What Does Jeremiah 7:11 Mean?
Has this house, which is called by my name, become a cave of robbers, in your eyes? Look, I myself have seen it, says the LORD.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
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.THE KEY
The house bears God’s name while sheltering people who break through others’ boundaries, and the LORD says he sees it.
THE MEANING
This house carries God’s name, God’s nature, yet it has become a hiding place for those who break through others’ boundaries. The LORD sees what people accept as normal, and their view does not define what the house has become.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A place called by God’s name automatically makes what happens inside it acceptable.
THE ROOT
פָּרִצִים
pārîṣîm
GROWS FROM
פרץ
Break through, burst out, make a breach.
The word rendered “robbers” carries the image of people who break through. The verse pictures their harm as a breach in the boundaries the house should protect.
ALSO GROWS
pāraṣ: Break forth, burst out.
פָּרַץ
In Genesis 38:29, the same root names a sudden breaking forth; here it describes those who force their way through others’ boundaries.
pereṣ: Breach, break, bursting forth.
פֶּרֶץ
A breach makes the damage visible: the house shelters people whose way of acting is to break through.
נִקְרָא שְׁמִי
niqra shemî
GROWS FROM
קרא
Call out, proclaim, name.
“called by my name” in this verse is niqra shemî. The house is publicly called by God’s shem (שֵׁם, “name”), understood as the nature represented by that name. The question exposes the gap between the nature the house bears and the breach it shelters.
ALSO GROWS
qārāʾ: Call out, name, proclaim.
קָרָא
The house is marked as belonging to God by a spoken name, but that name does not hide what is happening inside.
miqrāʾ: A public reading or convocation.
מִקְרָא
This related word carries the sense of something publicly proclaimed or gathered, echoing the house’s public identity.
רָאִיתִי
rāʾîtî
GROWS FROM
ראה
See, look, perceive.
The verse places human sight beside the LORD’s claim, “I have seen.” The verb means seeing; in this sentence, it makes the house’s concealed reality visible to the one who sees it.
ALSO GROWS
rōʾeh: One who sees; a seer.
רֹאֶה
The word’s root can describe the seeing one, emphasizing that this reality has a witness.
marʾeh: Appearance, sight, vision.
מַרְאֶה
This branch names what is seen or appears, bringing the house’s visible reputation into tension with what the LORD sees.
THE PATTERN
Religious standing cannot shelter exploitation from God’s sight.
Your princes are stiff-shouldered, and joined to thieves. Each one loves the bribe, and pursues rewards. They do not judge the fatherless, and the widow's contention does not come to them.For I know how many are your rebellions, and how great your missing the mark. They press the aligned, they take a bribe, and they bend the one in want away from judgment at the gate.And he said to them, It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a cave of robbers.THE THREAD
And it came to be, as he drew back his hand, and behold, his brother came out, and she said, How have you broken through? Let this breach be upon you. Therefore his name was called Pharez, the breach.The Hebrew behind “broken forth” is pāraṣ (פרץ), the same root behind Jeremiah’s word for “robbers,” pāriṣîm. In Genesis the root names a breach that bursts through; here it describes those who live by making breaches.
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