§ 30. JESUS MAKES A FIRST SOJOURN AT CAPERNAUM, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS KINDRED AND HIS EARLY DISCIPLES
(Later Capernaum will become his home)
John 2:12
12 After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and there they abode not many days.
§ 31. THE FIRSTa CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE AT THE PASSOVER
Jerusalem.b Probably A.D. 27
John 2:13-22
13 And the passoverc of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 And he found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 15 and he made a scourge of cords, and cast all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen; and he poured out the changers' money, and overthrew their tables; 16 and to them that sold the doves he said, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise. 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house shall eat me up [see Ps. 69:9]. 18 The Jews therefore answered and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing thou doest these things? 19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this 1temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 20 The Jews therefore said, Forty and six years was this 1temple in building, and wilt thou raise it up in three days? 21 But he spake of the 1temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he spake this; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
1 Or, sanctuary.
a Many scholars consider this the same incident as that in the Synoptic Gospels and placed by them in Passion Week ([§ 129]) probably on Monday. It is urged that Jesus would not have repeated such an act and hence one must follow either the order of John or of the Synoptics. But there is no inherent difficulty in the repetition of such an act when one reflects on the natural indignation of Jesus at the desecration of the temple on his visit during his ministry and considers that Jesus may have wished to make one last protest at the close of his ministry. Certainty, of course, is not possible in such an argument one way or the other.