er the shekel of the sanctuary," which
limitation, as rabbis had ruled, meant payment in temple coin. Ordinary
money, varieties of which bore effigies and inscriptions of heathen
import, was not acceptable, and as a result, money-changers plied a
thriving trade on the temple grounds.

Righteously indignant at what He beheld, zealous for the sanctity of His
Father's House, Jesus essayed to clear the place;[351] and, pausing not
for argument in words, He promptly applied physical force almost
approaching violence--the one form of figurative language that those
corrupt barterers for pelf could best understand. Hastily improvizing a
whip of small cords, He laid about Him on every side, liberating and
driving out sheep, oxen, and human traffickers, upsetting the tables of
the exchangers and pouring out their heterogeneous accumulations of
coin. With tender regard for the imprisoned and helpless birds He
refrained from assaulting their cages; but to their owners He said:
"Take these things hence;" and to all the greedy traders He thundered
forth a command that made them quail: "Make not my Father's house an
house of merchandise." His disciples saw in the incident a realization
of the psalmist's line: "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up."[352]

The Jews, by which term we mean the priestly officials and rulers of the
people, dared not protest this vigorous action on the ground of
unrighteousness; they, learned in the law, stood self-convicted of
corruption, avarice, and of personal responsibility for the temple's
defilement. That the sacred premises were in sore need of a cleansing
they all knew; the one point upon which they dared to question the
Cleanser was as to why He should thus take to Himself the doing of what
was their duty. They practically submitted to His sweeping intervention,
as that of one whose possible investiture of authority they might be yet
compelled to acknowledge. Their tentative submission was based on fear,
and that in turn upon their sin-convicted consciences. Christ prevailed
over those haggling Jews by virtue of the eternal principle that right
is mightier than wrong, and of the psychological fact that consciousness
of guilt robs the culprit of valor when the imminence of just
retribution is apparent to his soul.[353] Yet, fearful lest He should
prove to be a prophet with power, such as no living priest or rabbi even
professed to be, they timidly asked for credentials of His
authority--"What s