Description
In this episode, Jesus is stated to have visited the Temple in Jerusalem, Herod's Temple, where the courtyard is described as being filled with livestock and the tables of the money changers, who changed the standard Greek and Roman money for Jewish and Tyrian money. Jerusalem was packed with Jews who had come for Passover, perhaps numbering 300,000 to 400,000 pilgrims.
Creating a whip from some cords, "he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. But he said to those who sold doves, ‘Get these out of here! Do not make My Father’s house a house of trade!’"
"And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all of them who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." —Matthew 21:12-13In John, this is the first of the three times that Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the Passover, and John says that during the Passover Feast there were (unspecified) miraculous signs performed by Jesus, which caused people to believe in his name, but that he would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men.
In Mark 12:40 and Luke 20:47 Jesus again accuses the Temple authorities of thieving and this time names poor widows as their victims going on to provide evidence of this in Mark 12:42 and Luke 21:2. Dove sellers were selling doves that were sacrificed by the poor who could not afford grander sacrifices and specifically by women. According to Mark 11:16, Jesus then put an embargo on people carrying any merchandise through the temple—a sanction that would have disrupted all commerce.
Matthew 22:14-16 says the Temple leaders questioned Jesus if he was aware the children were shouting Hosanna to the Son of David. Jesus responded by saying "from the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise." This phrase incorporates a phrase from Book of Psalms (Psalm 8:2), "from the lips of children and infants," believed by followers to be an admission of divinity by Jesus, thus confirming his divinity via prooftexting the Old Testament.
Read more about this topic: Cleansing Of The Temple
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