CLEANSING THE TEMPLE

After His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Jesus retired to Bethany for the night.  The next morning, He went to Jerusalem to the temple.  He found that temple merchandizing was even worse than it had been when He first cleansed the temple, three years earlier at the start of His mission. I cannot even imagine how He must have felt.  This was His house and the temple hierarchy, who should have been respectful, had made a mockery of sacred things. Worst of all, they did it to gain wealth.

A little background into the function of the temple and of the priesthood bearers who were to officiate under the Law of Moses might help explain the depth of Christ's sorrow and anger.

Aaron wears robes of the high priest

The Levites wore white robes

When the Lord gave Moses the Law, He set apart Moses' tribe of Levi as priests and ministers to all of Israel. The Lord called Aaron, Moses' elder brother, as high priest to administer the ordinances that would be done in the tabernacle and, later, in the temple.  Others of the tribe of Levi were set apart as ministers to Israel, assisting the priests.  They held the Levitical or Aaronic Priesthood, but had a different level of authority.  Only the priests, who were descendants of Aaron could serve as priests.  

When the Jews were returned to Judah by King Darius of Persia, among them was a man name Jesua (Joshua) and his family.  Jesua was a descendant of Aaron and served as the high priest in the rebuilt temple.  There were others present who sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were found not: therefore were they, as polluted, put away from the priesthood. (Ezra 2:62)

The Jews understood that a man had to prove he was of the tribe of Levi to serve in the temple and, more over, he had to be a descendant of Aaron to serve as a priest. It would be considered pollution to have a man taking that authority upon himself with no proof of his lineage.

What happened to the laws governing the priesthood? During the 300 years between the Old and the New Testament, the office of high priest became a political appointment rather than a strict adherence to the Law.  Men who couldn't prove their lineage were taking authority that by birth wasn't theirs. These men used that usurped authority to allow - even encourage - merchandizing within the temple grounds, gaining immense amount of personal wealth in the process.  

The high priest at that time was a man named Caiaphas.  Neither he nor his father-in-law, Annas, had a legitimate claim to the priesthood.  Jesus understood this.  When he called those men thieves,  he was not only referring to their unethical business practices, but to their illegitimacy.  In Hebrew, the word for thief could also mean usurper.

All three synoptic gospels record the event.  This account is from the Book of Matthew:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, cast out all of them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.  And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. (Matthew 30: 10-11)  

The temple had become big business.  People would bring their animals to be sacrificed and the Levite inspecting the lamb would point out some minor thing and say the lamb was blemished and couldn't be sacrificed.  Then they would say they had a perfect lamb and, if the man would leave his lamb, plus so many pieces of silver, they could make the exchange.

The money changers were men who exchanged Roman coins (which bore Caesar's image) for temple coins which had no graven images.  When that happened, some was always skimmed off the top for the "priesthood."  No wonder the Savior was angry.

The first time Jesus cleansed the temple, He called it My Father's House.  This time, He called it My house. I'm sure that the difference was noticed by the temple leaders who understood that He was claiming His right, as the Messiah, to this temple.  Even though it had been polluted, He still accepted it as a legitimate temple.

The next day, he returned to the temple.  When He left that day, He said, Your house is left to you desolate. He no longer accepted the temple as His house or His Father's house. In 70 A.D., the Romans conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple until there was nothing there, and they salted the ground on temple mount so that its very soil became as polluted as the temple had been.

© April 2020 Dr. Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson