Another Johannine Double Entendre?

Zeal of God's House

John 2 - John’s Temple Incident

¹³ The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵ Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’ ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ ¹⁸ The Jews then said to him, ‘What sign can you show us for doing this?’ ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ ²⁰ The Jews then said, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?’ ²¹ But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Oft-Noted Distinctives

It’s common to recognize the ways in which John’s narrative is different from what the Synoptic Gospels say. I’ll remind you without over-explaining. Previously, I’ve written at length about the “So-called 'violence' of Jesus in the so-called 'cleansing of the temple’” and the significance of “Pussy Riot and the Temple Incident.” But for now, a few points:

• John places the Temple Incident early in his notoriously non-chronological narrative (chapter 2) while the Synoptics record it in direction with Palm Sunday, just five days before Jesus’ crucifixion. No, it’s not two separate incidents.

• John sees the Temple Incident as a prophetic sign of Jesus’ death and resurrection, while the Synoptics overtly see it as a Jeremiah-style prophetic act of the fall of Jerusalem and actual destruction of the Temple.

• John is the only Gospel to mention Jesus fashioning a whip to drive out the animals. No, he doesn’t use it on people, nor does he harm the animals. He stampedes them. Violence does harm. There’s no violence. But there is drama.

Zeal for Your House: An Overlooked Double Entendre?

In John’s Gospel, he tells us that his disciples will reflect later, remember, and begin to connect the dots between the Hebrew Scriptures, the immediate words and acts of Jesus, and their fulfillment in his death and resurrection.

On the face of it, the reference to Psalm 69, “zeal for your house will consume me,” appears to describe Jesus’ zeal for his Father’s house. The most straightforward reading is that Jesus’ dramatic actions demonstrate his fervent loyalty to the purposes of his Father’s house (that it be “a house of prayer for all nations”- Isaiah 56:7) and that he is incensed that they “have made it a den of thieves” (Jeremiah 7:11). In his zeal, Christ therefore arrives to cleanse the Temple (Malachi 3:1-3).

I think that’s right. BUT… zeal also makes me nervous. Isaac of Syria recommended against it. Sure, Jesus could manage zeal without fanaticism. The rest of us, though? Religious zeal can be deadly… and what if that’s also John’s point?

Remember the Apostle John’s penchant for double meanings! I wonder if his use of Psalm 69 is another. The initial context is from a hymn dedicated (in the superscription) “unto the telos” (LXX), always a signpost for Messianic clues. Here are the relevant stanzas:

⁷ It is for your sake that I have borne reproach,
that shame has covered my face.
⁸ I have become a stranger to my kindred,
an alien to my mother’s children.

⁹ It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;
the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

If we examine the lines leading up to the cited phrase in the line following, what do we see?

• “For your sake” and “for your house,” something happens. What? The messianic figure bears reproach, suffers shame, becomes a stranger to his kin, alien even to his siblings, for the sake of God and is ‘house’ [Temple].

And if we attend to the Hebrew parallelism in the line following? We remember that Hebrew poetry often runs in parallel lines where the second line often defines, clarifies, or expands on the first. Like when we write, “That is,…” Thus,

• “It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;

  [that is,] the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.”

In other words, the subject of BOTH lines is the Messiah’s opponents and their actions, and the object of each line is the One who is consumed and insulted. Asked another way, who consumes him? Those who insult him. What consumes and falls on him? Their zeal and their insults.

If so, is John employing the reference in this way? Is he highlighting how the Temple incident is (a) an activating event that (b) incites the Judean establishment, (c) leading inexorably toward “his hour” (his crucifixion/glorification - 2:4, 11)?

Could be. With John, I wouldn’t bet against a both/and, knowing how he weaves ironies and double entendres together.

What say you?