The incense that ye burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the people of the land, did not the LORD remember them, and came it [not] into his mind?
Ver. 21. Ye, and your fathers, your kings, and your princes.] This was another thing they stood much upon, that their fathers had done it: so had their grandees. If men can say, "We have sinned with our fathers," they think it is enough. The heretic Dioscurus cried out, I hold with the fathers, I am cast out with the fathers, &c. Yea, Jerome once desired leave of Augustine to err with seven fathers whom he found of his opinion. But what saith the Scripture? "Be not ye the servants of men." 1Co 7:23 And what said a great politician? I will not live by example, but by rule; neither will I pin my faith on another's sleeve, because I know not whither he may carry it.
Did not the Lord remember them?] When you thought he had forgot them. Sin may sleep a long time, like a sleeping debt, not called for of many years, &c.