ANIMAL SACRIFICES WERE IMPORTANT TO JERUSALEM’S ECONOMY
One reason animal sacrifices were so important to Israel is found in the fact that they fueled Jerusalem’s economy. Because the temple was the only place where sacrifices were to be made, all Jews who made sacrifices came to Jerusalem to make their sacrifices. This temple activity was very big business. All this Commercial Religion was the reason that Jesus drove out the Money-Changers in the Temple.

While Jesus’ encounter with the money changers was a real event, we must not look at it only as history. Symbolically, it prophetically anticipates the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. More than that, it anticipates the destruction of the obsolete Old/First Covenant religious system based on the literal law of Moses to make way for the better New Covenant which is made according to better promises.