They
came to Jerusalem, and Jesus entered into the temple, and began to throw out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves. He would not allow anyone to carry a container through the temple. He taught, saying to them, “Isn’t it written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ But you have made it a den of robbers!”
Mark 11:15-17
Mark 11 [12.] The next day, when they had come out from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree afar off having leaves, he came to see if perhaps he might find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Jesus told it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again!” and his disciples heard it.
Mark 11 [15.] They came to Jerusalem, and Jesus entered into the temple, and began to throw out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves. He would not allow anyone to carry a container through the temple. He taught, saying to them, “Isn’t it written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’[d] But you have made it a den of robbers!”[e]
Mark 11 [18.] The chief priests and the scribes heard it, and sought how they might destroy him. For they feared him, because all the multitude was astonished at his teaching.
Meaning:
The day before, Jesus had entered the temple and “looked around at everything” (Mark 11:11). Now he acts. Mark sets this scene between the cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11:12-14) and its withering, so the fruitless tree and the busy but fruitless temple explain each other. John records a similar cleansing early in Jesus’ ministry (John 2:14-16). Here, in the last week, the act is a public claim to authority over God’s house, and it sets in motion the plot that will lead to the cross.
- “Began to throw out those who sold and those who bought in the temple”
Pilgrims came to Passover from all over the Roman world, and few could bring their own animals for sacrifice. Traders sold approved sheep, cattle and doves, and their stalls had spread into the temple’s great outer court, the Court of the Gentiles. The trade was convenient, and the animals were needed. But it filled the one place where non-Jews were allowed to come and pray with noise, smell and bargaining, and it was run under the authority of the high priestly families, who profited from it. Matthew too records how Jesus “drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple” (Matthew 21:12).
- “Overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of those who sold the doves”
Every Jewish man paid a yearly temple tax of half a shekel, and it had to be paid in a particular silver coin. Money changers exchanged the many currencies brought by pilgrims, charging a fee. Doves were the offering the Law allowed for those too poor to bring a lamb (Leviticus 5:7). Turning over the dove sellers’ seats suggests that the poor were being exploited at the very place where they came to seek forgiveness. Jesus would soon condemn scribes “who devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers” (Mark 12:40).
- “He would not allow anyone to carry a container through the temple”
Only Mark records this detail. The temple courts offered a convenient short cut through that part of the city, and people carried goods and vessels across them as if they were an ordinary street. Jesus stopped this traffic. His action was not only against dishonest trade but against treating God’s house as common ground. The place set apart for meeting with God was being used for the business of daily life.
- “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations”
Jesus explained his actions by quoting Scripture. The first quotation comes from Isaiah, where God promises that foreigners who join themselves to him will be welcomed: “for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). Mark alone keeps the words “for all the nations”. The outer court, meant for the nations to pray, had become a marketplace.
The second comes from Jeremiah’s sermon at the temple gate: “Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?” (Jeremiah 7:11). A robbers’ den is not the place where robbers steal, but the hideout where they feel safe afterwards. In Jeremiah’s day people lived unjustly and then came to the temple saying, “We are delivered”. Jeremiah warned that God would destroy that temple, and he did. By using these words, Jesus warned that the same judgment was coming again.
The Significance of Mark 11:15-17
- Zeal for God’s house
Jesus cared deeply about the honour of God and the purity of worship. In John’s account he said, “Don’t make my Father’s house a marketplace!” (John 2:16).
- Room for the nations
God always intended his house to welcome outsiders. Through the cross Christ “broke down the middle wall of partition” between Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14), so that all may draw near.
- We are God’s temple
Believers are now God’s dwelling place: “Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). Jesus still drives out what does not belong, so that his people may worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).
Cross-References:
Isaiah 56:7: "for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples." The first Scripture Jesus quoted.
Jeremiah 7:11: "Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it" The second Scripture Jesus quoted.
John 2:16: "To those who sold the doves, he said, “Take these things out of here! Don’t make my Father’s house a marketplace!”" John’s account of a temple cleansing.
1 Corinthians 3:16: "Don’t you know that you are a temple of God, and that God’s Spirit lives in you?" The new temple of God’s people.
Conclusion: Jesus entered the temple, drove out the buyers and sellers, overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of the dove sellers, and stopped people from using the courts as a short cut. Quoting Isaiah and Jeremiah, he declared that God’s house was meant to be a house of prayer for all the nations, but it had become a den of robbers. His action exposed worship that had become a business and a false refuge, and it called God’s people to honest, wholehearted prayer that welcomes all nations.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible