Bible Character Explorer
Ministry of Jesus • 1st century AD
Zacchaeus
The Tax Collector Who Climbed a TreeThe wealthy, despised tax collector whose encounter with Jesus produced immediate, radical repentance
"And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham."
Luke 19:9 (KJV)
Overview
Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector in Jericho, wealthy and widely despised for collaborating with Rome and likely extorting his own countrymen. Being too short to see over the crowd, he climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus passing by, and Jesus stopped, called him by name, and invited himself to Zacchaeus's house, an act that scandalized the watching crowd but resulted in Zacchaeus's immediate, concrete repentance and Jesus's declaration that salvation had come to his house.
Gospel Connection
Zacchaeus's story is one of the clearest pictures in the Gospels of Luke 19:10's summary of Jesus's entire mission: 'the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.' Jesus sought out a man everyone else had written off, initiated relationship before any request was made, and the result was genuine, fruit-bearing repentance. This encounter demonstrates that salvation is never earned by prior moral standing but is a gift that, once received, inevitably transforms how a person lives, exactly as Zacchaeus's radical generosity immediately displayed.
Discover More
See how this life points to Christ in the Gospel Connection section above.