<p>26:3&nbsp;<i>Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered at the court of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas</i>- The record may wish to give the impression that it was because of the Lord&rsquo;s prediction of His death that the Jews assembled and arranged it. He certainly planned His death consciously, and the Jews responded to His provocations. The gathering or assembling together of the Lord&rsquo;s enemies is a major theme (:57; 27:17,27,62; 28:12); and uses the same word for the gathering together of the rejected to condemnation at the last day. Coming before Christ in His time of dying was and is a foretaste of the last judgment. The Lord Jesus causes people to gather together either for or against Him. This is the fundamental divide- not between brother and brother, but between the believer and the world, light and darkness.</p><p>The word translated &ldquo;court&rdquo; or &ldquo;palace&rdquo; is used 12 times in the New Testament, and eight of them refer to the court of the High Priest. It&rsquo;s tempting, therefore, to think that the Lord may well have had this same court / palace in mind when He spoke of how an armed strong man &ldquo;keeps his palace&rdquo; s.w., Lk. 11:21, but the Lord Jesus through His death on the cross would overpower him, and take his goods and share them with His people. The strong man who kept the palace may have had some reference, therefore, to the Jewish High Priest; the good things of the temple were inaccessible to God&rsquo;s people, until the Lord overpowered that entire system. The Lord also spoke of how He has a &ldquo;fold&rdquo;, the same word translated &ldquo;palace&rdquo; or &ldquo;court&rdquo;, into which He must gather His sheep (Jn. 10:1,16). He had to take over the whole temple system, and replace the Jewish religious leadership with His own bad of secular men, prostitutes and hangers on.</p>