Come to Bethel and transgress
and what follows, are ironic and sarcastic speeches, not giving liberty to sin, but in this way reproving for it: Bethel was one of the places where the calves were placed and worshipped: and here they are bid to go thither, and go on with and continue in their idolatrous worship, by which they transgressed the law of God, and mark what would be the issue of it. The sense is the same with ( Ecclesiastes 11:9 ) ; see ( Ezekiel 20:29 ) ; at Gilgal multiply transgression;
that is, multiply acts of idolatry: Gilgal was a place where high places and altars were erected, and idols worshipped; as it had formerly been a place of religious worship of the true God, the ten tribes made use of it in the times of their apostasy for idolatrous worship; see ( Hosea 4:15 ) ( 9:15 ) ( 12:11 ) ; and bring your sacrifices every morning;
and offer them to your idols, as you were wont formerly to offer them unto the true God, according to the law of Moses, ( Exodus 29:38 Exodus 29:39 ) ; [and] your tithes after three years;
the third year after the sabbatical year was the year of tithing; and after the tithe of the increase of the fruits of the earth, there was "maaser sheni", the second tithe, the same with "maaser ani", the poor's tithe, which was given to the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless; and the widow, to eat with them, ( Deuteronomy 14:22-28 ) ( 26:12 ) ; and this they are sarcastically bid to observe in their idolatrous way. It is, in the Hebrew text, "after three days"; and so the Targum,
``your tithes in three days;''days being put for years, as Kimchi and Ben Melech observe. It may be rendered, "after three years of days" F19; three complete years.
The Brenton translation of the Septuagint is in the public domain.