Manna Moments
A Den of Thieves
About eighteen years before the destruction of the First Temple, Jeremiah was sent to the people of Judah with a message of repentance. Because of God’s promise to David - that his house and kingdom would remain, and that his throne would be established forever (2 Sam.7:16), the priests and the remnant in Judah thought that the temple was invincible. The fact is, the people of Judea had turned their back on God once again.
Jeremiah 7 contains some interesting information as the prophet relays God’s message to the people of Jerusalem. We will address these points of interest one by one.
The first one is that God tells Jeremiah to stand “in the gate of the Lord’s house,” when prophets typically stood in the city gates. In fact, the people in this time had been practicing idolatry including child sacrifice as referenced in several places in the book of Jeremiah. They continued in their idolatry, yet believed that they were invincible since the temple could never be destroyed. They placed all their trust in the “Temple of the Lord”, so this seems like the appropriate place for God to relay His message.
Second, in verse 4, Jeremiah seems to chant when he says, “Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord,” as though they were under some sort of spell. Then we read in verses 10,11:
“You stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ - that you may do all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the Lord.
In Hebrew, the phrase, “which is called by My name,” is very interesting because according to the grammar, He is not saying that He is calling it by His name, but that someone else is calling it by His name. He also accuses them of making it a “den of robbers,” which was a cave on side of a frequented path that thieves would hide out. As people would pass by, they would burst out suddenly on the unsuspecting travelers and rob them. This is what God is accusing the Judeans of making His house into. He instructs them to change their ways so that they could continue to dwell in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount.
He then tells the people that He will do to that temple in which they trust just what he did to Shiloh, the first place of the tabernacle within the land of Israel. We know, according to the story in 1 Samuel 4:10-22, the ark of the covenant was taken by the Philistines, and Jeremiah 7:12 implies that Shiloh was destroyed.
The situation isn’t much different today. Many assume that simply attending church or serving within it guarantees salvation. Yet, just as in Jeremiah’s time, even the church itself can become an idol if we lose sight of what truly matters. At the core, it is our relationship with God and the way we love and treat others that carries eternal weight. “By this all people will know that you are My disciples: if you have love for one another.” John 13:35