The image of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers, those ancient exchange booths, and the benches of the sellers of doves, the Zion equivalent of a candle kiosk, is so unfamiliar...
The image of Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers, those ancient exchange booths, and the benches of the sellers of doves, the Zion equivalent of a candle kiosk, is so unfamiliar that in the course of life Christians often have to answer puzzled questions: why does He act this way? It sharply contradicts the sugary little face of that religious painting called "the third half of the nineteenth century," but not the real Son of God. Yet indeed the Lord, of whom it is said that He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoking wick (Isa. 42:3), would seem not to act in such a way.
What Jesus does at this moment is called a prophetic action. As Hosea and Isaiah give symbolic names to their children as witnesses to the fulfillment of prophecies, as Jeremiah buys a field in Anathoth when all Israel is about to be occupied, these are visible images that enter the consciousness of people who do not want to listen, having ears and not hearing. Yet this action of Christ is not a prophecy, but the fulfillment of a prophecy: "Zeal for Your house consumes Me" (Ps. 68:10), says the famous messianic psalm. The evangelist John writes on behalf of the disciples in the second chapter of his Gospel that they understood this action of Jesus precisely in this way: He acts as the Messiah, according to the prophecies, must act.
Frankly speaking, this is indeed a distinguishing sign of the Messiah, because all of us treat social proprieties and stereotypes of pious sweetness with far greater reverence than the holiness of the Almighty. Because He may perhaps forgive us our irreverence, but society will not forgive reproach, just as it did not forgive Jesus.
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21:12 He cast out all that sold and bought - Doves and oxen for sacrifice. He had cast them out three years before, Joh 2:14; bidding them not make that house a house of merchandise. Upon the repetition of the offence, he used sharper words. In the temple - That is, in the outer court of it, where the Gentiles used to worship. The money changers - The exchangers of foreign money into current coin, which those who came from distant parts might want to offer for the service of the temple. Mar 11:11, Mar 11:15; Luk 19:45.
21:13 A den of thieves - A proverbial expression, for a harbour of wicked men. Isa 56:7; Jer 7:11.