Matthew’s citation of Zech 9:9 does not conform completely either to the Hebrew MT text or to the Greek LXX version. Elsewhere, when Matthew cites the Hebrew Scriptures, it can be shown that as a rule he follows the LXX. That makes his deviation in this case all the more puzzling:
|
Zechariah 9:9 |
Matthew 21:5 |
|
Χαῖρε σφόδρα, θύγατερ Σιων |
Εἴπατε τῇ θυγατρὶ Σιών |
|
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! |
Say to the daughter of Zion, |
Patently, Matthew departs from the LXX text of Zech 9:
in major ways. First, he replaces the double exhortation to the “daughter of
Zion/Jerusalem” to rejoice and celebrate with an announcement formula, “Say to
the daughter of Zion,” a formula taken from a related text of Isa 62:11. One
might suppose that Matthew was quoting from memory and has confused the two
texts, especially because they are partially overlapping in context. But given
the manner in which Matthew has altered the text of Zechariah in other respects
to suit his own theological agenda, one may postulate, better, that Matthew has
deliberately substituted the Isaiah text to prepare the reader for the tumult
in the city caused by Jesus’ arrival. Matthew has transformed it into a summons
for the people to assemble to celebrate the arrival of the long awaited divine
messianic king.
Second, by omitting the phrase “triumphant and
victorious is he.” Matthew emphasizes the humble, peaceful demeanor of this
King who is arriving. This surely is a conscious attempt to put a different
face on Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophecy, exactly in keeping with the unique
way in which the Matthean Jesus characterizes himself (GK “I am humble and
lowly of heart”) and offers himself as the model that his disciples should imitate
(Matt 11:29). (Is it possible, further, that Matthew also contains a faint
echoe of Athirat of the Sea humbling herself by appearing before the king of
the gods riding on a donkey?)
Third and most obvious, Matthew has Jesus enter the
city mounted on two animals, rather than one in Zech 9:9. Numerous explanations
have been proffered to account for this discrepancy, e.g., that Matthew was
citing from a faulty memory or that Matthew used a Greek text with a different Vorlage.
The most common explanation, however, is that Matthew simply misunderstood the
poetic nature of the text, misreading the copulative (Greek και = Hebrew וְ) as a
true grammatical copulative, rather than as an emphatic element (“even,” “indeed”)
whose function in the poetic technique of parallelism is to link closely the
second member of poetic couplet to the preceding member. Because Matthew read
the copulative “literally,” he understood the text to imply that two animals
were involved, when in fact the prophet intended but a single animal.
That the evangelist did not understand the intended
parallelism of the prophetic text seems highly unlikely, however. Already in
this verse alone Matthew has twice felt free to omit one of the two members of parallel
cola: “daughter Zion” // “daughter Jerusalem”; “triumphant and victorious” // “humble
and riding on a draught animal.” Clearly Matthew understood Hebrew poetic parallelism.
Accordingly, an explanation must be sought elsewhere. I suggest that Matthew
deliberately chose to ignore the poetic parallelism involved and instead to rea
the text literally as speaking of two animals because it advanced
his larger thesis of presenting Jesus as “Immanuel,” God with us.” (Bernard F.
Batto, “’Enthroned upon Doneys’: The Entry of Divine Jesus into Jerusalem
according to Matthew,” in Some Wine and Honey for Simon: Biblical and Ugaritic
Aperitifs in Memory of Simon B. Parker, ed. A. Joseph Ferrara and Hebret B.
Huffmon [Eugene, Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2020], 199-200)
Patiently, Matthew is at pains to convey Jesus’ true
identity as God-wish-us, the Son of God, somewhat analogous to the way in which
the Johannine Jesus is the Word-made-flesh, but in Matthew without any hint of
pre-existence. It appears that Matthew’s concern to underscore the divinity of
Jesus has profoundly shaped the evangelist’s story about Jesus’ entry into
Jerusalem.
The Hebrew text of Zech 9:9 has rōkēb, a verb
which can have reference either to the act of riding in the sense of “sitting
astride” a horse, or to the posture of mounted upon or standing upright, as for
example, in a chariot. The ambiguity seems to figure into Matthew’s understanding
of Zech 9:9, when compared with other New Testament authors’ citation of this
prophetic passage.
Mark—and similarly John—employs the verb καθιζω “to ride/mount.” (Luke
19:35 uses a different verb: επιβιβαζω “to mount/sit or to cause to mount/sit upon.”) With but
a single animal involved, Mark, Luke, and John all understand Jesus to have
mounted the animal by sitting upon it, that is, in the usual manner of sitting
astride its back. Matthew (21:7), however, alters Mark’s (11:7) straightforward
wording “and he sat on/mounted it” (καθιζω) by strengthening the verb and making it plural: “and
they made [him] mount/sit upon” (επικαθιζω) and changing the preposition from επι “on” to επανω “over/above.” Thus,
Mark’s simple reading, “and [Jesus] sat on it,” became in Matthew’s description
something more like “and they make [Jesus] mount upon them [i.e.,
the two animals].” It appears that Matthew felt the inadequacy of Mark’s
language for describing Jesus’ action of being mounted upon two animals.
It is unclear whether Matthew intends the reader to understand Jesus as somehow
seated on both animals, i.e., riding straddled across both animals simultaneously.
An older proposal—namely, that Jesus rode first one anima, dismounted, and
subsequently mounted the second animal—seems entirely ruled out by Matthew’s
own language. More likely, Matthew did not intend to clarify the precise manner
of how Jesus physically accomplished the task of mounting both animals; he
merely wished to suggest to the reader that Jesus was mounted above the donkeys
in a manner reminiscent of a deity mounted above his symbolic mount, much like
Yahweh mounted above the cherubs. In Jesus’ case, however, the mounts have a
further symbolic connotation, namely, the humbleness of the rider. (Ibid., 202-3)
