Word Pictures in the New Testament - David Cox

Word Pictures in the NT [Matthew: Chapter 21].
himself. It seems as if already the disciples were calling Jesus
"Lord" and that he accepted the appellative and used it as here.
21:4 {By the prophet} (\dia tou proph•tou\). The first line is
from Isa 62:11, the rest from Zec 9:9. John (Joh 12:14f.)
makes it clear that Jesus did not quote the passage himself. In
Matthew it is not so plain, but probably it is his own comment
about the incident. It is not Christ's intention to fulfil the
prophecy, simply that his conduct did fulfil it.
21:5 {The daughter of Zion} (\t•i thugatri Si•n\). Jerusalem as
in Isa 22:4 (daughter of my people). So Babylon (Isa 47:1),
daughter of Tyre for Tyre (Ps 45:12). {Riding} (\epibeb•k•s\).
Perfect active participle of \epibain•\, "having gone upon." {And
upon a colt the foal of an ass} (\kai epi p•lon huion
hupozugiou\). These words give trouble if \kai\ is here taken to
mean "and." Fritzsche argues that Jesus rode alternately upon
each animal, a possible, but needless interpretation. In the
Hebrew it means by common Hebrew parallelism "upon an ass, even
upon a colt." That is obviously the meaning here in Matthew. The
use of \hupozugiou\ (a beast of burden, under a yoke) for ass is
common in the LXX and in the papyri (Deissmann, _Bible Studies_
p. 161).
21:7 {And he sat thereon} (\kai epekathisen epan• aut•n\), Mark
(Mr 11:7) and Luke (Lu 19:35) show that Jesus rode the colt.
Matthew does not contradict that, referring to the garments (\ta
himatia\) put on the colt by "them" (\aut•n\). not to the two
asses. The construction is somewhat loose, but intelligible. The
garments thrown on the animals were the outer garments
(\himatia\), Jesus "took his seat" (\epekathisen\, ingressive
aorist active) upon the garments.
21:8 {The most part of the multitude} (\ho pleistos ochlos\). See
11:20 for this same idiom, article with superlative, a true
superlative (Robertson, _Grammar_, p. 670). {In the way} (\en t•i
hod•i\). This the most of the crowd did. The disciples put their
garments on the asses. Note change of tenses (constative aorist
\estr•san\, descriptive imperfects \ekopton kai estr•nnuon\
showing the growing enthusiasm of the crowd). When the colt had
passed over their garments, they would pick the garments up and
spread them again before.
21:9 {That went before him and that followed} (\hoi proagontes
http://www.ccel.org/r/robertson_at/wordpictures/htm/MT21.RWP.html (2 of 7) [28/08/2004 09:03:20 a.m.]