Saying unto them, It is written, My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Saying unto them, It is written (Isaiah 56:7 ), My house is the house of prayer: but ye have made it a den of thieves, х speelaion (G4693) leestoon (G3027)] - rather, 'of robbers;' of men banded together for plunder, reckless of principle. So in Matthew and Mark. This also is a quotation, but from Jeremiah (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." Our Lord uses the very words of the Septuagint х speelaion (G4693) leestoon (G3027)]. The milder charge, made on the former occasion - "Ye have made it a house of merchandise" - was now unsuitable. Nor was the authority of the prophet expressly referred to on that occasion, so far at least as recorded, though it was certainly implied in the language of the rebuke. The second Gospel is more exact and full in the quotation from the prophet: "And He taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer?" (Mark 11:17). The translation should be, as in the margin, 'for all nations' х pasi (G3956) tois (G3588) ethnesin (G1484)], and as in the prophet "for all people," or rather, 'all the nations' х lªkaal (H3605) haa`amiym (H5971)]. The glimpse here given of the extension of the Church to "every people and tongue and nation," and consequently beyond the ancient economy-which is the burden of the original passage-was not the immediate point for which our Lord referred to it, but the character of the house as God's - "My house" - and "a house of prayer." And it was the desecration of it in this light that our Lord so sternly rebuked.