Robbery
Practised by the Ishmaelites (Gen 16:12), the Chaldeans and Sabeans (Job 1:15, Job 1:17), and the men of Shechem (Judg 9:25. See also 1 Sam 27:6–10; 1 Sam 30:1–31; Hos 4:2; Hos 6:9). Robbers infested Judea in our Lord’s time (Luke 10:30; John 18:40; Acts 5:36, Acts 5:37; Acts 21:38; 2 Cor 11:26). The words of the Authorized Version, “counted it not robbery to be equal,” etc. (Phil 2:6, Phil 2:7), are better rendered in the Revised Version, “counted it not a prize to be on an equality,” etc., i.e., “did not look upon equality with God as a prize which must not slip from his grasp” = “did not cling with avidity to the prerogatives of his divine majesty; did not ambitiously display his equality with God.”
“Robbers of churches” should be rendered, as in the Revised Version, “of temples.” In the temple at Ephesus there was a great treasure-chamber, and as all that was laid up there was under the guardianship of the goddess Diana, to steal from such a place would be sacrilege (Acts 19:37).
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
