The prophet invites Jerusalem to rejoice at the coming of the promised salvation in the Person of her King; no mighty earthly potentate and conqueror, like Alexander the Great, but one of different fashion (comp.
Zephaniah 3:14). Thy King cometh unto thee. St. Matthew (Matthew 21:5) and St. John (John 12:15) see a fulfilment of this prophecy in Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the first day of the week in which he was crucified.
All attempts to disprove the Messianic import of this passage have been unavailing. Even critics who refer this part of Zechariah (ch. 9-11.) to an unknown author writing in the time of Hezekiah, allow that it is replete with Messianic ideas, and can be applied to no hero of Jewish story or event of Jewish history.
There is no other "King" of Israel to whom it can refer. Our blessed Lord himself, by his abnormal actions on Palm Sunday, plainly assumed the part of the predicted King, and meant the people to recognize in him the promised Messiah.
Thy King. A king of thine own race, no stranger, but one predestined for thee. He who was foretold by all the prophets, who was to occupy the throne of David, and reign forever (Psalms 2:6; Psalms 45:1, Psalms 45:6, Psalms 45:7; Isaiah 32:1).
Unto thee. For thy good, to bless thee (Isaiah 9:6). Just. Righteous in character and in practice, ruling in equity (Psalms 72:1-4, Psalms 72:7; Isaiah 11:2-4). Having salvation; Septuagint, σώζων, "saving."
Vulgate, salvator; so the Syriac and Chaldee. The genius of the language requires the participle to be taken passively, as it is in two other passages where it occurs (Deuteronomy 33:29; Psalms 33:16).
The context has seemed to some to demand that it be understood in an active sense, thus contrasting him who came to save with the haughty Grecian conqueror, whose progress was marked by bloodshed. But the usual meaning of the word affords a satisfactory sense.
The King who comes is "saved," endowed with salvation, either as being protected and upheld by God (Psalms 18:50; Psalms 110:1, Psalms 110:2, Psalms 110:5; Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 49:8), or as being victorious and so able to aid his people.
In this latter view, the active sense is included in the passive. His own deliverance is a sure sign of the deliverance of his people. Lowly; Septuagint, πραύς, "meek;" Vulgate, pauper—meek and lowly, as Christ himself says (Matthew 11:29),far removed from warlike pomp and worldly greatness.
The word is also rendered "afflicted," and would then be in accordance with the description in Isa 52:13-53:5; Psalms 22:6. Riding upon an ass. In illustration of his poor or afflicted estate; it is this, and not merely the peace.
fulness of his reign, that is meant by this symbolical action, as we see by the following clause, where the youthfulness of the animal is the point enforced. And (even, and that) upon a colt the foal of an ass; such as she asses bear, and one not trained; as the evangelist says, "whereon never man sat."
Christ sat upon the foal. In old times judges and men of distinction rode upon asses (Genesis 22:3; 5:10; 10:4); but from Solomon's days the horse had been used, not only in war, but on all state occasions (Jeremiah 17:25); and the number of horses brought back on the return from Babylon is specially mentioned (Ezra 2:66).
So to predicate of a King that he would come to his capital riding, not on a war horse, but on a young, unbroken ass, showed at once that he himself was not to be considered a victorious general or a worldly potentate, and that his kingdom was not to be won or maintained by carnal arms.
This is signified more fully in the following verse, which describes the character and extent of Messiah's kingdom.