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commentary entry

x.xxiii.lxvi-p11.3

x.xxiii.lxvi-p11.3158 words

3. continually—answering to "all the day" (Isa 65:2). God was continually inviting them, and they continually offending Him (De 32:21).

to my face—They made no attempt to hide their sin (Isa 3:9). Compare "before Me" (Ex 20:3).

in gardens—(See on Isa 1:29; Isa 66:17; Le 17:5).

altars of brickHebrew, "bricks." God had commanded His altars to be of unhewn stone (Ex 20:25). This was in order to separate them, even in external respects, from idolaters; also, as all chiselling was forbidden, they could not inscribe superstitious symbols on them as the heathen did. Bricks were more easily so inscribed than stone; hence their use for the cuneiform inscriptions at Babylon, and also for idolatrous altars. Some, not so well, have supposed that the "bricks" here mean the flat brick-paved roofs of houses on which they sacrificed to the sun, &c. (2Ki 23:12; Jer 19:13).