Christ Expelling the Money Lenders

Albrecht Dürer · ca. 1508
The Met, New York

In Dürer’s Small Passion, a book of thirty-seven little woodcuts printed in Nuremberg in 1511, this scene follows the entry into Jerusalem, as in Matthew’s Gospel. Each block is only about 13 × 10 cm.

Jesus, seen from behind, swings a whip of cords over his head. A trader lies sprawled by an overturned table, others flee through a doorway, and at the left a man hurries off with a sheep.

From the text

A whip made of cords (John 2:15)

The tables of the money changers overturned (John 2:15; Matthew 21:12)

Sheep driven out of the temple courts (John 2:15)

The artist’s own

The temple drawn as a vaulted church, with a candle on the wall and a round window

Details

The whip

Jesus swings a whip of cords over his head.

A sheep

A man carries a sheep away.

Overturned

A trader lies on the floor beside his overturned table.

Candle

A candle burns on the wall.

Albrecht Dürer, German, 1471–1528. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Gift of Junius Spencer Morgan, 1919; acc. 19.73.177) · Woodcut · Public Domain — The Met Open Access (CC0). The Met Collection API record: "isPublicDomain": true; The Met marks such works on its website "with the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) icon".

The verses

John 2:13–16When the Jewish Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers seated at their tables. So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those selling doves He said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father’s house into a marketplace!”

Matt 21:12–13Then Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves. And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”