If thou hadst known,' even thou, at least in this thy day. The emphatic repetition of the "thou" and the broken form of the sentence, tell of the intense feeling of the Divine Speaker. "In this thy day." There was still time, still one day left, before his terrible trial-time began, Which filled up the measure of Jerusalem and her people's iniquity. Still one day in which, had they only known "the things which belonged to their peace," they might have won a forgiveness for all the past centuries of sin.
And he went into the temple. The recital of St. Luke here is more general and less precise than that of the other two synoptists. The Lord on that "Palm Sunday" evening simply went into the temple,,, and when he had looked round about upon all things" it was then evening, and he returned to his lodging at Bethany with the twelve (Mark 11:11). The expulsion of the money-changers, mentioned in the next verse (46), took place on the following day. St. Matthew adds another interesting detail respecting the excitement caused by the presence of Jesus in the city. "When he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?" (Matthew 21:10). And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves. This visit of the Lord to the temple, in which he spoke and acted as King Messiah, was a fulfilment of Malachi 3:1, Malachi 3:2. In the outer court of the temple stalls had been erected in which money-changers were located (geld-wechsel comptoir—change de monnaies), in order that pilgrims from foreign lands might be able to exchange their foreign coins for the purchase of sacrificial victims. These also seem to have been sold in the precincts. All this made the courts of the Lord's house a scene of noise and tumult, and, from the Master's stern words, a scene often of cheating and overreaching. The words of Jesus were taken from Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11.