How many times did Jesus cleanse the temple?

Answer

Jesus cleansed the temple of the money-changers and sellers of merchandise due to His disgust at their actions in God’s house of prayer and His zeal to purify it from the abuse of ungodly individuals. Judea was under Roman rule, and the currency in circulation was Roman coin. However, Jewish law mandated that each man pay a tribute to the sanctuary’s service of “half a shekel” (Exodus 30:11-16), a Jewish coin. It thus became convenient to have a place where Roman coin could be exchanged for the Jewish half shekel. The money-changers offered this service but charged a small fee for the exchange. Due to the large number of people attending the feasts, money exchange became a highly profitable business leading to fraud and exploitation of the poor.

Additionally, as per the Law, two doves or pigeons were required for sacrifice (Leviticus 14:22;Luke 2:24). However, it was challenging to bring them from distant parts of Judea, resulting in a lucrative business of selling birds, with sellers overcharging the faithful. There were also merchants selling cattle and sheep for temple sacrifices. Jesus, filled with righteous indignation because of these exploitative practices towards the poor and His desire for His Father’s house to remain pure, overturned the tables of the money-changers. He rebuked them for transforming God’s house of prayer into “a den of thieves” «and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. », (Matthew 21:13). In doing so, His…Disciples recalled Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.”

Jesus’ initial cleansing of the temple is detailed in John 2:11–12 as having taken place right after Jesus’ first miracle, the transformation of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. John clarifies that it was “after this” that He traveled to Capernaum, where He “stayed for a few days.” Subsequently, in the following verse (verse 13), John informs us that the “Passover of the Jews was at hand” (NKJV). These verses track Jesus’ movements within a brief timeframe from Cana in Galilee to Capernaum and eventually to Jerusalem for the Passover. This marks the initial of the two occasions when Jesus cleansed the temple. The Synoptic Gospels do not document the temple cleansing mentioned in John 2, only noting the temple cleansing during Passion Week.

The second temple cleansing took place right after Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem during the final week of His life. This subsequent cleansing is chronicled in Matthew, Mark, and Luke but not in John. There are distinctions between the two events, apart from the fact that they occurred nearly three years apart. During the first cleansing, temple authorities challenged Jesus immediately «Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? », (John 2:18), whereas in the second cleansing, the chief priests and scribes confronted Him the following day (Matthew 21:17-23). In the initial incident, Jesus crafted a whip of cords to drive out the sellers, but there is no mention of a whip in the second cleansing. Therefore, there are two documented instances when Jesus cleansed the temple—the first time at the commencement of His public ministry, and the second time immediately after His triumphant entry into Jerusalem shortly before His crucifixion.