Episode 110: Mark Part 50—The Unfruitful Tree and the Den of Robbers

This is a very commonly misinterpreted section of Scripture when we don’t see the “Markan sandwich” which tells us to interpret the overturning of tables through the cursing of the fig tree and vice versa. We will be covering a lot of Biblical fig tree references with respect to the coming of the Messiah and the coming of judgment. We will also be analyzing Yeshua’s/Jesus’s actions in light of later Talmudic writings—which come up on his side in this. And we’re going to talk about those horrid memes about Yeshua overturning tables in light of the prophetic actions that were only His to take and not ours.

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¹² On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. ¹³ And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. ¹⁴ And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it. ¹⁵ And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. ¹⁶ And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” ¹⁸ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. ¹⁹ And when evening came they went out of the city.²⁰ As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. ²¹ And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” ²² And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. ²³ Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

This is a ton of material, I know, but it can’t be divided up. This is another “Markan sandwich” which is the term scholars use to describe Mark’s tendency to place one story in the middle of another story so that the two can be allowed to interpret one another. And let me tell you, we have a couple of really abused stories here where people make them mean all kinds of things by removing them from history, separating them from one another, and by not knowing the Temple or understanding that the Fortress Antonia, with a ton of Roman soldiers in it, emptied right onto the northwestern end of the Temple Mount. And people misinterpret it because they see an excuse for bad behavior and aren’t careful to notice what is and is not said. So, let’s look at the history and the text and figure out what’s happening here and what it tells us about the mission of the Messiah.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have five years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids—and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the ESV, the English Standard Version but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. A list of my resources can be found attached to the transcript for part two of this series at theancientbridge.com.

¹² On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. 

Remember, “they” and that means Yeshua and the Twelve, had on the previous day, entered Jerusalem to great fanfare while being snubbed by anyone in authority. The latter we know from the other Synoptic Gospels, where the leadership was yelling at Yeshua to tell His followers to pipe down. They made their way up to the Temple, Yeshua looked around at everything and then unceremoniously left (no pun intended). The text says that they went to Bethany, presumably to spend the night—perhaps at the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus, and the next day, they return. And it says that Yeshua/Jesus was hungry. And before I go on, that’s important because there was a heresy within the early church called Docetism, which claimed that Yeshua didn’t have a real body. His body was some sort of apparition and so He didn’t feel anything, didn’t really get hungry, didn’t suffer and die—all that jazz. It combatted the horror that pagans felt over the concept of a god who could be killed by mere men. I suppose it was a well-intentioned accommodation, but a disastrous one that led into Gnosticism. But no, Yeshua was hungry, He got thirsty on the Cross, He was fully human as well as fully divine. Real body, real needs. We don’t need to understand how it works and we aren’t clever enough anyway. Or is that just me?

¹³ And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 

This jives nicely with the time of year when fig trees in Israel put out their leaves—in March and April. But fruit? At most, Yeshua would find the horrible tasting male fruit on the tree—not the sweet, juicy female fruit we want to eat that arrive late summer. Not to mention the fact that the male fig, the caprifig, is where wasps lay their eggs, so just no and no. I tell you, I had quite the education looking this up. They look yummy but don’t go there. But people think, why would Yeshua look for fruit out of season? That doesn’t seem reasonable! What gives? Well, this is the first of a two part prophetic action carried out in three separate scenes—and last week, when He chose a donkey’s colt to ride in on, that was another prophetic action. Yeshua knew what He would find just as the inspecting angel of Ezekiel knew what he would find when he was sent to look through the Temple with the prophet Ezekiel and just like the two angels knew they would find massive wickedness when they went to Sodom.

Have you ever had someone ask you a question and then say, “You need to know that I never ask a question if I don’t already know the answer, so choose your words carefully.” Yeshua was hungry, He was going to a place where fruit can be found, but not always, but because of when He looked, there was no fruit to be had. It was disappointing and dissatisfying—much like, I imagine, His visit to the Temple the night before. He certainly knew what He would find but He still had to look. However, unlike a fruit tree, a Temple should always be a fruitful place—it is why it exists in the first place. Without fruitfulness, a Temple is nothing but a…we’ll get to that in a bit.

¹⁴ And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

And there are a lot of people who are really upset about this “unfair action”, you know, as though a tree has feelings or something. But if He inspected that tree and all there was, was large purple male fruit starting to burst with baby wasps, then it would be telling us something about the insides of the sandwich coming up in a few verses here. Just because something has fruit, doesn’t mean the fruit is good or that it won’t harm you. Think about the Wizard of Oz from 1939 and all those apple trees with gorgeous apples and they end up getting lobbed at Dorothy and her friends. You know, like social media religious groups. The fruit might look good from a distance but as it gets closer to your head you should know to duck out of the way.

Fig trees are repeatedly used in the Hebrew Scriptures as a metaphor for Israel: Like grapes in the wilderness, I found Israel. Like the first fruit on the fig tree in its first season, I saw your fathers. But they came to Baal-peor and consecrated themselves to the thing of shame, and became detestable like the thing they loved. (Ho 9:10)

For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white. (Joel 1:6-7)

Were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed; they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among the fallen; when I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord. When I would gather them, declares the Lord, there are no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree; even the leaves are withered, and what I gave them has passed away from them.”  (Jer 8:12-13)

Woe is me! For I have become as when the summer fruit has been gathered, as when the grapes have been gleaned: there is no cluster to eat, no first-ripe fig that my soul desires. The godly has perished from the earth, and there is no one upright among mankind; they all lie in wait for blood, and each hunts the other with a net. Their hands are on what is evil, to do it well; the prince and the judge ask for a bribe, and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul; thus they weave it together. The best of them is like a brier, the most upright of them a thorn hedge. The day of your watchmen, of your punishment, has come; now their confusion is at hand. Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house. (Micah 7:1-6)

Figs are what I call a very fruitful fruit. Like pomegranates, they are loaded with seeds—between thirty and sixteen hundred per fruit. Even fans of Fig Newtons know about all those seeds. And seeds are how fruit makes more fruit. And so, we shouldn’t be shocked that there is so much talk about fruitfulness in the Bible—beyond having children. Not everyone will have children but every believer is responsible for growing good fruit and being fruitful for the Kingdom. And we would think that would especially be true for the people in charge of the Temple, right? And the leadership and Torah teachers of Israel, right? At Passover, of all times, they should have been on their best behavior but instead, we see them snubbing Yeshua and we will see them plotting His downfall and death over the course of the next seven episodes. Yes, the tree is devoid of fruit, but the Messiah will inspect it anyway and declare that no one will find sustenance from it ever again. The Temple’s days are numbered at this point and He will increasingly declare that.

¹⁵ And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 

This is the third of three prophetic actions. The first was the entrance into Jerusalem riding on the colt. The second was the inspection of/declaration of doom over the fig tree. The third is here where Yeshua fulfills Malachi 3:1-2.

3 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. ² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.

Yeshua rode into town, inspected the Temple and went to Bethany for the night. In the morning, He returned on foot and inspected a fig tree for fruit and found none and declared judgment. Then He entered into the Temple to carry out a prophetic act of judgment against the Temple and its administrators. You need to know that this was a unique act performed in order to fulfill Scripture—all those memes that tell you that you have the right to go into a place and overturn tables…are you the Messiah? Do you get to do this every time you are miffed when He did it just this once? I know John says twice but I believe that is a literary device and even if He did it twice that is only twice and it was to fulfill Scripture. Neither you or I get to fulfill Scripture like that, sorry. Sometimes, we get uppity and forget what we are and forget who He is compared to us. And they killed Him for it, so if you get flak for behaving boorishly, don’t go back on social media complaining. Yeshua was provoking the coming crucifixion because that was the plan. That’s what needed to happen. It was not Plan B.

Now, history. According to Ben Witherington’s Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark, until 30 CE, these sales were carried out on the Mt of Olives in the four markets run by the Sanhedrin but in 30 CE, the High Priest Caiaphas (or Annas, his father-in-law who really ran the show) authorized sales within the Court of the Gentiles on the Temple Mount because they had control there and could profit from it. So, the sales weren’t new—they were necessary. What was new was the location.

But, I want you to notice what it says—sometimes we skim over this thinking we already know what is there. (1) He drove out those who sold and those who bought. Why is this? Well, no one was supposed to carry anything onto the Temple Mount and that includes a money bag (which we will talk about in a few weeks). It was supposed to be a worshipful and orderly place—a house of prayer for all nations as per Is 56. Psalms of Solomon 17:21-22 tell us about the expectation that the Messiah would cleanse Jerusalem of the Gentile defilement—how ironic that when Messiah came, He would perform judgment on a defiled Temple on behalf of the Gentile worshipers. See, Lord, and raise up for them their king, the son of David, to rule over Israel, your servant, in the time which you chose, o God. Undergird him with the strength to destroy the unrighteous rulers, to cleanse Jerusalem from gentiles who trample her to destruction;” (Brenton Septuagint). Also, He only performed this at the Temple marketplaces, not the ones on the Mt of Olives. The problem wasn’t the business, it was the location. The business was needed for those who had travelled from far away and couldn’t be expected to travel with a lamb or a goat! And who breeds their own birds? (2) According to m. Shek 1.3, these moneychanger tables, if they were there for the paying of the yearly Temple Tax, were in place from the 25^th of Adar to the first of Nisan. If they were there for that purpose, then this occurred at least two weeks before Passover—but if they were simply there to exchange foreign coins (as Jews would come from all over the Empire) for the purchase of festival chagigah (personal sacrifices) then it could be later than that. In any event, a needed business but the wrong place. Those were the only tables we see overturned. The money-changer tables. (3) He overturned the seats of those who sold doves. Doves were the offering of the poorest, and of those who needed certain cleansings.

That is what is said, what is not said? Desecration of the sanctity of Temple spaces was a death penalty offense among the Romans. They took the Temple of Yahweh every bit as seriously as one of their own. Yahweh was considered to be a regional god and sovereign over His own sacred space. If Yeshua had spilled blood or if He had done anything they considered to be sacrilegious, they would have arrested Him on the spot and He would have been crucified long before Passover. So, what those memes show? Chalk it up to the accuracy of the overwhelming majority of memes that have the intention of being clever but are not generally well-informed. The fortress Antonia, filled with irritated Roman soldiers, opened up onto the Temple Mount and they wouldn’t have hesitated to come arrest folks. Just as they did when an angry crowd was coming after Paul in Acts 21. We have to make very sure that our reading of this account is informed entirely by the text and what we know of the actual historical context, and not from memes and movies.

Compare Yeshua’s actions of judgment against the Temple to the actions of the later zealots in “defending” the Temple and the horrid things they did while barricaded inside. Zeal is a morally neutral word, you need context to determine whether than zeal is holy or unholy. Driving out people who are desecrating the space with worldly commerce and exploitation of the poor and who are making it difficult for Gentiles to worship, in a way that did not bring the Roman soldiers down in His head, is not to be compared with the actions of the Jewish Zealots a generation later. We’ll talk about that when we start chapter thirteen—we’ll do a whole lesson on the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.

¹⁶ And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 

Yeshua, here, was just carrying out the existing Temple Mount regulations. There is nothing controversial here—except that He is attacking the entire Temple infrastructure related to buying and selling on the premises. Not only that, He is potentially stopping people from using the Temple as a shortcut for carrying things from one end of Jerusalem to the other. No one was permitted to carry anything, not even a walking stick, and shoes were removed. This actually backs up later Jewish writings.

The mishna teaches several Temple-related halakhot. One may not act irreverently or conduct himself flippantly opposite the eastern gate of the Temple Mount, which is aligned opposite the Holy of Holies. In deference to the Temple, one may not enter the Temple Mount with his staff, his shoes, his money belt [punda], or even the dust on his feet. One may not make the Temple a shortcut to pass through it, and through an a fortiori inference, all the more so one may not spit on the Temple Mount. The mishna relates: At the conclusion of all blessings recited in the Temple, those reciting the blessing would say: Blessed are You Lord, God of Israel, until everlasting [haolam], the world (m. Ber 9.5)

¹⁷ And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 

There is so much here. Yeshua is quoting Isaiah 56, so let’s look at verses 6-8. “And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” The Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”

News flash—all nations were not permitted to enter into the house. There was a dividing wall called the soreg that gave warnings in multiple languages that any non-Jews who went past the wall would be killed. Isaiah said that the House was to be a House of Prayer but the Gentiles could not come to the House, only onto the Temple Mount itself. They could pay for sacrifices to be made but they couldn’t bring those sacrifices and worship themselves. So, they couldn’t be joyful “in” the House of Prayer, only at a distance. And now, the place they were permitted to be, was noisy with the bustle of commerce and there were animals being sold, as well as coins with idolatrous images changing hands.

The House, far from serving in the function of being a house of prayer for all nations, had become a national shrine. Remember that Mark’s audience, unlike Matthew’s, is a mixed audience of Jews and Romans—probably none of them had even been to the Temple. It was only the wealthiest of Jews who could afford the money and time for the pilgrimage, and then only once in a lifetime. There were four temple Courts. The Court of the Priests, where the altar and slaughtering area were located. The Court of the Israelites where Israelite men could be, generally while they were involved in prayers and waiting for their turn to sacrifice. The Court of the Women, which is as close as women could get to the altar and the Heikal, the actual Temple building containing the Holy Place and Holy of Holies, so they were separated from the Holy Place and the altar by a huge wall and gate. Outside the court of the Women and surrounding the entire Temple complex was the soreg with the warnings telling Gentiles to keep out or else. Certainly, when Paul later says that in Christ, there is no Jew nor Gentile, male or female, slave or free, he has this situation in mind.

The “den of robbers” judgment is also often mischaracterized. Yeshua is quoting from Jer 7: “The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ² “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ ⁵ “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, ⁶ if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

⁸ “Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. ⁹ Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? ¹¹ Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord. ¹² Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel. ¹³ And now, because you have done all these things, declares the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, ¹⁴ therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.”

A den of robbers isn’t a place where robbers rob people, a den of robbers is the place that the robbers retreat to after they have committed their crimes. He has his fingers pointed directly at the High Priest and his cronies who He is calling crooks, and He is calling the Temple their hideout, the place where they hole up after bilking innocent people. And when He did this, He was saying that Yahweh would destroy this Temple just like He destroyed the Tabernacle/Temple hybrid building in Shiloh, which was administrated by Eli and his corrupt sons Hophni and Phineas, who were guilty of sexual sin with the women who would come to make sacrifices.

¹⁸ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 

It’s now become too much for the chief priests and scribes. This is the second incidence of two groups coming together in order to plot a way to destroy Yeshua. They know that He has judged and condemned them publicly and they are scared now. The crowds are eating it up, and if they move against Him, they fear the consequences. I doubt the crowds knew Jeremiah well enough to catch more than the general insult, but the scribes knew. The crowd would not take kindly to any threats against their beloved Temple but they did resent the wealth and power of the Sadducean temple hierarchy.

Speaking of that verse in Isaiah, the Gemara cites that Rabbi Yoḥanan said: Any priest who killed a person may not lift his hands in the Priestly Blessing as it is stated: “And when you spread forth your hands I will hide My eyes from you…your hands are full of blood.” Here we see that the Priestly Blessing, performed with hands spread forth, is not accepted when performed by priests whose “hands are full of blood.” (b. Ber 32a)

¹⁹ And when evening came they went out of the city.

So, they remained on the premises—probably Yeshua was teaching—until the Temple gates were closed. This is the end of the account of the second day. Presumably, they stayed in Bethany again.

²⁰ As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. 

Okay, so now we are on day three and they are coming from Bethany, back the same way they had come the morning before. And the fig tree that Yeshua had prophesied would never feed anyone ever again was destroyed. I can’t even imagine what that would look like. But if they can tell that even the roots are withered, it must be pretty extensively damaged, so that they can see that where there were once roots, there is now only a withered mess. Ever know anyone who denied Yeshua? I have seen this happen to human beings where they quickly become everything they were before salvation and worse because the Spirit is withdrawn from them and everything they believed they accomplished through their own virtue is gone. But because the Spirit is gone, they don’t see it. In the same way as the fig tree, the Temple will be torn down to the foundations in 70 CE and the stones toppled over the walls down into the city. Which is exactly where they found them, all around the Mount. Now, why did Yeshua choose a fig tree? Here are two verses, the first is comparing God’s people to prostitutes and the second is detailing judgment against the nations—so the stunning thing is, again, as it was hundreds of years previous to this, Yahweh is condemning the Jews of behaving like the nations, again. The Temple has become a political, financial and banking center—entirely worldly. A business enterprise for the benefit of one small group at the expense of the poor and the foreigners. It is no longer a place of peace and safety and prayer. Yeshua signed His own death warrant when He condemned it through His prophetic action.

And I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, of which she said, ‘These are my wages, which my lovers have given me.’ I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall devour them. (Ho 2:12)

All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll. All their host shall fall, as leaves fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree. (Is 34:4)

²¹ And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” 

We went over some verses about fig trees within the setting of judgment but the fig tree is also tied to the blessings of the Messianic age, of which the leadership obviously felt that they were worthy.

Micah 4:1-5 It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever.

Zech 3:8-10 Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign: behold, I will bring my servant the Branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, on a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the Lord of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. In that day, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.”

We’re going to handle this last section as a whole.

²² And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. ²³ Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. ²⁴ Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ²⁵ And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

So, those memes. Used to justify so much flesh in people who do not lament over turning tables but are on the lookout for opportunities. The disciples are in awe about the destruction of one lone fig tree but Yeshua has to catch them before they go too far in desiring to do such things and to pronounce judgment. They are told, first, to have faith in God (as opposed to faith in the Temple and the whole sacrificial system—because it will soon be gone). I believe He was pointing at the Temple Mount when He says this. He is talking about the judgment of a house of prayer that has become a worldly oppressive commercial system. This Temple will be cast down, and they should pray for just that, for an end to this wickedness, the evil of the family of Caiaphas and Annas. The evil will not go unpunished forever, and despite appearances (because it would take another forty years), judgment would come. However, and this is a big deal here, they are not to pray for judgment with hearts that are not correct before God. They can’t be wanting this judgment the way the genocide twins, John and James, wanted to destroy Samaria with fire and brimstone. They must want an end to wickedness, not revenge. This can’t be a petty thing or a show or force and power. Like Wilberforce and his compatriots going against slavery in England, who did it with pure hearts bent on destroying wickedness and not focused on destroying human beings.

When we pray for judgment, we must have clean hearts or we will become tyrants and we will do great evil. History is full of people who set out to become liberators but became enslavers. So much of what Yeshua does is preparation so that these kids will not become worse than the wickedness that they must condemn. It’s so easy to become self-righteous and to just begin virtue-signalling when wrongs need to be addressed in the right way. The Temple will be judged and destroyed. The priesthood will be demolished, for all intents and purposes, but don’t rejoice when it happens. Forgive and be there in the aftermath—not as a heckler but as a lifeline.