Jewish Kings & Their Donkeys Genesis 49:9-12, Zechariah 9:9

Christians all around the world celebrated Palm Sunday this past Sunday. Many pastors will refer to Zechariah 9:9 as the fulfilled prophecy mentioned by the Gospel writers and rightly so. But much further back, when Jacob was dying and Judah was promised to the kingly tribe, there is a prophecy very similar to the one we see in Zechariah, but it is thousands of years old, not hundreds,

9 Judah is a lion’s whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He [c]bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh comes; and to Him shall be the obedience of the people. 11 Binding his donkey to the vine, and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.

Here we see that Shiloh, Jesus, will tie His donkey to a vine much like we see in the Zechariah verse. Jewish kings were not supposed to amass lots of horses, Deuteronomy 17:16, especially horses from Egypt. Donkeys are a symbol of humility, hard work and burden bearing. Jesus was lowly, humble, meek and he bore our burdens. 

One last miracle that I have not ever thought of until this week, we see in Mark 11:2, that Jesus rode a colt that no one had ever ridden. No breaking in was required, Jesus just got on and rode the colt. Awesome, not just the wind and waves obey Him, but so do donkeys. 

Jesus came in as our perfect Passover lamb, many thought He was coming to be the king, but no, He came to be our sacrifice. He came to save us from our sins.