Matthew 21:17 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

And went out of the city into Bethany. — St. Mark, as already noticed, places the incident that follows on the morning that followed the triumphal entry, and before the cleansing. We have to choose, there being an obvious error of arrangement in one or other of the narratives, between the two, and the probability seems on the whole in favour of the more precise and more vivid record of St. Mark. The lodging at Bethany is explained partly by what we read in Matthew 26:6-13, yet more by John 11:1-2; John 12:1. There He found in the house of the friends who were dear to Him the rest and peace which He could not find in the crowded city. The suppression of the name of those friends in the first three Gospels is every way significant, as suggesting that there were reasons which for a time (probably till the death of Lazarus) led all writers of the records which served as the basis of the Gospel history to abstain from the mention of any facts that might attract attention to them.