John 2.12-17.
Since we’re here, let’s just start with the story.
John 2.12-17 KWL - 12 After the wedding, Jesus goes down to Capharnaum
- with his mother, his siblings, and his students.
- Not many days do they stay there;
- 13 it’s nearly the Judeans’ Passover,
- and Jesus goes up to Jerusalem.
- 14 In temple Jesus finds cattle, sheep, and pigeon sellers,
- and cashiers taking up residence.
- 15 Making a whip out of ropes,
- Jesus throws everyone, plus sheep and cattle, out of temple.
- He pours out the cashiers’ coins.
- He flips over the tables.
- 16 He tells the pigeon sellers, “Get these things out of here!
- Don’t make my Father’s house a market-house!”
- 17 Jesus’s students recalled it’s written,
- “The zeal of your house will eat me up.”
Ps 69.9
In the other gospels, Jesus kicked the merchants out of temple during
- once in the year 33, but the gospels don’t have their facts straight, or
- twice—once in 27 at beginning of his mission, and once again in 33 before he was killed.
And let’s not rule out the possibility Jesus did this every single time he went to temple—in John’s gospel we read of the first time, and in
Funny thing is, the most common theory is it happened once, on Holy Week. Even
One of the most obvious blanks they’d fill in from John: The whip. Because Jesus didn’t have a whip in the synoptic gospels. Really! Read ’em for yourself.
Mark 11.15-17 KJV - 15 And they come to Jerusalem: and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; 16 and would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. 17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Matthew 21.12-13 KJV - 12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, 13 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.
Luke 19.45-46 KJV - 45 And he went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought; 46 saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Yep, no whip! But man do Christians love that image of Jesus with a whip. So they deliberately swipe it from John. Didn’t matter if they believed the story in John happened at another time; they just couldn’t pass up the idea of Jesus giving the merchants a good whipping. I leave it to you as to whether prioritizing the whip over the textual integrity suggests something sorta demented about them.
The less-common but popular variant of this theory is it still happened only once—but at the beginning of Jesus’s mission, following John’s timetable. Not during Holy Week. So why do the synoptic gospels put it there? ’Cause it’s more dramatic.
My view is Jesus kicked the merchants out of temple more than once. Maybe every time he went to temple. Maybe that’s why he had a whip in John, but not the other gospels: They learned their lesson by the time Holy Week came around.
The temple marketplace.
Much has been taught before about the temple marketplace. Much junk, too.
Anti-capitalists claim it’s a rejection of capitalism. Antisemites use it to push the old stereotype of greedy Jews, so interested in profit they were willing to sell out their religion. Anti-Pharisees blame
Here’s a story I’ve heard many preachers claim: Part of the priests’ job was to inspect sacrificial animals ’cause it was against the Law to give God a deficient animal.
It’s a plausible scam… but I’ve found no historical basis for it. So yep, it’s probably crap.
Fact is, lots of people bought their sacrificial animals in Jerusalem. It was practical. It wasn’t practical to bring your animals all the way to Jerusalem from wherever you were from. They could easily be injured enroute. Imagine trekking to temple for two weeks, and just as you get into town, somebody’s ox tramples your lamb and breaks its ankle, rendering it unfit for sacrifice. All this way for nothing? Yeesh.
So the Law made accommodations for this! If you can’t bring your sacrifice with you, no problem—sell it! Bring the cash. Buy a new sacrifice.
I’ve also heard preachers claim the cashiers were a scam too: Supposedly Pharisees made a rule you couldn’t use Roman money; you had to use special temple money. Then they’d futz with the exchange rate and squeeze a little more out of the worshipers. Again, I’ve found no basis for this explanation in history. Isn’t there.
What is there is the fact a lot of ancient money violated the Law. Remember in
As for there exchange rate: There was no exchange rate. That’d be a form of usury, and therefore forbidden by the Law. The cashiers would weigh the coins, ’cause all coins were either gold, silver, electrum (a gold/silver alloy), or copper, and were measured by weight, not denomination, nor number of coins, nor even which state stamped them. There might be a fee for the cashier, but if you didn’t like the fee, swap coins before you come to Jerusalem!
So while people might claim the temple marketplace was full of thieves—because Jesus did after all quote Jeremiah—
Jeremiah 7.11 KJV - Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the L
ORD .
—but no, on the surface there’s no actual robbery going on. These animals were resources. This was a useful service to worshipers, who knew they’d have to change their coins and purchase animals for ritual sacrifice, and here was a marketplace for that, right here on the temple grounds! It’s like the Christians who leave the worship service and wanna buy a coffee, and here’s the church coffeehouse! Or wanna buy a bible, or CD, or some other useful book, and here’s the church bookstore!
Now I know; when I say that, people balk for two reasons. One is they grew up hearing the priests were somehow ripping everybody off, and had to be ripping ’em off because Jesus called these merchants “a den of thieves,” so somehow they had to be cheating and deceiving people. The other is, of course, their churches have coffeehouses and bookstores on the grounds… and they don’t see what’s wrong with it; they’re resources! Right?
I should point out if the priests were really trying to scam people, they wouldn’t’ve limited the marketplace to money exchange and animals. They’d’ve sold all sorts of religious articles. First-century versions of all the same Jesus junk we find in Christian bookstores. Shofars, timbrels, phylacteries, Kippas, prayer books, sheet music, Jewish art with inspiring bible verses, food, tchotchkes. They’d make a few sheqels on top of the animals.
But they didn’t. They exercised way more self-control than some of our church bookstores do.
The actual problem: Right business, wrong place.
So why’d Jesus come a-whipping, and refer to this place as a den of thieves?
A reconstruction of the first-century temple. Those big huge blank spaces, surrounded by colonnades, on either side of the temple complex? That’s the Gentile Court. Meant to be full of gentile worshipers. But ordinarily it’d be full of merchants. Accordance Bible Lands PhotoGuide
The Gentile Court was the one space in temple where
The priests wanted a marketplace, but didn’t want the merchants to commandeer Jewish space… and really didn’t care about dirty gentiles. What did it matter if their worship space now smelled like sheep crap and pigeon dung? Who’d it really harm if you couldn’t hear the worship music over the sound of haggling merchants and noisy animals?
But this does matter to Jesus. It’s against the Law to discommode gentiles.
So when Christians look at this passage, our usual joke is, “Well, I guess now we gotta go smash up the church’s bookstore.” Which is amusing, but not accurate. Again, it’s where merchants do their business. There’s a place and purpose for commerce. Now, did a more important ministry get sacrificed on its behalf?
- Did the church turn a prayer room into a coffeehouse without replacing the prayer room with a better prayer room?
- Did it set up a concession stand in the sanctuary, thus creating a distraction or taking away from worship space?
- Did it pave over a prayer walk ’cause we need more parking?
- Did it turn
a prayer closet into an ordinary storage closet? - Did it kill off a less-profitable ministry for a far more lucrative one? (’Cause more profit implies God’s blessing, right?)
- Did it take over church classrooms so the pastors could get more comfortable office space?
“Well, you don’t understand our circumstances…” No; I understand ’em fine. I attend a church that’s short on space. But when you choose to prioritize money or prestige over people and worship, you can’t honestly tell me you’re growing
Are we so fixated on turning a profit that we forget the resources we offer are meant to minister? Fr’instance, let’s say your bible study requires everybody to buy a book. (’Cause you’re studying that book this month. Not so much the bible. Really oughta be bible, but that’s another rant.) Has your church arranged things so the poor can get this book for free? I’ve been poor, and I stopped attending bible studies that did this. Too many churches never think about the poor. At all.
And should. ’Cause God does! If the poor couldn’t afford a ritual sacrifice, God let ’em sacrifice pigeons.
That, or stop claiming we minister to all, when we only minister to the wealthy.
