ON A DONKEY, AND ON A COLT, THE FOAL OF A DONKEY

In the Liturgy of the Palms last Sunday we heard this gospel:
Matthew 21
When they had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, 2saying to them, ‘Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. 3If anyone says anything to you, just say this, “The Lord needs them.” And he will send them immediately.*’ 4This took place to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet, saying, 
5 ‘Tell the daughter of Zion,
   Look, your king is coming to you,
   humble, and mounted on a donkey,
   and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
6The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; 7they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. 8A very large crowd* spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,
‘Hosanna to the Son of David!
 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
 Hosanna in the highest heaven!’
10When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’ 11The crowds were saying, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.’
Mark, Luke and John report Jesus riding triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey or a colt. Unfortunately, knowing Greek but obviously not Hebrew, and with his literal mind, Matthew presents a ludicrous image of Jesus riding into Jerusalem sitting astride two animals, a donkey and her colt, in order to fulfill prophecy.  Why is this?
A typical Greek-speaking Jew of his day, who was not brought up on the Hebrew Bible but on the Greek version of it, and a man who loves the Lord Jesus devoutly but is no rabbinical scholar, Matthew is writing to a Jewish-Christian audience. His agenda is to persuade his listeners that Jesus was the Messiah. More than the other three gospels, Matthew’s method is to proof-text verses of Old Testament scripture lifted out of context to show Jesus fulfilling Messianic prophecy. Here, Matthew is taking literally the words at Zechariah 9:9 as he understood it from the Septuagint, the Greek language translation of the Hebrew Bible (to us, the Old Testament): 
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; proclaim it aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold the King is coming to thee, just, and a Saviour; he is meek and riding on an ass, and (Greek kai) a young foal.
Here, Matthew does not seem familiar with Hebrew writing style. Perhaps he didn’t grow up attending shul. Matthew knew Greek but he evidently didn’t know Hebrew. In Zechariah the verse is meant to be lyrical, poetic in typical Hebrew style like the parallelism in the psalms, not literal. Matthew didn’t see that. From the Septuagint he takes the Greek conjunctive kai to mean “and” instead of “even” and applies it literally, and reports Jesus riding into Jerusalem astride two animals. 
From the Hebrew Bible the rabbis translate the Hebrew language into English as follows:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout, O daughter of Jerusalem; behold, thy king cometh unto thee, he is triumphant, and victorious, lowly, and riding upon an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass.

On what did Jesus ride into Jerusalem? It depends on which gospel one is reading. I’m going with Mark, Luke and John: he rode on a donkey, even a donkey colt.
And I’m going with our New Revised Standard translation that reads simply as follows:
9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
   Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
   triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
   on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Zechariah 9:9 NRSV) 
TW+