Matthew 21:5

21:5 “Tell the people of Zion, ¹ 

‘Look, your king is coming to you,

unassuming and seated on a donkey,

and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” ² 

Matthew 22:11-13

22:11 But when the king came in to see the wedding guests, he saw a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 22:12 And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ But he had nothing to say. ³  22:13 Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Tie him up hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!’

Matthew 27:37

27:37 Above ⁴  his head they put the charge against him, ⁵  which read: ⁶  “This is Jesus, the king of the Jews.”

Psalms 2:6

2:6 “I myself ⁷  have installed ⁸  my king

on Zion, my holy hill.”

Psalms 24:7-10

24:7 Look up, ⁹  you gates!

Rise up, ¹⁰  you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king ¹¹  will enter! ¹² 

24:8 Who is this majestic king? ¹³ 

The Lord who is strong and mighty!

The Lord who is mighty in battle!

24:9 Look up, you gates!

Rise up, you eternal doors!

Then the majestic king will enter!

24:10 Who is this majestic king?

The Lord who commands armies! ¹⁴ 

He is the majestic king! (Selah)

Isaiah 9:7

9:7 His dominion will be vast ¹⁵ 

and he will bring immeasurable prosperity. ¹⁶ 

He will rule on David’s throne

and over David’s kingdom, ¹⁷ 

establishing it ¹⁸  and strengthening it

by promoting justice and fairness, ¹⁹ 

from this time forward and forevermore.

The Lord’s intense devotion to his people ²⁰  will accomplish this.

Isaiah 32:1-2

Justice and Wisdom Will Prevail

32:1 Look, a king will promote fairness; ²¹ 

officials will promote justice. ²² 

32:2 Each of them ²³  will be like a shelter from the wind

and a refuge from a rainstorm;

like streams of water in a dry region

and like the shade of a large cliff in a parched land.

Isaiah 33:22

33:22 For the Lord, our ruler,

the Lord, our commander,

the Lord, our king –

he will deliver us.

Jeremiah 23:5-6

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ²⁴  that a new time will certainly come ²⁵ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ²⁶  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ²⁷ 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ²⁸ 

23:6 Under his rule ²⁹  Judah will enjoy safety ³⁰ 

and Israel will live in security. ³¹ 

This is the name he will go by:

‘The Lord has provided us with justice.’ ³² 

Ezekiel 37:24-25

37:24 “‘My servant David will be king over them; there will be one shepherd for all of them. They will follow ³³  my regulations and carefully observe my statutes. ³⁴  37:25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your fathers lived; they will live in it – they and their children and their grandchildren forever. David my servant will be prince over them forever.

Daniel 9:25

9:25 So know and understand:

From the issuing of the command ³⁵  to restore and rebuild

Jerusalem ³⁶  until an anointed one, a prince arrives, ³⁷ 

there will be a period of seven weeks ³⁸  and sixty-two weeks.

It will again be built, ³⁹  with plaza and moat,

but in distressful times.

Zephaniah 3:15

3:15 The Lord has removed the judgment against you; ⁴⁰ 

he has turned back your enemy.

Israel’s king, the Lord, is in your midst!

You no longer need to fear disaster.

Zechariah 9:9-10

9:9 Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion!

Shout, daughter of Jerusalem!

Look! Your king is coming to you:

he is legitimate ⁴¹  and victorious, ⁴² 

humble and riding on a donkey ⁴³  –

on a young donkey, the foal of a female donkey.

9:10 I will remove ⁴⁴  the chariot from Ephraim

and the warhorse from Jerusalem,

and the battle bow will be removed.

Then he will announce peace to the nations.

His dominion will be from sea to sea

and from the Euphrates River ⁴⁵  to the ends of the earth.

Luke 1:31-33

1:31 Listen: ⁴⁶  You will become pregnant ⁴⁷  and give birth to ⁴⁸  a son, and you will name him ⁴⁹  Jesus. ⁵⁰  1:32 He ⁵¹  will be great, ⁵²  and will be called the Son of the Most High, ⁵³  and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father ⁵⁴  David. 1:33 He ⁵⁵  will reign over the house of Jacob ⁵⁶  forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

Luke 19:38

19:38 “Blessed is the king ⁵⁷  who comes in the name of the Lord! ⁵⁸  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

John 1:49

1:49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king ⁵⁹  of Israel!” ⁶⁰ 

John 12:13

12:13 So they took branches of palm trees ⁶¹  and went out to meet him. They began to shout, ⁶²  “Hosanna! ⁶³  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ⁶⁴  Blessed is ⁶⁵  the king of Israel!”

John 19:15

19:15 Then they ⁶⁶  shouted out, “Away with him! Away with him! ⁶⁷  Crucify ⁶⁸  him!” Pilate asked, ⁶⁹  “Shall I crucify your king?” The high priests replied, “We have no king except Caesar!”

John 19:19-22

19:19 Pilate also had a notice ⁷⁰  written and fastened to the cross, ⁷¹  which read: ⁷²  “Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.” 19:20 Thus many of the Jewish residents of Jerusalem ⁷³  read this notice, ⁷⁴  because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the notice was written in Aramaic, ⁷⁵  Latin, and Greek. 19:21 Then the chief priests of the Jews ⁷⁶  said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The king of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am king of the Jews.’” 19:22 Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

Revelation 19:16

19:16 He has a name written on his clothing and on his thigh: “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

[21:5]  ¹ tn Grk “Tell the daughter of Zion” (the phrase “daughter of Zion” is an idiom for the inhabitants of Jerusalem: “people of Zion”). The idiom “daughter of Zion” has been translated as “people of Zion” because the original idiom, while firmly embedded in the Christian tradition, is not understandable to most modern English readers.

[21:5]  ² tn Grk “the foal of an animal under the yoke,” i.e., a hard-working animal. This is a quotation from Zech 9:9.

[22:12]  ³ tn Grk “he was silent.”

[27:37]  ⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[27:37]  ⁵ sn Mention of the inscription is an important detail, because the inscription would normally give the reason for the execution. It shows that Jesus was executed for claiming to be a king. It was also probably written with irony from the executioners’ point of view.

[27:37]  ⁶ tn Grk “was written.”

[2:6]  ⁷ tn The first person pronoun appears before the first person verbal form for emphasis, reflected in the translation by “myself.”

[2:6]  ⁸ tn Or perhaps “consecrated.”

[24:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “lift up your heads.” The gates of the Lord’s dwelling place are here personified. The idiom “lift up the head” often means “be confident, bold” (see Judg 8:28; Job 10:15; Ps 83:2; Zech 1:21).

[24:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “lift yourselves up.”

[24:7]  ¹¹ tn Or “king of glory.”

[24:7]  ¹² tn Following the imperatives of the preceding lines, the prefixed verbal form with vav (ו) conjunctive indicates purpose or result.

[24:8]  ¹³ sn Who is this majestic king? Perhaps the personified gates/doors ask this question, in response to the command given in v. 7.

[24:10]  ¹⁴ tn Traditionally, “the Lord of hosts,” a title which here pictures the Lord as a mighty warrior-king who leads armies into battle.

[9:7]  ¹⁵ tc The Hebrew text has לְםַרְבֵּה (lÿmarbeh), which is a corrupt reading. לם is dittographic; note the preceding word, שָׁלוֹם (shalom). The corrected text reads literally, “great is the dominion.”

[9:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and to peace there will be no end” (KJV and ASV both similar). On the political and socio-economic sense of שָׁלוֹם (shalom) in this context, see the note at v. 6 on “Prince of Peace.”

[9:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “over the throne of David, and over his kingdom.” The referent of the pronoun “his” (i.e., David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:7]  ¹⁸ tn The feminine singular pronominal suffix on this form and the following one (translated “it” both times) refers back to the grammatically feminine noun “kingdom.”

[9:7]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “with/by justice and fairness”; ASV “with justice and with righteousness.”

[9:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the zeal of the Lord.” In this context the Lord’s “zeal” refers to his intense devotion to and love for his people which prompts him to vindicate them and to fulfill his promises to David and the nation.

[32:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “will reign according to fairness.”

[32:1]  ²² tn Heb “will rule according to justice.”

[32:2]  ²³ tn Heb “a man,” but אִישׁ (’ish) probably refers here to “each” of the officials mentioned in the previous verse.

[23:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:5]  ²⁶ tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).

[23:5]  ²⁷ tn Heb “he will reign as king and act wisely.” This is another example of the use of two verbs joined by “and” where one becomes the adverbial modifier of the other (hendiadys). For the nuance of the verb “act wisely” rather than “prosper” see Amos 5:13; Ps 2:10 (cf. BDB 968 s.v. שָׂכַל Hiph.5).

[23:5]  ²⁸ sn This has been the constant emphasis in this section. See 22:3 for the demand, 22:15 for its fulfillment, and 22:13 for its abuse. The ideal king would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor David (2 Sam 8:15) who set this forth as an ideal for his dynasty (2 Sam 23:3) and prayed for it to be true of his son Solomon (Ps 72:1-2).

[23:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “In his days [= during the time he rules].”

[23:6]  ³⁰ tn Parallelism and context (cf. v. 4) suggest this nuance for the word often translated “be saved.” For this nuance elsewhere see Ps 119:117; Prov 28:18 for the verb (יָשַׁע [yasha’] in the Niphal); and Ps 12:6; Job 5:4, 11 for the related noun (יֶשַׁע, yesha’).

[23:6]  ³¹ sn It should be noted that this brief oracle of deliverance implies the reunification of Israel and Judah under the future Davidic ruler. Jeremiah has already spoken about this reunification earlier in 3:18 and will have more to say about it in 30:3; 31:27, 31. This same ideal was espoused in the prophecies of Hosea (1:10-11 [2:1-2 HT]), Isaiah (11:1-4, 10-12), and Ezekiel (37:15-28) all of which have messianic and eschatological significance.

[23:6]  ³² tn Heb “his name will be called ‘The Lord our righteousness’.”

[37:24]  ³³ tn Heb “walk [in].”

[37:24]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and my statutes they will guard and they will do them.”

[9:25]  ³⁵ tn Or “decree” (NASB, NIV); or “word” (NAB, NRSV).

[9:25]  ³⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[9:25]  ³⁷ tn The word “arrives” is added in the translation for clarification.

[9:25]  ³⁸ tn Heb “sevens” (also later in this line and in v. 26).

[9:25]  ³⁹ tn Heb “it will return and be built.” The expression is a verbal hendiadys.

[3:15]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “your judgments,” that is, “the judgments directed against you.” The translation reflects the implications of the parallelism.

[9:9]  ⁴¹ tn The Hebrew term צַדִּיק (tsadiq) ordinarily translated “righteous,” frequently occurs, as here, with the idea of conforming to a standard or meeting certain criteria. The Messianic king riding into Jerusalem is fully qualified to take the Davidic throne (cf. 1 Sam 23:3; Isa 9:5-6; 11:4; 16:5; Jer 22:1-5; 23:5-6).

[9:9]  ⁴² tn The Hebrew term נוֹשָׁע (nosha’) a Niphal participle of יָשַׁע (yasha’, “to save”) could mean “one delivered” or, if viewed as active, “one bringing salvation” (similar KJV, NIV, NKJV). It is preferable to take the normal passive use of the Niphal and understand that the king, having been delivered, is as a result “victorious” (so also NRSV, TEV, NLT).

[9:9]  ⁴³ sn The NT understands this verse to be a prophecy of the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and properly so (cf. Matt 21:5; John 12:15), but reference to the universal rule of the king in v. 10 reveals that this is a “split prophecy,” that is, it has a two-stage fulfillment. Verse 9 was fulfilled in Jesus’ earthly ministry but v. 10 awaits a millennial consummation (cf. Rev 19:11-16).

[9:10]  ⁴⁴ tc The MT first person pronoun (“I”), which seems to shift the subject too abruptly, becomes 3rd person masculine singular (“he”) in the LXX (הִכְרִית, hikhrit, presupposed for הִכְרַתִּי, hikhratti). However, the Lord is the subject of v. 8, which speaks of his protection of Jerusalem, so it is not surprising that he is the subject in v. 10 as well.

[9:10]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “the river.” The Hebrew expression typically refers to the Euphrates, so the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:31]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “And behold.”

[1:31]  ⁴⁷ tn Grk “you will conceive in your womb.”

[1:31]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “and bear.”

[1:31]  ⁴⁹ tn Grk “you will call his name.”

[1:31]  ⁵⁰ tn See v. 13 for a similar construction.

[1:32]  ⁵¹ tn Grk “this one.”

[1:32]  ⁵² sn Compare the description of Jesus as great here with 1:15, “great before the Lord.” Jesus is greater than John, since he is Messiah compared to a prophet. Great is stated absolutely without qualification to make the point.

[1:32]  ⁵³ sn The expression Most High is a way to refer to God without naming him. Such avoiding of direct reference to God was common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.

[1:32]  ⁵⁴ tn Or “ancestor.”

[1:33]  ⁵⁵ tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style. A new sentence is begun here in the translation because of the length of the sentence in Greek.

[1:33]  ⁵⁶ tn Or “over Israel.”

[19:38]  ⁵⁷ sn Luke adds the title king to the citation from Ps 118:26 to make clear who was meant (see Luke 18:38). The psalm was used in looking for the deliverance of the end, thus leading to the Pharisees’ reaction.

[19:38]  ⁵⁸ sn A quotation from Ps 118:26.

[1:49]  ⁵⁹ tn Although βασιλεύς (basileus) lacks the article it is definite due to contextual and syntactical considerations. See ExSyn 263.

[1:49]  ⁶⁰ sn Nathanael’s confession – You are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel – is best understood as a confession of Jesus’ messiahship. It has strong allusions to Ps 2:6-7, a well-known messianic psalm. What Nathanael’s exact understanding was at this point is hard to determine, but “son of God” was a designation for the Davidic king in the OT, and Nathanael parallels it with King of Israel here.

[12:13]  ⁶¹ sn The Mosaic law stated (Lev 23:40) that branches of palm trees were to be used to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles. Later on they came to be used to celebrate other feasts as well (1 Macc. 13:51, 2 Macc. 10:7).

[12:13]  ⁶² tn Grk “And they were shouting.” An ingressive force for the imperfect tense (“they began to shout” or “they started shouting”) is natural in this sequence of events. The conjunction καί (kai, “and”) is left untranslated to improve the English style.

[12:13]  ⁶³ tn The expression ῾Ωσαννά (Jwsanna, literally in Hebrew, “O Lord, save”) in the quotation from Ps 118:25-26 was probably by this time a familiar liturgical expression of praise, on the order of “Hail to the king,” although both the underlying Aramaic and Hebrew expressions meant “O Lord, save us.” As in Mark 11:9 the introductory ὡσαννά is followed by the words of Ps 118:25, εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου (euloghmeno" Jo ercomeno" en onomati kuriou), although in the Fourth Gospel the author adds for good measure καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ ᾿Ισραήλ (kai Jo basileu" tou Israhl). In words familiar to every Jew, the author is indicating that at this point every messianic expectation is now at the point of realization. It is clear from the words of the psalm shouted by the crowd that Jesus is being proclaimed as messianic king. See E. Lohse, TDNT 9:682-84.

[12:13]  ⁶⁴ sn A quotation from Ps 118:25-26.

[12:13]  ⁶⁵ tn Grk “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” The words “Blessed is” are not repeated in the Greek text, but are repeated in the translation to avoid the awkwardness in English of the ascensive καί (kai).

[19:15]  ⁶⁶ tn Grk “Then these.”

[19:15]  ⁶⁷ tn The words “with him” (twice) are not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[19:15]  ⁶⁸ sn See the note on Crucify in 19:6.

[19:15]  ⁶⁹ tn Grk “Pilate said to them.” The words “to them” are not translated because it is clear in English who Pilate is addressing.

[19:19]  ⁷⁰ tn Or “an inscription.”

[19:19]  ⁷¹ tn Grk “Pilate also wrote a notice and placed it on the cross.” The two verbs should be read as causatives, since it is highly unlikely that the Roman governor would perform either of these actions himself. He ordered them to be done.

[19:19]  ⁷² tn Grk “Now it was written.”

[19:20]  ⁷³ tn Grk “the Jews.” Here the phrase refers to the residents of Jerusalem in general. See also the note on the phrase Jewish religious leaders” in v. 7.

[19:20]  ⁷⁴ tn Or “this inscription.”

[19:20]  ⁷⁵ tn Grk “in Hebrew.”

[19:21]  ⁷⁶ tn Or “the Jewish chief priests.” Nowhere else in the Fourth Gospel are the two expressions οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων (Joi arcierei" twn Ioudaiwn) combined. Earlier in 19:15 the chief priests were simply referred to as οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς. It seems likely that this is another example of Johannine irony, to be seen in contrast to the inscription on the cross which read ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν ᾿Ιουδαίων (Jo basileu" twn Ioudaiwn). For this reason the phrase has been translated “the chief priests of the Jews” (which preserves in the translation the connection with “King of the Jews”) rather than “the Jewish chief priests.”