Verse 13
And the houses of Jerusalem ,.... Where the common people dwelt:
and the houses of the kings of Judah ; the palaces of the king, princes, and nobles of Judah, one as well as another:
shall be defiled os Tophet ; as that was defiled with the bodies and bones of the slain, and with the faith of the city brought unto it; so the houses of great and small, high and low, should be defiled with the carcasses of the slain that should lie unburied there; their houses should be their graves, and they buried in the ruins of them: or, "the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled" F19 הטמאים "quae pollutae sunt", Gataker. , with the idolatries after mentioned, shall be as Tophet, places of slaughter:
because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burnt incense to all the host of heaven ; the roofs of houses with the Jews were built flat; and, as they sometimes used them for prayer to the God of heaven, as Peter did, Acts 10:9 ; idolaters used them to burn incense on to the sun, moon, and stars; to which they were nearer, and of which they could have a clearer view upon the house tops, and therefore chose them for this purpose; and so common was this sort of idolatry, that it was practised upon most, if not all, the houses in Jerusalem; see Zephaniah 1:5 ;
and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods ; besides the God of Israel; to Baal, and other Heathen deities.
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