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Bible Dictionaries
Den
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or DEN (Matthew 21:13 = Mark 11:17 = Luke 19:46 σπήλαιον [λῃστῶν]; elsewhere in the Gospels only John 11:38 to describe the tomb of Lazarus, ἧν δὲ σπήλαιον).—In estimating the meaning of our Lord’s declaration that the Temple had been made a den or cave of robbers, the immediate occasion of the words must be kept in view. It was the feast of the Passover, and the Temple courts were crowded by those who sold sheep, oxen, and pigeons, while the moneychangers also carried on their trade. As no trace is found in the OT of such a market existing, it may be supposed it sprang up some time after the Captivity. It would plead for justification the needs of the new condition of the nation. Foreign Jews would thus be able to obtain on the spot both the Temple half-shekel required by the Law (Exodus 30:13), and also animals necessary for sacrifice, probably with the additional advantage that the latter would have an official guarantee of Levitical fitness for sacrifice, which must be obtained for any animal purchased elsewhere.
The profits from these sources were enormous. It has been calculated that the annual income derived from money-changing can hardly have been less than £8000–£9000, while the sale of pigeons is specially referred to as furnishing alone a large annual income. These profits appear to have been largely, if not entirely, appropriated by the priests. Certain booths are frequently mentioned as belonging to the ‘sons of Hanan’ (Annas), and appear to have existed until about three years before the destruction of Jerusalem, when they were destroyed. Besides the mere fact that the Temple was made a house of merchandise (John 2:16), many passages in the Rabbinical writings appear to indicate that the Temple market was notorious for dishonest dealings, upon which passages it has been remarked (Speaker’s Com. in loc.) that the spaces in the court were probably let out to traffickers at an exorbitant rate. The remembrance of this state of things gives new force to the quotation from Jeremiah 7:11 here used by our Lord.
Josephus (circa (about) Apion. ii. 24) writes: ‘The Temple ought to be common to all men, because He is the common God of all’; but, far from its being thus, it had become the possession of a few. ‘Ye gather together here money and animals, as robbers collect their booty in their den’ (Fritzsche, quoted by Lange).
Those who ought to have been the first to teach others the sacredness of the place had seized upon it, as robbers would seize some den or cave in the mountains, in which they might maintain their unity for the purpose of spoil. See, further, art. Temple in vol. ii.
Literature.—Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, also The Temple, etc.; Farrar, Life of Christ; Derenbourg, Hist. de Pal. [Note: Palestine, Palestinian.] ; and the Comm. ad loc.
J. B. Bristow.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Den'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/d/den.html. 1906-1918.
