It wasn’t just commercial activity. Money changers were charging a fee to buy shekels which people could use to buy an animal to sacrifice at the temple. Jesus was mad because the idea of inserting yourself as a middleman to extort money from people seeking salvation was basically blasphemy.
Also lots of “well, you’re animal isn’t really pure enough. But you’re in luck because we happen to have a few High Priest Certifiedtm animals right over here. We’ll just take yours on trade and you can pay the difference!” (then resell the perfectly good sacrificial animal to the next poor pilgrim who comes along)
It wasn’t just commercial activity. Money changers were charging a fee to buy shekels which people could use to buy an animal to sacrifice at the temple. Jesus was mad because the idea of inserting yourself as a middleman to extort money from people seeking salvation was basically blasphemy.
Also lots of “well, you’re animal isn’t really pure enough. But you’re in luck because we happen to have a few High Priest Certifiedtm animals right over here. We’ll just take yours on trade and you can pay the difference!” (then resell the perfectly good sacrificial animal to the next poor pilgrim who comes along)