“Moreover I also gave them statutes which were not good, and judgments in which they would not live, and I polluted them in their own gifts in that they caused to pass through the fire all who opened the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Yahweh.”
Finally because of their failure to respond to Him truly He left them to follow their own ways. This is depicted as the positive act of Yahweh. In the end all was seen as Yahweh's doing. He allowed false prophets to rise, He allowed false teaching to be given, He allowed them to partake in the most degrading religions of Canaan. He withdrew His guidance and protection and admonition (although they were never fully withdrawn for He also sent true prophets to plead with them). Thus would follow the awful consequences depicted in Leviticus 26:14-45; Deuteronomy 28:15 Ezekiel 29:19)
Man's evil heart continually distorts truth. Left to himself he brings harm on his own head, thinking all the time that it will benefit him. He softens the requirements of God's laws and suffers the consequences. In the case of Israel it even led them to offer up their firstborn children to the gods in sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21; Deuteronomy 18:10; 2Ki 21:6; 2 Chronicles 28:3; Jeremiah 7:31; Jeremiah 19:5; Jeremiah 32:35). ‘Passing through the fire' usually refers to the worship of Melek (Molech - the vowels, being the vowels of bosheth' (shame) changed to reflect ‘shame') although the idea of child sacrifice is occasionally referred to the worship of Baal (Jeremiah 19:5) probably through syncretism.
‘I polluted them in their own gifts.' Their very worship had become polluted. Instead of the joyous gifts and offerings to Yahweh, and the redemption of the firstborn through sacrifices, allowing them to express their worship fully and without restraint while at the same time preventing the heartbreak of actually losing their children, they chose to enter into the painful, heartbreaking ways of sacrificing their own firstborn children, ways that brought them only desolation, and they did this in direct disobedience to the command of Yahweh because they thought that they knew better than He did.
This passage stresses the overall sovereignty of God. The same prophet who could stress the responsibility of each individual person to respond, also stressed that in the end all, including man's ways, was under the control of God, for they could do nothing without His permissive will. Thus when Israel came to their senses they would recognise that all this had happened to them through Yahweh's doing. Because of their sin and rebellion He had stood aside and left them to their own ways, thus bringing on them the consequences of their own actions. This finally brought home His sovereignty and purity in contrast with the degradation that their disobedience had brought. Then they would know that He was Yahweh, totally distinct from all the gods that they had served.
Their Behaviour on Entering in the Land of Canaan.
Israel were no more obedient when they entered Canaan, as the Book of Judges makes clear.