John 12:14 - Exposition

And Jesus, having found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written. The whole account of the process by which our Lord secured this ὀνάριον is described at great length by the synoptists. The foal implies that the animal had never borne another burden. The account of Matthew refers to the mother and the foal, as though they were inseparable, and together bore the sacred burden. Mr. Holman Hunt, in his picture of the 'Triumph of the Innocents,' has represented the beast bearing Mary and her Child as accompanied by the colt. The entire process of securing both must have taken time, and augmented the excitement. Christ at length, on the eve of his Passion which he so distinctly foreshadowed, allowed the enthusiasm of the people to prevail, and accepted the homage. The Galilee pilgrims take up the demonstration, which was commenced, as we see from John's Gospel, by "the Jews" and those Jerusalemites who had been profoundly moved by the significance of the resurrection of Lazarus. The circumstances thus elucidated from the four narratives, reveal undesigned coincidences. The entry into Jerusalem did not take place till the afternoon, and so we find that all that our Lord did on arrival was to "go to the temple, look round on all things, and, now that the even was come, to revisit Bethany with the twelve" ( Mark 11:11 ).