'The Zeal of thine house hath eaten me up"

“And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.” ( John 2:17)

The English bible has quite a number of versions. The original bible manuscripts were written in, Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek. The King James Version was completed in 1611. No doubt King James Version has its place in terms of its prose rhythm and flowing language, its archaic words make it a challenge for young readers especially to understand the bible as English language has undergone rapid linguistic changes for the past 400 years.

David McCullough, an esteemed American historian, tells this story in his book (Morning On Horseback:The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life & the Unique Child Who Become Theodore Roosevelt) how King James Version had an unintended impact on a young child. When American President, Theodore Roosevelt was a young boy, his mother found that he was very afraid of entering into the Madison Square Church alone. She later discovered that he was afraid of something called the ‘zeal’ hiding in the dark corners of that church. He heard the pastor read it from the bible. Using a concordance, his mother found out the word is from John 2:17: “....The ZEAL of thine house hath eaten me up.”

The meaning of this verse is : that Jesus has the fervent love for God’s house which exhausted His spirit. This is the passage the disciples of Jesus remember after Jesus cleansed the temple by driving away men selling cattles, sheep, doves, and money changers from it. So by using the phrase ‘hath eaten me up” can have the unintended result!