“My bread also which I gave you, fine flour, and oil, and honey with which I fed you, you even set it before them for a sweet savour. And thus it was, says the Lord Yahweh.”
All the things which Yahweh had given them they passed on to their idols. The bread on which they had fed abundantly, and the luxury food which He had given them to enjoy, a far cry from the hunger and poor food they had known in the wilderness before they received the manna (Exodus 16:3), these they offered, not in thanksgiving to Yahweh, but as a sweet savour to their new gods. God had fulfilled all His promises to them and they had thanked Him by offering His abundance to their ‘lovers'.
‘And thus it was, says the Lord Yahweh.' Thus it was, that was the real situation. This was God's final summary on their behaviour. All the things He had given them, luxury food, luxury clothing, luxury jewellery, gold and silver and ornaments, all the things He had piled on them in His grace and goodness, they were giving to His ‘rivals'. That was how they had behaved, and were behaving. Could there be anything worse? Yes, there could. Worse was to follow.