John 2:13-25 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

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Bible Comments

The Cleansing of the Temple (John 2:13-25).

It is difficult to avoid the feeling that this narrative is given here on close proximity to what has gone before because it illustrates the fulfilment of the turning of water into wine. Now Jesus will act to turn the Jerusalem worship into genuine ‘worship for all' by seeking to have banned from the court of the Gentiles the trading that was going on and disturbing the worship. That is not to suggest that it is out of place chronologically. Only that its connection with the previous passage is deliberate. The suggestion that this is the same incident as that in Mark 11 and parallels really does not hold up to careful examination. The detail is different at every point. And what is described here ties in with the newness of Jesus' ministry and with a time when He was not aware of the corruption in the Temple. It has rather, unlike the incident in the other Gospels, the flavour of someone concerned for true worship in God's Temple, and for the purity of that Temple. It reads like the impulsive act of a ‘new prophet' rather than like the thought through policy of Mark 11.

Related Commentaries of John 2:13

John 2:13-25

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 said unto them that sold doves,Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.

17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

19 Jesus answered and said unto them,Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

21 But he spake of the temple of his body.

22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did.

24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men,

25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.