Reconciling two Gospel passages

Hey guys,

I am working on something and am not finding an answer to a nagging question.

In Matthew 21, Jesus is teaching in the temple.. He doesn't leave the temple -- explicitly -- until the beginning of ch. 24.

In Luke 13, and at the end of Matthew 23, are accounts of Jesus lamenting about Jerusalem's refusal to heed Him, its killing of prophets, etc.

I am trying to learn whether these laments occurred on two different occasions --and I think they did -- or if one of the Gospel writers place the lamentation simply in a different time than when it actually occurred OR, put a better way if one of them just failed to place it in a particular time at all. I do not see how to read Matthew any other way than as a chronology right there. And, Luke was explicitly setting forth an "orderly account" although he is not strictly chronological.

So:

1. Was Jesus in the temple at the end of Matthew 23? How do you know?
2. Did Jesus lament Jerusalem twice (Mt 23 and Lk 13) with substantially the same statement? How do you know?
3. If 2 is no, which one (if either), Luke or Matthew, links the lamentation remarks to a particular moment in Jesus' life? How do you know?

I think the two statements are too similar to not have been the same statement.

For what it's worth, Matthew Henry says:

"His lamentation for Jerusalem, and his denunciation of wrath against that city, Luke 13:34, 35. This we had Matt. 23:37-39. Perhaps this was not said now in Galilee, but the evangelist, not designing to bring it in in its proper place, inserts it here, upon occasion of Christ’s mentioning his being put to death at Jerusalem."

It is worth something.

I wish it were more settled. J. W. McGarvey and Philip Y. Pendleton have a commentary (available on BibleStudyTools dot com) that harmonizes a chronology of Jesus' life. It has Matthew 23 as a repeat of comments of Luke 13 and dated later than Luke 13.

Clear as mud. 😄