Sefer Hoshea, Chapter 7. "When I heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the wickedness of Samaria, for they practice falsehood; a thief enters, and a troop of bandits raids outside." The Malbim explains that this verse is a continuation of what we saw earlier, that Hashem will perform an act of kindness of harvest for Yehudah "when I restore the captivity of My people." We saw: "Also, Yehudah, a harvest is appointed for you," and the Malbim explained: When will you reap the fruit of kindness? When I restore the captivity of My people. That was in the days of Chizkiyahu, when they were saved by Hashem and then He performed the kindness of harvest - meaning that it bore fruit and yielded produce: "And the surviving remnant of the House of Yehudah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward." Thus, "Also, Yehudah, a harvest is appointed for you when I restore the captivity of My people."
So he tells us now: In contrast, look at the people of Israel - meaning the tribes of Israel, as distinct from Yehudah and Binyamin. In contrast, for Israel, Hashem will not perform an act of kindness of harvest. That means that at the time of the harvest, Hashem will not do kindness with them. That is to say, when I desire to heal Israel, to restore their captivity, instead of kindness accompanying them as well, "When I heal Israel, then the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the wickedness of Samaria." Not only will I not be able to perform kindness with them, but the iniquity that until now was hidden will be revealed.
What are we speaking of here? We discussed that with Yehudah, Hashem gave them goodness and performed kindness with them, and it was for their benefit; we saw this regarding Yehudah in the era of Chizkiyahu. Hashem says: I will likewise do kindness for Israel, but there the kindness was not for good; rather, the kindness ultimately led them to rebel. Where did we see this? He says: Look at Ephraim; Hashem did good for them in the days of Yarov'am ben Yoash. It is written there that Hashem restored the border of Israel from the entrance of Chamat to the Sea of the Aravah. Until then, their sin was in secret, but from then on it became a public sin. It turns out, therefore, that when I wish to restore their captivity, instead of there being reasons for Me to truly have mercy on them, on the contrary: "the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed." Their iniquity is further exposed; their iniquity is laid bare.
The Malbim explains that avon (iniquity) is related to distortion (ivut), which is a distortion in the paths of faith. And "the wickedness of Samaria" refers to what they did in interpersonal matters (between man and his fellow). So corresponding to "and the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed," which we explained refers to matters of faith, he says: "for they practice falsehood." They practiced falsehood, lying against faith in Hashem, making idolatry for themselves, following false beliefs and futility. And corresponding to "the wickedness of Samaria," which as we explained refers to interpersonal matters, he says: "the thief enters, a troop of bandits raids outside." Meaning, what was initially a single thief, stealing secretly where no one sees, has now become "a troop of bandits raids outside." That is, they have become thieves in public and in large numbers, in troops. Troops raid, and they do not come quietly, but "outside" - outside means publicly. In summary: What I wanted was to have mercy on the House of Ephraim just as I had mercy on the House of Yehudah, but Hashem says they do not give Me this opportunity. Because when I have mercy on them, they exploit it for evil and do not change their ways for good.
The Malbim says there is a difference between sheker (falsehood) and kazav (deceit). "For they practice falsehood." What is the difference between sheker and kazav? The Malbim says kazav is something that started out well but disappointed, like "a deceitful brook" (nachal achzav). We do not say "a false brook" (nachal sheker). A false brook never had water at all. A deceitful brook had water flowing in it, and now its waters have failed. Achzav comes from kazav. As it were, they made a promise and lied; only initially it was still good - there was a brook, and now it failed. Sheker, on the other hand, is something that never existed; sheker is something that never had an ounce of truth in it. Sheker is something revealed immediately, and with no disguises it is seen to be false. It did not cloak itself in the guise of truth, as the Malbim says. Kazav, in contrast, initially cloaks itself in the guise of truth, and afterward its deceit is exposed. Anyone who knows, the Russian newspaper that was the embodiment of falsehood was called Pravda. What is Pravda? Truth. Truth, yes. "He who wishes to lie distances his testimony" - so far that he called it "Truth." You know, they tell of someone walking with his friend and telling him that there was famine in Leningrad. He said to him: "What are you talking about, there is a terrible famine there, I tell you people are dying like flies!" He did not realize a secret policeman was walking beside him. The policeman immediately stopped him: "What is this? How can you speak like that? Why on earth are you saying such things? Where do you invent such fabrications?" He replied: "What fabrications? I was there yesterday!" The policeman said: "Sir, stop wandering the streets and start reading the newspapers! Read the newspaper and you'll see how everything is fine, everything is wonderful, everything is simply great, truly special." That is when falsehood makes such waves that the lie itself is called "Truth." So he says: Sheker is something known from the start to be a lie. But kazav is something we initially thought had some element of truth, and in the end it failed.
"And they do not say in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their misdeeds surround them, they are before My face." "And they do not say in their hearts": The Malbim says that when things were bad for them, they would think in their hearts that I remember their wickedness, I am punishing them. But when I came to heal them, I expanded their borders as we said - Hashem did good for Ephraim with the hope that perhaps this favor would change their ways - this did not cause them to repent in its wake; rather, "they do not say in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness." That is to say: "Ah, Hashem has started to do good for us; He must have forgotten all the evil we did." You see? Instead of understanding that I am now trying to take a different path with you, trying to do good for you so that through this you will recognize the hand of Hashem, you say: "Ah, that's it, look, He has left us alone, He no longer remembers our iniquities, there are no prophets, no harsh rebukes; now He has begun doing good for us." So "they do not say in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness" - they do not say in their hearts that I remember their wickedness, they think I have forgotten their wickedness. They assume I will not punish them. And this led them to commit sins publicly now, unlike previously when they still did them in secret; as we said, now they lie and steal officially, and not just individuals, but "a troop of bandits raids outside."
Regarding this He says: "Now their misdeeds surround them, they are before My face." He says: Why do I need to search to remember their past wickedness? "Remembering their wickedness" means looking at what they do now and holding past things against them: "You know what evil deeds you did." He says: I do not need to search through history, for "now their misdeeds surround them" - right now they are surrounded by the evil deeds they are committing; it is "before My face," in the present. So there is no need to recall their earlier iniquities. So what are you doing? You continue in the negative path, saying Hashem forgot our iniquities. Hashem says: Even if I were to forget all the sins you committed until now, right before My face you are sinning right now! That alone is enough to punish you for what you are doing now, even without taking into account all your earlier sins.
"With their wickedness they gladden the king, and with their lies, princes." Radak explains: "With their wickedness they gladden the king" - Radak says this refers to when they gathered with Yarov'am concerning the calves; they would bring him joy, because Yarov'am was the one who set up the calves, and when they came and celebrated around them, "with their wickedness they gladden the king." "And with their lies" - what they lied about, saying, "These are your gods, O Israel," they also gladdened the princes. The word "they gladden" carries over to the second clause: "With their wickedness they gladden the king, and with their lies [they gladden] princes." In any case, he says that they gladden the princes - all the princes who were in full agreement and united with Yarov'am in that same counsel, and every day they would gladden them by doing evil just like the king and the princes. In the evil they would do - Radak says this refers to extortion and violence, their hand was with them in that too; and in their lies, deceiving and lying to one another, they gladden the princes who also lend their support to them.
The Malbim, however, explains that this verse comes to express the downfall that they would suffer through Assyria. For Assyria would exile them from their land, and here he already turns to speak of the punishment. And at first he says: Come and see what the cause of all this was. The first cause was that they rebelled against their kings; they assassinated them. First it is written that Shallum ben Yavesh assassinated Zecharyah ben Yarov'am, striking him before the people. They went and killed their king. Would you think that perhaps this was enough? Afterward Menachem ben Gadi marched against him and killed him. Whom? Shallum ben Yavesh. So Shallum ben Yavesh assassinated Zecharyah, Menachem ben Gadi assassinated Shallum ben Yavesh and reigned in his place. This was the reason that Pul, king of Assyria, invaded the land, and Menachem ben Gadi gave him a thousand talents of silver so that he would strengthen the kingdom in his hand and help him reign and rule. And afterward came Pekach ben Remalyahu; he was the one who conspired against Pekachyah ben Menachem, killed him, and reigned in his place. And against him came Tiglath-Pileser, king of Assyria, and exiled Zevulun and Naftali. That was through Achaz. Afterward, Hoshea ben Elah struck down Pekach and reigned in his place. In other words, we are talking here about a series of assassinations where each king assassinated his predecessor. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, marched against him, and Hoshea - Hoshea ben Elah - became his servant; afterward the king of Assyria saw that Hoshea ben Elah was not following his plans, found that he was rebelling against him and sending messengers to So, king of Egypt. So the king of Assyria arrested him and bound him in prison: "You are conspiring against me with the king of Egypt?" He put him in prison, besieged Samaria, and exiled Israel to Assyria. So what do you learn from this? The Malbim says that even the fact that the king of Assyria discovered treason in Hoshea was also due to internal strife. Just as we saw earlier that each assassinated the other, here too it was the result of informants from within our own midst - the New Israel Fund, a fifth column, all sorts of these types - and they rebelled against Hoshea and devised plots against him, says the Malbim, in order to topple him. What did they do? They went and tipped off the king of Assyria that he was planning to rebel, saying: Look, he went to forge ties with Egypt. And as is known, in the Jewish people there is unfortunately a trait not found among the nations: "Your destroyers and wreckers will emerge from within you." The simple meaning of the verse, by the way, is a positive prophecy - that the destroyers and wreckers will leave us. We hope that soon Mashiach will come and that will truly be the case. But unfortunately, in the meantime the other interpretation of the verse is fulfilled in us: that the destroyers and wreckers come from within our midst. You do not need to do much; the nations do not need to exert themselves - special funds belonging to people from our own midst, the erev rav (mixed multitude) who go and say: Look, in this settlement they added a porch; that one over there in Jerusalem started building; these are doing this, those are doing that. In short, the nations do not need to make an effort. There is someone here doing the work for them. The destroyers from within us, the Hellenizers among us, they are the ones who go and harm us more than any other adversary. And most astounding of all, these destroyers receive funding from you and me! We all pay taxes, and the university funds professors who - you cannot believe the madness - call on universities around the world: "Why don't you impose an academic boycott on Israel?" Tell me, you are in academia! "Yes, yes, let them impose an academic boycott on us because we are building settlements and acting against international law and we..." Destroyers from within you! You are shooting yourself in the foot, in the head, where else? You are from academia? Yes, from academia they demand an academic boycott against the State of Israel. So in fact, this has existed forever. Ever since Moshe Rabbeinu brought in the erev rav, this erev rav has accompanied us. As the Vilna Gaon cites from the Tikkunei HaZohar, toward the coming of Mashiach, the Tikkunei HaZohar says: The heads of the people and the rulers in Israel will be from the erev rav. You can see them in the Supreme Court, you can see them in the State Attorney's Office, you can see them everywhere, in the media - at all the top positions you will find the erev rav who are the ones ruling. And as we said, this has been so throughout history: those who informed on Hoshea ben Elah were from our own midst, and those who brought about the downfall and the end of Jewish rule in the Land of Israel were from our own midst. Yishmael ben Netanyah went and assassinated Gedalyah ben Achikam, and with that the story here ended and the remaining ember of Israel was extinguished. So effectively, until the coming of the Redeemer, this erev rav will continue to cause us trouble. And this is part of what we pray for: "Restore our judges as of old and our counselors as at the beginning," that He redeem us with an everlasting redemption, and then it will truly be clear who is an authentic Jew hailing from a holy source, and who is of the erev rav, whose end will be like that of the nations.
The Malbim says that regarding these matters the prophet utters his prophecies from here until the end of the book. According to this, let us now come to the explanation of the verses. When we speak of the first stage, when they were still loyal to the king, says the Malbim - what he just did was sketch out a roadmap of the events, but now he speaks to us about the beginning of the process. Our verse deals with the stage when they were still loyal to the king: "With their wickedness they gladden the king." They would do evil deeds and thereby gladden the king, because their king was an evil king, a king who drew them toward evil. "And the heart of princes with their lies": They would gladden the heart of the princes through their lies. They denied Hashem and held fast to idolatry, thereby gladdening the king, as the king desired that they worship idols and not ascend to Jerusalem. That was before the rebellion.
"They are all adulterers, like an oven heated by a baker; he ceases stirring from the kneading of dough until its leavening." He connects adultery here to an oven heated by a baker: "he ceases stirring" - we need to understand what this means - "from the kneading of dough until its leavening," from the time of kneading until the time it leavens. What are we talking about here? Let us begin with the homiletic interpretation (derash), which is that of Targum Yonatan, which Rashi notes he was unable to reconcile with the plain meaning of the text. In any case, let us read his words. Targum Yonatan says: "They all lust to commit adultery with their neighbors' wives; they burn like an oven stoked by a baker. Therefore, they will be exiled swiftly from their midst, just as they rush to carry out their wicked thought." And notice how he explains "from the kneading of dough until its leavening," about which Rashi says he could not fit it into the plain meaning: "And because they did not remember the miracles and mighty deeds performed for them on the day they were brought up from Egypt, from the time the dough was kneaded until it was baked as unleavened bread." In simple terms, "from the kneading of dough until its leavening" is a grievance: Why did you not remember the miracles performed for you back when you ate matzot during the Exodus from Egypt? Hashem performed miracles for you; the dough did not leaven.
All right, let us now explain according to the Malbim. The Malbim says: "They are all adulterers" - they all engage in adultery, like an oven heated by a baker, "like an oven heated by a baker." The Malbim explains that here he compares the lust for immorality to a fiery flame. We find in several places in the words of Chazal that the evil inclination for illicit relations (arayot) is compared to fire, as is written there concerning Rav Amram Chassida, that a pillar of fire emerged from him. We see that it is expressed as fire. Just as a flame of fire burns the oven and stokes it and heats it, so too burns the fire of passion for adultery. And the baker who stokes the oven, says the Malbim, would stoke it all night - meaning, first they heat it, he kindles the fire, and if the baker were to fall asleep, there was someone tasked with waking him up so that he would not let the oven cool down, so that he would continually add wood to ensure the oven remained properly heated. When does the baker have time to rest a little? The Malbim says this is when he would prepare the dough. When he kneaded the dough, now there is a rising time; until the dough rises, the baker can doze off a little. And that is until the time he goes and kneads new dough and waits for the dough to leaven, until it is ready to bake, until it rises. And then he says: From the time of kneading dough until its leavening, he ceases. "He ceases stirring" - the one who wakes the baker ceases from the kneading of dough until its leavening. From the stage where he kneads the dough until the stage where the dough leavens, he no longer wakes him up; he rests. That is to say, he is illustrating for us here that the lustful faculty does not rest for a moment, like an oven continually stoked. When does it rest? Only for a brief time: from the moment he commits adultery until his desire regains its strength and he once again receives fresh craving, and thereby he fulfills the will of the king and princes, since they are all adulterers, and in this the king wants everyone to act wickedly.
"On the day of our king, princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with scoffers." "On the day of our king": There is an explanation here followed by almost all commentators, based on Targum Yonatan; this is how Ibn Ezra, Rashi, and Radak explain it. "On the day of our king": On the day they coronated the king, they would call that day "the day of our king." And then he says: What business did the princes have with the king? They did not speak with the king about matters of defeating enemies, establishing justice, or governing the kingdom - things that should be discussed on the day a king is coronated: What are the terms, what is he stepping into? What did they occupy themselves with? "On the day of our king, princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine." They engaged in eating and drinking until the princes became sick from drinking so much wine. And that is "the heat of wine" (chamat miyayin). Chamat, according to Radak's explanation, is like a wineskin (chemet). Just as there is a waterskin, there is a wineskin. The princes became sick because each one arrived with his flask, each one with his wineskin - his jug of wine - and through this the princes became sick; the prince receives from this one and that one, becomes ill, gets alcohol poisoning, sick from all the wine. You know, it is written about Eisav that Yaakov Avinu gave him bread and lentil stew, "and he ate and drank." "And drank" - yet it does not say that he gave him drink! So how did he drink? It is explained that Eisav does not need Yaakov to give him drink. Eisav, like the typical Gentile, walks around with a bottle in his pocket. He has a built-in bottle, constantly refueling. So he does not need to wait for Yaakov to give him drink: "and he ate and drank" - the drink he already had of his own. And because of this, "he stretched out his hand with scoffers." From excessive drinking, he would jest with them. Note that initially he calls them "princes" (sarim); that was before the intoxication. "On the day of our king, princes made themselves sick." The princes became sick from the wine, "he stretched out his hand," and then the king sits there, as it were, with scoffers. Radak's father says: Before they became drunk, he called them princes; after they became drunk, once a person is drunk he is no longer in his right mind, so now they are scoffers (lotzetzim), he can no longer be called a prince. Sar denotes authority and stature; now he is merely a jester. So they would come and get drunk with them, and thereby bring the king as well to foolishness and vanity, preventing him from understanding what lies ahead and what his role requires of him.
The Malbim explains differently. The Malbim says that "the day of our king" cannot be explained in the sense of the king's coronation day, because an unqualified "day of" in the construct state refers to a day of visitation and reckoning. He brings several examples: "the day of Jerusalem" is the day Hashem will visit Jerusalem; "for your day has come" means the day your time of reckoning arrives. He says we do not find this used for a king's coronation day; we do not find such an expression used as a day of reckoning so that we could explain "the day of our king" as the day of our king's coronation. So what is "the day of our king"? A day that appears in construct form indicates a day of reckoning. Thus, "the day of our king" is the day of our king's downfall, not the coronation day of our king - so the Malbim wishes to explain. He then explains that when the day of the king's downfall arrived, the day of the rebellion - for we described an entire trajectory where they were seemingly on good terms with the king, and afterward they rise against him, kill him, and a new king rises to reign - now he will describe what happens on the day of the king's downfall. On the day they wanted to overthrow the king, the day of the rebellion - we said that they were committing adultery every night like a burning oven, but he says that on the preceding night they did not engage in adultery. Why? Because the conspirators gathered together to plan how to overthrow the king. And when they met together, they drank wine all night with the princes, until the princes became sick from the heat of wine. Notice: not like Radak, who explained chamat yayin as a wine flask; the Malbim explains that mechamat yayin means from the heating of the wine. From the heat of the wine - alcohol is warming - from the heat of the wine the princes became sick. "He stretched out his hand with scoffers" - then the wine, as it were, speaking of it as an abstract concept, the wine itself overcomes and draws all the princes among the scoffers, pulling them along with all its camps so that they become scoffers and do not notice what is happening to them.
"For they make their heart draw near like an oven in their ambush; all night their baker sleeps; in the morning it burns like a flaming fire." "For they make their heart draw near like an oven in their ambush": Rashi explains that they prepared their hearts for their act of ambush like an oven; just as you stoke an oven for baking, they stoked and prepared their hearts for the ambush. "All night their baker sleeps": Ofehem means their baker, in the possessive form - their baker, the one who stokes the oven. After preparing their hearts and considering in what way to carry out the evil - that is the preparation of the heart, "they make their heart draw near like an oven" - "their baker sleeps." They sleep until morning, and by morning they burn like fire until they prevail and complete the evil they planned to do. According to Rashi, this does not speak of overthrowing the king as the Malbim explains, but is another continuation describing the evil of the generation. According to the other commentators, this chapter describes how wickedly the generation acted, but does not come to describe plots to overthrow the king. This line of overthrowing the king is the path the Malbim takes. Radak also explains: "They make their heart draw near like an oven in their ambush" - the heart, which burned like an oven, they brought near to the evil deed, constantly thinking thoughts of how to do evil, and this was "in their ambush," like an ambusher: "He is a lurking bear to me." "All night their baker sleeps": Radak explains that the heart is the organ of thought. And what is the operating force within it? That is essentially the baker, all this in the allegory. Just as the baker stokes the oven all night, and in the morning when he sees the oven is well heated he bakes the bread, so too the baker who sleeps at night has no action; in our analogue, the power of thought sleeps at night. When a person sleeps, his thoughts do not wander; he rests, until thought translates into deed, and that is in the morning. So he depicts it as sleeping at night, when there is no labor. Thus, "for they make their heart draw near like an oven in their ambush; all night their baker sleeps" - this is the power of thought devising schemes; at night it sleeps, and in the morning it rises, "it burns like a flaming fire," like an oven that keeps heating up all night and in the morning is ready for baking.
The Malbim explains: Here he describes for us their plans to assemble and unite against the king. The Malbim says: On that night, they brought their heart near like an oven. What does that mean? Just as an oven is set to heat up from those fiery flames, so too they bring their hearts close to one another. That is, each one reveals the secrets of his heart to his fellow. Each seeks another person with whom to conspire in order to ambush and kill the king - in what manner, by what counsel, by what way. And about this he says: "All night their baker sleeps." Meaning, on this night they did not wake the baker. And according to the Malbim, based on what we saw earlier that this refers to the evil inclination of lust, of immorality, on this night we see them sitting to make plans. On this night they are not drawn after immorality, after illicit relations; they let him sleep and rest, not engaging in adultery, but only in matters of rebellion and murder, in the plot to kill the king. "In the morning it burns like a flaming fire": After they assassinated the king, the oven - which is their heart, their inner core - was kindled, not with the fire that stokes an oven to bake bread, but with a flaming fire (esh lehava). A flame (lahav), says the Malbim, is prone to consume and devour everything approaching it from afar. When you want to light a fire in an oven, you cannot have high flames, because high flames burn things up. To bake, you need a low fire, since baking is done with coals, not with roaring flames, which would only burn the bread. Here he says: Instead of stoking the oven to bake bread, they ignited in it a flaming fire, a fire that burns and consumes everything. That is to say, the power awakened and kindled then, says the Malbim, was not a drive of lust, but a force of fury, of wrath, to murder, kill, and destroy. And this is unlike what we saw earlier, where they stoked the oven for bread, which we explained was an expression for the sake of immorality. Here he says: No, this is a flaming fire; a flaming fire is a fire of furious wrath, a fire of frenzy, a fire that burns and devours everything. So here their ovens operate on something else: on assassinating the king, on slaughtering all who belong to him. In other words, he gives us two expressions for the baking of this oven, for the operation of this oven: one expression of lust and immorality, and a second expression of murderousness and warfare.
"They are all as hot as an oven and have devoured their judges; all their kings have fallen; none among them calls to Me." "They are all as hot as an oven": He says that when they come as hot as an oven in the morning, someone told them the Sanhedrin here was a stumbling block, so they said: "We will destroy them." "They have devoured their judges." And therefore what happened ultimately was: "they have fallen; none among them calls to Me." "He stretched out his hand": The Yerushalmi continues expounding: "princes made themselves sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with scoffers." The Yerushalmi continues: When there was a righteous man, he would seat two jesters beside him. And they would say to him - meaning, someone was needed to corrupt this upright person, as they say - they would say to this upright man: "Which generation is the most beloved of all generations?" And he would say to them: "The generation of the wilderness." He would tell them the generation of the wilderness, the most beloved generation, a generation privileged to have Hashem's guidance hand in hand, manna descending from heaven, the well accompanying them, the most cherished generation. And they would say to him: "And did they not worship idols?" Ah, what proof, you see? "The most beloved generation, even you admit the most beloved generation is the generation of the wilderness. Well, they worshipped idols! So don't you understand that this is what is expected?" And he would say to them: "On the contrary, because they were beloved, they were not punished." But understand that worshipping idols is a sin, an iniquity! And they would say to him: "Chashot, the king wishes to do so." They said to him, "Chashot" - chashot means be quiet - "for the king wishes to do so." In simple words: Do not oppose the king. The king wants to worship idols; do not stand as a stumbling block in his way. For anyone to whom this was not clear, they showed him what was done to the Sanhedrin: "Did you see what they did to the Sanhedrin? If you stand as a stumbling block, you too will be removed just as they did to the Sanhedrin." The Malbim explains: "They are all as hot as an oven" - the Malbim says that the baker did not come to stoke the oven; rather, they themselves were, as it were, the oven. They themselves were heated by the flame, and that flame, as the Malbim explained earlier, is the flame of rebellion. And it is a flame - not merely an oven fire that only warms, but here a flame that burns. So in this flame "they have devoured their judges," and by this and through this "all their kings have fallen." Thus they killed all their kings through conspiracy and rebellion, as we saw: Zecharyah ben Yarov'am, Shallum ben Yavesh, Pekachyah ben Menachem, and Pekach ben Remalyahu; and so too Hoshea went into captivity through siege, through informants as a result of the rebellion. And why all of this? Because "none among them calls to Me." The kings were wicked and idolaters, and not one of them would turn to Hashem.
So in simple words, what is written here is that they permitted the people to heat the oven - for the oven to be heated for immorality and adultery, and this pleased them, and they multiplied idolatry there. And ultimately this oven would heat up and become a flaming fire and burn them. For this flaming fire brings rebellion, and that rebellion rose against them.