people that provoketh me to anger continually to my face, that sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon the bricks;" comp. ver. 7: "Who have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills;" chap. lxvi. 17: "They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens behind one in the midst, who eat swine's flesh, and the abominations, and mice, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord." Idolatry is the service of nature, and was, therefore, chiefly practised [Pg 181] in places where nature presents herself in all her splendour, as in gardens and on the hills. The gardens are mentioned in a similar way in chap. i. 29: "Ye shall blush on account of the _gardens_ that ye have chosen." (On the words which precede in that verse: "For they shall be ashamed of the _oaks_ which ye have desired," chap. lvii. 5 offers an exact parallel: "Who inflame themselves among the _oaks_ under every green tree.") In chap. lxv. 11, they are denounced who forsake the Lord, forget His holy mountain (on which, at the time when this was written, the temple must still have stood), who prepare a table to _Fortune_, and offer drink-offerings to _Fate_. The second main form of sinful apostacy--hypocrisy and dead ceremonial service--is only rarely mentioned by the Prophet (in chap. lvii., lxvi.), while he always anew reverts to idolatry. Now _this absolutely prevailing regard to idolatry can be accounted for, only if Isaiah be the author of the second part._ From Solomon, down to the time of the exile, the disposition to idolatry in Israel was never thoroughly broken. During Isaiah's ministry, it came to the fullest display under Ahaz. Under Hezekiah it was kept down, indeed; but with great difficulty only, as appears from the fact that, under the reign of Manasseh, who was a king after the heart of the people, it again broke openly forth; comp. 2 Kings xxi. 1-18; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 1-18; 2 Kings xxi. 6, according to which Manasseh made his own son to pass through the fire. But it is a tact generally admitted, and proved by all the books written during and after the exile, that, with the carrying away into exile, the idolatrous disposition among the people was greatly shaken. This fact has its cause not only in the deep impression which misery made upon their minds, but still more in the circumstance that it was chiefly the godly part of the nation that was carried away into captivity. The disproportionately large number of _priests_ among the exiled and those who returned--they constitute the tenth part of the people--is to be accounted for only on the supposition, that the heathenish conquerors saw that the real essence and basis of the people consisted in the faith in the God of Israel, and were, therefore, above all, anxious to remove the priests as the main representatives of this principle. If, for this reason, they carried away the priests, we cannot think otherwise but that, in [Pg 182] the selection of the others also, they