Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all those engaged in selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13 And he said to them, “It is written: ‘My house shall be a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a den of thieves.” 14 The blind and the lame approached him in the temple area, and he cured them. 15 When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wondrous things he was doing, and the children crying out in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; and have you never read the text, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nurslings you have brought forth praise’?” 17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany, and there he spent the night.
By his words and actions, Jesus was reforming the way the Jews worshipped and he had no tolerance for actions that debased God’s Temple or the true meaning of God’s Law. Foreign money was exchanged, and animals were sold for sacrifice in the Temple area in the Court of the Gentiles (v. 12). In verse 13, Jesus combined quotes from two OT books; “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples (Is. 56:7)” and, “Has this house which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves (Jer. 7:11)?” The Temple had become a place of commerce more than a place of prayer. However, those activities were necessary for the Temple to function. Maybe it was Jesus’ intention to show that the Kingdom of God was being ushered in and those activities in the Temple would no longer be needed because of the prescient sacrifice of the unblemished lamb, and his resurrection.
After overturning the tables and seats Jesus healed the blind and the lame which calls to mind the OT passage, “It is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice, and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (Hos. 6:6).” This angered the chief priests and scribes because they could see the status quo changing as indicated by the children shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David (v. 15),” a Messianic title. God promised David, “I will raise up your offspring after you, sprung from your loins, and I will establish his kingdom. He it is who shall build a house for my name, and I will establish his royal throne forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me (2 Sam. 7:12-14).” Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah.
Almighty God, lift us beyond our senses, our intellect, our desires, our hopes, our fears and from our hardness of heart so that we may be open to your will and serve you with fidelity and love. This we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen!
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References
Chiu, José Enrique Aguilar, et al. The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Paulist Press, 2018.
Faculty of the University of Navarre. The Navarre Bible: New Testament Expanded Edition. Expanded Edition, Four Courts / Scepter, 2008.
Brown, Raymond Edward, et al. The New Jerome Biblical Commentary. Upper Saddle River, NJ, United States, Prentice Hall, 1990.
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