Why did so many people go to Gethsemane to arrest Jesus?
None of the gospels gives a numerical estimate of the size of the mob, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree that it was a great multitude (Matthew 26:47; Mark 14:43; Luke 22:47). Depending on the size of the detachment of soldiers (there were six hundred soldiers in a typical Roman cohort), the crowd could easily have numbered in the hundreds. The fact that the chief priests sent such a large crowd to make the arrest indicates the degree to which they were frightened of Jesus’ power. Many times before this they had sought to arrest Him or silence Him, and their schemes had always been foiled. Jesus Himself called attention to their absurd and cowardly tactic of sending an armed multitude to arrest Him in the middle of the night. Such a large group was clearly overkill—and it was also unnecessary. They would face no resistance from Jesus. If He had not been willing to be arrested, no amount of earthly force would have been sufficient to capture Him. If it were not now His time in the perfect plan of God, He could easily have escaped even from such a large mob, as Jesus pointed out to Peter (Matthew 26:53).