Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 23:11

For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.

11. in my house have I found their wickedness ] Cp. Jer 6:13, and see 2Ki 21:5; 2Ki 23:12.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

For both prophet and priest are profane – While by their office they are consecrated to God, they have made themselves common and unholy by their sins. See Jer 3:9 note.

Yea, in my house – This may refer to sins such as those of the sons of Eli 1Sa 2:22, or that they had defiled the temple by idolatrous rites.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 11. In my house] They had even introduced idolatry into the Temple of God!

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Those whose work was to reveal the mind of God to the people, and who pretended to that office; and those that were employed in offering sacrifices, and other works which belonged to the priestly office, according to the law; the whole ecclesiastical order, all their ministry, were

profane; not merely hypocritical, but lewd, immoral, and debauched. Yea, they were grown to that impudence, that they made the temple, which was the Lords house, a den of thieves, a place where they committed

wickedness. Thus it was in the time of Eli, 1Sa 2:22, and more generally afterward, 2Ch 36:14. See Jer 7:10,11, and Jer 23:14 of this chapter. There is no more certain sign of a ruining nation, than when God suffereth in it a lewd and corrupt ministry.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

11. profane (Eze 23:39;Zep 3:4).

in my house (Jer7:30). They built altars to idols in the very temple (2Ki 23:12;Eze 8:3-16). Compare as tocovetousness under the roof of the sanctuary, Mat 21:13;Joh 2:16.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

For both prophet and priest are profane,…. Being guilty of the afore mentioned sins. The Targum is,

“the scribe and the priest;”

and such were the scribes and priests in the time of our Lord; they played “the hypocrite” q, as some render the word here; and are often charged with the sin of hypocrisy, and called hypocrites,

Mt 22:18;

yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the Lord; where they officiated in holy things, or should have done so; where the one should have instructed the people, and the other offered sacrifices for them, according to the will of God; there they committed wickedness, which was an aggravation of their sin, as was the case of Eli’s sons, 1Sa 2:22; perhaps the same sin was committed by these men; or idolatry may be meant; setting up images, and building altars for them in the house of God; see Jer 7:30; or carrying on traffic and merchandise, whereby the temple was made a house of merchandise, as it was in the times of Christ, Joh 2:14.

q “hypocritae fuerunt”, Vatablus, Montanus; “hypocritas agunt”, Piscator; “hypocrisin exercent”, Schmidt, Cocceius.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

He adds here that it ought not to appear strange that the prophets were silent when they ought to have loudly cried out, because they were guilty themselves: and whence can freedom of speech come except from a good conscience? Hypocrites, who indulge themselves, are indeed often severe against others, and even more than necessary; but no one can dare honestly to cry out against wickedness, but he who is innocent. For he who condemns others seems to make a law for himself, according to what a heathen writer has said, (Cicero in Salustium.) Then the Prophet here shews to us why the prophets were not only idle, but were even like stocks and stones; for in speaking against wickedness, it was necessary for them in the first place to amend themselves; for their lives were wholly dissolute. As then they were of all the most wicked, they could not boldly cry out against others; and hence the Prophet condemns them, because their own impiety prevented them to perform their own duty.

It is, indeed, possible for one to live soberly, honestly, and justly, and yet to connive at the wickedness of others; but the Prophet here condemns the prophets and priests on two accounts, — for being mute, and for not undertaking God’s cause when they saw the land polluted with all kinds of defilements; and he then shews the fountain of this evil, that is, the cause why they were idle and wholly indifferent, and that was, because they dared not say a word against those crimes of which they were themselves guilty, yea, with which they were more loaded than even the common people. We now perceive the Prophet’s object in saying that both the priests and the prophets had acted impiously; (90) it was to shew, that their contempt of God, for which they were notorious, and also their wickedness, had taken away from them all power and freedom in acting.

It is added, Even in my house have I found their wickedness He enhances what he had said of their impiety; for they were not only infamous and wicked in common life, as to the duties of the Second Table; but they also corrupted the whole service of God, and the true Prophets were derided by them. For what was found to be the priests’ wickedness in the Temple, except that they practiced a sort of merchandise under the cover of the priesthood? and then the prophets vitiated and adulterated God’s worship; and what was religion to them but the means of filthy lucre or gain? When, therefore, the prophets thus trod under foot the service of God, corrupted and perverted the Law to make gain or to acquire power, their impiety was not only seen in the habits of daily life, but also in the very Temple of God, that is, with regard to the sacerdotal office.

Now, since this is true as to what took place under the Law, there is no wonder that such a base example is to be seen in the present day. And hence also is discovered the folly of the Papists, who think that they ingeniously evade every objection as to the crimes of the Pope and his filthy clergy, by saying that the Pope indeed may be wicked, as almost all of them have been, and that the same thing may be said of their mitred bishops; but that the Pope, as a Pope, cannot err, and that the bishops, as bishops, that is, in their government and office, are ruled by the Holy Spirit, because they represent the Church. But are they better than these ancient priests, whom God himself had expressly appointed, and to whom he commanded obedience to be rendered by the whole people? But the Prophet not only says here that they were wicked, that they acted impiously and wickedly towards their neighbors, that they committed plunders and robberies, that they were given to violence and rapacity, that they abandoned themselves to adultery and to every other crime; but he says also, that their wickedness was found in the very Temple, that is, in the very sacred office itself; for not only was their life wicked, but they also impiously and perfidiously corrupted the doctrine of God and subverted his worship.

(90) This verb is used three times in Jer 3:1, and 9, and in every instance in the sense of defiling the land with adultery, and in the two last verses, with spiritual adultery — idolatry. It is rendered here passively by the Sept. and the Vulg., “have become defiled;” but it is most commonly used in a transitive sense; and so Jun. and Trem. render it here, and consider it, the land, as understood after it; and this is most consistent with the context, —

For both prophet and priest have defiled it: Also in my house have I found Their wickedness, saith Jehovah.

The “house” of God is here put in contrast with the land or the country; and in Jer 23:15, it is expressly said that from Jerusalem pollution had gone forth throughout all the land. Idolatry is evidently what is meant throughout this passage, from verse 9 to 15 (Jer 23:9). Calvin as to this verb has followed the Syriac version. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(11) In my house have I found their wickedness.Prophet and priest are joined, as before (Jer. 5:31; Jer. 6:13; Jer. 8:10), as playing into each others hands. It seems probable, from Jer. 32:34, that the sins of Ahaz and Manasseh had been repeated under Jehoiakim, and that the worship of other gods had been carried on side by side with that of Jehovah. With this, almost as its natural accompaniment, there may have been sins of another kindshameless greed or yet more shameless profligacylike those of the sons of Eli (1Sa. 2:22).

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

11. Both prophet and priest are profane Instead of being specially holy, they are specially wicked. Even into the very temple covetousness and impurity had come. See 2Ki 23:12; Eze 23:39; Zep 3:4.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Jer 23:11 For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in my house have I found their wickedness, saith the LORD.

Ver. 11. For both prophet and priest are profane. ] What wonder, therefore, that the people were so? I have read of a woman, who, living in professed doubt of the Godhead, after better illumination and repentance, did often protest that the vicious life of a great scholar in that town did conjure up those damnable doubts ia her soul. a And of another, that he desired a profane preacher to point him out a nearer way to heaven than that he had taught in his sermons, for he went not that way himself. Our Saviour foretelleth Mat 24:12 that “iniquity shall abound, love wax cold,” &c.; and why? “Many false prophets shall arise.”

Yea, in my house have I found their wickedness. ] Sin is not a little aggravated as by the time, sc., If committed on the Lord’s day; so by the place, sc., If done in God’s house, and in his special presence. Unclean glances or worldly thoughts in hearing, &c., argue a profane heart. Like as it were a sign the orthodox party were but weak, if, while they were at sermons, Papists dared come in and put them out.

a Mrs Ward’s Happiness of Paradise.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)