Note 62 — Chapter X · THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS, AND HIS LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM.
George Eliot translation
The two difficulties already considered belong respectively to the first Evangelist, and the two intermediate ones: another is common to them all, namely, that which lies in the circumstance that Jesus so confidently sends two disciples for an ass which they would find in the next village, in such and such a situation, and that the issue corresponds so closely to his prediction. It might here appear the most natural, to suppose that he had previously bespoken the ass, and that consequently it stood ready for him at the hour and place appointed;62 but how could he have thus bespoken an ass in Bethphage, seeing that he was just come from Jericho? Hence even Paulus in this instance finds something else more probable: namely, that about the time of the feasts, in the villages lying on the high road to Jerusalem, many beasts of burden stood ready to be hired by travellers; but in opposition to this it is to be observed, that Jesus does not at all seem to speak of the first animal that may happen to present itself, but of a particular animal. Hence we cannot but be surprised that Olshausen describes it as only the probable idea of the narrator, that to the Messiah making his entrance into Jerusalem, the providence of God presented everything just as he needed it; as also that the same expositor, in order to explain the ready compliance of the owners of the animal, finds it necessary to suppose that they were friends of Jesus; since this trait rather serves to exhibit the as it were magical power which resided in the name of the Lord, at the mention of which the owner of the ass unresistingly placed it at his disposal, as subsequently the inhabitant of the room gave it up at a word from the Master (Matt. xxvi. 18 parall.). To this divine providence in favour of the Messiah, and the irresistible power of his name, is united the superior knowledge by means of which Jesus here clearly discerns a distant fact which might be available for the supply of his wants.