They had been greeting Him with Hosannas! But enthusiasm, especially in such a cause, is infectious. They were mostly stranger-pilgrims that had come from the City, chiefly because they had heard of the raising of Lazarus.b And now they must have questioned them which came from Bethany, who in turn related that of which themselves had been eyewitnesses.c We can imagine it all—how the fire would leap from heart to heart. So He was the promised Son of David—and the Kingdom was at hand! It may have been just as the precise point of the road was reached, where ‘the City of David’ first suddenly emerges into view, ‘at the descent of the Mount of Olives,’ ‘that 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.’d As the burning words of joy and praise, the record of what they had seen, passed from mouth V 2, p 368 to mouth, and they caught their first sight of ‘the City of David,’ adorned as a bride to welcome her King—Davidic praise to David’s Greater Son wakened the echoes of old Davidic Psalms in the morning-light of their fulfilment. ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed be He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.… Blessed the Kingdom that cometh, the Kingdom of our father David.… Blessed be He that cometh in the Name of the Lord … Hosanna … Hosanna in the highest … Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.’

The hour has come jfor the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, kunless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.