Later text
And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Intertextuality Pair
Matthew 21:13b → Jeremiah 7:11
Quotation
Earlier text
Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the LORD.
Significance
The second half of Jesus's temple-clearing declaration — "but you are making it a den of robbers" (spēlaion lēstōn) — is a direct quotation of Jeremiah 7:11, where Jeremiah condemns the people who come to the temple for ritual observance while practicing injustice: "Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes?" Jeremiah's Temple Sermon (Jeremiah 7) threatened the destruction of the Jerusalem temple because Israel treated it as a magical guarantor of security while continuing in covenant violations. Jesus's invocation of this text in the context of the temple-clearing signals that the same prophetic judgment is again operative — the temple establishment has repeated Israel's pattern of using the sacred space as cover for exploitation. Jesus, the greater prophet, stands where Jeremiah stood and pronounces the same verdict, implying the same judgment: the temple that fails its vocation will be torn down (Matthew 24:2).
- Found via
- Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
- Reference Type
- Direct Quotation
- Connection Method(s)
- Promise-Fulfillment / Longitudinal Theme (primary — the temple-judgment trajectory) + prophetic-symbolic enactment / Analogy — NOT typology-primary; per the governing Jeremiah 7:11 ATN's anti-default ruling, Jer 7:11 is a judgment-indictment (not a promise or designed shadow), so its Pointing-Forwardness fails as verse-intrinsic — a Jeremiah→Christ prophet-office typology is real but person-level and secondary (Deut 18:15-18 + Corporate Solidarity), not the verse defaulting to typology
Related Anchor-Text Networks
Hermeneutical Notes
NT Use Pattern: Assimilated — The Jeremiah 7:11 half of the composite Isa 56:7 + Jer 7:11 quotation in Matthew 21:13 — fused for Jesus's temple-cleansing rebuke.
Linked Mentions 3