Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 7:11
Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen [it], saith the LORD.
11. den of robbers ] a place of retreat in the intervals between acts of violence. Caves in Palestine were often used thus. This v. is alluded to in Mat 21:13, and the parallel passages (Mar 11:17 and Luk 19:46).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Robbers – literally, tearers, those who rob with violence. The temple was the place which sheltered them. It had been consecrated to God. Now that it harbors miscreants, must it not as inevitably be destroyed as a den of robbers would be by any righteous ruler?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Robbers, Heb. breakers through. The word is taken in a large notion for all sorts of plunderers, whether in house, Eze 7:22, or field, highway-men, Dan 11:14. Do yon look upon this house as a sanctuary and refuge for robbers and murderers? do you esteem it so, and is it so in your eyes? so the phrase is used Num 13:33, &c.; hereby making me an abettor of all your lewdness, Mat 21:13; a metaphor taken from wild beasts and mischievous persons, that do both secure themselves and hide their prey in holes and caves of the earth, Psa 10:8,9.
I have seen it: q.d. As crafty as you are, you cannot hide these things from me, nor all those workings of your thoughts about them, Psa 10:11,13,14; Eze 18:12. He checks their foolish vain confidences, whereby they deceive themselves, Isa 29:15. God will not be blinded by all their vain oblations.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. den of robbersDo youregard My temple as being what robbers make their den, namely, anasylum wherein ye may obtain impunity for your abominations (Jer7:10)?
seen itnamely, that yetreat My house as if it were a den of thieves. Jehovah implies morethan is expressed, “I have seen and will punish it”(Isa 56:7; Mat 21:13).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Is this house, which is called by my name,…. Meaning the temple:
become a den of robbers in your eyes? or do you look upon it, and make use of it, as thieves do of dens; who, when they have robbed and murdered men, betake themselves to them, not only to share their spoil, but to hide themselves? just so those thieves, murderers adulterers, perjurers, and idolaters, after they had committed such gross enormities, came into the temple and offered sacrifices; thinking hereby to cover their sins, and expiate the guilt of them, and to be looked upon as good men, and true worshippers of God, when they were no better than thieves and robbers; and such were the Pharisees in Christ’s time, and such was the temple as made by them; see Mt 21:13:
behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord; not only all the abominations committed by them, but the use they made of the temple and the worship of it; all the hypocrisy of their hearts, and the inward thoughts of them, and their views and intentions in their offerings and sacrifices; as well as what ruin and destruction the Lord designed to bring shortly upon them, and upon that house which they had made a den of robbers; as follows:
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
He afterwards adds, Is this house, which is called by my name, a den of robbers? This is the conclusion of the passage, which contains an amplification of their vices. For the Prophet had allowed the Jews to form a judgment, as though he had been discussing an obscure or doubtful subject, “Behold, be ye yourselves judges in your own case; is it right for you to steal, to murder, and to commit adultery? and then to come into this Temple, and to boast that impunity is granted to you as to all your evils?” This indeed ought to have been enough; but as the obstinacy and stupor of the Jews were so great, that they would not have given way without being most fully and in various ways proved guilty, the Prophet adds this sentence, Is this house, which is called by my name, a den of robbers? that is, “Have I chosen this place for myself, that ye might worship me, in order that ye might be more licentious than if there was no religion? For what purpose is religion? Is it not that men may by this bridle restrain themselves, that they may not be libertines? For surely the worship and fear of God are the directors of equity and justice. Now, would it not be better to have no Temple and no sacrifices, than that men should take more liberty to sin by making their ceremonies as an excuse? Away then with your ceremonies: conscience shews that it is a wretched thing to oppress or injure a neighbor; all are constrained by common sense to own that adultery is a filthy and a detestable thing; and men think the same of rapines and murders. As to superstitions, when they are seen as such, all are constrained to allow the worship of God ought to be preserved in its purity. Well then, had there been no Temple among you, this truth must have been impressed on your minds, — that God ought to be worshipped in purity. Now, because the Temple has been built at Jerusalem, because ye offer sacrifices there, ye are thieves, ye are adulterers, ye are murderers; and ye think that I am in some sort blind, that I am no longer the avenger of so many and of such atrocious evils. A den of robbers then is my house become to you.” But this sentence is to be read interrogatively, “Can it be, that this Temple, this sanctuary, is become a den of robbers?” (194)
But we must consider the import of the comparison: Robbers, though they are most audacious and wholly savage, do not yet dare openly to use their sword; they dare not kill helpless men. Why? they fear the punishment allotted to them by the laws; they are cautious. But when they seize on men in some hidden place, then they take more liberty in their robberies; they kill men, and then take their property. We hence see that dens and hidden places have in them more safety for robbers. The comparison then is most suitable, when the Prophet says that the Jews made the Temple of God the den of robbers: for had there been no Temple, some integrity might have remained, secured by the common feeling of men. But when they covered their baseness with sacrifices, they thought that they thus escaped all judgment.
And hence, Christ applied this prophecy to his time; for the Jews had even then profaned the Temple. Though they presumptuously and falsely called on God’s name, they yet sought the Temple as an asylum for impurity. This folly Christ exposed, as the Prophet had done.
He afterwards adds, Even I, behold I see, saith Jehovah Jeremiah here no doubt touches ironically on the false confidence with which the Jews deceived themselves: for hypocrites seem to themselves to know whatever is necessary. And hence also it is, that as they think themselves to be acute, they are bolder and more presumptuous in contriving deceitful schemes, by which they seek to delude God and men. And hence the Prophet here tauntingly touches them to the quick, by intimating that they wished to make God as it were blind, Even I, behold I see, he says. It would not yet be sufficiently evident how emphatical the phrase is, were it not for a similar passage in Isa 29:15,
“
I also am wise.” The Prophet had said, “Woe to the crafty and the wise, who have dug pits for themselves.”
He there condemns ungodly men, who thought that they could somehow by their falsehoods deceive God; which seems to be and is monstrous: and yet it is an evil which commonly prevails among men. For hardly a man in a hundred can be found who does not seek coverings to hide himself from the eyes of God. This is the case especially with courtiers and clever men, who assume to themselves so much clear-sightedness, that God sees nothing in comparison with them. The Lord therefore, by Isaiah, gives this answer, “I also am wise: if ye are wise, allow me at least some portion of wisdom, and think not that I am altogether foolish.” So also in this place, “Before my eyes, this house is made a den of robbers;” that is, “If there be any sense in you, does it not appear evident that you have made a den of robbers of my Temple? and can I be yet blind? If you think that you are very clear-sighted, I also do see, saith the Lord.”
We hence see what force there is in the particle גם, gam, also, and in the pronoun אנכי, anoki, I, and in הנה , ene, behold; for these three words are heaped together, that God might shew that he was not unobservant, when the people so audaciously ran headlong into all kinds of vices, and sought by their falsehoods to cover his eyes, that he might not see anything. (195)
(194) It is to be observed that one only of the vices mentioned in verse 9 is here referred to, the first in the catalogue. But as the Temple was the den of thieves, so it was also made the asylum of murderers, adulterers, and of idolaters. It seems then, that the Jews thought that by sacrifices they purchased immunity not only for theft, murder, adultery, false swearing, but also for idolatry, and that having sacrificed they were free to commit all these evils. How unaccountably strange is the conduct of deluded man!
The words “Which is called by my name,“ are literally, “Which called is my name upon it,“ an idiomatic mode of speaking, with which the Welsh exactly corresponds, —
(lang. cy) Yr hwn y gelwir fy enw arno.
The pronoun relative without a preposition is afterwards followed by a pronoun substantive with a preposition prefixed. — Ed.
(195) The verb is in the past tense,-
I also, behold, seen have I, saith Jehovah.
That is, He had seen all they did. If anything be put after “seen,“ it should be “these things,“ and not “it;” for the reference is to the particulars before mentioned. See Psa 10:14; Eze 8:12. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(11) A den of robbers.The words had a special force in a country like Palestine, where the limestone rocks presented many caves, which, like that of Adullam (1Sa. 22:1-2), were the refuge of outlaws and robbers. Those who now flocked to the courts of the Temple, including even priests and prophets, were as such robbers, finding shelter there, and soothing their consciences by their worship, as the brigands of Italy do by their devotions at the shrine of some favourite Madonna. It had for them no higher sanctity than a den of robbers. The word for robber implies the more violent form of lawless plunder. The words are memorable, as having re-appeared in our Lords rebuke of the money-changers and traffickers in the Temple (Mat. 21:13; Mar. 11:17; Luk. 19:46); and, taken together with the reference at the last Supper to the New Covenant of Jer. 31:31, suggest the thought that our Lord was leading His disciples to see in the prophets work a foreshadowing of His own relation to the evils of His time, and more than a foreshadowing of the great remedy which He was to work out for them.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
11. Den of robbers In that limestone country, where caves abound, and where robbery has ever been the business of multitudes, this phrase had a force and expressiveness which we imperfectly feel; and hence the contrast with the glorious house of God is a startling role.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 7:11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen [it], saith the LORD.
Ver. 11. Is this house, which is called by my name. ] Is it become impiae gentis arcanum? as Florus afterwards spitefully called it; or a professed sanctuary of roguery? as the Papists maliciously say of Geneva; or a receptacle of all abominations? a as Pompey’s theatre in Rome was once said to be.
Become a den of robbers?
a Arx omnium turpitudinum.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Is this house . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. This passage used by our Lord, just as Isa 56:7 was in Mat 21:13. Mar 11:17. Luk 19:46.
saith the LORD = [is] Jehovah’s oracle.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
this: 2Ch 6:33, Isa 56:7, Mat 21:13, Mar 11:17, Luk 19:45, Luk 19:46, Joh 2:16
even: Jer 2:34, Jer 16:16, Jer 16:17, Jer 23:24, Heb 4:13, Rev 2:18, Rev 2:19
Reciprocal: Deu 9:13 – I have 1Sa 15:19 – fly upon Pro 21:27 – sacrifice Jer 7:10 – which is called Jer 23:11 – in Jer 34:15 – which is called by my name Zec 11:3 – for their Luk 21:6 – there 1Co 6:10 – thieves
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 7:11. Is this house seems to be another question but it really is a direct accusation against a very corrupt nation. God charged that his house, called by his name, bad become a den of robbers. In your eyes denotes that all of the evils named were being committed under the eyes of these very people.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
7:11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become {c} a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen [it], saith the LORD.
(c) As thieves hidden in holes and dens think themselves safe, so when you are in my temple, you think to be covered with the holiness of it, and that I cannot see your wickedness, Mat 21:13 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
By treating the temple in this way, the people had turned it into "a den of robbers," a gathering place for those who stole from others and God, and violated God’s Word with impunity (cf. Mat 21:13; Mar 11:17; Luk 19:46).
"They have profaned God’s house by making it a place of retreat between acts of crime . . ." [Note: Harrison, Jeremiah and . . ., p. 86.]
The Lord assured the people that He had seen what they were doing; they had not deceived Him.