45 Jesus entered into the temple, and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it, 46 saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house is a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of robbers’!”

47 He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people sought to destroy him. 48 They couldn’t find what they might do, for all the people hung on to every word that he said.

Luke 19:45-48 - World English Bible

The Cleansing of the Temple episode appeared in all four gospel (Mark 11:15-19, Matthew 21:12-17, Luke 19:45-20:8 and John 2:13-16); the incident occurred towards the end of the Synoptics but at the beginning of John. Since experts haven't discovered the exact location of the Temple on the Mount due to Muslim presence in the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa mosque, the place of the event remained unknown, but clearly Herod developed the area as an agora (or marketplace) and the merchants who served the religious pilgrims had a choice place near the Temple. Some scholars have even speculated businessmen paid franchise fees to the Temple priests for the right to sell animals to sacrifice and to change money for visitors to worship in the holy site.

Jesus entered the Temple area (the courtyard leading into the Temple called the “Court of the Gentiles?”) and violently upset commerce, citing Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11 for his rationale. For many people, such a cleansing marked the identity of the Messiah, the holy man who would clear the corrupt leadership from the Temple and establish a pure line of priests for righteous worship. Such was the reason the Essene community at Qumran; they saw themselves as the gathering of pure priests who would replace the existing hierarchy and return cult to its former purity.

The incident raised Jesus' stature among the people, but also set the stage for his passion and death.

What does the Cleansing of the Temple mean in your life?