I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, or Baals - When men leave the one true God, they make to themselves many idols. They act, as if they could make up a god piece-meal out of the many attributes of the One God, and create their Creator. His power of production becomes one God; His power of destroying, another; His providence, a third; and so on, down to the very least acts. So they had many Baals or Lords; a “Baal-berith Judges 8:33, Lord of covenants,” who was to guard the sanctity of oaths; “Baal-zebub 2 Kings 1:2, Lord of flies,” who was to keep off the plague of flies, and “Baal-Peor” Numbers 25:3, who presided over sin. All these their various idolatries, and all the time of their idolatries, God threatens to visit upon them at once. “The days of punishment shall equal the days of the wanderings, in which she burnt incense to Baal.” God spares long. But when persevering impenitence draws down His anger, He punishes not for the last sin only, but for all. Even to the penitent, God mostly makes the chastisement bear some proportion to the length and greatness of the sin.
Wherein she burnt incence unto them - Incense was that part of sacrifice, which especially denoted thanksgiving and prayer ascending to God.
And she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels - Christ says to the bride, “Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold” Song of Solomon 1:10. But what He gave her, she threw away upon another, and “cast her pearls before swine.” She “decked herself,” i. e., made God’s ornaments her own, used them not as He gave them, but artificially as an adulteress. And what else is it, to use wit or beauty or any gift of God, for any end out of God? : “The ornament of souls which choose to serve idols, is to fulfill those things which seem good to the unclean spirits. Very beautiful to devils must be the sin-loving soul, which chooses to think and to do whatsoever is sweet to, and loved by them.” Sins of the flesh being a part of the worship of Baal, this garish trickery and pains to attract had an immediate offensiveness, besides its belonging to idols. He still pictures her as seeking, not sought by her lovers. “She went after her lovers, and forgat Me.” The original has great emphasis. “She went after her lovers, and Me she fogat, saith the Lord.” She went after vanities, and God, her All, she forgat. Such is the character of all engrossing passion, such is the course of sin, to which the soul gives way, in avarice, ambition, worldliness, sensual sin, godless science. The soul, at last, does not rebel against God; it “forgets” Him. It is taken up with other things, with itself, with the objects of its thoughts, the objects of its affections, and it has no time for God, because it has no love for Him. So God complains of Judah by Jeremiah, “their fathers have forgotten My name for Baal (Jeremiah 23:27; add Judges 3:7; 1 Samuel 12:9-10; Jeremiah 2:32; Jeremiah 3:20; Jeremiah 13:25; Jeremiah 18:15; Ezekiel 22:12; Ezekiel 23:35; Isaiah 17:10; Psalms 9:17; Psalms 50:22; Psalms 78:11; Psalms 106:13, Psalms 106:21).