Anyone would ask this when strangers start untying their animal. Luke says "the owners thereof," more than one, and Gill notes that the evangelist "informs us who they were." Mark says simply "certain of them that stood there" (Mark 11:5). The question was natural and fair. It was also the very question Jesus had said someone would ask (Luke 19:31).

The disciples gave the answer Jesus had given them: "The Lord hath need of him" (Luke 19:34). Luke records no further objection. "They brought him to Jesus: and they cast their garments upon the colt, and they set Jesus thereon" (Luke 19:35). Mark adds, "they let them go" (Mark 11:6).

The word Luke uses for "owners" is the Greek kyrioi, the plural of kyrios, which can mean masters or lords. In the next verse the disciples answer that "the Lord" (kyrios) has need of the colt (Luke 19:34).

Barnes notes that the ass, not the horse, was the ordinary animal for travel in Judea, and that riding on one was "the emblem of peace." He thinks the people the disciples went to were probably acquainted with Jesus' miracles.

The owners asked a fair question, and the answer was enough. Gill explains it this way: "Christ, who is God, and has the hearts of all men in his hands, could, as he did, dispose the minds of these men to let the colt go freely." Matthew Henry says the disciples "found what he told them they should find, and the owners willing to part with them."

Every detail Jesus foretold came true: the colt, the question, the answer, and the colt brought to Jesus without objection (Luke 19:30-35). The King riding into Jerusalem was not at the mercy of events. He had already spoken what would happen.