(John 2:13-22)
Jesus cleansing the temple: He has a whip, He overturns tables, the disciples quote Psalm 69:9. It puts me in mind of the T-Shirt I saw once: “Jesus is coming back, and boy is He mad!” However, if we are picturing Jesus filled with wrath and wreaking destruction, we might need to read the nuances of the language a little more carefully. Here’s the NIV on this passage:
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple he had spoken of was his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. (John 2:13-22, NIV)
It is worth noting to begin with, that all four Gospels have an account of this episode (see also Matt 21:23-27, Mark 11:15-17 and Luke 19:40-20:2). John has some details that are unique (e.g. the whip and Psalm 69), and only John concludes with “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it!” – although Matthew, Mark and Luke all have this assertion as one of the pieces of testimony brought against Jesus at His trial.
Secondly, let me explain why I am even bothering to explore this passage. The T-Shirt I quoted earlier may be a little more extreme than most of us would be comfortable with, and yet the idea that “God is mad at me/you/and everybody” is pretty widespread. We feel we have probably given Him cause. But: it just isn’t true. My own Pastor says this at just about the end of every service: “God isn’t mad at you.” I can’t overemphasise just how important and true that statement is – and as my Pastor clearly knows, just how often we need to hear that truth.
In a nutshell I would put it like this. We are absolutely (as people who haven’t yet seen and responded to the Kingdom) in dire peril. That is not because God is mad at us, but rather because we are aligned with a regime already marked for destruction. God is bringing final judgement upon Satan and his allies, and He – God – has done everything to ensure that no man or woman needs to perish with that condemned regime. Go and read again, with understanding, John 3:16 – and 17. Of course, He cannot force us to respond to His love. But mad at us? Not at all.
So let us look at the passage more carefully. Whips and zeal and table-turning may be causing us to miss the picture.
The Passover was near, so Jesus goes up to Jerusalem. And sure enough, He finds in the Temple, those selling cattle and sheep and doves, and τοὺς κερματιστὰς καθημένους. Liddell & Scott & Jones, my go-to Greek dictionary, asserts that κερματιστὰς is “money-changers”, based on this single appearance of the word in John. Matthew and Mark use κολλυβιστής, or “small money changers” (as does John in the next sentence) and κερματιστὰς helps us understand what that term means. κερματιστὰς is, I think, a participle (possibly ill-formed) from κερματίζω, “I chop up or cut into pieces”. It covers coining precious metal into money, and changing money into smaller coins. So κερματιστὰς is almost “those clipping coins”.
Why were there money changers in the temple? Because the coins in circulation in Judaea were Roman currency (remember Jesus asking the Pharisees whose image was on the coin?), meaning they carried an image of the Emperor and a subscription alluding to his divine status. So, no you can’t pay your tithes and vows with pagan coin, you must change your pagan coins for temple coins. John’s use of κερματιστὰς is alerting us to what kind of operation this is: you give me a valuable Roman coin, I give you a smaller and less valuable temple coin.
How does Jesus respond to this? Making a φραγέλλιον (Latin flagellum or “small scourge” – perhaps more like a “kitten o’nine tails”) out of σχοινίων (small ropes, cords or threads), He ἐξέβαλεν them all from the temple, both the sheep and the cows, He ἐξέχεεν the coins of the money-changers and ἀνέστρεψεν their tables, and to those selling doves He said, “Take these hence, lest you make my Father’s house a house of ἐμπορίου.
ἐκβάλλω is “throw or cast out” (nets, demons, enemies etc). Sounds violent enough, but it is also “drive out”. I think this is what the small scourge of small cords was for (personally I find a tap with a light stick across the back is good for getting stock to walk forward, but haven’t tried a light flagellum) and on this occasion, I think that is all He was doing – moving stock out of the temple court.
ἐκχέω is poured out (or even spread out) – again it is a more intentional outpouring than the obvious alternative, σκορπίζω, which does mean scatter and would fit the traditional picture – of Jesus throwing the marketplace into chaos – much better.
ἀναστρέφω is invert or turn upside down, or even (of troops) turn around, but is not a violent word as far as I can see – think of the teenager putting chairs upside down on tables at 11 pm at a fast food restaurant, not Robin Hood kicking over the Sheriff of Nottingham’s banquet table. I think He is saying, “the bank is closed.” τραπέζας are tables, but also banks – since traditional banking (and tax-farming) required just a table.
Why didn’t He drive out the doves? As has long been recognised, a cow walking out the gate of the temple can be followed and recovered, but not so a dove flying free. What is of more interest is what Jesus said to the sellers of doves: “take these hence, lest you make (μὴ ποιεῖτε) my Father’s house a house of trading.” ἐμπόριον is generally a trading-station, a market and so on. In the genitive with the word for house, οἶκον ἐμπορίου, we probably have to say something like “a house of trading” rather than “a house of trading-station” or “a house of market”; the plural of ἐμπόριον means merchandise, but here it is singular.
The really key point is the word “lest” – in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus combines quotes from Isaiah 56 and Jeremiah 7 to produce the sentence “My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers”. The significance of this is almost certainly that the original of Isaiah 56 is “a house of prayer for all nations (goyim, Gentiles)” and that the “market” was set up in the outer court of the Temple, the so-called Court of the Gentiles or Nations. In other words, your market is blocking access for the Gentiles to the Temple, quite apart from its inappropriateness in a house of prayer.
But in John, Jesus says take these away, lest you turn my Father’s house into a market. (Yes, I am reading μὴ ποιεῖτε as an optative of fearing, rather than an imperative prohibition). To me that sounds more like a warning (you are in peril) than an accusation (I am mad at you). Perhaps the language of the Synoptics (the combined Isaiah / Jeremiah quote in Matthew, Mark and Luke) is stronger, but in Mark’s version at least, it is framed more as a warning to the whole population, not just the traders; and was enough to make the Chief Priests and Teachers of the Law want to kill Him, which suggests they knew He was holding them responsible – not the traders alone.
Why have I gone to such lengths over this? Simply because I don’t think we should be reading this as if Jesus was giving in to a fit of anger; the language is all wrong for that. On the contrary, I believe He very firmly shut the market down, by walking the animals out the gate (and you better believe the sellers of stock went out after them); pouring out the coins of the money-changers (perhaps to make a visual point: “what a lot of money you seem to have taken in; how much did your customers receive to give to the Temple?”) and turning their tables upside down (“sorry, you are shut”). And then giving the dove sellers a warning of peril: “take these things away, because you really wouldn’t want to find you had turned my Father’s house into a caravanserai, would you?”
And we know that this reading of John is correct, because of what happens next. If Jesus had “attacked the market”, we can be pretty sure He would have been arrested by the Temple police (or at least, the attempt would have been made). Instead, the Jews (which perhaps we should read as the leaders of the Jews, ie chief priests etc) asked Him, Τί σημεῖον δεικνύεις ἡμῖν, ὅτι ταῦτα ποιεῖς;
That word σημεῖον is ambiguous. Yes, in the Gospels we normally assume it is “sign” as in “miraculous sign”; but it does simply mean “mark”, including mark of ownership, signal from a commander or admiral to do a thing, and so forth. So rather than “What sign are you showing”, I think we should read it as “what authority can you show us for your actions in doing these things?” That is, you have just closed down the Temple market, on whose say so?
Jesus of course, does answer in a way that at least could include the notion of miraculous sign (deliberately playing on the ambiguity, and not actually what “the Jews” were expecting – they wanted to see His authority); “Loose (disassemble, unbind, take apart; ‘destroy’ is by extension, only) this Temple and in three days I will raise it”. Which is a σημεῖον miraculous sign, whichever Temple you thought He was referencing – the building or His body – but also, absolutely, His σημεῖον mark or signal of authority for all His actions: “I will be put to death and on the third day I will rise again.” (Which leads naturally to “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…”)
Interestingly, in all three of the Synoptics, the cleansing of the Temple is closely followed by the episode in which the chief priests and teachers of the law ask Jesus “by what authority” He is doing “all these things”; this reading of John of the request for a σημεῖον as “a request to see His authority for His actions” therefore aligns with the other three accounts. And the core point is – start a fight in the Temple and you get arrested; shut down, firmly but fairly, a trading station in the Temple and someone is going to ask to see the paperwork.
Seeing the Kingdom 