And was defiled with their works: and they went aside after their own inventions.

“But what is it that follows? "And the land was slain with bloods." We might suppose that this was a mistake of the writer, and that he had written interfecta for infecta, were it not for the goodness of God, who has willed His Scriptures to be written in many languages; were it not that we see it written as in the text in many Greek copies which we have inspected; "the land was slain with bloods." What means then, "the land was slain," unless this be referred to the men who dwelt in the land, by a metaphorical expression....For they themselves were slaying their own souls when they offered up their sons, and when they shed the blood of infants who were far from consent to this crime: whence it is said, "They shed innocent blood." "The land" therefore "was slain with bloods, and defiled by their works" [Psalm 106:39], since they themselves were slain in soul, and defiled by their works; "and they went a whoring after their own inventions." By inventions are meant what the Greeks call ἐ πιτηδεύματα: for this word does occur in the Greek copies both in this and a former passage, where it is said, "They provoked Him to anger with their own inventions;" "inventions" in both instances signifying what they had initiated others in. Let no man therefore suppose inventions to mean what they had of themselves instituted, without any example before them to imitate. Whence other translators in the Latin tongue have preferred pursuits, affections, imitations, pleasures, to inventions: and the very same who here write inventions, have elsewhere written pursuits. I chose to mention this, lest the word inventions, applied to what they had not invented, but imitated from others, might raise a difficulty.”

“Therefore was the wrath of the Lord kindled against his people,.... Sin is the cause of wrath, which is compared to fire kindled by the breath of the Almighty, and is intolerable; this shows that the offence must be very great, as to incense the Lord against a people he had chosen above all others to be his peculiar people; as well as it was an aggravation, of their sin, so highly to provoke the Lord, whom they had vouched to be their God. There may be appearances of wrath for sin against those who are the Lord's people in the highest and best sense. Insomuch that he abhorred his own inheritance; the people of Israel, whom he had chosen for his inheritance, and were his portion, and the lot of his inheritance. This must be understood of the body of the people, not of every individual; not of the remnant according to the election of grace among them, of which there were some in all ages; for this would be contrary to his love, and the unchangeableness of it: and however not of the persons of his people, but of their sins; and of the appearances of his providence towards them, which look like wrath, indignation, and abhorrence; for God will not cast off his people, nor forsake his inheritance, Psa 94:14 the following verses explain this wrath and abhorrence. The Targum in the king's Bible is, "the Word of the Lord abhorred,'' &c. see Zac 11:8.”