Matthew 21:12-17 – Don’t Rob God!

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 05 May 2013

Translation

21:12 Then Jesus entered into the temple of God

and threw out all who were selling and buying in the temple

and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of the ones who sell doves.

21:13 and He says to them, “It was written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’

but y’all – y’all have made it a den of robbers.”

21:14 Then lame men and blind men approached Him in the temple, and He healed them!

21:15 But after seeing the marvels which He did

and the children crying out in the temple saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,”

the chief priests and the scribes became indignant,

21:16 and they said to Him, “Are you listening? What are these guys saying?”

And Jesus says to them, “Yes. So haven’t you ever read that, ‘out of the mouth of babies and breast-feeding [children] you have fixed up praise for yourself?’”

21:17 And after taking His leave of them, He exited out of the city into Bethany and camped out there.

Introduction

Exegesis

21:12 Then Jesus entered into the temple of God and threw out all who were selling and buying in the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of the ones who sell doves.

Και εισηλθεν ο[2] Ιησους εις το ιερον [του θεου[3]] και εξεβαλεν παντας τους πωλουντας και αγοραζοντας εν τω ‘ιερω και τας τραπεζας των κολλυβιστων κατεστρεψεν και τας καθεδρας των πωλουντων τας περιστερας

 

21:13 and He says to them, “It was written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but y’all – y’all have made it a den of robbers.

και λεγει αυτοις Γεγραπται ‘Ο ‘οικος μου ‘οικος προσευχης κληθησεται ‘υμεις δε αυτον εποιησατε[8] σπηλαιον[9] ληστων

 

21:14 Then lame men and blind men approached Him in the temple, and He healed them!

Και προσηλθον αυτω χωλοι και τυφλοι εν τω ιερω και εθεραπευσεν αυτους

 

21:15 But after seeing the marvels which He did and the children crying out in the temple saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” the chief priests and the scribes became indignant,

Ιδοντες δε ‘οι αρχιερεις και ‘οι γραμματεις τα θαυμασια ἃ εποιησεν και τους παιδας τους[12] κραζοντας εν τω ‘ιερω και λεγοντας ‘Ωσαννα τω ‘υιω Δαυιδ ηγανακτησαν

 

21:16 and they said to Him, “Are you listening? What are these guys saying?”
And Jesus says to them, “Yes. So haven’t you ever read that, ‘out of the mouth of babies and breast-feeding [children] you have fixed up praise for yourself?’”

και ειπον[13] αυτω Ακουεις τί οὗτοι λεγουσιν ο δε Ιησους λεγει αυτοις Ναι, ουδεποτε ανεγνωτε οτι[14] Εκ στοματος νηπιων και θηλαζοντων κατηρτισω αινον;

 

21:17 And after taking His leave of them, He exited out of the city into Bethany and camped out there.

Και καταλιπων αυτους εξηλθεν εξω της πολεως εις Βηθανιαν και ηυλισθη εκει

Application:

In what ways do we fall into the same error that the Jews in the temple market did? How can we be the kind of church where Jesus would want to stick around?

  1. Before we launch a crusade against church bookstores, consider this: If our body is now the temple of God’s Spirit, any busy-ness we have which crowds out prayer and God’s word from our lives is the same thing as what those merchants in the temple were doing. They were robbing and crowding out true worship. Let us not rob God of the glory of the nations by cluttering up our lives with busyness and sin.
  1. In place of the clutter, let us occupy ourselves with prayer.
  2. Let us not rob God of praise coming from children


[1] “When Christ came into Jerusalem, he did not go up to the court of the palace, though He came in as a King, but into the temple; for His kingdom is spiritual, and not of this world… A King that sitteth in the throne of judgment scattereth away all evil with his eyes (Prov. 20:8).” ~Matthew Henry

[2] A few of the earliest Greek manuscripts (א, Β, D, Θ) – and therefore the Critical editions of the New Testament – omit the definite article found in the majority of manuscripts before the word Jesus. It makes no difference because this name is a proper noun and is therefore automatically definite with our without the article.

[3] A few early Greek manuscripts (א, B, L, Θ, + f13) – and therefore the Critical editions of the GNT omit this genitive phrase which is in the majority of the manuscripts (including some early Uncials like C & D, minuscules in family 1, and early versions). There is only one temple which Matthew would have referenced, so the addition or omission of the phrase “of God,” does not change the meaning of the text.

[4] Lev 5:7 And if he cannot afford a sheep, he shall bring for his sin which he has sinned, two turtle-doves or two young pigeons to the Lord; one for a sin-offering, and the other for a burnt-offering. (Brenton)

[5] Matt 10:29 He says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a dollar? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” (NAW)

[6] Edersheim mentions four dollars being charged for a pair of doves that were worth five cents or less.

[7] According to Hendriksen, “three years before the destruction of Jerusalem, the people, in an uprising against it, swept away ‘the bazaars of the sons of Annas,’ as the temple market was called.”

[8] Four early manuscripts (א, B, L, Θ) render this verb Present tense (instead of Aorist tense like the majority), and the Critical editions follow that reading. The Present tense lends vividness but makes no difference to the story. Curiously, there is a textual tradition in the family 1 minuscules that splits the difference by spelling this verb in the perfect tense!

[9] More properly a “cave” where the Jews buried their dead (following Abraham’s example), and where people took to hiding (e.g. David in the cave of Adullam).

[10] Matthew provides an exact quote of the Greek Septuagint of Isaiah 56:7c LXX γὰρ οἶκός μου οἶκος προσευχῆς κληθήσεται πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν,

[11] LXX of Jer. 7:11 μὴ σπήλαιον λῃστῶν ὁ οἶκός μου…

[12] Critical texts omit this definite article because it is not found in several of the most ancient Greek manuscripts. Nestle-Aland’s critical apparatus does not say which manuscripts it is found in, but does indicate that the word is in the majority of manuscripts, including f1, f13, C, K, W, and Δ. The word for “children” already has a definite article, however, so omitting the second one before the participle describing the children does not change anything.

[13] Critical editions spell this verb with an omicron instead of an alpha at the end of the word. Nestle-Aland does not explain why in its apparatus. It is just an alternate way of spelling the same thing and makes no difference in parsing.

[14] A couple of early Greek manuscripts which tend to be terse (א, D) don’t have this word, but the quote works fine in Greek without this discourse marker.

[15] Or, perhaps to be more technically accurate, I should say He answered only the first question. The interrogative form of ti appears as the second word in the Greek text of the queries put to Him, which leads me to formulate it as a second question, “What are these saying?” rather than turning the interrogative into a relative pronoun like most of the English versions do (i.e. “Have you heard what these are saying?”)

[16] Matthew quotes the Greek Septuagint of Ps. 8:2 word-for-word: ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον

[17] Which is slightly different from the original Hebrew word עז which means “strength.”