Activity In Jerusalem
ACTIVITY IN JERUSALEM
MATTHEW 21:12-22
Jesus shows his anger at seeing God’s house of prayer desecrated into a commercial racket.
The expulsion of the traders from the temple (i.e. from the “court of the Gentiles”) is best understood as a prophetic action like those of Old Testament times in which a message is vividly driven home. Jesus’ attitude to the temple of his day is similar to Jeremiah’s attitude to Solomon’s temple (cf. 16:14). His words of rebuke are partly drawn from Jeremiah 7:11 (“Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?”) and partly from Isaiah 56:7 (“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”). The bazaars may have been installed there temporarily but, useful as they probably were to many visitors, they were occupying ground which ought to have been used for the worship of God. The protest was directed against the temple authorities, and they fully recognized this (cf. 21:23).
Whereas the rule had been laid down in the days of David that “the blind and the lame shall not come into the house” (2 Samuel 5:8), it is reversed when “great David’s greater Son” appears (that the rule was not enforced for the outer court is evident from Acts 3:2). The use of the temple area for healing, and the children’s taking up of the Galilean pilgrims’ shout of greeting, scandalized the authorities, who invited Jesus’ co-operation in moderating what they regarded as disorder; but he invoked Psalm 8:1f. in the children’s defense. The implication of 21:17 is probably that he spent each night during this Jerusalem visit in Bethany (cf. 26:6).
The withering of the fig tree (21:18ff.), which is here telescoped into a short time (by comparison with Mark 11:12-14,20ff.), is a further prophetic action, in which the tree (cf. Luke 13:6-9) may well represent Jerusalem, so unresponsive to Jesus’ overtures (cf. also 21:43). The fact that at this time of year it bore only leaves, without any taqsh (the precursor of coming figs), showed it to be fruitless. To the disciples the incident is made the basis of a lesson on the power of faith (cf. 17:20). In the present setting “this mountain” (21:21) must be Olivet; the fact that Olivet was to be the center of a major convulsion on the day of the Lord, according to Zechariah 14:4, stamps the setting as authentic and suggests the interpretation: “If only you have sufficient faith, the new age will be inaugurated sooner than you think.”
Consider What does the cleansing of the temple signify
• for the individual (1 Corinthians 6:19)?
• for the church (1 Corinthians 3:16)?