The leaders wanted proof that Jesus had the right to do what He had just done. They did not deny the charge or defend the trade. Gill observes that they did not "offer to vindicate their profanation of the temple" but "only demand a proof of his right to do it." Barnes explains their request as, in effect, "What miracle dost thou work?" Jesus had called the temple "my Father's house" (John 2:16), and Gill says they insisted on a miracle "to prove that God was his Father." Matthew Henry notes that, being Jews, "they should rather have stood by him" in defending the honor of the temple.

Jesus answered with a riddle: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). The leaders took Him literally and objected that the temple had been forty-six years in building (John 2:20). John explains, "But he spake of the temple of his body" (John 2:21). The sign Jesus offered was His own resurrection, and after He rose, "his disciples remembered that he had said this" and believed (John 2:22).

The Passover was at hand (John 2:13), and those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves, along with "the changers of money," were doing business in the temple itself (John 2:14). Gill says the demand came not from the traders, who had fled, but from "the chief priests and elders, the sanhedrim of the nation, who had the care and government of the temple." The Sanhedrin was the ruling Jewish council.

John uses two different Greek words for "temple." In John 2:14-15 it is hieron, which Thayer's lexicon explains as the whole temple and its courts. In John 2:19-21 it is naos, the sanctuary itself, where God dwelt. Jesus' answer pointed to the true dwelling place of God: His own body.

Jesus had acted out of zeal for His Father's house. His disciples remembered the words, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up" (John 2:17; Psalm 69:9). The leaders responded by asking for credentials. The same demand came again later: "By what authority doest thou these things?" (Matthew 21:23), a passage Gill connects with this one. Paul summed up the pattern: "the Jews require a sign" (1 Corinthians 1:22).

Jesus did give a sign, but not the kind they wanted on the spot. The greatest proof of His authority would be His death and resurrection. God's answer to their demand for a sign is the empty tomb.