But they like men - Or (better as in the E. M) “like Adam, have transgressed the covenant.” As Adam our first parent, in Paradise, not out of any pressure, but wantonly, through self-will and pride, broke the covenant of God, eating the forbidden fruit, and then defended himself in his sin against God, casting the blame upon the woman: so these, in the good land which God had given them, “that they should” therein “keep His covenant and observe His laws” Psalms 105:44, wantonly and petulantly broke that covenant; and then obstinately defended their sin. Wherefore, as Adam was cast out of Paradise, so shall these be cast out of the land of promise.
There have they dealt treacherously against Me - There! He does not say, “where.” But Israel and every sinner in Israel knew full well, where. “There,” to Israel, was not only Bethel or Dan, or Gilgal, or Mizpah, or Gilead, or any or all of the places, which God had hallowed by His mercies, and they had defiled. It was every high hill, each idol-chapel, each field-altar, which they had multiplied to their idols. To the sinners of Israel, it was every spot of the Lord’s land which they had defiled by their sin. God points out to the conscience of sinners the place and time, the very spot where they offended Him. Wheresoever and whensoever they broke God’s commands, “there they dealt treacherously against” God Himself. There is much emphasis upon the “against” Me. The sinner, while breaking the laws of God, contrives to forget God. God recalls him to himself, and says, “there,” where and when thou didst those and those things, thou didst deal falsely with, and against, “Me.” The sinner’s conscience and memory fills up the word “there.” It sees the whole landscape of its sins around; each black dark spot stands out before it, and it cries with David, “there,” in this and this and this, “against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight” Psalms 51:4.