Isaiah 65:3

(Verse 3.) The people who provoke me to anger are always before my face: they sacrifice in the gardens, and offer incense upon bricks (Exodus XX, 4). LXX: This people who provoke me are always before my eyes, they always sacrifice in the gardens, and offer incense upon bricks to non-gods. ** The Lord says: You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath. And they provoked me with strange gods, and with abominations they provoked me to anger.

Second, from the continuity of their sinning: a people that continually provoke me to anger before my face, for all things are naked and open to his eyes (Heb 4:13), or because they placed idols in the temple: they have provoked me with that which …

A people - This verse contains a specification of the reasons why God had rejected them, and brought the calamities upon them. That provoketh me to anger - That is, by their sins. They give constant occasion for my indignation. Continually - (תמיד tâmı̂yd). It is not once merely, but their conduct as a people is constantly such as to excite my displeasure. To my face - There is no attempt at concealment. Their abominations are public.

God was continually inviting them, and they continually offending Him (De 32:21). to my face--They made no attempt to hide their sin (Isa 3:9). Compare "before Me" (Ex 20:3). in gardens--(See on Isa 1:29; Le 17:5). altars of brick--Hebrew, "bricks." God had commanded His altars to be of unhewn stone (Ex 20:25).

That sacrificeth in gardens, and burneth incense upon altars of brick “Sacrificing in the gardens, and burning incense on the tiles” - These are instances of heathenish superstition, and idolatrous practices, to which the Jews were immoderately addicted before the Babylonish captivity. The heathen worshipped their idols in groves; whereas God, in opposition to this species of idolatry, commanded his people, when they should come into the promised land, to destroy all the places wherein the Canaanites had served their gods, and in particular to burn their groves with fire, Deu 12:2, Deu 12:3. These apostate Jews sacrificed upon altars built of bricks; in opposition to the command of God in regard to his altar, which was to be of unhewn stone, Exo 20:26. Et pro uno altari, quod impolitis lapidibus Dei erat lege constructum, coctos lateres et agrorum cespites hostiarum sanguine cruentabant. “And instead of one altar which, according to the law of God, was, to be constructed of unhewn stones, they stained the bricks and turfs of the fields with the blood of their victims.” Hieron. in loc. Or it means, perhaps, that they sacrificed upon the roofs of their houses, which were always flat, and paved with brick, or tile, or plaster of terrace. An instance of this idolatrous practice we find in 2Ki 23:12, where it is said that Josiah “beat down the altars that were on the top of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made.” See also Zep 1:5. Sir John Chardin’s MS. note on this place of Isaiah is as follows: “Ainsi font tous les Gentiles, sur les lieux eleves, et sur les terrasses, appellez latcres, pareeque sont faits de briq.” “Who dwell in the sepulchres, and lodge in the caverns,” for the purposes of necromancy and divination; to obtain dreams and revelations. […]