15 - Cleansing the Temple

What is surprising when we read this account of Jesus cleansing the temple is the lack of resistance by the merchants. For some reason, a large number of people allowed one man to walk in and totally disrupt their business activity. One would have expected a fight to break out or the temple police to intervene, but none of that happened. And though Jesus was certainly a strong young man, having worked for years as either a stonemason or a carpenter, no matter how strong or angry an individual may be, a group of furious merchants could have stopped Him. But none did. And I believe the reason is because they were ashamed of what they were doing. Moving these stalls and tables into the Court of the Gentiles was a recent, and still very unpopular decision. Annas, the high priest, had decided to do this, and Josephus (the historian) described him as a “great hoarder of money” and very rich. He moved these merchants onto the temple grounds as a means of generating personal revenue, and it quickly became a principle source of income for his family (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, E.R. Herrick and Co, 1886). In time that court would come to be called “the bazaar of the sons of Annas,” and after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Annas was thought to be the one who caused the destruction of the temple. So what Jesus did was understood as a prophetic act. Everyone understood why He was doing it, and many, even among the religious leaders, were already troubled by a guilty conscience. It’s possible Jesus had a crowd of supporters cheering Him on.