Isaiah 65:4

The first two lines read:

Who sit in the graves,

and pass the night in secret (lit. guarded) places.

The practice of "sitting in graves" is undoubtedly rooted in the worship of ancestors (Schwally, Das Leben nach dem Tode, pp. 68, 71), and the object probably was to obtain oracles from the dead. The phrase "pass the night" seems to point to the custom known to the ancients as incubation: "ubi stratis pellibus hostiarum incubaresoliti erant, ut somniis futura cognoscerent" (Jerome). This idea is expressed by the LXX. (which runs the two clauses into one): κοιμῶνται διὰ ἐνύπνια; i.e. for the purpose of obtaining dream-oracles. But whether the "secret places" are connected with the "graves" is uncertain.

which eat swine's flesh in sacrificial meals; in any case a violation of the Law (Deuteronomy 14:8; Leviticus 11:7). From the fact that wild pigs are mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions (Jensen, Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, Vol. i. pp. 306 ff.) it has been inferred that the Jews were tempted into this during the Exile. But the swine was "forbidden food to all the Semites," being sacred to more than one deity, and used in sacrifice only in some exceptional rites (W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites2, pp. 218, 290 f., 351). It is probably such mystic sacrifices that are here referred to; and there was no place where lax Jews were more likely to be enticed into them than in their own land.

broth of abominablethings] Such creatures as are enumerated in Isaiah 66:17. The "sacrifices are boiled and yield a magical hell-broth" (W. R. Smith, Marriage and Kinship, p. 310). "Broth" is the rendering of the Qěrê(mârâq, Judges 6:19 f.); the Kěthîbhas a word (pârâq) which might mean "piece" (sing.), although it does not occur elsewhere.