Jesus dared to ride a donkey into Jerusalem.
We might be so familiar with Palm Sunday that we overlook what an audacious move this was. Don’t let the palm branches distract you. The point of the greenery is the man lifted up on the back of the beast. Along with clearing the temple with a whip, this was one of the most provocative steps Jesus took on the road to Calvary.
All four Gospels make clear that riding the donkey was Jesus’s own idea (Matthew 21:1–2; Mark 11:1–2; Luke 19:29–30; John 12:14). But the question is, Why did he do it? What did he mean by it?
Both Matthew and John quote Zechariah 9:9:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Now, our temptation might be to quickly check this messianic prophecy and then flip back to the Gospels. But let’s not miss the ancient context into which Zechariah spoke this prescient word. The prophet does not pull a donkey out of thin air. This is not the first dignitary on a colt in the Old Testament.
Regal Judah
First comes Jacob’s strange and wonderful blessing for his son Judah in Genesis 49. The patriarch foresees that Judah’s tribe will have the kingship in Israel. His brothers will praise him and bow to him (Genesis 49:8). Judah is “a lion’s cub” (49:9) on the rise. The scepter, the king’s ruling staff, “shall not depart from Judah,” and even beyond Jacob’s family “shall be the obedience of the peoples” (49:10). Then comes the strange mention of a donkey’s colt:
Binding his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine,
he has washed his garments in wine
and his vesture in the blood of grapes. (49:11)
Enigmatic as this reads to us, this is “deliberately the language of excess,” says commentator Derek Kidner. Hungry beasts hitched to precious grapevines, free to feed as desired, with wine in such plenty as to be used like water — these images suggest “exuberant, intoxicating abundance” (230).
Beginning here, both wine and the donkey’s colt become symbolic of the lavish blessings to come through Judah’s line.
Royal David
We then find threads in the time of the judges, leading into the life of David. Donkey ownership (and riding) is a mark of privilege and dignity. The rich ride on donkeys (Judges 5:10), and celebrated leaders give donkeys, as well as cities, to their sons (Judges 10:4; 12:14).
Next comes Judah’s great descendant, King David, who had a mule on which he rode, as did his sons (2 Samuel 13:29; 18:9). Late in his life, in the midst of national turmoil, a zealous supporter brings two donkeys “for the king’s household to ride on” (2 Samuel 16:2), an act of allegiance and royal hope. And when David appoints his son Solomon to be king, he has him ride to the anointing on the king’s own mule (1 Kings 1:33).
Zechariah’s prophecy stands in the middle, five centuries after David and five centuries before Jesus — bridging the gap between these great lions of Judah. Riding the donkey’s colt is plainly regal. Rightly do the Palm Sunday crowds hail Jesus as Son of David (Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:10) and King of Israel (Luke 19:38; John 12:13). This much they understand.
Then comes the twist.
Anointed and Afflicted
Not only does this king ride into town in honor, as the royal son, but Zechariah calls him humble.
Readers today might mistake “humble” as being synonymous with “mounted on a donkey.” Jesus demonstrates humility, we think, by riding a donkey instead of a more noble steed. But that is an uninformed judgment.
As we’ve seen, in the history of Israel, donkey rides were not humbling but exalting. In Zechariah’s day, and Jesus’s, a donkey’s back was a position of privilege, a mobile throne for kings. So, “humble” is Zechariah’s surprising addition to this coming king mounted in regal glory.
This coming king, while “righteous,” was in some way “humbled” or “afflicted.” The Hebrew word (ʿānî) is typically translated “poor” or “afflicted” (including elsewhere in Zechariah). It refers less to the virtue of humility and more to situational humbling, a lowliness brought about by circumstance. This afflicted king, then, is one who will be brought low, like King David himself had so often been, and yet he will be delivered from his affliction and raised up to ride into the holy city in regal glory.
The note of affliction plays gently in Zechariah but reprises a great symphony — the stunning vision of Isaiah 53, where a righteous servant is afflicted and pierced (53:4–5), and even pours out his soul to death (53:12), but is lifted up by God (52:13) to enjoy his reward (53:12). In this way, Zechariah 9:9 is a quiet suffering-servant echo to the more conspicuous chorus of Isaiah 53.
Which leads to what the crowds on Palm Sunday do not yet understand about Jesus’s daring act. In choosing the donkey’s colt, Jesus finds the perfect way to say, “I am the long-expected King, but not the King you expect.” The crowds hope for a Davidic heir who will liberate them from Rome. But Jesus says, in effect, “I am the King. But I come not to conjure war against a power as passing as Rome but to make peace with God Almighty and save my people from their sins. I am the Lion, yet I arrive as the Lamb.”
And so he rides in dignity into Jerusalem on Sunday, and he will stagger out of the city in odium on Friday, with a crossbeam on his back.
He Will Ride Again
Still, Jesus’s careful choice of the donkey not only hearkens back to Zechariah, to David, and to Judah. It also looks forward.
Palm Sunday not only fulfills an aspect of Zechariah 9:9, but it also anticipates another ride to come. This Son and King will come again — this time in judgment, on the white horse of war:
Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems. (Revelation 19:11–12)
But on Palm Sunday, he comes, the King on a colt, offering amnesty, with his face set to Calvary where he himself will purchase the pardon.
