Psalms 69:9, “For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.”
John 2:17, “And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.”
I recall a story of a child who was terrified to walk into church. It was odd because he always liked going to church and sitting through the service. He kept muttering something about a giant seal. Apparently, he was the only one in the family who listened to the sermon the previous week where the theme was, “The zeal of the Lord had eaten me up.” We can laugh at the slight misunderstanding of the child, yet we end up creating dogma over a similarly slight misunderstand of Scripture.
For instance in verse 14 we read in the KJV “And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:” The word used in the Greek for selling is polountas which means to sell. However, in the Aramaic the same word is used for both buying and selling, it is the word zaman which comes from an ancient Persian word zrvan which means to redeem. Redemption could carry the idea of both selling and buying. In the Aramaic there is a point placed above the Beth which indicates that the word is to be rendered as selling, but if the point is placed under the Beth as it is in the Peshitta, the Aramaic text, it connotes buying. Hence these men were not selling oxen, sheep and doves, they were buying. I mean these old boys were true capitalist. I mean they turned God’s beloved temple, the place where he entered into intimacy with his beloved into a sort of commodities market where you buy low and sell high. The buyers knew that people traveling from long distances to the temple would not be able to bring their own sacrifices for the Passover so these capitalist were banking on the fact that in desperation to find a sacrifice they would be willing to pay any price to get a sacrifice and thus they would jack up the price. You know the old law of supply and demand. Except it the prices were unreasonable and if such a thing happened today the security and exchange commission would come down hard on these merchants. Not only was it illegal under Jewish law, but this illegality was being carried out right in the temple, the house of God where he carried on His intimacy with his bride. Jesus was just merely the S&C enforcer. There was nothing wrong with purchasing sacrifices on the temple grounds, it was the attitude of the heart that was important. The priest and Jesus had no objection to this as I am sure Jesus has no objection to purchasing Chaim Bentorah’s books in the lobby of a church after he conducts one of his conferences (I’m just saying, you know). It was the dishonesty, the scamming that Jesus objected to, the money changer illegally charging ten cents on a dollar to make a dishonest profit off the Passover by fleecing Jesus’s devoted sheep who wanted to really show their love to God by following the traditions and ended up having to pay an unreasonable amount of their income to do it.
Some say Jesus got angry and busted the place up. Perhaps, but I believe Jesus was just the police offer breaking up a gambling ring, He was just doing his job as any police bunko squad would do, doesn’t mean they are angry, just doing a job that they believe in. We consider the detectives and law enforcers who bust up a drug ring as heroes and that these men and women who risk their lives as having much zeal for a cause to protect others from the tragedy of illegal drugs. Zeal does not have to be interpreted as anger. In fact the Aramaic word for zeal is tanana which is the Aramaic equivalent to the Hebrew word used in Psalms 69:9 Qana’. Both words mean to be jealous. “The jealousy of the Lord has eaten me up.” In English the word jealousy has a negative connotation, but in the Semitic languages it can be both positive and negative. In the Semitic mind a man can be jealous of another man who is flirting with his girlfriend or wife because he wants to possess her for himself, a negative expression of jealous. However, he could feel that he can give this woman the love she really desires and that to settle for this other slob is to be taking second best. Our culture sort of bulks at this arrogance but in the Semitic mind it is not arrogance, it is just self-confidence. Thus, God’s qana’ or tanana (jealousy) is positive, God knows that when we settle for anything but Him, we are settling for second best and He wants us to have the best so he is quana’ or tanana, jealous of anything that stands in the way of His giving us the best.
What Jesus is saying, “Look, there will be no paparazzi at my wedding, you want to sell little bags of rice or bottles of bubbles to honor the bride, fine, but only sell at cost to regroup your purchase price. This is an event that is special to my bride and me (a house of prayer) and not a money making opportunity.
One final thing with regard to this jealousy of the Lord has eaten us up. The word eat is ekal in the Aramaic which is identical to the Hebrew word for eat. Some translations will render this, correctly, as consume which might have been a little less frightening to our young friend who mistook seal for zeal. I’d much rather be consumed by the Lord rather than eatened.
However, the disciples spoke a Northern dialect of Aramaic which was a descendant of the old Assyrian Akkadian language and still carried many of its idiomatic expression. For instance in translating a passage from the Akkadian I ran across the phrase, “I have come to heal your head.” Scholars have determined that this is an idiom meaning, “I have come to comfort you.” You see translating word of word is not enough, you need to understand the idioms as well. I have found in the ancient Akkadian or Assyrian language such phrases as “He has eaten wrath” which means “he is enraged.” Or there is the phrase used by the Assyrian soldier to his trusted servant as he leaves to go to war, “Eat the care of my family” which really means, “You are responsible for the wellbeing of my family while I am gone.” Hence when we hear the words, “The zeal of the Lord has eaten us up.” What he is saying to the mind of a Northern Galilean Jew or Semite is, “My jealous for those who seek to divert your attention or capitalize from our wedding day has given me the courage the tenacity to dismiss these unworthy suitors.”
There is a scene in Fiddler on the Roof where Tevye is giving his objections to the shy, submissive, nerdy Motel why he can’t marry his daughter. Suddenly Motel is filled with the zeal, the tanana for his beloved that he screams into the face of Tevye, “Even a poor tailor has a right to some happiness.” Tevye is taken aback by this shy, reserved fellow who cowers at his voice who now suddenly has taken on new boldness that he then back down. He realizes that if such a man feels such passion for his daughter, he must really love her.
So too if the God of the universe is anything but shy, submissive or nerdy and shows such tanana (jealous, passion) for us to consider our prayer time, out intimacy with Him to be so special and sacred that he will throw out the profiteers for cheapening his intimacy with His bride, then just how He must love us and long for that intimacy with us.
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