14. The animals here mentioned were sold to be sacrificed. The money‐ changers were there to change foreign money into Jewish. It was probably in the Court of the Gentiles that Christ found them. *In the temple* (ἐν ἱερώ, _i.e._, in sacro loco). The ἱερόν must be carefully distinguished from the ναός (v. 20). The former included the temple proper, and also its courts, porches, and porticoes; in a word, all its _sacred_ precincts; the latter was the temple proper, the house of God, the place where He _dwelt_ (ναίω = to dwell). We know that around the temple as rebuilt by Herod the Great, there were three courts: the outer, or that of the Gentiles; the inner, or that of the Israelites; and between them, on the eastern side, the Court of the women. In the inner court, or that of the Israelites, there was a portion next the temple proper set apart for the priests. 15. Et cum fecisset quasi 15. And when he had made as it flagellum de funiculis, omnes were a scourge of little eiecit de templo, oves quoque, cords, he drove them all out et boves, et numulariorum of the temple, the sheep also effudit aes, et mensas and the oxen, and the money of subvertit. the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew. 15. *He drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen.* These words of our version mean that He drove out not only the animals, but also the sellers, and this is distinctly stated by S. Aug., and several other Fathers. The sense of the Greek is ambiguous: *He drove all out of the temple, both the sheep and the oxen.* 16. Et his qui columbas 16. And to them that sold vendebant, dixit: Auferte ista doves he said: Take these hinc, et nolite facere domum things hence, and make not the Patris mei, domum house of my father a house of negotiationis. traffic. 16. Christ deals more leniently with those who sold the doves, perhaps because these were the offerings of the poor. *A house of traffic.* Our Lord does not on this occasion say the traffic was unjust, but implies that it was sacrilegious, as being carried on in a holy place. On another occasion, three years afterwards, Christ again drove traders from the temple, who He says had made it “a den of thieves,” adding the sin of injustice to that of sacrilege (Matt. xxi. 13). Note how He calls God His Father. See v. 18. 17. Recordati sunt vero 17. And his disciples discipuli eius, quia scriptum remembered that it was est: Zelus domus tuae comedit written: _The zeal of thy me. house hath eaten me up._ 17. Our Evangelist, mindful of his scope in writing this Gospel, draws attention to the fulfilment of this prophecy of the Psalmist, inasmuch as this tends to prove that Jesus was the Messias and the true God. καταφάγεται (_will eat_ me up) is the true reading here, though the Psalm has the prophetic past.