To the Romans he did not have to be preaching armed insurrection to be considered a rebel – claiming to be or being claimed to be the “King of the Jews” would have been enough. And a hard-nosed Roman aristocrat like Pilate would not have been very interested in any theological differences between a political warrior Messiah and the apocalyptic Messiah Jesus seems to have been talking about – any so-called “Messiah” would have found himself on a cross at the hands of someone like Pilate.

With Pilate and thousands of heavily armed troops on their doorstep and with Pilate’s past brutal and bloodthirsty methods of crowd control in mind (he had no compunction about setting his troops on troublesome crowds of unarmed civilians and had done so several times) the priests had an incentive to find the troublemaker Jesus and hand him over to Pilate.

So after the cleansing of the Temple, Jesus likely assumed that the authorities decided to capture him. After all, causing such trouble at the height of the politically and religiously charged Passover festival was not a trivial event. And it would have got the attention of Pilate as well – who was well-known for his brutal methods of putting down Jewish troublemakers. 

Maybe this is why Jesus spent considerable time on the Mount of Olives in the next couple of days – he moved outside the city walls to hide. Note that it was always late afternoon or evening when he and his disciples leave Jerusalem. But why spend their time there in the middle of the night, especially if they have a house to stay? We know they did because this is the house where they eat the Passover meal before Jesus’ arrest and its the same house they flee back to and hide in when he is taken and crucified. Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to spend the night there? Perhaps Jesus simply thought that his enemies more likely to search for him inside the city. This also explains why a traitor was needed to betray his location to the Temple guard and why he orders Peter, James, and John to stand watch while he prays.

Maybe he suspected that he can’t prolong his capture and execution too long. During his agony as he prayed, “His sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down upon the ground” (** you do not have permission to see this link **). There is a possible medical explanation for this: hematidrosis, also called blood sweat, is a very rare condition in which capillary blood vessels that feed the sweat glands rupture, causing them to exude blood. This only occurs under conditions of extreme physical or emotional stress. 

When Judas and the crowd arrived to arrest Jesus, someone who is described as “one of the bystanders” (but not identified directly as one of his disciples) draws his sword to defend Jesus and wounds the high priest’s servant but no further resistance is indicated. 

So while the Temple guard seems to have made some attempt at capturing Jesus’ followers as well, Jesus was mostly their main target. The idea was probably that if he was handed over for punishment and there was no further trouble from his followers, Pilate would not unleash his troops for one of his customary massacres. And this seems to have worked – even the gospels have Jesus predicting to his followers “‘You will fall away …. for it is written I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered'” (Mark 14:27).