CAPTAIN OF THE TEMPLE
The officer, second in dignity to the high priest (Acts 4:1), who had charge over the officiating priesthood and the Levites who were organized under lesser captains to guard the temple in Jerusalem and to keep order. (Luke 22:4, 52) There were twenty-four divisions of the Levites, which divisions served a week at a time in rotation, twice a year. Each division likely also had a captain over it, with several captains of smaller groups.
The captains were men of influence. They conspired with the chief priests in hiring Judas to betray Jesus. They brought their forces along with the priests to arrest Jesus. (Luke 22:3, 4, 52) It was the temple captain who lent official flavor to the arrest of Peter and John in the temple. (Acts 4:1, 3) On a later occasion, after Peter and some of the apostles had been released from prison by an angel, the temple captain went with his officers to bring them before the Sanhedrin in an apparently legal way without violence.—Acts 5:24-26.
It may have been the men under the direction of these captains that Pilate made reference to when he said to the chief priests and Pharisees regarding the watch over Jesus’ tomb: “You have a guard. Go make it as secure as you know how.” But an earthquake took place, unsealing the tomb, and Jehovah’s angel appeared to these watchmen, who trembled and became as dead men. When they reported what happened, the chief priests bribed them to say that Jesus’ disciples came in the night and stole him while the watchmen were asleep.—Matt. 27:65–28:15.
Some have thought that the captain had Roman soldiers from the Castle of Antonia at his command to keep the peace and guard the temple precincts, but this does not seem probable, since Gentiles (not proselytes) were not allowed in the temple. Certainly, therefore, no uncircumcised Gentile would have the full run of the temple precincts. Biblical commentator Lightfoot at first supported the idea that Roman soldiers were used, but later withdrew this viewpoint.
The Mishnah gives an interesting description of the night watch at the temple and speaks of the officer of the Temple Mount. This officer may have been the captain of the division officiating at the time. The Mishnah tells us that the priests kept watch at three places in the temple while the Levites guarded twenty-one places.
According to the Mishnah: “The officer of the Temple Mount used to go round to every watch with lighted torches before him, and if any watch did not stand up and say to him, ‘O officer of the Temple Mount, peace be to thee!’ and it was manifest that he was asleep, he would beat him with his staff, and he had the right to burn his raiment. And they would say, ‘What is the noise in the Temple Court?’ ‘The noise of some levite that is being beaten and having his raiment burnt because he went to sleep during his watch.’ Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob said: ‘They once found my mother’s brother asleep and burnt his raiment.’”—Middoth (“Measurements”), chap. 1, pars. 1, 2.
Jesus may have been using this custom as an illustration at Revelation 16:15, when he said: “Look! I am coming as a thief. Happy is the one that stays awake and keeps his outer garments, that he may not walk naked and people look upon his shamefulness.” The watchman caught asleep while on duty at the temple was deprived of his ministerial garments and suffered the shame of nakedness. It provides a fitting warning to Christians, who are required to be awake as watchmen when Jesus comes for inspection. (Luke 21:36) Jesus’ warning, sandwiched as it is between two verses (Rev. 16:14, 16) dealing with the war of the great day of God Almighty at Har–Magedon, applies to Christ’s final inspection of his people. They must be awake to keep their ministerial identity in order to be saved.