12:14
Finding a young donkey, Jesus: This clause here indicates that Jesus found a young donkey that he could ride. The verb Finding does not indicate here that the donkey was lost. Jesus’ followers brought it to him as he had told them (see Matthew 21:2–3, 6–7). This probably happened earlier, before the people went out to welcome him. So it may be natural to say:
Jesus had found a young donkey
Here are other ways to translate this clause:
Jesus obtained/got a young donkey
-or-
Someone brought a young donkey to Jesus
a young donkey: A donkey is a domestic animal that is like a small horse, but with longer ears. Riding on a donkey, rather than a horse, was associated with humility and peace in Jesus’ time. See also Genesis 49:9–11. If a ruler rode on a donkey it showed that he came in peace. You may want to write a footnote that explains what the donkey indicates. For example:
The Jews of Jesus’ time associated a donkey with peace and with humility. The horse was different because it was associated with war.
sat on it: This phrase means that Jesus rode the donkey. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:
got up on it
-or-
rode on it (Contemporary English Version)
as it is written: This phrase introduces a quotation from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament. See how you translated this phrase in 8:17 and Mark 1:2. Here the quotation that follows is taken partly from Zephaniah 3:16 and partly from Zechariah 9:9. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:
fulfilling the prophecy that said (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
just as the scripture says (Good News Translation)
-or-
This happened just like ⌊what God prophesied⌋ in the scriptures
© 2020 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.