Their sorrows shall be multiplied [that] hasten [after] another [god]: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
Ver. 4. Their sorrows shall be multiplied] Many sorrows shall be to those wicked idolaters, Psalms 32:10, some of their own creating by their superstitions and will worships (vide Plutarch, περι δεισιδαιμονιας); others from a jealous and just God; others from the devil, who acteth and agitateth them, beateth and whippeth them (as at this day he doth the poor Indians, who worship devils in most terrible figure; believing that they are permitted of God to punish or spare them at their pleasure); and some they shall be sure of from me whenever I come to the kingdom. Some, after the Chaldee, read it, their idols are multiplied. The old heathens had thirty thousand in Hesiod's days. In China there are said to be at this day no fewer than a hundred thousand idols, which they use to whip if they come not at a call to help them. Before a sick man they put the devil's picture, that he may learn to know him in another world, and take him for his friend.
That hasten after another god] Or, that endow another god. Superstition is not only painful but chargeable. The story is told of one king of England, that he bestowed as much upon a cross as the revenues of his kingdom came to in a year. Idolaters lavish out of the bag, and spare for no cost; witness the Papists' vowed presents and memories, as they call them, hung up in honour to their male and female saints, the Lady of Loretto especially. But it was the serpent's grammar that first taught men to decline God in the plural number, Eritis sicut Dii, you will be as gods, as Damianus observeth from Genesis 3:5, and hence that innumerable rabble. The Jesuits boast of their Ignatii Apotheosis; and Cardinal Bembus is not ashamed to say of his St Francis, quod in deorum numerum ab Ecclesia Romana sit relatus (Hist. Venet.). Is not this abominable idolatry? 1 Peter 4:3 .
Their drink offerings of blood] Many heathens sacrificed to their idols (that is, to devils) with man's blood, against all laws of humanity and piety. Thus they sacrificed to Bellona, the sister of Mars; as also with blood let out of their own arms (Euseb. de Praep. Evangel.). The priests of Baal (who perhaps was Mars) cut and lanced themselves, 1Ki 18:28 So do the Mahometan priests of today; as the Papists whip themselves, &c. The old idolaters offered their children in sacrifice to Moloch, or Saturn. David abhorreth the thought of such inhumanities, Neque deos illegitimos, nec illegitime colam, saith he, I will have no such doings.
Nor take up their names into my lips] But spit them out of my mouth with utmost detestation, according to the law, Exodus 23:13. It repented Austin that ever he had used the word Fortune, that heathen goddess (Epist. ad Damas.). And Absit ut de ore Christiano sonet Iupiter omnipotens, &c., saith Jerome, Let no Christian mouth say, Jupiter omnipotent, or swear Mehercule, Mecastor. The primitive Christians would not call their days of the week dies Martis, Mercurii, &c., as Trismegist had named them; but the first, second, third, &c., day of the week. All occasions or semblances of idolatry should be shunned; it is not safe being at Satan's mess though our spoon be never so long, saith one. See Hos 2:16-17 Zec 13:2 Deuteronomy 12:2 .