(13) Upon every high hill.--The various localities especially selected for idolatrous rites are enumerated one after another, to give more vividness and graphic character to the whole judgment. The words "sweet savour" are constantly applied to the commanded sacrifices to the Lord, and are here used ironically of the idol sacrifices.

Verse 13. - The thought is the same as in ver. 6, but the localities are given in greater detail. The "hills" and "mountains" were naturally the scenes of the worship of the "high places," and these were commonly associated with groves of trees, as in Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:6; Isaiah 57:5. In Hosea 4:13, oaks (or terebinths), poplars, and elms are specifically named (comp. Deuteronomy 12:2; 2 Kings 16:4). Where they did offer sweet savour, etc. The phrase is eminently characteristic of Ezekiel as a priest (Ezekiel 16:19; Ezekiel 20:28, 41), and is specially prominent in the books which he must have studied. It meets us three times in Exodus, seventeen in Leviticus, seventeen in Numbers, and seldom elsewhere. The crowning sin, from the prophet's point of view, was that the incense which was due to Jehovah had been lavished on the false gods of the nations.

6:11-14 It is our duty to be affected, not only with our own sins and sufferings, but to look with compassion upon the miseries wicked people bring upon themselves. Sin is a desolating thing; therefore, stand in awe, and sin not. If we know the worth of souls, and the danger to which unbelievers are exposed, we shall deem every sinner who takes refuge in Jesus from the wrath to come, an abundant recompence for all contempt or opposition we may meet with.Then shall ye know that I am the Lord,.... Whom they had denied, by serving other gods; but now by those punishments their eyes would be opened to see, and be obliged to acknowledge, that there was no God but the Lord:

when their slain men shall be among their idols round about their altars; as is threatened, Ezekiel 6:5; by which it will appear that the idols whom they worshipped could not save them; since they should fall just by them, round about the altars on which they sacrificed unto them; which idols were placed, and altars for their worship built,

upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains: mountains and high hills were usual places of idolatry among the Heathens, in which the Jews imitated them, and particularly Herodotus (e) says of the Persians, that, going up to the highest parts of mountains, they offered sacrifice to Jupiter; so they called the whole circle of the heavens:

and under every green tree, and under every thick oak; see 1 Kings 14:23; here their slain were to fall, where they committed their idolatry: even in

the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols; or dunghill gods; yet, though they were such, sweet savour or incense was offered to them; wherefore, in righteous judgment, here their carcasses should fill and lie, and rot and stink.

(e) Clio, sive l. 1. c. 131.