Matthew 21:7 ‘They brought the donkey and the colt and placed their cloaks on them, and he sat on them.’

The Triumphal Entry is also recorded in Mark 11 and Luke 19.  Only Matthew, however, mentions that there were two animals.

Matthew’s account raises a couple of questions.

1. Does Matthew means that:

(a) Jesus sat on both animals at the same time or in succession?  This (especially the first option) would imply an absurdity on the part of Matthew, and can be set aside.  In order to smooth the apparent incongruity of Jesus seeming to ride on two animals at the same time(!), some manuscripts have Jesus riding on ‘it’, rather than on ‘them’.  But we need not resort either to absurdity nor to amendment of the text.

(b) Jesus sat on the cloaks which had been placed on the animals?  This is the most likely interpretation.  The cloaks had been placed on both animals, and Jesus sat on the cloaks covering the foal.

2. Has Matthew misunderstood the prophecy of Zechariah?

Critics sometimes suppose that Matthew, in specifying two animals, has misunderstood the synonymous parallelism of Zec 9:9.

James McGrath (The A – Z of the New Testament) doesn’t get much further than the head-scratching stage:

‘We have to ask whether Matthew missed the original context and misunderstood the text, deliberately misrepresented it, or something else. It is hard to be certain, but here it is much harder to find an excuse or explanation for what Matthew did.’

Bart Ehrman thinks that Matthew did not recognise the parallelism:

‘Matthew, for some very odd reason, did not see that this was a synonymous parallelism, and took Zechariah literally, thinking that the prophecy must refer to two animals: a donkey and a colt.   And so in order that Jesus might literally fulfill what the prophet predicted, the disciples of Jesus acquire *two* animals, a donkey and a colt.  They spread their cloaks on them, and Jesus rides into Jerusalem straddling the two.  It’s a rather humorous sight.’

This requires not one, but two, implausibilities on Ehrman’s part: (a) that Matthew, as a Jewish writer well versed in the Scriptures, did not understand Hebrew poetry, and (b) that the Evangelist wants us to picture Jesus straddling the two beasts.

It would be surprising if Matthew, that most Jewish of NT writers, had thought that the text he was quoting from required two animals. Keener suggests that Matthew is following a common Jewish practice of reading the Hebrew text for all it is worth.  The Zechariah text allows for the possibility of two animals.  It is quite possible that Matthew is preserving an accurate historical reminiscence, and that he found a happy ‘coincidence’ of the kind that would have delighted his Jewish readers.  It would have been usual for an ‘unbroken colt’ (Mk 11:2) to be accompanied by its parent when first ridden.

France (TNTC) agrees that the mother would have been brought to calm the colt, and that both were covered with cloaks to befit the festive occasion.  Note also the spreading of cloaks along the way.

Hagner (WBC) thinks that ‘he sat on them’ refers to the two animals, rather than to the cloaks (but then the cloaks had been placed on the two animals anyway):

‘If this is true, it hardly means that the evangelist alleges that Jesus actually sat upon both animals at once (!) or even in succession. Instead it means that here the two animals, which were kept so closely together, are conceptually regarded as a single, inseparable unit (which is probably also how Matthew understood the Zechariah quotation with its literally understood coming upon two animals), despite the plural language, which…is kept by Matthew for the detailed coincidence with the OT quotation. Thus when Jesus sat upon them, we are probably to understand simply that Jesus sat upon the colt with the ass just beside it.’

Many commentators agree that Matthew means that the cloaks were put on both animals, and Jesus sat on the cloaks on just one animal.

Morris thinks that the prophecy was referring to one animal, and that Matthew is referring to one animal also, although the colt (on which Jesus sat) was accompanied by its mother.

Wilkins (Holman Apologetics Commentary):

‘Rather than clumsily asserting that Jesus rode two animals, Matthew is picking up on the synonymous parallelism of Zechariah’s prophecy. Further, his account adds a touch of authentic historical reminiscence: an unbroken young colt would be best controlled by having its mother stay alongside to calm it in the midst of the tumult of the entrance to Jerusalem. The disciples placed their outer cloaks (cf. Mt 5:40) on both animals, since both were in the procession, but Jesus sat only upon the cloaks placed on the foal.’