A Donkey Fit for a King
by Darrell Godinez

When Jacob returned from his sojourn in the house of Laban he sent ahead of him gifts for his brother Esau. He said to Esau, “I have oxen and donkeys…” (Gen. 32:5). It has been said that the ox stands for Joseph, whose offspring will defeat the family of Esau. In addition, the donkey stands for the Messianic King as foretold in Zechariah 9:9: “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” (NIV) (1)

Many years later Yeshua would fulfill this prophecy as he entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey. The gospel writers tell us about Yeshua and the crowd who praised him. Along with that, they want to tell us something about the donkey. The donkey was a colt on which no man had ever sat, according to Mark 11:2 and Luke 19:30. John 12:14 says a young donkey. Matthew 21:2 and 7 describe two animals, a she-donkey and her colt, saying Yeshua sat on them. (2)

Matthew was not making a mistake here. The prophecy uses a poetic device called parallelism, speaking of one animal, but mentioning it twice. (3) Assuming that Yeshua did not literally ride both animals, symbolically he did so. Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, in his Dialogue with Trypho thinks that the donkey is a symbol of the Jews yoked to the law, while the colt stands for the unharnessed Gentiles. Yeshua is coming as a king to claim his kingdom, and this kingdom includes both Jews and Gentiles. (4)

When the disciples brought the donkeys to Yeshua, they laid their outer garments on them, and Matthew says Yeshua sat on them. Presumably he sat on the garments, but it has been suggested that he sat on the colt with the two animals together giving the impression of a wide throne. (5) Anyway, since the colt had never been ridden it could make sense to bring the mother along to help control it in the noisy crowd. (6)
Matthew says Yeshua and the disciples had come to Bethphage, (21:1) which is separated from the main part of Jerusalem by the Kidron Valley. King David had gone out this way when he fled from Absalom’s rebellion (II Sam. 15:30), and he presumably rode a donkey as he went away (II Sam. 16:1-2). When Yeshua took this route to Jerusalem riding a donkey it could have been a reminder that King David did return peacefully, yet triumphantly, and Yeshua was coming as a king with the same attitude.(7)

Yeshua’s status and authority among his followers helps explain how the disciples were able to go and take a donkey. Royalty, and also rabbis, claimed that right of angareia (requisitioning) which allowed them to take the first suitable animal they
found.(8) Another suggestion is that the whole thing was pre-arranged. Yeshua had planned for the donkey to be released when the disciples asked, just as he had pre-arranged the room for the seder (Mark 14:12-16). (9)

One has to wonder how far Yeshua’s status and authority went. He told his disciples to say, “The Lord has need of him” (Mark 11:3 and Matt. 21:3). “The Lord” could mean God, so the disciples could be saying they need the donkey for divine service. Also, the lord could mean the owner of the donkey, whether that be Yeshua or someone else. (10) In context, Yeshua must actually be claiming a divine name for himself.

Now, why speculate about these things? Tradition would say none of this matters. Yeshua himself rode a colt that had not been ridden before. Tradition says that Messiah will come riding a donkey with an illustrious history of riders. That would be the same donkey that Moses rode into Egypt to free Israel from slavery. In fact, that would also be the same donkey that Abraham rode to Mount Moriah to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. (11) Messiah’s donkey, according to one teaching, would be the offspring of that donkey that was created during the twilight just before the first Sabbath. (12)

On the other hand, all of that is cancelled by another teaching which says
that Abraham’s poor donkey passed away before Messiah could ride upon it. Samson found its remains, miraculously preserved, and used the jawbone of Abraham’s donkey to win his first victory over the Philistines.(13)

So the story comes back to Yeshua riding the donkey and being hailed as the King of Israel who comes in the name of the Lord (John 12:13). Oddly, John tells us that Yeshua himself found a young donkey (12:14), seemingly in reaction to the praise of the crowd. (14) There is no reason to doubt the other three gospels, so John seems to be making a point by telling the story this way.

John is the only gospel that tells of the people waving palm branches. Palms or palm branches were used as a national symbol since the time of the Maccabees. Later, palms were pictured on the coins circulated during the first and second revolts against Rome (CE 66-70 and 132-135). The people might have been showing their hope for national liberation by waving palm branches. (15)

In response to this John 12:15 does not quote “rejoice greatly.” John quotes Zephaniah 3:16: “Fear not.” The Zephaniah passage proclaims a change in the way things have been. “The king of Israel, even the lord, is in the midst of thee” (3:15 KJV). People from all over the earth will come to Jerusalem to seek refuge (3:9-10), and God will save Israel from all her enemies (3:15-17). (16)

John lets us know that Yeshua was coming into their midst with kingly authority and divine authority, coming to change the world. That might be the point John is making when he says that Yeshua found a donkey for himself. This act is in keeping with a teaching by Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai, that love disrupts the natural order of things.

Love disrupts the natural order of things we learn from the case of Abraham:
‘…he saddled his ass.’ But did he not have any number of servants? Why then
did a slave not saddle his ass for him? Out of his dedication to his son, Abraham
performed that menial task. (17)

Rabbi Simeon teaches that such world-changing love overcomes the hatred of the world:

May it be that one act of saddling will overcome the other. The rabbi continues:

In keeping with the old teaching, the donkey does represent the King Messiah, pointing us to Yeshua, who is a king and more. He is the answer to human hopes and the fulfillment of prophecy, even as he comes in peace and humility. He is the presence of God in our midst, humble and riding on a donkey, but with power to change the world.

________

(1) John T. Townsend, trans., Midrash Tanhuma, Vol. I, Genesis, (Hoboken, Ktav Publishing House, 1989), 206.
(2) Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John, I, (i-xii), Anchor Bible, vol. 29, (New York: Doubleday, 1966), 458.
(3) H. Benedict Green, The Gospel According to Matthew in the Revised Standard Version, The New Clarendon Bible, (Oxford: University Press, 1975), 176.
(4) Ibid., 176.
(5) Robert H. Mounce, Matthew, New International Biblical Commentary, (Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), 195.
(6) R. T. France, The Gospel According to Matthew, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, vol. 1, (Leicester, Eng: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), 298-99.
(7) Ibid., 297.
(8) Ibid., 297.
(9) Ibid., 297.
(10) Ibid., 297-98.
(11) Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol. 2., trans., Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 327.
(12) Gerald Friedlander, trans., Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc, 1971), 224. This work agrees that the donkey was ridden by Abraham and Moses.
(13) Ginzberg, vol. 4, 48.
(14) Brown, 459.
(15) F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 259.
(16) Brown, 462.
(17) Jacob Neusner, Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary to the Book of Genesis, A New American Translation, vol. II (Atlanta: Brown University, 1985), 274. On Genesis 22:1-3.
(18) Ibid., 274.
(19) Ibid., 274.