[2] In the judgments and the restoration which the prophet foretells, he declares that the people shall learn the worthlessness of the idols which they have been worshipping under the oak-trees, and in the sacred groves and gardens. The worship of the high places was partly a local worship of Jehovah, which only became irregular and blameable in later times; but there was also a widespread worship of Baal, Astarte, and Molech, the old gods of the Canaanites and other nations, in sacred groves and gardens, as well as on the hill-tops--a worship of impersonated and defiled sensuality and cruelty--which sometimes even established itself within the precincts of the temple itself, and was still more readily blended with, or substituted for, the worship of Jehovah in the high places. And this idolatrous worship was going on in Judæa during the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, at the same time with the temple services, as appears from 2 Kings xv. 3, 4, compared with 2 Chron. xxvii. 2. In the day of judgment and restoration, says the prophet, these men who have been flourishing in their sin like the oaks, and living in pleasures like those of their well-watered gardens, shall find that the idols to which these oaks and gardens are dedicated have no power to save them from a destruction which shall make them "as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water," images which will be the more forcible if we remember that in a southern climate trees fade rather from excessive heat than from seasonable cold, and a garden without water is a mere desert of sand. Then shall the strong, the mighty, and the unjust ruler become tow, and his idols, the work of his hands, a spark; and shall both burn together, and no man shall quench them.--_Strachey._ [3] The interpretation of verse 31 on which the above outline is based is that of Calvin and the earlier Protestant commentators. That which in modern days has been almost universally adopted, is given in the preceding extract from Strachey, and the homiletic use to which it may be put is indicated in the next outline: "The Tow and the Spark." We are persuaded, however, that the earlier interpretation is that which is most in harmony with the scope of the whole passage. All the ancient versions treat חָסֹן as an abstract, meaning _strength,_ and Dr. Alexander admits that "this agrees well with its form, resembling that of an infinitive or verbal noun." Latterly it has become the fashion to translate it "strong man," but the harmony of the whole passage is best maintained by rendering it _"their strength,"_ that is, that which the idolaters have regarded as their "strength," the deity in whose protection they have trusted.