When God heard this,.... Their building high places, and sacrificing on them, their making and worshipping graven images, and the language which such actions spoke; who also heard what they said to their idols, when they paid their devotion to them, acknowledging them to be their gods; he took notice of and observed all this, for nothing could pass his all seeing eye and hearing ear; and who acted as a righteous Judge, first heard, and then proceeded to give and execute the sentence; by which he let them know that he did hear and observe what they said and did: he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel; not his remnant among them, according to the election of grace, which he in all ages had; for this would be contrary to his everlasting love, which always continues; to the immutability of his nature, who changes not; to his Word, who says, fury is not in me; and to his oath, who hath sworn that he will not be wroth with his people: he may indeed, and does, abhor their sins, but not their persons; he may seem to them and others, in the dispensations of his providence, to be wroth with them and abhor them; but does not in reality. This is to be understood of the bulk of the people in general, and is to be explained and illustrated by those several instances of his displeasure with them in the times of the judges; when his anger waxed hot against them for their idolatries and other sins, and he delivered them up into the hands of their enemies, Jdg 3:7.