Jesus, The Guest In Capernaum, And The Pilgrim To The Passover. The Purification Of The Temple, As A Prelude Of The Redeeming Purification Of The World And Reformation Of The Church. Christ The True Temple. The Sign Of Christ: The Destruction Of The Temple And The Raising It Again. The First Spread Of Faith In Israel, And Christ The Knower Of Hearts.
Joh_2:12-25
12After this he went down to Capernaum [Kapharnaum], he, and his mother, and his brethren [brothers], and his disciples; and they continued there [and there they abode,
÷áὶ ἐ÷åῖ ἔìåéíáí
] not many days.
13And the Jews’ passover [the passover of the Jews,
ôὸ ðÜó÷á ôῶí
’I.] was at hand 14[or, near,
ἐããßò
], and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, [.] And [he] found in the temple those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money [money-changers] sitting [established]: 15And when he had made [having made,
ðïéÞóáò
a scourge of small cords, he drove them [omit them] all out of the temple, and [both] the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money [the money of the exchangers], and overthrew the tables; 16And said unto them that [to those who] sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house a house of merchandise 17[a market]. And his disciples remembered that it was [is] written, The zeal of [for] thine house hath eaten me up [will eat me up]. (Psa_69:9.) 18Then answered the Jews [The Jews therefore answered] and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? 19Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up [again]. 20Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear [raise] it up in three days? 21But he spake of the temple of his body. 22When therefore lie was [had] risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them [omit unto them]; and they believed the Scripture, and the word which Jesus had said [spoken].
23Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover in the feast day [at the feast,
ἐí ôῇ ἑï
̣
ñôῇ
, many believed in hi3 name [
ἐðßóôåõóáí
, trusted in his name], when they saw the miracles [his signs,
áὐôïῦ ôὰ óçìåῖá
] which he did [wrought]. 24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them [
ïὐ÷ ἐðßóôåõåí áὐôýí áὐôïῖò
, did not trust himself to them], because he knew all men, 25And needed not [had no need] that any [one] should testify of [concerning] man; for he [himself,
áὐôýò
] knew what was in man.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
[The Messianic purification of the temple was the first, and, according to the Synoptists (Mat_21:12-13; Mar_11:15-17; Luk_19:45; Luk_19:40), also the last public act of Christ in Jerusalem. It very appropriately opens and closes His labors in the sanctuary of the theocracy. It was foretold by the prophet Mal_3:1 ff., that immediately after the forerunner the Messiah Himself “shall suddenly come to His temple,” for the purpose of cleansing it: “He shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” The gross scandal in the Court of the Gentiles represented the general profanation and corruption of the theocracy (as Tetzel’s and Samson’s sale of indulgences revealed the secularization of the Latin Church in the 16th century). Christ commenced the reformation at the fountain-head, in Jerusalem and the temple where it was most needed. The expulsion was a judicial act of the Lord of the Sabbath and the temple. He acted here not simply as a prophet or Zealot, but as the Messiah, as the Son of God; and hence calls the temple the house of His, not our, Father (Joh_2:16). Some infidels have misrepresented it as an outburst of passion and an argument against the sinless perfection of Christ. But the result conclusively shows that it was an exhibition of superhuman power and majesty, which so overawed the profane traffickers, that, losing sight of their superiority in number and physical strength, they submitted at once, and without a murmur to the well deserved punishment. Their bad conscience, which always makes men cowardly, and the conceded right of prophets like Elijah, to rebuke scandulous profanations of religion, would not sufficiently account for this complete victory. A similar instance is recorded, Joh_18:6, where Judas and his band of men and officers shrunk back and fell to the ground before the defenceless Jesus.—P. S.]
Joh_2:12. After this he went down [
êá
̇
ôÝâç
] to Capernaum.—No doubt not directly from Cana, but from Nazareth. Not that, as Meyer says, the brethren here mentioned were not with Him at the wedding (this is not necessarily to be inferred from the silence respecting them), but that Nazareth was still the residence of Jesus and of the family of Mary, who no doubt returned home before they all went together to Capernaum, that they might thence join the nearest festival caravan for Jerusalem. He went down from the hill country towards the sea, on the coast of which Capernaum lay. On Capernaum, see the Matth. at Joh_4:13. [Am. ed. pp. 90, 91. The question of the site of Capernaum, or properly Kapharnaum (i.e., the Village of Nahum), is still unsettled between the rival claims of TellHûm (i.e., the hill of Nahum) and Khân (i.e., lodging-place) Minyeh (with a near fountain called Ain-et-Tin, i.e., the spring of the fig-tree), two heaps of ruins on the Western shore of the sea of Galilee about three miles apart. Robinson (Researches
ÉÉ
. 403 ff.) and Porter (
Handbook of Syria
,
ÉÉ
. 425) decide for Kh
ân Minyeh, but Van de Velde, Ebrard, Thomson, and Dixon, for Tell Hûm, at the head of the Lake. For this view speaks the similarity of name. (Hûm is a mutilated
ðäåí
=
íáïýì
), and the far greater importance of the ruins. The English explorers, Captain Wilson and his associates, are reported to have discovered in 1866, among the ruins of Tell Hûm, a synagogue of elegant architecture dating from a time before the Christian era. See, besides Robinson,
ÉÉ
. 403–405, the article
Capernaum, by Grove, with the additional note of Hackett, in Smith’s Dictionary
,
É
. p.
382; the Land. Athenæum, Feb. 24, and Mar. 31, 1866; and an essay of Prof. Ebrard in the Studien and Kritiken, for 1867, No. IV. pp. 723–740.—P. S.]
He, and his mother, and his brothers, and his disciples,—The singular (
êáôÝâç
) is explained by the fact that Jesus was the leader of the train. That the family had already settled in Capernaum (which, according to Ewald, is here stated, according to De Wette presupposed), is contradicted by the distinct indications that this removal did not take place till after the return of Jesus from Judea, and His appearance in Nazareth (Mat_4:13; Luk_4:31; Joh_4:43); though Meyer, maintains that there also the removal is neither intimated nor supposed. But no doubt the removal had already been virtually induced by the connection with the disciples from the sea. The brothers of Jesus are distinguished from the disciples. Even though now His brothers, James, Judas, and Simon, had been called to be disciples, which is not at all probable, a separate category had still to be made, because there were yet Joses and the sisters, Mat_13:55-56. And that they had already attached themselves to the company of Jesus, shows that the usual exaggerated and extreme pressing of the statement in Joh_7:5 is false. See Hengstenberg: Das Evang. John , 1 p. 149 sqq.
[The gradual transition from Christ’s private to His public life is here indicated. At Cana and at Capernaum His earthly relations are still with Him, but in the next verse He appears alone with His disciples or spiritual relatives. As to the vexed question of the brothers of Jesus, I have given my views in full in my German work on James, the brother of Christ, Berlin, 1842, and in a note on Mat_13:55, pp. 256–260. Comp. also the notes on Mat_1:25, and Joh_7:3; Joh_7:5. Meyer, Godet (I. 368 ff.), and Alford take
ἀäåëöïß
here in the proper sense, as brothers, i.e., sons of Joseph and Mary. Hengstenberg (in loc.) revives the R. Catholic cousin-theory which dates from Jerome in the 4th century, and owes its origin and spread mainly to an ascetic overestimate of the perpetual virginity of Mary, as expressed in the words of Augustine: Maria mater esse potuit, mulier esse non potuit. Dr. Lange’s hypothesis is an ingenious, but somewhat artificial modification of this view, and assumes that Mary, though in the full sense the wife of Joseph, could bear no children after giving birth to the Messiah, and that the brethren of the Lord were both His cousins (as the sons of Clopas, a brother of Joseph, not as the sons of a supposed sister of Mary), and His foster-brothers (having been adopted, after the death of their father, into the holy family). To my mind the only alternative lies between the Epiphanian or old Greek view, which makes them elder sons of Joseph from a former marriage, and the view held by Tertullian and Helvidius, that they were younger children of Mary and Joseph, and so half-brothers of Jesus. Ancient tradition favors the former, an unprejudiced exegesis the latter view. Prof. J. B. Lightfoot, of Cambridge (in a learned excursus on Galatians, Lond., 1866, pp. 247–281, where much use is made of my book on James), elaborately defends the Epiphanian theory, mainly on account of Joh_19:26-27, which he regards as conclusive against the Helvidian hypothesis; but if this passage is allowed to decide the controversy, it overthrows also the Epiphanian theory. It receives its true light from the peculiar intimacy of Christ with John, and the fact that His brothers were still unbelievers when He entrusted His earthly mother to the care of His bosom disciple, who was probably also His cousin according to the flesh.—P. S.]
Not many days.—Depending solely on the preparation for the approaching passover, which Jesus attended in company with His disciples, v. 23. But that during these few days Jesus wrought miracles in Capernaum, must be inferred from Luk_4:23.
Joh_2:13. And the passover of the Jews was at hand.—On the passover see the Matth., p. 459.
And Jesus went up.—Besides the attendance of Jesus at the feast when He was twelve years old, mentioned by Luke alone (John 2.), and the last attendance on the passover in the year 783, related by all the Evangelists, John gives the remaining occasions of this kind. Here the first attendance on the passover, in the year 781; then a visit to another feast, not named, most probably the feast of Purim of 782 [ch. 5]; then the feast of tabernacles [ch. 7], and the feast of the dedication [ch. Joh_10:22], in the same year. See the Introduction,§ 8.
Joh_2:14. And found in the temple.—In the fore-court of the temple. On the temple and the fore-court see the Matth. on Joh_21:12 [p. 375], and Winer, sub. v. Also Braune: Das Evangelium von Jesus Christus, p. 45, The first act of the Lord, in the confidential circle of susceptible disciples, was an act of positive glorification, coming into the place of the symbolical purification; His second act, in the bosom of the corrupted religious life of the people, was an act of negative purification, significant at the same time of His glorification. That this deed was looked upon by the better people as a miraculous sign also, and that besides this Jesus wrought other miracles in Jerusalem, may be inferred from Joh_3:2. But John relates the purging of the temple alone as the first characteristic work, the signal-miracle of the Lord on His public appearance. To him the first cleansing of the temple was more important than the second. But the fact that John mentions only this cleansing at the opening of the Lord’s official life, and the Synoptists mention only the similar act at its close, proves nothing against the truth of either or both the occurrences. See the Matth. on John 21.
[The market in the Court of the Gentiles (the
ἔîùèåí ἱåñüí
) was introduced, we know not when, from avaricious motives, in violation of the spirit of the law and to the serious injury of public worship, though it was no doubt justified or excused, as a convenience to foreign Jews for the purchase of sacrificial beasts, incense, oil, and the sacred shekel or double drachma in which the temple-tax had to be paid (Exo_30:13). Similar conveniences and nuisances, markets, lotteries and fairs, are not seldom found in connection with Christian churches. The most striking analogy is the traffic in indulgences, which made the forgiveness of sin an article of merchandise and became the occasion (not the cause) of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland.—P. S.]
Joh_2:15. He drove all out.—Referring grammatically not to the animals, but to the men. But He drove the men out by raising the whip against their animals; precisely after the analogy of His method with the money-changers, whose tables He overthrew. To drive the men themselves, by themselves, from the temple, was not His design. Grotius: The whip, a symbol of the divine wrath. Meyer rejects all typical import. Yet even about the whip of an actual ox-driver there is somewhat typical; and the whip in the hand of Christ is at least a type of the punitive, reformatory office of discipline in the theocracy and the church.
And poured out the money of the exchangers, and overthrew, etc.—That is, He first dashed upon the tables hither and thither and then overturned them. The right of free motion in the temple-space, where tables of money-changers did not belong.
Joh_2:16. Unto them that sold doves.—Because the doves were in baskets, they must be carried away (Rosenmüller, Schweizer). His command now sufficed for this, after the dove-traders had seen His earnestness. Showing, that even the ox-traders also He had not driven out with the lash; and showing likewise that He intended no injury, else He would have let the doves go. De Wette: He dealt more gently with the dove-merchants, because the doves were bought by the poor. Stier: Because He saw in the dove the emblem of the Holy Ghost. Both groundless. The difference in the mode of expulsion arises simply from the nature of the articles: doves in baskets. That the dove-sellers came last, may have been determined by the modesty of their business, which generally makes also modest people. These people were doubtless not so much traders properly speaking, as they were poor farmers or farmers’ boys. As to the doves being emblems, so were also the sheep and oxen.
My Father’s house.—See Luk_2:49. The temple was still His Father’s house, because He was still waiting for the repentance of the people. The moment He takes His departure from the temple on account of their obduracy, He calls it: Your house, given over to desolation, Mat_23:38. Our Father’s, even a prophet might perhaps have said; My Father’s, Jesus says in the consciousness of His divine dignity and authority, as it were betraying Himself, without their understanding immediately the full sense of His word. The Pharisees, however, have doubtless already reflected upon the word as very suspicious (see John 10).
A house of merchandize.—The term here is not so strong as at the second purification. It denotes the entire secularization of the system of worship. The term “den of thieves” [
óðÞëåéïí ëῃóôῶí
], in Mat_21:13, on the contrary, denotes the prophet-killing and spirit-killing fanaticism, into which this secularization at last ran out.
Joh_2:17. And his disciples remembered.—Olshausen: After the resurrection. Meyer, [Godet, Alford], on the contrary, rightly: At the occurrence itself. The passage is Psa_69:9, (10): “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them, that reproached thee are fallen upon me.” Whether the Psalm be by David (Tholuck; comp. v. 31; Psalms 51), or by Jeremiah (Hitzig, see Joh_5:14?), or by some other theocratic sufferer, it belongs at all events, like Psalms 22., to that class of typical passages, in which the passion of Christ miraculously reflects and foreshows itself. Hence also Peter, Act_1:20, applies to Judas the words of v. 25 (“Let their habitation be desolate”), and Paul applies the Psalm several times to the conduct of the Jews towards Jesus, Rom_11:9; Rom_15:3. When Bengel, Olshausen, etc, and Luthardt refer the words: hath eaten me up, to the death of Jesus, and Meyer says, on the contrary, that the word is to be understood of the inward attrition of zeal (so that the disciples would mean, His zeal will yet consume Him from within), we may freely march over this difference of schools, and suppose (against Meyer) that the disciples, with anxious forebodings for the future of Christ, were smitten with the remembrance of that passage of the Psalm. For it is not necessary to suppose they had made out a clear idea of the sense of those words; any more than that Mary, with her words, meant: “Make wine!” or: “Go home!,” The school always reaches after fully expressed ideas or thoughts; actual life has also vague presentiments, anxious forebodings, dim, confused ideas; that is, life is subject to the fundamental law of gradual development. That the disciples did not connect a distinct expectation of the death of Jesus with their application of the verse of the Psalm to this action of their Lord, is proved by Joh_2:22; after Psa_22:6-8, etc., they could not confine their thoughts to an exclusively internal self-attrition; probably they did not think of it at all in the Old Testament sense, though the metaphorical use of
ἐóèßåéí
is clear, and consuming passions too (see Meyer, with a reference to Chrysostom, Lampe, Wolf) are not wholly excluded. But here for the first time met and struck them the conflict of the spirit of Christ with the spirit of the people, the terrible life staking earnestness in the appearance of Christ, which threatened to bring incalculable dangers after it. We may no doubt further suppose that this remembrance indicates great apprehensiveness in the disciples respecting the Lord. Though the future
êáôáöÜãåôáé
may occur in the sense of the present, it does not follow that, according to Tholuck, it is to be read as present here. In this case the Evangelist might better have used the
êáôÝöáãå
of the Septuagint.
Joh_2:18. Then answered the Jews.—
Ἀðåêñßèçóáí ïὐí
. Here the Jews already begin to appear in opposition to Jesus; accordingly the Pharisaic and Judaistic Jews are intended, particularly the rulers. They regarded the act of Christ as a reproach to their religious government; therefore their interruption was an answer. And from their spirit it was to be expected; hence
ïὖí
.—What sign she wrest thou unto us?—They did not see that the majestic and successful act itself was a great moral, theocratic sign, which accredited him; they intended therefore a sign after some magical, chiliastic sort. It should be noticed that they did not venture to dispute the theocratic propriety of the act itself. The right of zealotry against theocratic abuses was legalized in the example of Num_25:7; yet the prophets were accustomed to support great acts of zealotry by special miraculous signs, 1Ki_18:23. The idea of such signs, however, particularly of the sign with which the Messiah should attest Himself, had gradually passed into the magical and monstrous. At all events, the challenge of a sign from heaven, Mat_12:38; Mat_16:1, is here already put forth.
Joh_2:19. Destroy this temple.—[One of those paradoxical and mysterious sayings which, though not understood at the time, stuck in the memory as seed thoughts for future sprouting. Comp. Christ’s word on the sign of Jonah, Mat_12:39-40, in which He likewise mysteriously and typologically predicts His resurrection.—P. S.]—This is the sign which He would give them. The imperative is permissive. (Glassius: est Imperat. pro Futuro permissive). The Jews took the words of Jesus in an entirely literal sense, as Joh_2:20 proves, yet hardly without design. From this conception gradually arose the malignant perversion, slander, and accusation: This fellow said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days, Mat_26:61; Mar_14:58; comp. Act_6:13. This conception John corrects in Joh_2:21 : He spake of the temple of his body [for His humanity]. The fathers universally acknowledge this interpretation. It has been supposed, He pointed to His body as He spoke. Of this there is no indication.
Since Herder, Henke, and Paulus, down to Lücke [De Wette], Bleek, Ewald (see Meyer, in loc.), it has been suggested, on the contrary, that John misunderstood the Lord; that Christ spoke of the temple as the symbol of the Jewish system of religion. Destroy this edifice of religion, and in three days, i.e., in a short time, proverbially (with reference to Hos_6:2) represented by three days, I will set it up again renewed.
Kuinoel, Tholuck, Meyer, and many others have maintained the correctness of John’s interpretation. And with all reason ; for an error of the Apostle and the whole company of disciples in respect to so important a word of the Lord is utterly inadmissible (see the several, not absolutely irrefragable arguments in Meyer).
A third view adheres to John’s interpretation, but holds likewise an element of truth in the second view, and puts them in connection. The temple on Zion was the symbolical dwelling of God; the body of Christ was the real dwelling of God [and hence more than the temple, comp. Mat_12:6]. The word of Christ, therefore, underneath its immediate reference to the external temple, has a deeper meaning: Destroy this temple and worship, as ye have already begun to do by your desecration,—destroy it entirely, by putting the Messiah to death, and in three days I will build it new, i.e., not only rise from the dead, but also by the resurrection establish a new theocracy (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Olshausen, Lange, Leben Jesu, I., p. 200; simultaneously Ebrard, Kritik, p. 325; later, in similar manner, Luthardt).
This combination is supported (1) by the actual connection. The crucifixion of Christ was the desecration, the spiritual dissolution of the temple, which must be followed by its outward destruction (see Mat_23:38; Mat_27:51), because the body of Christ was the real temple of God. (2) Christ, on this account, has repeatedly represented His death and resurrection as the one great sign which was to be given to the Jews instead of the required sign from heaven (Joh_3:14; Mat_12:39; Mat_16:4), and this sign too always connected with an antecedent Old Testament type. (3) A word concerning His death, without connection with an intelligible figure, would have assuredly been as yet wholly unintelligible to the Jews. (4) John gave the inmost and ultimate significance of the expression of Christ for the sole reason, that it was the main matter, and that the figurative sense was self-evident. (5) In Mat_26:61 Christ puts in the true explanation, 2:64, immediately upon the false interpretation, besides perversion, of His utterance.
In three days, a round number, 1Sa_30:12; see the Matth. on Joh_12:40, p. 226.
I will raise it up (again).—“It is only apparently contrary to John’s explanation, that Christ, according to the New Testament doctrine, did not raise Himself, but was raised by the Father.” Meyer. And besides, the resurrection of Jesus was in one view as much His own act [Joh_10:18; Rev_5:5], as, in another view, the act of His Father, especially in its results, 1Co_15:57; Eph_4:8. That Jesus was already familiar with the thought of His death, appears from the conversation which soon followed, Joh_3:14. The explanation of Athanasius, quoted by Tholuck, is an ingenious modified form of our third: With the putting to death of the body of Christ the Jewish system of types and shadows also is dissolved, and the real church thereby (by means of the resurrection) established.
Joh_2:20. Then said the Jews.—With an
ïῦ
̓
í
; it was to be expected that they would finish their malicious misunderstanding consistently.—Forty and six years.—They mean the renovation and enlargement of the temple of Zerubbabel, which begun in the eighteenth year of Herod’s reign, 20 B. C. (Joseph. Antiq. XV. 11, 1), and was finished under Herod Agrippa II. in A. D. 64 (Joseph. Antiq. XX. 9, 7). According to Wieseler, it. appears, therefore, that in this computation of forty-six years since the work was begun, the passover of the year 781 is the occasion on which it is made (Chronol. Synops. p. 106).
Joh_2:21. The temple of his body.—Genitiv. Apposit.
Joh_2:22. His disciples remembered that he had said this.—This remembrance does not exclude former remindings; but the right remembrance came now with the right understanding of it. [Remarks like this impress upon the reports of the discourses of Christ the stamp of historical fidelity. A later falsifier would have made the reference to the resurrection much plainer.—P. S.]—And they believed the Scripture.—[Faith in Christ is the key to the understanding of the Scriptures of the O. T.; comp. Joh_7:38; Joh_7:42; Joh_10:35; Joh_13:18. The singular
ôῇ ãñáöῇ
indicates the unity and harmony of the canonical books from Genesis to Malachi, which, considering the great number of authors, the long period of time, and the variety of circumstances in and under which they were composed, is a strong evidence of their divine origin.—P. S.] Comp. Luk_24:26 : “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things,” etc. As they now found the death of Christ foretold in the Old. Testament, so they found also His glorification, which included His resurrection, Psa_16:10; comp. Act_2:27; Act_13:35; 1Pe_3:19; Psa_68:18; comp. Eph_4:8; Isa_53:7; comp. Act_8:35.
[Alford: “At first sight it appears difficult to fix on any passage in which the resurrection is directly announced: but with the deeper understanding of the Scriptures which the Holy Spirit gave to the Apostles and still gives to the Christian church, such prophecies as that in Psalms 16. are recognized as belonging to Him in whom alone they are properly fulfilled: see also Hos_6:2.” This is not satisfactory. The O. T. indeed does not expressly prophesy the resurrection, as a separate fact, but very often the exaltation and glorification of the Messiah after His humiliation and suffering, and this implies the resurrection, as the intervening link or the beginning of the exaltation itself. Hence we may count here in a wider sense, with Hengstenberg (I. 171), the prophecy of Shilo as a ruler, Gen_49:10; Psalms 110, where the Messiah is represented as sitting at the right of God and ruling over all His enemies; Dan_7:13-14, where He appears at the head of a universal Kingdom; Isaiah 53, where, after His atoning death, He is raised to great glory; Zec_9:9-10, where Zion’s King appears first lowly and riding upon an ass, yea, as dying (comp. Joh_12:10; Joh_13:7), but afterwards speaking peace to the heathen and having dominion from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth; comp. also Isaiah 9; Isaiah 11; Micah 5; Psalms 16. It is quite in keeping with the character of prophecy to behold the various stages of the exaltation as one continuous panorama. It is under this view that the Scripture of the O. T. is said to have foretold the resurrection; Luk_24:26 (“to enter into His glory”); Joh_20:9; 1Co_15:4; 1Pe_1:11 (“the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow”).—P. S.]
Joh_2:23. Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover.—The Evangelist thus distinguishes the stay of Jesus in Jerusalem during the passover from His first appearance there.—On the feast.—Meyer justly says, this addition is not intended to explain the term pass over for Greek readers; that must have been done by Joh_2:13. The expression signifies participation in the celebration of the feast. We suppose the feast days themselves are set off against the day of His entrance. On the day of the symbolical castigation He wrought other miracles, probably miracles of healing; and the first surprise of the Jews was followed by a demonstration of faith on the part of many attendants of the feast. The signs.—Evidently implying a multiplicity of signs, and such as determined those people to believe. He must therefore have done many miracles in Jerusalem.
Joh_2:24. Did not commit himself unto them.—The second
ðéóôåýåéí ἑáõôüí
is evidently connected with the first
ðéóôåýåéí
. He believed not in their believing, to such a degree as to commit or deliver up Himself to them. Various interpretations: (1) He withheld His doctrine (Chrysostom, Kuinoel); (2) He did not yield Himself to personal intercourse with them (Meyer). Without doubt simply: He did not yet entrust Himself to them as the Messiah, did not offer Himself as the Messiah, though they seemed inclined to recognize Him as such. It is the Lord’s determination, not to appear publicly under the title of Messiah; and He follows it henceforth till the triumphal entry into Jerusalem; in full accordance with Mat_4:1-11.
Because he.—He Himself, in distinction from indirect knowledge through others. How He knew them all, is in part shown by what has preceded. He knew in general that the secular spirit predominated in them; but He also saw through each one, as He met him, with a divine physiognomic discernment. In both cases is intended not only the general prophetic illumination, but the penetrating spiritual eye of the God-Man.
Joh_2:25. And needed not.—Explanatory of
áὐôüò
in the previous clause.—Of man.—Of man as to his sinful nature in general, and of man in particular, as He encountered each individual.—For he knew.—The positive expression for: He needed not.—What was in man.—Not only the special, miraculous, physiognomic knowledge (Meyer cites Joh_1:48; Joh_4:18; Joh_6:61; Joh_6:64; Joh_11:4; Joh_11:14; Joh_13:11; Joh_21:17), but also the general knowledge of the constitution of human nature (John 3), of the order of the universe (Joh_19:11), and of the situation of the Jewish people in particular. Result: In the familiar circle of His disciples Jesus manifested His glory; in public He preserved His mysterious anonymousness as to the Messianic office.
[Christ knows us better than we know ourselves. He sees the end from the beginning, we the beginning from the end. He, says Calvin, knows the roots of the tree, we know the tree only by its fruits.—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The different meanings of the two purifications of the temple. According to Meyer, no essential difference should be perceived between the two acts. Vet the difference between the expressions “house of merchandize” in John, and “den of thieves” in the Synoptists, “the house of My Father” (
ὁ ïῖ
̓
êïò ôïῦ ðáôñüò ìïõ
) in John, and “My house” (
ὁ ïῖ
̓
êüò ìïõ
) in the Synoptists, as well as the greater rigor in the second case as described by Mark (cot suffering any man to carry any vessel through the temple), is plain enough. According to Hofmann, Lichtenstein, and Luthardt, Christ in the Synoptists appears as a prophet to protect the place of prayer, in John as the Son to execute His domestic right. But this would lead to an entire reversal of the order of things in the self manifestation of the Lord. The case is just the reverse. Christ performed the first cleansing of the temple, as an anonymous prophet in the right of zealotism and the right of a prophet (see the Matth. on Joh_21:12, p. 376); the second, as the Lord of the temple, publicly introduced by the people to the holy city and temple as the Messiah.
2. The body of Christ, the most real temple of God. The crucifixion, the destruction of the temple in the strictest sense (Rom_2:22); the resurrection, the building of the eternal temple. Meaning of the sign: He who builds the eternal, essential temple, has power also to purge the symbolical. The truth, that Christ is perpetually building greater, more glorious the temple of God, which the sin of man demolishes. The centre of this truth is the death and resurrection of Christ; its first tokens, the fall of Adam and the first promise (the protevangelium), the flood and the rain-bow, etc.; its unfolding, the destruction of the theocracy and temple in Jerusalem, the rise of the church, the ruin of the mediæval church by the hierarchy, and its rebuilding in the Reformation, the inducing of the judgment of the world by anti-christianity, and the erection of a new heavens and a new earth. The wedding at Cana before the purification of the temple, the token of the transfiguration of the world before the judgment of the world.
3. The first and second purifications of the temple: when once the temple is made a house of merchandize (John 2), it has also become in effect a den of robbers or of murderers, Matthew 21. First the selling of indulgences, then persecution and reformation.
4. Christ entrusts Himself to no one in Jerusalem; i.e., He does not as yet come on the stage in His office as Messiah. Comp. the Com. on Matth. on John 4.
5. The supernatural knowledge of Christ, the source of His miracles of knowledge, and in fact everywhere divine human; i.e., on the one hand not merely divine, nor on the other merely human, but both at once; divinely immediate, humanly exercised through means and organs.
Ç
OMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See Comm. on Matthew, on Joh_21:12-22, p., 377; Mark, on Joh_11:12-26; Luke, on Joh_19:41-42.—The visit of Jesus the youth to the temple, and the visit of the man matured for the execution of His Messianic office.—The first, second, and last solemn appearance of Jesus in the temple (the last, Matthew 21-23).—As the crucifixion of Christ completed the desecration of the temple, so the resurrection of Christ completed the restoration of the temple.—Out of His word of holiest zeal for the temple, they made a word of blasphemy and deadly sin against the temple.—The purification of the temple, the perpetual charter of reformation.—What sign shewest thou, etc.? The spiritual blindness which demands a sensible sign for the holiest sign of the Spirit.—How Judaism, by overdoing itself, falls back into heathenism, in asking a sign for the sense, when the sign of the Spirit gloriously stands forth.—So also the Judaism of legality in Christendom.—The scourge in the hand of Jesus, or the anger of personal gentleness itself. (1) The overpowering sign of the highest zeal (against sin); (2) the humbling sign of the highest majesty (against frivolity); (3) the ocular sign of the highest assurance (against doubt).—The Old Testament spirit in which the disciples viewed the matter, indicated by their word: The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up; the New Testament watchword of Jesus: My meat is to do the will, etc., Joh_4:34.—To the temple of a Herod the hierarchs had even a right; in the temple of Christ they found themselves utterly out of place.—The token which Christ gives the Jews for the truth of His divine mission.—This token, the token also of reformation: Commit the utmost abominations in the temple, the more gloriously will the ruined temple be restored!—The conduct of the Jews on Christ’s purifying of the temple, in its permanent import.—The destroyers of the temple would be its restorers, and the restorers must pass for destroyers.—From this first day of the public appearance of Christ, enmity calumniously laid up the word, which was to bring it to naught.—The Lord’s great word concerning His end, at the beginning of His career.—The subsequent remembrance of Christ’s words by His enemies, and the subsequent remembrance of them by His friends.—When He was at Jerusalem, many believed on Him; or, (1) festival believers, believers of festival seasons when things go grandly in the church; (2) yet festival times, also true birthdays of faith.—But Jesus did not commit Himself to them; or, secret disciples, and a secret Saviour (anonymous believers, and an anonymous Christ).—Christ, the knower of hearts.—The first sign of Christ in the pious house, and His first sign in the impious church.—The transformation of water into wine, and of the driver’s whip into a beneficent sceptre (in contrast with those who have turned the sceptre into a whip).—Christ and the hierarchs with reference to the temple of God: (1) He purifies and sanctifies it, they would make its desecrated condition its holiness; (2) He gives a moral and religious sign of the Spirit, they demand a magical, sensuous sign to accredit it; (3) He gives them for a sign the prophecy that they will kill Him, and they make of it a mortal charge against Him; (4) He announces to them a new supernatural temple, and they harden themselves in their old system to their judgment.—The first public Easter festival of Jesus, a foretokening of His future and eternal Easter.—Christ’s observance of the prescribed feasts the dawn of the free festivity of the gospel.—Christ at the feast: (1) As an Israelite, in the spirit of the patriarchs; (2) as a Jew, according to the law of Moses; (3) as a prophet, after the manner of the prophets (my Father’s house not a house of merchandize, the court of the Gentiles not a cattle-market); (4) as the Christ, introducing and indicating the course of His life and work.—Holy zeal and unholy zeal in contrast in the purification of the temple.—The open, noble indignation of Jesus, and the impure malicious reserve of His opponents.:—Jesus, here as in Cana, a man, and a sinless man.—The keeping holy the temple; (1) The house of God; (2) the body; (3) the church. The rising of the divine above the corruption and ruin of the human; the eternal divine token thereof, the luminous centre of all divine signs: the resurrection of Christ from the death of the cross.
Starke: Majus: Though the word and works of God are not bound to place, yet it is right, after the example of Christ, to observe proprieties of place and time.—Osiander: Christ, the Lord of the law, submitted Himself to it, that He might redeem men from it.—Cramer: Christ, not a secular king, but Lord of the temple; therefore He comes into the temple, and there begins His public function, Hag_2:3; Hag_2:18.—Hedinger: What has the abomination of usury to do in the temple of God? What the indulgence-monger in the sanctuary?—Ah, our churches to this day are sufficiently profaned by sinful garrulity, proud display of dress, etc. (even by unsanctified discourses).—Nova Bibl. Tub.: The abuses which have crept into the church must be scourged and banished. How much more must traditional abuses call forth our zeal! Hos_12:8; Zec_14:21.—It is incumbent on all Christians, particularly on ministers, to be zealous for the house of God; yet should every one take good heed lest it be not according to knowledge.—Osiander: He who diligently pursues his calling, may fear no danger. The protection of God will be with him.—Majus: The works of God need no miraculous attestation. They shine so brightly upon the eye, that God and His divine glory may be sufficiently recognized in them.—Hedinger: Unbelief demands miracles and signs.—Zeisius: Where we have to do with false, malicious men, we are not called upon to make the truth so clear and bright, to their greater condemnation (dark words for dark men).—A mind occupied only with the earthly, cannot perceive the mysteries of God.—Instruction often serves more for others in the future, than for those to whom it is given at the time.—Ibid: Fulfilment yields the best interpretation.—Quesnel: Truth brings forth its fruits in their season.—Ibid.: Christian prudence requires that we do not lightly judge and condemn any, yet that we do not easily trust ourselves to any who present a good appearance.
Gerlach: “As Christ’s kingdom is not a sword, how is it that He deals so hardly and harshly here with the priests of the temple, and concerns Himself with what properly belongs to the secular power? Because the Lord at that time stood between the Old Testament and the New, between what Moses had established in Israel, and what Christ was to establish after His death through His Holy Spirit and the preaching of the gospel; and He shows thereby that He is a Lord who holds both dispensations in His hand” (Luther).—Lisco: A picture of the reformation of a temple-desecration which had arisen from an abuse of Deu_14:24-26.—Heubner: How much is contained in completely trusting one!—We must judge not, yet not hastily open and surrender ourselves to any. The more perfect and noble a man is, the more true and open (and yet the more is he, again, a higher mystery).—Schleiermacher: What a zeal for His Father’s house did the Lord Himself sanctify, in doing that!—But there afterwards came a time, when even the Christian church was a house of merchandize.—Then He again gathered a whip; Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and all the reformers.—It was not the whip that effected what the Redeemer did, but the spiritual power, of which that was only a sign and seal.—Our failure to act in many cases as the Redeemer acted here, is the cause of many evils in the Christian church and in all human affairs. That one is always putting upon another the performance of works well pleasing to God, and no one maintains a fresh and free consciousness of the power which God the Lord has given him, and does all he can do to promote truth and goodness and prevent wickedness,—this is the reason why so many disorders are daily renewed in the smaller and larger relations of men.—Besser: The Saviour (because they stifle the voice of conscience) draws back from them, and veils in a holy riddle the sign which they demand, and flame which was intended to be given them as the sign of all signs, the proper sign of Christ.—From every defeat a victory unfolds to the church; from every shame a glory.—When therefore He was risen, etc. Chemnitz presents the disciples, in their relation to the discourse of Jesus to them, as an example for all Bible-readers: They should not at once despise and reject everything in the Holy Scriptures which they cannot at first glance understand; nor must they despair of understanding, if they cannot at once penetrate the deep mysteries of the word. For the Spirit of knowledge leads us into the truth by degrees.—Christ’s power of trying spirits (Isa_11:3. comp. with 1Sa_16:7 ; 1Ti_5:22).
Footnotes:
Joh_2:12. [
áὐôïῦ
after
ïἱ ἀäåëöïß
, is omitted by B. L., Treg., Westcott and Hort, but supported by
à
. A. al and retained by Tischend and Alf. (the latter in brackets). Westcott and Hort bracket
êáὶ ïἱ ìáèçôáὶ áὐôïῦ
. The false view about the
ἀäåëöïß
of Christ may have had some influence on these variations.—P. S.]
Joh_2:12. [As ”brethren” is now almost exclusively used in the spiritual sense, it is better to substitute “brothers,” where, as here, kinsmen, i. e., either cousins, or more probably half-brothers of Jesus, are intended. In the Scriptures the term denotes either (1) actual brotherhood, or (2) kinsmanship (cousins), or (3) common nationality, or (4) friendship and sympathy. Where there are no obvious objections, the first sense, being the most natural, must always be preferred, especially when the term, as here, occurs in connection with mother. See the Exeg. Notes.—P. S.]
Joh_2:12. [The singular
ἔìåéíåí
(instead of the plural
ἔìåéíáí
) in A. F. G. was occasioned by the preceding
êáôÝâç
and the succeeding
ἀíÝâç
.—P. S.]
Joh_2:15. [The words to
ôÜ ôÝ ðñüâáôá êáὶ ôïὺò âüáò
, “the sheep as well as the oxen,” are merely epexegetical of
ðÜíôáò
(masc. on account of
âüáò
), and imply that the
öñáãÝëëéïí
was used on the beasts only, although it scared the men away likewise. The them and and of the E. V. convey a false impression.—P. S.]
Joh_2:15.—B. L. X., etc. [Alford, Tregelles] read:
ôÜ êÝñìáôá
[moneys, small change, instead of the singular,
ôὸ êÝñìá
(text rec. Tischend). Greek writers generally use the plural. The singular is here collective.—P. S.]
Joh_2:17.—The reading of the Recepta [
êáôÝöáãå
] is conformed to the Septuagint. The most important codd., particularly
à
. A. B. R. besides Origen, etc., read
êáôáöÜãåôáé
[the future, contracted from
êáôáöáãÞóåôáé
, will consume me, in the Sent, and the Apocrypha.—P. S.]
Joh_2:22.—The addition
áὐôïῖò
is very feebly accredited. [Omitted by all the modern critical ed.]
[The double purgation of the temple is rightly defended by all the older commentators, and by Schleiermacher, Olshausen, Tholuck, Ebrard, Meyer, Lange, Hengstenberg, Godet, Alford. Among those who admit only one, Strauss, Baur and Schenkel defend the report of the Synoptists, while Lüke, De Wette, Ewald decide in favor of John].
[Hieronymus: Igneum quiddam et sidereum radiabat ex occulis ejus et divinitatis majestas lucebat in facie. Comp. the remarks of Godet, I. p. 379, who attributes the effect chiefly to the imposing majesty of Christ’s appearance, and the irresistible force of His consciousness of supernatural power.—P. S.]
[So also Godet: a sign of authority and judgment. If Christ had intended physical punishment, the instrument would have been disproportionate to the end.—P. S.]
[Alford: The coincidence with Luk_2:49 is remarkable. By this expression thus publicly used, our Lord openly announces His Mossiahship.—P. S.]
[“The
êáôáöÜãåéí
spoken of in that passion Psalm, was the marring and wasting of the Saviour’s frame by His zeal for God and God’s Church, which resulted in the buffeting, the scourging, the Cross.” Alford].
[So also Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Godet, but Meyer contends that
êáôáöÜãåôáé
(=
êáôáöáãÞóåôáé
) is only used in the sense of the future.—P. S.]
[Renan (Vie de Jésus, p. 354) can see in this profound enigma of our Lord only “an imprudent word spoken in bad humor” (“Un jour sa mauvaise humeur contre le temple lui arracha un mot imprudent)”! Godet, I. 387, well remarks: “La methode de Jesus est de jeter une enigme et de ne révéler la vérité qu’en la voilunt sous un divin paradoxe, qui ne peut êlre compris qu’en changeant de cæur. C‘est là un secret de la profonde pédagogies”—P. S.]
[Meyer, with his usual and at times pedantic philological strictness, takes the imperative
ëýóáôå
as strictly provocative, and explains it from a painful excitement of feeling in view of the opposition already manifesting itself. But the apparent harshness is softened by the prophetic character of the word and the double reference to the temple and the person. Joh_13:27, where Christ calls upon Judas to do quickly what he intended to do, furnishes a parallel. If the fruit is once matured, it must fall.—P. S.]
[So Bengel (nutu gestuve) and Meyer. But in the fifth ed., p. 144, note, M. gives up this reference. Such pointing would have been the solution of the riddle, contrary to its intention; but neither the Jews nor the disciples understood Him at the time. The Jews on this and the second purgation referred
ôὸí íáὸí ôïῦôïí
to the temple, Joh_2:20; Mat_26:61; Mat_27:40. Meyer now assumes that Christ pointed to the temple (this temple before you), but meant His body as the antitype of the temple and the true dwelling of God, and thus put the image in the place of the thing typified, “so dass diese scharfen lebendigen, ohne Auslegung hingeworfenen Bildzüge wie in einem Bilderräthsel eine symbolisch prophretische Vorhersagung seiner Auferstehung enthalten, wie Mat_12:39; Mat_16:4.”—P. S.]
(See Heubner, p. 242. Henke was not the first to take this view, but Zinzendorf has it in his Homil. über die Wundenlitanei, p. 160.)
[Olshausen, Stier, Brückner (versus De Wette), Alford, Godet.—P. S.]
[Meyer, pp. 145–147, raises seven objections against this view. It is plainly irreconcilable with apostolic inspiration. In my Lectures on the Gospel of John, written at Berlin, 1842, I find the remark: “It involves an immense presumption on the part of theologians of the nineteenth century, however respectable, if they imagine that they understand Christ better than His favorite disciple and bosom-friend to whom He revealed the future struggles and triumphs of His Kingdom.” Alford also justly protests against such liberty of interpretation. For we have here not a chronological statement, but a doctrinal exposition of a most important declaration of Christ.—P. S.]
[This idea John expresses in
ἐóêÞíùóåí
, Joh_1:14 (see notes on pp. 71, 73), and Paul when he says that the whole fulness of the Godhead dwelled in Christ bodily. Col_2:9.—P. S.]
[Comp. also Hengstenberg, I:165. He thinks that no justice can be done to this holy enigma which Christ proposed to the Jews, unless we recognize the essential identity of the temple, the appearance of Christ in the flesh and the church of the N. T. He explains: “If ye once destroy the temple of my body, and with it this external temple, the symbol and pledge of the kingdom of God among you, I shall rebuild in three days the temple of My body and with it at the same time the substance of the eternal temple, the kingdom of God.” The crucifixion of Christ involved as a necessary consequence the destruction of the temple and the O. T. worship; the re surrection of Christ the creation of the Christian church, and worship, of which the temple was the type and shadow. Godet explains: “Destroy this your temple, by killing Me, the Messiah.”—P. S.]
