"Old Donkeys"

Matthew 21.4-7 NIV
 

“This took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet: ‘Say to the Daughter of Zion, “See, your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”’

“The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them for Jesus to sit on.”

The event known as “The Triumphal Entry” of Jesus in Jerusalem is described in all four Gospels.[1] There are key similarities and differences in each account. Note, for example, that all four Gospel writers quote portions of the same verse from the minor prophet Zechariah:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Zechariah 9.9 NASB

Interestingly, Matthew is the only Gospel writer who has Jesus with two, not one donkey. All four Gospels record Jesus with a “young donkey” or a “colt” (i.e., the young male offspring of a female donkey, also called a foal). However, in the Matthew passage alone, the disciples brought both “the donkey and the colt, and laid their coats on them.” Matthew wrote his gospel to convince Jews that Jesus was the Messiah in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. His account is heavily sprinkled with Hebrew scriptures pointing to Jesus Christ. Some critical scholars explain the ‘donkey’ distinction in this way:

Matthew introduced a second donkey in his recounting of the Triumphal Entry in order to make this story better coincide with the prophesy of Zechariah. He ignored the obvious use of Hebrew poetic parallelism[2] and invented the second donkey to offer even more support to his ‘Jesus is the Messiah’ position.

This opinion presumes that Matthew was ignorant of the use of poetic parallelism in the Hebrew scriptures which, of course, is unlikely for even a moderately educated, first century Jewish man. All four Gospel accounts of the Triumphal Entry can be easily reconciled in this way:

Zechariah used poetic parallelism in his description of the Messiah’s appearance. Jesus would come “mounted on a donkey,... [which is] a colt, [otherwise known as] the foal of a donkey.” There is just one donkey in Zechariah’s prophesy, not two. (Note: Every “colt, the foal of a donkey” is, in fact, a donkey. But not every donkey is a “colt” or a “foal.”) Jesus instructed the disciples to bring Him a “colt… on which no one yet has ever sat” (Mark 11.2; Luke 19.30). That’s exactly what the disciples did as all four Gospels record. Matthew provides the additional information implied by the other two Synoptic writers and John. The donkey was just barely old enough to carry a burden but still too young to be without its mother. For that reason Jesus told the disciples to bring both donkeys, as Matthew indicated. In choosing to mount a young donkey “on which no one yet has ever sat,” Jesus symbolically established Himself as the leader of a new thing God was doing in the culture of His day.

Here is my personal application of this verse: 

I am like an old mother donkey with a few colts to my name. I helped carry the Gospel message to a generation past. New younger Christian men and women will bring Christ to the next generation. These believers still need their older mentors in Christ. We are not forgotten. We may join in the celebration and walk along beside the foals. But old donkeys must pass the mantle of supernatural gifting to the backs of young colts who will bear the burden of Christ from this time forward. These are the ones who will make a new and triumphal entry into the culture of our day.
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[1] “Triumphal Entry” Gospel parallels: Matthew 21.1-9 (and 21.14-16); Mark 11.1-10; Luke 19.28-40; John 12.12-19.

[2] Parallelism is an Old Testament writing style using repetition to reinforce a point. There are two common types of parallelism: 1) synonymous parallelism, “in which the second member repeats the content of the first in different words, e.g., ‘But his delight is in the law of Yahweh, / and in his law he meditates day and night’ (Psalm 1.2)” and 2) antithetical parallelism, “in which the second member illuminates the content of the first by means of a contrasting idea, e.g., ‘For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, / but the way of the wicked will perish’ (Psalm 1.6)”. From Introduction to the Old Testament, Georg Forher, Abingdon Press, 1968, p. 46.