(17) For they have filled the land with violence.--Corruption in religion here, as always, bore its proper fruit in moral deterioration. A people who go astray from their duty to God are always found to neglect also their duty to man. Israel had before fallen into great and grievous sins. Within the memory of those still living, the good king Josiah, supported by the prophet Jeremiah and many others, had made great effort at reformation, and had purged the Temple of its abominations; hence God says the people "have returned to provoke me to anger."

Put the branch to their nose.--This is an obscure expression, on which the learning and ingenuity of commentators have been spent in vain. It is an allusion to some custom well known at the time, but now lost. The simplest explanation seems to be in a reference to the habit of the Parsees (mentioned by Strabo) in their worship to hold twigs of the tamarisk, palm, and the pomegranate before their mouths.

Verse 17. - For returned read, with the Revised Version, turned again. The wind seems chosen with special reference to the attitude of the idol worshippers. It may be noted that even here the prophet speaks not only of the idolatry of Judah, but of its violence also, as bringing down the judgments of Jehovah. Lo, they put the branch to their nose. The opening word expresses the prophet's burning indignation. The act described probably finds its best explanation in the Persian ritual of the Avesta. When men prayed to the sun, they held in their left hands a bouquet of palm, pomegranate, and tamarisk twigs, while the priests for the same purpose held a veil before their mouth (Spiegel, 'Iran. Alterth.,' 3:571, 572, in Smend), so that the bright rays of the sun might not be polluted by human breath. And this was done in the very temple of Jehovah by those who were polluting the whole land by their violence. The LXX. gives, as an explanation, ὡς μυκτηρίζοντες, as though the act was one of scornful pride (comp. Isaiah 65:5), the sign of a temper like that of the Pharisee as he looked upon the publican (Luke 18:11). Lightfoot takes the "nose" as the symbol of anger, and looks on the phrase as proverbial: "They add the twig to their anger, fuel to the fire;" but this has little to commend it. The word for "branch" is used in Ezekiel 15:2 and Numbers 13:23 for a vine branch.

8:13-18 The yearly lamenting for Tammuz was attended with infamous practices; and the worshippers of the sun here described, are supposed to have been priests. The Lord appeals to the prophet concerning the heinousness of the crime; and lo, they put the branch to their nose, denoting some custom used by idolaters in honour of the idols they served. The more we examine human nature and our own hearts, the more abominations we shall discover; and the longer the believer searches himself, the more he will humble himself before God, and the more will he value the fountain open for sin, and seek to wash therein.Then he said unto me, hast thou seen this, O son of man?.... Took notice of and considered this piece of idolatry, worshipping the sun toward the east:

is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? could these things, which are such dreadful abominations, committed here in the temple, be reckoned light things by them, as surely they cannot? yet these are not all that they have done:

for they have filled the land with violence; with rapine and oppression; doing injury to the poor and needy, the widow and the fatherless, in all places:

and have returned to provoke me to anger; by other instances of idolatry:

and, lo, they put the branch to their nose; a laurel, or olive, or vine branch, which idolaters carried in their hands, and put to their nose, in honour of the idol they worshipped; in like manner as they kissed their hand at the sight of the sun, Job 31:26; and which the Jews did in imitation of the Heathen. This is one of the eighteen places in which there is "tikkun sopherim", or a "correction of the scribes"; who, instead of "my nose", direct to read "their nose"; hence the words are differently interpreted by the Jewish commentators; who, by rendered "branch", think an ill smell is meant; arising either from their posteriors, their back being towards the temple; or from the incense which they offered up to their idols; so Kimchi and Menachem in Jarchi; agreeably to which Fortunatus Scacchus (k) understands this, not of any branch used by idolaters, which they put to the nose of their idol, or their own, for the honour of that; but of the censer which the Israelites used, contrary to the command of God, and which they put to their nose to enjoy a forbidden smell; see Ezekiel 16:18; but Gussetius (l) gives another sense of the words, rendering them, "they send forth a branch to their anger"; the Israelites are compared to a vine, as in Isaiah 5:1; sending forth bad branches, idolatrous actions, as here in this chapter; and to these bad branches they sent forth or added another, even anger against God, the prophets, true believers, and right worshippers of God; and therefore he also would deal in fury and wrath, as in Ezekiel 8:18; so Dr. Lightfoot (m) renders it,

""they send the branch to my wrath", or "to their own wrath"; that is, to what they have deserved; as if it was said, in the same manner that anyone puts wood to the fire, the branch of the wild vine, that it may the more quickly be burnt; so do these put the branch to my wrath, that it may burn the more fiercely; hence it follows, "therefore will I also deal in fury", &c.''

The Targum is,

"and, lo, they bring shame (or confusion) to their faces;''

what they do turns to their own ruin and destruction; as follows:

(k) Sacror. Eleaochr. Myrothec. l. 2. p. 536. (l) Ebr. Comment. p. 231. (m) Heb. & Talmud. Exercitat. in Johan. xv. 6.