Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your King comes unto you: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey, and upon a colt the foal of a donkey.
All Commentaries on Zechariah 9:9 Go To Zechariah 9
Justin Martyr
AD 165
Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was about to enter Jerusalem, ordered his disciples to get him the ass with its foal, which was tied at a gate of the village of Bethphage, and he rode upon it as he entered Jerusalem. Since it had been explicitly foretold that the Christ would do precisely this, and when he had done it in the sight of all he furnished clear proof that he was the Christ. And yet, even after these things have happened and are proved from the Scriptures, you persist in refusing to believe. Zechariah, one of the twelve prophets, predicted this very event when he said, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king will come to you, the just and the Savior; meek and lowly, riding upon an ass, and upon the foal of an ass.” The prophetic spirit, as well as the patriarch Jacob, mentioned the ass, an animal accustomed to the yoke, and its foal, which were in his possession. Then he asked his disciples, as I have said before, to lead the beasts to him. This constituted a prediction that both you coming from the synagogue and those who would come from the Gentiles would believe in him. As the unharnessed foal was a figure of the former Gentiles, so the ass, accustomed to the yoke, was a symbol of those coming from among your people.
