Template:Treasury
The temples of ancient cultures were often the treasury of those governments. Even the golden calf of Israel was the reserve fund of the treasury of a government they were trying to create to bind the people together.
The "Aerarium Stabulum" or treasure-house was the public treasury in Rome.
Jesus watched how the people woud put money in the treasury within the stone temple of Herod the Great.
- Mark 12:41 ¶ And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. 42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. 43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: 44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.
The same word for treasury[1] is seen in Luke and in John:
- John 8:20 “These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.”
Jesus had been hailed as King by the people, gave instruction in the royal treasury, issued orders in the government temple,[2] and fired personnel. In 78 BC, the Pharisees had an ordinance[3] passed into law requiring the temple tax be paid, or the matter was handed over to the appointed civil magistrates of Judea for enforcement. The Greek word for “moneychangers” was kollubistes[4],which was a word for a small coin or “clipped amount”. Kollubistes had to do with the commission charged by the holders of these lucrative offices of the government.
These commissioned moneychangers were likely to bring in an amount in excess of 7,600,000 denarii in that one month. They were allowed to charge a silver meah, or about one-fourth of a denar. Their cut on this one event could be 950,000 denarii, worth more than $9,000,000 today. “Thus the immense offerings … to the Temple passed through the hands of the moneychangers.”[5]
Only the king could fire these gatekeepers of the temple treasury,[6] and that is exactly what Jesus was doing with His string whip[7], turning over those tables.[8] Understanding who the money-changers were as government officials, and what it meant to be fired from their lucrative commissioned position in the national treasury, brings the motivation of crucifying Jesus into a new and revealing light.
- Luke 21:1 And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury <1049>.
- ↑ The word treasury is gazofulakion or gazophulakion 1) “a repository of treasure, especially of public treasure, a treasury” or “guarded vault or chamber.”
- ↑ Mark 11:16 “And would not suffer that any man should carry [any] vessel through the temple.”
- ↑ Salome- Alexandra (about 78 BC), that the Pharisaical party, being then in power, had carried an enactment by which the Temple tribute was to be enforced at law. Alfred Edersheim’s book The Temple.
- ↑ "kollubistes, (i.q. a. a small coin, cf. Clipped; b. rate of exchange, premium), a money-changer, banker: Mt.xxi. 12; Mk. Xi. 15; Jn.ii. 15." Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, page 353.
- ↑ New Unger’s Bible Dictionary
- ↑ 1 Chr. 9:22 “All these [which were] chosen to be porters in the gates [were] two hundred and twelve. These were reckoned by their genealogy in their villages, whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their set office.”
- ↑ “All these [which were] chosen to be porters in the gates [were] two hundred and twelve. These were reckoned by their genealogy in their villages, whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their set office.” 1 Chronicles 9:22
- ↑ 5132 trapeza trapeza AV-table 13, bank 1, meat 1; 15 1) a table. Trapeza is the Greek word for bank and is translated bank in Luke 19:23.