Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 11:3
And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither.
3. the Lord hath need of him ] The words suggest that the man may have been a secret disciple. “Secret disciples, such as the five hundred who afterwards gathered to one spot in Galilee, and the hundred and twenty who met after the resurrection (1Co 15:6; Act 1:15), were scattered in many places.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mar 11:3-6
Say ye that the Lord hath need of him.
The Lord hath need of you
I. He wants you for Himself. Jesus loves you; you are to be the compensation to Him for all He suffered. Christ feels incomplete without you.
II. He wants you for His Church. The Church is a building; you can never tell what stone the Great Master Builder may require next. It is a family-you complete the circle.
III. He wants you for His work.
IV. He wants you for His glory. When the Lord wants anything you will let Him have it.
1. Your money. If He takes it you will know that He had need of it.
2. Death. He has need of those dear to us. There is great comfort in the fact that when Christ sent to appropriate what was indeed His own, He sent also the constraining power of His own grace to overrule that it might consent to the surrender. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
On obeying Christ
The two disciples, without any questioning, proceeded upon their Masters mission.
I. The principle we have stated applies to all new undertakings in which we engage as servants of our Saviour, acting under His direction. It was a new thing He asked them to do when He sent them to bring to Him the colt. Our Lord often asks us to do unlikely and unexpected things. God told Moses to go to Egypt. God asked Jonah to do a new thing. If God asks us to take a new departure, His hand will guide us.
II. The principle illustrated here applies to undertakings which are difficult and mysterious, to which our Lord calls us. What right had they to the colt? There was a touch of mystery-why such a beast of burden? God often calls His people to difficult and mysterious duties. Try to do it and all is well ordered.
III. The principle here illustrated applies to all undertakings in which Christs servants engage directly for His sake. The Lord hath need of him. (A. Scott.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 3. And straightway he will send him hither.] From the text, I think it is exceedingly plain, that our Lord did not beg, but borrow, the colt; therefore the latter clause of this verse should be understood as the promise of returning him. Is not the proper translation the following? And if any one say to you, Why do ye this? Say, the Lord hath need of him, and will speedily send him back hither – . Some eminent critics take the same view of the passage.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
See Poole on “Mat 21:3“, &c. All along the story of our Saviours life and actions we shall find certain indications of his Divine power and virtue: his knowing mens thoughts, and declarations of such his knowledge to them: his certain prediction of future contingencies, being able to tell persons such particulars as no man could know. How could he who was not God have told the disciples, that at their entrance into the village they should find a colt on which never man sat, that the owners would not resist strangers to take it away? Yet notwithstanding all this disciples very imperfectly believed him to be so, until he was risen from the dead. The time was not yet come when Christ would have this published, and till he gave them a power to believe it, i.e. to have a full persuasion of it, all these moral arguments were not sufficient to work in their hearts a full persuasion. The faith of the Christians of that time seemeth to have had these three gradations:
1. They believed him a great Prophet, that had received great power from God.
2. They owned him as the Messiah, as the Son of David, and now and then they would drop some expressions arguing some persuasions that he was the Son of God.
3. Last of all, they came to a firm persuasion that he was truly God, as well as man, after that he was risen from the dead, and declared with power to be such, as the apostle saith.
Yet what means imaginable could they have had more than,
1. A voice from heaven declaring it.
2. The Spirit descending in a visible shape.
3. The great miracles he had wrought by sea and land, commanding the winds and the waves, healing incurable diseases and all others in an instant without use of rational means, raising the dead, &c.
4. His telling their thoughts, foretelling future contingencies, &c.
Yet all these produced in the generality of the people no more than amazement and astonishment; and in the apostles themselves, rather a disposition to such a faith, or an opinion or suspicion of such a thing, than a firm and fixed persuasion concerning it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And if any man say unto you,…. As very likely they would, and it would be strange if they should not say something to them, especially the owners of it:
why do ye this? Why do ye untie the ass, and attempt to carry it away, when it is none of your own, and it belongs to another man?
Say ye that the Lord hath need of him; our Lord and yours, the Lord of heaven and earth, and all things in it; it looks as if this title, “the Lord”, was what Jesus was well known by; see Joh 11:28; unless it can be thought, that the owners of the colt were such, that believed in Christ, as is not improbable; and so would at once understand by the language who it was for, and let it go:
and straightway he will send him, hither; as soon as ever he hears that the Lord, by whom he would presently understand Jesus, wanted him for his present purpose; he will send him with all readiness and cheerfulness, without the least hesitation, or making any dispute about it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Lord ( ). So Matt. and Luke. See on Mt 21:3 for discussion of this word applied to Jesus by himself.
He will send him back (). Present indicative in futuristic sense. Mt 21:3 has the future .
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
1) “And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this?” (kai ean tis humin eipe) “And if anyone should ask you,” (ti poieite touto) “Why are you doing this?” If any person should question what you are doing, should fear you are stealing the colt.
2) “Say ye that the Lord hath need of him;” (eipate ho kurios autou cheian echei) “You say, The Lord of it has a need of it,” Psa 50:10. It is needed for a Divine purpose, Zec 9:9.
4) “And straightway he will send him hither.” (kai euthus auton apostellei palm hide) “And immediately He will send it (the colt) here again,” or will return the colt, just as soon as He has completed His use of it, without delay.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
3 And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send him hither.
Ver. 3. Say ye that the Lord hath need of him ] See here six different arguments of our Saviour’s Deity: 1. That he knew there was such an ass colt. 2. That he sent for it. 3. Foresaw that the masters of the colt would question them that set it. 4. That he professeth himself the Lord of all. 5. That he could tell they would send the colt. 6. That accordingly they did so. (Piscater.)
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
3. ] The pres. , is used of future things whose occurrence is undoubted; see Mat 17:11 ; Mat 11:3 alli [35] .: but the words are somewhat ambiguous. From the ancient interpolation of , it seems that they were understood all to belong to ‘ the Lord hath need of it, and will immediately send it [ back ].’ Lachm., by printing the words without a stop, evidently adopts this rendering: and Origen, tom. xvi. in Matt. 16, vol. iii. p. 741, favours it. But verisimilitude seems to me to be against it: and the final clause in Mar 11:6 , , appears to correspond with this. So that I would understand it as in E. V.: and straightway he (the speaker or owner) will send it hither.
[35] alli= some cursive mss.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Mar 11:3 . . . , the Master hath need of him. Vide on this at Mat 21:3 . , etc., and straightway He returneth him (the colt) again. , a well-attested reading, clearly implies this meaning, i.e. , that Jesus bids His disciples promise the owner that He will return the colt without delay, after He has had His use of it. So without hesitation Weiss (in Meyer) and Holtzmann (H. C.). Meyer thinks this a paltry thing for Christ to say, and rejects as an addition due to misunderstanding. Biassed by the same sense of decorum “below the dignity of the occasion and of the Speaker” the Speaker’s Comm. cherishes doubt as to , sheltering itself behind the facts that, while the MSS. which insert “again” are generally more remarkable for omissions than additions, yet in this instance they lack the support of ancient versions and early Fathers. I do not feel the force of the argument from decorum. It judges Christ’s action by a conventional standard. Why should not Jesus instruct His disciples to say “it will be returned without delay” as an inducement to lend it? Dignity! How much will have to go if that is to be the test of historicity! There was not only dignity but humiliation in the manner of entering Jerusalem: the need for the colt, the use of it, the fact that it had to be borrowed all enter as elements in the lowly state of the Son of Man. On the whole subject vide notes on Mt. This is another of Mk.’s realisms, which Mt.’s version obliterates. Field ( Otium Nor. ), often bold in his interpretations, here succumbs to the decorum argument, and is biassed by it against the reading contained in so many important MSS. ( vide above).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Mark
CHRIST’S NEED OF US AND OURS
Mar 11:3
You will remember that Jesus Christ sent two of His disciples into the village that looked down on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem, with minute instructions and information as to what they were to do and find there. The instructions may have one of two explanations-they suggest either superhuman knowledge or a previous arrangement. Perhaps, although it is less familiar to our thoughts, the latter is the explanation. There is a remarkable resemblance, in that respect, to another incident which lies close beside this one in time, when our Lord again sent two disciples to make preparation for the Passover, and, with similar minuteness, told them that they would find, at a certain point, a man bearing a pitcher of water. Him they were to accost, and he would take them to the room that had been prepared. Now the old explanation of both these incidents is that Jesus Christ knew what was going to happen. Another possible explanation, and in my view more probable and quite as instructive, is, that Jesus Christ had settled with the two owners what was to happen. Clearly, the owner of the colt was a disciple, because at once he gave up his property when the message was repeated, ‘the Lord hath need of him.’ Probably he had been one of the guests at the modest festival that had been held the night before, in the village close by, in Simon’s house, and had seen how Mary had expended her most precious possession on the Lord, and, under the influence of the resurrection of Lazarus, he, too, perhaps, was touched, and was glad to arrange with Jesus Christ to have his colt waiting there at the cross-road for his Master’s convenience. But, be that as it may, it seems to me that this incident, and especially these words that I have read for a text, carry very striking and important lessons for us, whether we look at them in connection with the incident itself, or whether we venture to give them a somewhat wider application. Let me take these two points in turn.
I. Now, what strikes one about our Lord’s requisitioning the colt is this, that here is a piece of conduct on His part singularly unlike all the rest of His life.
But, further, the fact that He had to borrow the colt was as significant as the choice of it. For so we see blended two things, the blending of which makes the unique peculiarity and sublimity of Christ’s life: absolute authority, and meekness of poverty and lowliness. A King, and yet a pauper-King! A King claiming His dominion, and yet obliged to borrow another man’s colt in order that He might do it! A strange kind of monarch!-and yet that remarkable combination runs through all His life. He had to be obliged to a couple of fishermen for a boat, but He sat in it, to speak words of divine wisdom. He had to be obliged to a lad in the crowd for barley loaves and fishes, but when He took them into His hands they were multiplied. He had to be obliged for a grave, and yet He rose from the borrowed grave the Lord of life and death. And so when He would pose as a King, He has to borrow the regalia, and to be obliged to this anonymous friend for the colt which made the emphasis of His claim. ‘Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich.’
II. And now turn for a moment to the wider application of these words.
Notice again the authoritative demand, which does not contemplate the possibility of reluctance or refusal. ‘The Lord hath need of him.’ That is all. There is no explanation or motive alleged to induce surrender to the demand. This is a royal style of speech. It is the way in which, in despotic countries, kings lay their demands upon a poor man’s whole plenishing and possession, and sweep away all.
Jesus Christ comes to us in like fashion, and brushes aside all our convenience and everything else, and says, ‘I want you, and that is enough.’ Is it not enough? Should it not be enough? If He demands, He has the right to demand. For we are His, ‘bought with a price.’ All the slave’s possessions are his owner’s property. The slave is given a little patch of garden ground, and perhaps allowed to keep a fowl or two, but the master can come and say, ‘Now I want them,’ and the slave has nothing for it but to give them up.
‘The Lord hath need of him’ is in the autocratic tone of One who has absolute power over us and ours. And that power, where does it come from? It comes from His absolute surrender of Himself to us, and because He has wholly given Himself for us. He does not expect us to say one contrary word when He sends and says, ‘I have need of you, or of yours.’
Here, again, we have an instance of glad surrender. The last words of my text are susceptible of a double meaning. ‘Straightway he will send him hither’-who is ‘he’? It is usually understood to be the owner of the colt, and the clause is supposed to be Christ’s assurance to the two messengers of the success of their errand. So understood, the words suggest the great truth that Love loosens the hand that grasps possessions, and unlocks our treasure-houses. There is nothing more blessed than to give in response to the requirement of love. And so, to Christ’s authoritative demand, the only proper answer is obedience swift and glad, because it is loving. Many possibilities of joy and blessing are lost by us through not yielding on the instant to Christ’s demands. Hesitation and delay are dangerous. In ‘straightway’ complying are security and joy. If the owner had begun to say to himself that he very much needed the colt, or that he saw no reason why some one else’s beast should not have been taken, or that he would send the animal very soon, but must have the use of him for an hour or two first, he would probably never have sent him at all, and so would have missed the greatest honour of his life. As soon as I know what Christ wants from me, without delay let me do it; for if I begin with delaying I shall probably end with declining. The Psalmist was wise when he laid emphasis on the swiftness of his obedience, and said, ‘I made haste and delayed not, but made haste to keep Thy commandments.’
But another view of the words makes them part of the message to the owner of the colt, and not of the assurance to the disciples. ‘Say ye that the Lord hath need of him, and that straightway when He has done with him He will send him back again.’ That is a possible rendering, and I am disposed to think it is the proper one. By it the owner is told that he is not parting with his property for good and all, that Jesus only wishes to borrow the animal for the morning, and that it will be returned in the afternoon. What does that view of the words suggest to us? Do you not think that that colt, when it did come back-for of course it came back some time or other,-was a great deal more precious to its owner than it ever had been before, or ever could have been if it had not been lent to Christ, and Christ had not made His royal entry upon it? Can you not fancy that the man, if he was, as he evidently was, a disciple and lover of the Lord, would look at it, especially after the Crucifixion and the Ascension, and think, ‘What an honour to me, that I provided the mount for that triumphal entry!’? It is always so. If you wish anything to become precious, lend it to Jesus Christ, and when it comes back again, as it will come back, there will be a fragrance about it, a touch of His fingers will be left upon it, a memory that He has used it. If you desire to own yourselves, and to make yourselves worth owning, give yourselves to Christ. If you wish to get the greatest possible blessing and good out of possessions, lay them at His feet. If you wish love to be hallowed, joy to be calmed, perpetuated, and deepened, carry it to Him. ‘If the house be worthy, your peace shall rest upon it; if not,’ like the dove to the ark when it could find no footing in the turbid and drowned world, ‘it shall come back to you again. Straightway He will ‘send him back again,’ and that which I give to Jesus He will return enhanced, and it will be more truly and more blessedly mine, because I have laid it in His hands. This ‘altar’ sanctifies the giver and the gift.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
if any man = if any one. The contingency being probable. See App-118. The same word as in verses: Mar 11:31, Mar 11:32; not the same as in verses: Mar 11:13, Mar 11:25, Mar 11:26.
the Lord. App-98.
straightway. See note on Mar 1:12.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
3. ] The pres. , is used of future things whose occurrence is undoubted; see Mat 17:11; Mat 11:3 alli[35].: but the words are somewhat ambiguous. From the ancient interpolation of , it seems that they were understood all to belong to -the Lord hath need of it, and will immediately send it [back]. Lachm., by printing the words without a stop, evidently adopts this rendering: and Origen, tom. xvi. in Matt. 16, vol. iii. p. 741, favours it. But verisimilitude seems to me to be against it: and the final clause in Mar 11:6, , appears to correspond with this. So that I would understand it as in E. V.: and straightway he (the speaker or owner) will send it hither.
[35] alli= some cursive mss.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
that: Psa 24:1, Act 10:36, Act 17:25, 2Co 8:9, Heb 2:7-9
and straightway: Mar 14:15, 1Ch 29:12-18, Psa 110:3, Act 1:24
Reciprocal: Psa 97:5 – the Lord of Mat 21:2 – General Mar 14:13 – Go Mar 14:14 – The Master Luk 19:31 – the Lord Joh 21:7 – It is
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE NEEDS OF GOD
And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him.
Mar 11:3
Our Lords words illustrate the deliberateness with which He moved forward to His agony and death.
I. The first step to Calvary.When He sent the disciples for the colt which was tied up in the street of Bethphage, He was, as He knew, taking the first step in a series which would end within a week upon Mount Calvary. Everything, accordingly, is measured, deliberate, calm. It is this deliberateness in His advance to die; it is this voluntariness in His sufferings which, next to the fact of His true Divinity, gives to the death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ its character as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
II. The exact nature of our Lords claims.If any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him. What is the justification of this demand? It is a question which can only be answered in one way, namely, that Christ was all along the true owner of the colt, and that the apparent owner was but His bailiff. He claims what He has lent for a while, He resumes that which has always been His own; we hear the voice of the Being to Whom man owes all that he is, and all that he hasWhose we are, and Whom we serve.
III. Christ can make use of all.Our Lords words show how He can make use of all, even of the lowest and the least. It was of the colt at Bethphage that He Himself said, The Lord hath need of him. The colt, insignificant in itself, had become necessary to our Lord at one of the great turning-points of His life; it was needed for a service unique and incomparable, which has given it a place in sacred history to the very end of time. The colt was to be conspicuous in that great sacrificial processionfor such it wasin which He, the prime and flower of our race, moved forward deliberately to yield Himself to the wills of men, who to-day can shout Hosannah! and who to-morrow will cry Crucify! The needs of God! It was surely too bold an expression if He had not authorised us to use it. And yet there they stand, the wordsThe Lord hath need of him.
Canon Liddon.
Illustration
How many there are who say to us nowadays when we seek recruits for the ranks of the ministry, whether for home or missionary work, What do ye loosing this man or that, tied and bound as young men are by so many ties to this worlds interests and occupations; how people raise objections, and yet the Lord hath need of them, and they are loosed, not by our word, but by the will and power of God, just as it was not the disciples word, but the power of Christ acting with their word, which caused the owners to change their mind and recall their objection.
(SECOND OUTLINE)
AN INDIVIDUAL APPEAL
You say, The Lord wants me? Impossible! I want Him. How can He want me? He does want you.
I. He wants you for Himself.Because He loved you for His own free loves sake, and must have you with Him, therefore He came down, and was miserable, and died; and His mission is frustrated till you come. You are the joy set before Him, for which He endured the cross, despising the shame. And, when you are His, then He sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied.
II. He wants you for His Church.Understand this: The Church is a building; you can never tell what stone the Great Master Builder may require next. You may be that stone. It is a family or spiritual partyyou complete the circle. For remember, God is busy accomplishing the number of His elect. It may be very near its accomplishment. Perhaps you make up the total!
III. He wants you for His work.You must have faith in this. There is a vast amount of good to be done at this moment, and each work has its own proper, appointed worker set apart for that work from all eternity. No doubt, though you are not conscious of it, yet He has some special work for you to do.
IV. He wants you for His glory.Think how you will chant His praise, how angels will admire, how saints will rejoice at your conversion. What a testimony it may be to many! and how great will be His own grace to such a poor sinner as you before the eyes of perhaps other worlds!
Illustrations
(1) When those mysterious deaths come which so confuse us by removing one who could so ill be spared, we do not sufficiently remember that this is not the only sphere of action. God has other busy worlds besides this; they may be wanted there, just at that moment for some work, preparing to do there, and which no other could do so well. Therefore they went. The Lord hath need of him. Be ready, for it is very likely at this moment you have something which you call your own for which Christ may very soon put in his demand; and you must be prepared for the message in whatever garb the message comes: The Lord hath need of it.
(2) There is very great comfort in the fact that when Christ sent to appropriate what was indeed His own, He sent also the constraining power of His own grace to overrule that it might consent to the surrender. And so it came to pass that though there was a momentary hesitation, the opposition all gave way, and there was complete accordance. This is indeed an allegory. For in like manner, however painful the sacrifice may be to which I may be called, the same Christ will not fail, when the time comes, to give a prompt and submissive mind.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
3
They were given the authority to take the colt, equipped with the all-sufficient explanation to its owners that the Lord hath need of him.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mar 11:3. And straightway he will send, literally, sendeth, him again hither. In Matthew the clause corresponding to this is probably a declaration of what the owner, or those objecting would do. Here the word again (found in the best authorities) compels us to take it as part of the message, a promise to return the colt soon.