"... Unlike with most other FCs, Matthew 21:5 (= Zechariah 9:9) does not appear to be Matthew’s “discovery”: John also cites this text (John 12:15), and Mark may well allude to it (Mark 11:2, 7). But Matthew gives the citation his own distinctive interpretation ... The so-called “triumphal entry,” Matthew 21:1-17 narrates how Jesus, celebrated by “the crowds” as “Son of David” but regarded suspiciously by (all!) the “city’s” inhabitants, finally enters Jerusalem and the Temple, drives out the buyers, sellers, and moneychangers, heals the blind and lame, receives further acclaim (from the children) and further suspicion (from the leaders), and retreats to Bethany. Near the beginning of the pericope, a conflated FC announces fulfillment: “[Isaiah 62:11 Masoretic/LXX] Tell the daughter of Zion, [Zechariah 9:9 LXX] Look, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on [Zechariah 9:9 MT] a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Fulfilling the prophecy, Jesus then rides both a donkey and colt. A reading of this FC should begin with the obvious question: why does Matthew apparently portray Jesus as “a trick rider balancing himself on two animals at the same time”? It is this multiplicity of animals that underwrites a common reading of Matthew’s hermeneutic. For many scholars, so strange is the image that it can mean only one thing: Matthew is not using Scripture to interpret a story but rather to manufacture one. The “circus spectacle” is a result of the fact that Matthew, with his prediction–verification hermeneutic, would create “an exact correspondence with the actual wording” of Zechariah 9:9, but, failing to appreciate the Hebrew parallelism, thinks such a correspondence requires two animals. Scripture has two animals; Jesus fulfills predictions; ergo, Jesus rode two animals ..."