And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.

People's New Testament

2:16 Make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. How often still the Father's house is so desecrated! This cleansing was a different one from that which occurred three years later at the close of his ministry (Mt 21:12).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. my Father's house-How close the resemblance of these remarkable words to Lu 2:49; the same consciousness of intrinsic relation to the temple-as the seat of His Father's most august worship, and so the symbol of all that is due to Him on earth-dictating both speeches. Only, when but a youth, with no authority, He was simply "a Son in His own house"; now He was "a Son over His own house" (Heb 3:6), the proper Representative, and in flesh "the Heir," of his Father's rights.

house of merchandise-There was nothing wrong in the merchandise; but to bring it, for their own and others' convenience, into that most sacred place, was a high-handed profanation which the eye of Jesus could not endure.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:12-22 The first public work in which we find Christ engaged, was driving from the temple the traders whom the covetous priests and rulers encouraged to make a market-place of its courts. Those now make God's house a house of merchandise, whose minds are filled with cares about worldly business when attending religious exercises, or who perform Divine offices for love of gain. Christ, having thus cleansed the temple, gave a sign to those who demanded it, to prove his authority for so doing. He foretells his death by the Jews' malice, Destroy ye this temple; I will permit you to destroy it. He foretells his resurrection by his own power; In three days I will raise it up. Christ took again his own life. Men mistake by understanding that according to the letter, which the Scripture speaks by way of figure. When Jesus was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered he has said this. It helps much in understanding the Divine word, to observe the fulfilling of the Scriptures.