Ezekiel 36:29

36:29 I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and multiply it; I will not bring a famine on you.

Matthew 21:12-13

Cleansing the Temple

21:12 Then ¹  Jesus entered the temple area ²  and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the temple courts, ³  and turned over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves. 21:13 And he said to them, “It is written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ ⁴  but you are turning it into a den ⁵  of robbers!” ⁶ 

Matthew 23:27

23:27 “Woe to you, experts in the law ⁷  and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. ⁸ 

[21:12]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the narrative.

[21:12]  ² tn Grk “the temple.”

[21:12]  ³ tn Grk “the temple.”

[21:13]  ⁴ sn A quotation from Isa 56:7.

[21:13]  ⁵ tn Or “a hideout” (see L&N 1.57).

[21:13]  ⁶ sn A quotation from Jer 7:11. The meaning of Jesus’ statement about making the temple courts a den of robbers probably operates here at two levels. Not only were the religious leaders robbing the people financially, but because of this they had also robbed them spiritually by stealing from them the opportunity to come to know God genuinely. It is possible that these merchants had recently been moved to this location for convenience.

[23:27]  ⁷ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:27]  ⁸ sn This was an idiom for hypocrisy – just as the wall was painted on the outside but something different on the inside, so this person was not what he appeared or pretended to be (for discussion of a similar metaphor, see L&N 88.234; BDAG 1010 s.v. τοῖχος). See Deut 28:22; Ezek 13:10-16; Acts 23:3.