Children Singing in the Temple

“From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise.” — Matthew 21:16

When Jesus came into Jerusalem, He went to the temple, the great house of God.

But the temple courts didn’t look like a place for praying. They looked like a noisy market. People were buying and selling animals for sacrifices. Money changers sat at tables, swapping people’s money for the special coins used in the temple, and often cheating them. There was shouting and bargaining everywhere.

Jesus drove out everyone who was buying and selling. He turned over the tables of the money changers and the seats of the people selling doves.

“It is written,” said Jesus, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it a den of robbers!”

Then something beautiful happened. Blind people and people who couldn’t walk came to Jesus in the temple. And He healed them.

And children were running about in the temple courts, shouting the same thing the crowds had shouted the day before: “Hosanna to the Son of David!”

But the chief priests and teachers of the law were furious. They saw the wonderful things Jesus was doing, and they heard the children praising Him, and they were angry.

“Do You hear what these children are saying?” they asked Jesus.

“Yes,” Jesus answered. “Haven’t you ever read, ‘From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise’?”

The important religious leaders didn’t praise Jesus. But the children did! The children could see what the grown-ups couldn’t. And Jesus was glad to hear them.

Your praise matters to Jesus. You don’t have to be a grown-up, or important, or clever, to praise Him. God loves to hear children praise Him.

But the chief priests and teachers of the law began looking for a way to kill Jesus. They were afraid of Him, because the whole crowd was amazed at His teaching. Every day that week Jesus taught in the temple, and every night He went out of the city to stay in Bethany.

The promise kept: Jesus answered the chief priests with words from Psalm 8: “From the mouths of children and infants You have ordained praise” (Matthew 21:16). And He called the temple a house of prayer, as God had said through Isaiah (Isaiah 56:7).

Read it in your Bible: Matthew 21:12–17

Dear Jesus, thank you that you love to hear children praise you. Hosanna to the Son of David! Please help me to praise you with my whole heart. Amen.