Mark 11:8

‘And many spread their cloaks on the roadway, and others foliage (layers of leaves) which they had cut from the fields.’

Matthew 21:8 has ‘cut branches from the trees’, John 12:13 says ‘took the branches of the palm trees’, and speaks of ‘a great crowd that had come to the feast’. Luke 19:37 speaks of ‘the whole crowd of disciples’, clearly using disciples in its widest sense. Thus central to what happened were His followers, and other disciples who had joined them on hearing of their approach, but also joined by enthusiastic pilgrims. For many, however, it was all part of the festival and not a unique occurrence. They knew not what they did.

This spreading of things before Him was the regular kind of treatment offered to important personages and was a spontaneous expression of appreciation and respect. Rabbinic literature offers parallels, and Plutarch tells us that when Cato Minor left his troops they spread their clothes at his feet. When Simon Maccabaeus entered in triumph into Jerusalem he was received ‘with praise and palm branches’ and with music ‘because a great enemy was destroyed out of Israel’ ( 1Ma 13:51 ). Compare also 2 Kings 9:13 where clothes were lain before Jehu in homage. But the crowd were not on the whole representing Him as the Messiah. They were using this entrance of One Whom they saw as a prophet as a means of expressing their acted out hopes. He was seen by them as prefiguring the future.