The richest luxuries of oriental climes lie at the nation’s feet; honey and oil; butter and milk; rams and goats; “with the fat of the kidneys of wheat” which curiously draws its terms for the best of wheat from the favorite qualities of animal food.——In v. 14 the Heb. word for “pure” [“pure blood of the grape”], means by its etymology—effervescing, bubbling up, in the process of fermentation. Our translators probably supposed it to have worked itself “pure” by this process. The word seems to describe the process—not the subsequent state.
15. But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
16. They provoked him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they him to anger.
17. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God; to gods whom they knew not, to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not.
18. Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee.
Here is the sad moral result of being over-fed, over-tempted.——“Jeshurun,” the upright one; he who had bound himself by covenant to walk uprightly with God.——The Hebrews constantly associate fatness with moral obtuseness, insensibility, and consequent obliquity.The ceremonial distinctions of things clean and unclean assumed this—swine being utterly unclean, and the fatty portions of sacrificed animals being accounted good only for burning on the altar. Hence the figure—Jeshurun, too fat for self-control and self-denial; too fat for the worship of the pure and holy One; and consequently he forsook the God who made and blessed him.——The verb for “lightly esteemed” means to regard as dried up; withered; of faded beauty. So Israel thought of their God though he had been to them the Rock of their salvation. The sad fact of their fall into idol-worship is reiterated and made impressively emphatic. They provoked God to jealousy; for how could he be otherwise than jealous when they cast him off and gave their hearts’ homage to devils; to new gods, unknown to their fathers; gods that were no gods at all!——The Hebrew word here for “devils” means primarily lords—mighty ones. The Septuagint and Vulgate give it demons—true to the ultimate idea, for all idol-worship is equivalent to the worship of the devil, being real obedience to his will.——The blackness of this guilt lies in its forgetting, disowning God, our Great Benefactor; our only real Friend.
19. And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.
20. And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: for they are a very froward generation, children in whom is no faith.
21. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
The most cruel point as to God was that this insult came from his own “sons and daughters.” From them he might expect better treatment.——What shall he do? What can he do, less than to hide his face from them and to leave them to try the friendship of the new gods they had so madly chosen? “I will see what their end shall be.” They will see in due time!——In v. 21 there is a play upon the words—the same verbs, “move to jealousy” and “provoke,” being used first of their ways toward God; next, of God’s ways in retribution toward them. Paul (Rom. 10: 14) assumes that this passage at least applies well if indeed it does not refer primarilyto God’s judgments on Israel by casting her off, and taking into her place of privilege the Gentiles whom Israel had been wont to regard as nobody.