Isaiah 57:5
Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks? Enflaming yourselves with idols under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys under the clifts of the rocks?
The verse condemns idolatrous worship carried on beneath trees and the killing of children in valleys and under clefts of the rocks. The slaying of children is literal child sacrifice to pagan gods, belonging to an ancient pagan worship that demanded both licentiousness and human sacrifice. It stands among the concluding chapters of Isaiah beginning at chapter 50, which are rich and full prophecies addressing events in the prophet's own day while pointing forward to the time of the Lord and the glorious triumph of God's children at the end of the Christian age.
It belongs to the portion beginning at Isaiah 56:9 and continuing through chapter 57 that exposes a great apostasy, standing within a continuous prophecy from Isaiah 53 to 59 that follows the blessings and duties for specified classes in Isaiah 56:1-8 and precedes a reformation culminating in Sabbath reform in Isaiah 58. Being enflamed with idols under every green tree pictures spiritual fornication, which is apostasy and departure from the law and the testimony and the worship of Jehovah into unlawful connection with idolatrous sects and false religious sects of every kind, and it has no reference to a church conforming to the laws of civil government for temporal concerns. Greed and lust still sacrifice children in a different way, giving the ancient practice a moral parallel in the present.