(7) A plentiful country.--Literally, a land of Carmel, that word, as meaning a vine-clad hill, having become a type of plenty. So "the forest of his Carmel," in Isaiah 37:24; elsewhere, as in Isaiah 10:18; Isaiah 32:15, "fruitful." The LXX. treats the word as a proper name, "I brought you unto Carmel."

When ye entered.--The words point to the rapid degeneracy of Israel after the settlement in Canaan, as seen in the false worship and foul crimes of Judges 17-21. So in Psalm 78:56-58. Instead of being the pattern nation, the firstfruits of mankind, they sank to the level, or below the level, of the heathen.

Verse 7. - A plentiful country. "A Carmel land," as it were (so Payne Smith). "Carmel" is strictly an appellative noun, meaning" garden-land," i.e., land planted with vines and other choice plants. So Jeremiah 4:26; Isaiah 29:17; Isaiah 37:24.

2:1-8 Those who begin well, but do not persevere, will justly be upbraided with their hopeful and promising beginnings. Those who desert religion, commonly oppose it more than those who never knew it. For this they could have no excuse. God's spiritual Israel must own their obligations to him for safe conduct through the wilderness of this world, so dangerous to the soul. Alas, that many, who once appeared devoted to the Lord, so live that their professions aggravate their crimes! Let us be careful that we do not lose in zeal and fervency, as we gain knowledge.And I brought you into a plentiful country,.... "Into the land of Carmel", as in the Hebrew text; that is,

"into the land of Israel, which was planted as Carmel,''

as the Targum paraphrases it; with wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, and olives; a land flowing with milk and honey, Deuteronomy 8:8, so Ben Melech:

to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; of vineyards and oliveyards, which they had not planted, and for which they had never laboured, Joshua 24:13,

but when ye entered ye defiled my land; which the Lord had chosen above all lands, where he would have a temple built for his worship, and where he would cause his Shechinah or glorious Majesty to dwell; but this they defiled by their sins and transgressions, and particularly by their idolatry, as follows:

that made mine heritage an abomination; by devoting it to the worship of idols, as the Targum paraphrases it.