"The Jenny and the Colt" in Matthew’s Messianic Entry, Part I: Matthew 21:5 as a Reading of Zechariah 9:9 in Light of Mark 11:1-10

"The Jenny and the Colt" in Matthew's Messianic Entry, Part 1: Matthew 21:5 as a Reading of Zechariah 9:9 in Light of Mark 11:1-10 Stephen C. Carlson The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, Volume 81, Number 1, January 2019, pp. 62-84 (Article) Published by The Catholic University of America Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cbq.2019.0051 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/719018 Access provided by Australian Catholic University (14 Mar 2019 03:56 GMT) “The Jenny and the Colt” in Matthew’s Messianic Entry, Part 1: Matthew 21:5 as a Reading of Zechariah 9:9 in Light of Mark 11:1-10 STEPHEN C. CARLSON Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry Australian Catholic University Melbourne, VIC 3065, Australia Abstract: The presence of a female donkey (a “jenny”) in Matthew’s account of the triumphal entry (Matt 21:1-9) has been perplexing because her presence is not mentioned in either of Matthew’s sources, Mark 11:1-10 and Zech 9:9. Some scholars hold that the jenny comes from another tradition, but this does not make her presence a fulfillment of the prophecy. Others hold that Matthew broke the parallelism of Zech 9:9, where the humble Messiah is to ride into Jerusalem “on a (male) donkey, and on a colt,” but this too does not account for a female donkey at the scene. In this article, I argue for a plenary reading of the Hebrew prophecy where Matthew sees the presence of the jenny fulfilled in Zechariah’s characterization of the colt as a “son of jennies.” Key Words: triumphal entry • Matthew 21:5 • the colt of a jenny • Zechariah 9:9 • Hebrew parallelism We know hardly anything about the author of the Gospel according to Matthew,1 but we do know he was a reader of Mark and of the OT. That he was a reader of the OT is clear from the numerous citations and quotations in his Gospel.2 1 In fact, we do not even know the author’s name. For convenience, I follow the convention of naming the author “Matthew,” though nothing here turns on the traditional ascription. 2 Many good and detailed studies exist, especially from the late 1960s; those most pertinent to this article include Barnabas Lindars, New Testament Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of Old Testament Quotations (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961); Rudolf Pesch, “Eine alttestamentliche 62 MATTHEW 21:5 63 That he was a reader of Mark is the careful conclusion of two centuries of research into the Synoptic Problem.3 With Matthew as a reader of two texts, we are in a good position to look at how these texts functioned as intertexts for him, influencing the reading of one another for this particular reader in history. A provocative point of entry for the study of Matthean intertextuality occurs in the account of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:1-9). In this account, Jesus sends two of his disciples to find in the next village a tethered female donkey (a “jenny”) and a colt with her (vv. 2-3).4 Matthew states that this happened to fulfill the word of the prophet, quoting a combination of Isa 62:11 and Zech 9:9 (vv. 4-5). Then the disciples “led the jenny and the colt to Jesus, and they put coats on them,5 and Jesus sat upon them” (v. 7). What is striking about Matthew’s account is that neither of Matthew’s intertexts, Mark 11:1-9 and Zech 9:9, explicitly mentions the presence of a jenny, preferring instead to focus on the colt. The challenge of this two-part study is to answer what led Matthew to speak of two animals and what he meant by Jesus taking his seat upon them. The latter question is the topic of part 2 of this study, to be published in the next issue, and it turns out that what Matthew meant in 21:7 depends on how he read the prophecy of Zech 9:9 in v. 5. Accordingly, this part 1 concerns the prior question of the presence of the jenny with the colt. The jenny and the colt have attracted a lot of attention over the millennia and have been the showcase example for important hermeneutical issues of the day. In his commentary on Matthew, Jerome pointed to the absurdity of needing two Ausführungsformel im Matthäus-Evangelium: Redaktionsgeschichtliche und exegetische Beobachtungen,” BZ 10 (1966) 220-45; Robert Horton Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel with Special Reference to the Messianic Hope (NovTSup 18; Leiden: Brill, 1967); Richard S. McConnell, Law and Prophecy in Matthew’s Gospel: The Authority and Use of the Old Testament in the Gospel of St. Matthew (Theologische Dissertationen 2; Basel: Reinhardt Kommisionsverlag, 1969); Wilhelm Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate des Matthäus-Evangeliums: Eine biblisch-theologische Untersuchung (BWANT 88; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1969); and George M. Soares-Prabhu, The Formula Quotations in the Infancy Narrative of Matthew: An Enquiry into the Tradition History of Matthew 1–2 (AnBib 63; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1976). 3 For a lucid introduction to Marcan priority under two different and widely held source theories, see Robert H. Stein, The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1987); and Mark Goodacre, The Synoptic Problem: A Way through the Maze (Biblical Seminar 80; London: Sheffield Academic, 2001). 4 Although translations and commentaries are not always precise, donkeys are differentiated based on sex and age in animal husbandry: a jack is an adult male donkey; a jenny is an adult female donkey; a foal is a very young donkey of either sex; a colt is a young male donkey, a filly is a young female donkey. In general, foals are incapable of bearing a load, while colts and fillies are able to. For a discussion of this distinction, see James W. Barker, John’s Use of Matthew (Emerging Scholars; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015) 74-75. 5 I employ here “coat” as a dynamic equivalent to ἱμάτιον, though the Greek word more formally refers to a sleeveless outer garment no longer in fashion, such as a cloak or a mantle. 64 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 mounts for the short ride and argued for an allegorical interpretation in which the donkey and the colt represent the Jews and gentiles.6 David Friedrich Strauss used the apparent absurdity of the account to argue that the Gospels contain myth, not history, as the second donkey could only come from a misreading of the poetic parallelism of Zech 9:9.7 In the mid-twentieth century, this verse became the key for understanding the Sitz im Leben of Matthew’s Gospel.8 In particular, Georg Strecker argued that Matthew must have been a gentile, for no Jew could have misread Zech 9:9 to produce the second donkey out of thin air, while Krister Stendahl considered Matthew’s exegesis to be a product of a Jewish scribal school based on a historical reminiscence of a second donkey.9 More recently, scholars have looked at this verse to understand how early Christians read the Hebrew Scriptures, often in commonality if not in outright continuity with Jewish midrashic exegetical practices.10 This article situates itself in this latest area of investigation with a focus on Matthew’s intertextual reading of Zech 9:9 in light of the life of Jesus as the evangelist found it in Mark. Specifically, I will argue that Matthew regarded the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem that he found in his Marcan source as a plenary fulfillment of prophecy—down to the tiniest detail—paying particular attention to the role of every donkey term in the text of Zechariah. I. Matthean Redaction of Mark 11:1-10 It is commonly acknowledged that, when Matthew took over his Marcan source, he attempted to remove the obscurities he saw there and tried to clarify the 6 Jerome In Matheum 3.1164-1273; see S. Hieronymi presbyteri opera, part 1.7, Commentariorum in Matheum (ed. D. Hurst and M. Adriaen; CCSL 77; Turnholt: Brepols, 1969) 181-85; the English translation is by Thomas P. Scheck, St. Jerome: Commentary on Matthew (FC 117; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2008) 230-34. 7 David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (trans. George Eliot; 4th ed.; London: Sonnenschein, 1902) 553-59. 8 This is explicit in Poul Nepper-Christensen, Das Matthäusevangelium: Ein judenchristliches Evangelium? (ATDan 1; Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1958) 145: “Sollte dieser Gedankengang richtig sein, dann hätten wir hier ohne Zweifel einen wichtigen Beitrag zu der Diskussion des Verfasser- und Leserkreisproblems.” 9 Georg Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit: Untersuchung zur Theologie des Matthäus (FRLANT 82; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962) 72-76; Krister Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament (2nd ed.; Lund: Gleerup, 1967) 118-20, 200. 10 See esp. Wilhelmus Johannes Cornelis Weren, “Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem: Mt 21,1-17 in the Light of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint,” in The Scriptures in the Gospels (ed. Christopher M. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Peeters, 1997) 117-41; and Maarten J. J. Menken, “Context and Textual Form of the Quotation from Zechariah 9,9 in Matthew 21,5,” in Matthew’s Bible: The Old Testament Text of the Evangelist (ed. Maarten J. J. Menken; BETL 173; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2004) 105-16. MATTHEW 21:5 65 connections of the life of Jesus to the OT prophets.11 Matthew’s account of the entry into Jerusalem is a good case in point. In his Marcan source (11:1-10), Jesus and the disciples come to Bethphage and Bethany near the Mount of Olives (v. 1). Jesus sends two of his disciples to the next village and tells them to find a colt tied up that has never been ridden (v. 2). The disciples are to untie the colt and bring it back to Jesus (v. 2). After they do this (vv. 4-5), they put their coats on it and Jesus sits upon it (v. 7). Then some people spread their coats and others spread branches on the road to Jerusalem, proclaiming “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” (vv. 8-9). Matthew sees in this event a fulfillment of the prophecy of Zech 9:9, which speaks of the coming of a messianic king, “humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (NRSV), in which the poetic parallelism characterizes the first-mentioned donkey as a purebred donkey colt.12 In Mark’s lean and sparing account, the relationship of Mark’s account to Zech 9:9 is at best obscure. There is no explicit citation of the prophecy as there is in Matt 21:4 (or as in John 12:15), and indeed the only key word in common with Zech 9:9 is πῶλος (vv. 2, 4, 7). Moreover, the full description of the colt, πῶλον δεδεμένον ἐφ’ ὃν οὐδεὶς οὔπω ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισεν (“a tethered colt upon which no one has yet sat”), is hard to ground in the text of Zech 9:9.13 The detail that the colt is tethered (v. 2, εὑρήσετε πῶλον δεδεμένον) is particularly prominent in Mark’s account,14 but this detail is not found in Zech at all and may instead reflect influence of Gen 49:11 (“Binding his foal to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine” [NRSV]).15 The unridden nature of the mount is harder to account for. It does not match the description of the colt in the Hebrew of Zech 11 E.g., Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016) 98-99, on the triumphal entry. 12 Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Zechariah 9–14: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 25C; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 131: “The king is obviously not riding on two asses, but rather on a particular kind of ass, and the second term for “ass”—“young ass”—is introduced to emphasize the precise character of the beast.” So also Kenneth C. Way, “Donkey Domain: Zechariah 9:9 and Lexical Semantics,” JBL 129 (2010) 105-14, here 106; and Mark J. Boda, The Book of Zechariah (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016) 561 n. f. 13 See Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 197-98: “Mk betrays no reminiscence of Zech 9:9, neither quoting the passage nor using the Septuagintal expression, πῶλον νέον, by which he could have avoided the periphrastic ἐφ’ ὃν οὐδεὶς οὔπω ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισεν.” 14 Mark 11:2: λύσατε αὐτόν (“untie it”); v. 4: πῶλον δεδεμένον . . . λύουσιν αὐτόν (“a colt tied . . . they were untying it”); and v. 5: λύοντες τὸν πῶλον (“untying the colt”). See M. C. Black, “The Rejected and Slain Messiah Who Is Coming with the Angels: The Messianic Exegesis of Zechariah 9–14 in the Passion Narratives” (Ph.D. diss., Emory University, 1990) 165. 15 Alfred Loisy, Les évangiles synoptiques (2 vols.; Ceffonds: A. Loisy, 1908) 2:262 n. 6; Eduard Lohse, History of the Suffering and Death of Jesus Christ (trans. Martin O. Dietrich; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967) 23; J. Duncan M. Derrett, “Law in the New Testament: The Palm Sunday Colt,” NovT 13 (1971) 241-58, here 248; Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 141; Black, “Rejected and Slain Messiah,” 164-65. 66 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 9:9, unless it is an attempt to expound the diverging Septuagintal translation as πῶλον νέον (“a new colt”).16 As a result, scholars have speculated that the unriddenness of the colt may simply indicate that it has been set aside for a sacred purpose.17 Furthermore, it is not even stated in Mark that the πῶλος (“colt”) is a donkey rather than a horse,18 though this lack of explicitness has not stopped scholars from justifying this inference, mainly on the basis of a presumed allusion to the tethered donkey colt in Gen 49:11 or the mount in Zech 9:9.19 It is therefore not without reason that a number of scholars have denied that Mark had Zech 9:9 in mind.20 To a reader of the OT as astute as Matthew, however, the connection to Zechariah is virtually inescapable.21 The elements in common with Zech 9:9 are riding 16 E.g., Joel Marcus notes that this clause is redactional based on its characteristic Marcan style and suggests that Mark himself was referring to Zech 9:9 LXX πῶλον νέον (The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark [Studies of the New Testament and Its World; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992; repr., London: T&T Clark, 2004] 158 n. 17). Similarly, Ernst Haenchen, Der Weg Jesu: Eine Erklärung des Markus-Evangeliums und der kanonischen Parallelen (Sammlung Töpelmann, 2. Reihe: Theologische Hilfsbücher 6; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1966) 376; Black, “Rejected and Slain Messiah,” 163-64; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 120. But Gundry is skeptical (Use of the Old Testament, 197-98). 17 Alan Hugh McNeile, The Gospel according to St. Matthew: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (London: Macmillan, 1915) 294 n. 2 on the basis of Deut 21:3; Num 19:2; and 1 Sam 6:7. See also Vincent Taylor, The Gospel according to Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (London: Macmillan, 1952) 454; Lohse, History of the Suffering, 23; Alfred Suhl, Die Funktion der alttestamentlichen Zitate und Anspielungen im Markusevangelium (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965) 57; Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 197; Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 142. Barker suggests that it sets up a nature miracle where Jesus tames the untamed animal (John’s Use of Matthew, 75). Alfred Plummer inexplicably finds a reference to the donkey as a royal mount in the same OT texts (An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Matthew [London: Robert Scott, 1909] 285). 18 Walter Bauer, “The ‘Colt’ of Palm Sunday (Der Palmesel),” JBL 72 (1953) 220-29; Barker, John’s Use of Matthew, 64-76, esp. 71. In connection with Gen 49:11, Justin notes that πῶλον may refer to either species: καὶ τὸ τοῦ πώλου ὄνομα καὶ ὄνου πῶλον καὶ ἵππου σημαίνειν ἐδύνατο, “and the noun colt can mean both a donkey’s colt and a horse’s” (1 Apol. 54.7; my translation). 19 Loisy, Les évangiles synoptiques, 261; Taylor, Gospel according to Mark, 453; HeinzWolfgang Kuhn, “Das Reittier Jesus in der Einzugsgeschichte des Markusevangeliums,” ZNW 50 (1959) 82-91; Otto Michel, “Eine philologische Frage zur Einzugeschichte,” NTS 6 (1959) 81-82. Less persuasive is the appeal to village economics in Derrett, “Law in the New Testament,” 248. 20 Aloysius M. Ambrozic, The Hidden Kingdom: A Redaction-Critical Study of the References to the Kingdom of God in Mark’s Gospel (CBQMS 2; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1972) 37; Morna D. Hooker, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (BNTC; London: A. & C. Black, 1991) 257; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21–28: A Commentary (trans. James E. Crouch; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) 5 n. 11; Barker, John’s Use of Matthew, 75-76 (preferring 1 Kgs 1:32-40). 21 Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 99: “But the reader who perceives the subliminal symbolism of Zechariah 9:9 imbedded in the action will more fully grasp the significance of the episode.” Less MATTHEW 21:5 67 into Jerusalem on a colt via their common scene of a messianic figure coming into Jerusalem with acclamations of salvation (Mark 11:9, ἔκραζον ὡσαννά).22 Moreover, the stronger connection to Gen 49:11 in Mark’s detail of the tethered colt allows an alternate route to Zech 9:9 via their common messianic context and the shared verbal link of the “son of a jenny.”23 While Mark’s audience may be left wondering about the connection, Matthew’s own account places no such demands upon the reader.24 By replacing the repetitive plot sequence of Mark 11:4-6 with a formula quotation of Isa 62:11 and Zech 9:9 that “this happened to fulfill the word of the prophet,” the connection becomes as plain as day in Matthew’s account. Another substantial difference is that the characterization of the donkey in Mark 11:2, πῶλον δεδεμένον ἐφ’ ὃν οὐδεὶς οὔπω ἀνθρώπων ἐκάθισεν (“a tethered colt upon which no person had yet sat”), becomes ὄνον δεδεμένην καὶ πῶλον μετ’ αὐτῆς (“a tethered jenny and a colt with her”) in Matt 21:2. This must have been important to Matthew because the rest of the account is redacted accordingly, where Mark 11:7 “and they bring the colt to Jesus, and they put their coats on it, and he sat on it” is recast as Matt 21:7 “they led the jenny and the colt, and they put their coats on them, and he sat on top of them.” The jenny and the colt are full members of the scene in Matthew. Both are brought to Jesus, both are covered with coats, and, most awkwardly, both are somehow involved in Jesus’s act of sitting.25 These two Matthean alterations of his Marcan source—to quote prophecy and to introduce a second donkey—seem to be related,26 and so the textual details of the prophecy require careful consideration. persuasively, J. F. Coakley (“Jesus’ Messianic Entry into Jerusalem [John 12:12-19 par.],” JTS 46 [1995] 461-82, here 492) and Black (“Rejected and Slain Messiah,” 99-100) hold that recognizing the allusion lies within the general competence of Mark’s readers. 22 See esp. Jocelyn McWhirter, “Messianic Exegesis in Mark’s Passion Narrative,” in The Trial and Death of Jesus: Essays on the Passion Narrative in Mark (ed. Geert van Oyen and Tom Shepherd; CBET 45; Leuven: Peeters, 2008) 69-97, here 85-86. So also Kuhn, “Das Reittier Jesus,” 90; Black, “Rejected and Slain Messiah,” 163; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 119-20. 23 Deborah Krause, “The One Who Comes Unbinding the Blessing of Judah: Mark 11:1-10 as a Midrash on Genesis 49:11, Zechariah 9:9, and Psalm 118:25-26,” in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel: Investigations and Proposals (ed. Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders; JSNTSup 148; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 141-53, esp. 149-50. 24 Cf. Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 52: “Unlike Matthew, however, who quotes the passage from Zechariah, Mark offers no explicit interpretation of the gesture; those who have eyes to see will understand.” 25 See Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 150: “Mt’s account is remarkable chiefly for adhering consistently to the two animals he has introduced in v. 2.” 26 Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate des Matthäus-Evangeliums, 82: “Bemerkenswert ist bei diesem Prozeß, daß Mt die LXX-Überlieferung von dem πῶλος νέος sowohl im Zitat als auch im Kontext fallen läßt, dafür aber von zwei Tieren spricht.” 68 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 II. The Textual Form of the Quotation of Zechariah 9:9 The Vorlage of Matthew’s quotation of Isa 62:11 and Zech 9:9 in Matt 21:5 is a complicated question, as the following synopsis of the MT, Matthew, and the LXX makes clear:27 MT Zech 9:9 Matt 21:5 LXX Zech 9:9 ,‫[ גילי מאד בת־ציון‬εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών·] Χαῖρε σφόδρα, θύγατερ Σιων· ,‫הריעי בת ירושלם‬ κήρυσσε, θύγατερ Ιερουσαλημ· ,‫ הנה מלכך יבוא לך‬ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλεύς σου ἔρχεταί σοι ἰδοὺ ὁ βασιλιεύς σου ἔρχεταί σοι, ;‫צדיק ונושע הוא‬ δίκαιος καὶ σῴζων αὐτός, ,‫ עני ורכב על־חמור‬πραῢς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὄνον πραῢς καὶ ἐπιβεβηκὼς ἐπὶ ὑποζύγιον ‫ ועל־עיר בן־אתנות‬καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱον ὑποζυγίου καὶ πῶλον νέον. Zech 9:9 MT (NRSV) 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. Matt 21:5 (NRSV) [“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.” LXX Zech 9:9 (NETS) Rejoice greatly, O daughter Sion! Proclaim, O daughter Ierousalem! Behold, your king comes to you, just and salvific is he, meek and riding on a beast of burden and a young foal. The quotation is a blend of Isa 62:11 and Zech 9:9, with the first clause εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών tracking Isa 62:11 closely in the LXX, which itself closely follows 27 See generally Max Wilcox, “Text Form,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture. Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF (ed. D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 193-204; Maarten J. J. Menken, “The Quotations from Zech 9,9 in Mt 21,5 and in Jn 12,15,” in John and the Synoptics (ed. Adelbert Denaux; BETL 101; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992) 571-78; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 124-33; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 105-16; Jacques Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus à Jérusalem (Mt 21, 1-17): Messianisme et accomplissement des écritures en Matthieu (LD 176; Paris: Cerf, 1999) 34-77; Clay Alan Ham, The Coming King and the Rejected Shepherd: Matthew’s Reading of Zechariah’s Messianic Hope (NTM 4; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2005) 20-23; Charlene McAfee Moss, The Zechariah Tradition and the Gospel of Matthew (BZNW 156; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2008) 61-66; Martin Mulzer, “Ein Esel, zwei Esel? Zu Sach 9,9 und Mt 21,2.5.7,” BZ 59 (2015) 79-88. MATTHEW 21:5 69 the MT.28 The key term “daughter of Zion” links the two verses,29 and the citation of Isa 62:11 is widely seen as fitting Matthew’s local context.30 It “universalizes the proclamation,”31 and, by making Jerusalem the recipient of the proclamation, it enables the crowds shouting the acclamations of salvation in v. 9 to be the literal fulfillment of the prophecy as quoted.32 Matthew’s omission of “triumphant and saving” is surprising at first glance,33 but it can be explained as irrelevant and potentially distracting for the narrative context.34 The omission serves to highlight the Messiah’s meekness, which is retained in the quotation.35 Knowledge of Hebrew may also be a factor, because the grammatical form is even less apt for Matthew’s context than the wording of the LXX. Although the active σῴζων (“saving”) of the LXX may be appropriate for Matthew, the niphal ‫“( נושע‬saved”) of the Hebrew is much less so.36 Matthew’s 28 Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 119; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 111; John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 835. For further literature, see also Ham, Coming King, 21 n. 6. 29 Wilcox, “Text Form,” 200; Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 43-44, 49. 30 E.g., Pesch, “Eine alttestamentliche Ausführungsformel,” 242; Jacques Dupont, Les Béatitudes, vol. 3, Les Évangélistes (new ed.; EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1973) 541; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 108-9; Luz, Matthew 21–28, 5. But cf. Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 132, arguing that the blend is traditional. 31 Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 152-53, arguing for a “metaleptic effect.” 32 E.g., Joachim Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium (2 vols.; HTKNT 1; Freiburg: Herder, 1986–88) 2:202; Black, “Rejected and Slain Messiah,” 170; Luz, Matthew 21–28, 5. 33 E.g., Stendahl, School of St. Matthew, 119; McConnell, Law and Prophecy, 126-27. 34 M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon saint Matthieu (2nd ed.; EBib; Paris: Lecoffre, 1923) 398 n. 5; Dupont, Les Évangélistes, 541; Renate Brandscheidt, “Messias und Tempel: Die alttestamentlichen Zitate in Mt 21, 1–17,” TTZ 99 (1990) 36-48, here 41; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 109-210. However, Longenecker (Biblical Exegesis, 132), following Stendahl (School of St. Matthew, 119), claims that this omission may be traditional because the rabbis “stressed only ‘poor and riding on an ass’ in the prophecy,” but the rabbinic references that he cites from Strack-Billerbeck, e.g., Gen. Rab. 98.9, quote only the portion of Zech 9:9 relevant to Gen 49:11. Strecker suggests that the omission was pre-Matthean and could have been unintentional (Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 73). 35 Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 120; Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate des MatthäusEvangeliums, 82; Donald A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (ed. Frank E. Gaebelein), vol. 8, Matthew, Mark, Luke (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984) 1–599, here 437; Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium, 2:202; Black, “Rejected and Slain Messiah,” 172; Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 573; Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14–28 (WBC 33B; Dallas: Word, 1995) 594; Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 51; Ham, Coming King, 40-41; Moss, Zechariah Tradition, 63; Hays, Echoes of Scripture, 153, pointing out that it distracts from Matthew’s favorite meekness motif. 36 David Instone-Brewer, “The Two Asses of Zechariah 9:9 in Matthew 21,” TynBul 54 (2003) 87-98, here 91: “He also omits the phrase ‘righteous and having salvation,’ perhaps because he realized that the Hebrew should more properly be translated as ‘righteous and being saved.’” 70 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 avoidance of the otherwise congenial wording of the LXX underscores how strong his preference for the Hebrew is. The greatest departures from the LXX come in the final clause, where the Hebrew ‫ ועל־עיר בן־אתנות‬,‫ על־חמור‬is rendered more nearly word-for-word in Matt 21:5 as ἐπὶ ὄνον καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου than in the LXX: ἐπὶ ὑποζύγιον καὶ πῶλον νέον of the LXX.37 In particular, Matthew renders ‫“( חמור‬donkey”) with ὄνον (“donkey”), a word with comparable semantic scope, while the LXX’s ὑποζύγιον (“[beast of burden] under yoke”) is broader;38 he repeats the preposition that is repeated in the Hebrew but omitted in other Greek versions;39 and he formally renders ‫“( בן‬son”) into Greek as υἱόν. The main difference from the Hebrew is that Matthew’s ὑποζυγίου is singular, while the Hebrew ‫ אתנות‬is plural,40 though it is possible that the singular betrays influence from the targum or from Gen 49:11.41 Furthermore, the Greek ὄνος is ambiguous as to the sex of the donkey, but the Hebrew ‫ חמור‬indicates a male, with rare exceptions.42 Some scholars have denied Matthew’s knowledge of the Hebrew based on the female sex of the ὄνος in the narrative in vv. 2 and 7,43 but this argument assumes a particular reading of the animals in the quotation, which this article will dispute in section IV. Therefore, the most striking aspect of Matthew’s quotation is that it is so much closer to the Hebrew than to the LXX, despite the fact that Mark’s narrative with a single, unridden colt nicely fits the text of the LXX. It is all the more striking considering that Matthew normally prefers the LXX.44 It is possible that Matthew used an otherwise unattested revision of the LXX toward the Hebrew here,45 but 37 See Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 573; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997) 3:111-12, 119; Ham, Coming King, 22-23. 38 Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 120; Douglas J. Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives (Sheffield: Almond, 1983) 178 n. 3; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 120; Instone-Brewer, “Two Asses,” 91; Ham, Coming King, 22-23. 39 Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 120; Wilcox, “Text Form,” 200; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 120; Madeleine Taradach, “Mt 21,5: Une lecture midrashique de Za 9,9,” Revista Catalana de Teología 14 (1989) 155-62, here 157; Instone-Brewer, “Two Asses,” 91. But cf. Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 573: “the double ἐπί possibly in Aquila (see Ziegler’s edition; Aquila however uses the genitive).” 40 Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 120-21; cf. Wilcox, “Text Form,” 200, denying that the term ὑποζυγίου must come from the LXX. 41 Moo, Old Testament, 178: “with a possible dependence on a text like that preserved in the Tg. and Pesh. (singular ὑποζυγίον)”; Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 44 (Gen 49:11). 42 Dupont, Les Évangélistes, 542; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 129. 43 David S. New, Old Testament Quotations in the Synoptic Gospels, and the Two-Document Hypothesis (SBLSCS 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 111-12; Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 574; and idem, “Context and Textual Form,” 115-16. 44 E.g., Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 121. 45 E.g., G. D. Kilpatrick, The Origins of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (Oxford: Clar- MATTHEW 21:5 71 this suggestion lacks economy of explanation. Matthew’s own hand is already evident in the wording of the quotation with its conflation with Isa 62:11 and its omission of “triumphant and saving,” so the suggested revision creates in effect another cook working on the concoction of the Matt 21:5 proof-text. Indeed, W. J. C. Weren asks, “Why resort to a postulated Greek textual form that is supposed to have circulated in the first century when the above-mentioned phenomena can adequately be explained on the basis of the correspondence with the Hebrew text?”46 Even if Matthew had access to some no-longer-attested Greek translation, his use of a translation more literal than the LXX against his own preference reflects a concern for the Hebrew form of the text.47 Accordingly, Matthew’s concern for a literal rendering of the Hebrew signals an interpretative attitude toward the Hebrew text where its every word is significant.48 III. Single-Donkey Readings of Zechariah 9:9 Exegetes of Zech 9:9 are in agreement that the Hebrew parallelism of a humble king riding “on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” (NRSV) designates a single mount characterized in two different ways.49 If this reading of the Hebrew prophecy is maintained for the Greek of Matt 21:5, then Matthew’s quotation would also present a single mount, doubly characterized as a donkey (ὄνον) and as a donkey colt (πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου). Since the mount of the humble king is a donkey colt in Zech 9:9, it presumably corresponds to the colt (πῶλον) in the surrounding context, but this reading of Matt 21:5 does not account for the jenny (τὴν ὄνον) of the context: One-Donkey, One-Mount Correspondence Matt 21:5 Quotation Zech 9:9 MT ‫ חמור‬ὄνον ‫ בן־אתנות‬,‫ עיר‬πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου ? ? Matt 21:2, 7 Context πῶλον (τὴν) ὅνον endon, 1946) 94 (arguing for a two-stage solution); Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 72; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 126 (cf. a similar form in John 12:15); Luz, Matthew 21–28, 5. A number of scholars have suggested that Matthew took his quotation from another form of the LXX: Wilcox, “Text Form,” 201; New, Old Testament Quotations, 122-23; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 115. 46 Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 121. 47 Moss, Zechariah Tradition, 83 n. 80: “It would be extremely difficult to assert that Matthew chose a Greek translation closer to the Hebrew without also imagining that he had some knowledge of Hebrew.” 48 Taradach, “Mt 21,5,” 157. 49 Meyers and Meyers, Zechariah 9–14, 131; Way, “Donkey Domain,” here 106; and Boda, Book of Zechariah, 561 n. f. 72 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 As a result, proponents of the single-donkey reading of the prophecy are forced to account for the presence of the second donkey in the context, added by Matthew in his redaction of his Marcan source and thus of keen interest to the evangelist. According to proponents of the single-donkey reading, the second donkey comes directly or indirectly from one or more traditions in circulation separate from the text of Zechariah, though there is some difference of opinion as to the identity of these traditions. For example, many hold that Matthew’s mention of the jenny along with a colt is related to Mark’s note about an unridden colt (11:2).50 In other words, the youth of the colt implied by Mark’s detail makes it historically plausible that the unridden colt was still with its mother and it would thus be reasonable for Matthew to have inferred her presence as an inherent element of his Marcan source.51 Matthew himself, however, makes no explicit appeal to the animal’s youth. Moreover, some scholars even speculate that her presence may have been necessary to calm the young animal in the crowd,52 though such psychologizing of the characters in the narrative has hardly anything to do with Matthew’s literary motivations, and the evangelist expresses no interest on this point.53 Some scholars go further and appeal to the possibility of an independent oral tradition of the jenny in order to bolster her historicity.54 For example, Stendahl argues that 50 E.g., Joseph Knabenbauer, Commentarius in quattuor S. Evangelia Domini nostri Jesu Christi, vol. 1, Evangelium secundum S. Matthaeum, part 2 (Paris: Lethielleux, 1893) 203; Stendahl, School of St. Matthew, 200; Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, 114; Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 199; Carson, “Matthew,” 438; Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 594; Moss, Zechariah Tradition, 87. 51 E.g., Eric F. F. Bishop, Jesus of Palestine: The Local Background to the Gospel Documents (London: Lutterworth, 1955) 212; Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, 114; Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 199; H. Benedict Green, The Gospel according to Matthew in the Revised Standard Version (New Clarendon Bible; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975) 176; Carson, “Matthew,” 438; Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 594; Moss, Zechariah Tradition, 87. 52 E.g., Knabenbauer, Evangelium secundum S. Matthaeum, 203; Rayner Winterbotham, “The Ass and the Ass’s Colt: St. Matthew xxi. 1-7,” ExpT 28 (1917) 380-81; Lagrange, Évangile selon saint Matthieu, 398; R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel according to St. Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (TNTC; London: Tyndale, 1961) 198; Paul Gaechter, Das Matthäus Evangelium: Ein Kommentar (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1964) 657; S. Lewis Johnson Jr., “The Triumphal Entry of Christ,” BSac 124 (1967) 218-29, here 222 n. 10; Carson, “Matthew,” 438; Craig S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 491; Craig Blomberg, “Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (ed. G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007) 1-109, here 64; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 778. 53 E.g., Pesch, “Eine alttestamentliche Ausführungsformel,” 243 n. 86; Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 159. 54 E.g., A. J. Maas, The Gospel according to Saint Matthew with an Explanatory and Critical Commentary (2nd ed.; St. Louis: Herder, 1916) 213; Lagrange, Évangile selon saint Matthieu, 398; Tasker, Gospel according to St. Matthew, 198; Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 199; Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate des Matthäus-Evangeliums, 82; Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 159; Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 409; Moo, Old Testament, 181; Daniel Patte, The MATTHEW 21:5 73 the double-donkey reading is so at odds with rabbinic interpretation that Matthew must have had a separate tradition of the two donkeys.55 Unfortunately any external evidence for the jenny is no longer attested, even in the parallel Gospel accounts, making this claim impossible to corroborate and unnecessary to account for Matthew’s literary behavior.56 In addition to creating an opportunity for the historicity of the jenny, the principal perceived advantage of the double-donkey view is that it decouples the presence of the mother from the Zech 9:9 quotation, thus avoiding questions of Matthew’s mistakenly misreading the prophecy, and still provides for the two animals in the narrative.57 The clearest proponent of this position is Roman Bartnicki, who argues that the ὄνος of Matt 21:5 is a different animal from the ὄνος of the surrounding context (vv. 2 and 7) due to the mismatch in their gender.58 In the Matthean narrative, the ὄνος is clearly feminine on account of its grammatical agreement in v. 2 (ὄνον δεδεμένην and αὐτῆς) and v. 7 (τὴν ὄνον). By contrast, the anarthrous term ὄνος in 21:5, though technically ambiguous as to its gender, ought to be masculine due to its congruence with the gender of its corresponding Hebrew source term. Thus, Bartnicki proposes that Matthew had access to two different traditions: one with two animals and another with a literal translation of Zech 9:9 referring to a single donkey, whose wording he did not reconcile into agreement. Despite this difference, Bartnicki concludes that Matthew considered the single-donkey prophecy fulfilled in the double-donkey narrative.59 Although Bartnicki’s argument has the benefit of nicely accounting for Matthew’s interest in a more exact translation of the Hebrew prophecy, it leaves the jenny out of the prophecy altogether and is at odds with Matthew’s clear interest in the fulfillment of prophecy. In particular, Matthew introduces elements from Isa 62:11 that are fulfilled in the actions of the crowds (v. 9) and edits out some features from his Marcan source that are irrelevant to the prophecy (e.g., the unriddenness of the Gospel according to Matthew: A Structural Commentary on Matthew’s Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 286; Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 594; Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 491; France, Gospel of Matthew, 778 n. 28. 55 Stendahl, School of St. Matthew, 200. Less persuasively, Nepper-Christensen points to the alleged focus of the context in Matthew on the jenny, not the colt (Das Matthäusevangelium, 147); in actuality, the animals are always together in Matthew. 56 Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 571 n. 4; Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3:111; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 108 n. 7; Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 837. 57 E.g., Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 491: “Then again, Matthew’s mother donkey may fulfill an entirely different function here than the fulfillment of prophecy, anyway.” Ham, Coming King, 41-42: “This phenomenon need not be combined, however, with the mention of two animals in Mt. 21.2.” 58 Roman Bartnicki, “Das Zitat von Zach IX, 9-10 und die Tiere im Bericht von Matthäus über dem Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem (Mt XXI, 1-11),” NovT 18 (1976) 161-66. 59 Ibid., 166. 74 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 colt). That Matthew would at the same time introduce a new creature entirely unrelated to Zech 9:9 is difficult to accept. Furthermore, Claus-Peter März points out that those who posit a separate source for the jenny do not take the trouble to specify exactly how that jenny functions in the source.60 He argues that it is unlikely that Matthew had access to a narrative source that featured the jenny because otherwise the evangelist would have avoided the difficulty of how Jesus took his mount in v. 7 when he redacted his Marcan source text to include the jenny.61 In other words, if Matthew had a narrative tradition that included the jenny, he would simply have used that narrative when it came to describing how Jesus took his mount for the ride, instead of writing her into the Marcan narrative so awkwardly. Consequently, single-donkey readings of Zech 9:9 ought to be disfavored because the jenny so poorly fulfills the prophecy that Matthew is so keen to quote. IV. Double-Donkey Readings of Zechariah 9:9 Many scholars hold that the two animals come from breaking the Hebrew parallelism in Zech 9:9, in which the two references to the donkeys are read as two separate animals:62 Two-Donkey, Two-Mount Correspondence Zech 9:9 MT Matt 21:5 Quotation Matt 21:2, 7 Context ‫( חמור‬masc.) ὄνον ὄνον (fem.) ‫ בן־אתנות‬,‫ עיר‬πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου πῶλον März, “Siehe, dein König kommt zu dir . . .”: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung zur Einzugsperikope (Erfurter theologische Studien 43; Leipzig: St. Benno, 1980) 6. 61 Ibid., 4. See also Moo, Old Testament, 180 n. 2: “Matthew fails at any place to make explicit that Jesus rode upon the young animal (in contrast to the ὄνος).” 62 E.g., H. J. Holtzmann, Hand-Commentar zum Neuen Testament, vol. 1, Die Synoptiker (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1901) 271; Willoughby C. Allen, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Matthew (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1907) 219; Loisy, Les évangiles synoptiques, 262-63; Erich Klostermann, Das Matthäusevangelium (2nd ed.; HNT 4; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1927) 165; Pesch, “Eine alttestamentliche Ausführungsformel,” 243; Otto Michel, “ὄνος,” TDNT 5:283-87, here 286; McConnell, Law and Prophecy, 127-28; Olof Linton, “Le parallelismus membrorum dans le Nouveau Testament: Simple remarques,” in Mélanges bibliques en hommage au R. P. Béda Rigaux (ed. Albert Descamps and André de Halleux; Gembloux: Duculot, 1970) 489-507, here 493; Francis Wright Beare, The Gospel according to Matthew: Translation, Introduction, and Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981) 413; Martin Hengel, “Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt und ihrem jüdischen Hintergrund,” TRu 52 (1987) 327-400, here 345; Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 110; Luz, Matthew 21–28, 5. 60 Claus-Peter MATTHEW 21:5 75 This correspondence has the attractive benefit of equating the same Greek lexemes in the quoted prophecy ἐπὶ ὄνον καὶ ἐπὶ πῶλον with the narrative text—v. 2: ὄνον δεδεμένην καὶ πῶλον μετ’ αὐτῆς; v. 7: τὴν ὄνον καὶ τὸν πῶλον63—as well as consistently listing the jenny first.64 The main reason given for making this construal of Matthew’s reading of Zech 9:9 is the apparently self-evident position that Matthew wanted a “literal” fulfillment of this analytic reading of prophecy, and the scholarly literature is replete with this key word or its equivalents.65 Accordingly, καὶ ἐπί in Matt 21:5 is treated as a marker of coordination of a separate mount,66 even though the corresponding Hebrew conjuncted preposition ‫ ועל‬does not have that force in this 63 Wilcox, “Text Form,” 200; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 131; Olaf Rölver, Christliche Existenz zwischen den Gerichten Gottes: Untersuchungen zur Eschatologie des Matthäusevangeliums (BBB 163; Göttingen: V&R Unipress, 2010) 105-6. Cf. Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 198: “An affirmative answer is usually assumed because the phrases in the quotation, ἐπὶ ὄνον and ἐπὶ πῶλον υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου, easily correspond to ὄνον and πῶλον in the narrative (v. 2).” 64 Dupont, Les Évangélistes, 539 n. 2; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 131. 65 E.g., Theodor Zahn, Das Evangelium des Matthäus (4th ed.; KNT 1; Leipzig: Deichert, 1922) 618 (“buchstäblischen”); Loisy, Les évangiles synoptiques, 263 (“littérale”); Karl Pieper, “Zum Einzug Jesu in Jerusalem,” BZ 11 (1913) 397-402, here 401 (“wörtlich”); Petrus Dausch, Die drei älteren Evangelien (Die Heilige Schrift des Neuen Testaments; Bonn: Hanstein, 1918) 270 (“buchstäblich”); Ernst von Dobschütz, “Matthew as Rabbi and Catechist,” in The Interpretation of Matthew (ed. Graham Stanton; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995) 27-38, here 34 (“literal”); David M. Stanley, “Études matthéennes: L’entrée messianique à Jérusalem,” ScEccl 6 (1954) 93-106 (“mot à mot,” “littéral”); F. F. Bruce, “The Book of Zechariah and the Passion Narrative,” BJRL 43 (1961) 336-53, here 339 (“most literal”); Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 75 (“wörtlichen”); Pierre Bonnard, L’Évangile selon saint Matthieu (2nd ed.; CNT 1; Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1970) 303 (“littéralement”); J. C. Fenton, The Gospel of St Matthew (Penguin New Testament Commentaries; London: Penguin, 1963) 330 (“literally”); Wolfgang Trilling, “Der Einzug in Jerusalem: Mt 21, 1-17,” in Neutestamentliche Aufsätze: Festschrift für Prof. Josef Schmid zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. J. Blinzler, O. Kuss, and F. Mussner; Regensburg: Pustet, 1963) 303-9, here 304 n. 8 (“wörtliche”); Pesch, “Eine alttestamentliche Ausführungsformel,” 243 (“wortwörtliche”); Gilles Gaide, Jérusalem, voici ton roi (Commentaire de Zacharie 9–14) (LD 49; Paris: Cerf, 1968) 175 (“littéral”); Eduard Schweizer, The Good News according to Matthew (trans. David E. Green; London: SPCK, 1976) 404 (“literally”); Green, Gospel according to Matthew, 176 (“to the letter”); Samuel Tobias Lachs, A Rabbinic Commentary of the New Testament: The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1987), 344 (“literally”); Patte, Gospel according to Matthew, 286 (“wooden literal”); Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 95 (“literal”); Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 131 (“literally”); Jean Miler, Les citations d’accomplissement dans l’Évangile de Matthieu: Quand Dieu se rend présent en toute humanité (AnBib 140; Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1999) 224 (“littéralement”); Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 53 (“littéralement”); Luz, Matthew 21–28, 5 (“literal”); Wayne Coppins, “Sitting on Two Asses? Second Thoughts on the Two-Animal Interpretation of Matthew 21:7,” TynBul 63 (2012) 275-90, here 280 (“literal or word-for-word”). 66 McNeile, Gospel according to St. Matthew, 294 n. 5; Dupont, Les Évangélistes, 542; Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 154, 158; Beare, Gospel according to Matthew, 413; Lachs, Rabbinic Commentary of the New Testament, 344; Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 53; InstoneBrewer, “Two Asses,” 91; Coppins, “Sitting on Two Asses?,” 276-77. 76 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 poetic context. This explanation, however, raises the question just what a “literal” fulfillment of this Scripture is.67 The problem is not that one reading is literal and the other reading is not. Both are literal. The problem is one of ambiguity: the conjunction ‫ ו‬or καί can be conjunctive for two donkeys, or epexegetical for one donkey. Although conjunctive readings are more common, epexegetical readings are still licensed in appropriate circumstances, such as Hebrew poetry. The main work the term “literal” seems to be doing is to distinguish a context-insensitive reading from the standard Jewish and historical-critical reading. Proponents of the double-donkey reading differ as to the aptness of this reading for Matthew because it relates to the ethnicity or education of the evangelist. On the one hand, some dub this reading a simple “misunderstanding” on the part of Matthew,68 a mistake so blatant that the author of Matthew must have been a gentile.69 This view has fared rather poorly in recent times, however, and is criticized for failing to account for Matthew’s general competence on Jewish matters.70 On the other hand, many consider this reading not to be a mistake at all but a valid Jewish midrashic exegetical practice,71 though the usually cited parallels are 67 See the objection of Rupert Feneberg that this supposed literal understanding is a false understanding: “Matthäus hat den Sacharjatext nicht wortwörtlich, sondern falsch verstanden” (Die Erwählung Israels und die Gemeinde Jesu Christi [HBS 58; Freiburg: Herder, 2009] 300). 68 E.g., Plummer, Exegetical Commentary, 285 (“error”); Pieper, “Zum Einzug Jesu,” 401 (“Mißverständnisses”); McNeile, Gospel according to St. Matthew, 294 n. 2 (“mistakenly”); Theodore H. Robinson, The Gospel of Matthew (MNTC; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928) 170 (“misunderstanding”); Enno Littmann, “Torreys Buch über die vier Evangelien,” ZNW 34 (1935) 20-34, here 28 (“zwar in reichlich naiver und ungeschickter Weise”); John Chapman, Matthew, Mark, and Luke: A Study in the Order and Interrelation of the Synoptic Gospels (London: Longmans, Green, 1937) 266 (“misunderstand”); C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New Testament Theology (London: Nisbet, 1953) 127 n. 1 (“did not understand”); S. Vernon McCasland, “Matthew Twists the Scriptures,” JBL 80 (1961) 143-48, here 145 (“twisted understanding”); Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 76 (“Mißverständnis”); Ciriaco Mateos, “Uso e interpretación de Zacarías 9,9-10 en el Nuevo Testamento,” Estudio Agustiniano 7 (1972) 471-93, here 487 (“incomprendido”); John P. Meier, Law and History in Matthew’s Gospel: A Redactional Study of Mt. 5:17–48 (AnBib 71; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1976) 18 (“misunderstanding”); Samuel Sandmel, Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978) 59 (“misunderstands”); Lachs, Rabbinic Commentary of the New Testament, 344 (“misunderstood”). 69 Nepper-Christensen, Das Matthäusevangelium, 146; Strecker, Der Weg der Gerechtigkeit, 76; Meier, Law and History, 18. 70 Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 158; Gundry, Matthew, 409; Moo, Old Testament, 180-81; Carson, “Matthew,” 438; Hengel, “Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt,” 342-43 (appealing to the ease of retroversion into Hebrew and Matthew’s maintenance of parallelism); R. T. France, Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher (Exeter: Paternoster, 1989) 105; Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 574 = idem, “Context and Textual Form,” 110; Hagner, Matthew 14–28, 594; Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 491; Moss, Zechariah Tradition, 86 (on the basis of a detailed treatment of Isa 9:1 LXX in Matt 4:16); Feneberg, Die Erwählung Israels, 300; Rölver, Christliche Existenz, 106. 71 E.g., von Dobschütz, “Matthew as Rabbi,” 34; Stendahl, School of St. Matthew, 119; Lohse, History of the Suffering, 23; Linton, “Le parallelismus membrorum,” 492-93; Mateos, “Uso e MATTHEW 21:5 77 not quite on point.72 For example, Martin Hengel points to Genesis Rabbah’s exegesis of Gen 49:11, in which the parallelism of “He washes his garments in wine, and his robes in the blood of grapes” is interpreted as referring not to the same wine but to two distinct kinds of wine—white and red wine.73 Another example is the interpretation of Num 24:17 (“A star will go out from Jacob and a scepter will arise from Israel”) in CD 7.18-21 as referring to two different messiahs, the priestly and Davidic messiahs, respectively.74 Similarly, David Instone-Brewer appeals to Rabbi Hillel’s interpretation of Qoh 1:15 and Mal 3:18.75 Although these examples show that the parallelism can be interpreted with distinct referents in certain cases, they do so when it is conceivably plausible. By contrast, it is not conceivable that a person could sit on two mounts at once, which may explain why there is no actual example of a rabbinic exegete dissolving the parallelism of Zech 9:9 as claimed for Matthew.76 A more realistic breaking of the parallelism should involve two separate events of the messiah sitting alternately on separate donkeys, first on the jenny, then on the colt.77 Nevertheless, these scholars have demonstrated that first-century Jews were very careful readers of even the tiniest details of Scripture, and we should be alert to possibilities that Matthew was as well (see Matt 5:18: ἰῶτα ἓν ἢ μία κεραία οὐ μὴ παρέλθῃ ἀπὸ τοῦ νόμου, “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass away from the law” [NRSV]).78 interpretación,” 488; Michael D. Goulder, Midrash and Lection in Matthew: The Speaker’s Lectures in Biblical Studies 1969–71 (London: SPCK, 1974) 22-23; Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis, 133; O. Lamar Cope, Matthew: A Scribe Trained for the Kingdom of Heaven (CBQMS 5; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1976) 87; Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 158; Hengel, “Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt,” 343; Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium, 2:203; Wilcox, “Text Form,” 200; M. Eugene Boring, “Matthew,” in NIB 8:87-505, here 403; Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3:121; Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 837 n. 68; Rölver, Christliche Existenz, 106. 72 As pointed out by Nepper-Christensen, Das Matthäusevangelium, 146; Bartnicki, “Das Zitat von Zach IX, 9-10,” 164; Meier, Law and History, 17; Carson, “Matthew,” 438; Mulzer, “Ein Esel, zwei Esel?,” 86. 73 Hengel, “Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt,” 344. But cf. Stendahl, School of St. Matthew, 119: “Yet in this case the rabbis only counted with one ass in connection with Gen. 49:11.” 74 Hengel, “Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt,” 345. 75See Instone-Brewer, “Two Asses,” 93-94. Curiously, he isolates this rejection of parallelism to rabbinic authorities in Palestine before 70 c.e. (pp. 94-95), but this fails to describe what little we know of the author of Matthew. 76 Soares-Prabhu, Formula Quotations, 158. 77 See, e.g., Theophylactus (of Ohrid; ca. 1060–1107), Enarratio in Evangelium Matthaei 21.7 (PG 123:369: ἢ πρῶτον μὲν ἐκάθισεν ἐπὶ τῆς ὄνου, εἶτα καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πώλου, “or he sat on the jenny first, then on the colt too” [my translation]) though this does not solve the problem of v. 7, which does not pertain to the mid-journey events of vv. 8-9. 78 Cf. Hengel, “Zur matthäischen Bergpredigt,” 343: “Grundsätzlich waren die Rabbinen der Meinung, daß jedes Wort, ja jeder Buchstabe (Mt 5,18) der Heiligen Schrift seine Bedeutung habe und bei der Auslegung berücksichtigt werden könne.” 78 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 The double-donkey reading of Zech 9:9 faces two major problems despite its appealing congruence with the donkey terms in the Matthean narrative. The first is that it requires a reading of the Hebrew (and the LXX) text that is divergent from Jewish reading practices, despite Matthew’s interest in presenting a translation more closely mirroring the Hebrew form over the LXX.79 Matthew’s concern for what the Hebrew says is at odds with the suggestion that it meant something else entirely to him. Second, the breaking of the parallelism of Zech 9:9 should generate two male donkeys, a ‫ חמור‬and an ‫עיר‬, respectively, but Matthew’s narrative has a female and male instead (v. 7: τὴν ὄνον καὶ τὸν πῶλον).80 Without an additional and unmotivated misreading of the ὄνος as female, the double-donkey reading of Zech 9:9 fails to account for the fact that the second donkey in Matthew’s story is a jenny. Similar considerations also doom the attempt to tie the two donkeys to Matthew’s penchant for doubling entities in his source, as with the two demoniacs of Matt 8:28 or the two blind men of 9:27.81 Doubling Mark’s colt should then produce two colts, not a jenny and a colt.82 V. Intertextual Readings of Zechariah 9:9 in Light of Other Old Testament Scriptures In recent decades, scholars have proposed more sophisticated, intertextual readings of the OT by Matthew. The basic idea is that, if Zech 9:9 is read in conjunction with another OT text that mentions a plurality of donkeys, then an intertextual reading of these Hebrew Scriptures could yield two donkeys, even if Zech 79 See Bartnicki, “Das Zitat von Zach IX, 9-10,” 164: “Der Text der Prophezeiung von Matthäus ist hier eine genaue Übersetzung des hebräischen Textes.” 80 Noted by Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 199, and, much earlier, by Julius Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Matthaei (Berlin: Reimer, 1904) 103: “und auch nicht von Eselin und Füllen, sondern von Esel und Füllen die Rede ist.” 81 E.g., Loisy, Les évangiles synoptiques, 263; Winterbotham, “Ass and the Ass’s Colt,” 380; Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:28; Wilcox, “Text Form,” 200; Boring, “Matthew,” 403 n. 455; Keener, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, 492; Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 54; Coppins, “Sitting on Two Asses?,” 280. 82 The usual counterargument is that the Matthean doubling relates to the Deuteronomistic two-witness rule, so as to further substantiate the miraculous healings, but the donkeys are not witnesses. See März, “Siehe, dein König kommt,” 188 n. 20; Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 837; France, Gospel of Matthew, 779. Rudolph Bultmann’s idea that the doubling is a popular folk motif used for symmetry (Rudolph Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition [trans. John Marsh; rev. ed.; New York: Harper & Row, 1963] 315; see also Georg Braumann, “Die Zweizahl und Verdoppelungen im Matthäusevangelium,” TZ 24 [1968] 255-66, here 260) fares somewhat better if applied to this pericope since the two donkeys would then match the two disciples, but even here it does not explain the fact that the second donkey is female and apparently the colt’s mother. MATTHEW 21:5 79 9:9 would not be read on its own in that way. What this means is that it does not matter how many donkeys are read in Zech 9:9, because the plural is supported by the other text. Several passages have been proposed, including 2 Sam 16:1-4 (the flight of David from Jerusalem), Exod 4:19-20 (the return of Moses to Egypt), and Gen 49:11 (Jacob’s blessing of Judah). For example, several scholars hold that the plural donkeys come from reading Zech 9:9 in light of 2 Sam 16:1-4.83 In that passage, David is fleeing Jerusalem from Absalom. On the Mount of Olives (15:30), he meets Ziba, who offers him a pair of saddled donkeys provisioned with bread, fruits, and wine and tells him that the donkeys (LXX ὑποζύγια) are for the king’s household to ride (16:1-2). In addition to the same location tying the two events together and the mention of the name “David,”84 the somewhat unusual term for donkeys in the LXX, ὑποζύγια (lit., “under the yoke,” a beast of burden), is a verbal link between 2 Sam 16:2 and Zech 9:9 and Matt 21:5,85 though only 2 Sam 16:2 has the plural. Sandra Hübenthal further notes that this identification plays a supporting role in the overall effect of the combined quotation of Isa 62:11 and Zech 9:9 as announcing the arrival of the messianic king.86 Although there are plural donkeys in 2 Sam 16:1-4, there is hardly any other contact with Matt 21:1-9. In 2 Sam 16:1-4, the donkeys are already loaded and would become available for the king to ride only much later. Furthermore, David is leaving Jerusalem, and Jesus is entering it.87 These contacts seem too slim to sustain a major role for Matthew’s account in the reading of Zech 9:9 in the face of better alternatives, particularly those that provide for a female donkey, which 2 Sam 16:1-4 does not. Moreover, this key-word connection is found in the LXX, while Matthew here exhibits a preference for the Hebrew form of the text. Dale C. Allison Jr. makes much of Moses typology in Matthew’s Gospel, and 83 Pioneered by Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 574-75 (see also idem, “Context and Textual Form,” 111), and followed by Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 55; Gilbert Van Belle, “De Messiaanse intocht van Jezus in Jeruzalem: Het citaat van Zach 9,9 in Mt 21,5 en Joh 12,15,” in De palmezelprocessie: Een (on)bekend West-Europees fenomeen? (ed. Luc Knapen and Patrick Valvekens; Documenta Libraria 33; Leuven: Peeters, 2006) 83-111, here 97-98; France, Gospel of Matthew, 774 (as an “acted allusion” to 2 Sam 16:1-4 on the part of Jesus); Sandra Hübenthal, Transformation und Aktualisierung: Zur Rezeption von Sach 9–14 im Neuen Testament (SBB 57; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2006) 126; and eadem, “‘Wer ist dieser?’ Mt 21,1–17 in intertextueller Lektüre,” in Der Bibelkanon in der Bibelauslegung: Methodenreflexionen und Beispielexegesen (ed. Egbert Ballhorn and Georg Steins; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007) 268-72, here 271. 84 Menken, “Quotations from Zech 9,9,” 574-75; idem, “Context and Textual Form,” 111 . 85 Van Belle, “De Messiaanse intocht,” 98; Hübenthal, Transformation und Aktualisierung, 126; eadem, “‘Wer ist dieser?,’” 271. 86 Hübenthal, “‘Wer ist dieser?,’” 270-71. 87 Pace Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 111. 80 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 he applies this to Matt 21:1-9 as well.88 Arguing that a Mosaic background is plausible based on the descriptor “the prophet” in v. 10 and the merger of prophetic and kingly offices, Allison turns to Exod 4:19-20, where Moses returns to Egypt after those seeking his life have died, a passage already exploited by Matthew in the infancy account. Further evidence of its messianic application is that the rabbis used this passage to expound the humility of the Messiah. In the LXX and in contrast to the Hebrew, Moses puts his wife and children on plural asses (ἀνεβίβασεν αὐτὰ ἐπὶ τὰ ὑποζύγια), and Allison proposes that this text was exploited again here to find two animals in Zechariah.89 Against this argument, Allison’s case relies on a specific interaction with the plural form ὑποζύγια in the LXX, while the MT Hebrew of Exod 4:20 is singular (‫)על־החמר‬, yet Matthew follows the Hebrew against the LXX Greek for Zech 9:9, and Matthew’s own use of ὑποζυγίου is singular. Allison’s proposal also cannot explain why Matthew’s second donkey is female. Moreover, Moses’s return to Egypt in Exodus 4 has none of the royal resonances with Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem in Matthew. As a result, Allison’s proposal has not commended itself even to other scholars sympathetic to such an intertextual reading of Matthew’s Scriptures.90 More promising and popular is the view that the second donkey comes from reading Zech 9:9 in the light of Jacob’s blessing of Judah in Gen 49:11, which says, “Tethering his colt to a vine and to a tendril his foal of a jenny.”91 The mention of a tethered donkey is already lurking behind in the detail of Mark 11:2.92 Further, Gen 49:11 and Zech 9:9 are the only two texts that share the unusual term “foal of a jenny,” and this link would have been apparent to perceptive readers of the Hebrew Bible,93 though less so in Greek.94 There is also contextual support for the 88 For the discussion in this paragraph, see Dale. C. Allison Jr., The New Moses: A Matthean Typology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993) 248-53. 89 Ibid., 251-52, adding “I freely confess that my proposal cannot be proven.” 90 See Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 111 n. 20: “but the material similarity between Exod 4,18-20 and Matthew’s entry narrative is not very striking, and the couple of donkeys remains unexplained.” See also Rölver, Christliche Existenz, 110: “keine wirklich zwingend Verbindungen zu der matthäischen Fassung des Sacharja-Zitats.” 91 My translation. So Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium, 2:203; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 132; Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 833; Feneberg, Die Erwählung Israels, 299-301; Rölver, Christliche Existenz, 106-10; Mulzer, “Ein Esel, zwei Esel?,” 87-88. 92 So Davies and Allison, Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3:116, pointing to verbal links between Zech 9:9 and Gen 49:11 (“son of a jenny,” etc.) and messianic interpretations among the rabbis and Church Fathers. So also Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 132; Nolland, Gospel of Matthew, 833. 93 Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 132; Rölver, Christliche Existenz, 110; Mulzer, “Ein Esel, zwei Esel?,” 87. 94 See, e.g., Luz, Matthew 21–28, 6 n. 22 (“δεσμεύω, not δέω”); France, Gospel of Matthew, 774 n. 16, arguing that the term differs in the LXX and the feature is too obvious to need explanation. MATTHEW 21:5 81 linkage because both contexts pertain to the establishment of a popular ruler.95 In fact, one text is the ancestor of the other.96 Indeed, there is early evidence of the recognition of this link in Christianity. Justin’s argument to Trypho that prophecies about the Messiah are fulfilled in Jesus moves directly from Gen 49:11 to Zech 9:9 (Dial. 53). In fact, this connection may have been suggested in the targum.97 Although Gen 49:11 is decidedly in the mix due to the tethering detail, there are a couple of problems with it as a complete explanation. First, Matthew redacts the account away from Gen 49:11, with the jenny being tethered instead of the colt (at least explicitly), which goes against the view that Gen 49:11 is playing a strong role in Matthew’s mind.98 Second, the parallelism of the colt and the foal of a jenny in Gen 49:11 is ironically too close to the parallelism of Zech 9:9 to support the exegetical generation of a second donkey by this means.99 If Matthew had already read the parallelism of Zech 9:9 conjunctively as separate mounts, then a similar reading of Gen 49:11 is superfluous; but if he read the parallelism as epexegetical, it should stand to reason that he would do the same in Gen 49:11. Although these proposals are right to look for a solution that involves a reading of the parallelism in Zech 9:9 that is sensitive to Jewish reading practices, they poorly account for the fact that the second donkey is female. VI. A Plenary Reading of Zechariah 9:9 The fundamental problem with the preceding proposals that view the second donkey as a fulfillment of prophecy is that they do not account for the sex of the second donkey in Matthew’s account. Charlene McAfee Moss states the problem as follows: “Why is the female ass brought into the story? . . . [I]t seems reasonable to say, at the outset, that Matt 21.2-7, does not derive the female ass from the text of Zech 9.9 (or of Gen 49.11).”100 In fact, the efforts to look for other intertexts to read together with Zech 9:9 appear to be inspired by this premise that there is no jenny in Zech 9:9. I submit that this premise is wrong. There is a jenny in Zech 9:9. She is mentioned in the characterization of the colt as a “foal of jennies” (‫)בן־אתנות‬.101 95 Gnilka, Das Matthäusevangelium, 2:200; Rölver, Christliche Existenz, 110. Die Erwählung Israels, 300. See also Ham, Coming King, 42. 97 See Taradach, “Mt 21,5,” 159-60, for an argument. 98 See Rothfuchs, Die Erfüllungszitate des Matthäus-Evangeliums, 82. 99 Cf. Menken, “Context and Textual Form,” 111 n. 20: “Both authors [Derrett and Weren] rightly point to Gen 49,8-12 as analogous to Zech 9,9, but the donkey of Gen 49,11 remains a Fremdkörper as far as Matthew is concerned.” 100 Moss, Zechariah Tradition, 87. 101 The only scholar I have found to have noticed this point is Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 199. But he refers to it in the context of a larger argument that Matthew mentioned a jenny 96 Feneberg, 82 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 Although the term is plural in the MT (with a generalizing sense, since a foal can only have one mother), the term is singular in Gen 49:11 and in the targums.102 This identification of the jenny in the characterizing term allows for the other donkey references in Zech 9:9—‫חמור‬/ὄνος and ‫עיר‬/πῶλος—to be read in parallelism as a single mount of the Messiah.103 Although the Greek terms do not line up with terminology of the donkeys in the story,104 this proposed equation has the benefit of corresponding neatly to the gender of the Hebrew nouns: male ‫ = חמור = עיר‬the colt, while the feminine term in the Hebrew text ‫ אתנות‬is rendered by the sexually nonspecific ὑποζύγιον so as not to identify the first ὄνον in the quotation with a female.105 Furthermore, the term ὑποζύγιον (lit., “under yoke”) explains the curious detail that, in Matt 21:2, it is the jenny not the colt that is tethered (ὄνον δεδεμένην). Two-Donkey, One-Mount Correspondence Matt 21:5 Quotation Zech 9:9 MT ‫ חמור‬ὄνον ‫ בן־‬,‫ עיר‬πῶλον υἱὸν . . . ‫ אתנות‬ὑποζυγίου Matt 21:2, 7 Context πῶλον (μετ’ αὐτῆς) (τὴν) ὄνον δεδεμένην With the two animals identified, the humble king would be mounted on the colt, but the colt would also be with its mother, because it is the “foal of a jenny.” This reading of Zechariah shows a close attention to detail, wherein every element of the prophecy is found to play a role in the life of Jesus. The warrant for mentioning the jenny comes from her textual presence in Zech 9:9, and it serves to character- because he learned from tradition “to underscore that the young donkey really was, as Mk said, unused.” Yet this claim of emphasis is confusing because Matthew drops from his Marcan source the language of a colt being unused. At any rate, Gundry later abandoned this suggestion in favor of a “knowing breakup of the synonymous parallelism in Zech 9:9” in order to support some sort of a throne arrangement of the coats and donkeys for Jesus to sit upon (Matthew, 410). 102 See Moo, Old Testament, 178; Nieuviarts, L’entrée de Jésus, 44. 103 E.g., Tasker, Gospel according to St. Matthew, 198; Gaechter, Das Matthäus Evangelium, 657; Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 198; Brandscheidt, “Messias und Tempel,” 41; David L. Turner, Matthew (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008) 495. 104 März, “Siehe, dein König kommt,” 7; Weren, “Jesus’ Entry,” 130-31. 105 Gundry, Use of the Old Testament, 198: “If Mt had been intent on identifying the ὄνος in the quotation with the mother ὄνος in the narrative, he might have translated the second phrase in Zech quite simply, ‘and upon a colt, the foal of an ὄνος (instead of ὑποζύγιον),’ i.e., repeated the word ὄνος in the second line of the parallel structure to make clear he was referring to a mother ὄνος in the first line. He had all the more reason to do this because ὄνος is the usual equivalent for ‫ אתון‬in the LXX. As it is, Mt gives the much less natural rendering ὑποζυγίου, as if he wished not to identify the mother animal in his narrative with the ὄνος in the first part of the quotation.” MATTHEW 21:5 83 ize the colt in accordance with the Hebrew text of the prophecy, while Mark’s unridden colt is characterized by the Greek translation of the prophecy. Thus, this plenary reading of Zech 9:9 readily accounts for the presence of the jenny in Matthew’s scene. Indeed, as will be argued in part 2, it also accounts for the somewhat perplexing synecdoche of Matt 21:7 (“and sat on top of them”), because the jenny and colt constitute a conceptual unit. In Matthew’s mind, when Jesus sits on the team of the jenny and the colt, he sits on the colt in accordance with prophecy. VII. Conclusion Accordingly, the plenary reading of Zech 9:9 is the only proposal under consideration that allows for the jenny in Matthew’s account to be fulfilled in the very text of the prophecy. She (with her colt) is to be found in the characterizing term ‫“( בן־אתנות‬son of jennies”) of the Hebrew prophecy and Matthew’s translation of υἱὸν ὑποζυγίου in 21:5 explicitly ties this term to the tethered jenny with her colt in v. 2 (ὄνον δεδεμένην καὶ πῶλον μετ’ αὐτῆς). No other proposal accounts for the fulfillment of Zech 9:9 in the jenny and colt so well. For the single-donkey readings, the female donkey must come from another tradition and only the colt fulfills that interpretation of Zech 9:9. For the double-donkey readings, breaking the parallelism of Zech 9:9 should produce two male mounts, not the female jenny of the Matthean account. The intertextual readings provide a plurality of donkeys but not another female one specifically. Despite the fact that the plenary reading depends on a knowledge of Hebrew already suggested by Matthew’s eschewal of the LXX in favor of a more formally equivalent translation of the Hebrew, the plenary reading is better situated than its competitors to have Matthew’s tethered jenny be fulfilled in Zechariah’s messianic prophecy. This pericope shows the mutual interaction of Matthew’s reading of Mark and Zechariah.106 Matthew read Mark in light of Zechariah by seeing in it a fulfillment of messianic prophecy, and he read Zechariah in light of Mark by seeing in it a role for the jenny. Both texts are explicit about the presence of a colt in the scene, and, without explicitly placing her there, both texts create space for the mother of the colt. In Mark that space comes from the characterization that no one had ridden the colt before. In Zechariah that space comes from the characterization of the colt as the foal of a jenny. By reading these texts together, one in the light of the other and vice versa, the space left by both texts can be filled by the presence of the colt’s mother. This is not a case of unidirectional influence where details are simply read 106 A conclusion broadly claimed but undeveloped by März, “Siehe, dein König kommt,” 8: “In diesem Horizont könnte man sich gut eine Umgestaltung der markinischen Einzugsgeschichte in der wechselseitigen Beeinflussung von Kontext und Zitat denken, auch wenn man die Gründe für die Einfügung eines zweiten Reittieres nicht mehr im einzelnen fassen kann.” 84 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 81, 2019 from one text into the another. Indeed, the jenny is not quite available in either source on her own strength. She is not actually part of Zechariah’s scene, though her identity is. Moreover, her identity is not part of Mark’s scene, but her presence can be inferred. This overlapping and interlocking combination of the presence and identity of the jenny allowed Matthew to read them together and clarify the obscurities of Mark’s presentation. After all, it is easier to recognize a colt with its mother than a colt that has never been ridden. What Matthew wrote comes from the intertextuality of the texts he read, and it shows that he was a careful reader of his sources. Unfortunately, Matthew was rather less careful in his redaction of Mark, replacing old obscurities with a new one in describing how Jesus took his mount.