JESUS EXPELS THE TEMPLE MERCHANTS

JOHN 2:13–17

A memorable event from the life of our Savior took shape when he removed merchants from the Temple courts. Jesus took a whip, drove out the sheep and cattle, and overturned the tables of the money changers. He reprimanded those who sold doves, saying, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:16). Jesus’s bold condemnation took place in the public entry of the Temple complex for a reason.

The priestly aristocracy controlled and profited from the operation of the Temple. These men were not legitimate priests but were Roman appointees whose primary goal was to maintain their power base and increase their personal wealth.1 The institution of the Temple provided them with a combination of financial, judicial, and religious power. In other words, the Temple functioned like today’s Wall Street, Supreme Court, and Vatican all rolled up into one.

There were two ways in which the priestly aristocracy profited from the Temple. First, all sacrificial animals had to be approved by the aristocratic priesthood that controlled the Temple, and since they primarily approved animals that they owned, sacrificial animals had to be purchased from them. Second, these same priests required that those animals could only be purchased with the high-silver-content Tyrian shekels, even though idolatrous images were on the coins. These shekels could be obtained only from the money changers who were also part of the aristocratic priestly families.2

Relief of a money changer with his client (third century).
© Dr. James C. Martin. The British Museum. Photographed by permission.

Jerusalem model—the Royal Stoa where Temple merchants did business (view looking southwest).
© Dr. James C. Martin. Reproduction of the City of Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple. (See full credit on page 4.)

Initially God had directed those coming to the tabernacle during the high festival of Passover to bring animals for sacrifice (Deut. 16:1–4). So in the period of the Gospels, the Temple aristocracy was misusing the worshipers by manipulating their Temple gifts and offerings.

These abuses associated with the Temple market took place before the eyes of all because they occurred within the halls of the Royal Stoa. Herod the Great had surrounded the Temple and its courts with a stoa (porch) that consisted of multiple rows of marble columns that supported a roof.3 The Royal Stoa on the south side of the Temple complex was the largest and most ornate of them all, consisting of four rows of columns and comprising an area 607 feet by 74 feet.4 Under the cover of this large and ornate structure—the main entrance to the Temple complex—is where the Temple market was located.5

Jesus chose this place to make a powerful public statement about what the priestly aristocracy was doing with his Father’s house (John 2:16–17). Of course Jesus could have found a more private way to express his concerns. But instead he went into the Temple market located in the Court of the Gentiles, adjacent to the Royal Stoa—arguably the most populated spot in the Temple during Passover—and announced, “How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:16). His disciples remembered the prophecy, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:17). Moreover, this was a direct allusion to Jeremiah 7:11, “Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.” The Temple had been publicly shamed by those who should have guarded its purity. It belonged to Jesus’s Father and so it belonged to him. The time to reclaim it had come.

Model of the Jerusalem Temple, with a view looking south toward the Royal Stoa (top of photo).
© Dr. James C. Martin. Reproduction of the City of Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple. (See full credit on page 4.)

In the first century, sheep and goats were sold in the courtyard near the Royal Stoa.

Silver drachma coin (350–325 BC) with banker’s table (trapeza).
© Dr. James C. Martin. The British Museum. Photographed by permission.

Money-changing scene on the Roman bronze contorniate coin (fifth century).
© Dr. James C. Martin. The British Museum. Photographed by permission.