John 2:17

John 2:17. His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat me up. Clearly (from the contrast with John 2:22) they remembered this scripture at that time. The quotation is from Psalms 69, a psalm which is several times referred to in the New Testament. See Romans 15:3; Romans 11:9-10; Acts 1:20 (perhaps John 15:25); and comp. Psalms 69:21 with the accounts of the crucifixion. We have no record of the interpretation of this psalm by Jewish writers in a Messianic sense, but New Testament usage can leave no doubt that such an application of many verses is both allowable and necessary. What was true of the devout and afflicted Israelite who wrote the words was true in the fullest sense of the Servant of Jehovah, of whom all such faithful servants were imperfect types. The exact meaning of the words here quoted will best appear if we take the whole verse: ‘The zeal of Thine house consumed me: and the reproaches of them that reproached Thee fell on me. The parallelism of the lines shows that the chief antithesis lies in the pronouns. Dishonour shown to God has been felt by the psalmist as a cruel wrong to himself.' Zealous indignation for Thine house, inspired by the sight or news of unworthy treatment of Thine house, consumed me, so to say, destroyed my very life.' The quotation is not exact; what in the psalm is past is here future: ‘shall eat me up.' An examination of other passages will show that, where John uses the words ‘it is written,' he does not necessarily imply that the quotation is made with literal exactness. Had we the past, ‘consumed,' we might be led to think of the inward consuming of holy zeal from which resulted this act of indignation; the future, ‘will eat me up,' brings us nearer to what we have seen to be the meaning of the passage in the psalm. His zeal for His Father's house will devour His very life-will bring destruction in its train.