And it came to pass as they departed from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias not knowing what he said.
Peter speaks just as the vision is fading, and Luke records that he did not know what he was saying. His words raise two questions: what was wrong with wanting to keep the glory, and why three shelters could not stand side by side.
Peter spoke as Moses and Elijah were leaving. His plan for shelters was an effort to keep them there.
Even when they are awake, they are dazed and confused. As the two men are leaving, Peter makes an effort to keep them by proposing to build shelters for them, and for the Lord too. But then the cloud comes and overshadows them. Moses and Elijah disappear into the cloud. Out of it the Father's voice proclaims His Son once more, as it did at the baptism in the Jordan. Let them hear Him. And Jesus is found alone.
The title Peter uses means someone in charge. Luke gives Jesus that title again and again.
epistates, 'superintendent, overseer.' Luke 5:5; Luke 8:24, 45; Luke 9:33, 49; Luke 17:13.
The problem was not that Peter was eager. It was the number three: the same shelter for the lawgiver and the prophet as for his Lord. (Older translations say "tabernacles" where the ESV says "tents.")
Indeed, he did not know. It was sheer forgetfulness of the personal dignity of Jesus. "Let us make three tabernacles," one for his Master and the other two for His servants, Moses and Elijah. Would he then put his Master, the Lord of all, on the same level as the head of the law and the chief of the prophets? Peter thought this would be great honour for Him! He was completely astray. The root of all wrong is a lowered view of Jesus. The power for all that is good is faith in His glory.
Peter asked for three shelters. The Father's answer named one Son, and left one Person on the mountain.
As Peter spoke, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and the glorified men vanished at once. "And there came a voice out of the cloud saying, This is my beloved Son: Hear Him." It is not said, "Hear them," but "Hear Him." "And when the voice was passed, Jesus was found alone." Christ, in His wonderful grace, reveals Moses and Elijah as His companions and associates in the glory. But the moment Peter, in his foolishness, voices the thought that would put them on an equality with Christ, they must both vanish from the scene.
Booths belong to the Feast of Tabernacles, a feast of the coming kingdom. Peter wanted that day on the spot.
It is not strange that Peter, in the middle of such a scene, said, "It is good that we are here." He wanted to put up three shelters on this holy place. But the time of the Kingdom had not yet come. In the day of the Kingdom we shall see that they will keep the Feast of Tabernacles and dwell in booths (Zech. 14:16), but that time was still far off then, and the King must first go to the cross. And in that day, as in this day, the Lord Jesus must always have the pre-eminence.
Peter's plan set a second voice next to Christ's. One writer sees the same mistake wherever law is placed beside grace.
On the mount Peter did not know what he said (Luke 9:33). It was ignorance, trying to make a present thing out of a future scene... In his ignorance he brought in another authority alongside Christ. It was like many Christians who mix law and grace — grace being what saves us, and the law our rule of life. Peter's earthly thoughts were an offence to Christ, and He rebuked him severely. But on the mount God in grace meets his ignorance — what condescension! — and sets Christ before him as the only One he should listen to.
Peter spoke out of confusion, not conviction.
This only shows how dangerous it is for a believer to speak unless he has the settled sense that he has the Lord's mind in what he says.
- Dazed — Peter woke into the glory still confused, and wanted to keep it instead of following the King to the cross.
- Levelled — his plan gave the Lord one shelter among three, and a low view of Jesus is the root of all wrong.
- Vanished — the moment Peter made them Christ's equals, Moses and Elijah disappeared, and the Father said "Hear Him," not "hear them."
- Early — booths belong to a feast that pictures the coming reign; that day is real, but the King must go to the cross first.
- Alone — the scene ends with Jesus by Himself, the answer to every rival authority set beside Him.
But as he was saying these things, there came a cloud and overshadowed them, and they feared as they entered into the cloud
Peter has just suggested three shelters on the mountain. Before he can finish, a cloud comes down and covers the scene. Two questions sit at the heart of the verse: what was this cloud, and who went into it?
The cloud comes down while Peter is still speaking. What Peter had just got wrong was the place of his Master.
"Let us make three tabernacles," one for his Master and the other two for His servants, Moses and Elijah. Would he then put his Master, the Lord of all, on the same level with the head of the law and the chief of the prophets? Peter thought this would be a great honour for Him! He was completely mistaken. The root of all wrong is a low view of Jesus. The power for all that is good is faith in His glory.
This was no ordinary weather. Israel had known this cloud for centuries, and no one had ever gone inside it.
That cloud was without doubt the Shekinah, the sign of God's presence. Their entering into it was entirely new. Nothing like it had ever happened before. The cloud had travelled with Israel. It rested on the tabernacle and was their constant companion. But they had never entered into it. In earlier days, the cloud that went before them moved and stood between them and the chariots of the Egyptians. It protected them. But they had never yet entered into it.
Who is "they" in "as they entered the cloud"? Writers answer this differently. Some say Moses and Elijah went in, with the three disciples watching from outside:
There is little doubt that the fear of the disciples relates to Moses and Elijah entering the cloud. The grammar makes it plain, and we judge that nothing in the sense goes against this reading. Only Luke records it, for here he unfolds what corresponds to the Father's house.
Another writer takes the opposite view. He finds here a picture of the place the Church is given:
I am quite inclined to think that "they" in "as they entered into the cloud" refers to the disciples. It is the emphatic use of it. The cloud was the excellent glory, and they were afraid when they entered into it. It points to the place of the Church… How wonderful that they should go in! God might be there, yes, and Jesus; but that they should be there was unexpected. It went beyond all their thoughts… Much depends on the force of the word "overshadowed." Exodus 40:34, I think, shows that the cloud came down and surrounded them.
One writer reads it a third way: the Lord went into the cloud with Moses and Elijah. He traces the disciples' dread to something they did not yet know about their Master.
Here we learn the secret of the disciples' fears in the presence of this excellent glory. They feared as the Lord, Moses, and Elijah entered into the cloud. Nothing will strengthen us to stand assured in the presence of the glory but the knowledge of the humiliation of Christ; and this Peter and those with him did not yet know. His humiliation is the only ground of fellowship with even the excellent glory, and it is a sure and most blessed ground. It assures us of this: everything in us that this glory would otherwise judge and consume, God has already judged and put away in Him who bore all our shame. And the disciples received that assurance on this very occasion. For Jesus came to them, amazed and confused as they were, and with a voice and touch of the Son of Man restored them.
The cloud that once kept people out now becomes a home. One writer explains why the disciples inside it had nothing to fear.
A few days earlier Peter had earned the Lord's displeasure. Now grace brings him and his companions where man had never entered before. A cloud overshadowed the disciples, and they entered into it with Jesus. For a Jew this was a terrible thing. How could they do anything but fear to go into the cloud that was the sign of Jehovah's presence?… But the disciples could take heart. The cloud was no longer for them the dwelling of Israel's Jehovah, but the Father's house. Christ was there with them in the cloud, and through Him they came to know the name of the One who lived there.
- Cause — Peter put his Master on the same level as the servants. The cloud came down while he was still speaking. A low view of Jesus is the root of all wrong.
- Cloud — the same sign of God's presence that travelled with Israel, rested on the tabernacle, and stood between them and Egypt's chariots. What is new here is that people go inside it.
- Question — commentators differ on who entered. Some say Moses and Elijah went in, with the disciples watching. Others say the disciples went in too.
- Fear — only knowing Christ's humiliation steadies us in the presence of glory. He came to the frightened men Himself and restored them by voice and touch.
- Home — only Luke records the entering. Writers see the Father's house here: the cloud that once kept people out becomes the place where Christ makes the Father known.
and there was a voice out of the cloud saying, *This* is my beloved Son hear him.
Peter has just suggested putting up three shelters on the mountain — one for Jesus, one for Moses, one for Elijah. Then the Father speaks from the cloud. His words settle who the Son is and what the disciples must now do.
Peter's words put Moses and Elijah alongside the Lord as equals. The answer from the cloud is not an argument. It removes the two men from the scene.
The voice does not say, "Hear them," but "Hear Him." "And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone." Christ, in His wonderful grace, may reveal Moses and Elijah as His companions in the glory. But the moment Peter, in his foolishness, says the thing that would put them on the same level as Christ, they must both vanish from the scene.
Moses stands for the law, Elijah for the prophets. Their disappearance marks the close of the system they represented.
Moses and Elijah were taken away, and Jesus is left alone. Law was gone, prophecy gone, and He was going to be crucified... Peter would have had all three set up together and treated alike: "let us make three tents." But at that moment Moses and Elijah disappear. Then the voice says, "This is my beloved Son, hear him." Now it is the righteousness of God, without law, in Jesus. Law did not send Christ. What law could have made God do it? Nothing but divine love could have started such a thought.
For anyone still hoping that law-keeping or self-reform will help:
Moses is gone, for the law could not save you. Elijah's day is gone by, for reformation could not meet your case. We are in the day of the Son of God, the day of the revelation of the Saviour, and the Father's voice says, "Hear him."
Matthew records the Father adding that He is well pleased in His Son. Luke does not, and the omission is deliberate.
In the Gospel of Luke, the testimony that Christ is God's Son comes with the call to hear Him rather than Moses or Elijah. "This is my beloved Son," He says, "hear him," leaving out the expression of the Father's delight in Him. He was certainly always the object of the Father's delight. But there is not always the same reason to state it.
Older translations of Luke read "my beloved Son." Newer ones, including the ESV, read "my Son, my Chosen One." The two are closer than they look.
In Luke 9:35 the reading accepted by scholars is "chosen." In Semitic languages that word means much the same as agapetos, beloved. In the Greek of that time it was a synonym of monogenes — only-begotten [the only Son].
The Father could have called for worship. He asked for something else.
He does not say, This is the Son: adore Him, worship Him. That would be perfectly right, but He does not say that here. He is worthy of all this, beyond all human thought or power of speech. Yet none of it would say what the words "This is My beloved Son" set out so tenderly. How God delights to reveal the depths of His heart about Christ. "My beloved Son" gives us to see the Father's heart about that Son.
The disciples were inside the cloud when the voice spoke.
Peter and the others had entered into the cloud. So we get this wonderful fact: saints have the privilege of standing in the glory that the voice comes from. There, in that glory, they share the Father's delight in His beloved Son. We are not only called to the fellowship of God's Son, Jesus Christ; we are called to have fellowship with the Father.
The command is not about sound reaching the ear.
Listen again, the Father says, "Hear him." It is life to hear the voice of Jesus. To you He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live" (John 5:25). And if you hear His voice it will be life to your dead soul... Peter says: "Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.' And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people" (Acts 3:22-23). Jesus was that Prophet. Have you heard Him?
- Occasion — Peter wants three shelters. The Father answers by taking two of the three away.
- Displacement — Moses stands for the law, Elijah for the prophets. Both vanish. What is left is the righteousness of God apart from law.
- Delight — "My beloved Son" opens the Father's heart to us. The newer reading, "chosen," carries the same weight — close to "only-begotten."
- Direction — He does not say adore Him, though He is worthy of it. He says hear Him. Luke leaves that one command standing alone.
- Destination — the disciples heard the voice from inside the cloud. God brings believers there too — not only into fellowship with the Son, but into the Father's own delight in Him.