(37) In the day time . . . at night.--Literally, in the days . . . the nights, the words pointing to the mode in which the week was spent from the first day to the evening of the fifth.

Abode.--The word is better translated lodged in Matthew 21:12. Strictly speaking, it meant to lodge, not in a room, but in the court-yard of a house; and so was used generally, in military language, for a "bivouac." It would seem to have been chosen by both Evangelists (it does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament) to include the fact, implied in all four and definitely stated by St. John, that most of the nights were spent not in a house, but in the garden, or orchard, of Gethsemane (John 18:1-2).

That is called the mount of Olives.--Better, perhaps, here, as in Luke 19:29 (where see Note), that is called Olivet.

Verse 37. - And in the daytime he was teaching in the temple; and at night he went out, and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives. This brief picture of the last days of public work is retrospective. This was how our Lord spent "Palm Sunday" and the Monday and Tuesday of the last week. The prophetic discourse reported in this twenty-first chapter was, most probably, spoken on the afternoon of Tuesday. After Tuesday evening he never entered the temple as a public Teacher again. Wednesday and Thursday were spent in retirement. Thursday evening he returned to the city to eat the last Passover with his own.

21:29-38 Christ tells his disciples to observe the signs of the times, which they might judge by. He charges them to look upon the ruin of the Jewish nation as near. Yet this race and family of Abraham shall not be rooted out; it shall survive as a nation, and be found as prophesied, when the Son of man shall be revealed. He cautions them against being secure and sensual. This command is given to all Christ's disciples, Take heed to yourselves, that ye be not overpowered by temptations, nor betrayed by your own corruptions. We cannot be safe, if we are carnally secure. Our danger is, lest the day of death and of judgment should come upon us when we are not prepared. Lest, when we are called to meet our Lord, that be the furthest from our thoughts, which ought to be nearest our hearts. For so it will come upon the most of men, who dwell upon the earth, and mind earthly things only, and have no converse with heaven. It will be a terror and a destruction to them. Here see what should be our aim, that we may be accounted worthy to escape all those things; that when the judgements of God are abroad, we may not be in the common calamity, or it may not be that to us which it is to others. Do you ask how you may be found worthy to stand before Christ at that day? Those who never yet sought Christ, let them now go unto him; those who never yet were humbled for their sins, let them now begin; those who have already begun, let them go forward and be kept humbled. Watch therefore, and pray always. Watch against sin; watch in every duty, and make the most of every opportunity to do good. Pray always: those shall be accounted worthy to live a life of praise in the other world, who live a life of prayer in this world. May we begin, employ, and conclude each day attending to Christ's word, obeying his precepts, and following his example, that whenever he comes we may be found watching.And in the day time he was teaching in the temple,.... That is, Jesus, as the Persic version expresses it; his constant method every day, till the feast of passover came, was to go up to the temple, and there openly and freely preach the Gospel to the people, who resorted thither in great numbers, for that purpose:

and at night he went out; of the temple, and out of the city:

and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives; very likely to pray, both for himself and for his disciples, his time with them being short.