John 2:14

John 2:14. And he found in the temple-courts those that sold oxen and sheep and doves. The scene of this traffic was the outer court, commonly spoken of as the court of the Gentiles, but known to the Jews as ‘the mountain of the house.' This court (which was on a lower level than the inner courts and the house or sanctuary itself) occupied not less than two-thirds of the space inclosed by the outer walls. Along its sides ran cloisters or colonnades, two of which, ‘Solomon's porch' on the east, and the ‘Royal porch' on the south, were especially admired: to these cloisters many of the devout resorted for worship or instruction, and here, no doubt, our Lord often taught (chap. John 10:23). In strange contrast, however, with the sacredness of the place was what He now ‘found in the temple-courts.' At all times, and especially at the passover, the temple was frequented by numerous worshippers, who required animals that might be offered in sacrifice. The law prescribed the nature of each sacrifice, and enjoined that all animals presented to the Lord should be ‘without blemish' (Leviticus 22:19-20), a requirement which ‘the tradition of the elders' expanded into minute detail. Hence sacrifice would have been well-nigh impossible, had not facilities been afforded for the purchase of animals that satisfied all the conditions imposed. The neighbouring Quarter of the city naturally became a bazaar for the purpose; but unhappily the priests, yielding to temptations of gain, had suffered such traffic to be carried on within the precincts of the temple itself. At what period this abuse took its rise we do not know. Some have supposed that the last words of Zechariah (chap. John 14:21) refer to similar practices, the verse being rendered: ‘In that day there shall be no more the trafficker in the house of the Lord of hosts.' The book of Nehemiah shows examples of the spirit of disorder and irreverence from which such usages naturally spring; and the representations of Malachi make it easy to understand that the priests would be only too readily accessible to the allurements of a gainful traffic. In the court of the Gentiles, then, stood those who offered for sale oxen and sheep, also doves (for the poor. Leviticus 14:22, and for women, Leviticus 12:6). The wording of this verse (‘those that sold,' etc.) shows that the trade was now an established custom. The discordance between a cattle-mart and a place for sacred worship and converse need not be drawn out in detail. But this was not all.

And the changers of money sitting at their tables in the sacred place. The annual tribute which every man of Israel was bound to pay to the temple treasury could be paid only in the half-shekel ‘of the sanctuary' (see Matthew 17:24-26). All who came from other lands, therefore, or who had not with them the precise coin, must resort to the exchangers, who (as we learn from the Talmud) were permitted to do their business in the temple during the three weeks preceding the passover. Their profits (at a rate of interest amounting to ten or twelve per cent) were very great.