Matthew immediately turns to Jesus’s clearing the temple upon his arrival in Jerusalem (21:12–13). The selling of sacrificial animals was a necessary accommodation for pilgrims traveling long distances to Jerusalem for Passover (26:2), as was the changing of money from Greek and Roman currency (with their pagan images/inscriptions) to the prescribed temple currency of coins from Tyre in Phoenicia. Jesus’s complaint in his symbolic action is likely about the location of such transactions within the temple confines (probably the Cour…