Saying unto them,
Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you shall find a donkey tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me.
All Commentaries on Matthew 21:2 Go To Matthew 21
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
Go ye into the village; in Latin, Castellum, but in Greek, eis ten Komen, which is, before you, contra vos, as Virgil says, Italiam contra. (Æneid i.) Some authors think it was Bethphage. (Haydock)
An ass tied, and a colt with her. This colt, which never yet had been rid upon, represented the people of the Gentiles, to whom God had not given a written law, as he had done to the Jews. Here was manifestly fulfilled the prophecy of Zacharias. (Chap. ix.) It was now the first day of the week, in which Christ suffered; he was pleased to enter into Jerusalem in a kind of triumph, the people making acclamations to him, as to their king and Messias. (Witham)
Both Jews and Gentiles, figured by the ass and the colt, are to be loosed and conducted by the hands of the apostles of Christ to their Redeemer. The Gentiles, represented by the colt, though heretofore unclean, no sooner receive Jesus resting upon them, than they are freed from every stain and rendered perfectly clean. The zeal of the Gentiles stirred up the emulation of the Jews; therefore did the ass follow after its colt. This approach of the Jews to the true faith, after the vocation of the Gentiles, is spoken of by St. Paul, Romans xi. 25. Blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved. (St. Chrysostom, hom. lxvi.)
As it is written, "there shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is to them my covenant "when I shall take away their sins. This prophecy of Isaias (lix. 20.) St. Paul applies to the conversion of the Jews; (ibid. ) and thus both Jew and Gentile are to take up our Saviour's yoke, which is certainly sweet, and his burden light.
