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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - Matthew 21:12 - 21:12
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Mat_21:12. Different from Mar_11:11; Mar_11:15, where the narrative is more precise; comp. Weiss’ note on Mark.
In the court of the Gentiles were the tabernae, äðéåú , where animals, incense, oil, wine, and other requisites for sacrifice were exposed for sale. Lightfoot on this passage.
The money-changers ( κολλυβ ., see Phrynichus, p. 440) exchanged on commission ( ÷åìáåï , Maimonides, Shekal. 3) ordinary money for the two drachmae pieces which were used in paying the temple tribute (see note on Mat_17:24).
This cleansing of the temple is, with Chrysostom, Paulus, Kuinoel, Tholuck, Olshausen, Kern, Ebrard, Baumgarten
Crusius, Schleiermacher, Hengstenberg, Wieseler, to be regarded as the second that took place, the first being that recorded in Joh_2:13 ff., and which occurred on the occasion of the first visit to Jerusalem. The abuse having been repeated, there is no reason why Jesus should not have repeated this purifying process, and that (in answer to Hofmann, Luthardt, Hengstenberg) without any essential difference. The absence, in the synoptical account, of any allusion to a previous occasion, is sufficiently explicable from the length of time that intervened, and from the fact that the Synoptists take no notice generally of what took place during the earlier visit to Judea. The similarity of the accompanying circumstances may be accounted for from the similarity of the incidents themselves; whereas the supposition that the cleansing took place only on one occasion would necessarily involve a chronological derangement extending to almost the whole period of Christ’s ministry,—a derangement which can neither be fairly imputed to the synoptical narrative nor even conceived of as far as John is concerned, whose testimony is that of an eye-witness. This is not “wishy-washy criticism” (Keim), but it is based upon the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, as well as upon the weighty and unanimous testimony of the synoptical writers, to sacrifice whose authority for the sake of John would be both one-sided and violent. This, however, is what Wetstein, Lücke, Neander, de Wette, Bleek, Ewald, Weizsäcker have done. Others, again, have rejected the fourth evangelist’s account, so far as its chronology is concerned, in favour of that of the Synoptists (Ziegler, Theile, Strauss, Baur, Weisse, Hilgenfeld, Schenkel, Keim). Comp., further, the remarks under Joh_2:17.