4/24/2024 0 Comments Hebrew prayer for financesSuch goings-on, exploiting the poor and the foreigner, angered the Lord Jesus and was strictly forbidden in the Mosaic Law (Exodus 22:21 Leviticus 19:34). Others were in charge of examining the animals to be sacrificed, and it was a simple matter to declare an animal “unapproved” and force the worshiper to buy another animal-at an inflated price-from the temple vendors. Some sold sacrificial animals, overcharging people who did not bring their own. These same money changers were associated with others who engaged in shady business practices in the temple courts. Because they determined their own exchange rate, money changers easily took advantage of the poor and the foreigners pouring into Jerusalem for Passover. Rather than provide this service as a business in another part of town, they exploited the religious zeal of the visitors to Jerusalem and did their business on temple grounds. So money changers exchanged those foreign coins for Jewish money, but they did so at an exorbitant profit. But foreign coins with the likeness of pagan emperors would not be accepted in God’s temple. Seeing that the money changers had come back, He again drove them out, saying, ““It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers’”” (Matthew 21:13).īecause Jewish law required a temple tax of a half-shekel (Exodus 30:11–16), Jews and visitors from other nations came to pay their taxes when they offered their sacrifices. The second time He confronted the money changers was the week before His trial and crucifixion. He made a whip of cords and drove them out. Jesus’ first encounter with money changers was at the beginning of His three-year ministry (John 2:14–16). The Bible records two instances of Jesus cleansing the temple of money changers and those selling sacrificial animals.
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