<p>21:7&nbsp;<em>And brought the ass and the colt and put on them their garments; and he sat thereon</em>- Using their garments as saddles. The fact both animals were saddled was to make the point that one rider was missing. For according to the other Gospels, the Lord sat upon the colt. The mother donkey was saddled, but without a rider. This added to the strangeness of the spectacle. The missing rider was perhaps a reference to how Israel had not as a whole responded in bringing Messiah to Zion. Maybe it referred to the Gentiles who had yet to be converted. Or perhaps to the fact that Israel had rejected John the Baptist and he had been killed- and therefore there was no Elijah prophet bringing Messiah into Zion. Elijah was the great horseman of the Divine chariot (2 Kings 2:12; 13:14; he is called the &ldquo;horsemen&rdquo; plural, but this is an intensive plural for &lsquo;the one great horseman&rsquo;). Elijah was the chariot horseman, the one who was to ride on the horse which pulled the chariot in which there was Messiah this was a Rabbinic understanding of the Elijah prophet. But he was strangely absent in this acted parable. The saddle was there for him, provided by the few disciples who had responded to John / Elijah; but he wasn&rsquo;t there. This absence of the Elijah prophet was surely indicative of the fact that John had not been the Elijah prophet for most of Israel- they hadn&rsquo;t responded properly to his message. Therefore the true triumphant entry of Messiah was yet future. This is why the phrase &ldquo;bringing salvation&rdquo; is excluded from the quotation of Zech. 9:9. It was not so much a &lsquo;triumphant entry&rsquo;, but a&nbsp;<em>parody</em>&nbsp;of a triumphant entry.</p>