When Jesus wanted to, He could make quite an impression. He went into the Temple courtyard, teeming with people from around the world, and drove out the vendors who had set up shop there to cater to the visitors.
The Scene
Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves; and He would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple. And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written, ‘MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS’? But you have made it a ROBBERS’ DEN.”
Mark 11:15-17 See also Matthew 21:12-13 and Luke 19:45-46
John’s gospel also includes a Temple cleansing, in a different context but with very similar actions. I’ll discuss the differences and the similarities below. For now, here is the text:
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. And He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen; and He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables; and to those who were selling the doves He said, “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “ZEAL FOR YOUR HOUSE WILL CONSUME ME.”
John 2:13-17
The History
The passages from Isaiah and Jeremiah that Jesus quoted are worth noting in full below.
Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD,
Isaiah 56:6-7
To minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD,
To be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath
And holds fast My covenant;
Even those I will bring to My holy mountain
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar;
For My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”
Behold, you are trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—that you may do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the LORD.
Jeremiah 7:8-11
Also, here is the passage the disciples remembered:
I have become estranged from my brothers
Psalm 69:8-9
And an alien to my mother’s sons.
For zeal for Your house has consumed me,
And the reproaches of those who reproach You have fallen on me.
The first-century listeners would have been steeped in the Scriptures that we call the Old Testament, learning them from early childhood. They would have immediately recognized Jesus’ motivations from his references to Isaiah and Jeremiah. The reference to the Psalm about zeal for the Lord’s house would have had Messianic overtones, as well. From our 21st-century perspective, we are not as instantly aware of the conditions at the Temple or of why Jesus was so disturbed by them. Let’s try to understand them a bit better.
The Problem
The Temple was physically designed in layers of increasing proximity to God. At the center was the Most Holy Place, so sacred that only the high priest could enter, and even he only once a year. Then there was the altar and the priests’ courtyard, then the Israelites’ (meaning Jewish men) courtyard, then the women’s courtyard. Finally, farthest away from the action, was the Court of the Gentiles. This was by far the largest area, meant to provide for any non-Israelites who still wanted to honor and worship the Jewish god.
There were a surprising number of these “God-fearers”. We read about several of them in the Bible: the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was healed (Mark 7:24-30), the Roman centurion who trusted that Jesus could heal his servant (Matthew 8:5-13), the Ethiopian eunuch whom Phillip led to Christ (Acts 8:26-39), Cornelius of Caesarea (Acts 10). These are the kind of people who might have wanted to worship in the Temple. If they did, the only place they were allowed to go was that outer Court of the Gentiles.
When they arrived to worship, what did they find? A crowded, noisy, smelly marketplace. There were people selling birds, sheep, and other livestock to be used as sacrifices. These were available for purchase by people who were not able or willing to bring their own sacrificial animal on what may have been a very long pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Naturally, like any place with more demand than supply, the price for those animals was higher than it would have been on any local farm.
There was a catch to that purchase, however: It had to be made using Temple currency. No foreign currency could be used since 1) it did not match the requirement in Exodus 30:11-16 and 2) it often was imprinted with the image of a pagan god or emperor. That gave rise to another group of vendors who would exchange foreign money into Temple coinage…at ridiculously high exchange rates. After all, the Temple (and its leadership) had to be supported, and Rome was going to get a share as well. What choice did a weary traveler have? They were a captive audience with no other options, vulnerable to whatever cheating anyone wanted to impose.
Picture yourself as a Gentile who has traveled to worship the God of Israel at His holy Temple. You find yourself in the middle of a stockyard, with all the attendant sounds and smells. You have to watch where you step (animals!) as you cross the courtyard. You are being ripped off, and you know it. And, this is happening in the very place — in fact, the only place — where you are expected to come to worship. How reverent do you feel? Are you in awe at being in the presence of Almighty God?
Jesus’ Response
Jesus, the man with all of God’s righteous and holy nature, felt about this exactly the way we would expect God to feel: He was infuriated. His Temple was being desecrated, and people He loved were being exploited. And, all this was happening with the sanction of the religious leaders who were tasked with caring for those people. It’s surprising that He only drove out the vendors; a few well-placed lightning bolts would not have been inappropriate!
This was also a direct challenge to the self-righteous religious authorities. Jesus was hitting them in the three places that hurt the most: their pride, their pocketbooks, and their standing with Rome. He was claiming His authority as God to overrule and rebuke them for allowing the Temple courtyard to be mis-used. He was disrupting their cash flow. Finally, whatever power they possessed was only at the pleasure of the Roman occupiers in exchange for keeping the peace. A disturbance like this would draw attention and could result in a smackdown by Rome. Ouch!
John vs. the Synoptics
As I mentioned above, there are distinctions between the event as described by John vs that described by Matthew, Mark and Luke in the “Synoptic” — meaning “common point of view” — Gospels. Although all four Gospels are unique, the Synoptics have more in common with each other than they do with John. It’s as if John was thinking “The others have already told the story, each with their own perspective. Instead of reiterating what they’ve done, I’ll do something different as a complement to them.”
In the case of Jesus clearing the Temple, John’s account is placed very early in Jesus’ ministry. It comes right after the water-to-wine miracle in Cana in John 2:1-12, and before his discussion with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21. The Synoptics tell their stories at the end of Jesus’ time, after the Palm Sunday triumphal procession, just a few days before His crucifixion. Interpretations vary as to what is going on: Misremembering the sequence by one writer or another? Editorial license rearranging events to suit the story arc? Or two separate-but-similar events that occurred at two different times?
Mistake?
The first option, an outright mistake by the authors, is by far the least likely. These people had given their entire lives over to following Jesus. Their time with him transformed them and eclipsed anything that had come before. Can you imagine them arguing: “That time Jesus cleared the Temple was one of the first things we saw Him do!” “No, silly! It was during that last big week. Don’t you remember entering the city with Him while everyone cheered, and then Him making the scene at the Temple the very next day?”
That discrepancy is too great to be a memory glitch. Besides, if that were the case, they would have had this argument and gotten it straightened out before anything was written. Remember, the Gospels weren’t written in a vacuum. These men had shared their lives for years, and would continue to do so until their deaths as martyrs for Jesus’ sake.
Editorial?
The second option, editorial license, might have some merit. John could have had reason for wanting to emphasize Jesus asserting His authority and being in conflict with the religious hierarchy by deliberately fore-telling the story ahead of when it happened chronologically. Or Matthew, Mark, and Luke could have had reason to save it till the end as the entire drama came to a climax.
But all four of them have pretty specific time markers. For instance, Mark says that Jesus entered Jerusalem, looked around at the Temple, left to spend the night at Bethany, came back the next day, and drove out the vendors (Mark 11:11-15). John says that Jesus did His miracle at Cana, then stayed at Capernaum “a few days”. The next line is “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” (John 2:11-13) In addition, interpreters who choose this option don’t agree on any one specific good editorial reason for this kind of time-shift.
Two Separate Events?
The third option has the most traction: Jesus bracketed His three-year ministry by condemning the Temple mis-use and cleaning it up at both the beginning and the end. There’s no reason to expect that any cleansing would last without constant enforcement, so business would be back as usual in between those times. A sizable difference in the reaction of the Pharisees adds weight to this interpretation.
In John’s early event, Jesus is challenged immediately afterward, and gives an enigmatic and prophetic answer:
The Jews then said to Him, “What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
John 2:18-22
The Synoptics, in their later event, don’t include this confrontation. Instead, they say that Jesus continued to teach in the Temple “but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people were trying to destroy Him, and they could not find anything that they might do, for all the people were hanging on to every word He said.” (Luke 19:47-48, also Mark 11:18).
However, later on during Jesus’ trial and crucifixion, Matthew and Mark record the religious rulers using the “raise up in three days” statement against Him. At the trial, they claimed that He said He would destroy the Temple (Matthew 26:59-61, Mark 14:55-59). If you check the quote above, that is not at all what He said. Then, while He was on the cross, they taunted Him: “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:39-40, Mark 15:29-30)
If three years, as opposed to less than a week, had passed since Jesus said anything about raising back up in three days, that would explain why the witnesses were able to twist His words so much.
Note: An argument from silence is not conclusive. For instance, Matthew 21:14-16 has a third conversation that none of the others record for us. It could easily be true that all of these things were said during one event; none of them explicitly negates the others. Conversely, it could also be true that the same things were said more than once, at two different highly-charged emotional events. We just aren’t given enough information to form a definitive answer.
Bottom Line
Regardless of how we interpret John vs. the Synoptics, we end up with the same message. The Gentiles’ place of worship was being turned into an open-air — and dishonest — market, and Jesus was having none of it. As God, He had the holiness, the justice, and the authority to overturn not just vendor tables, but the entire religious/political structure. He was deliberately taking a stand, even though it was a major step leading toward the cross.
No, on second thought, He took that stand because it led to the cross, where He would again provide clean access to worship God…for everyone, forever.
