(22) My secret place.--The holy of holies, sacredly guarded from all intrusion, and representing the very culmination both of the religion and of the national life of Israel, shall be polluted. If the pronoun "they" represents any one in particular, it must be the Chaldaeans; but it is better to take the verb, as often in the third person plural, impersonally, i.e., "shall be polluted." The agents in this pollution are immediately mentioned as "the robbers," i.e., the Chaldaean armies.
Verse 22. - My secret place. The work of the spoiler would not stop at the idols of silver and gold. Jehovah would surrender his own "secret place" (secret treasure in margin of Revised Version), that over which he had watched, sc. the sanctuary of his temple, to the hands of the spoiler. In Psalm 83:4 the same adjective is used of persons, the "hidden" or protected ones of God. In the name of Baal-zephon, "Lord of the secret place," we have possibly a kindred thought. In Psalm 17:14 we have "hid treasure."
7:16-22 Sooner or later, sin will cause sorrow; and those who will not repent of their sin, may justly be left to pine away in it. There are many whose wealth is their snare and ruin; and the gaining the world is the losing of their souls. Riches profit not in the day of wrath. The wealth of this world has not that in it which will answer the desires of the soul, or be any satisfaction to it in a day of distress. God's temple shall stand them in no stead. Those are unworthy to be honoured with the form of godliness, who will not be governed by its power.
My face will one turn also from them,.... Deny them his presence, and withdraw his protection from them; show them no favour, nor afford them any help and succour in their distress, when they cry unto him; so the Targum,
"I will cause my Shechinah to remove from them:''
unless the Chaldeans are meant, as some think, whose robberies and ravages the Lord would wink at, and not restrain, but suffer them to plunder and spoil at pleasure: since it follows,
and they shall pollute my secret place; the holy of holies, by going into it, which none but the high priest might do, and he but once a year; though the Targum understands this of the Jews, and makes it to be a reason of what is threatened in the preceding clause, rendering it thus,
"because they have profaned the land of the house of my Shechinah:''
for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it; as did the king of Babylon and his army; and afterwards, in the second temple, Antiochus, Pompey, and Titus Vespasian.
"I will cause my Shechinah to remove from them:''
unless the Chaldeans are meant, as some think, whose robberies and ravages the Lord would wink at, and not restrain, but suffer them to plunder and spoil at pleasure: since it follows,
and they shall pollute my secret place; the holy of holies, by going into it, which none but the high priest might do, and he but once a year; though the Targum understands this of the Jews, and makes it to be a reason of what is threatened in the preceding clause, rendering it thus,
"because they have profaned the land of the house of my Shechinah:''
for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it; as did the king of Babylon and his army; and afterwards, in the second temple, Antiochus, Pompey, and Titus Vespasian.