Matthew 21:12

‘And Jesus entered into the temple of God, and cast out all those who sold and bought in the temple, and he overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves,'

The road led to the Temple, the centre of Jewish worship and a focal point at Passover time, where daily prayer would be heard. But no one in the Court of the Gentiles was taking much notice of that for the purveyors of sacrificial animals continued to buy and sell, the money changers continued to change the money of visitors into the right coinage for the payment of the Temple Tax (in reliable Tyrian coinage) and those who sold doves for sacrifice continued to do a roaring trade. Little thought was paid to any Gentiles who might have come into that outer court to pray.

When Jesus had been a young prophet with little experience He had entered the Temple courts and had been angered at the trading in the Temple which had seemed to demean it, and had sought to turn out those involved with the cry, ‘Do not make My Father's House into a marketplace' (John 2:13). It had been a seven day wonder, but soon forgotten, probably being written off as the activity of a young hothead, and endured because the people had approved. (There are so many obvious differences in a short space between John's account and the Synoptics that they were clearly different events). However, since then He had visited Jerusalem a number of times and there had been no trouble. Thus none was probably expected at this Passover. Jesus had, however, by this time discovered more about what went on in the Temple, and He knew that His tome had come.

So history now repeated itself. Jesus strode ‘into the temple of God, and cast out all those who sold and bought in the temple, and He overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves.' This time it was a deliberate and thought out action, and not just a reaction against His Father's house being treated like a marketplace. Having entered Jerusalem as its King He was demonstrating His authority by emptying the Temple of commerce, and exposing the fraudulence and corruption that was taking place in the Temple. He was seeking to turn it into what it should have been for all people, a house of prayer and worship. It was an indication that He had come to purge out evil in all its forms. In the words of Hosea 9:15, ‘Because of the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of My House.' The Lord had suddenly come to His Temple in order to seek to purify it (Malachi 3:1).