They have dealt treacherously against the Lord
Which was the reason of his departure from them; as a woman deals
treacherously with her husband when she is unfaithful to him, and
commits adultery; so Israel and Judah dealt treacherously with
the Lord, who stood in the relation of a husband to them in
covenant, by committing idolatry; for they have begotten
strange children;
either of strange women, the daughters of idolatrous Heathens
they married, so the Targum, Jarchi, and Kimchi; or rather their
natural children, though born of Israelitish or Jewish parents,
both such; yet being educated by them in an idolatrous way, and
brought up in the commission of the evils their parents were
guilty of, are said to be strange children to the Lord, alienated
from him and his worship, and as such to be begotten: now
shall a month devour them with their portions;
the Jews understand this literally of the month Ab, the time of
Jerusalem's destruction, so Jarchi and R. Jeshuah in Aben Ezra
and Ben Melech; or the month Tammuz, in which the city was broke
up, and the month Ab, in which it was destroyed, as Kimchi; or
rather, which is also a sense he mentions, it signifies a short
time, a very little while before the destruction should come; and
compares it with ( Zechariah
11:8 ) ; though, according to the Targum, it is to be
understood of every month; and so denotes the continual
desolation that should be made, until they were utterly
destroyed; but others seem better to interpret it of their new
moon, or first day of the month, which they observed in a
religious way, by offering sacrifice and on which they depended;
but this should be so far from being of any service to them, that
it should turn against them; and, because of the idolatry
committed in them, the Lord would hate them, and destroy them on
account of them; even their farms, and fields, and vineyards,
which were their portions and inheritances; see ( Isaiah 1:13 Isaiah 1:14 ) ; unless
it is rather to be understood of the parts of the beasts slain in
sacrifice on those days, to appease the Lord; which would be so
far from doing it, that they would provoke him yet more to wrath,
and slay them.