Unto devils So they did, not directly or intentionally, but by construction and consequence, because the devil is the author of idolatry, and is eminently served and honoured by it. And as the Egyptians were notorious for their idolatry, so the Israelites were infected with their leaven, Joshua 24:14; Ezekiel 20:7; Ezekiel 23:2-3. And some of them continued to practise the same in the wilderness, Amos 5:25-26,
compared with Deuteronomy 12:8. The Hebrew word which we render devils, שׂעירים, segnirim, properly signifies goats, from their rough and shaggy hair, and hence denotes those idols, probably deified dead men, who were worshipped under the symbol of goats. It is the same word that we translate satyrs, Isaiah 13:21. What gives light to so obscure a passage is what we read in Maimonides, that the Zabian idolaters worshipped demons under the figure of goats, imagining them to appear in that form, whence they called them by the name here mentioned, segnirim, or goats; and that this custom being general in Moses's time, gave occasion to this precept. After whom they have gone a whoring Idolatry, especially in God's people, is commonly termed whoredom in Scripture, because it is a violation of that covenant by which they were peculiarly betrothed or married to God. And here the phrase has a peculiar propriety, and denotes their having worshipped those goats, or goat-like demons, with rites horribly impure, after the manner of the idolatrous pagans.