Pouring Out a Drink Offering to Stones

See how deeply the inhabitants of Judah have plunged into idolatry:  "With the stones of the torrent valley was your portion.  They-they were your lot.  Moreover, to them you poured out a drink offering, you offered up a gift.  For these things shall I comfort myself?"  (Isaiah 57:6)   The Jews are God's covenant people, yet rather than worship him, they pick stones out of the riverbed and make gods of  these.  David proclaimed that Jehovah was his portion, but these sinners have chosen lifeless stone idols as their lot and pour out drink offerings to them.  (Psalm 16:5; Habakkuk 2:19)  What comfort can Jehovah find in such perversion of worship by his  name people?

Everywhere-under the big trees, in torrent valleys, on hills, in their cities-Judah commits idolatry.  But Jehovah sees it all, and through Isaiah, He exposes her depravity:  "Upon a mountain high and lifted up you set your  bed. There also you went up to offer sacrifice. And behind the door and the doorpost you set your memorial."  (Isaiah 57:7-8a)  Upon the high places, Judah makes her bed of spiritual uncleanness, and there she offers sacrifices to foreign gods.  Even private houses have idols behind the doors and the   doorposts.

Some may wonder why Judah has become so involved in unclean worship.  Has some stronger power forced her to abandon Jehovah?  The answer is no.  She does it willingly, eagerly. Jehovah states:  "Apart from me you uncovered yourself and proceeded to go up; you  made your bed spacious. And for yourself you went concluding a covenant with them. You loved a bed with them.  The male organ you beheld."  (Isaiah 57:8b)  Judah has made a covenant with her false gods, and she loves her illicit relationship with them.  She especially loves the immoral sexual practices-likely including the use of phallic symbols-that characterize worship of these gods!

The description of grossly immoral, cruel idol worship fits what we know of several wicked kings of Judah.  Manasseh, for example, built up  the high places, erected altars to Baal, and put false religious altars in two temple courtyards.  He made his sons pass through the fire, practiced magic, employed divination, and promoted spiritistic  practices.  Kind Manasseh also put into Jehovah's temple the graven image of the sacred pole that he had made.  He seduced Judah into doing "what was bad more than the nations whom Jehovah had annihilated."  (2 Kings 21:2-9)  Some believe that Manasseh had Isaiah killed, although Manasseh's name does not appear in Isaiah 1:1. 

Next time: "You Continued Sending Your Envoys

From the Book Isaiah's Prophecy Light for all Mankind, Volume II, 2001