| 13. Et prope erat pascha Iudaeorum, et ascendit Iesus Ierosoloymam: | 13. And the pasch of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. |
13. And (= for) the Pasch, &c. This was the first Pasch of our Lord's public life. The Evangelist calls it the Pasch of the Jews, because he is writing for the inhabitants of Asia Minor, most of whom were Greeks. The Pasch (Heb. pesach, פסח), beginning at evening on the 14th, and ending at evening on the 21st of Nisan,[35] was the greatest festival of the Jews. The word “pasch” means the passing over (from pasach, פסח, to pass or leap over), and the name was given to this festival as commemorating the passing over of the houses of the Israelites when the destroying angel slew the first-born in the land of Egypt (see Exod xii. 11, 12).
And Jesus went up to Jerusalem. At the three principal feasts: Pasch, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all the male adults were bound to go up to the temple at Jerusalem.
| 14. Et invenit in templo vendentes boves, et oves, et columbas, et numularios sedentes. | 14. And he found in the temple them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. |
14. The animals here mentioned were sold to be sacrificed. The money-changers were there to change foreign money into Jewish. It was probably in the Court of the Gentiles that Christ found them. In the temple (ἐν ἱερώ, i.e., in sacro loco). The ἱερόν must be carefully distinguished from the ναός (v. 20). The [pg 056] former included the temple proper, and also its courts, porches, and porticoes; in a word, all its sacred precincts; the latter was the temple proper, the house of God, the place where He dwelt (ναίω = to dwell). We know that around the temple as rebuilt by Herod the Great, there were three courts: the outer, or that of the Gentiles; the inner, or that of the Israelites; and between them, on the eastern side, the Court of the women. In the inner court, or that of the Israelites, there was a portion next the temple proper set apart for the priests.
| 15. Et cum fecisset quasi flagellum de funiculis, omnes eiecit de templo, oves quoque, et boves, et numulariorum effudit aes, et mensas subvertit. | 15. And when he had made as it were a scourge of little cords, he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew. |
15. He drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen. These words of our version mean that He drove out not only the animals, but also the sellers, and this is distinctly stated by S. Aug., and several other Fathers. The sense of the Greek is ambiguous: He drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen.
| 16. Et his qui columbas vendebant, dixit: Auferte ista hinc, et nolite facere domum Patris mei, domum negotiationis. | 16. And to them that sold doves he said: Take these things hence, and make not the house of my father a house of traffic. |
16. Christ deals more leniently with those who sold the doves, perhaps because these were the offerings of the poor.
A house of traffic. Our Lord does not on this occasion say the traffic was unjust, but implies that it was sacrilegious, as being carried on in a holy place. On another occasion, three years afterwards, Christ again drove traders from the temple, who He says had made it “a den of thieves,” adding the sin of injustice to that of sacrilege (Matt. xxi. 13). Note how He calls God His Father. See [v. 18].