Bible Wonders - Why Two Donkeys

Did you ever wonder? Did you ever wonder?

I do. Did you ever wonder? Why the sun always rises, but the stars never fall? Why dry land is never satisfied by water? And why fire never says enough?

Enough. So, let's begin to wonder about this particular issue of donkeys, which starts apparently in Zechariah 9, which Matthew is going to quote when he's talking about the triumphal entry, which is Matthew 21, 5. But in Zechariah 9, 9, it says, rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion, and shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, behold, thy king.

Right? That's pretty cool. Thy king cometh unto thee, he is just, and having salvation lowly, riding upon an ass, and upon a foal of an ass. So, that's the King James Version anyway, and oh my goodness, what that leads to is, you know, the whole idea of why Matthew wrote about two donkeys, and the other gospels didn't write about as many donkeys, because clearly apparently Jesus was only writing one of those donkeys. But, you know, while you're looking at those passages of Zechariah 9, and certainly Matthew 21, 5, you know, the heart of this and the beginning of it, you know, which is clearly to me always a wonderful thing that the book of Genesis is like an index to the rest of the Bible. And so here's where we're going to find the whole idea of two donkeys, right? Because as Jacob is in Genesis 49, blessing his sons, very specifically when he gets to blessing his son Judah, you know, it is said of Judah here that he is a lion's whelp, and from the prey my son, thou art gone up, he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion he shall rouse up, and the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh come, and unto him shall be the gathering of the people.

I wish I just loved that. And then it says, and this is where we're getting, verse 11 of Genesis 49, binding his foal unto the vine, and his asses colt unto the choicest vine. He washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes.

His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. And so you can clearly see that the original prophecy about the donkeys in Genesis, you know, we talked about last episode about Isaac coming in on a donkey, but here we have the king, clearly from Zechariah 9, 9, is saying you're king. So, you know, here comes the king, and he's riding on a donkey, and he obviously, according to Matthew, had two donkeys there. And so what is this with the vine and the choicest vine? Well, again, you've got more that you can wonder about, because the really, really cool thing is, you know, Jesus taught on this.

He gave it in so many different ways, and here's how he gave it, right? He talked about the vineyard owner who comes, and you can read that in Matthew 21, 33, about the vineyard owner who comes, and again, there's a vine that is described in Isaiah. So you've got Matthew 21, 33, and you've got Isaiah 5, 2 is where we see this word choicest vine, and this idea of the choicest vine is clearly Israel, as is described in Isaiah 5, 2 and in Jeremiah 2, 21. And if you read Isaiah 5, 2 and then go read Matthew 21, 33 about the vineyard owner, you're going to see it's almost exactly what Jesus is clearly making reverent to. And so why is Jesus making reference to this and clearly this choicest vine being that his donkey was tethered to it? Well, you've got two donkeys, and one is, you know, tethered to a vine and the other one to the choicest vine. And again, I didn't say I had a lot of answers, but I do have some real Bible information for you and something to ponder about this vine and the choicest vine. But the other thing that really obviously is you go to either Matthew 21, 33 or Luke 29 and see what Jesus taught on this whole idea of this choicest vine, which obviously is first referenced in Genesis 49 and Jacob's prophecy about Judah. Again, I know I'm going really fast.

I'm going to list all these references, by the way, in the show notes so that you can go look for yourself. And my prayer is really that you would wonder about this. Where's God going with this?

Because clearly it's all over. I mean, you know, kind of my heart burns as I see the Scriptures come to life, all that Jesus was talking about when it came to this choicest vine and the fact that he rode in on two donkeys to kind of emphasize the point. Well, one of the points that he makes in that parable of the vineyard owner who comes back and they've killed his son is he makes reference back to Psalms 118. And Psalms 118 is the last of the Hallel's. It would be the last Hallel that they would have sung on the way up to the Garden of Gethsemane that night that Jesus prayed great drops of blood.

Right. And that Psalm 118, if you read it, has everything to do, as we're going to cover in future episodes this week, everything to do with the triumphal entry as well. And this whole idea of the King coming. And so here it says, you know, the stone the builders rejected would become, you know, the stone of the corner.

You know, that whole idea. And so tomorrow we're going to do a lot of wondering about that stone that the builders rejected because it has everything to do with the triumphal entry. It has everything to do with Psalms 118 and a whole lot to wonder about.

So getting back to just the question. Right. It would appear to me clearly, according to Matthew, there were two donkeys. Of course, he only rode one of those donkeys, but Zechariah was giving them a picture that this would be their king that was coming to them. And the thing I think about that what what Jesus was doing was trying to point out to those who had ears to ear and eyes to see.

I am the king. Right. They knew the Zechariah passage. They knew the Genesis passage. That's why they were saying, you know, Jesus, son of David, the son of David would be the one. They knew that.

Right. They knew that that would be from Psalm 18. They knew all the Hosanna stuff that came from Psalm 118. And so, you know, this is clear that they. We should see a lot of scripture lining up right here because of these two donkeys and then say, oh, my goodness. You know, Isaiah spoke about this and Jesus taught about it, about the stone the builders rejected.

And so I think about that. Oh, my goodness. This was a picture for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear that he was, in fact, the Messiah. And that his his clothes would be washed in the blood of grapes, as this is described in both what Jesus talked about here and in Genesis 49. So, oh, my goodness. Stuff to wonder about passages to look at as we prepare for Easter this week.