Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions
Sin is an invention of man's: when our first parents sinned, they found out many inventions; and their posterity ever since have been inventors of evil things; and man's invention is very quick at that work. All false doctrine and false worship are of men's finding out; all idolatrous practices are their inventions, and which are here intended; see ( Psalms 106:39 ) . And these are very provoking to God, who is jealous of his glory, and which is taken from him hereby; and even when he forgives such sins of men, he takes vengeance on their inventions, as in this case, ( Psalms 99:8 ) . For it follows:
and the plague brake in upon them:
like an inundation of water, and carried off four and twenty thousand persons, ( Numbers 25:9 ) .