MARK 9:5 (MATTHEW 17:4; LUKE 9:33)

Q: Why did Peter say he wanted to build three tents?

The first thing to note is that both Mark and Luke agree that Peter was talking off the top of his head and really hadn't thought out his words. William Hendricksen (Matthew) says, “The trouble with Peter was that too often he spoke first and did his thinking afterward, if at all.”

The question remains: Why tents? Here commentators are not quite in agreement with their answers. Much of the disagreement centers around the proper biblical context for Peter's remarks: Is it the later Garden of Gethsemene episode, Peter's argument with Christ over the necessity of His suffering and death, or the Old Testament Feast of Tabernacles? Perhaps all are in mind in the present story.

The language in the Transfiguration story does have echoes later on in the Garden. In each case, Jesus is alone with Peter, James and John; they get sleepy; Jesus has a conversation regarding His coming suffering and death (Luke 9:31-33); and the apostles don't know what to say (Mark 14:40). With this context in mind, as well as Peter's earlier refusal to admit that Jesus might have to suffer, a number of commentators agree with Geldenhuys (The Gospel of Luke) that “indirectly, his proposal is again an attempt to influence the Saviour not to choose the way of suffering, but to continue to live in divine glory.”

However, another context that has a bearing on this story is the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths or Tents). At that celebration every year the Jews would construct temporary lean-tos or shelters and live in them for several days as a remembrance of their time in the desert during the Exodus. By Jesus' time, this feast was also viewed as a looking forward to the future Messianic Age when all the nations would come to Jerusalem to worship and God would live in their midst (as prophecied in Zechariah 14:16-21).

So if the “tent suggestion” is viewed as a memorial of sorts, then Jacques Ellul (The Subversion of Christianity, p. 149) is on track when he says, “An attempt is made to seize a momentary thing in such a way as to explain it and freeze it...It leads to the attempt to change what is living explicitly and implicitly into something fixed.” Peter wants to make the experience more lasting when it should have been seen as only a step toward a later goal. Hendricksen notes that we often desire to prolong the good times and stay removed from suffering.

The possible allusion to the Feast of Tabernacles has another implication if we look at its future aspects. Taking that context in mind, a number of commentators are in agreement in seeing a related motive in mind. Since that feast looked forward to the Messianic Age when God would dwell in the midst of the people, Peter may have mistakenly thought that the time had now arrived. This was a case of wish fulfillment on his part since it then would mean there was no reason for the Son of God to suffer and die. He didn't realize that it was only an intermediate step (Lane, The Gospel of Mark). Anderson (The Gospel of Mark) puts it this way: “Peter wants prematurely to settle down and enjoy the blessings of the new age...and to secure the glory and victory before they have been won.”

But then there is the real possibility that Peter did not have any of these rather spiritual motives in mind at all. At least four commentaries I consulted felt that Peter just wanted these two visitors to stay a little longer so he could be around them. And he thought that he could perhaps convince them if he and the two other disciples built them shelters for the night. Related to that suggestion is the interpretation that several scholars have for Peter's statement: “It is good that we are here!”

I had always taken those words to be an expression of Peter's joy at the blessing he had received from the vision of the Transfiguration. However, several commentators take it to mean, “Isn't it fortunate that we three apostles happen to be here so that we can construct the tents and help everyone out.” If this is the meaning, then it is a further example of Peter's complete incomprehension of spiritual matters.

And as a final example of how far off-base Peter was with his comments, it has often been pointed out that by wanting to construct three tents, he was in effect placing Jesus on an equal par with Moses (the law) and Elijah (the prophets). He is soon put in his place by (a) the disappearance of those two, leaving only Jesus behind (recognition that Jesus is the culmination and fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets) and (b) God the Father's words to them at the end of the story (“ Listen to him.”).