Isaiah 65:7

Your iniquities … your fathers The change from 3rd to 2nd pers. is extremely awkward, unless the verse could be detached from the preceding and regarded (down to "hills") as an exclamation. This is far from natural; the better construction is that of the E.V. which makes "iniquities" the obj. to "recompense." It is probably necessary (with the LXX.) to read "their" in both cases. The iniquities of the fathers are indicated in the following words.

which have burnt incense( have sacrificed, see on Isaiah 1:13) upon the mountains The reference is obviously to the illegal worship of the "high places" or local sanctuaries, which is denounced in similar terms in Hosea 4:13; Ezekiel 6:13; cf. Ezekiel 18:6 (if the text be right, see Davidson on the passage in Camb. Bible for Schools). That this form of idolatry was alsopractised by those here spoken of is in every way probable (see ch. Isaiah 57:7); on the other hand their ancestors, the pre-exilic Israelites, could not be charged with the more heinous offences described in Isaiah 65:3. These last, however, were the outcome of the same idolatrous tendency which formerly shewed itself in the worship at the high places, and the judgement now about to descend on the children is called forth both by their own guilt and by that of their fathers.

therefore will I measure their former work Rather: and I will first measure their reward. The word for "former" (rí"shônâh) if an adj., ought to have the art., and moreover the thought expressed by this translation would be unsuitable, since it passes by in silence the recompense due to the sins of the children themselves. It must therefore be rendered as an adverb, as in Jeremiah 16:18 ("and first I will recompense their iniquity" &c.). So R.V.

into their bosom as Isaiah 65:6.