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The Prophet calls here the Israelites the people of God, not to honor them, but rather to increase their sin; for the more heinous was the perfidy of the people, that having been chosen, they had afterwards forsaken their heavenly Father. Hence My people: there is here an implied comparison between all other nations and the seed of Abraham, whom God had adopted; “This is, forsooth! the people whom I designed to be sacred to myself, whom of all nations in the world I have taken to myself: they are my heritage. Now this people, who ought to be mine, consult their own wood, and their staff answers them!” We hence see that it was a grievous and severe reprobation when the Lord reminded them of the invaluable kindness with which he had favored the children of Abraham.

So at this day our guilt will be more grievous, if we continue not in the pure worship of God, since God has called us to himself and designed us to be his peculiar flock. The same thing that the Prophet brought against the Israelites may be also brought against the Papists; for as soon as infants are born among them, the Lord signs them with the sacred symbol of baptism; they are therefore in some sense (aliqua ex parte) the people of God. We see, at the same time, how gross and abominable are the superstitions which prevail among them: there are none more stupid than they are. Even the Turks and the Saracenes are wise when compared with them. How great, then, and how shameful is this baseness, that the Papists, who boast themselves to be the people of God, should go astray after their own mad follies!

But the Prophet says the Israelites “consulted” their own wood, or inquired of wood. He no doubt accuses them here of having transferred the glory of the only true God to their own idols, or fictitious gods. They consult, he says, their own wood, and the staff answers them. He seems, in the second clauses to allude to the blind: as when a blind man asks his staff, so he says the Israelites asked counsel of their wood and staff. Some think that superstitions then practiced are here pointed out. The augurs we know used a staff; and it is probable that diviners in the East employed also a staff, or some such thing, in performing their incantations. ¹⁶¹⁶     This was probably similar to divination by arrows, mentioned in Ezekiel 21:21. There is a practice of this kind still among the Arabs, as Adam Clarke mentions in his comment on this verse. They take three arrows without head, and write onone, Command me, Lord; on the other, Forbid me, Lord; and the third is left a blank. These are put in a bag, and one is drawn. If the first is drawn, they do what they intend; if the second, they abstain for a year; if the third, they draw again. — Ed. Others explain these words allegorically, as though wood was false religion, and staff the ungodly prophets. But I am inclined to hold to simplicity. It then seems to me more probable, that the Israelites, as I have already stated, are here condemned for consulting wood or dead idols, instead of the only true God; and that it was the same thing as if a blind man was to ask counsel of his staff, though the staff be without any reason or sense. A staff is indeed useful, but for a different purpose. And thus the Prophet not only contemptuously, but also ironically, exposes to scorn the folly of those who consult their gods of wood and stone; for to do so will no more avail them than if one had a staff for his counselor.

He then subjoins, for the spirit of fornication has deceived them Here again the Prophet aggravates their guilt, inasmuch as no common blame was to be ascribed to the Israelites; for they were, he says, wholly given to fornication The spirit, then, of fornication deceived them: it was the same as if one inflamed with lust ran headlong into evil; as we see to be the case with brutal men when carried away by a blind and shameful passion; for then every distinction between right and wrong disappears from their eyes — no choice is made, no shame is felt. As then such heat of lust is wont sometimes to seize men, that they distinguish nothing, so the Prophet says with the view of shaming the people the more, that they were like those given to fornication, who no longer exercise any judgment, who are restrained by no shame. The spirit, then, of fornication has deceived them: but as this similitude often meets us, I shall not dwell upon it.

They have played the wanton, he says, that they may not obey the Lord. He does not say simply, ‘from their God,’ but ‘from under’ מתחת, metachet, They have then played the wanton, that they might no more obey God, or continue under his government. We may hence learn what is our spiritual chastity, even when God rules us by his word, when we go not here and there and rashly follow our own superstitions. When we abide then under the government of our God, and with fixed eyes look on him, then we chastely preserve our faithfulness to him. But when we follow idols, we then play the wanton and depart from God. Let us now proceed —

The Prophet shows here more clearly what was the fornication for which he had before condemned the people, — that they worshipped God under trees and on high places. This then is explanatory, for the Prophet defines what he before understood by the word, fornication; and this explanation was especially useful, nay, necessary. For men, we know, will not easily give way, particularly when they can adduce some color for their sins, as is the case with the superstitious: when the Lord condemns their perverted and vicious modes of worship, they instantly cry out, and boldly contend and say, “What! is this to be counted fornication, when we worship God?” For whatever they do from inconsiderate zeal is, they think, free from every blame. So the Papists of this day fix it as a matter beyond dispute that all their modes of worship are approved by God: for though nothing is grounded on his word, yet good intention (as they say) is to them more than a sufficient excuse. Hence they dare proudly to clamour against God, whenever he condemns their corruptions and abuses. Such presumption has doubtless prevailed from the beginning.

The Prophet, therefore, deemed it needful openly and distinctly to show to the Israelites, that though they thought themselves to be worshipping God with pious zeal and good intention, they were yet committing fornication. “It is fornication,” he says, “when ye sacrifice under trees.” “What! has it not ever been a commendable service to offer sacrifices and to burn incense to God?” Such being the design of the Israelites, what was the reason that God was so angry with them? We may suppose them to have fallen into a mistake; yet why did not God bear with this foolish intention, when it was covered, as it has been stated, with honest and specious zeal? But God here sharply reproves the Israelites, however much they pretended a great zeal, and however much they covered their superstitions with the false title of God’s worship: “It is nothing else,” he says, “but fornication.”

On tops of mountains, he says, they sacrifice, and on hills they burn incense, under the oak and the poplar and the teil-tree, etc. It seemed apparently a laudable thing in the Israelites to build altars in many places; for frequent attendance at the temples might have stirred them up the more in God’s worship. Such is the plea of the Papists for filling their temples with pictures; they say, “We are everywhere reminded of God wherever we turn our eyes; and this is very profitable.” So also it might have seemed to the Israelites a pious work, to set up God’s worship on hills and on tops of mountains and under every tall tree. But God repudiated the whole; he would not be in this manner worshipped: nay, we see that he was grievously displeased. He says, that the faith pledged to him was thus violated; he says, that the people basely committed fornication. Though the Prophet’s doctrine is at this day by no means plausible in the world, so that hardly one in ten embraces it; we shall yet contend in vain with the Spirit of God: nothing then is better than to hear our judge; and he pronounces all fictitious modes of worship, however much adorned by a specious guise, to be adulteries and whoredoms.

And we hence learn that good intention, with which the Papists so much please themselves, is the mother of all wantonness and of all filthiness. How so? Because it is a high offense against heaven to depart from the word of the Lord: for God had commanded sacrifices and incense to be nowhere offered to him but at Jerusalem. The Israelites transgressed this command. But obedience to God, as it is said in 1 Samuel 15, ¹⁷¹⁷     1 Samuel 15:22. — fj. is of more value with him than all sacrifices.

The Prophet also distinctly excludes a device in which the ungodly and hypocrites take great delight: good, he says, was its shade; that is, they pleased themselves with such devices. So Paul says that there is a show of wisdom in the inventions and ordinances of men, (Colossians 2:23.) Hence, when men undertake voluntary acts of worship, — which the Greeks call εθελοθρησκείας superstitions, being nothing else than will-worship, — when men undertake this or that to do honor to God, there appears to them a show of wisdom, but before God it is abomination only. At this practice the Prophet evidently glances, when he says that the shade of the poplar, or of the oak, or of teil-tree, was good; for the ungodly and the hypocrites imagined their worship to be approved of God, and that they surpassed the Jews, who worshipped God only in one place: “Our land is full of altars, and memorials of God present themselves everywhere.” But when they thought that they had gained the highest glory by their many altars, the Prophet says, that the shade indeed was good, but that it only pleased wantons, who would not acknowledge their baseness.

He afterwards adds, Therefore your daughters shall play the wanton, and your daughters-in-law shall become adulteresses: I will not visit your daughters and daughters-in-law Some explain this passage as though the Prophet said, “While the parents were absent, their daughters and daughters-in-law played the wanton.” The case is the same at this day; for there is no greater liberty in licentiousness than what prevails during vowed pilgrimages: for when any one wishes to indulge freely in wantonness, she makes a vow to undertake a pilgrimage: an adulterer is ready at hand who offers himself a companion. And again, when the husband is so foolish as to run here and there, he at the same time gives to his wife the opportunity of being licentious. And we know further, that when many women meet at unusual hours in churches, and have their private masses, there are there hidden corners, where they perpetrate all kinds of licentiousness. We know, indeed, that this is very common. But the Prophet’s meaning is another: for God here denounces the punishment of which Paul speaks in the Romans ¹⁸¹⁸     Romans 1:28. — fj. when he says, ‘As men have transferred the glory of God to dead things, so God also gave them up to a reprobate mind,’ that they might discern nothing, and abandon themselves to every thing shameful, and even prostitute their own bodies.

Let us then know, that when just and due honor is not rendered to God, this vengeance deservedly follows, that men become covered with infamy. Why so? Because nothing is more equitable than that God should vindicate his own glory, when men corrupt and adulterate it: for why should then any honor remain to them? And why, on the contrary, should not God sink them at once in some extreme baseness? Let us then know, that this is a just punishment, when adulteries prevail, and when vagrant lusts promiscuously follow.

He then who worships not God, shall have at home an adulterous wife, and filthy strumpets as his daughters, boldly playing the wanton, and he shall have also adulterous daughters-in-law: not that the Prophet speaks only of what would take place; but he shows that such would be the vengeance that God would take: ‘Your daughters therefore shall play the wanton, and your daughters-in-law shall be adulteresses;’ and I will not punish your daughters and your daughters-in-law; that is, “I will not correct them for their scandalous conduct; for I wish them to be exposed to infamy.” For this truth must ever stand firm,

‘Him who honors me, I will honor: and him who despises my name, I will make contemptible and ignominious,’
(1 Samuel 2:30.)

God then declares that he will not visit these crimes, because he designed in this way to punish the ungodly, by whom his own worship had been corrupted.

He says, Because they with strumpets separate themselves. Some explain this verb פדר, pered, as meaning, “They divide husbands from their wives:” but the Prophet, no doubt, means, that they separated themselves from God, in the same manner as a wife does, when she leaves her husband and gives herself up to an adulterer. The Prophet then uses the word allegorically, or at least metaphorically: and a reason is given, which they do not understand who take this passage as referring literally to adulteries; and their mistake is sufficiently proved to be so by the next clause, ‘and with strumpets they sacrifice.’ The separation then of which he speaks is this, that they sacrificed with strumpets; which they could not do without violating their faith pledged to God. We now apprehend the Prophet’s real meaning: ‘I will not punish,’ he says, ‘wantonness and adulteries in your families.’ Why? “Because I would have you to be made infamous, for ye have first played the wanton.”

But there is a change of person; and this ought to be observed: for he ought to have carried on his discourse throughout in the second person, and to have said, “Because ye have separated with strumpets, and accompany harlots;” this is the way in which he ought to have spoken: but through excess, as it were, of indignation, he makes a change in his address, ‘They,’ he says, ‘have played the wanton,’ as though he deemed them unworthy of being spoken to. They have then played the wanton with strumpets. By “strumpets”, he doubtless understands the corruptions by which God’s worship had been perverted, even through wantonness: “they sacrifice”, he says, “with strumpets”, that is, they forsake the true God, and resort to whatever pollutions they please; and this is to play the wanton, as when a husband, leaving his wife, or when a wife, leaving her husband, abandon themselves to filthy lust. But it is nothing strange or unwonted for sins to be punished by other sins. What Paul teaches ought especially to be borne in mind, that God, as the avenger of his own glory, gives men up to a reprobate mind, and suffers them to be covered with many most disgraceful things; for he cannot bear with them, when they turn his glory to shame and his truth to a lie.

He afterwards adds, And the people, not understanding, shall stumble. They who take the verb לבט, labeth, as meaning, “to be perverted,” understand it here in the sense of being “perplexed:” nor is this sense inappropriate. The people then shall not understand and be perplexed; that is, They shall not know the right way. But the word means also “to stumble,” and still oftener “to fall;” and since this is the more received sense, I am disposed to embrace it: The people then, not understanding, shall stumble

The Prophet here teaches, that the pretence of ignorance is of no weight before God, though hypocrites are wont to flee to this at last. When they find themselves without any excuse they run to this asylum, — “But I thought that I was doing right; I am deceived: but be it so, it is a pardonable mistake.” The Prophet here declares these excuses to be vain and fallacious; for the people, who understand not, shall stumble and that deservedly: for how came this ignorance to be in the people of Israel, but that they, as it has been before said, willfully closed their eyes against the light? When, therefore, men thus willfully determine to be blind, it is no wonder that the Lord delivers them up to final destruction. But if they now flatter themselves by pretending, as I have already said, a mistake, the Lord will shake off this false confidence, and does now shake it off by his word. What then ought we to do? To learn knowledge from his word; for this is our wisdom and our understanding, as Moses says, in the fourth chapter of Deuteronomy. ¹⁹¹⁹     Deuteronomy 4:6. — fj.