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.
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Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
The patriarchs had gone at first without Benjamin, and the apostles without Paul. Each came, not as the first, but was summoned by those who were the first, and by his arrival he made the goods of those who were first more plenteous. “There is grain in Egypt”; that is, where the famine is greater, the plenty is greater. There is much grain in Egypt. Surely, and God the Father says, “Out of Egypt I called my Son!” Such is the fecundity of that grain, for there could not have been a harvest unless the Egyptians had sown the grain earlier. There is, then, grain which no one earlier believed to exist; the patriarchs engage in negotiations in regard to this grain. And they indeed brought money, but the good gave them the grain and gave them back the money. For Christ is not bought with money but with grace; your payment is faith, and with it are bought God’s mysteries. Moreover, this grain is carried by the ass, which before was unclean according to the law but now is clean in grace.
Now since many historical facts have already been mentioned, let us briefly relate some of the allegorical ones at the end. If you see opposing power attacking God’s people, you will realize who it is that is sitting upon the ass. If you further consider how people are destroyed by demons, you will understand what the ass is. Indeed, in the Gospel you will recognize Jesus sending his disciples to an ass which was tied and its colt, so that the disciples might loose and bring her for the Lord himself to sit upon her. Perhaps this ass, that is, the church, first carried Balaam and now Christ. She had been loosed by the disciples and released from the bonds that tied for this very purpose, that the Son of God might sit upon her and with her enter the holy and heavenly city of Jerusalem. Then was fulfilled the Scripture which says, “Rejoice, O daughter of Zion, exclaim, O daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, meek and riding on a beast of burden,” that is, an ass (doubtless he i...
At another time, he speaks of us under the figure of a colt. He means by [the colt] that we are unyoked to evil, unsubdued by wickedness, unaffected, highspirited only with him our Father. We are colts, not stallions, “who whinny lustfully for their neighbor’s wife, beasts of burden unrestrained in their lust.” Rather, we are free and newly born, joyous in our faith, holding fast to the course of truth, swift in seeking salvation, spurning and trampling upon worldliness. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout for joy, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king comes to you, the just and the Savior, and he is poor and riding upon an ass and upon a young colt.” He is not satisfied to say “colt”; he adds “young” to emphasize humankind’s rejuvenation in Christ and its unending, eternal youth and simplicity. Our divine Tamer trains such young colts as we little ones. Although the passage speaks of a young ass, it too is a colt. .
King. Christ often came to Jerusalem; but his last entrance, to die for man's redemption, was most excellent. (Worthington)
If the Jews had not wilfully blinded themselves, they could not mistake Him, as he is here so minutely described, possessing the most humble and the noblest qualities. Not knowing how to reconcile them, they feign one Messias glorious and another poor and despised; while others admit only of one, and reject either the abject or the exalted things which the prophets have spoken of him. The Church alone can reconcile these apparent contradictions in our Saviour's character. After predicting what would befall the Jews till about one hundred years before the birth of Christ, the prophet turns to Him who was the desire and comfort of the nation. (Calmet)
Saviour. Hebrew No shah, (Haydock) or Jesus. (St. Jerome)
Poor; or meek, as St. Matthew quotes it, after the Septuagint and Chaldean. (Menochius)
They have read v for i, as hani (Haydock) means poor. (Calmet)
Prot...
A spiritual disciple of this sort truly receiving the spirit of God, who was from the beginning, in all the dispensations of God, present with humankind, and announced things future, revealed things present, and narrated things past—[such a person] does indeed “judge all men but is himself judged by no man.” For he judges the Gentiles, “who serve the creature more than the Creator,” and who with a reprobate mind spend all their labor on vanity. And he also judges the Jews, who do not accept the word of liberty nor are willing to go forth free, although they have a deliverer present [with them]. But they pretend, at a time unsuitable [for such conduct], to serve, [with observances] beyond [those required by] the law, God who stands in need of nothing. And [they] do not recognize the advent of Christ, which he accomplished for the salvation of humanity. Nor are [they] willing to understand that all the prophets announced his two advents: the one, indeed, in which he became a man subject ...
But how, after not walking openly among the Jews and retiring into the wilderness, does Jesus again enter openly? Having quenched their anger by retiring, he comes to them when they were stilled. Moreover, the multitude which went before and which followed after was sufficient to cast them into agony; for no sign attracted the people as that of Lazarus. And another Evangelist says that they strewed their garments under his feet and that “the whole city was moved,” with so great honor did he enter. And this he did, prefiguring one prophecy and fulfilling another; and the same act was the beginning of the one and the end of the other. For “Rejoice, for your king comes unto you meek” belonged to him as fulfilling a prophecy, but the sitting upon the ass was the act of one prefiguring a future event, that he was about to have the impure race of the Gentiles subject to him.
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...
