After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. (13) And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, (14) And found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money sitting: (15) And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; (16) And he said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandize. (17) And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.
I pass by every lesser consideration contained in those verses, to attend to that one event here recorded, of our Lord's making a scourge of small cords, and driving the buyers and sellers out of the Temple. If the Reader coolly and deliberately turns over in his mind the wonderful event here recorded, perhaps when all the circumstances are taken together into one point of view, and duly pondered, he will be inclined to think, with me, that excepting that one miracle mentioned by this same Evangelist, John 18:6, of the armed soldiers falling to the ground at the mere word of Christ, in answer to their question; this is the greatest miracle Christ wrought in the days of his flesh. Let the Reader figure to himself the Lord Jesus, thus going into the Temple, carrying everything before him; driving the herds of cattle; overturning the tables; and pouring out the changer's money: and not a creature daring to resist him! What invincible power must have shone forth in his countenance! how their minds must have been overawed? Such indeed was the consternation on their part, and such the majesty that shone in Christ, that it brought the passage of the Prophet to the Apostles' minds; and they then saw the accomplishment of it. Psalms 69:9. And to the same purport where the Lord again speaks: Psalms 119:139. And what I beg yet more particularly the Reader to notice in this miracle, is the words of Jesus, when he was driving all before him: Make not my Father's house an house of merchandize! No prophet ever used such language. None but Christ ever called God Father! Neither did ever God call any among all his prophets, Sons. It is Jesus only, which useth this name. And Christ only whom God so owns. Let the Reader, while he views, and reviews, this wonderful transaction, turn to the prophecy of Malachi, and read the first five verses of the third Chapter; and then ask himself, whether this was not the Lord of his Temple so accurately described in the Portrait of Prophecy; and so completely answered by the original, when this event of purging the Temple took place? I must not close my observations on this transaction, without first remarking to the Reader, that I conceive our Lord made another visit of the same kind to the Temple, just before his crucifixion. But if he compares the scripture where that second cleansing is related, with this; he will find, that there is between them a difference. Indeed it could hardly be one and the same, because this which John relates, was in the early part of Christ's ministry; whereas, the other was nearly at the close of it. See Matthew 21:12-13.