Luke 19:1-4
He climbed up into a sycamore tree
A rich official runs ahead of a crowd and gets into a tree. Luke gives the reason without softening it: he was little of stature.
People of the Bible
Zacchaeus
Climbed a tree because he was short, and came down owing four times over to everyone he had cheated.
He is chief among the publicans at Jericho, which is a customs post on a rich trade road, and Luke says plainly that he was rich. That combination in that town meant the man had made his money out of his neighbours with Roman backing. He wants to see who Jesus is and cannot, because of the press and because he was little of stature, so he runs ahead and climbs a sycamore, which is not a dignified thing for a wealthy official to do in public.
Scroll down to the storyThe movements, in the order the text gives them.
The story of Zacchaeus
- 01
- 02
Luke 19:5-6
Today I must abide at your house
The name comes first and the plan is already made. He came down hastily and received him joyfully, which is the whole of his conversion narrated in one line.
- 03
Luke 19:7
Gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner
They all murmured. The complaint is not about doctrine but about hospitality, and it is the same complaint made over Matthew’s dinner table.
- 04
Luke 19:8-10
I restore him fourfold
The repentance is itemised and expensive. The answer is that salvation has come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.
Why it matters
The invitation goes the wrong way. Zacchaeus is not asked to come down and follow; he is told that today I must abide at your house, which puts the guest under the roof of the most resented man in Jericho and starts the murmuring immediately. What he offers is not a religious formula but an account: half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation I restore him fourfold. The law asked for the principal and a fifth. He offers four times.
2 songs
The music
Every song in the catalogue whose passage falls inside these chapters.
