a colt: the young of an animal, and in every New Testament use a young donkey
Outside the Bible this word means simply a young animal, and most often a young horse. Greek writers from Homer onward use it that way, and their poets could even use it of a young person. So on its own the word says "young one," not "donkey." What tells a reader which animal is meant is either a qualifier, as in "the colt of a donkey," or the story around it.
In the New Testament it never wanders. All twelve uses belong to one scene, Jesus riding into Jerusalem, and the animal is a young donkey every time. Each Gospel words it a little differently:
- Mark and Luke use the word by itself, adding that no one had ever sat on the animal.
- Matthew sets the colt beside its mother, the donkey (ὄνος), and quotes Zechariah's prophecy in full.
- John first calls the animal a little donkey (ὀνάριον), then quotes the prophecy with its "colt of a donkey."
The Greek Old Testament is where these writers got their vocabulary, and it uses this word only of donkeys, once of a young mountain goat, and never of a horse. Readers who knew their scriptures in Greek would have heard "donkey" here without needing to be told.
The choice of animal carries the meaning of the whole scene. Zechariah pictures a king arriving humble, riding on a donkey (חֲמוֹר), on a colt (עַיִר), and the next line has God cutting off the horse from Jerusalem and speaking peace to the nations. A ruler who entered a city on a war horse (ἵππος) was announcing conquest. This king borrows a young donkey that has never been ridden, and that is why so much hangs on one small word for a young animal.
How Matthew arrives at two animals, a mother donkey and her colt, where Mark, Luke and John have one.
- contestedMatthew took the two parallel lines of Zechariah 9:9, which describe a single animal twice, as naming two animals, following the ambiguous Greek of the Septuagint.; D. A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (WBC 33B), on Matthew 21:1-9; W. D. Davies and D. C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC), vol. 3, on Matthew 21:1-9; J. P. Meier, The Vision of Matthew (1979), 19-21; R. H. Gundry, The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew's Gospel (1967), 197
- contestedMatthew doubled the animals deliberately, working with an approach to scripture that treated every word of the prophecy as carrying its own force, so that the oracle was fulfilled only if both animals were present.; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT), on Matthew 21:1-7; D. Instone-Brewer, "The Two Asses of Zechariah 9:9 in Matthew 21," Tyndale Bulletin 54 (2003) 87-98; J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (NIGTC), on Matthew 21:1-7; T. S. Ferda, "Doubling Down," Journal of Theological Studies 71 (2020)
What Matthew means by saying that Jesus sat on them.
- majorityThe plural refers to the garments spread over the colt, with the mother donkey simply accompanying it.; R. H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution, on Matthew 21:7; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT), on Matthew 21:7; C. S. Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, on Matthew 21:7; U. Luz, Matthew 21-28 (Hermeneia), on Matthew 21:7
- minorityThe plural refers to the two animals taken together as one mount, since Matthew has consistently changed Mark's singulars to plurals through the passage.; W. Coppins, "Sitting on Two Asses? Second Thoughts on the Two-Animal Interpretation of Matthew 21:7," Tyndale Bulletin 63.2 (2012); S. C. Carlson, "The Jenny and the Colt in Matthew's Entry Narrative," Catholic Biblical Quarterly 81 (2019)