The Temple Is Inspected, Interrupted, and Questioned

Bethphage is usually explained as “house of unripe figs”, a name worth remembering before verse 13. Bethany lay on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, about two miles from the city (John 11:18). Zechariah 14:4 had placed the feet of the LORD on this mountain in the day of his coming.

“Colt” is pōlos, here a young donkey. “Whereon never man sat” matters because animals set apart for sacred use had to be unused: the red heifer “upon which never came yoke” (Numbers 19:2) and the cows that drew the ark on a new cart (1 Samuel 6:7). Mark never quotes Zechariah 9:9; he lets the colt speak.

“The Lord” is ho kyrios, which could mean the owner, God, or Jesus himself; if the last, it is the only time in Mark Jesus calls himself that. Older manuscripts read “he will send him back hither”, which turns the last clause into a promise to return the colt.

“Tied” recalls Jacob’s blessing of Judah, “Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass’s colt unto the choice vine” (Genesis 49:11), a verse early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr read of this moment. “Where two ways met” is amphodou, a street or crossroads, in plain view.

Luke 19:33 says the questioners were the owners; Mark says only bystanders. Officials and important men could requisition animals for a short time, a practice the Greek calls angareia, and a claim made in the name of “the Lord” may have been heard that way.

The errand works exactly as described. Mark has a matching errand in 14:13–16, when two disciples are sent to find a man carrying a pitcher and a room made ready, “and found as he had said unto them”. The entry and the last supper both begin with directions that come true.

There is no saddle, only cloaks thrown over the colt’s back. When David made Solomon king, he had him ride the king’s own mule down to Gihon to be anointed (1 Kings 1:33, 38). A king riding a donkey or mule was a royal act in Israel, not a humble one.

When Jehu was proclaimed king, the captains spread their garments under him on the stairs and blew the trumpet (2 Kings 9:13). “Branches” is stibadas, leafy stalks or rushes cut from the fields; only John 12:13 says palms. “Strawed” is the 1611 form of strewed.

“Hosanna” is Hebrew, hoshia na, “save, we pray”, from Psalm 118:25, and had become a shout of acclaim. “Blessed is he that cometh” is the next verse, Psalm 118:26. The psalm belonged to the Hallel sung at the great festivals, and pilgrims were greeted with it as they arrived.

“The kingdom of our father David” is a phrase found nowhere in the Old Testament; Abraham, not David, was usually “our father”. The crowd is naming a royal hope. “Hosanna in the highest” asks that the cry be taken up in heaven, or addresses God in the highest.

“The temple” is hieron, the whole walled precinct, not the sanctuary. Herod’s rebuilding, begun about 20 BC, had made the platform some thirty-five acres. Pilgrims at Passover often lodged outside the crowded city, and Jesus and the twelve return to Bethany for the night.

Mark counts the last week day by day, and this is the second day. This is also the only place in Mark where Jesus is said to be hungry. The walk from Bethany over the Mount of Olives into the city takes under an hour.

Passover fell in March or April; the first figs ripened in early summer and the main crop in late summer. Jeremiah 8:13 pronounced judgment on Judah in these terms: “there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade.” “If haply” means if perhaps.

“Answered” is Mark’s idiom for responding to a situation; the tree has said nothing. The Greek uses the rare optative mood, the form of a wish or curse: may no one eat fruit from you again. “His disciples heard it” is placed on purpose, to be picked up in verse 20.

The temple tax of half a shekel (Exodus 30:13) had to be paid in the silver shekels of Tyre, prized for their purity though they bore the head of the god Melqart. The Mishnah says changers set up tables in the temple before Passover. Doves were the sacrifice the poor could afford (Leviticus 12:8).

Matthew and Luke leave this detail out. People used the outer court as a shortcut between the city and the Mount of Olives, and the Mishnah later forbids making the Temple Mount a shortcut (Berakhot 9:5). “Vessel” is skeuos, any container or piece of goods.

Only Mark keeps “of all nations” from Isaiah 56:7. The trading stalls stood in the Court of the Gentiles, the one area where non-Jews could pray. Beyond it a stone inscription, two copies of which have been found, warned foreigners that entering further meant death.

Until now the plotters were Pharisees and Herodians (3:6). From here the chief priests and scribes take the lead, the men with power over the temple and the council. The Passover crowds, swollen by pilgrims, are the reason they cannot act openly.

“When even was come” in older manuscripts is hotan, “whenever evening came”, which describes a habit: each night he left the city. Luke 21:37 says he lodged on the Mount of Olives. By night he was outside the walls and the reach of the crowds.

“From the roots” means the whole tree, not only the leaves. Hosea 9:16 speaks of Ephraim in the same terms: “their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit”, and a few verses earlier God says he found Israel “as the firstripe in the fig tree” (Hosea 9:10).

“Calling to remembrance” is anamnēstheis, the verb Mark uses in 14:72 when Peter remembers Jesus’ word after the cock crows. “Cursedst” is Peter’s word; the Book of Mark never called the saying of verse 14 a curse, but Peter hears it that way.

The Greek is literally “have faith of God”. Most take it as faith in God; a few read it as holding on to God’s own faithfulness. The reply ignores the tree and turns to the disciples.

Spoken on the road over the Mount of Olives, “this mountain” may be the one underfoot, which Zechariah 14:4 said would be split, or the Temple Mount ahead. Rabbis praised a brilliant teacher as an “uprooter of mountains”. “Doubt” is diakrithē, to be divided within oneself.

Older manuscripts read “believe that ye received them”, a past tense: the request is treated as already granted. The King James follows later copies with a present, “ye receive”. Either way, the prayer is to be made as if the answer were already in hand.

Standing was the ordinary Jewish posture for prayer; Hannah stood (1 Samuel 1:26), and the central prayer of the synagogue is called the Amidah, “the standing”. “Trespasses” is paraptōmata, false steps, and “your Father which is in heaven” appears nowhere else in Mark apart from the disputed verse 26, close to the language of the Lord’s Prayer.

The verse is missing from the oldest manuscripts, and scribes probably added it from Matthew 6:15, where it follows the Lord’s Prayer. It turns the positive promise of verse 25 into its negative, a pattern Matthew favours.

The temple precinct was ringed with porticoes, Solomon’s Porch on the east and the Royal Stoa on the south, where teachers walked and taught (Acts 3:11). The three groups named in the first prediction of the passion (8:31) now come to Jesus in person, for the first time face to face.

“These things” is left vague: the entry, the overturned tables, the teaching, or all of them. “Authority” is exousia, the word the synagogue crowd used of Jesus in 1:22 and 1:27. The first people in Mark to notice his authority were ordinary villagers; now the official authorities question it.

Answering a question with a question was a common move in Jewish debate, and not an evasion. “One question” is literally “one word”, logon. Jesus makes his answer depend on theirs.

“From heaven” is a reverent Jewish way of saying “from God” without naming him, the same habit behind Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven”. The choice is set as two options only, heaven or men, with nothing between.

John’s whole message pointed to “one mightier than I” coming after him (1:7). To say that John was from heaven would be to accept his witness about Jesus, which answers the authority question at once. “Believe him” means believe what John said.

The sentence breaks off: “But if we shall say, Of men”, and the Book of Mark finishes it for them, “they feared the people”. Josephus confirms John’s standing: many Jews saw the later defeat of Antipas’s army as God’s punishment for killing him (Antiquities 18.116).

“We cannot tell” is ouk oidamen, “we do not know”, an odd confession from the nation’s experts about the best known prophet of their day. Jesus does not say that he does not know; he says he will not tell. The parable of the vineyard that follows in 12:1–12 gives his answer in a figure.