I will not punish your daughters when they play the prostitute, Nor your brides when they commit adultery; Because the men consort with prostitutes, And they sacrifice with the shrine prostitutes; And the people that does not understand will come to ruin.
And they sacrifice - (continually, as before) with (the) harlots The unhappy women here spoken of were such as were “consecrated” (as their name imports) to their vile gods and goddesses, and to prostitution. This dreadful consecration, yea desecration, whereby they were taught to seek honor in their disgrace, was spread in different forms over Phoenicia, Syria, Phrygia, Assyria, Babylonia. Ashtaroth, (the Greek Astarte) was its chief object. This horrible worship prevailed in Midian, when Israel was entering the promised land, and it suggested the devilish device of Balaam Numbers 25:0; Numbers 31:8, Numbers 31:16 to entangle Israel in sin whereby they might forfeit the favor of God. The like is said to subsist to this day in pagan India. The sin was both the cause and effect of the superstition. Man’s corrupt heart gave rise to the worship: and the worship in turn fostered the corruption. He first sanctioned the sin by aid of a degrading worship of nature, and then committed it under plea of that worship. He made his sin a law to him. Women, who never relapsed into the sin, sinned in obedience to the dreadful law . Blinded as they were, individual pagan had the excuse of their hereditary blindness; the Jews had imperfect grace. The sins of Christians are self sought, against light and grace.