Matthew 21:1

Verse 1. Bethphage, was a village of the priests, and signifies the house of figs and dates, or the house of the fountain, or of the flatterer, situated on the declivity of Mount Olivet, about a mile to the east of Jerusalem, a sabbath-day’s journey. As Bethphage was probably so called from the fig and date trees growing there, Mount Olivet was from the great number of olive-trees: των ελαιων. The triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem from Bethania, was on the first day of the week, answering to our Sunday, the very day on which, by the appointment of the law, (Exod. 12:3) the lamb was brought hither, to be sacrificed at the Passover. To shew, moreover, that in himself all the figures of the old law were realized, he chose that very night for the institution of the Passover of the new law, the blessed eucharist, which was appointed for the immolation of the paschal lamb in the old law, and the very day for the redemption of the world, in which the people of God had formerly been redeemed from Egyptian bondage … When they were arrived to the mid-way between Bethania (which he had just quitted) and Bethphage, he sends two of his disciples. In the Greek it is, Και ηλθον εις Βηθφαγη; that is επορευοντο, they were travelling to Bethphage, and were near the place, within sight of it, but had not reached it, as we learn from both Saint Mark and Saint Luke.

TR & NU read “Bethphage” instead of “Bethsphage”