For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; And Judah has multiplied fortified cities; But I will send a fire on his cities, And it will devour its fortresses."
      (3.) They multiplied their temples, and these also in honour of the true God, as they pretended, but really in contempt of the choice he had made of Jerusalem to put his name there. Israel has forgotten his Maker,Hosea 8:14; Hosea 8:14. They pretended to know him, and yet forgot him, for they liked not to retain God in their knowledge, when the remembrance of him would give check to their lusts. It was an aggravation of their sin in forgetting God that he was their Maker (Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:18; Job 35:10), as nothing obliges us more to remember him than that he is our Creator,Ecclesiastes 12:1. "He has forgotten his Maker, and builds temples; he seems by the temples he builds to me mindful of his Maker, and to be desirous still to keep him in mind, and yet really he has forgotten him, because he has cast off the fear of him." Some by temples here understand palaces, for so the word sometimes signifies. "He has forgotten his Maker, and yet is so secure and haughty that he sets his judgments at defiance, as Nebuchadnezzar did when he said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built?" Judah is likewise charged with multiplying fenced cities, and trusting in them for safety, when the judgments of God were abroad. To fortify their cities in subjection and subordination to God was well enough; but to fortify them in opposition to God, and without any regard to him or his providence (Isaiah 22:11), shows their hearts to be desperately hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. But none ever hardened his heart against God and prospered, nor shall they. God will send a fire upon his cities, upon the cities both of Judah and Israel, not only the head-cities of Jerusalem and Samaria, but all the other cities of those two kingdoms, and it shall devour not only the cottages, but the palaces thereof; though ever so strong, the fire shall master them; though ever so stately and sumptuous, the fire shall not spare them. This was fulfilled when all the cities of Israel were laid in ashes by the king of Assyria, and all the cities of Judah by the king of Babylon. The fires they both kindled were of his sending; and when he judges he will overcome.