For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.
Ver. 5. For all people will walk every one in the name of his god] They will do so, they are resolved not to alter their religion; as Cicero said, Me ex ea opinione quam a maioribus accepi de cultu deorum, nullius unquam movebit oratio; I will never be dissuaded by any one from that way of Divine worship, which I have received from my forefathers. How wilful at this day are Jews, Papists, Pagans, heretics! And how much easier a matter do we find it to deal with twenty men's reasons than with one's man will! A wilful man stands as a stake in the midst of a stream, lets all pass by him, but he stands where he was. Nay, but we will have a king, say they, when they had nothing else to say. Nay, but I will curse howsoever, though against my conscience, said Balaam; and do not the Popish Balaamites as much as this, many of them? As for the vulgar sort of them, they are headlong and headstrong, resolved to retain contra gentes against the people, the senseless superstitions transmitted unto them by their progenitors. But what saith the oracle, Rev 14:7 ? "Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and" (whatever your ancestors did) "worship you him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters."
And we will walk in the name of the Lord our God] This was well resolved, and is as well practised by all Christ's faithful people, who dare not follow a multitude to do evil, Exodus 23:2; dare not walk by their fathers' practice, Joshua 24:2; Joshua 24:14,15, for they consider that no commandment doth so expressly threaten God's judgments upon posterity as the second. They therefore resolve to walk in the name, that is, by the laws, and under the view of the Lord their God, who is "God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible," as Moses describeth him, in opposition to all other deities, whether so reputed or deputed, Deuteronomy 10:17 .
For ever and ever] We will not only take a turn or two in his ways, as temporaries, who are hot at hand but soon tire; and give in but we will hold on a constant course of holiness, and not fail to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, Psalms 1:1; John 8:12; John 10:4; John 10:14; Revelation 7:17. As for those apostates that change their God, that change their glory for that which doth not profit, as they therein commit a horrible wickedness, such as the heavens have cause to be astonished at, Jeremiah 2:11,13; so they could not choose out for themselves a worse condition, Hebrews 10:37,38 : for what reaon? they put the Son of God to an open shame, Hebrews 6:6, (like as those that are carted among us are held out as a scorn) and do in effect say, that they have not found him such as they took him for.