<p>19:45 <i>And he entered into the temple- </i>This again was a conscious parody of Judaism&rsquo;s Messianic hopes. Their idea was that Messiah would enter Jerusalem in triumph against their Gentile enemies, and enter the temple. This was based upon their reading of Mal. 3:1: &ldquo;The Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to His temple&rdquo;. But the context of Malachi 3 required a positive response by Israel to the herald of Messiah, i.e. John the Baptist. And this had not been forthcoming. And the next verse goes on to suggest that this coming of Messiah will not be of much blessing to Israel- &ldquo;But who may abide the day of His coming i.e., &ldquo;to His temple&rdquo;? And who shall stand when He appears?&rdquo; (Mal. 3:2).</p><p>Mark&rsquo;s record appears to state that the Lord first entered the temple, looked around and walked out (Mk. 11:11) and the next day returned to cleanse the temple of traders. It could be that He cleansed the temple twice. Or it could be that this silent looking around and walking away, returning to Bethany, &lsquo;the house of the poor&rsquo;, was another intentional creation of an anti-climax. The Jews expected Him to do something dramatic- and He simply looked around in sadness and left for &lsquo;the house of the poor&rsquo;- to return and cast out the traders and thus make the performance of sacrifice impossible there.</p><p><i>And began to throw out those that were selling there</i>- A verb elsewhere used by the Lord about condemnation (Mt. 8:12;&nbsp;21:39; 22:13; 25:30). Instead of bringing salvation to Israel's temple, He entered it and condemned the orthodox, casting them out of God's house and forbidding them to enter it to carry things through it (Mk., Lk.). Instead of them, the Lord in their place welcomed children and the handicapped into God's house. Sacred space was a major concept in Judaism; the Lord's expulsion of the Orthodox from it and replacing them with those considered unworthy of entry was a highly significant thing to do.</p><p>The Lord had not long earlier described Sodom as the place where the wrong kind of buying and selling went on, and He had likened His generation to Sodom (Lk. 17:28). This, again, was hardly what the crowds expected to hear- a likening of their most sacred place to Sodom, and a prophecy of its destruction at the hands of the Gentiles. The Lord was thereby proclaiming the court of the Gentiles, where such trading was allowed to be conducted, as being as holy as the rest of the temple building. Note that in Matthew the Lord also expelled those who were&nbsp;<i>buying</i>&nbsp;the animals for sacrifice- ordinary Jews wanting to offer sacrifice. Sacrifices were therefore unavailable, because the Lord stopped the sale of them. This surely hinted at an ending of the Mosaic law in view of the Lord's upcoming sacrifice. This was all so much what the Jewish masses did&nbsp;<i>not</i>&nbsp;want to hear. There needed to be no more sale of animals for sacrifice; for the Lord was paying the price, and was the final sacrifice.</p>