, I understand. But now it makes me retelling the story very difficult. [laughs]

Christine: Sorry.

David: And so the Bethel prophet tells the Judahite prophet through the word of the Lord that he will not be buried with his fathers.

Christine: Yes. Because he listened to the Bethel prophet, he will be exiled in death.

David: Yes, that's right. He won't join his ancestors, stay in Judah where the promise is. He's going into death, into exile, away from the promise. And like for, for Judah, this line we've been tracing that is the one that's going to crush the head of the serpent and hold the scepter and rise like a victorious lion and bind the foreign people to him like a donkey to a vine, that's bad news that he's going into exile.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: Like, that's really bad news. And so the prophet from Judah gets on his donkey and rides away.

Christine: Yes. The old prophet provides a donkey for him, and he gets up from the meal and walks, goes on his way-

David: Goes on his way on the-

Christine: ... supposedly back, but something happens on the road.

David: Okay. Yeah, this is so crazy. So the Judahite prophet is riding a donkey, and remember, donkey Judah, Genesis 49. [laughs] I feel like I'm just saying words now.

Christine: [laughs]

David: But this is all connected, and the other animal associated with the Jacob prophecy in Genesis 49 that we looked at was a lion.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: That would crouch down and then be roused.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: And oh, man, who would want to rouse a lion like that? But as the Judah prophet's on the road riding his donkey, a lion is roused and jumps up and mauls him-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... killing him.

Christine: Yeah.

David: [laughs]

Christine: As one does.

David: As one does. [laughs] This story-

Christine: So this lion is interesting because it doesn't act like you'd normally expect a lion. He attacks the prophet, kills him, and then just stands there without devouring him or harming the donkey that just stands beside him.

David: Right. The lion does not give in to his appetite impulses of beastly desire, and he-

Christine: That's right

David: ... doesn't eat the prophet. He doesn't eat the donkey, but instead he's just chilling there. Well, this-

Christine: Yeah, and the donkey is chilling there.

David: Yeah, and this becomes like a roadside attraction for the neighboring communities.

Christine: Unsurprisingly.

David: Unsurprisingly. Hey, guys. Did you know there's this, like, donkey and lion and dead man just sitting by a road?

Christine: Yeah. So there's a Judahite who's a dead lion-

David: Yes

Christine: ... as it were-

David: Yep

Christine: ... with a donkey and a living lion standing there. It's a bizarre picture, something that's more, that's saying more than what meets the eye, essentially.

David: Yeah, you have this picture of the dead Judahite who did not do what the word of the Lord told him to do. He ended up joining with the idolatry of Ephraim, and he, he, you know, he ends up, in a sense, he is the donkey who ties himself to a vine, but in the wrong way. He's trying to unite the two kingdoms, but through idolatrous alliances.

Christine: Yeah. Well, and he himself did not commit idolatry. He just listened to a deceptive voice-

David: Right

Christine: ... that told him to disobey.

David: Yes, but I'm just saying, like, in the metaphorical world-

Christine: Oh, yeah

David: ... that all these images are pointing to.

Christine: Yeah.

David: It, yes.

Christine: There was a false table fellow- or a table fellowship that should not have happened.

David: Yeah, Judah is align- aligning itself with the gods of Bethel and the, the idolatry-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... of Bethel in the same way-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... that Jeroboam was-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and that's leading to their death.

Christine: Yeah.

David: But then w- we have this fallen, failed, deceived version of Judah who's just dead and lying there, but then next to him are these well-behaved, like, counter to their nature donkey and lion sitting there who are not giving into those impulses.

Christine: Yeah.

David: And there seems to be this hope that this lion of Judah is still living, and there's potential there for them to have a life beyond the death that they'll bring upon themselves through interaction with th- these-

Christine: Yeah, this-

David: ... false gods

Christine: ... this coexistence that shouldn't have happened with the two prophets is kind of juxtaposed by this coexistence that normally does not happen-

David: But can't happen

Christine: ... in nature.

David: Yeah.

Christine: Yeah. So there seems to be this hope held out, but over the dead body of Judah-

David: Right

Christine: ... or a Judahite-

David: Yes

Christine: ... prophet.

David: And so there's, like, a hope, yes, for the brothers to exist together in some way, but we don't know how that hope will be achieved yet.

Christine: Probably through some supernatural restraining of appetite or something like that 'cause again, this is, like, a fall of eating something forbidden, which-

David: Right

Christine: ... that's how we died in the first place.

David: Yes.

Christine: That's how we were exiled in the first place, but there is this hope of, like, through struggle, through this battling with a beast that we would regain-

David: Mm

Christine: ... the kingdom again-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... and live with God. So-

David: And so, yes, and so you have this picture. The, the prophet of Bethel hears about this, rides his own donkey, so now there's two donkeys, [laughs] just, just for fun.

Christine: Just buckle up. [laughs]

David: There's, uh, and he puts the, the dead corpse on his donkey, and again, strange, the lion's not attacking anyone.

Christine: The lion's just chilling. They're like, "Hey," [laughs] and the donkey's there.

David: And the, the prophet of Bethel puts the Judahite prophet's corpse on his donkey, rides him back to his hometown.

Christine: Yeah, back to his own city, verse 29, and then he lays him in his own tomb and mourns over him and calls him, "My brother."

David: Yeah. So there's this, this deceiver who was deceiving this man and l- kind of leading to his death is now mourning over him, calls him his brother, gives him his own tomb, and then this is the crazy part.

Christine: He says to the next generation-

David: He, to the next generation, he says, "Make sure when I die that you put my bones next to his bones in the same tomb."

Christine: Yeah, where the man of God is buried, yeah. For the message, he says, "For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines of the high places in the towns of Samaria will come true."

David: Which is, uh, there's so much happening there. One, it just, it does remind me-

Christine: Okay

David: ... of Joseph where he's like, "Take my bones with you when you go back to the promised land and make sure you bury them there." [laughs]

Christine: Yeah, but this is a, this is a command to bury me with someone in exile-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... in their exile.

David: Right. This is-

Christine: Which is-

David: This is not like Joseph who's like, "Bury me in the promised land-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... where I know there's the resurrection and the life and the things that I feel like are promised." This is bury me in exile, and I think the reason is because he's like, "Wherever the lion of Judah sleeps is where I wanna be buried."

Christine: 'Cause that lion will rise again.

David: That's the one that's gonna rouse and rise again. And so the one place where this fractured Joseph-Judah relationship is healed is in the grave. That's where the two become one.

Christine: That's staggering, isn't it? [laughs]

David: Ah, that's so cool.

Christine: So Judah, so the way both will be saved, both brothers, brothers will be saved, is in death and in a different way. Judah must, before the son comes who will defile defilement, before the son will rise, Judah has a path to take, and that is to be buried in a foreign land. And Ephraim will be saved only as long as they are joined to Judah in that exile-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... in that grave.

David: And so the hope is that there will be a lion-like resurrection of a Judahite from the grave.

Christine: A king, yeah.

David: And if the nations who have given themselves over to idolatry and forsaking God want to be raised with him, they need to go join him in the grave. Just bury me with him, and I'll be okay. [laughs] And [laughs] that's just awesome.

Christine: [laughs] David's only crying for the third time today.

David: And so I mean, yeah, it's just, we're gonna-

Christine: It's wild, yeah

David: ... we're gonna talk about Jesus a lot, but that's Jesus. It's like he's the Judahite, right, the son of David who's buried in the grave, who rises again. And if we want that life with him, no matter where in exile we are, no matter what gods we've sold ourselves over into, we join him in his death through participation in his cross, in baptism, and we take his life into us, and we are raised with him, to put my bones next to Jesus' and I'll be okay.

Christine: Exactly.

David: Wherever the lion of Judah is buried, bury me there.

Christine: Exactly.

David: Put me in the waters of baptism and raise me up again.

Christine: Oh, hey, it's like we do that.

David: Oh, what do you know?

Christine: It's like we're buried with him and rise again.

David: Okay. So donkeys, vines, all these things, I don't know who I need to apologize to more, Christine or our listeners. We are gonna have to skip over so much more vine and donkey stuff For the sake of hopefully you, dear listener [laughs]

Christine: [laughs]

David: And not at your detriment. But-

Christine: Just read the prophets

David: ... read the pro- the prophets pick up on the vine stuff so much.

Christine: And the donkey stuff.

David: And the donkey stuff.

Christine: But we'll stop in Zechariah.

David: We are gonna now go to, as promised, we're gonna get back to John, John 12, and we're gonna have one more way station, which is the very prophet that was quoted in John 12 who picks up on this. So again, the reason why I wanted to go on this journey, and I had to, like, beg Christine a little bit to be like, "I really do wanna go on this journey." [laughs]

Christine: And I got a little too excited, apparently. [laughs]

David: It's great. And is because Zechariah didn't make this up, right?

Christine: No.

David: And, and he's not seeing it for the first time.

Christine: No.

David: Right? This is the picture.

Christine: There are donkeys and vines-

David: [laughs]

Christine: ... talking about kingship and Judah and-

David: And Ephraim

Christine: ... all throughout-

David: All throughout

Christine: ... the Bible. Yes. We only touched on a few.

David: Okay. And so we go to Zechariah because this is what, in John 12, is quoted, and I'll just bring us back [laughs] to our little touch point here, hopefully re-ground us a little bit. John 12:14, "Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it," [laughs] now that means so much, "as it was written. 'Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt.'" That is Zechariah.

Christine: Yeah. Some of it. [laughs]

David: So, yeah, that's true.

Christine: And Zechariah, mind you, in time, is after the exile of Judah-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... returning. And so there's this tiny, tiny remnant that can hardly be called a people anymore. They have been cleansed from idolatry, and now they're back in Judah, but where's the dynasty? Where's the seed that we were promised, talked about? Where's the reign? Where's the scepter? Where... I mean, Ephraim is gone, dead in exile. They are one with the Gentiles now. The Gentiles are Ephraim, in, in a sense, which we can go into more, but we have this promise of Zion nevertheless rejoicing, Jerusalem rejoicing, 'cause the king is coming. Despite all odds, there is someone riding on a donkey from the tribe of Judah, the son of David, coming, and-

David: Okay. Hold on. I just gotta do something real quick. As I think about that now, someone returning from exile, from death, on a donkey, it's like the unnamed Judahite prophet rose from the dead, hopped on that old donkey he took to the grave, and is now riding back into town.

Christine: That's a weird picture, but I-

David: You know what I mean

Christine: ... I guess

David: ... it's like, it's, but you get this idea. It's like, rejoice because your, your king is coming to you riding on a donkey. Like, oh, I know the donkey that took dead, dead Judah into exile.

Christine: Oh, I see.

David: That, that donkey's riding back-

Christine: Oh, that donkey's coming back

David: ... on, with a resurrected king on its back.

Christine: [laughs]

David: Let's go.

Christine: Yeah. And remember that picture of wine and blood of grapes and stuff? So Zechariah 9:11, and I promise I'll only read three verses, "As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. Return to your fortress, O prisoners of hope. Even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece, and make you like a warrior's sword." There is this restoration, this resurrection from exile, from the realm of the foreigners, and this, yeah-

David: Yeah, and-

Christine: ... rejoining

David: ... Ephraim is joined to Judah like a arrow is fit to a bow.

Christine: Yeah.

David: [laughs] It's so cool.

Christine: It's really beautiful. And all of Zechariah is like this, so again, for the sake of time, we can't touch on it, but just go ahead and read Zechariah, even the end of Zechariah 8. Zechariah 9, 10, 11 talks about the shepherds and how we need the king to be restored, and this king will pasture a flock for slaughter. It's, it's all over the place.

David: Yes.

Christine: And so we cannot cover it all. But-

David: Right. But i- in just looking at the near context of what was quoted, Zechariah 9, you've just looked at right after the donkey part is what Christine just read with the, the resurrection and Ephraim and Judah, all of that here. But you do have in 9 and 10 of chapter 9 in Zechariah, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion. Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem. See, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem."

Christine: Mm.

David: That's so good.

Christine: Yeah.

David: "And the battle bow shall be cut off and he shall command peace to the nations. His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth."

Christine: Yes.

David: So he's gonna-

Christine: Yes

David: ... stop the fighting-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... both f- from without and within of-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... Ephraim and Judah.

Christine: Yeah.

David: He's gonna stop the battling and the bickering, and both, like, no longer will they have to defend their own borders, and they won't be fighting each other anymore. Because why? Because this king that you've been waiting for, this king from Judah who has the scepter, has been roused from the grave and is riding into your city to reunite you, like Ezekiel's sticks [laughs] that we looked at earlier.

Christine: Yes. And Zechariah 10:6-7, "I will strengthen the house of Judah and save the house of Joseph." There we go. "I will restore them, because I have compassion on them. They will be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them." He is the Lord their God of both.

David: Mm.

Christine: "The Ephraimites will become like mighty men, and their hearts will be glad as with wine. Their children will see it and be joyful. Their hearts will rejoice in the Lord." God is doing what only God can do, and he's gonna do it through a king who is going to be riding in to Jerusalem as though none of this severance had happened, but in a more beautiful way as He's gonna make them stronger-

David: Mm

Christine: ... for all the severance that has happened.

David: I mean, there's so much I love about this.

Christine: Yes, please.

David: As we come back to John 12, there's so much I love about this because it's the story, yes, of just how the Bible fits together. It's so beautiful. Y- you can - it- it's amazing that you can say, "Let's trace the theme of donkey through the Bible," and it'll blow your mind.

Christine: Yeah.

David: That's what I love about the-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... it's one of the many things I love about the Bible.

Christine: Yeah, we scratch the surface, believe it or not.

David: Right.

Christine: There's ... Yeah.

David: And so that's so fun. What I also love is it's the story of brotherly reconciliation that's happening here, is that this all started when Judah sold Joseph into slavery, [laughs] but then was willing to go into slavery to save another brother, and there's this brotherly restoration. And, you know, we've had brotherly division from the beginning of the story of the-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... Bible, Cain and Abel separated from each other, which created rifts in the cosmos, rifts between God and man, man and earth, brother and brother. And this is the story that we inhabit and that Jesus is healing, these dividing walls and this divisiveness. And so when he rides in on a donkey specifically, he is healing the division that exists between man and man as the new king of men, the son of man.

Christine: Mm-hmm.

David: But also the rift between God and man, the, the Jeroboam and later Judahite rebellion against God, and healing that as their God, as their king in the flesh, their ... Yeah, it's just, he's doing-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... all of that work.

Christine: Yeah.

David: As, as you kind of look through the telescope [laughs] of the last few passages we've, we've walked through and land back in John 12, like, what, what hits you afresh?

Christine: Kind of to restate what you were saying with this reconciliation is kind of what Paul talks about with Jesus healing and breaking down the dividing wall of hostility, because what is the big rift that even Jesus' followers wrestle with? It's the Jews and the Gentiles. How do we reconcile Judah? 'Cause at that point it's just Judea, the Judeans. How do we reconcile them with the Greeks, with Ephraim coming back? And Paul talks about this, of Ephraim being the fullness of the Gentiles, all those that God will call and bring in from the Gentiles. And the two figures that we did not mention in the king's narrative is Abijah and Ahijah. Ahijah's the one who prophesied about the severing, and what is that? Ahijah is, Yahweh is my brother, and Abijah is Yahweh is my father.

David: Mm.

Christine: And that is what is being healed in Jesus, and what is being [laughs] brought back in when even in those moments of darkness and severance and death, like, "W- who is my father? Where is my father? Oh, we're breaking apart. There's fracturing. Who is my brother? We're turning against each other." And even brother against brother is a broken relationship, which one flesh and one blood should not be fighting-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... itself or eating itself, but that's what happens. But even in those moments, there are these [laughs] figures of saying, "God will be your brother. God will be your father."

David: Mm.

Christine: The healing that has been needed since the beginning of time will be accomplished by Jesus, who is God, [laughs] who becomes our brother, flesh and blood, and he will take all the violence that we in our barbaric [laughs] way can throw at him, and he will take that into the grave, join us in our exile, and rouse himself like the lion, the can, and bring us back to the city where we can dwell with God.

David: I just went to church. That was so-

Christine: [laughs]

David: ... that was so good. Amen.

Christine: So, so it's no surprise that at-

David: Yeah

Christine: ... the end of that story-

David: I was about to say, you have to-

Christine: ... this triumphal entry-

David: You have to say it.

Christine: Yeah. There are some Greeks among those-

David: [laughs]

Christine: ... who went up to worship at the feast. Here we are. These are the Ephraimites, and they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, which is up there-

David: Up there

Christine: ... up north. So, and it's no surprise that Philip and Andrew are the ones that the Greeks come to, 'cause they've got the Greek names. They've probably got the language that they can communicate in. They're like, "We would like to see Jesus." [laughs]

David: Jesus.

Christine: "Come and see."

David: Yeah.

Christine: And so, like, it's on the lips of these, these foreigners who are wanting to join themselves and see Jesus, and they're like, "What do we do?" And then Jesus is like, "Ephraim is coming. Now is the time for the Son of Man to be glorified. My hour has come. Father, glorify your name."

David: What Jesus tells them when the Greeks, the Ephraimites want to come see him, is he starts talking about death and resurrection.

Christine: Yep.

David: Because how am I going to heal the rift between Ephraim and Judah? It's in the grave. [laughs]

Christine: Yes. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his-

David: Many seeds

Christine: ... life will lose it.

David: Very fruitful?

Christine: Very fruitful.

David: Ephraim.

Christine: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, Jesus is the vine, and his father is the gardener, and he prunes to make even more fruitful. And the invitation is abide in the true vine, the true Israel, the one who successfully joined donkey and vine, who successfully joined brother and brother, God with humanity.

David: I, yeah, kind of final thoughts here, that makes me just wanna say, a- and this is a ... I don't know. This thought is a bit more, I don't know, practical than a lot of the things we tend to land the plane on here. But I was just thinking about the rifts between humans-

Christine: [laughs]

David: ... and how, how are those healed? Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend. How can we stop all the fighting between human and human, between brother and brother, sister and sister, sister and brother, that side and this side, this church and that church? It's by dying for each other.

Christine: Yeah, and joining yourself to Jesus.

David: Meet him-

Christine: It's-

David: ... in the grave-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... of self-denial-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... and lay down your life for your brothers-

Christine: Mm-hmm, yeah

David: ... and your brothers will meet you there.

Christine: Yeah.

David: 'Cause we can all meet at the cross-

Christine: Yeah

David: ... if we all lay down-

Christine: And even-

David: ... our lives

Christine: ... even that kind of repentance, uh, that swallowing your pride, is a kind of death.

David: Mm.

Christine: It's like you are dying to yourself in a way or dying to your pride, dying to what is trying to- Put something else in God's place, and that humbling of yourself is what joins you to Jesus, to brothers, to the one who's uniting heaven and earth in his cross where he is uniting all things and drawing all men to himself. What he's driving out is the defiling prince, and I'm here in-

David: Yep. Oh, yep

Christine: ... verse, yeah, chapter 12 of John, verse 31 and 32.

David: Yep. When the Son of Man is lifted up, he drives out the ruler of this world.

Christine: Yes. And what does he do? Draws all men to himself. So he's the true Josiah, the real conqueror of defilement. [laughs] He cleans the air with his cross and sends out the prince of this world who is dividing brother from brother-

David: Mm-hmm

Christine: ... since the beginning.

David: Deceiver, yep.

Christine: Deceiving people, yeah, and sending them to their graves.

David: Well, and then let's-

Christine: And he is drawing all men into himself.

David: And as he does that, we talked way back in the nine hours ago in this episode that's only-

Christine: [laughs]

David: ... an hour and a half somehow, we talked about how Judah is like a star.

Christine: Yeah, that's right.

David: Right? That's where Jesus gets is that you can become children of light.

Christine: That's right. While you have the light, you put your trust in the light, which is him, and you become sons of light, which he is talking about, oh, so people can become sons of Abraham?

David: Yep.

Christine: It's crazy.

David: Judah stars.

Christine: Sons of God. [laughs] Judah stars.

David: [laughs] Okay. That-

Christine: We could go on and on, but [laughs]

David: That was huge. I mean, what better way to end John, honestly, our time in John anyway, for now. Well, thank you all so much for going on this journey with us for this episode. It was its own journey, but we've, we've now done eight episodes in John. Hopefully you've listened to them all. If you haven't, go back. They've been some of my favorites. They've been really sweet, and it's been super fun to be in John. If you have any questions about anything we've said or haven't said or want to share something that you're seeing, send us an email, [email protected]. I think you can also give us a audio recording of your question or comment by going to speakpipe.com/spokengospel, I think. I haven't said that one in a while, so it's something like that, though. And as always, it'd be really helpful if you just review the podcast, share it with a friend, go to spokengospel.com and support the show by becoming a monthly donor. We're so grateful for all of you who do that and, uh, help us to continue to get to do this sweet work of unpacking God's Word for you all. Believe, I don't, I might just eat my words later, but I believe the next thing that we'll see you all on here is the Book of Job.

Christine: Job.

David: So, uh, I think it's the last book of the Bible that we have no podcasts on at Spoken Gospel.

Christine: Wow.

David: And so-

Christine: What a way to-

David: Yeah, right? [laughs]

Christine: End.

David: Let's just end with Job.

Christine: Just to end on a high note.

David: So, you know, guys, thank you for being a part of this.

Christine: [laughs]

David: We'll see you in Job.

Christine: [outro music] Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel creates short films, devotionals, and podcasts like this one. Everything we make is free because of generous supporters like you. To see our resources, visit spokengospel.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thanks for listening. See you next time. [outro music]

Related Resources

Free videos sent straight to your inbox.

Why Did Jesus Ride a Donkey? Tracing Donkeys, Vines, and Two Divided Brothers from Genesis to John 12

Show Notes

Why the Crowds Formed: A King Who Could Raise the Dead

Ezekiel's Dry Bones and the Promise to Rejoin Judah and Ephraim

Psalm 118, Palm Branches, and the Day Yahweh Has Made

Genesis 49: Where the Donkey Story Starts

1 Kings 13: A Lion, a Donkey, and Two Sets of Bones in Exile

Zechariah's Returning King and the Greeks Who Wanted to See Jesus

Related Resources

Introduction to John

View our devotional on John 1:1-34

Ready to study a different book?

Listen to the Gospel of John Overview: A Unique Eyewitness podcast

Listen to the John 1: In the Beginning Was the Word podcast

Listen to the John Overview: What is a Sign? podcast

Listen to the John Overview: Water in the Old Testament podcast

Listen to the Joh Overview: Living Water podcast

Listen to the John Overview: Jesus the Bread from Heaven podcast

Listen to the John 12: Anointed for Burial podcast

Listen to the John 12: Donkey and Vine podcast