The Pulpit Commentary - Matthew 21:12-13
The fitting and the unfitting in God's house. "My house shall be called a house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves." Selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and changing foreign money into temple shekels, was right enough in its place; but the point is, that all this was being done in the wrong place. The sense of the appropriate, of the becoming, was lost; it was covered over and bidden by the greed of the trader, and the avarice of the money changer. Trade is not wrong, if it be... read more
The Pulpit Commentary - Matthew 21:12-13
Christ cleansing the temple. According to St. Mark's more detailed account, Jesus "looked round" on the day of his triumphant entrance to Jerusalem, and effected his drastic reformation of temple abuses on the following morning. Thus we see that his action did not spring from a hasty outburst of passion. It was the result of deliberation. He had had a night in which to brood over the shameful desecration of his Father's house. I. THE DESECRATION . 1 . The nature of it. It would... read more