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Whit -
Jesus' anger and vitrolic language was reserved for two classes of people. The first are those who claimed to be religious teachers, and yet perverted the nature of their teaching in order to gain prestige, money, glory for themselves. These were the Pharisees and Sadduccees that keep making cameos in the biblical texts.
The second class of people are those who know the truth, or who ought to know it based on experience and learning, and yet act contrary to it. This would be the category that Israel falls into - they knew the faithfulness of God to carry out his covenant promises, yet they acted as if his words were not true. In these cases, the anger and frustration of Jesus is coupled with a sense of mourning.
kat - the temple thing actually has a bit more backstory than just the "no money in the temple" angle. The authority over the 2nd temple (The one in existence in Jesus time) had set up these tables, animal stalls, money changers, etc. in the outer court, where non-jews of all nationalities were supposed to come and worship Yahweh. The reference that Jesus makes in clearing out the temple is the the Old Covenant command that God's house should be a house of prayer for all people, of all nations. With the stalls and moneychangers crammed into the outer court, there was no place for this to happen. It was a statement against corrupting the worship at the temple, but it was also a statement against the Jews keeping the gentiles out of the place that was properly their's for the worship of Yahweh.
-sm
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