Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey AND a colt (Mathew 21:7). There is a spiritual and natural reference here. An ass and its child. The LORD spoke to the defiant Balaam through a donkey. The spirit of death awaited him on his path. This time, the spirit of death awaits the King. And, the Child of God will receive no words to move him off the path.
Secondly, we see the warfare erupting:
He drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple.
He overturned the tables of the money changers.
and the seats of those who sold doves.
“It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, ‘but you have made it a den of thieves'”.
The dove is the Spirit.
Luke 3:22
And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
The dove was released at the flood. Similar to the very beginning where the Spirit hovered over the waters (Gen 1 1-3 :: 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was[a] on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.), the dove was released by Noah to fly over the waters once again. This time, it was seeking peace – peace between God and man and for the relief from the unrighteousness that prevailed up to the flood.
Genesis 7
8 He also sent out from himself a dove, to see if the waters had receded from the face of the ground. 9 But the dove found no resting place for the sole of her foot, and she returned into the ark to him, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her, and drew her into the ark to himself. 10 And he waited yet another seven days, and again he sent the dove out from the ark. 11 Then the dove came to him in the evening, and behold, a freshly plucked olive leaf was in her mouth; and Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. 12 So he waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, which did not return again to him anymore.
The Spirit of peace was upon the waters, hovering. It was an olive branch that was ultimately brought back. The olive branch signifies peace. It also foreshadows the Mount of Olives and pending death of the One (our Prince of Peace) who would be taken amongst the olive groves in Gesthemane.
And once again, we see that Jesus is warring against that which is unrighteous and comes against His holiness and divinity.
The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus wars against this in the temple of God. He throws them out. This is a spiritual foreshadowing of what the devil was and is trying to do to God’s house. He is trying to turn it into a money changing machine where the Spirit of God is sold for profit rather than a house of prayer.
Jesus will not stand for it, and neither shall we.
Bless God