(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 (1 Samuel 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.
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.
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:
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: