4. remain among . . . graves--namely, for purposes of necromancy, as
if to hold converse with the dead
(Isa 8:19, 20;
compare
Mr 5:3);
or, for the sake of purifications, usually performed at night among
sepulchres, to appease the manes [MAURER].
monuments--Hebrew, "pass the night in hidden recesses," either
the idol's inmost shrines ("consecrated precincts")
[HORSLEY], where
they used to sleep, in order to have divine communications in dreams
[JEROME]; or better, on account of the parallel "graves,"
sepulchral caves [MAURER].
eat swine's flesh--To eat it at all was contrary to God's law
(Le 11:7),
but it much increased their guilt that they ate it in idolatrous
sacrifices (compare
Isa 66:17).
VARRO (On Agriculture, 2.4) says that swine
were first used in sacrifices; the Latins sacrificed a pig to Ceres; it
was also offered on occasion of treaties and marriages.
broth--so called from the "pieces" (Margin) or fragments of
bread over which the broth was poured
[GESENIUS]; such broth, made of
swine's flesh, offered in sacrifice, was thought to be especially
acceptable to the idol and was used in magic rites. Or, "fragments
(pieces) of abominable foods," &c. This fourth clause explains more
fully the third, as the second does the first [MAURER].
is in--rather, literally, "is their vessels," that is, constitute
their vessels' contents. The Jews, in our Lord's days, and ever since
the return from Babylon, have been free from idolatry; still the imagery
from idolatrous abominations, as being the sin most loathsome in God's
eyes and that most prevalent in Isaiah's time, is employed to describe
the foul sin of Israel in all ages, culminating in their killing
Messiah, and still rejecting Him.
JFB.
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