They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains - The tops of hills or mountains seemed nearer heaven, the air was purer, the place more removed from the world. To worship the Unseen God upon them, was then the suggestion of natural feeling and of simple devotion. God Himself directed the typical sacrifice of Isaac to take place on a mountain; on that same mountain He commanded that the temple should be built; on a mountain, God gave the law; on a mountain was our Saviour transfigured; on a mountain was He crucified; from a mountain He ascended into heaven. Mountains and hills have accordingly often been chosen for Christian churches and monasteries. But the same natural feeling, misdirected, made them the places of pagan idolatry and pagan sins. The Pagan probably also chose for their star and planet-worship, mountains or large plains, as being the places from where the heavenly bodies might be seen most widely.

Being thus connected with idolatry and sin, God strictly forbade the worship on the high places, and (as is the case with so many of God's commandments) man practiced it as diligently as if He had commanded it. God had said, "Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations, which ye shall possess, served their gods upon the high mountains, and upon the hills and under every green tree" Deuteronomy 12:2. But "they set them up images and groves (rather images of Ashtaroth) in every high hill and under every green tree, and there they burnt incense in all the high place, as did the pagan whom the Lord carried away before them" 2 Kings 17:10-11. The words express, that this which God forbade they did diligently; "they sacrificed much and diligently; they burned incense much and diligently" ; and that, not here and there, but generally, "on the tops of the mountains," and, as it were, in the open face of heaven. So also Ezekiel complains, "They saw every high hill and all the thick trees, and they offered there their sacrifices, and there they presented the provocation of their offering; there also they made their sweet savor, and poured out there their drink-offerings" Ezekiel 20:28.

Under oaks - (white) poplars and elms (probably the terebinth or turpentine tree) because the shadow thereof is good The darkness of the shadow suited alike the cruel and the profligate deeds which were done in honor of their false gods. In the open face of day, and in secret they carried on their sin.

Therefore their daughters shall commit whoredoms, and their spouses - (or more probably, daughters-in-law) shall commit adultery Or (in the present) commit adultery. The fathers and husbands gave themselves to the abominable rites of Baal-peor and Ashtaroth, and so the daughters and daughters-in-law followed their example. This was by the permission of God, who, since they "glorified not" God as they ought, "gave them up," abandoned them, "to vile affections." So, through their own disgrace and bitter griefs, in the persons of those whose honor they most cherished, they should learn how ill they themselves had done, in departing from Him who is the Father and Husband of every soul. The sins of the fathers descend very often to the children, both in the way of nature, that the children inherit strong temptations to their parents' sin, and by way of example, that they greedily imitate, often exaggerate, them. Wouldest thou not have children, which thou wouldest wish unborn, reform thyself. The saying may include too sufferings at the hands of the enemy. "What thou dost willingly, that shall your daughters and your daughters-in-law suffer against thine and their will."

Of what particular kinds the trees here mentioned are, cannot be determined with certainty. In regard to אלה ellah, in this place of Isaiah, as well as in Hosea, Celsius (Hierobot.) understands it of the terebinth, because the most ancient interpreters render it so; in the first place the Septuagint. He quotes eight places; but in three of these eight places the copies vary, some having δρυς, the oak, instead of τερεβινθος, the terebinth or turpentine tree. And he should have told us, that these same seventy render it in sixteen other places by δρυς, the oak; so that their authority is really against him; and the Septuagint, "stant pro quercu," contrary to what he says at first setting out. Add to this that Symmachus, Theodotion, and Aquila, generally render it by δρυς, the oak; the latter only once rendering it by τερεβινθος, the terebinth. His other arguments seem to me not very conclusive; he says, that all the qualities of אלה ellah agree to the terebinth, that it grows in mountainous countries, that it is a strong tree, long-lived, large and high, and deciduous. All these qualities agree just as well to the oak, against which he contends; and he actually attributes them to the oak in the very next section. But I think neither the oak nor the terebinth will do in this place of Isaiah, from the last circumstance which he mentions, their being deciduous, where the prophet's design seems to me to require an evergreen, otherwise the casting of its leaves would be nothing out of the common established course of nature, and no proper image of extreme distress and total desolation, parallel to that of a garden without water, that is, wholly burnt up and destroyed. An ancient, who was an inhabitant and a native of this country, understands it in like manner of a tree blasted with uncommon and immoderate heat; velut arbores, cum frondes aestu torrente decusserunt. Ephrem Syr. in loc., edit. Assemani. Compare Psalm 1:4; Jeremiah 17:8. Upon the whole I have chosen to make it the ilex, which word Vossius, Etymolog., derives from the Hebrew אלה ellah, that whether the word itself be rightly rendered or not, I might at least preserve the propriety of the poetic image. - L.

By the ilex the learned prelate means the holly, which, though it generally appears as a sort of shrub, grows, in a good soil, where it is unmolested, to a considerable height. I have one in my own garden, rising three stems from the root, and between twenty and thirty feet in height. It is an evergreen.

For they shall be ashamed "For ye shall be ashamed" - תבושו teboshu, in the second person, Vulgate, Chaldee, three MSS., one of my own, ancient, and one edition; and in agreement with the rest of the sentence.

Hosea 4:13Under oaks - אלון allon, from אלל alal, he was strong. Hence, the oak, in Latin, is called robur; which word means also, strength, the oak being the strongest of all the trees of the forest.

The shadow thereof is good - Their "daughters committed whoredom, and their spouses committed adultery."

1. Their deities were worshipped by prostitution.

continued...

They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains,.... The highest part of them, nearest to the heavens, where they built their altars to idols, and offered sacrifice unto them, as we often read in Scripture they did:

and burn incense upon the hills; to their idols, which was one kind of sacrifice put for all others:

under oaks, and poplars, and elms; and indeed under every green tree that grew upon them, where there were groves of them raised up for this purpose; see Jeremiah 2:20,

because the shadow, thereof is good; the shadow of these trees, of each of them, was large, and preserved them from the sultry heat of the sun, as well as hid them from the sight of men; they could perform their idolatrous rites, as well as gratify their impure lusts, with more privacy and secrecy; and perhaps they thought the gods delighted in such shady places, and that these were frequented by spirits, and the departed souls of men; in such places the Heathens, whom the Jews imitated, built their temples, and offered their sacrifices (g). The "oak" is a very spreading tree; its branches are large, and its shadow very great: hence the religious Heathens in ancient times used to live under them, and worship them as gods, and dedicate temples to them, because they furnished them with acorns for food, and a shelter from the rain, and other inclemencies of the heavens (h); particularly the oak was consecrated to Jupiter, as appears from what Virgil says (i). The oak at Dodona is famous for its antiquity, where were a fountain and groves, and a temple dedicated to the same Heathen deity; and from whence oracles were given forth (k). The Druids here in Britain chose to have their groves of oaks; nor did they perform any of their sacred rites without the leaves of them: hence Pliny (l) says they had their name. The "poplar" mentioned is the white poplar, as the word used signifies, and which affords a very hospitable shadow, as the poet (m) calls it; and this was a tree also with the Heathens sacred to their gods, particularly to Hercules (n); because it is said he brought it first into Greece from the river Acheron, where it grew; and the wood of no other tree would the Eleans use, in preparing the sacrifices for Jupiter Olympius (o). The "elm" is also a very shady tree; hence Virgil (p) calls it "ulmus opaca, ingens": and under this tree sacrifices used to be offered to idols, as is evident from Ezekiel 6:13, where the same word is used as here, though it is there rendered an "oak"; but that it is different from the oak appears from these two words being read together, so that they cannot be names of one and the same tree, Isaiah 6:13, where it is rendered the "teil tree", as distinct from the oak. Now these trees being very shady ones, and under which the Gentiles used to perform their religious rites, the Jews imitated them therein, which is here complained of.

Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredoms, and your spouses shall commit adultery; or their "sons' wives" (q); either spiritually, that is, commit idolatry by the example of their parents and husbands; or corporeally, being left at home while their parents and husbands were worshipping their idols upon the mountains, as Aben Ezra and Kimchi: and so this is to be considered as a punishment of the idolatry of their parents and husbands; that as they commit spiritual adultery against God, or idolatry, their daughters and wives shall be given up to such vile affections, or by force shall be made to commit corporeal adultery against them; or rather the sense is, led by the example of their parents and husbands, whom they see not only sacrifice to idols in the above places, but commit uncleanness with harlots there, they will throw off all shame, and commit whoredom with men: for so the words may be rendered, "hence your daughters", &c.; so Abarbinel.

(g) "Lucus in urbe fuit media, laetissimus umbra: Hic templum Junoni ingens Sidonia Dido Condebat." Virgil. Aeneid. l. 1.((h) Vid. Chartarii Imagines Deorum, p. 5. (i) "Sicubi magna Jovis antiquo robore quercus, Ingenteis tendat ramos------", Georgic. l. 3. "Altissima quercus erat Jovis signum", Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 4. c. 12. (k) Vid. Pausan. Attica, sive l. 1. p. 30. Achaica, sive l. 7. p. 438. Arcadica, sive l. 8. p. 490. & Alex. ab Alex. Genial. Dier. l. 6. c. 2.((l) Nat. Hist. l. 16. c. 44. (m) "Qua pinus ingens albaque populus, Umbram hospitalem consociare amant Ramis------" Horat. (n) "Populus Alcidae gratissima", Virgil. Bucolic. Eclog. 7. Vid. Aeneid. l. 1. "Herculi populus", Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 12. c. 1.((o) Pausan. Eliac. 1. sive l. 5. p. 313. (p) Aeneid. l. 6. (q) "nurus vestrae", Montanus, Vatablus, Piscator, Liveleus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Gussetius.

This whoredom is still further explained in the next verse. Hosea 4:13. "They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and upon the hills they burn incense, under oak and poplar and terebinth, for their shadow is good; therefore your daughters commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law commit adultery." Mountain-tops and hills were favourite places for idolatrous worship; because men thought, that there they were nearer to heaven and to the deity (see at Deuteronomy 12:2). From a comparison of these and other passages, e.g., Jeremiah 2:20 and Jeremiah 3:6, it is evident that the following words, "under oak," etc., are not to be understood as signifying that trees standing by themselves upon mountains and hills were selected as places for idolatrous worship; but that, in addition to mountains and hills, green shady trees in the plains and valleys were also chosen for this purpose. By the enumeration of the oak, the poplar (lı̄bhneh, the white poplar according to the Sept. in loc. and the Vulg. at Genesis 37:30, or the storax-tree, as the lxx render it at Genesis 37:30), and the terebinth, the frequent expression "under every green tree" (Deuteronomy 12:2; 1 Kings 14:23; Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6) is individualized. Such trees were selected because they gave a good shade, and in the burning lands of the East a shady place fills the mind with sacred awe. על־כּן, therefore, on that account, i.e., not because the shadow of the trees invites to it, but because the places for idolatrous worship erected on every hand presented an opportunity for it; therefore the daughters and daughters-in-law carried on prostitution there. The worship of the Canaanitish and Babylonian goddess of nature was associated with prostitution, and with the giving up of young girls and women (compare Movers, Phnizier, i. pp. 583, 595ff.).

They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall {p} commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.

(p) Because they take away God's honour, and give it to idols: therefore he will give them up to their lusts, so that they will dishonour their own bodies; Ro 1:28.

4:13 Good - Convenient for the sacrificers. Shall commit whoredom - Shall dishonour themselves, and their families, with fornicators.

13. upon . mountains-High places were selected by idolaters on which to sacrifice, because of their greater nearness to the heavenly hosts which they worshipped (De 12:2).

elms-rather, "terebinths" [Maurer].

shadow . good-screening the lascivious worshippers from the heat of the sun.

daughters . commit whoredom . spouses . adultery-in the polluted worship of Astarte, the Phonician goddess of love.

4:12-19 The people consulted images, and not the Divine word. This would lead to disorder and sin. Thus men prepare scourges for themselves, and vice is spread through a people. Let not Judah come near the idolatrous worship of Israel. For Israel was devoted to idols, and must now be let alone. When sinners cast off the easy yoke of Christ, they go on in sin till the Lord saith, Let them alone. Then they receive no more warnings, feel no more convictions: Satan takes full possession of them, and they ripen for destruction. It is a sad and sore judgment for any man to be let alone in sin. Those who are not disturbed in their sin, will be destroyed for their sin. May we be kept from this awful state; for the wrath of God, like a strong tempest, will soon hurry impenitent sinners into ruin.