12 Jesus went into the temple courtyard and threw out everyone who was buying and selling there. He overturned the moneychangers’ tables and the chairs of those who sold pigeons. 13 He told them, “Scripture says, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you’re turning it into a gathering place for thieves!”
14 Blind and lame people came to him in the temple courtyard, and he healed them.
15 When the chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings saw the amazing miracles he performed and the children shouting in the temple courtyard, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were irritated. 16 They said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”
Jesus replied, “Yes, I do. Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of little children and infants, you have created praise’?”
17 He left them and went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night there.
Read Matthew 21:12-17 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
Often times, when different gospels include the same event, each pulls different details that when read together, help us see a bigger picture of what happened. In the event that our passage covers, Matthew includes details about children giving praise, how this irritates the religious leaders, and how Jesus responding to their challenge. But this was probably not the biggest thing that irritated these leaders – shortly before this, Jesus has just chased all the moneychangers and merchants out of the temple.
However, I am a little surprised with Matthew, because he does not include a detail in this event that Mark and Luke include here. In the gospel of Mark, immediately following Jesus throwing out the people and saying how these people had turned His Father’s house into a den of thieves, Mark gives us this extra detail: “When the chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings heard him, they looked for a way to kill him. They were afraid of him because he amazed all the crowds with his teaching.” (Mark 11:18)
The religious leaders were already irritated at Jesus, and perhaps some of them were already plotting a way to end His life, but perhaps this event is what sealed Jesus’ fate in the religious leaders’ minds, because it was maybe five or so days later that Jesus would be arrested and tried, and found guilty. While chasing people out of the temple didn’t deserve death, I wonder if the anger and irritation of this event was still fresh on these leaders’ minds when they were agreeing to sentence Jesus to death.
If the crowd hadn’t been present, these leaders probably wouldn’t have waited for the cover of night. I wonder if this is also why Jesus left Jerusalem and stayed several miles away in Bethany. If the religious leaders knew where Jesus was sleeping, they may have tried to arrest Him early, or simply hire someone to kill Him at night. Any of these things wouldn’t have fulfilled prophecy, and perhaps because of this, Jesus left the city at night to help finish out the week until the prophetic time was just right.
Jesus knew that the week would end with Him being arrested, unjustly sentenced, and ultimately being crucified, and what always amazes me about the details of the events leading up to the cross is that Jesus chose to face them for you and for me!
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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