Zechariah 9:9—Riding a Donkey

“Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; Raise a shout, daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king is coming to you. He is victorious, triumphant, Yet poor (humble), riding on an ass, on a donkey foaled by a she-ass.”

Claim: The king discussed is none other than Jesus, whom, according to the New Testament, entered Jerusalem on a donkey.

Response: Firstly, needy of mention is that this description isn’t discrete to be referring to one person specifically. Yes, let us assume that Jesus fulfills this messianic criterion but that doesn’t mean he has a copyright on “riding on a donkey to Jerusalem” as many others have fulfilled this as well. Secondly, the alleged proof-text is a result of a misunderstanding of the verse. The verse does not come to tell us that the entry of Messiah into Jerusalem will be via donkey transportation (such a trivial detail for the Bible to tell us) but is informing us about the personality of this saviour (probably) the Messiah. The verse tells us that he’s a “righteous and triumphant, (and) poor” these are descriptions of his personality—not of his entry to Jerusalem. The term “riding on a donkey” was a way to describe the nature and character of this humble—similar in Hebrew to the word “poor”—Messiah of ours^[1] who did/will not ride a horse, as did the royal and rich, but would be humble. This character is of no significance to Jesus, for nowhere in the New Testament is he recorded to be “a donkey-rider.” Additionally, even if theoretically he was a donkey-rider, so were many other claimed-messiahs (and there were many of those!).

Moreover, this that Jesus rode on a donkey into Jerusalem is something known to us only through the New Testament, a book we still haven’t verified as authentic. The very same author of the New Testament who tells us of this alleged historical fact about Jesus, is the one who wants to paint Jesus into every passage he believed to be messianic, including Zechariah 9:9. That’s what we call “circular reasoning”; crowning Jesus as the Messiah because of an act he did that is recorded only in a book whose whole goal is to title him the messiah. So why should we believe that he actually rode into Jerusalem on a donkey?

Say I was to claim my great, great, great grandfather was the Messiah. I’ll say that he even fulfills messianic requirements: he performed miracles, he suffered for our sins, was rejected by his people, was named Emmanuel, was born in Bethlehem, and rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. There’s only one twist: I fabricated all these facts about him just in order to paint him as the Messiah.

[1] Opinions vary as to whether this messiah is the one descendant from David or the one descendant from Joseph.