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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(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 (1Samuel 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 Lord’s rebuke of the money-changers and traffickers in the Temple (Matthew 21:13; Mark 11:17; Luke 19:46); and, taken together with the reference at the last Supper to the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31, suggest the thought that our Lord was leading His disciples to see in the prophet’s 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.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-16 No observances, professions, or supposed revelations, will profit, if men do not amend their ways and their doings. None can claim an interest in free salvation, who allow themselves in the practice of known sin, or live in the neglect of known duty. They thought that the temple they profaned would be their protection. But all who continue in sin because grace has abounded, or that grace may abound, make Christ the minister of sin; and the cross of Christ, rightly understood, forms the most effectual remedy to such poisonous sentiments. The Son of God gave himself for our transgressions, to show the excellence of the Divine law, and the evil of sin. Never let us think we may do wickedness without suffering for it.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

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?

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

11. den of robbers—Do you regard My temple as being what robbers make their den, namely, an asylum wherein ye may obtain impunity for your abominations (Jer 7:10)?

seen it—namely, that ye treat My house as if it were a den of thieves. Jehovah implies more than is expressed, "I have seen and will punish it" (Isa 56:7; Mt 21:13).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Robbers, Heb. breakers through. The word is taken in a large notion for all sorts of plunderers, whether in house, Ezekiel 7:22, or field, highway-men, Daniel 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 Numbers 13:33, &c.; hereby making me an abettor of all your lewdness, Matthew 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, Psalm 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, Psalm 10:11,13,14 Eze 18:12. He checks their foolish vain confidences, whereby they deceive themselves, Isaiah 29:15. God will not be blinded by all their vain oblations.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire 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 Matthew 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:

Geneva Study Bible

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, Mt 21:13.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

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 Matthew 21:13, and the parallel passages (Mark 11:17 and Luke 19:46).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 11. - Even I have seen it; understand, "and I will therefore destroy the house which gives shelter to evil-doers." Jeremiah 7:11

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

To expose the senselessness of such an idea, God asks if they take the temple for a den of robbers? "In your eyes" goes with היה : is it become in your eyes, i.e., do ye take it for such? If thieves, murderers, adulterers, etc., gathered to the temple, and supposed that by appearing there they procured the absolution of their sins, they were in very act declaring the temple to be a robbers' retreat. פּריץ, the violent, here: the house-breaker, robber. I, too, have seen, sc. that the temple is made by you a den of thieves, and will deal accordingly. This completion of the thought appears from the context.