Jesus left the temple and was going away is similar to what is found in most other translations. Since left (a participle in Greek) and was going away describe essentially the same action, one may compress the two verbs into one: “As Jesus was leaving the Temple” or “After Jesus had left the Temple.”

Came translates a verb used more than fifty times in the Gospel, though only twice with Jesus as subject (17.7; 28.18). Neither Mark nor Luke include this information, perhaps because the disciples are thought of as already being with Jesus at this time. The contextual meaning seems to be “came up (closer).” In some languages “went up” is more natural.

Point out is a fairly literal representation of the Greek verb; Good News Translation, An American Translation, and New International Version have “to call his attention to,” and Phillips has “drew his attention to,” as translations of to point out to him.

The buildings of the temple may more precisely be spoken of as “the buildings of the Temple area” (New American Bible) or “the entire Temple complex” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .