My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

My face will I turn also from them, and they shall profane my secret place ; and robbers shall enter into it, and profane it.

And I will turn away my face from them, and they shall violate my secret place: and robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.

And I will turn my face from them; and they shall profane my secret place; and the violent shall enter into it, and profane it.

And I have turned My face from them, And they have polluted My hidden place, Yea, come into it have destroyers, and polluted it.

And my face will be turned away from them, and they will make my secret place unholy: violent men will go into it and make it unholy.

And I will avert my face from them, and they will violate my place of mystery. And untamed persons will enter into it, and they will defile it.

Et avertam faciem meam ab ipsis, et profanabunt absconditum meum: et ingredientur in illud perruptores, [166] et profanabunt illud.

As to the beginning of the verse there is no ambiguity, for God pronounces that the Jews would be miserable, because he would avert his face from them For in this was situated their happiness, that God, as he had promised, would regard their safety. As long, therefore, as God deigned to look upon them, their safety was certain, so that there was no fear of danger. But when he no longer cared for them, these wretched ones were exposed to all calamities; hence they are said to be deprived of all protection, when alienated from God. This, then, is one clause. As to what follows, expositors interpret it of the sanctuary; and I do not greatly object to this, if any one approves of this sense, but I take it in a wider sense. For God in my view calls the land his hidden place, which was safe under his protection. For he says, that he had extended wings, under which he could hide the people, (Exodus 19:4;) and David prays that God would receive him within the hidden place of his tabernacle. (Psalm 27:5.) Since, therefore, the people was protected by the power of God, the land is deservedly called God's hidden place, as an asylum, and it will be proper so to translate it. Devastators, therefore, shall profane my asylum, because they shall enter in there, and shall profane it. He repeats the same word. Those who take it for the sanctuary restrict it to the holy of holies, for so they call the shrine or oracle whence the answers were given; and they call it an oracle, not from praying, but because they enquired there of secret things. But as I have said, that seems to be forced, though I will not quarrel with it, but show what I like better. The meaning is, however God had spared the Jews for a long time, nay, had them hidden, as it were, under his wings, and the land was as it were a sacred asylum, since they were so hidden that they felt no injury from foreign enemies: yet this should profit them nothing, because God would throw down all bulwarks, and give easy access to their enemies, so that they might break through, and then profane and confuse all things. It follows --

My secret place - The inner sanctuary, hidden from the multitude, protected by the most high.

The robbers shall enter into it - The Chaldeans shall not only destroy the city; but they shall enter the temple, deface it, plunder it, and burn it to the ground.

My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my (r) secret [place]: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it.
(r) Which signifies the most holy place, into which none might enter but the high priest.

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.

pollute my secret place--just retribution for the Jews' pollution of the temple. "Robbers shall enter and defile" the holy of holies, the place of God's manifested presence, entrance into which was denied even to the Levites and priests and was permitted to the high priest only once a year on the great day of atonement.

Turn - Either from the Jews, or from the Chaldeans, neither relieving the one nor restraining the other. Secret place - The temple, and the holy of holies. Robbers - The soldiers.