Luke 19:38

‘Saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.” '

At first sight this appears to give the solution to the question of how the crowds saw it. But in fact it does not. For this quotation from the Psalms 118:26, which probably referred to the entry of the king into Jerusalem, (with ‘king' thus here able to replace ‘one') was regularly shouted out year by year in greeting to pilgrims entering Jerusalem for the Passover, in remembrance of the promise in Zechariah 9:9. Each pilgrim to the Passover was a reminder of God's great past deliverance, and of the future deliverance of which they were so confident. Each one was a reminder that one day the King would come. This was presumably why the Romans did not get excited over the matter. They saw little in it that was different from the normal greeting of pilgrims at Passover, possibly slightly increased because of the nature of the One Who was entering, whom they would know of as the Jewish prophet of Galilee. As far as they were concerned the people could shout all that they liked as long as no weapons could be seen, and no attempts were made to stir up the crowds. They knew that it was a regular part of their annual festival. (In this regard we cannot doubt that Jesus had been constantly subject to surveillance by them. No one who had gathered such huge crowds would have been ignored. And they would have sufficiently gathered that whatever He was, He was not preaching insurrection).

We may note the differences in what was cried out in the different Gospels. This merely demonstrates that they did not copy directly from each other and were not shouting the same thing. It was not orchestrated. In such a varied crowd the cries would be many and varied, given with different inflections. Different witnesses would remember the different cries that he had heard, and all would be right. The evangelists could thus pick and choose.

Note the cry of the crowds here, ‘peace in Heaven and glory in the Highest.' These were not the cries of insurrectionists. They were the cries of those who were looking to Heaven. We may compare this with the words of the angels in Luke 2:14, at the birth of the ‘Saviour Who is Christ the Lord', where they cried “glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace among men on whom His favour rests”. There it was the angels who sang of His glory. This is man's reply to God at the coming of this One sent from God. Men may now find peace with God in Heaven through His Prophet, because through His words God's favour rests on His chosen ones (compare Acts 10:36. Also contrast Luke 19:42 below). Alternately it may be an ascription of praise to the God of peace, Who brings peace to all (Romans 15:33), Who bruises Satan under men's feet (Romans 16:20, Who sanctifies men wholly and preserves them blameless to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23), and equips them with every good work to do His will that they may be well pleasing in His sight (Hebrews 13:20).