After this, Yeshua appeared in another form to two of his followers, as they were walking into the country. That same day the two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all that had happened. While they were talking and discussing matters, Yeshua himself approached and began to walk with them. But their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. He asked them, “What is it that you are talking about as you walk along?” They stopped, looking downcast. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who has not heard of the things that have just happened there?” “What things?” Yeshua asked. And they said, “The things concerning Yeshua of Nazareth. He was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. Our chief priests and leaders delivered him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him, but we had been hoping that he was the one who would redeem Israel. What is more, this is the third day since these things happened. And now some women of our company have amazed us. They were at the tomb early this morning, but they did not find his body. They came back saying that they had instead seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of our companions went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see.” Then Yeshua said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things before entering into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures about himself. So they drew near to the village where they were going. Yeshua seemed to be planning to continue further, but they prevailed on him not to, saying, “Stay with us, for it is almost evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at dinner with them, he took the bread, and blessed and broke it, and began to give it to them. At that moment their eyes were opened and they recognized him; and then he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked on the road, while he explained the scriptures to us?” Within the hour they arose and started back to Jerusalem. - Mark 16 : 12 – 13 ; Luke 24 : 13 – 35
The key to Luke 24 is that Jesus does not seem to be pointing to one isolated prophecy saying, “The Messiah will be crucified and rise on the third day.” Rather, he is showing the disciples that the whole scriptural pattern of the Messiah was already there: rejection → suffering → apparent defeat → vindication → exaltation.
That is why Luke says:
“Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures about himself.”
And later that same evening Jesus makes the structure even clearer in Luke 24:44–46: the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms all testify to him, and their combined witness shows that “the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.”
So I think we can reconstruct, with reasonable confidence, the major scriptures he may have walked them through.
The central text was almost certainly Isaiah 52–53
glory → rejection → suffering → death → vindication → exaltation. No
The Servant is initially announced as one who will ultimately be exalted:
Isaiah 52:13
My servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.
But immediately afterward he becomes disfigured, despised and rejected.
Isaiah 53 then describes him as:
- despised and rejected
- a man of sorrows
- bearing the griefs of others
- wounded for transgressions
- silent before his accusers
- compared to a lamb led to slaughter
- “cut off from the land of the living”
- placed in a grave
- innocent of violence or deceit
And yet death is not the end. After he has “made his soul an offering,” Isaiah says that:
- he will “see” his offspring,
- “prolong his days,”
- see the fruit of his suffering,
- justify many,
- and receive a portion “with the great.”
“Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
Psalm 22: the righteous sufferer who passes through death into vindication
Psalm 22 would have been almost impossible to overlook after the crucifixion.
It begins:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The sufferer is mocked by those surrounding him. They ridicule his trust in God. His strength disappears. His hands and feet are endangered/wounded depending upon the textual tradition. His garments are divided and lots are cast for his clothing.
But again, the Psalm does not end in defeat. The suffering righteous one is delivered, and his deliverance ultimately leads to worship among the nations:
“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD.”
So again: suffering → apparent abandonment → deliverance → universal glory.
Jesus' quotation of the opening line from the cross may therefore have invoked not merely the despair of Psalm 22:1, but the whole Psalm and its ending.
Psalm 16: perhaps the clearest resurrection text
This became one of the earliest Christian proofs of resurrection.
Psalm 16:10:
“You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor let your holy one see corruption.”
Peter explicitly interprets this as referring to Jesus in Acts 2:25–32, and Paul does the same in Acts 13:35–37.
The argument was straightforward: David died and his body decayed. Therefore, the ultimate fulfillment of David's words must concern the Messiah:
God's Holy One enters death but is not abandoned to death or corruption.
Psalm 118: rejected stone → exalted cornerstone
Another particularly important Messianic text:
Psalm 118:22–23
“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”
Jesus himself had already explicitly applied this scripture to himself shortly before the Passion (Luke 20:17).
This contains the pattern almost perfectly: rejection → divine reversal → exaltation.
Human beings reject him; God chooses and establishes him.
And the same Psalm contains:
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD.”
which the crowds had applied to Jesus at his entry into Jerusalem.
Zechariah: the pierced one and the struck shepherd
Several texts in Zechariah seem to stand behind the Passion narratives.
Zechariah 12:10
Israel looks upon one who has been “pierced” and mourns for him. John explicitly connects this with Jesus' crucifixion in John 19:37.
Then there is Zechariah 13:7:
“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”
Jesus himself quotes this before his arrest: Matthew 26:31 / Mark 14:27.
So Jesus had already told the disciples before the crucifixion: You are about to see Zechariah happening. The Shepherd will be struck and you will scatter.
Daniel: suffering followed by the glory of the Son of Man
Daniel may explain especially well Jesus' language of “entering into his glory.”
In Daniel 7, the saints are oppressed by monstrous earthly kingdoms. Then: “one like a son of man” comes before the Ancient of Days and receives:
- dominion,
- glory,
- kingship,
- and an everlasting kingdom.
Jesus repeatedly identifies himself with this Son of Man. And at his trial, precisely when he appears powerless and condemned, he tells his judges that they will see the Son of Man seated at God's right hand and coming with the clouds.
That is the paradox Jesus is teaching on the Emmaus road: You thought my crucifixion disproved that I was the Messiah. In fact, you stopped reading the story halfway through.
The suffering precedes the enthronement.
Moses: the pattern begins even before the Prophets
Luke deliberately says: “Beginning with Moses…”
That means Jesus probably did considerably more than quote Isaiah. He seems to have interpreted the Torah itself Christologically.
Some obvious possibilities would include:
The Binding of Isaac — Genesis 22 A beloved son is offered in sacrifice. Isaac carries the wood upon which he is to be sacrificed up the mountain. Yet the son is ultimately received back from death, figuratively. Hebrews 11:19 explicitly describes Abraham as receiving Isaac back from death “in a figure.” That makes Isaac an extraordinary foreshadowing: beloved son → sacrificial ascent → death threatened → son restored.
Joseph Joseph is perhaps an even more complete narrative prototype.
The chosen son:
- is hated by his brothers,
- rejected,
- stripped,
- cast down,
- sold,
- falsely accused,
- apparently lost,
- and then exalted to the right hand of the ruler.
And after his exaltation he becomes the savior of those very brothers who rejected him. Joseph can therefore be read almost as an Old Testament dramatic enactment of: rejected son → descent → exaltation → forgiveness → salvation.
Passover
Then comes Exodus. Israel is delivered from death through the blood of the Passover lamb. The lamb is killed; its blood becomes the means through which death is overcome and a people are liberated from slavery.
This is foundational to the early Christian understanding of Jesus:
“Christ our Passover has been sacrificed.” —1 Corinthians 5:7
And John's chronology and imagery deliberately associate Jesus with the Passover lamb.
The sacrificial system
Jesus could then have moved through Leviticus:
- sacrifice,
- blood,
- purification,
- atonement,
- sin-bearing,
- the scapegoat,
- the high priest,
- the Day of Atonement.
Not because every detail is simply a coded prediction of crucifixion, but because the entire symbolic world establishes the pattern:
innocence bearing what belongs to the guilty → reconciliation → purification → restored communion with God.
Isaiah 53 then takes precisely this sacrificial vocabulary and applies it to the suffering Servant.
The bronze serpent
This one is particularly important because Jesus himself interprets it as a prophecy of his death.
Numbers 21 tells of the bronze serpent being lifted up so that those who look upon it are healed.
Jesus says in John 3:14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
Jonah and the third day
Now we arrive at the more difficult question: Where does the Old Testament say that the Messiah would rise “on the third day”?
There is no single straightforward prophecy saying:
“The Messiah will die and literally rise three days later.”
Instead, there appears to be a third-day scriptural pattern.
Jesus himself explicitly invokes Jonah:
“As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be…”
Jonah descends into what he poetically describes as practically Sheol, the realm of death, and then emerges alive.
Jonah 2 actually sounds remarkably like resurrection language:
“Out of the belly of Sheol I cried…”
and:
“You brought up my life from the pit.”
So Jonah becomes: descent into death → three days → restoration to life.
Hosea 6:2
This is probably another important source for the third day:
“After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.”
Originally this concerns Israel rather than explicitly predicting an individual Messiah. But that may actually deepen the Christological reading. Jesus represents Israel in himself. Israel dies and rises in the Messiah.
Israel's promised third-day restoration becomes concentrated in Christ.
Many scholars have therefore suspected Hosea 6:2 behind Paul's very early formulation:
“He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” —1 Corinthians 15:4
Notice that Paul says Scriptures, not necessarily “a scripture.”
And there is an even deeper “third day” pattern
The third day repeatedly becomes the moment of divine manifestation, deliverance, or new life in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Most strikingly:
Genesis 22:4 — Abraham sees the place where Isaac will be sacrificed on the third day.
Exodus 19:11,16 — God descends upon Sinai on the third day.
Hosea 6:2 — God raises his people on the third day.
Jonah — emerges after three days.
There is therefore a recurring biblical rhythm: descent / waiting / apparent death → third day → divine intervention and new life.
So what might Jesus actually have said on the road?
Jesus could have told them: You expected the Messiah to enter glory without first passing through suffering. But you have misunderstood the Scriptures. Look at Isaac, the beloved son ascending the mountain toward sacrifice. Look at Joseph, the chosen son rejected by his brothers and afterwards exalted so that he might save them. Look at the Passover lamb. Look at the sacrifices and the sin-bearing servant. Look at the serpent Moses lifted up. Look at Jonah descending into the depths and being restored on the third day. Look at David's righteous sufferer in Psalm 22. Look at the Holy One whom God does not abandon to corruption in Psalm 16. Look at the rejected stone of Psalm 118 becoming the cornerstone. Look at Isaiah's Servant—despised, wounded, led like a lamb to slaughter, cut off from the living, laid in a grave—and then exalted and seeing life beyond his suffering. Look at Zechariah's shepherd who is struck and his pierced one over whom Israel mourns. Look at Daniel's Son of Man, who receives glory, dominion and an everlasting kingdom after the oppression of the saints.
The disciples' mistake was not merely that they failed to believe Jesus could rise from death. Their deeper mistake was that they possessed the wrong Messianic narrative.
They expected: Messiah → victory → kingdom.
Jesus shows them that Scripture actually reveals: Messiah → rejection → suffering → death → resurrection → glory → kingdom.
And perhaps that is why Luke says their hearts began to burn within them while he opened the Scriptures. Jesus was was showing them that the entire story of Israel had predicted all of this all along.