Jesus travelled from Galilee to Jerusalem for Passover, passing through Jericho on the way. Were you among the pilgrim crowd, what would you have seen as you approached Jericho? How might you have felt about that city, its past and present? When Jesus declares he’ll visit Zacchaeus, a ruling tribute collector—and rich—would you have muttered with everyone else, ‘Look, he’s gone to stay with a sinful man’? Why?
In this, the second of five articles about Luke 19:1–27, we explore the world inhabited by Jesus, Zacchaeus, and those who witnessed their encounter. In the previous article, we examined how this passage is often mis-read and introduced an alternative reading which invites us to consider the this-world consequences of what and how we read. We concluded with two questions: How do the parable and the scene of which it is part relate? How might attending to the story’s contexts—historical (Palestine under Roman and Herodian rule), geographical (Jericho in Judaea), temporal (approaching Passover), and canonical (with the Scriptures of Israel)—enrich our engagement with this text? To the second of these questions we now turn.
A strategically located city
Nestled at the foot of the mountains, Jericho straddled a major east-west trade route and one of three pilgrimage routes between Galilee and Jerusalem: the gateway between the plains of the Jordan and Jerusalem, 25 kilometres away and 500 metres above. It was no coincidence that Jesus encountered a rich ruling tribute collector in Jericho, nor that he told that parable there and then.
The city looms large in the Scriptures of Israel (Josh 2–6). The point of entry to the Promised Land, Jericho speaks of warfare by miracle and the promise of dignity, freedom, a future. Its promise comes with a curse and a warning: when the covenant is violated and devoted things deceitfully stolen, destruction and violence ensue.
In the intertestamental period, the Seleucids (a Greek empire) built a fortress in Jericho (161–160 BCE). A few decades later, priest-princes and elites of an independent Jewish Kingdom (142–63 BCE) established palaces and pleasure gardens. Herod the Great, King of Judea 37–4 BCE, fortified the city walls, constructed additional palaces, and extended the aqueduct network that fed swimming pools, bath houses, underground reservoirs, rose gardens, date plantations, and balm groves.
At the time of Jesus, Jericho was a major administrative, trade, military, and pleasure centre. Depending on your perspective, it was ‘the city of palm trees’ or ‘of princes, paupers, and prostitutes.’ To appreciate the animosity ruling tribute collectors incurred and the hopes the parable of Luke 19:12–27 evoked, we need to look beyond Jericho and examine the fraught realities of its world.
Depending on your perspective, Jericho was ‘the city of palm trees’ or ‘of princes, paupers, and prostitutes.’
An unequal world
First century Palestine was highly unequal. The vast majority of the population—peasants, artisans, daily labourers, and fisher-folk—lived at subsistence or sub-subsistence levels. Unable to accumulate food or other reserves, heavy taxation, and other obligations meant that injury, crop failure, or unemployment led to debt and, via debt, to prostitution, banditry, beggary, imprisonment, bonded labour, slavery, or starvation. At the other end of the economic scale, a small governing class (1–2%) controlled most land, human labour, and other resources through slaves and a retainer class (5–7%) of priests, scribes, administrators, and soldiers.
Extreme disparities of wealth, power, and privilege enabled and were exacerbated by other interrelated dimensions on which that world depended. We review each in turn.
Imperial rule
Rome ruled subjugated regions indirectly through local client kings, aristocracies, and religious leaders. During Jesus’ ministry, Roman procurators ruled Judea through the ruling priesthood and temple establishment, while Herodian tetrarchs ruled Galilee, Idumaea, and Peraea. Political, religious, and economic dimensions of Roman rule were thoroughly intertwined: Roman procurators appointed ruling priests; the religious establishment facilitated Roman rule.
Taxation as tribute
Roman and Herodian taxation was nothing like taxation in participatory democracies. Tribute and taxes took all that could be taken from ordinary people to support and protect elite property and lifestyles, recruit, retain and maintain armies, and construct infrastructure that served elite interests. Direct imperial land and head taxes were collected with cooperation from local sanhedria, leading families, and ruling priests. Indirect taxes were managed by contractors who paid the administration in advance, and then used collectors and slaves to extract as much as possible from local populations. Tribute collection was, and was expected to be, a profitable enterprise. It was no accident that Zacchaeus was rich.
Slavery
Large numbers of free-born Jews were enslaved during and following Pompey’s and Cassius’s campaigns (63 and 53–48 BCE) and uprisings associated with Herod the Great’s death (4 BCE) and Quirinius’ census (6 CE). Some captives remained in Palestine; most were sold to Rome and other imperial centres. An estimated 7 to 25 % of the population were enslaved. Elite households retained large numbers of slaves; some peasant households owned one or two. One way or another, most people used the products of slave labour, were subject to impositions mediated by slaves, and accessed services provided by slaves. As for the enslaved, those sent to mines or brothels rarely survived long. At the other end of the spectrum, slaves who administered elite affairs lived comfortably provided they served the system that enslaved them. It is highly likely that Zacchaeus owned slaves and that slaves were among those who ‘supposed that the kingdom of God was about to appear immediately’ (19:11). The power delegated to the slaves in Jesus’ parable does not erase their vulnerability: slaves who turn profits and exercise authority over cities are still slaves.
Land and debt relations
Land, its ownership and control, were burning issues for much of the population. For Jewish small-holders, land was about much more than physical and financial survival. Land was identity and community, hope and purpose, covenant—the gift and promise of God. Unable to pay taxes or, having paid taxes, unable to survive, many peasant smallholders became indebted and eventually lost their lands when debts were foreclosed. As land changed hands, so did its use. Luxury and commercially oriented crops displaced the mixed farming and subsistence crops that sustained local populations. Daily bread became harder to find. The landless peasantry grew increasingly desperate. No wonder Jesus taught his disciples to pray: ‘Give us each day our daily bread’ (Luke 11:3).
Militarisation
Early first century Palestine was highly militarised with a fluid mix of foreign and local militaries: Roman armies, legions, and auxiliaries; Herodian armies and cavalry; Temple guards; and private militia retained by ruling priests and elites. At Passover and other high-risk seasons, extra troops reinforced small Roman garrisons at Jerusalem and Jericho. At other times, legions from Caesarea, Sebaste, Gerasa, or Syria could descend anywhere in Palestine within weeks of a disturbance. Armies also constructed roads and other infrastructure, provided protection and logistical support for local and foreign elites, enforced tribute and debt collection, and crucified runaway slaves and political dissidents, including prophets like Jesus. Soldiers were probably among the crowd travelling with Jesus and certainly patrolled Jericho and its major roads. Did guards accompany Zacchaeus on his quest to see Jesus? Luke does not say.
It is difficult to overestimate how deeply the collective trauma of mass slaughter, rape, and enslavement following the 4 BCE and 6 CE uprisings impacted local populations. Violent resistance continued on a smaller scale through subsequent decades: sicarii (armed assassins) stabbed wealthy individuals before melting into the crowd; bandits attacked trade and taxation convoys. Most Jews resisted Roman and Herodian rule more quietly by celebrating Sabbath, Passover, and Pentecost, and by refusing to adopt Roman values or conduct business the Roman way.
Daily bread became harder to find. The landless peasantry grew increasingly desperate. No wonder Jesus taught his disciples to pray: ‘Give us each day our daily bread’ (Luke 11:3).
The geographical, political, economic, and temporal dimensions of Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus are not coincidental. Jericho epitomised and embodied the consequences of imperial domination and Herodian ambition. Its royal estates, aqueducts, plantations, palaces, gardens, and slaves advertised wealth accumulation, conspicuous consumption, and the play of power—the command and domination of space. A different picture emerges if we penetrate the city’s glossy façade. Within city limits, beggary, prostitution, hunger, squalor, and coercion told another story. Beyond the city and its plantations, the countryside and villages whose water Jericho consumed spoke of desiccation and dispossession . The city that enriched a few impoverished many.
Passover celebrated Ancient Israel’s foundational story: the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, the giving of the Torah through Moses at Sinai, the 40 wilderness years, the covenant and land of promise. For faithful Jews, Passover reawakened memories and hopes of freedom though divine intervention: a new and better Moses, a Messiah who would release God’s people from the hand of all who oppress them (Luke 1:74). Passover called the rule of Caesar and his clients, like Pharaoh, into question.
Although Luke does not describe the crowd who witnessed Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus, the spatial and temporal contexts provide clues to its composition: residents of Jericho and surrounding estates: Passover pilgrims from Galilee and elsewhere, including Jesus and his disciples; people visiting or passing through Jericho for other reasons: soldiers and tax collectors, merchants, and priests. Among these groups were people who had lost everything to debt and those who had ‘taken what they did not deposit and reaped what they did not sow’ (Luke 19:21–22). There were absentee landlords and their retainers, families still clinging to ancestral plots, landless families, and slaves. For many but not all these people, Jericho was tangible evidence of how far Israel had fallen from covenant ideals. Zacchaeus, ruling tribute collector of Jericho, was part of the problem. So were the political and material ambitions of Hasmonaean, Herodian, and ruling priestly families. So were the imperial reach and conceits of a far country.
Jericho epitomised and embodied the consequences of imperial domination and Herodian ambition.
The parable told in Jericho
Jesus addressed the parable of Luke 19:12–27 to people who embodied the tensions between those who owned land and those who cultivated it, between those whose slaves turned a profit and those who bore the cost, between rulers and those they ruled. The parable presupposes a militarised politico-economic situation. A far country apportions rule within a local realm. After gaining royal power, a nobleman directs slaves to exercise authority over cities, expects bystanders to re-allocate resources at his command, and appears to command a militia capable of slaughtering his enemies. With Herodian palaces in view, the parable is a thinly veiled account of Herod Archelaus’s rise to power and the administration of his short-lived reign (4 BCE – 6 CE). When a nobleman gains ruling power, his enemies tremble. When a ruler’s slaves turn profits, his poorest subjects lose what little they have. As it is written, ‘The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender’ (Prov 22.7).
And yet, and yet. The city’s past reawakens the memory and hope of divine intervention, the Jubilee promise of land and dignity for all, the prophetic vision of a society of justice, mercy, peace, freedom, and abundance: enough for all. As Passover and the parable testify, things to do not have to be—and will not always be—the way they are. Soldiers do not always obey orders, nor slaves their owners.
What next?
Three further articles on Luke 19:1–27 will share interpretations of Luke 19:1–10 and 11–27 and ask how Luke 19:1–27 might equip us to engage the pressing challenges of our day. Two suggestions meanwhile:
- Create a character who witnessed Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus and imagine yourself into the story of Luke 18 and 19 as if from their perspective. Does reading as if through their eyes lend a different hue to events as they unfold? What does your character remember, see, hear, smell, feel, and hope?
- Step out of the story to compare the worlds behind, and in front of, the text. The New Testament world was characterised by inequality, imperial rule, tribute, slavery, conflictual land and debt relations, militarisation, and resistance. Do somewhat analogous dynamics operate today? Many of us materially benefit from the way things are. Might the parable invite us to recognise that current arrangements are not God-given—and need to change?
Deborah Storie completed her doctoral thesis, An Adventure with Zacchaeus, in 2016. She lectures in New Testament at Whitley College, is Senior Pastor at East Doncaster Baptist Church, and an Honorary Research Associate with the University of Divinity.