Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. (Zechariah 9:9, KJV)
The donkey's finest hour in the Bible comes in Christ's Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. This reference to Roman parades for triumphant war heroes is laden with irony. Jesus does not ride into the Holy City in a gilded chariot pulled by four white horses but on the back of a humble, workaday beast of burden. It is a subversive display of the powerlessness of divine power, viewed as a fulfilment of this prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures about how the long-promised Messiah would make his appearance. An Ethiopian artisan has painted the scene on leather (upper left) as found in ancient illuminated manuscripts, while a potter in a Jerusalem workshop decorates a tile with the story (upper right) in the style of ceramic wall decorations from the Ottoman era in the city's Armenian Cathedral of St. James. Jesus on his donkey merges with the crowd as a true man of the people in a cast metal sculpture (lower right) from Bulgarian Artist Nicola Litchkov. Ukrainian Greek Catholic Icon-maker Kateryna Kuziv renders the donkey in outline (lower left), carrying the boldly-colored Christ through a monochrome landscape to the city gates. (John Kohan)