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: