Jericho

• Jericho

124:6.7The third day they passed by two vil­lages which had been re­cently built by Herod and noted their su­pe­rior ar­chi­tec­ture and their beau­ti­ful palm gar­dens. By night­fall they reached Jeri­cho, where they re­mained un­til the mor­row. That evening Joseph, Mary, and Je­sus walked a mile and a half to the site of the an­cient Jeri­cho, where Joshua, for whom Je­sus was named, had per­formed his renowned ex­ploits, ac­cord­ing to Jew­ish tra­di­tion.

• Jericho

125:3.2The Naz­a­reth trav­el­ers did not miss Je­sus be­cause Mary sur­mised he jour­neyed with the men, while Joseph thought he trav­eled with the women since he had gone up to Je­ru­sa­lem with the women, lead­ing Mary’s don­key. They did not dis­cover his ab­sence un­til they reached Jeri­cho and pre­pared to tarry for the night. Af­ter mak­ing in­quiry of the last of the party to reach Jeri­cho and learn­ing that none of them had seen their son, they spent a sleep­less night, turn­ing over in their minds what might have hap­pened to him, re­count­ing many of his un­usual re­ac­tions to the events of Pass­over week, and mildly chid­ing each other for not see­ing to it that he was in the group be­fore they left Je­ru­sa­lem.

• Jericho

127:3.6The next day they jour­neyed home by Jeri­cho and the Jor­dan val­ley, and Je­sus re­counted many things by the way, in­clud­ing his for­mer trip over this road when he was thir­teen years old.

• Jericho

128:3.2They jour­neyed to Je­ru­sa­lem by way of the De­capo­lis and through Pella, Gerasa, Phil­a­del­phia, Hes­h­bon, and Jeri­cho. They re­turned to Naz­a­reth by the coast route, touch­ing Ly­dda, Joppa, Cae­sarea, thence around Mount Carmel to Ptole­mais and Naz­a­reth. This trip fairly well ac­quainted Je­sus with the whole of Pales­tine north of the Je­ru­sa­lem dis­trict.

• Jericho

147:6.2The chief priests and the re­li­gious lead­ers of the Jews held many se­cret meet­ings for the pur­pose of de­cid­ing what to do with Je­sus. They were all agreed that some­thing should be done to put a stop to his teach­ing, but they could not agree on the method. They had hoped that the civil au­thor­i­ties would dis­pose of him as Herod had put an end to John, but they dis­cov­ered that Je­sus was so con­duct­ing his work that the Ro­man of­fi­cials were not much alarmed by his preach­ing. Ac­cord­ingly, at a meet­ing which was held the day be­fore Je­sus’ de­par­ture for Ca­per­naum, it was de­cided that he would have to be ap­pre­hended on a re­li­gious charge and be tried by the San­hedrin. There­fore a com­mis­sion of six se­cret spies was ap­pointed to fol­low Je­sus, to ob­serve his words and acts, and when they had amassed suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence of law­break­ing and blas­phemy, to re­turn to Je­ru­sa­lem with their re­port. These six Jews caught up with the apos­tolic party, num­ber­ing about thirty, at Jeri­cho and, un­der the pre­tense of de­sir­ing to be­come dis­ci­ples, at­tached them­selves to Je­sus’ fam­ily of fol­low­ers, re­main­ing with the group up to the time of the be­gin­ning of the sec­ond preach­ing tour in Gal­i­lee; where­upon three of them re­turned to Je­ru­sa­lem to sub­mit their re­port to the chief priests and the San­hedrin.

135:6.1Early in the month of March, A.D. 25, John jour­neyed around the west­ern coast of the Dead Sea and up the river Jor­dan to op­po­site Jeri­cho, the an­cient ford over which Joshua and the chil­dren of Is­rael passed when they first en­tered the prom­ised land; and cross­ing over to the other side of the river, he es­tab­lished him­self near the en­trance to the ford and be­gan to preach to the peo­ple who passed by on their way back and forth across the river. This was the most fre­quented of all the Jor­dan cross­ings.

89:6.6A petty king in Pales­tine, in build­ing the walls of Jeri­cho, “laid the foun­da­tion thereof in Abi­ram, his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his young­est son, Segub.” At that late date, not only did this fa­ther put two of his sons alive in the foun­da­tion holes of the city’s gates, but his ac­tion is also re­corded as be­ing “ac­cord­ing to the word of the Lord.” Moses had for­bid­den these foun­da­tion sac­ri­fices, but the Is­raelites re­verted to them soon af­ter his death. The twen­ti­eth-cen­tury cer­e­mony of de­posit­ing trin­kets and keep­sakes in the cor­ner­stone of a new build­ing is rem­i­nis­cent of the prim­i­tive foun­da­tion sac­ri­fices.

167:5.2That night, in Jeri­cho, the un­friendly Phar­isees sought to en­trap the Mas­ter by in­duc­ing him to dis­cuss mar­riage and di­vorce, as did their fel­lows one time in Gal­i­lee, but Je­sus art­fully avoided their ef­forts to bring him into con­flict with their laws con­cern­ing di­vorce. As the pub­li­can and the Phar­isee il­lus­trated good and bad re­li­gion, their di­vorce prac­tices served to con­trast the bet­ter mar­riage laws of the Jew­ish code with the dis­grace­ful lax­ity of the Phar­i­saic in­ter­pre­ta­tions of these Mo­saic di­vorce statutes. The Phar­isee judged him­self by the low­est stan­dard; the pub­li­can squared him­self by the high­est ideal. De­vo­tion, to the Phar­isee, was a means of in­duc­ing self-righ­teous in­ac­tiv­ity and the as­sur­ance of false spir­i­tual se­cu­rity; de­vo­tion, to the pub­li­can, was a means of stir­ring up his soul to the re­al­iza­tion of the need for re­pen­tance, con­fes­sion, and the ac­cep­tance, by faith, of mer­ci­ful for­give­ness. The Phar­isee sought jus­tice; the pub­li­can sought mercy. The law of the uni­verse is: Ask and you shall re­ceive; seek and you shall find.

167:6.1That evening Je­sus’ mes­sage re­gard­ing mar­riage and the blessed­ness of chil­dren spread all over Jeri­cho, so that the next morn­ing, long be­fore Je­sus and the apos­tles pre­pared to leave, even be­fore break­fast time, scores of moth­ers came to where Je­sus lodged, bring­ing their chil­dren in their arms and lead­ing them by their hands, and de­sired that he bless the lit­tle ones. When the apos­tles went out to view this as­sem­blage of moth­ers with their chil­dren, they en­deav­ored to send them away, but these women re­fused to de­part un­til the Mas­ter laid his hands on their chil­dren and blessed them. And when the apos­tles loudly re­buked these moth­ers, Je­sus, hear­ing the tu­mult, came out and in­dig­nantly re­proved them, say­ing: “Suf­fer lit­tle chil­dren to come to me; for­bid them not, for of such is the king­dom of heaven. Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, whoso­ever re­ceives not the king­dom of God as a lit­tle child shall hardly en­ter therein to grow up to the full stature of spir­i­tual man­hood.”

167:6.2And when the Mas­ter had spo­ken to his apos­tles, he re­ceived all of the chil­dren, lay­ing his hands on them, while he spoke words of cour­age and hope to their moth­ers.

167:6.3Je­sus of­ten talked to his apos­tles about the ce­les­tial man­sions and taught that the ad­vanc­ing chil­dren of God must there grow up spir­i­tu­ally as chil­dren grow up phys­i­cally on this world. And so does the sa­cred of­ten­times ap­pear to be the com­mon, as on this day these chil­dren and their moth­ers lit­tle re­al­ized that the on­look­ing in­tel­li­gences of Neb­a­don be­held the chil­dren of Jeri­cho play­ing with the Cre­ator of a uni­verse.

147:2.1Early on the morn­ing of Tues­day, March 30, Je­sus and the apos­tolic party started on their jour­ney to Je­ru­sa­lem for the Pass­over, go­ing by the route of the Jor­dan val­ley. They ar­rived on the af­ter­noon of Fri­day, April 2, and es­tab­lished their head­quar­ters, as usual, at Beth­any. Pass­ing through Jeri­cho, they paused to rest while Ju­das made a de­posit of some of their com­mon funds in the bank of a friend of his fam­ily. This was the first time Ju­das had car­ried a sur­plus of money, and this de­posit was left undis­turbed un­til they passed through Jeri­cho again when on that last and event­ful jour­ney to Je­ru­sa­lem just be­fore the trial and death of Je­sus.

138:2.96. Ju­das Is­car­iot was an only son of wealthy Jew­ish par­ents liv­ing in Jeri­cho. He had be­come at­tached to John the Bap­tist, and his Sad­ducee par­ents had dis­owned him. He was look­ing for em­ploy­ment in these re­gions when Je­sus’ apos­tles found him, and chiefly be­cause of his ex­pe­ri­ence with fi­nances, Na­than­iel in­vited him to join their ranks. Ju­das Is­car­iot was the only Judean among the twelve apos­tles.

139:12.1Ju­das Is­car­iot, the twelfth apos­tle, was cho­sen by Na­than­iel. He was born in Ke­rioth, a small town in south­ern Judea. When he was a lad, his par­ents moved to Jeri­cho, where he lived and had been em­ployed in his fa­ther’s var­i­ous busi­ness en­ter­prises un­til he be­came in­ter­ested in the preach­ing and work of John the Bap­tist. Ju­das’s par­ents were Sad­ducees, and when their son joined John’s dis­ci­ples, they dis­owned him.

172:1.3Je­sus talked with Si­mon about Joshua of old, whose name­sake he was, and re­cited how Joshua and the Is­raelites had come up to Je­ru­sa­lem through Jeri­cho. In com­ment­ing on the leg­end of the walls of Jeri­cho falling down, Je­sus said: “I am not con­cerned with such walls of brick and stone; but I would cause the walls of prej­u­dice, self-righ­teous­ness, and hate to crum­ble be­fore this preach­ing of the Fa­ther’s love for all men.”

141:8.1Through­out the four weeks’ so­journ at Beth­any be­yond Jor­dan, sev­eral times each week An­drew would as­sign apos­tolic cou­ples to go up to Jeri­cho for a day or two. John had many be­liev­ers in Jeri­cho, and the ma­jor­ity of them wel­comed the more ad­vanced teach­ings of Je­sus and his apos­tles. On these Jeri­cho vis­its the apos­tles be­gan more specif­i­cally to carry out Je­sus’ in­struc­tions to min­is­ter to the sick; they vis­ited ev­ery house in the city and sought to com­fort ev­ery af­flicted per­son.

141:8.2The apos­tles did some pub­lic work in Jeri­cho, but their ef­forts were chiefly of a more quiet and per­sonal na­ture. They now made the dis­cov­ery that the good news of the king­dom was very com­fort­ing to the sick; that their mes­sage car­ried heal­ing for the af­flicted. And it was in Jeri­cho that Je­sus’ com­mis­sion to the twelve to preach the glad tid­ings of the king­dom and min­is­ter to the af­flicted was first fully car­ried into ef­fect.

141:8.3They stopped in Jeri­cho on the way up to Je­ru­sa­lem and were over­taken by a del­e­ga­tion from Mes­o­po­ta­mia that had come to con­fer with Je­sus. The apos­tles had planned to spend but a day here, but when these truth seek­ers from the East ar­rived, Je­sus spent three days with them, and they re­turned to their var­i­ous homes along the Eu­phrates happy in the knowl­edge of the new truths of the king­dom of heaven.

171:5.1Late on the af­ter­noon of Thurs­day, March 30, Je­sus and his apos­tles, at the head of a band of about two hun­dred fol­low­ers, ap­proached the walls of Jeri­cho. As they came near the gate of the city, they en­coun­tered a throng of beg­gars, among them one Bar­timeus, an el­derly man who had been blind from his youth. This blind beg­gar had heard much about Je­sus and knew all about his heal­ing of the blind Josiah at Je­ru­sa­lem. He had not known of Je­sus’ last visit to Jeri­cho un­til he had gone on to Beth­any. Bar­timeus had re­solved that he would never again al­low Je­sus to visit Jeri­cho with­out ap­peal­ing to him for the restora­tion of his sight.

171:5.2News of Je­sus’ ap­proach had been her­alded through­out Jeri­cho, and hun­dreds of the in­hab­i­tants flocked forth to meet him. When this great crowd came back es­cort­ing the Mas­ter into the city, Bar­timeus, hear­ing the heavy tramp­ing of the mul­ti­tude, knew that some­thing un­usual was hap­pen­ing, and so he asked those stand­ing near him what was go­ing on. And one of the beg­gars replied, “Je­sus of Naz­a­reth is pass­ing by.” When Bar­timeus heard that Je­sus was near, he lifted up his voice and be­gan to cry aloud, “Je­sus, Je­sus, have mercy upon me!” And as he con­tin­ued to cry louder and louder, some of those near to Je­sus went over and re­buked him, re­quest­ing him to hold his peace; but it was of no avail; he cried only the more and the louder.

171:5.3When Je­sus heard the blind man cry­ing out, he stood still. And when he saw him, he said to his friends, “Bring the man to me.” And then they went over to Bar­timeus, say­ing: “Be of good cheer; come with us, for the Mas­ter calls for you.” When Bar­timeus heard these words, he threw aside his cloak, spring­ing for­ward to­ward the cen­ter of the road, while those near by guided him to Je­sus. Ad­dress­ing Bar­timeus, Je­sus said: “What do you want me to do for you?” Then an­swered the blind man, “I would have my sight re­stored.” And when Je­sus heard this re­quest and saw his faith, he said: “You shall re­ceive your sight; go your way; your faith has made you whole.” Im­me­di­ately he re­ceived his sight, and he re­mained near Je­sus, glo­ri­fy­ing God, un­til the Mas­ter started on the next day for Je­ru­sa­lem, and then he went be­fore the mul­ti­tude declar­ing to all how his sight had been re­stored in Jeri­cho.

164:1.1That evening a con­sid­er­able com­pany gath­ered about Je­sus and the two apos­tles to ask ques­tions, many of which the apos­tles an­swered, while oth­ers the Mas­ter dis­cussed. In the course of the evening a cer­tain lawyer, seek­ing to en­tan­gle Je­sus in a com­pro­mis­ing dis­pu­ta­tion, said: “Teacher, I would like to ask you just what I should do to in­herit eter­nal life?” Je­sus an­swered, “What is writ­ten in the law and the proph­ets; how do you read the Scrip­tures?” The lawyer, know­ing the teach­ings of both Je­sus and the Phar­isees, an­swered: “To love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neigh­bor as your­self.” Then said Je­sus: “You have an­swered right; this, if you re­ally do, will lead to life ev­er­last­ing.”

164:1.2But the lawyer was not wholly sin­cere in ask­ing this ques­tion, and de­sir­ing to jus­tify him­self while also hop­ing to em­bar­rass Je­sus, he ven­tured to ask still an­other ques­tion. Draw­ing a lit­tle closer to the Mas­ter, he said, “But, Teacher, I should like you to tell me just who is my neigh­bor?” The lawyer asked this ques­tion hop­ing to en­trap Je­sus into mak­ing some state­ment that would con­tra­vene the Jew­ish law which de­fined one’s neigh­bor as “the chil­dren of one’s peo­ple.” The Jews looked upon all oth­ers as “gen­tile dogs.” This lawyer was some­what fa­mil­iar with Je­sus’ teach­ings and there­fore well knew that the Mas­ter thought dif­fer­ently; thus he hoped to lead him into say­ing some­thing which could be con­strued as an at­tack upon the sa­cred law.

164:1.3But Je­sus dis­cerned the lawyer’s mo­tive, and in­stead of falling into the trap, he pro­ceeded to tell his hear­ers a story, a story which would be fully ap­pre­ci­ated by any Jeri­cho au­di­ence. Said Je­sus: “A cer­tain man was go­ing down from Je­ru­sa­lem to Jeri­cho, and he fell into the hands of cruel brig­ands, who robbed him, stripped him and beat him, and de­part­ing, left him half dead. Very soon, by chance, a cer­tain priest was go­ing down that way, and when he came upon the wounded man, see­ing his sorry plight, he passed by on the other side of the road. And in like man­ner a Levite also, when he came along and saw the man, passed by on the other side. Now, about this time, a cer­tain Samar­i­tan, as he jour­neyed down to Jeri­cho, came across this wounded man; and when he saw how he had been robbed and beaten, he was moved with com­pas­sion, and go­ing over to him, he bound up his wounds, pour­ing on oil and wine, and set­ting the man upon his own beast, brought him here to the inn and took care of him. And on the mor­row he took out some money and, giv­ing it to the host, said: ‘Take good care of my friend, and if the ex­pense is more, when I come back again, I will re­pay you.’ Now let me ask you: Which of these three turned out to be the neigh­bor of him who fell among the rob­bers?” And when the lawyer per­ceived that he had fallen into his own snare, he an­swered, “He who showed mercy on him.” And Je­sus said, “Go and do like­wise.”

164:1.4The lawyer an­swered, “He who showed mercy,” that he might re­frain from even speak­ing that odi­ous word, Samar­i­tan. The lawyer was forced to give the very an­swer to the ques­tion, “Who is my neigh­bor?” which Je­sus wished given, and which, if Je­sus had so stated, would have di­rectly in­volved him in the charge of heresy. Je­sus not only con­founded the dis­hon­est lawyer, but he told his hear­ers a story which was at the same time a beau­ti­ful ad­mo­ni­tion to all his fol­low­ers and a stun­ning re­buke to all Jews re­gard­ing their at­ti­tude to­ward the Samar­i­tans. And this story has con­tin­ued to pro­mote broth­erly love among all who have sub­se­quently be­lieved the gospel of Je­sus.

171:6.1When the Mas­ter’s pro­ces­sion en­tered Jeri­cho, it was near­ing sun­down, and he was minded to abide there for the night. As Je­sus passed by the cus­toms house, Zac­cheus the chief pub­li­can, or tax col­lec­tor, hap­pened to be pres­ent, and he much de­sired to see Je­sus. This chief pub­li­can was very rich and had heard much about this prophet of Gal­i­lee. He had re­solved that he would see what sort of a man Je­sus was the next time he chanced to visit Jeri­cho; ac­cord­ingly, Zac­cheus sought to press through the crowd, but it was too great, and be­ing short of stature, he could not see over their heads. And so the chief pub­li­can fol­lowed on with the crowd un­til they came near the cen­ter of the city and not far from where he lived. When he saw that he would be un­able to pen­e­trate the crowd, and think­ing that Je­sus might be go­ing right on through the city with­out stop­ping, he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree whose spread­ing branches over­hung the road­way. He knew that in this way he could ob­tain a good view of the Mas­ter as he passed by. And he was not dis­ap­pointed, for, as Je­sus passed by, he stopped and, look­ing up at Zac­cheus, said: “Make haste, Zac­cheus, and come down, for tonight I must abide at your house.” And when Zac­cheus heard these as­ton­ish­ing words, he al­most fell out of the tree in his haste to get down, and go­ing up to Je­sus, he ex­pressed great joy that the Mas­ter should be will­ing to stop at his house.

171:6.2They went at once to the home of Zac­cheus, and those who lived in Jeri­cho were much sur­prised that Je­sus would con­sent to abide with the chief pub­li­can. Even while the Mas­ter and his apos­tles lin­gered with Zac­cheus be­fore the door of his house, one of the Jeri­cho Phar­isees, stand­ing near by, said: “You see how this man has gone to lodge with a sin­ner, an apos­tate son of Abra­ham who is an ex­tor­tioner and a rob­ber of his own peo­ple.” And when Je­sus heard this, he looked down at Zac­cheus and smiled. Then Zac­cheus stood upon a stool and said: “Men of Jeri­cho, hear me! I may be a pub­li­can and a sin­ner, but the great Teacher has come to abide in my house; and be­fore he goes in, I tell you that I am go­ing to be­stow one half of all my goods upon the poor, and be­gin­ning to­mor­row, if I have wrong­fully ex­acted aught from any man, I will re­store four­fold. I am go­ing to seek sal­va­tion with all my heart and learn to do righ­teous­ness in the sight of God.”

171:6.3When Zac­cheus had ceased speak­ing, Je­sus said: “To­day has sal­va­tion come to this home, and you have be­come in­deed a son of Abra­ham.” And turn­ing to the crowd as­sem­bled about them, Je­sus said: “And mar­vel not at what I say nor take of­fense at what we do, for I have all along de­clared that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

171:6.4They lodged with Zac­cheus for the night. On the mor­row they arose and made their way up the “road of rob­bers” to Beth­any on their way to the Pass­over at Je­ru­sa­lem.