And they turned away, and kept not the covenant: even like their fathers they were turned aside as a crooked bow.

“For that generation crooked and embittering, inasmuch as for these corporal blessings they put not off the coat of oldness, "Did tempt" yet, "and provoked the high God, and His testimonies they kept not: and they turned them away, and they kept not the covenant, like their fathers." For under a sort of covenant and decree they said, "All things which our Lord God hath spoken we will do, and we will hear." It is a remarkable thing indeed which he saith, "like their fathers:" while throughout the whole text of the Psalm he was seeming to speak of the same men as it were, yet now it appeareth that the words did concern those who were already in the land of promise, and that the fathers spoken of were of those who did provoke in the desert. "They were turned," he saith, "into a crooked," or, as some copies have it, "into a perverse bow." But what this is doth better appear in that which followeth, where he saith, "And unto wrath they provoked Him with their hills." It doth signify that they leaped into idolatry. The bow then was perverted, not for the name of the Lord, but against the name of the Lord: who said to the same people, "Thou shalt have none other Gods but Me." But by the bow He doth signify the mind's intention. This same idea, lastly, more clearly working out, "And in their graven idols," he saith, "they provoked Him to indignation."”

“For they provoked him to anger with their high places,.... Which they built to Baal, and other Heathen dieties: and moved him to jealousy with their graven images; which they worshipped, see Jdg 10:6, which idolatry was spiritual adultery, and so made the Lord jealous of them, who stood in the relation of a husband to them, as a man becomes jealous by the unchaste and lascivious conduct of his wife; and such a course of life the Israelites lived, throughout the reigns of the judges, at certain seasons, until the times of Eli and Samuel, when the ark was carried captive, of which mention is made in the following verses.”

“The covenant, is omitted in many Greek and Latin copies, as well as in Hebrew. (St. Jerome, ad Sun.) — Yet it is found in the Vatican edition, (Calmet) as well as in the Alexandrian, esunthetesan . (Haydock) — Bow, which hits not the mark. It alludes to the faithless Israelites, (Calmet) particularly to Ephraim, ver. 9., Osee vii. 6., and Jeremias ix. 3. The bow of Jonathan was not such, 2 Kings i. 22. (Calmet) — A bad bow misses the aim, or breaking, wounds the person who uses it. (Menochius) — These people hurt themselves by their treachery. (Worthington)”