Jesus Asks a Question: “Is it not written that My house is a house of prayer for all nations?”
Jesus Asks a Question: “Is it not written that My house is a house of prayer for all nations?”
The Grand Inquisitor. Messiah Jesus was a Master of asking questions: some were open-ended, others were very pointed; some were out of curiosity, others were challenging; some seemed rhetorical, others seemed painfully obvious; some were to reveal Himself, others were to guide the other into self-understanding; some were intentionally provocative, others were to kick-start a conversation; some questions were asked to explore a topic to deepen understanding and stretch toward the truth; some were leading questions that He designed to suggest a particular answer, and others were questions in response to questions asked of Him; some were hypotheticals to stimulate the imagination, other questions were used by Him as stepping stones to think logically from one point to the next. Jesus used questions to dignify the listener, letting that person know that He is taking that person seriously and listening carefully. Many of His questions were acts of friendship and used to pursue a more profound intimacy with someone. Jesus asked very few yes-no questions, and since time was usually irrelevant for Him when He was with people, He rarely asked a “when” question. Several biblical scholars have studied the gospels with Christ’s questions in mind, and they have literally counted a total of 307 questions in His various conversations and teachings. It seems that a worthy spiritual exercise when considering the many questions of Jesus is that we ask ourselves… should I take His questions personally, as if He was asking us that question right now?
The Question. “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations?’” (Mark 11:17; Isaiah 56:7).
Jesus clears vendors from temple (The Chosen) Season 5 2025
“When the time of the Jewish Passover was near Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple He found people selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting there. Making a whip out of cord, He drove them all out of the Temple, sheep and cattle as well, scattered the money changers’ coins, knocked their tables over, and said to the dove sellers, ‘Take all this out of here and stop using my Father’s House as a market! Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of thieves!’ Then His disciples remembered the words of Scripture: ‘I am eaten up with zeal for your House.” (John 2:13-17 and Psalm 69:9; Matthew 21:12-17; Mark 11:15-17; Luke 19:45-48).
Zeal in New Testament – zelos (dzay-los) = The Greek word that means spiritually fervent to the point of being hot, seething; the root word refers to boiling water, a glowing solid, or something that is so hot it is bubbling to the surface.
Zeal in Hebrew Bible – qinah (kin – naw) = the Hebrew word that means intense fervor, fiery passion, an emotion that is greater than mere anger.
Boiling Mad. Jesus was indeed deeply moved when He saw the Temple being desecrated with cattle, sheep, doves, and dishonest money changers in the Temple courtyard. In fact, He was seething, He was boiling mad with righteous indignation. Various translations put this down as a fiery passion that consumed Him, a zeal that ate Him up and devoured Him. The Hebrew word for zeal and for jealousy come from the same root word and are linked in intensity and purpose. Jesus was zealous on behalf of the Father. Jesus knew that the marketplace in the Temple insulted God, kept others from worship, and so Jesus took it personally for the Father’s sake. Jesus was jealous for the Father’s honor.
Jesus Had Chutzpah (hoots-pah), which is a Yiddish word that long ago entered English usage. It is from the Hebrew word, “hutspah,” which means insolent or audacious. Chutzpah is a neutral word that can be either positive or negative. Chutzpah can be righteous or unrighteous, holy or unholy. It is an idea difficult to define, so there are a lot of synonyms for it, especially in the biblical sense: spiritual audacity; brazen gall; tenacious stubbornness; headstrong persistence; outrageous guts; shameless nerve; feisty assertiveness; brazen impudence; unyielding boldness; courageous spine; expectant defiance. The Holy Scriptures, both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, are overflowing with examples of holy chutzpah. One wonders not only if it’s a job requirement for saints and prophets, but also a faith requirement for all believers. In fact, God seems to love chutzpah in us when it is based on our ultimate trust in Him and His character, our unselfish motives, our yearning for justice and mercy. Chutzpah in front of others becomes holy when it is done in obedience to the Lord and is an outworking of our faith in Him. As Rabbi Schulweiss once said, “Spiritual audacity toward God finds a place of honor in Jewish religious thought.” The rabbis of old have always insisted that chutzpah is a valid expression of faith. Just a quick glimpse at the Gospels reveals that Jesus and His followers fully embraced the ancient Jewish ethic of holy chutzpah. When Jesus saw chutzpah in action, He usually said things like, “Great is your faith!” Maybe Christian scholar Dr. Brad Young said it best. “True faith requires bold perseverance. Sometimes it is expressed by brazen impudence. Faith can be defined as chutzpah. Persevere with unyielding tenacity.” (Brad Young, Jesus the Jewish Theologian).
Holy Chutzpah. One could survey the gospels and notice any number of incidents when Jesus showed His chutzpah… When He was 12 years old and surprisingly told His frantic parents not to worry and that He was simply about His Father’s business; the temptation in the wilderness against the Evil One; the casting out of demons as He confronted the wild demoniac, the infamous “man of the tombs”; the fashioning of a whip and driving out the moneychangers from the Temple while the Temple authorities stood there shaking their heads. During His ministry on earth, Jesus revealed Himself to be the Author of chutzpah, the original prototype of what righteous chutzpah looks like. In His zeal and headstrong boldness, Jesus was in many ways the ultimate Holy Fool. And we praise God for that.
Advocate for the Non-Jews. The area of the Temple being used as a marketplace was the Court of the Gentiles. It was the only precinct in the entire Temple that allowed non-Jews to come from all over the world to worship the God of the Israelites. With all the commerce being conducted, and all the animals and furniture and crowds of people doing business, the Gentiles were being excluded from worship. Jesus vehemently rejected this idea, and strongly believed that excluding the Gentiles was offensive to God, and violated the sanctity of the Temple. Jesus well-understood the importance of Gentiles hearing the Word of the Lord and worshiping. Jesus was serious about having the Temple welcoming to non-Jews. The Court of the Gentiles must be taken back for proper worship and prayer. With Jesus, it was as good as done. The non-Jews couldn’t have found a better advocate.
Loan Sharks and Traffickers. Here’s the problem. Jesus has seen that Temple use has become defiled through its compromise with commercialization. He wants the Temple to return to its roots, pure and holy, a place set apart for Yahweh and prayer. The Temple has become sullied, and Jesus is taking this very personally. The merchants are overcharging for animals purchased for sacrifice. They are charging exorbitant prices for their oxen, sheep and doves. Temple-goers don’t have a choice but to pay up if they want to make sacrifice in order to follow the Law of Moses. What’s going on is a racket, and everyone knows it, but nobody can do a thing about it. On top of that, the Temple doesn’t allow Roman coins to be used in the Temple commerce, since the head of Caesar is on the coin, which would defile the Temple. So there are profiteers taking advantage of this, money changers who deal in exchanging Temple coins for those forbidden Roman coins, and overcharging in the exchange. Once again, what can one do to get around that? Nothing. So the poor who come to the Temple are exploited, and then are excluded if they can’t afford the prices. If they decide to pay the exorbitant prices, they have very little left for their daily needs. Also, the Temple raked in the profits through the Temple taxes that everyone had to pay to conduct business. The Temple made out like bandits in that tax system. There were dishonest and disingenuous profits everywhere in this process. In modern terms, this is called an organized crime syndicate, and it continued because the Temple had all the authority in this case. Jesus exploded when he saw this whole dishonest scenario. It insulted God, it tainted the Temple, and it was unjust to the poor and the Gentiles. The whole system was corrupt and it was done with impunity. It’s easy to see why St. Jerome described Jesus this way as he thought about the cleansing of the Temple… “For a certain fiery and starry light shone from his eyes, and the majesty of God gleamed in his face!” According to Scripture, Jesus purified the Temple in this way twice, once at the beginning of his ministry, and once close to the end. If He had lived any longer, He no doubt would have done it a third time. That’s how much He must have hated anything that violated the purity and sanctity of the Temple, especially if it was unjust, dishonest, and exclusive.
Righteous Indignation. Watching Jesus in anger mode, the disciples remembered Ps. 69:9. It has been translated in various ways. “Zeal for your house has eaten me up.” “My passion consumes me for your house.” And even, “Concern for God’s house will be my undoing,” which is very interesting. He was expressing a righteous anger that is alien to us other humans. We are told not to be angry, and for good reason. Jesus has an utterly pure heart without mixed motives. He has God’s heart. He can express all the anger He wants, because it will never devolve into sin. In matters of justice, especially, we can feel a spark of righteous indignation that truly does reflect the heart of God. But we need to be careful, to watch ourselves when that happens. For most of us, it is a slippery slope from righteous indignation to unrighteous indignation. Our hearts are not pure enough, our motives are mixed and our emotions tainted. Scripture tells us very clearly to confront injustice. But our hatred for an injustice can turn quickly to a hatred for the people involved and an activism that devolves into destruction. We are wise to refrain from following Jesus into the temple-cleansing business unless given clear marching orders from our High Priest.
The Word. In the midst of His fury, Jesus quoted two verses from the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 56:7, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.” And Jeremiah 7:11, that His house has become a “den of thieves.” We just assume that Jesus had the Word of God on the tip of His tongue as if the Word was put there by osmosis. As if by virtue of Jesus being Messiah, He had merely been downloaded Scripture, through no effort of His own. The fact is He was raised in an orthodox Jewish home and He had thus been raised in Scripture from infancy. He had to learn the Word like any other person… Study, discussion, prayer, memorization. Jesus had been exposed to His Bible since birth, and He had gone to the trouble of memorizing it. By the time He was thirty, He could quote any verse for any occasion. He worked hard to learn Scripture. The entire Hebrew Bible was probably hidden in His heart.
Children. Following on the heels of the cleansing of the Temple, Jesus was surrounded by children. They were all in the spirit of Palm Sunday, shouting praises at the top of their voices, “Blessing and praises to the Son of David!” (Matthew 21:16). The religious leaders taking all this in were outraged and demanded an explanation from Jesus. The leaders furiously said that it wasn’t right for the children to be saying such things. The Son of David was a code word for Messiah, and the Temple scholars couldn’t stand to hear such nonsense. But Jesus once again used Scripture to answer His critics. Paraphrasing Psalm 8:2, Jesus told them, “Out of the mouths of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise.” The sweet hosannas of children is music to God’s ears, and instead of being discounted, are held up as an example to us all. The Holy Spirit loves to use the innocence, the simple trust, the straightforwardness of children, and we should not forget that.
Safe. How does one describe the personality of Jesus? There’s so much we don’t understand about how He operated from one moment to the next. The “Fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22-23) does indeed give us a picture of His personality, but not the whole picture. For example, here we find Jesus with a scary flash of fire in His eyes. He is extremely frustrated and angry. He is consumed by zeal, a “fiery passion.” And yet, immediately following His display of righteous temper, we find Him welcoming the blind, the crippled, and many children! One moment He is fashioning a whip to use on merchants, and the next moment He is tenderly healing the blind and the crippled, and appreciating the praises of children. He was a person to avoid one minute, and then a safe place the next. How does one explain that? What would that look like? The personality of Jesus is never described fully in the Gospels. We are even more left in the dark if we don’t study those scenes in which He was “deeply moved.” But in this incident we see quite a lot. Being both God and man, His personality was pretty much indescribable.
The Holy Critique. As N. T. Wright once said, “When Jesus purified the Temple, He was providing a signpost to God’s future.” After Jesus disrupted business and cleared out the Temple, the outraged Temple leaders asked Jesus a question. Who gave Him the authority to do such a thing? It is curious that the Temple had their own Temple guards, and priests, and scribes, and law scholars, all watching this whole event in the Temple. And yet they seemed dumfounded and frozen during Jesus’ tirade. Here was this upstart rabbi acting like a king. He was in control of the scene, disrupting Temple business, wiping out their money-making system, and in a sense rebuking the whole Temple priesthood for cooperating in this system. He very intentionally upstaged the Temple, hinted at the future futility of animal sacrifice, and He pointed to God’s future for His followers. Yet the leadership all just stood there and didn’t lift a finger to stop it. Roman soldiers were certainly standing around as well and listening to the huge ruckus, but there was no attempt on their part to intervene. Everyone seemed paralyzed.
What About Right Now? After His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, where did He head first thing? The Temple, His Father’s House for prayer and worship. It makes sense, then, that, as Peter says in 1 Peter 4:17, “Judgment begins with the household of God.” It seems to be a pattern… Jesus judged the Temple first back then, and apparently He will judge the Church first now. If Jesus judges the Church now the way He purified the Temple back then, let’s consider these factors: (1.) Awareness. His eyes were wide open back then, and they will be wide open once again. Nothing escapes His attention. The same should be regarding us who are ‘in Jesus.’ Be aware of what is going on in the Church. Cultivate the eyesight of the Lord, and notice what is going on around us. Is there anything that is disrupting or interfering with prayer and worship in our church? Anything that is proving to be a distraction, or is frustrating the work of the Holy Spirit? (2.) Courage. Jesus had the bravery to follow through on His convictions of what is right and what is wrong. He was not passive or fearful. There will be times believers will need to courageously confront those aspects in Church which conflict with biblical morals or gospel virtues. Anything less is cowardice, which has no place in a follower of Christ; (3.) Scripture. What seemed to infuriate Jesus the most was how it violated the words of Scripture. The Word was His reference point and established the grid with which He judged things in the Temple. Is this true now? Do we consistently hold up the Scripture as our reference point in the life of the church? If not, there needs to be a spiritual correction, if not a serious conversation, perhaps even a righteous confrontation; (4.) Holy Stubbornness. In Mark’s rendition of this incident, he mentioned that Jesus even went so far as to block the way of anyone who wanted to return and do the same thing… “He stood in the way.” (Mark 11:16). He kicked out the animals and loan sharks, and then he refused to allow anything or anyone to enter that would dishonor the Father again. Jesus just stood there, probably with His hands on His hips, daring anyone to try that again. This wasn’t a mere momentary cleansing in a fit of pique. He didn’t allow a repeat of all that outrageous behavior in the Court of the Gentiles. He wanted the Gentiles to return, to worship and pray as the Father intended. He wanted to make sure the Temple leadership got the point of His hands-on critique. (5.) Interaction. Amazingly, once the temperature was turned down, Jesus engaged in a conversation with the Temple leaders. Do we do the same thing in our differences of opinion in the church? Do we candidly put our cards on the table and lovingly discuss what needs to be discussed with the grace of Christ? (6.) Servanthood. It is astounding that Jesus ministered to the physically needy and to the children immediately after this rather wild expression of zeal. Jesus can’t even help Himself in showing compassion. It is at the core of His character and purpose. Are we more focused on our differences in the Church than on serving the needy around us? Are we approachable like Jesus, even after a confrontation?
Another Temple. Each of us has a body which is also a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20), and everything mentioned above regarding the church is also true of seeing our body as sacred, a worshipful place given to us with which to honor God and which enables us to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice (Romans 12). Jesus through His Spirit seeks to come to each of us and purify it from any earthly pursuits that would dishonor God or keep us from living into His purposes. The Lord wants to purify our hearts like He purified the Temple Court, keeping us clean from that which is unholy, distracting, and anything which will interfere with our life of worship and reverence.
John 2: 13-21 Jesus Cleanses the Temple (youtube.com)