(12) And Jesus went into the temple.

Then Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves. John 2:14 In the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers seated at their tables. “Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out all the people buying and selling animals for sacrifice. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.” Matthew 21:12 (NLT) Take Some Practical Steps to Learn From Jesus Getting Angry: First, understand WHY Jesus gets angry.

—Here, again, there is a gap to be filled up from another Gospel. St. Mark (Mark 11:11) says definitely that on the day of His solemn entry He went into the Temple, “looked round about on all things there,”—i.e., on the scene of traffic and disorder described in this verse—and then, “the evening-tide being come” (or, “the hour being now late”), went back to Bethany, and did what is here narrated on the following day. So, with a like difference of order, St. Mark places the sentence on the barren fig-tree on the next morning, and before the cleansing of the Temple. (Comp. Note on Matthew 21:17.) St. John (John 2:13-25) records an act of like nature as occurring at the commencement of our Lord’s ministry, on the first visit to Jerusalem after His baptism. Critics who have started with the assumption that the repetition of such an act was impossible, have inferred accordingly that the narrative has been misplaced either by the Three or by St. John, some holding with the latter and some with the former, on grounds more or less arbitrary. From the purest human historical point of view, we may, I believe, accept both narratives as true. If Jesus of Nazareth had been only a patriot Jew, filled with an intense enthusiasm for the holiness of the Temple, what more likely than that He should commence His work with a protest against its desecration? If the evils against which He thus protested, after being suppressed for a time, reappeared in all their enormity, what more probable than that He should renew the protest at this stage of His work, backed as He now was by the equal enthusiasm of the people? What more natural, again, than that the second cleansing should revive the memory of the first, and call up with it the words which are recorded by St. John, and not by the Three, and which served as the basis of the charge that He had threatened to destroy the Temple (John 2:20-21; Matthew 26:61; Mark 14:58). There is—it cannot be concealed—a real difficulty in the omission of the earlier cleansing by the Three, and in the absence of any reference to the later cleansing by the Fourth; but the fact in either case is only one of many like facts incident to the structure of the Gospels. The Three knew nothing—or rather, they record nothing—as to our Lord’s ministry in Jerusalem prior to this last entry. The Fourth, writing a Gospel supplementary either to the Three or to the current oral teaching which they embodied, systematically passes over, with one or two notable exceptions, what they had recorded, and confines his work to reporting, with marvellous vividness and fulness, specially selected incidents.

Cast out them that sold and bought in the temple.—The apparent strangeness of the permission of what seems to us so manifest a desecration, was obviously not felt by the Jews as we feel it. Pilgrims came from all parts of the world to keep the Passover, to offer their sacrifices, sin-offerings, or thank-offerings, according to the circumstances of each case. They did not bring the victims with them. What plan, it might seem, could be more convenient than that they should find a market where they could buy them as near as possible to the place where the sacrifice was to be offered? One of the courts of the Temple was therefore assigned for the purpose, and probably the priests found their profit in the arrangement by charging a fee or rent of some kind for the privilege of holding stalls. There is no trace of the practice prior to the Captivity, but the dispersion of the Jews afterwards naturally led men to feel the want of such accommodation more keenly. But this permission brought with it another as its inevitable sequel. The pilgrims brought with them the coinage of their own country—Syrian, Egyptian, Greek, as the case might be—and their money was either not current in Palestine, or, as being stamped with the symbols of heathen worship, could not be received into the Corban, or treasury of the Temple. For their convenience, therefore, money-changers were wanted, who, of course, made the usual agio, or profit, on each transaction. We must picture to ourselves, in addition to all the stir and bustle inseparable from such traffic, the wrangling and bitter words and reckless oaths which necessarily grew out of it with such a people as the Jews. The history of Christian churches has not been altogether without parallels that may help us to understand how such a desecration came to be permitted. Those who remember the state of the great cathedral of London, as painted in the literature of Elizabeth and James, when mules and horses laden with market produce, were led through St. Paul’s as a matter of every-day occurrence, and bargains were struck there, and burglaries planned, and servants hired, and profligate assignations made and kept, will feel that even Christian and Protestant England has hardly the right to cast a stone at the priests and people of Jerusalem.

And the seats of them that sold doves.—The Greek has the article—“the doves,” that were so familiar an object in the Temple courts. There is a characteristic feature in this incident as compared with the earlier cleansing. Then, as taking into account, apparently, the less glaringly offensive nature of the traffic, our Lord had simply bidden the dealers in doves to depart, with their stalls and bird-cages (John 2:16). Now, as if indignant at their return to the desecrating work which He had then forbidden, He places them also in the same condemnation as the others.

Matthew 21:12-14.

Jesus Drove Out The Money Changers

And Jesus went into the temple — He did not go up to the court, or to the palace, though he came in as a king; but to the temple; for his kingdom is spiritual, and not of this world. It is in holy things that he rules, and in the temple of God that he exercises authority. And cast out them that sold and bought — Namely, doves and oxen for sacrifice. He had cast them out three years before, (John 2:14,) bidding them not make that house a house of merchandise: upon the repetition of the offence, he uses sharper words;

Real Reason Jesus Drove Out The Money Changers Poem

In the temple — That is, in the outer court of it, where the Gentiles used to worship. The money-changers — The exchangers of foreign money into current coin, which those who came from distant parts might want to offer for the service of the temple. Andsaid unto them — As he turned them out, It is written — Namely, Isaiah 56:7, My house shall be called a house of prayer — To all nations, Mark 11:17. That is, a place to which they shall resort for the performance of religious worship: but ye have made it a den of thieves — A harbour of wicked men; a place where traffic is carried on by persons of the most infamous character, who live by deceit and oppression, and practise the vilest extortion, even in the house of the most righteous and blessed God. “Let it be observed, that the word rendered temple here, is ιερον, not ναος. By the latter word was meant properly the house, including only the vestibule, the holy place or sanctuary, and the most holy. Whereas the former comprehended all the courts. It was in the outermost court that this sort of traffic was exercised. For want of a name, in European languages, peculiar to each, these two are confounded in most modern translations. To the ναος, or temple, strictly so called, none of those people had access, not even our Lord himself, because not of the posterity of Aaron.” — Campbell. And the blind and lame — Having heard of his arrival in the city, and requested their friends to lead them to the place where he was; came to him in the temple, and he healed them — In the presence of all the people. “Many such afflicted persons would, no doubt, be waiting in the several avenues of the temple to ask alms, at a time when there would be such a vast concourse of people: and there seems a peculiar propriety in our Lord’s multiplying these astonishing miracles, both to vindicate the extraordinary act of authority he had just been