Matthew 20:29

a great multitude The caravan of Galilæans and others going up to Jerusalem for the Passover. Their numbers would protect them from attack in the dangerous mountain defiles leading to the capital. Jerichowas at this time a flourishing city. It was opulent even in the days of Joshua from the fertility of the surrounding plain, its extensive commerce, and from the metals found in the neighbourhood. Levelled to the ground and laid under a curse by Joshua, it was afterwards made a fortified city by Hiel the Bethelite, and regained a portion of its former prosperity. At this period the balsam trade was a principal source of its wealth.

Herod the Great beautified the city with palaces and public buildings, and here he died. After Herod's death Jericho was sacked and burnt, but restored by his son Archelaus.

"Jericho was once more a -City of Palms" when our Lord visited it. As the city that had so exceptionally contributed to His own ancestry; as the city which had been the first to fall, amidst so much ceremony, before -the captain of the Lord's host and his servant Joshua," we may well suppose that His eyes surveyed it with unwonted interest." Smith's Bib. Dict.Art. "Jericho."