Of this rock. — The word is not selah, as in Judges 6:20, or tsor, as in Judges 6:21, but malioz, “stronghold,” probably the citadel of Ophrah. The LXX. render it as a proper name (maoz), or in some MSS., “on the top of this mountain.” The word only occurs elsewhere in Hebrew poetry.
In the ordered place. — The margin reads, “in an orderly manner;” but probably neither version is quite correct. The Hebrew word is bammaarachah (comp. Leviticus 24:6; 2 Chronicles 2:4); and as the particle be is used of the materials with which a thing is built in 1 Kings 15:22; some here render it, “with the materials.” That the Jews themselves were not quite certain of the meaning appears from the various versions. The LXX. render it, “in the arrangement,” and the Vulg., “on which you have before placed the sacrifice.” It means “with the Asherah pillar hewed down, and split up into firewood.” The Jews point out the peculiar features of this burnt offering: (1) It was not at Shiloh; (2) it was not offered by a priest; (3) it was offered at night; and (4) the fire was kindled with the unhallowed materials of an idol. The Divine command was, of course, more than sufficient to justify these merely ritual irregularities; and, indeed, it is clear that in these rude times, when the country was in the hands of the heathen, the Levitic order of worship became, for the time, impossible in many particulars. Prophets and those directly commissioned by heaven were tacitly regarded as exempt from the strict rules of outward ritual which were necessary for the mass of the nation.