“Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?”
My Notes
What Does Isaiah 57:5 Mean?
Isaiah confronts Israel's most horrific idolatrous practices: burning with lust among the sacred oaks (sites of pagan worship) and slaying children in valleys under rocky cliffs. The combination of sexual idolatry and child sacrifice represents the absolute lowest point of Israel's spiritual life.
"Enflaming yourselves" (chamam) means burning with desire — specifically the heated passion of pagan fertility worship. "Under every green tree" was the standard location for Canaanite worship, which included ritual prostitution. The idolatry began with misdirected passion and ended with dead children.
The valleys and cliff faces where children were killed were literal locations — likely the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) outside Jerusalem. The same valley that would later become Jesus' metaphor for hell. The geography of child sacrifice became the vocabulary of eternal judgment.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What 'green tree' in your life represents misdirected passion — desire aimed at the wrong thing?
- 2.How does the trajectory (passion to idolatry to sacrifice) show up in modern forms?
- 3.What is your idol demanding right now that it didn't demand at the beginning?
- 4.Does the connection between the Valley of Hinnom and Gehenna (hell) affect how seriously you take the pattern Isaiah describes?
Devotional
They burned with passion under every green tree. Then they killed their children in the valleys.
Isaiah names the trajectory of idolatry at its most extreme: it starts with misdirected desire and ends with dead children. The passion that should have been directed at God went to idols. And the idols demanded the highest possible price: your children.
This isn't ancient history. The pattern is timeless. Misdirected passion — whether for power, pleasure, money, or status — eventually consumes what you love most. The idols of every generation demand sacrifice. And the sacrifice they demand escalates until it reaches the thing you can't afford to lose.
The Valley of Hinnom — where these children died — became Gehenna, the word Jesus used for hell. The place of child sacrifice became the permanent symbol of ultimate destruction. The geography of their worst sin became the vocabulary of God's fiercest judgment. That's not coincidence. That's theological poetry.
What are you inflaming yourself with? What misdirected passion is demanding escalating sacrifice? The idol never stops asking. First it wants your attention. Then your money. Then your integrity. Then your relationships. Then your children — metaphorically or otherwise. The valley is always at the end of the road.
Name the idol before it names the price.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
Inflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree,.... Or, "inflamed with or among oaks" (h); with images made of…
Inflaming yourselves - Burning, that is, with lust. The whole language here is derived from adulterous intercourse. The…
We have here a high charge, but a just one no doubt, drawn up against that wicked generation out of which God's…
Invective against an idolatrous party. With regard to the reference of this obscure and difficult passage the following…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture