Mark 11:16

The vessels here spoken of as not allowed to be carried through the temple, were not any belonging to the temple, but only such as were brought by those who were buying and selling. Origen asserts, that our Saviour’s driving so many thousands out of the temple, poor and humble as he appeared, was a more astonishing miracle than even his giving sight to the blind. So divine an effulgency flashed from his eyes and whole countenance, as affected every beholder with astonishment and awful terror. (Origen in Dionysius) — If Christ could not bear to see his Father’s house profaned, even with those things which in another place were not unbecoming, how indignant must he be to see the temple of God defiled with blasphemous and heretical doctrines, and with that levity and inattention observed in thoughtless giddy Christians, who thus scandalize and pervert his devoted children. (Haydock)

2. He would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel, any sort of goods or wares, through the temple, or any of the courts of it, because it was the nearer way, and would save them the labour of going about, v. 16. The Jews owned that it was one of the instances of honour due to the temple, not to make the mountain of the house, or the court of the Gentiles, a road, or common passage, or to come into it with any bundle.

Verses 12-18 Christ looked to find some fruit, for the time of gathering figs, though it was near, was not yet come; but he found none. He made this fig-tree an example, not to the trees, but to the men of that generation. It was a figure of the doom upon the Jewish church, to which he came seeking fruit, but found none. Christ went to the temple, and began to reform the abuses in its courts, to show that when the Redeemer came to Zion, it was to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The scribes and the chief priests sought, not how they might make their peace with him, but how they might destroy him. A desperate attempt, which they could not but fear was fighting against God.