Jesus Clears the Court of the Gentiles

As they entered, their celebrations attracted many who were already in the city. When asked about their celebration, they announced that Jesus had arrived. This is not the same crowd that would go out to meet Jesus on Sunday, but those that had arrived with him from Jericho.

Mark tells us that Jesus visited the temple but that it was late in the day, in fact, “evening had come.” Since evening had come, it was actually on the weekly Sabbath. The merchants would not have dared work on the coming daytime hours of the Sabbath. They would have been gathering their goods, rather than leaving them out to potential theft. If this supposition is correct, Jesus would have merely condemned their commerce in space reserved for non-Jews.

More importantly, with the evening it would be Nisan 10, when each family was to select the Passover lamb and bring it into their home. Jesus’s arrival at the temple on Nisan 10 would fulfill the picture of that earlier requirement. Now, the selected Passover lamb had entered the temple, the national home.

Luke skips to the cleansing of the temple which occurred on Sunday morning. The Synoptics fill that hole, concentrating on the earlier visit.

Jesus returned to Bethany on the Sabbath, a distance for what had probably become beyond rabbinic guidelines. Nonetheless, that’s what Mark says.