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A. The Confrontation Begins: Three Symbolic Actions (21:1–27)
Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem is deliberately dramatic. It begins with two actions
designed to draw attention and to provoke people to think about Jesus’ messianic
claim (the royal procession to the city walls and the attack on the traders in the
temple courtyard), together with a further symbolic action (the miraculous
destruction of the fruitless fig-tree) which, though witnessed only by Jesus’
immediate entourage, seems to be closely connected with his prophetic action in
the temple.⁵ In the first of these actions Jesus is supported and acclaimed by the
pilgrim crowd who accompany him to Jerusalem, but in the second he
apparently acts alone. In both cases, however, Matthew tells us of the hostile
reaction of Jerusalem, in the first case in the response of “the whole city” (v. 10)
and in the second as focused in the leading group of “chief priests and scribes”
(v. 15). Jesus has publicly thrown down the gauntlet, and so this section
concludes with the response of the “chief priests and elders of the people,”
representing the Sanhedrin, who publicly question Jesus’ right to act in this high-
handed way. That this challenge takes place in the temple courtyard where Jesus’
most provocative action has been staged sets the scene for the continuing
confrontation which will all be set in the same temple area until Jesus finally and
decisively leaves the temple in 24:1.
Three aspects of the historical situation are important for understanding the
significance of these and the following incidents in Jerusalem.
(1) The “temple.” I have spoken of “the temple courtyard” (where Matthew
speaks simply of “the temple”) to make it clear that the location for these scenes
is not the temple building itself, the place of sacrifice (into which only priests
were allowed to go) but the much more extensive area surrounding the temple
building, which we refer to as the Court of the Gentiles. The majority of the
huge temple complex (about 13.5 hectares, 33 acres, roughly six times the size
of Trafalgar Square) consisted of this open space, nearly a mile in circumference,
surrounding the temple building and its inner courtyards and itself surrounded by
porticoes, into which anyone could go so long as they did not pass the barriers
which restricted the central area to Jews. It formed the natural meeting place for
visitors and locals alike, especially at festival seasons, and the porticoes
provided shaded areas for groups to gather and for teachers to collect a crowd,
and in the days before the Passover also for the flourishing market in sacrificial
animals and sacred money (see below). When Jesus “taught in the temple” he
may well have been one of several such teachers, but he was in the place where
people in general could best be reached.
(2) Passover. Of the three pilgrimage festivals when all adult male Jews were in
theory expected to visit the temple in Jerusalem (Passover, Weeks [Pentecost]
and Tabernacles; Deut 16:16) Passover seems to have been the most
enthusiastically observed. Passover pilgrims came not only from Galilee and
other Palestinian provinces, but from all over the Mediterranean world where
Jews were settled. The nearest modern equivalent is perhaps the Hajj to Mecca.
Ancient and modern estimates of the numbers involved vary wildly, but the
calculation of J. Jeremias⁷ perhaps offers a reasonable approximation: he
estimates the normal population of Jeruslaem at the time as about 30,000, but the
number present at Passover as something like 180,000. There were therefore
many times more people than the city could properly accommodate, and
Passover groups camped all around the city (see on 21:17). The official city
limits were extended at Passover time to include the surrounding hill-sides,
Bethphage (v. 1) being the outer limit according to the Talmud. The temple
courtyard would be the natural gathering ground for this huge throng of people
during the festival.
(3) Galileans. See pp. 5–7 for the differences between Galilee and Judea and
their importance for Matthew. A Galilean was essentially a foreigner in
Jerusalem, and Jesus’ entourage, being made up of Galileans, would normally
stand out as distinctive among the Jerrusalem crowd. At Passover time the
cosmopolitan crowd would make this less obvious, and of course there would be
many other Galileans present. We have already noted (see on 20:29) that the
“large crowd” which accompanied Jesus to the city were probably mainly
Galileans, and no doubt others were already there or arrived during the week. We
shall note below in vv. 10–11 the impact of this Galilean influx on the city. But
Jesus’ recorded dealings are not with the larger Passover crowd but with the
Jerusalem authorities, and to them the challenge of the prophet from Nazareth
and his Galilean movement (v. 11) represented an unwelcome threat. The
comment on Peter’s Galilean accent in 26:73 reveals something of the cultural
background to this confrontation.
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