Matthew 21:5 “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, Lowly, and sitting on a donkey, A colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”
It was customary that when a magnificent king would make his entrance into a city, there would be great pomp and circumstance. Crowds were placed along the entrance route that were prepared for just such a great spectacle. No king ever came into a town or village in humility. The greatness of the king was underscored by the size of his entrance.
Zechariah the prophet wrote approximately 700 years before Jesus was born. He predicted that the greatest of all Kings would appear in Jerusalem, not with great spectacle, but in humility and simplicity. He would not arrive as most conquering kings, on a great stallion, but instead in the back of an unbroken foal of a donkey.
Whenever a king would arrive in a city on the back of a donkey, he was signaling that his arrival was in peace. When he came to conquer, he rode on the back of a great horse.
As Jesus arrives in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, April 2, 32 A. D., he did so in perfect fulfillment of Zechariah’s prophecy. The people who had gathered at the entrance to Jerusalem, held palm branches to be waved at the arriving king, customary for that day. As Jesus makes his entrance into Jerusalem, for the first time in his three year ministry, He allows Himself to be proclaimed as “The Messiah, the Son of David”, in fulfillment of all the old testament prophecies. Up to that day, Jesus would not allow pressure from even His disciples, to announce Himself as the promised Savior. Jesus came to fulfill the prophecies about the coming Savior and there was an appointed day for that arrival and announcement. He would not be moved from that objective by the pressures of any man.
