And they brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon.
And they brought him to Jesus. Matthew here gives an important particular, omitted by the other Evangelists. He says "they brought the donkey and the colt." Of course, the unbroken colt would be all the more tractable by having its dam to go along with it. The bearing of this minute particular on the prophecy about to be quoted is very striking.
And they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon - He allowing them to act this part of attendants on royalty, as befitting the state He was now, for the first and only time, assuming.
Matthew here notes the well-known prophecy which was fulfilled in all this, on which we must pause for a little: "All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet (Zechariah 9:9), saying, Tell ye (or, 'Say ye to') the daughter of Zion" - quoting here another bright Messianic prophecy (Isaiah 62:11) in place of Zechariah's opening words, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: Behold, thy King cometh unto thee." Here the prophet adds, "He is just, and having salvation" or 'helped' - [nowshaa`]; but the Evangelist omits these, passing on to what relates to the lowly character of His royalty: "meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass." It was upon the foal that our Lord sat, as Mark and Luke expressly state. While the horse was an animal of war, the donkey was used for purposes of peace. In the times of the Judges, and for a considerable time afterward, horses were not used at all by the Israelites, and so even distinguished persons rode on donkeys (Judges 5:10; Judges 10:4; Judges 12:14) - but not from any nobleness in that animal, or its being an emblem of royalty, as some say. 'Nor,' to use the words of Hengstenberg, 'in all our accounts of the donkeys of the East, of which we have a great abundance, is there a single example of an donkey being ridden by a king, or even a distinguished officer, on any state occasion; whereas here it is expressly in His royal capacity that the prophet says Jerusalem's King is to ride upon an ass.' And there are not wanting proofs, adduced by this able critic, that in the East the donkey was and is regarded with a measure of contempt.
And does not the fulfillment of the prophecy which we behold here itself show that lowliness was stamped upon the act, royal though it was? 'Into the same city,' adds the critic just quoted, 'which David and Solomon had so frequently entered on mules or horses richly caparisoned, and with a company of proud horsemen as their attendants, the Lord rode on a borrowed ass, which had never been broken in; the wretched clothing of His disciples supplying the place of a saddlecloth, and His attendants consisting of people, whom the world would regard as a mob and rabble.' This critic also, by an examination of the phrase used by the prophet, "the foal of asses," infers that it means an donkey still mostly dependent upon its mother, and regards the use of this as a mark of yet greater humiliation in a King. In short, it was the meekness of majesty which was thus manifested, entering the city with royal authority, yet waiving, during His humbled state, all the external grandeur that shall yet accompany that authority.
On this remarkable prophecy, so remarkably fulfilled, we notice two other points. First, the familiar and delightful name given to the chosen people, "The daughter of Zion," or, as we might conceive of it, 'the offspring of Zion's ordinances,' born and nursed amid its sanctities-deriving all their spiritual life from the Religion which had its center and seat in Zion; next, the prophetic call to the chosen people to "Rejoice greatly" at this coming of their King to His own proper city. And the joy with which Jesus was welcomed on this occasion into Jerusalem was all the more striking a fulfillment of this prophecy, that it was far from being that intelligent, deep, and exultant welcome which the prophetic Spirit would have had Zion's daughter to give to her King. For if it was so superficial and fickle a thing as we know that it was, all the more does one wonder that it was so immense in its reach and volume; nor is it possible to account for it except by a wave of feeling-a mysterious impulse-sweeping over the mighty mass from above, in conformity with high arrangements, to give the King of Israel for once a visible, audible, glad welcome to His Own regal City.