Mark 11:15-19, Jesus Cleanses the Temple

¹⁵ And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple [the Court of the Gentiles] and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹⁶ And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. [Jesus’ actions are not aimed at any one particular group but at the whole system of sacrificial worship itself. Only the Messiah can make this claim against the scriptural mandate of temple sacrifices, declaring the worship of God no longer acceptable in this acted out parable. Like tree, like temple; like temple, like nation: Jesus could not find acceptable fruit.] ¹⁷ And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? [Isaiah 56:7] But you have made it a den of robbers [Jeremiah 7:11].” [The temple is supposed to be a place of unhindered worship and not a place of unhindered commerce.] ¹⁸ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. [This is a continuation of the planned symbolic actions as Jesus disrupts business as usual. It was a demonstration, a prophetic critique, a fulfilment event, and a sign of the future all combined by Jesus into one. Jewish Messianic expectation from Ezekiel 40-48 and Zechariah 6:12-13, was that the Messiah would renew and purify the temple. Jesus’ demonstration not only speaks to the current corruption of worship by the people of God but also to his Messianic authority.] ¹⁹ And when evening came they went out of the city.