Reference: Money-changers
Hastings
How indispensable were the services of the 'money-changers' (Mt 21:12; Mr 11:15), 'changers of money' (Joh 2:14), 'changers' (Joh 2:15), and 'exchangers' (Mt 25:27 AV, RV 'bankers') in the first century of our era in Palestine may be seen from the summary of the varied currencies of the period in the preceding article (
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Morish
These were persons who supplied those who came from a distance to Jerusalem, to pay the regular tax to the temple, with a half-shekel, in exchange for any money they might possess. The Lord's language to such, when He drove them out of the temple, seems to imply that they took unfair advantage in the exchanges. Mt 21:12; Mr 11:15.
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Watsons
MONEY-CHANGERS, in the Gospels, were persons who exchanged native for foreign coin, to enable those who came to Jerusalem from distant countries to purchase the necessary sacrifices. In our Lord's time they had established themselves in the court of the temple; a profanation which had probably grown up with the influence of Roman manners, which allowed the argentarii [money-dealers] to establish their usurious mensas, tables, by the statues of the gods, even at the feet of Janus, in the most holy places, in porticibus Basilicarum, or in the temples, pone aedem Castoris. The following extract from Buckingham's Travels among the Arabs, is illustrative: