John 2:13-22

The Cleansing of the Temple. The Passover of the Jews as an author writing for Christians naturally describes it without special significance or bias, was near. Jesus, following the custom of the religious party in His nation, goes up with His disciples (John 2:17; John 2:22) to keep the feast (cf. Exodus 23:15). He finds the Temple desecrated by an illicit traffic in animals for the sacrifices, and sacred shekels of the heavy Phœ nician standard (pp. 116f.), in which alone the Temple tax could be paid. The expulsion is described with a fullness and correctness of detail (notice especially the driving out of the cattle and (?) their attendants, the overturning of the moneychangers-' tables, and the telling the bird-sellers to take away their cages) greater than we find in the Synoptic accounts, Mt. coming nearest. The words of the command in John 2:16, as compared with the quotation from Jeremiah 7:11 in Mark 11:17, favour the originality of the Johannine account. In the light of later events the disciples saw in the incident a fulfilment of Psalms 69:9. In the remonstrance which follows, it is possible that the author sees a fulfilment of Psalms 69:9 b. The Jews, the religious party as represented by their leaders, demand His authority to act in this manner (cf. Mark 11:28). The language of John 18:6 seems to reflect Mark 8:11 [but the attitude of Jesus to the request is different, John 2:19; Mark 8:12. A. J. G.]. As spoken to the men of His time the Lord's answer can only mean, Go on with your evil practices here, which must lead to the final desecration and destruction of the place as the Temple of God; and when you have completed your fatal work, I will raise shortly a new - Temple,-' in the hearts of true disciples of the kingdom, where God can dwell (cf. Jeremiah 7:3). It was inevitable that later Christian reflection should see in the words a reference to His crucifixion, for which the Jews were responsible, and His resurrection. The Scripture is probably Psalms 69:9 (rather than Psalms 16:10), which received its final fulfilment on Calvary. The forty-six years may refer, not to Herod's alterations (p. 609), begun in 20 B.C. and not finished till A.D. 63 (Josephus, Ant. xx. 9), but to Zerubbabel's Temple, supposed to have been begun in the first year of Cyrus 559, and completed in the ninth year of Darius, 513 (see Classical Review, 1894, pp. 89ff.). If the words which were misrepresented at the trial (Mark 14:58) were spoken as here recorded, the incident of the false witnesses is naturally explained, especially if a period of two years or more had intervened.