Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Matthew · About this commentary
A House of Prayer
Matthew 21:12-17
12 Jesus entered into the temple of God and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables and the seats of those who sold the doves. · WEB
He clears the temple market, heals in the cleared space, and answers the priests' complaint with a psalm about children.
Jesus entered into the temple of God and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers' tables Matthew 21:12.
The action is told in the earlier account Mark 11:1–19. The trade was legally necessary — pilgrims needed unblemished animals and temple currency for the offering — and it had been sited in the one court foreigners were allowed into, so the only space in The Temple where a Gentile could pray was a livestock market.
That is the point of the text he quotes, and the half he leaves unsaid is the half that convicts. "My house shall be called a house of prayer" Matthew 21:13 comes from a passage promising foreigners a place in it Isaiah 56:7. The other line is Jeremiah's, spoken in the temple gate to people who treated the building as a charm against consequences Jeremiah 7:11. A den of robbers is not where robbery happens; it is where robbers feel safe.
The lame and the blind came to him in the temple, and he healed them Matthew 21:14. Matthew alone records what filled the cleared floor. The tables go over and the people who could not have got near them come in, and for one afternoon the court works as intended.
But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children who were crying in the temple... they were indignant Matthew 21:15. Two things offend them, and the healings are listed first. Then children are heard using the crowd's title.
"Do you hear what these are saying?" Matthew 21:16. It is an invitation to correct them, and the answer is one word and a quotation. "Yes." Then: "Did you never read, 'Out of the mouth of children and nursing babies, you have perfected praise'?" Psalms 8:2. He does not defend the children. He identifies the mouths in the psalm as theirs and lets the priests work out whose praise it is.
He left them and went out of the city to Bethany, and camped there Matthew 21:17. The king who entered to shouting sleeps outside the walls, at Bethany , every night of the week that follows.
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