2. The Messiah Asserts His Authority in the Temple Court (21:12–17)
¹²And Jesus went into the temple¹ and threw out all who were selling and buying
in the temple, and overturned the money-changers’ tables and the seats of those
who were selling doves. ¹³And he said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be
called a house of prayer;’ but you are turning it into a bandits’ cave.”
¹⁴And blind and lame people came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things he did and
[heard] the children shouting out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David,”
they were angry ¹ and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” But
Jesus replied, “Yes; haven’t you ever read, ‘You have caused your praise to
come² out of the mouth of little children and infants’?”³
¹⁷Then he left them and went out of the city as far as Bethany, and camped there.
On arriving in Jerusalem from the east the first area reached was the temple
precinct. The importance of this sacred area for Jewish ideology can hardly be
exaggerated. It was not only the focus of the nation’s religious life, but also a
symbol of national identity and pride, particularly since the Maccabean revolt of
the second century BC had succeeded in reclaiming it from the deliberate
paganization attempted by Antiochus Epiphanes. The purification and
rededication of the temple in 164 BC were commemorated annually thereafter in
the Festival of Dedication. The rebuilding and enlargement of the temple by
Herod the Great had been on a scale to match its patriotic significance; as a later
rabbi remembered, “It used to be said: He who has not seen the temple of Herod
has never seen a beautiful building.” (b. B. Bat. 4a)
Matthew’s account reads as if Jesus went straight into the temple area and took
action straight away, whereas Mark 11:11–15 inserts a day’s delay. In Matthew’s
account Jesus’ second dramatic gesture thus follows directly and appropriately
from the first, and the effect is no less startling and provocative.⁴ The day’s delay
mentioned by Mark suggests, however, that it was less a spontaneous outburst of
anger than a planned act of defiance and public demonstration of the Messiah’s
authority.
The setting is the Court of the Gentiles (see above, pp. 770–71), where stalls
were set up under the porticoes by those who sold animals for temple sacrifices
and those who changed pilgrims’ money into the special Tyrian coinage which
was required for temple offerings, especially for the annual temple tax which
was paid just before Passover (m. Šeqal. 1:1, 3; see on 17:24). Both services
were in principle helpful, indeed necessary, for pilgrims, who could hardly be
expected to bring their sacrificial animals all the way from Galilee or further a
field; though no doubt the traders also made a healthy profit on their activities.
But the location of the stalls actually within the temple precinct was more
controversial, and it seems likely that they had only recently been given
permission by the priests to move in there.⁵ There may well, therefore, have been
some popular support for Jesus’ protest in so far as it related to the location of
the stalls.
Jesus’ explicit protest is against the misuse of God’s house for trade instead of
prayer. The phrase “bandits’ cave,” traditionally translated “den of thieves,” has
sometimes been taken to mean that he was attacking unfair trade practices which
exploited the poor pilgrims,⁷ but that is not the most likely reason for this
allusion to Jer 7:11 (see below). Nor would it explain his expulsion of the buyers
along with the sellers.⁸ It is where the trade is being carried out rather than how
that is the focus of his displeasure. And that means that the protest is directed not
so much against the traders themselves but against the priestly establishment
who had allowed them to operate within the sacred area. Commercial activity,
however justified in itself, should not be carried out where people came to pray,
and a temple régime which encouraged this had failed in its responsibility. This
was, therefore, apparently a demonstration against the Sadducean establishment.
But Jesus was not leading a popular protest movement: the gospel accounts
suggest that he acted alone (see below on v. 12). The significance of the action
therefore focused on the credentials of Jesus himself: who was this Galilean
visitor who dared to challenge the system?
Those who had witnessed his overtly messianic arrival could hardly fail to read
this action in the same light, as an assertion of messianic authority. They may
have shared the hope of the Pharisaic writer of Ps. Sol. 17:30–32 that the
Messiah would purify Jerusalem and make it holy again; it had been desecrated
by pagan invaders (Antiochus Epiphanes, 167 BC; Pompey 63 BC), but also by
the impure worship of God’s own people.¹ The vision of a new and purified
temple in Ezek 40–48 played an important role in such hopes. The same book of
Zechariah on which Jesus’ donkey-ride had been based also spoke of the
messianic “Branch” who would build the temple of the Lord (Zech 6:12–13,
perhaps reflecting the earlier prophecy about David’s son in 2 Sam 7:12–14),
and we shall see this hope echoed in the popular understanding of Jesus’ claims
in 26:61; 27:40.¹¹ At this stage there is no suggestion of rebuilding the temple, of
course, but rather of its purification, but that too had been promised by OT
prophets as part of the eschatological hope. The same book of Zechariah looks
forward to the day when “there will no longer be traders in the house of the Lord
of hosts,” (Zech 14:21)¹² a vision which Jesus now enacts as literally as he had
that of the king riding on the donkey.¹³ And an onlooker would probably also
recall Malachi’s vision of “the Lord” coming suddenly to his temple to purify its
worship and offerings, so that no one can stand before his anger (Mal 3:1–4).
“The Lord” in that passage is God himself, but this would not be the only time
when Jesus’ coming is seen as fulfilling the OT hopes of an eschatological
coming of God: see above on 3:3 and on 11:10 (where the same text from
Malachi is quoted). Jesus’ action thus points beyond the present priestly régime
to the purified temple of the messianic era, and implicitly claims that he himself
is the one whom God has promised to bring in that new age. Matthew’s readers
might remember Jesus’ assertion in 12:6 that “Something greater than the temple
is here.”¹⁴
In vv. 10–11 Matthew has added to the messianic demonstration a short piece to
highlight the reaction of the city. Now in vv. 14–16 he again adds a scene not
found in the other gospels which tells us of the reaction of the temple authorities.
The healings which give rise to the exchange are not narrated in detail, but the
nature of the patients, together with the renewed acclamation of Jesus as “Son of
David,” allows the well-instructed reader to draw a suggestive parallel with the
first David (see below on v. 14). But it is the acclamation itself, with its echo of
the crowds’ messianic enthusiasm in v. 9, which provokes the outrage of the
priests and scribes. Jesus’ response, however, is no more conciliatory than that of
the crowd in v. 11. The self-effacing servant of 12:15–21 now has no qualms
about allowing messianic enthusiasm to be expressed, and by his choice of text
implies a further and even bolder claim. There is no “messianic secret” now.¹⁵
The disciples are not mentioned in vv. 12–17, so that Jesus’ action stands out as
his personal challenge to the authorities. The incautious reader might even
assume from v. 17 that Jesus camped alone at Bethany, though the narrative will
soon make it clear that the disciples who accompanied him to the city are also
staying with him there (v. 20).
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