Isaiah 57:5-6

5, 6. More closely scrutinizing their case, the prophet puts it as it is.

Inflaming yourselves As near as can be ascertained from lexicon, grammar, and ancient usages in Palestine connected with idolatries, these words imply burning with libidinous desires; adulterous practices characterized the exercises of the worship of idols.

Under every green tree Groves of terebinths, a species of live oak, were planted in localities set apart for idol worship and lust, usually on big hills, often the highest in northern and middle Palestine, where Baal worship was the most common. Then another form of this sin was the worship of Moloch, in the Hinnom vale southeast of Jerusalem. Children were here sacrificed, either by thrusting them into the furnace, or by slaughtering and then burning them. These extreme evils became most prevalent, probably, in Manasseh’s reign, though from earliest time in that land they may have been more or less practised.

Smooth stones Either rendered smooth by rushing waters in the brooks, or by oil poured upon them when reared into altars.

Did any exilian prophet write thus minutely of the scenery of hills, mountains, valleys, etc., peculiar chiefly to Palestine, and not at all to the level Chaldean plains? Difficulties of explanation arise mostly from neological interpreters trying to keep good this theory of an unknown prophet, and not Isaiah, as the writer.