"You have Never Read?"

Notes:

Context:

At the southern end of Temple Mount, Jesus enters the temple through the Huldah Gate. He then climbs another series of steps to enter the royal stoa, a long hall with four rows of forty thick columns each. Within the stoa is a market where commercial activity enables pilgrims from throughout the Diaspora to participate in temple activities. Here they exchange their varied currency for temple currency, the Tyrian shekel, which is then used to pay the required temple tax (17:24–27; cf. Ex. 30:11–16) and purchase animals and other products for their sacrifices.

Jeremiah 7:11 “11 Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”

REASON FOR CURING

“We can only guess at the reasons for Jesus’ disgust.” Bruner:

“It seems, then, that it is not any specific malpractice that Jesus rejects, but the whole system of sacrificial worship which had developed into big business, and particularly the temple authorities who had allowed its commercial aspect to become enshrined within the temple precincts.” France

Morris: “If they were to offer sacrifice, there had to be some place where they could purchase them. But the point is that that place did not have to be within the temple precincts, and it is to this that Jesus was objecting. So he threw out the traders.”

I. Abraham: Commercial abuse?

Gundry and Schnackenburg: Seller’s location? Impeding the Gentiles from worship on the temple precincts.

Fulfillment of Zechariah? (Zech 14:21 “21 And every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the Lord of hosts, so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the meat of the sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day.”)

As a kid, it felt obvious: Jesus didn’t want the temple to be a market? Like, that’s just not the place for selling stuff, even if it’s religious in nature. Don’t confuse commercialism with religion.

Wilkins: “Both the moneychangers and those buying and selling are making this simply a commercial operation, and the temptation for abuse is real, since surplus tax was consigned to the temple fund (m. Šeqal. 2:5). Doves were the sacrifice made by the poor (who could not afford animal sacrifices) and by those making a variety of types of personal offerings (cf. Lev. 5:7; 12:6; 15:14, 29). Temple commerce was at times notorious for exploiting the disadvantaged (m. Ker. 1:7).”

“One is most impressed that Jesus is disgusted by the mixture of worship and money, that he wants the two kept as distinct as possible, and that as a rule he does not want to see people selling things and worshipping God on the same grounds.” Bruner

“An increasing number of commentators think that it was not so much shady practices as it was the callous location that angered Jesus (e.g., Hare, 241).” Bruner

All this activity, but Jesus doesn’t harm actual people, and he doesn’t go inside the innermost parts of the temple.

“The religious leaders ‘had wished to offer every convenience for public worship, especially at Passover [by selling their religious provision right there on temple grounds]; but they seem by degrees to have pushed their license further,” provoking Jesus’ wrath. We can try too hard to be relevant.” Bruner

Malachi 3:1-5 “1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. 5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”

“It was bad enough to have the enthusiasm of the crowds at Jesus’ entry to the city, but it was worse to have him invade the temple precincts (their own special territory) and destroy a lucrative source of income, and it was intolerable that there, in the temple courts, he was doing his miracles and now being acclaimed by children (who knew no better!) in messianic terms.” Morris

Context:

Matthew: Jesus doesn’t cleans the Temple right away, but Matthew makes this connection between the two. Without Mark, we’d assume Jesus went directly into the temple.

Casting out Commercialization

12 And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 13 He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”

What money mongering continues in the church today?

“Though it is not correct to say that Jesus destroys property here, he does thoroughly rearrange the furniture.” Bruner

v. 12: “Sold and bought”: No one was guiltless. Association with selling and purchasing.

“The temple goes down a generation later, the Portable Community of the Messianic People replaces the old fixed-property temple.” Bruner

“Cleansing” France: “Misses much of the significance of this event. It is the sequel to and culmination of the deliberately symbolic entry to the city; we see now how the Messiah stakes his claim in the central shrine of his people.”

Church=Tabernacle. God’s mobile home!

Application:

House of Prayer=The Church=People!

Example: Allstar United

Matthew 12:5-6: Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

Curing the Outcast

14 And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

Casts out the money mongers and heals the outcast.

New place of healing is a person

Important of Healing in the Christian community, but without all the business!

Health and Wealth Gospel: Think Spiritual

Davies and Allison: “Jesus heals the Little People and rebukes Big People.” Bruner

Confessional Conflict

15 But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, 16 and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,

“ ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies

you have prepared praise’?”

17 And leaving them, he went out of the city to Bethany and lodged there.

Priests and Scribes saw the wonderful things and said, “Jesus, do you not hear what these are saying?” Closed question: Yes or no. But what’s between the lines here.

“Yes; you have you never read, ‘Out of the mouth of infants and nursing babies you have prepared praise’?”

The statement, Out of the Mouth…, comes from where? Psalm 8:2 “2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.”

Because of you foes? to silence them? Yikes!