The verb “fulfill” is used some 18 times in Matthew’s gospel, and 14 of those uses describe Jesus’ fulfllment of something spoken by the prophets or by “Scripture.” A double of the number of creation, Jesus brings a new creation; God spoke over seven days to create, and His spoken word is fulfilled 14 times to recreate.
Most of these are fulfillments with a twist. Jesus fulfills Hosea’s prophecy about a new exodus by leaving Israel and heading to Egypt. Jesus bears the infirmities of the blind and lame by healing them (8:17). Fulfillment is rarely straight.
And that’s true for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, which fulfills the hope of Zechariah 9.
Matthew’s quotation changes Zechariah at a significant point. Consistent with the triumphal procession describes in verses 1-8, Zechariah says that the king comes “just and endowed with salvation” (v. 9), salvation in the context referring to military deliverance. Matthew ignores that line and skips from “king is coming” to “humble and mounted on a colt.”
Does this mean that Jesus’ entry is not a triumphal entry? No; what’s absent from a quoted text is often as important as what’s present. Matthew shows Jesus as the conqueror. But by leaving out a line from his source text, he raises questions about the kind of conquest we should expect. Jesus is indeed just and a bringer of salvation, but He does it not with the sword but by submitting to the cross. This fulfills the hopes of Zechariah.
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