#41.1 The Second Passover

#41.1 The Second Passover

Please first read: JST John 5:1-47

Note: This post, #41.1, will consider matters pertaining to the Second Passover itself. Jesus Healing on the Sabbath will be covered in post #41.2. 

  

President J. Reuben Clark Jr.:

“Jesus goes to Jerusalem to the Passover (the second of his ministry) goes on the Sabbath to the pool of Bethesda and heals there a man with an infirmity of thirty-eight years’ standing; Jesus slips away without before the man can tell who Jesus is; the man tells those asking who healed him that he does not know; later the man sees Jesus in the Temple and knows him as Jesus warns him to sin no more; the Jews seek to kill Jesus because he has healed on the Sabbath (this is the first record of a desire by the Jewish authorities to kill Jesus.) Jesus preaches to them, proclaiming his Sonship, for which they again seek his life; he says he does whatever the Father does; preaches knowing the Father and the Son; he declares his powers, but can do nothing of himself; he tells of John’s mission; he is greater than John; tells of work the Father has given him to do; explains relationship of the Father and himself; tells how they will be accused.”

John is the only gospel writer that tells of these six events. (John 5) As Elder Clark also points out, it is the first record we have of Jewish leaders desiring to kill Jesus. As their nation is now captive to Rome they can only execute someone with the approval of the Roman authorities.

Every one of the following six topics resulted in immediate hostility and objection from virtually all phases of Jewish leadership. 

·         John 5:1-16: Jesus Heals a Man on the Sabbath.

·         John 5:17-24: Men Must Honor the Son, unto whom the Father has given equal power.

·         John 5:25: Jesus Promises to Take the Gospel to the Dead.

·         John 5:26-30: All Will Be Resurrected, Judged, and Assigned Their Glory By the Son, Jesus, the Messiah.

·         John 5:31-38: Jesus Obeys the Divine Law of Witnesses required by Jewish Law.

·         John 5:39-47: Search the Scriptures For They Testify of Jesus as the Messiah

The Passover

The following excerpt is from Smith’s Bible Dictionary:

Passover, the first of the three great annual festivals of the Israelites, celebrated in the month of Nisan (March-April.) Strictly speaking the Passover only applied to the paschal supper, and the feast of unleavened bread followed thereafter. This feast was instituted by God to commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage and the sparing of their first-born when the destroying angel smote the first-born of the Egyptians. The deliverance from Egypt was regarded as the starting-point of the Hebrew nation. The Israelites were then raised from the condition of bondmen under a foreign tyrant to that of a free people owing allegiance to no one but Jehovah. The prophet in a later age spoke of the event as a creation and a redemption of the nation. God declares himself to be the “Creator of Israel.” The Exodus was thus looked upon as the birth of the nation; the Passover was its annual birthday feast. It was the yearly memorial of the dedication of the people to him who had saved their first-born from the destroyer, in order that they might be made holy to Himself.

The first celebration of the Passover: On the tenth day of the month the head of each family was to select from the flock either a lamb or a kid, a male of the first year, without blemish. The lamb was then roasted whole. Unleavened bread and bitter herbs were to be eaten with the flesh. Everyone was to have his loins girt, to hold a staff in his hand, and to have shoes on his feet. They were to eat in haste and, it would seem, to stand during the meal. At midnight the first-born of the Egyptians were smitten. The king and his people were now urgent that the Israelites should start immediately, and readily bestowed on them supplies for the journey. In haste did the Israelites depart on that very day.

Ausubel:

  

The most beloved of all Jewish holy days is the festival of Passover. Symbolically, it represents a cherished traditional Jewish value … a love of freedom. The memory of the Bondage of Egypt, although it occurred at least thirty-two centuries ago, has continued to rankle in the consciousness of the Jew. In reality he has never considered … except for the Golden Age of his people’s greatness in the land of Israel … that the Bondage ever came to an end. This idea is touchingly projected in the Aramaic prayer at the Seder (the home-service that opens the celebration of the Passover,) “Behold! This is as the bread of affliction that our fathers ate in the land of Egypt … Now we are slaves … may we be free men in the year to come.” And so it has been a firm tradition since the days of the Mishnah Sages (200 BC) after the destruction of the Second Temple, that Jewish families throughout the world gather for the performance of the Seder home-service at Passover time. It is to be eaten in haste, with “loins girded” and staff in hand, as the Israelites themselves had been when they departed from Egypt.

Geike:

Advance preparations were very demanding, beyond meticulous in every detail. A few examples:

·         Specific lines of travel.

·         Whitewashed headstones.

·         Removal of unclean plants in certain fields.

·         Special services in the temple and synagogues on preceding Sabbath.

·         Meal only male lambs or goats without blemish.

·         Every particle of leaven removed from house.

·         Purification of all vessels used in the feast.

·         Personal purification rites.

·         Detailed preparation of water and flour used in the feast.

Apostle James E. Talmage:

The usual attendance at the temple celebration in the days of Jesus was undoubtedly enormous. It was, in fact, the great yearly fair of Jerusalem, and the crowds added to the din and tumult, till the services in the neighboring courts were sadly disturbed.  Persons going across the city with all kinds of burdens, shortened their journey by crossing the temple grounds. The temple courts were a witness that the temple, which should be a House of Prayer for all nations, had been degraded into a place which, for foulness, was more like shambles, and for bustling commerce more like a densely-crowded bazaar; while the lowing of oxen, the bleating of sheep, the Babel of many languages, the huckstering and wrangling, and the clinking of money and of balances, might be heard in the adjoining courts, disturbing the chant of the Levites and the prayers of priests.      

                                                                                                                                          

Further defilement of the temple courts occurred by traffickers acting under the priestly license.

The sale of the doves was, secretly, in the hands of the priests themselves. Hannas, the high priest, especially, gained great profits from his dove cotes. Five per cent exchange was charged to obtain money that was acceptable for payment to the temple, but this was increased by tricks and chicanery, for which the class had everywhere earned so bad a name that like the publicans, their witness would not be taken before a court.

Glenn R. McGettigan

September 2015 

References:

“Our Lord of the Gospels.” Clark 

“Smith’s Bible Dictionary.”   

“Book of Jewish Knowledge.” Ausubel

“Jesus the Christ.” Talmage

“The Life and Words of Christ.” Geike 

#23 The First Passover; Cleansing of the Temple

#23 The First Passover; Cleansing of the Temple

Please first read: John 2:13-25

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:  

“Passover: To commemorate Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the Lord commanded his people to keep the feast of the Passover, a celebration pointing particularly to the fact that the angel of destruction passed over the homes of the faithful sons of Jacob, when the first-born in all the families of Egypt were slain.

“It was during the week of this feast, some 1500 years after the exodus, that our Lord was crucified. Just before his betrayal he had partaken of the feast with his disciples, using it as the occasion to introduce the ordinance of the sacrament to the church. (Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22.)

“Keeping of the Passover with its sacrifices and unleavened bread, ended (except among apostate peoples) with the sacrifice of “Christ our Passover.” The saints were to keep the feast only in a spiritual sense.”

Apostle Bruce R. McConkie:

 “As Jesus entered the outer courts of the temple, during the first Passover of his ministry. He beheld what he was to call three years later on a similar occasion, “a den of thieves.” (John 2:13-17; see also Mark 11:15-19 and Matthew 21:13.) Before him were stalls of oxen, pens of sheep, cages of doves and pigeons, with greedy hucksters offering them at exorbitant prices for sacrificial purposes. Crowded on every hand were the tables of the money-changers who, for a profit, changed the Roman and other coins into temple coins so that sacrificial animals could be purchased, and the half shekel poll tax required at this season of the year might be paid. In righteous anger and with physical force he drove the apostate priesthood from their unhallowed merchandising enterprises.”

This dramatic episode in the life of our Lord has been preserved to bear record:

1.      That our Lord was a man of action, dynamic, of courage and physical strength, zealous in the cause of righteousness

2.      That God was his Father

3.      That the temple was still his Father’s house, although filled with apostate people

“Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up …”  (John 2:18-22.) On this and other occasions Jesus taught his own resurrection, and though disbelieving, the Jews knew what he was teaching and understood the meaning of the figurative expressions he used.”  “Only after the resurrection did the full and complete meaning of Jesus’ announcement of his coming resurrection dawn upon his disciples.

“He knew all things,” (I.V.  John 2:23-24) During his mortal life our Lord progressed from grace to grace and from truth to truth until after a glorious resurrection he gained all knowledge and all truth. However, in the course of his mortal probation he knew all things in the sense that having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and revelation all knowledge was constantly available to him.

Apostle James E. Talmage:

Thirty Years of Age: The law provided that at the age of thirty years the Levites were required to enter upon their special service. Jesus was not of Levitical descent but to have taught in public at an earlier age would have been to arouse criticism and objection, which might have resulted in serious handicap or hindrance at the outset.

Attendance: At Passover was undoubtedly enormous. Estimates range from one to three million.   The number of lambs slain was counted for Nero to estimate the strength of the Jewish people … that number one time was 256,000 which would be a lot of meals.  

Cunningham Geike:

“The streets were blocked by the crowds from all parts who had to make their way to the Temple, past flocks of sheep, and droves of cattle, pressing on in the sunken middle part of each street reserved for them, to prevent contact and defilement. It was, in fact, the great yearly fair at Jerusalem, and the crowds added to the din and tumult, till the services in the neighboring courts were sadly disturbed. Persons going across the city with all kinds of burdens, shortened their journey by crossing the Temple grounds.”

The Jews professed high regard for the temple. We might ask the question, why did no one intervene … public, worshipers, temple officials, Roman authorities when Jesus became a one-man wrecking crew, overthrowing the money changers tables and booths, freeing and chasing the sacrificial animals from their pens? When he castigated all there for desecrating the temple?    Elder Talmage explained, “Because sin is a weakness; because there is nothing so abject as a guilty conscience, nothing so invincible as the sweeping tide of a Godlike indignation against all that is base and wrong.”

Richard Holzapfel and Thomas Wayment:

Jesus began his teaching ministry at Passover time in Jerusalem. It would have been a very public and audacious start as he physically drove the animal vendors and money changers from the temple courts, exclaiming “Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.”

The Sadducees controlled the activities at the temple, not the Pharisees … They would have been the ones challenging Jesus, not the Pharisees. Interesting, in that the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, and the Pharisees did! When Jesus tells them, he will raise “this temple” in three days the Sadducees did not understand to what he was referring.

The BYU Course Manual entitled “The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles,” (1978) teaches the following about the Feast of the Passover; a feast that designed to bring two things to their remembrance:

 

1.      That the angel of death passed over the houses and flocks of Israel, while slaying the firstborn among the men and beast of the Egyptians.  

2.      That Jehovah was their Deliverer, the same holy being who would come into the world as King-Messiah to work out the infinite and eternal atonement.

  

Raymond E. Brown:

“Since the Jewish Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple precincts he came upon people engaged in selling oxen, sheep, and doves, and others seated, changing coins.  So he made a kind of whip out of cords and drove the whole pack of them out of the temple area with their sheep and oxen, and he knocked over the money-changers’ tables, spilling their coins.  He told those who were selling doves, ‘Get them out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market place!’ His disciples recalled the words of Scripture: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’

At this the Jews responded, ‘What sign can you show us, authorizing you to do these things?’  ‘Destroy this Temple,’ was Jesus’ answer, ‘and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews retorted, ‘The building of this Temple has taken forty-six years, and you are going to raise it up in three days?’ Actually, he was talking about the temple of his body. Now after his resurrection from the dead his disciples recalled that he had said this, and so they believed the Scripture and the word he had spoken.”

“Whip out of cords:” no sticks or clubs were allowed on the temple grounds. Jesus may have used animal bedding or vegetation brought in for the animal’s food, etc.

Money concessions and marketing activities in and around the temple were tightly controlled by the Sadducees, the family and office of High Priest, and other temple authorities. They had a monopoly and it was highly profitable. This was widely known by the public and was a source of contention for them.

Alfred Edersheim:

The money-changers set up booths in many towns and villages a month before Passover to accommodate the many who had to pay the annual temple tribute of ½ shekel. Only Jewish money could be used and there were many different nationalities of money in circulation in Jerusalem, Persian, Syrian, Egyptian, Grecian, Tyrian, Roman. Many of these coins had heathen inscriptions and symbols on them. Shortly before the start of Passover, booths in outlying areas were closed and all such activity reverted to the temple grounds.

The time of Passover had become a huge financial activity, a time of buying and selling, of haggling over prices, worthiness of animals, costs of purification, charging of fees, price gouging, etc.

Frederic W. Farrar:

The Jewish Feast of Passover had become the capstone of all celebrations in Israel. Vast crowds came from many lands and nations. Many merchants, family members visiting, much buying and selling and negotiating of contracts, etc. The number of people and the atmosphere for many was that of a huge haggling bazaar. Over time this encroached more and more toward the temple until it had now invaded the grounds and the temple proper.  Herds of sheep and oxen, and tables of money changers now occupied the Court of the Gentiles, through which was the entrance to the Temple of the Most High, and to the House of Prayer.

Glenn R. McGettigan

January 2014; Revised March 2014  

References:

“Mormon Doctrine.” McConkie

“Doctrinal New Testament Commentary.” Volume 1. McConkie

“Jesus The Christ.” Talmage

“Life and Words of Christ.” Geike

“The Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ.” Volume 1. Holzapfel and Wayment

“The Gospel According to John I-XII; A New Translation From Ancient Texts.” Brown

“The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah.” Edersheim

“The Life of Christ.” Farrar