Those Biblical Asses Trivia Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Many are familiar with the prophet Balaam and how his ass speaks to him. According to the book of Numbers, Chapter 22, the donkey speaks after Balaam beats it three times for its stubborn refusal to continue down a path. However, why does the donkey refuse to move forward and at one point even crushes Balaam's foot against a wall along the path?

Answer: An angel of the Lord blocked the ass's forward progress.

According to Numbers 22, Balak, King of the Moabites, was terrified of the wandering horde of Israelites that had entered into his land, so he sent representatives to beseech the prophet Balaam to travel toward the Israelites and curse them. Balaam was told by God not to go to Balak and curse the Israelites, so he told the representatives that he could not comply with their wishes.

A second set of representatives was sent, and after hearing God's voice telling him that he should now go with Balak's men, he set out on the journey on his donkey.

However, Numbers 22 then says that this action of Balaam's angered God, and he sent an angel in the path of Balaam's donkey to stop him from making the journey. This became clear after Balaam beat the donkey and the donkey then spoke, wanting to know why it was being persecuted for following God's will.

As the book of Numbers continues, Balaam was now told by God to go on to meet with Balak but to say to him only what God told him. Later Balaam decideed to try to please both God and Balak; he didn't curse the Israelites but instead told Balak how to cause the Israelites to stumble and anger God so that God would turn against them. Balak sent the Israelites prostitutes and unclean food offered to idols, and the Israelites entered into all kinds of sinfulness. Eventually, the Israelites were forgiven for their transgressions, but only after twenty-four thousand of them died of the plague.

Then they went to war with the Moabites, defeated them soundly, and killed Balaam.

2. The people of Judah have abandoned their faith, and a prophet delivers a series to sermons to warn them of God's impending judgment and the eventual destruction of Jerusalem. In his First Sermon, the prophet compares Judah's willful worship of idols to a stubborn donkey obsessed with sexual intercourse: "A wild donkey used to the wilderness, / That sniffs at the wind in her desire; / In her time of mating, who can turn her away? / All those who seek her will not weary themselves; / In her month they will find her." Who is this major prophet who speaks these words and ultimately laments Judah's refusal to repent?

Answer: Jeremiah

The words referred to in the quotation in the question can be found in Jeremiah 2:24. The metaphor created through the comparison of Judah's worshipping of idols to the sexual promiscuity of a donkey effectively suggests that disloyalty to God is akin to spiritual harlotry.

Unfortunately, the people of Judah did not react kindly to Jeremiah's comparison or to his threats of God's judgment and the eventual Babylonian invasion; he was betrayed by his own family and community, put on trial for his life, placed in stocks, publicly humiliated by another prophet by the name of Hananiah, thrown into a dungeon, and thrown into a cistern.

3. The earliest Biblical reference to a man riding a donkey is at the beginning of Genesis, Chapter 22. We are told, "Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac, his son". Apparently, two or three of them had to walk. After a three-day journey, Abraham found the spot he was looking for and commanded the two young men, "Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship". However, what did Abraham truly intend to do?

Answer: sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar

To test Abraham's faith and loyalty, God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. This seems especially tragic as Isaac is the only son of Abraham and his wife Sarah, a son they thought they would never have as Sarah was past childbearing age. However, after Abraham obediently binds his son, places him on an altar, and lifts a dagger to kill him, God stays Abraham's hand and directs his vision to a ram that Abraham may sacrifice instead of his son. God is pleased with Abraham and promises him that the generations of his descendants will be as the number of stars in the heavens and the grains of sand on the seashore.

Many Christians see a symbolic meaning behind this story of Abraham and Isaac, the future sacrifice made by God of his son Jesus. Just as Isaac is given his life back, in a manner of speaking, and Abraham is promised eternal life through generations of descendants, so is Jesus given his life back and all of humankind is promised eternal life.

4. In Genesis 42, ten of twelve brothers enter Egypt to buy grain for their starving families. The governor they encounter commands them to go home and return with their youngest brother, and he keeps one of the brothers as collateral. The brothers' donkeys are loaded with sacks of grain, and on the journey home, one brother opens a sack to feed his donkey. Surprisingly he discovers that the sack also contains money. They now fear that they will be charged as thieves and spies. However, they have nothing to fear, for the governor they spoke to turns out to be which individual?

Answer: their long lost brother Joseph

Because Joseph was his father Jacob's (Israel's) favorite, his brothers plotted to kill him but sold him into slavery instead during a moment of reconsideration. Joseph, through his ability to interpret dreams, rose in power in the land of Egypt until he was made regent over the land by the current Pharaoh. When his brothers came to beg for permission to purchase grain, Joseph recognized his brothers but did not let them know who he was. In the end, however, after the brothers returned with their youngest brother Benjamin, Joseph explained to them who he was, and they experienced a joyful reunion. The entire story is a powerful one about forgiveness and redemption.

Genesis 42:26 is often recognized as the first Biblical reference of donkeys or asses being used as beasts of burden.

5. In 2 Kings 6:24-29, the people of Samaria during the time of the prophet Elisha are so famished as a result of Syria's siege, they resort to eating the heads of donkeys and the droppings of doves--and pay great amounts of money for these. However, this is not the worst. A woman is wailing to the king of Israel because she has eaten what?

Answer: her son

During the time of Joram's reign and the influence of the prophet Elisha, Syria's army besieged Samaria and a terrible famine resulted. As the king of Israel passed by, a woman cried out to him for help. He eventually asked, "What is troubling you?" She responded: "This woman said to me, 'Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.' So we boiled my son, and ate him. And I said to her on the next day, 'Give your son, that we may eat him'; but she has hidden her son.'" The king was so distraught by what he had heard, that he did the traditional act of tearing his clothes and wearing sackcloth.

He then decided to seek the death of the prophet Elisha, whom he blamed for everything. However, readers learn nothing more about the wailing woman.

6. Who, in the book of Judges, Chapter 15, kills one thousand men with the jawbone of an ass?

Answer: Samson

Samson (of Samson and Delilah fame) had burned up the grain of the Philistines by tying three hundred foxes together by their tails and inserting torches into the knots of their tails. To retaliate, the Philistines killed Samson's wife and father-in-law. Samson then slaughtered several of the Philistines. Those that survived planned to enter into Judah to take Samson by force.

The people of Judah were so afraid of the Philistines that three thousand men confronted Samson and told him that they were going to arrest him and turn him over to the Philistines to placate them. Samson willingly went with them and allowed them to bind him.

However, when he was given over to the Philistines, "the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him" and suddenly he had great strength.

He broke his bonds, picked up the jawbone of a donkey that he found nearby, and killed one thousand of the Philistines.

7. In Luke 13:15, Jesus rebukes a priest of the synagogue by saying, "Hypocrite! Does not each one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his donkey from the stall, and lead it away to water it?" Jesus is referring to a law from Exodus 23, which requires the Hebrews to rest not only themselves but their ox and ass on the Sabbath as well. However, what has led Jesus to speak these words to the priest?

Answer: The priest criticized Jesus for healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath.

The Jews were not supposed to work on the Sabbath day, and when the priest saw that Jesus had healed a woman who had been crippled for eighteen years, he responded with "indignation": "There are six days on which men ought to work; therefore come and be healed on them, and not on the Sabbath day." Jesus, however, responded with admonishing words himself, suggesting, as he frequently did, that there is a significant difference between following the literal meaning of the law and the true spirit of the law. Jesus said in Mark 2:27, "The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath." The point is not to allow the details of the law to be an obstacle to fulfilling the law of love. Jesus suggested that if a human being can do enough work on the Sabbath to comfort an animal, then surely a human being should do enough work to comfort a fellow human being. Jesus said to the priest: "So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound--think of it--for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?" (Luke 13:16).

8. Consider these two verses: "He sends the springs into the valleys, / Which flow among the hills. / They give drink to every beast of the field; / The wild donkeys quench their thirst." In what book of poetry, known for its celebration of God and the creation, would one find these words?

Answer: Psalms

The quoted words in the question are found in Psalms 104:10-11. While David is associated with a majority of the Psalms, this particular one is found in a section--Psalms 90 through 106--whose author remains unknown. These Psalms were compiled between 610 and 430 B.C. by either Ezra, a priest and the probable author of the book of Ezra, or Nehemiah, Artaxerxe's cupbearer who led the Hebrews on their return to Jerusalem and the probable author of the book of Nehemiah.

9. In 2 Corinthians 6:14, Paul writes, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?" Many scholars argue that Paul is harking back to one of the Laws of Separation in the book of Deuteronomy 22:10. In this verse, the Hebrews were told not to plow with a donkey and what other animal yoked together?

Answer: an ox

Deuteronomy 22:10 reads: "You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together." If one interprets this law liberally instead of literally, then one can see what scholars are suggesting about Paul's words. The idea is that animals of unequal size, strength, ability, and temper are going to hinder the process of plowing when attempting to pull together. Likewise, an individual attempting to live a life of faith or a spiritual life is going to be hindered when trying to move through life with an individual who does not have the same goals or purposes.

10. Matthew 21:7 reads: "They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set him on them." Who is it that appears to ride into Jerusalem on both a donkey and a colt simultaneously in this passage?

Answer: Jesus

Matthew appears to have been very concerned with trying to prove that Jesus fulfilled several prophetic passages from what we would consider Old Testament texts. Matthew 25:21 quotes Zechariah 9:9: "Tell the daughter of Zion, / 'Behold, your King is coming to you, / Lowly, and sitting on a donkey, / A colt, the foal of a donkey'". Most likely, the text from Zechariah uses the words "colt, the foal of a donkey" as an appositive for the word "donkey"--a more detailed explanation of the donkey. However, Matthew reads this as two separate animals. Thus, he has Jesus in Matthew 21:2 ask specifically for "a donkey" and "a colt" and request that his disciples "loose THEM and bring THEM to me".

Then in verse seven, the disciples set Jesus "on THEM". Significantly, the other gospel writers--Mark, Luke, and John--mention that Jesus requests only one animal and rides only one animal (an "it" or a "him" instead of a "them"); Mark 11 and Luke 19 refer to only one colt while John 12 refers to only one young donkey.

Source: Author alaspooryoric

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The lowly ass or donkey plays a significant role in many Biblical passages and stories. Take a look at these different references to the animal and see what you know. (All references are from the New King James Version).

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