strength of faith and courage which were needed to keep the Jews from
becoming idolaters, surrounded as they were by such. But the same are
needed to-day to keep us from learning the ways of the world and
getting a snare to our souls. Now, as ever, walking with God means
walking in the opposite direction from the crowd, and that requires
some firm nerve. The home-made idolatry is gibbeted as being according
to 'the statutes of the kings.' What right had they to prescribe their
subjects' religion? The influence of influential people, especially if
exerted against the service of God, is hard to resist; but it is no
excuse for sin that it is fashionable.

The blindness of Israel to the consequences of their sin is hinted in
the reference to the fate of the nations whom they imitated. They had
been cast out; would not their copyists learn the lesson? We, too,
have examples enough of what godless lives come to, if we had the
sense to profit by them. The God who cast out the vile Canaanites and
all the rest of the wicked crew before the sons of the desert has not
changed, and will treat Israel as He did them, if Israel come down to
their level. Outward privileges make idolatry or any sin more sinful,
and its punishment more severe.

Another characteristic of Israel's sin is its being done 'secretly.'
Of the various meanings proposed for that word (ver. 9) the best seems
to be that it refers to the attempt to combine the worship of God and
of idols, of which the calf worship is an instance. Elijah had long
ago taunted the people with trying 'to hobble on both knees,' or on
'two opinions' at once; and here the charge is of covering idolatry
with a cloak of Jehovah worship. A varnish of religion is convenient
and cheap, and often effectual in deceiving ourselves as well as
others; but 'as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,' whatever his