Jesus Wept because they knew not the time of thy visitation.

Luke 19:41-44

⁴¹And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

⁴²Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

⁴³For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,

⁴⁴And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem he beheld the city and wept! Jesus wept over the city. As he entered what is today called “Passion Week.” During what at the time was triumpful entry Jesus prophesied the destruction of the city and wept. Because “thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.”

The people of Judea, Galilee and the rest of the Holy land had failed to recognize the entry of their prophesized Messiah into Jerusalem. This will be a brief look at not only some of the prophesizes but also the events of this week that changed the world forever.

The Prophecies of the visitation

The entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and His crucifixion as prophesied in the Old Testament. We will look at three Old Testament passages:

Isaiah 53:5-9 – Sometimes called the Gospel of Isaiah. Reveals that Jesus will be rejected and die for our sins.
Zechariah 9:9 – Reveals how Jesus will enter the city of Jerusalem.
Daniel 9:24-7 – Reveals when Jesus will enter the city of Jerusalem and reveals that he will be rejected.

Starting with Isaiah.

Isaiah 53:5-9 (701 BC) (Read whole chapter for the full Gospel of Isaiah, the prophecy about the life of Jesus revealed 700 years before His birth).

⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

⁶All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

⁷He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

⁸He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

⁹And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the Lord via the Prophet Isaiah revealed the life of Jesus. Briefly:

Verse 5: Reveals that Jesus would be wounded and bruised for our transgressions and iniquities. But through Him we are healed.

Verse 6: Revealed that the people of Israel (and us in the future) would turn away from the Lord and their and our sins would be suffered by Jesus.

Verse 7: Revealed that he would not complain but voluntarily accepted His being the sacrificial Lamb.

Verse 8: He would be arrested and placed before man’s justice. That for the sins of the people He would be killed (cut off from land of living).

Verse 9: His demise would be the action of the wicked, here referencing the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious elite. He would be buried with the rich as it was a rich man who supplied his tomb. All for crimes that He did not commit.

Today we recognize that the Passion Week fulfilled this prophetic vision revealed almost 750 years prior. All of the ruling religious elite would have known this prophecy. We know that the scroll of Isaiah was part of the Jewish worship of the time as Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah in Luke 4:17.

But even more amazing is the clarity that the Prophet Daniel added 539 years before Jesus was born. Not only did the Lord reveal through Daniel the time that Jesus would enter Jerusalem, be rejected and cut off (crucified) but revealed much about the Second Coming of Jesus and the End of the Age.

Daniel 9:24-27 (539 BC)

²⁴Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

²⁵Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

²⁶And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

²⁷And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

This is called the “70 weeks of Daniel” Prophecy and is foundational in an understanding of the Olivet Discourse and the End of The Age.

In verse 24 Daniel references seventy weeks. In this context each week actually represents a unit of seven years. Not only were days put together in groups of seven with the 7^th being a holy day or Sabbath Day, so were years. Every seventh year was a Sabbath Year.

Leviticus 25:1-4

And the Lord spake unto Moses in mount Sinai, saying,

²Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye come into the land which I give you, then shall the land keep a sabbath unto the Lord.

³Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

⁴But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard

So Daniel’s 70 weeks is revealing a time span of 490 years.

This time span of 490 years applied to “thy people” – Daniel’s people - the Jews and the Holy City - Jerusalem. Specifically:

to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

As we will see later this is a prophetic timeline with the end of the 70 weeks being the End of the Age. At the end of this period transgressions will be finished. Sin will be ended. Reconciliation for iniquity is Judgment of the Lord. “bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy” is a description of the Second Coming of Jesus! We will come back to this verse later in this study, as this is revealing a prophecy still in our future.

For this lesson we will concentrate on verses 25 and 26 which are part of the fulfilled prophecy we are studying.

Verse 25 divides the 70 weeks, or 70 groups of 7 years into two sections: the first of 69 weeks (483 years) and the second of 1 week (7 years). As we will see the first section is a prophecy of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem and His Crucifixion while the second is the period of Tribulation or the Sorrows.

Verse 25 gives the starting point of the first section of 69 weeks or 483 years:

that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem

This raises the question, which commandment is being referenced - the commandment to Ezra or Nehemiah? The same verse gives us more information:

the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times

Ezra only worked on the Temple and did not try to rebuild the city. Nehemiah 2:1-8 provides the answer to this question.

Nehemiah 2:1-8 (444 BC)

And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence.

²Wherefore the king said unto me, Why is thy countenance sad, seeing thou art not sick? this is nothing else but sorrow of heart. Then I was very sore afraid,

³And said unto the king, Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?

⁴Then the king said unto me, For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the God of heaven.

⁵And I said unto the king, If it please the king, and if thy servant have found favour in thy sight, that thou wouldest send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it.

⁶And the king said unto me, (the queen also sitting by him,) For how long shall thy journey be? and when wilt thou return? So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

⁷Moreover I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over till I come into Judah;

⁸And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me.

In verse 8 Nehemiah was commanded to rebuild the city and the walls. Later verses in Nehemiah show that this was accomplished in times of trouble. So the date of the command to Nehemiah can be dated by verse 1:

And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king

Converting to our Gregorian Calendar in use today this would be April 2, 444 BC. This is Julian Day: 1,559,344. (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.php)

So what happens if we convert the 483 years, which were 360 days in length to days and then using our current solar years of just over 365 days with April 2, 444 BC as a starting date? The result is Julian Day: 1,733,199. Converting this to Gregorian Calendar date is: March 29, 33 AD.

Details of Calculation: ((Link)

One must bear in mind that although the prophecy is calculated in days for the purpose of determining the end-date of the first sixty-nine weeks, it was given in integer units; thus the solution to the endpoint of the sixty-ninth week is the number of days in the integer number of solar years for the 69 weeks.

When calculated this way the result is precisely the number of days between Nisan 1, 444 B.C. (the presumed start-date of the prophecy) and Nisan 9, A.D. 33, the date of Christ’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem and his rejection by the leaders of Israel five days before his crucifixion.

· The simplest method of calculating the end-date of the sixty-ninth week is to determine the Julian Day Number (JND) of the starting point (Nisan 1, 444 B.C. is JND 1,559,344)

· Add 173,855 days, which gives the JND of the terminal date (1,559,344 + 173,855 = JND 1,733,199),

· Which was Nisan 9 (March 29), A.D. 33 (a Sunday), the date of the Triumphal Entry.

Is it possible that through the Prophet Daniel the Lord revealed the actual date of his entry into Jerusalem and His Crucifixion? Are there others ways to verify the accuracy of this prophetic date? The answer is of course yes.

Looking at the timeline leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus.

John 19:31

³¹The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

From the Gospel of John – the chart below shows what occurred per day (while noting that days back then ran from evening to evening, and that the Sabbath starts on Friday evening):

Day of week

What was occurring that day from Gospel of John

Thursday evening to Friday evening

Nissan 14, Day of Preparation, Jesus dies during the daylight hours on Friday.

Friday evening to Saturday evening

Nissan 15, Sabbath, the first day of the 7 day Passover feast week begins, it's also called the 1st "high day" of the Passover feast week. Jesus's body is in the tomb.

From historical records it is known that Pontius Pilate served for 10 years, 27 AD to 36 AD. It is possible to find all years where the first high day fell on the Jewish Sabbath to verify which years are possible candidates for the year of Jesus's death. Between the years 27AD and 36AD, there are 2 years where the high day fell on a Sabbath and those two years are 33AD and 36AD. In 36 AD there was a rebellion in process and it is unlikely that Herod would have been in Jerusalem. So 33 AD is the most likely date.

Modern perpetual calendars show that in 33 AD the Sunday before Passover would have been March 29. This would make April 3, 33 AD the day that Jesus was crucified:

Modern science also has provided verification of the year 33 AD (Reference Acts 2:14-22): Perhaps it will not surprise you to learn that only one Passover lunar eclipse was visible from Jerusalem while Pilate was in office. It occurred on April 3, 33 AD, the Day of the Cross.NASA’s website indicates a Red Blood Moon lunar eclipse occurred on the 3^rd of April in the year 33 AD.

Acts 12:20:

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come:

A geological study of the Dead Sea reported in 2012 that an earthquake occurred in 33 AD: (Link)

Recently, geologists have investigated the 4,000-year chronology of earthquake disturbances within the uppermost 19 feet of laminated sediment of the Dead Sea. Hypersaline waters preserve seasonally laminated sediment because organisms cannot live or burrow in the bed of the lake. As a result, only a nearby earthquake (or very large distant earthquake) can homogenize the lake’s uppermost sediment layers, producing a “mixed layer” devoid of laminations.³ A sketch of a sediment core from the west side of the Dead Sea appears in Figure 1. The sketch shows the depth of the “mixed layers” within the laminated sediment sequence.⁴ Two deeper mixed layers in the Dead Sea are datable from historical, archaeological, and geological associations with faulting—the earthquakes of 31 B.C. (the Qumran earthquake) and 750 B.C. (Amos’ earthquake). Other earthquakes are represented in the Dead Sea sediment core with dates approximated by assuming a steady rate of sedimentation.

Thus even modern science confirms the accuracy of the prophecy revealed by Daniel around 539 BC. Even if the religious leaders of the time did not have modern science to do the date calculations, they had extremely more accurate records of each of the intervening years maintained in the Temple.

The manner in which Jesus would enter Jerusalem was prophesized by the Prophet Zechariah.

Zechariah 9:9 (520 BC)

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Until working on this study I was not aware of the many references in the Old Testament and significance of this passage. There are many passages of son and nephews of kings and judges riding upon a mule or foal of an ass. For those who would like to look into this more a brief list follows(Let me know if you would like a more complete list):

Judges 5:10 – signifies holding office
Judges 10:3-4 – 30 sons of a judge who rode ass colts
Judges 12:13-14 – forty sons and 30 nephews of a judge
2 Samuel 13:29 – David’s sons escape Absalom riding mules
2 Samuel 16:1-2 – Two asses given to David for his household to ride
2 Samuel 18:9 – Absalom was killed riding a mule
1 Kings 1:33,38,44 – Solomon rode on David’s mule to be anointed king

Over 550 years before Jesus entered Jerusalem, through the Prophet Zechariah it was revealed that Jesus would be riding a foal of an ass.

From just these three passages that we have studied we can see that the Lord had revealed through multiple Prophets the birth, life, purpose, rejection and time of the visitation of Jesus Christ. Prior to the entry into Jerusalem the religious and national leaders were aware of the miracles that Jesus and His disciples had been performing. In fact they had already made plans to arrest and kill Jesus.

Now we are ready to look at the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem.

From the Gospel of Luke, the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, remembered to this day as Palm Sunday. The fulfillment of the prophecies revealed by Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah.

Luke 19:33-44: (March 29 33 AD)

33 And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt?

³⁴And they said, The Lord hath need of him.

³⁵And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.

³⁶And as he went, they spread their clothes in the way.

³⁷And when he was come nigh, even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen;

³⁸Saying, Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.

³⁹And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.

⁴⁰And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.

⁴¹And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it,

⁴²Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.

⁴³For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side,

⁴⁴And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Jesus was about to fulfill the purpose of His incarnation. He was about to meet the final goal of His earthy visitation. He was about to fulfill His Father’s redemptive plan for mankind by voluntarily laying down His life and shedding His perfectly righteous and holy blood for the sins of mankind.

Let’s look at this passage from Luke:

Verses 33-35 are a fulfillment of the prophecy revealed by Zechariah 550 years before. Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on a colt. Verses 36-38 show that some recognized Jesus as the awaited Messiah.

Verse 39 shows that the ruling and religious elite have already rejected Jesus, leading to their prosecution and crucifixion of Jesus just days later (April 3 33AD).

Verse 41-44 reveal that the prophecies revealed through Isaiah, Daniel and Zechariah (and others we did not cover in this study) were part of God’s Plan. Jesus wept! Jesus wept over the city and the people.

Why? From verse 44: “because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.” From the virgin birth until the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem had been their time of visitation. The time that the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah had walked the earth with them and they knew it not!

This time of visitation had been revealed through the Prophets. There had been many signs (miracles) given. But Jesus was rejected. What can we learn from these two fulfilled prophecies before we start the study of the prophecies that are in our future?