Luke 21:37,38 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

And in the day-time he was teaching in the temple “His daily custom at this, and it may be at other passovers, was to spend the day in the city, most commonly in the temple, where he always found a great concourse of hearers, and in the evening to retire to the mount of Olives, where he lodged in the villages, or in the gardens, or in the open air among the trees. He chose to lodge at night in such places as these, that he might avoid falling into the hands of his enemies. For though they durst not attack him in the midst of his followers by day, they probably would have apprehended him during the silence and darkness of the night, had he lodged anywhere within the walls of the town. Accordingly they did not venture to lay hands on him, till Judas Iscariot, one of his own disciples, betrayed him to them, in the absence of the multitude, by conducting an armed band to the place of his retirement.” Macknight. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple The evangelist does not say, that the people came and heard Jesus preach in the temple after this time, for Jesus himself had declared that he never was to preach to them any more, Matthew 23:38-39. But having described in what manner our Lord spent his time at this passover, the evangelist adds, that his ministry sustained no damage by his leaving the city at night, because he did not fail to return every morning to the temple, and because a great number of people came thither early to be instructed by him, knowing that it was his custom to be there betimes. “How much happier,” says Dr. Doddridge, “were his disciples in these early lectures, than the slumbers of the morning would have made them on their beds! Let us not scruple to deny ourselves the indulgence of unnecessary sleep, that we may, morning after morning, place ourselves at his feet, and lose no opportunity of receiving the instructions of his word, and seeking those of his Spirit.”