Mark 11:11

Having entered Jerusalem the crowd seems to have disbursed quickly, and Jesus proceeded to the temple area (Gr. hieron). He had been there many times before. He looked around and noted that the temple needed cleansing again (cf. John 2:13-22). Since the hour was late-the city gates closed at sunset-He departed for Bethany with the disciples to spend the night there.

"On the whole, it seems to be the most probable conclusion that the entry in this peculiar fashion into Jerusalem was deliberate on the part of our Lord, and was meant to suggest that, though He was indeed the Messiah and ’Son of David,’ yet the Messiahship which He claimed was to be understood in a spiritual and non-political sense, in terms of the prophecy of Zechariah, rather than in terms of the ’Son of David’ idea as interpreted by contemporary expectation (e.g., in the Psalms of Solomon). The time had in fact come for our Lord to put forward His Messianic claims, and to make His appeal to Jerusalem in a deliberately Messianic capacity. He does so, however, in a manner which is suggestive rather than explicit, and which was so calculated as to afford the minimum of pretext for a charge of quasi-political agitation." [Note: Rawlinson, p. 151.]