Hosea 1:1 The word of the Lord that came unto Hosea, the son of Beeri. The prophets are divided into the former (rishonim, Zechariah 1:4) prophets and the later prophets. The writings of the former prophets comprise most of the historical hooks, for the Hebrew conception of a prophet was that of an individual inspired by God to instruct men for the present or inform them of the future, whether orally or by writing; the later were the prophets properly so called, while these, again, are subdivided into the greater, consisting of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and the lesser, or minor, including the remaining twelve. The designation "minor" does not imply any inferiority in importance of subject or value of contents, but has respect solely to the smallness of their size as compared with the larger discourses of the others. The twelve minor prophets were added to the canon before its completion as a single book, "lest," says Kimchi, in his commentary on this verse, "a book of them should be lost because of its smallness, if each one of them should be kept separate by itself." They were accordingly reckoned as one book—δώδεκαἐνμονοβίβλῳ, as Eusebius expresses it. The name Hosea, like other Hebrew names, is significant, and denotes "deliverance," or" salvation;" or, the abstract being put for the concrete, "deliverer," or "savior." It is radically the same name as Joshua, except that the prefix of the latter implies the name of Jehovah as the Author of such deliverance or salvation; while the Greek form of Joshua is Jesus, which in two passages of the Authorized Version stands for it. The form of the name in the original is closely connected with Hosanna (hoshia na)," save now," which occurs in Psalms 118:25. In the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel. The period of Hosea’s prophetic activity is one of the longest, if not the longest, on record. It continued during the reigns of the four kings of Judah above mentioned, and during that of Jeroboam II. King of Israel, which was in part coincident with that of Uzziah. Uzziah and Jeroboam reigned contemporaneously for twenty-six years. Somewhere during or rather before the end of that period Hosea commenced his ministry. Uzziah survived Jeroboam some twenty-six years, then Jotham and Ahaz in succession reigned each sixteen years. During all these fifty-eight years Hosea continued his ministerial labors. To these must be added a few years for the beginning of his prophetic career during the reign of Jeroboam, and some two or three years before its close in the reign of Hezekiah; for the destruction of Samaria, which took place in the fourth year of that king, the prophet looks forward to as still future. Thus for three score years and more—probably nearer three score years and ten, the ordinary period of human life—the prophet persevered in the discharge of his onerous duties. It may seem strange that, though Hosea exercised his prophetic function in Israel, yet the time during which he did so is reckoned by the reigns of the kings of Judah. The single exception of Jeroboam II. is accounted for in a rabbinic tradition on the ground that he did not credit or act on the evil report which Amaziah the priest of Bethel preferred against the Prophet Amos, as we read (Amos 7:10), "Then Amaziah the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam King of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel; the land is not able to bear all his words" (see also Amos 7:11-13 of the same chapter). The real reason for the reckoning by the kings of Judah, and for the exceptional case of Jeroboam, was not that assigned by the rabbins; neither was it an indication, on the part of the prophet, of the legitimacy of the kingdom of Judah on the one hand, and evidence, on the other hand, of the performance of God’s promise to Jehu that his sons would sit upon the throne to the fourth generation, while Jeroboam, Jehu’s great-grandson, was the last king of that dynasty by whom God vouch-sated help to Israel, his son and successor Zechariah retaining possession of the kingdom only for the short space of six months. The true cause is rather to be sought in the regicides, usurpations, occasional anarchy, and generally unsettled state of the northern kingdom, inasmuch as such instability and uncertainty furnished no sure or satisfactory basis for chronological calculation. Thus we find that, on the death of Jeroboam II; there was an interregnum of some dozen years, during which, of course, a state of anarchy prevailed. At length Zechariah succeeded to the throne; he had reigned only six months when he was murdered by Shallum. Shallum’s reign only lasted a month, when he was put to death by Menahem. During his reign often years occurred the invasion of Pal. Menahem’s son, Pekachiah, had only reigned two years when he was murdered by Pekah, in whose reign Tiglath-pileser invaded the land. Hoshea slew Pekah. Next followed an interval of anarchy lasting eight years. Then, after Hoshea’s short reign of nine years, the kingdom was destroyed. Thus it was only in the southern kingdom that a sufficiently firm foundation for chronological reckoning was available, while under these circumstances Jeroboam’s reign was necessary to show the prophet’s connection with Israel, and also that the prediction of the fourth verse preceded the event foretold. The general heading of the whole book is contained in this verse and Divine authority is thus claimed for the whole, as the prophet to whom the word of the Lord came is only Jehovah’s spokesman. Hosea 1:2 The beginning of the word of the Lord by (literally, in) Hosea. These words may be rendered at once more literally and more exactly, (1) "The beginning (of that which) Jehovah spoke by Hosea." Thus Gesenius translates, understanding ashen, which is often omitted as a pronoun in the nominative or accusative, indicating relation, and as including the antecedent personal or demonstrative pronoun. When the pronoun thus supplied is in the genitive, the preceding noun is in the construct state, as here. (2) Rosenmüller, without necessity, takes the noun in the adverbial sense; thus: "In the beginning Jehovah spake by Hosea." He also suggests the possibility of dibber being a noun of the same meaning as dabar, but of different formation; while in two manuscripts of De Rossi and one of Kennicott the regular form of the construct state of davar is expressed. (3) Keil takes the noun as an accusative of time, and accounts for its construct state by the substantival idea of the succeeding subordinated clause; thus: "At the commencement of ’ Jehovah spake,’ Jehovah said to him." But what is the beginning here mentioned? It cannot mean that Hoses was the first of the prophets by whom God made known his will to Israel, or the first of the minor prophets; for Jonah, as is rightly inferred from 2 Kings 14:25, preceded him; Joel also is usually regarded as before him in point of time; neither can it denote his priority to Isaiah and Amos, who also prophesied in the days of Uzziah. The plain meaning is that which becomes obvious when we adopt the right rendering of Gesenius, as given above, that is, the beginning of the prophecies which Hoses was commissioned by Jehovah to make known. The peculiarity of the expression, "in Hosea," as the word literally means, deserves attention. Maurer compares Numbers 12:2, Numbers 12:6, and Numbers 12:8, to prove that the expression signifies speaking to rather than in or by; he also cites other passages to the same purpose, But while the verb "to speak," followed by be and the verb constructed with el, may coincide in signification at a certain point, it does not thence follow that they are everywhere and always synonymous. Long ago Jerome drew attention to the distinction which this difference of construction suggests. "It is one thing," says that Father, "for the Lord to speak in Hosea, another to speak to (el) Hosea: when it is in Hosea he does not speak to Hosea himself, but by Hosea to others; but speaking to Hosea denotes communication to himself. So in the New Testament (Hebrews 1:1) we find the corresponding Greek expression, viz. ὁΘεὸςλαλήσαςἐνπροφήταις, which the Revised Version rightly renders, "God having … spoken the … in the prophets." The first verse is the general heading for the whole book; the first clause of the second verse is the special heading of the first section of the book, which extends to the end of the third chapter. And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms, and children of whoredoms. Whether the transaction here enjoined is to be understood as a reality, or a vision, or an allegory, has been keenly debated. To enter fully into the discussion of this point would lead us too far from our purpose; nor could it minister to edification. Though high authorities have maintained it to be a real occurrence, we do not see our way to concur with their view. A canon of interpretation sanctioned by Augustine forbids the literal acceptation of this command, for, according to the canon referred to, if the language of Scripture taken literally would involve something incongruous or morally improper, the figurative sense must be preferred. Again, we can scarcely understand it of a vision; for there is no mention of or reference to anything of that kind in the passage, nor does the context countenance the notion of a vision. Keil regards it as such when he speaks of it as "an inward and spiritual intuition in which the word of God was addressed" to the prophet. We are, therefore, shut up to that interpretation which explains the whole as an allegorical or imaginary narrative, which is thus constructed in order to impart greater vividness to the prophet’s declaration. The Chaldee paraphrase understands it in this sense. "Go," says the paraphrast, "declare a prophecy against the inhabitants of the idolatrous city, who persist in sin." Jerome also explains it allegorically, and urges against the literal sense that passage in Ezekiel 4:4-6, where the prophet is commanded by God to bear the iniquity of the house of Israel, and to lie upon his left side three hundred and ninety days—a thing impossible according to the literal understanding of the injunction; he accordingly concludes, in reference to the particulars here commanded, that "sacramenta indicaut futurorum." Calvin rightly understands it in the sense of a parabolic representation as follows: "The Lord had bidden him (the prophet) to relate this parable, so to speak, or this similitude, that the people might see, as in a living portraiture, their turpitude and perfidiousness. It is, in short, an exhibition in which the thing itself is not only set forth in words, but is also placed, as it were, before their eyes in a visible form." Kimchi considers it to be a prophetic vision; while some of the older Hebrew interpreters viewed it in the light of an actual transaction. Kimchi’s words are: "And the whole took place in the vision of prophecy, not that Hoses the prophet had taken to himself a wife of whoredoms; although it is found in the words of our rabbins that the meaning is according to the literal signification of the words." By "a wife of whoredoms" we understand a woman addicted to whoredoms, and thus likely to prove an unfaithful wife, as" a woman of quarrels" is a quarrelsome woman, "a man of bloods" is a bloody man, "a man of sorrows" a sorrowful man; while "children of whoredoms" are children who follow in the footsteps of their mother’s lewdness, or children on whose birth their mother’s licentiousness bad left a stigma so that their legitimacy is questionable. The construction of the verb "take," with both objects, is an example of the figure zeugma, by which one word does duty to two clauses, though it undergoes a modification of sense in its application to the second. The meaning here is clearly that the prophet should take a wife of the character indicated, and beget children by her, not take such a wife and such children already born to her. This view is favored by the Vulgate, Sume tibi uxorem fornicationum et fac tibi filios fornicationum; though Keil maintains that Hosea was to take children of prostitution as well as a wife who had lived by prostitution. For the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord. This is more exactly rendered, for the land hath utterly gone a-whoring from after (that is, from following) the Lord. From this we learn the symbolic import of the command, in whatever way that command is interpreted, whether as a reality, or vision, or allegory, the prophet’s marriage to an unfaithful wife sets forth Jehovah’s marriage to an unfaithful nation. God often condescends—graciously condescends—to represent his relation to his people as a marriage covenant; while unfaithfulness on their part is spiritual adultery. The mother and the children may represent the country and its inhabitants, or the nation as a whole and its several members, or generally the people and their posterity in succeeding generations. The father of the Hebrew race had served other gods on the other side of the flood, that is, in Ur, in the land of the Chaldees, whence God had called Abraham. When taken into covenant relationship, how often had they fallen into the former sin of idolatry! The fearful consequences of their sin is graphically portrayed in the verses immediately following, symbolized in the names of the prophet’s children. They are—national ruin, the loss of the Divine favor, and the forfeiture of their proud position as the chosen people of Jehovah. Hosea 1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son. Kimchi conjectures that "Gomer was the name of a harlot well known at that time;" he also explains the name, according to his view of its symbolic import, as follows: "Gomer has the meaning of completion;" as if the prophet said, He will fully execute on them the punishment of their transgressions that he may forgive their iniquity." The names of the children born to the prophet are significant and symbolical; and their symbolic significance is explained. The names mentioned in this verse are also significant, though their significance is not expressly stated, as in the former case; the cause of the omission being the fact that these names were not, like the others, now received for the first time, but simply retained. Gomer denotes "completion" or" consummation," from a verbal root signifying "to perfect" or "come to an end; and Diblaim is the dual of deblēlah, the plural being debhēlim, from the verb dabhal, to press together into a mass, especially a round mass. The meaning of the word, then, is "two cakes," that is, of dried figs pressed together in lumps. It may be observed, in passing, that the Greek παλάθη seems to come from the Aramaic form debhalta, by the omission of the initial daleth. But what is the mystic meaning which the prophet veils under the two names Consummation and Compressed fig-cakes (cakes of compressed figs)? The one may hint not obscurely consummation in sin and in the suffering which is the ultimate consequence of sin; while the other may imply the sweetness of sensual indulgences, especially such as idolatrous celebrants were prone to. If, then, the symbolical interpretation of these names be allowable, we may accept that given by Jerome. He says, "Out of Israel is taken typically by Hosea a wife consummated in fornication, and a perfect daughter of pleasure which seems sweet and pleasant to those who enjoy it." There is, moreover, an obvious appropriateness in the names thus symbolically understood. The prophet, whose name signifies "salvation," marries a woman who was a daughter of plea. sure and a votary of sin; this alliance represents the relation into which Jehovah, with his saving power, had mercifully taken Israel; but that people, unmindful and unthankful for such mercy, and intent on the indulgence of a sinful course, went from bad to worse in apostasy and idolatry till God at length left them in their impenitence and abandoned them to their fate. The conception and birth of Gomer’s son to the prophet, though several authorities omit "him," give no countenance to the idea of the child being supposititious; and so far there seems to be some confirmation of the opinion of Keil referred to under verse 2. Hosea 1:4 And the Lord said unto him, Call his name Jezreel. The name which the people inherited from a distinguished ancestor was one of honor and dignity—Israel or Yisrael, "prince with God;" the name imposed by their sins was one of reproach and disaster—Izreel, or Yizreel, "scattered by God." The Hebrews had a peculiar fondness for a paronomasia of this kind; thus Bethel, "house of God," becomes Bethaven, "house of vanity." Keil regrets the appellative sense in this passage, and refers to the historical importance of the place. The latter view seems favored by the succeeding explanation of the name. For yet a little while, and I will avenge (visit) the Mood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. The verb here rendered "avenge" is literally to "visit," and is used sometimes in a good sense, implying a benevolent purpose, as in Rth 1:6, "For she had heard in the country of Moab how that the Lord had visited his people in giving them bread;" sometimes it expresses a hostile intention, as in Exodus 20:5, "I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children." In the present passage, as elsewhere in this book (see Hosea 2:13; Hosea 4:9), it is taken in the sense assigned it in the Authorized Version, with which the Septuagint and Syriac are in accord. But what are we to understand by the blood of Jezreel, which brought down this vengeance on the house of Jehu? Some suppose that the expression denotes the bloody deeds of Ahab’s house, including, not only the murder of Naboth, but also their bloody persecution of the servants and prophets of Jehovah, as we read in 1 Kings 18:4, that "Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord;" and in 2 Kings 9:7, "Thou shalt smite the house of Ahab thy master, that I may avenge the blood of my servants the prophets, and the blood of all the servants of the Lord, at the hand of Jezebel." These and like deeds of blood brought down retribution on the house of Ahab; Jehu, the instrument of this retribution, was himself guilty of such enormities that the cry of blood for vengeance was repeated, and the criminality of the preceding dynasty continuing, the ate of Jehu’s was redoubled. This view appears to us both clumsy and far-fetched. The plain meaning is that which refers the blood of Jezreel to the bloody massacres of Jehn himself, when in a single day he put an end to the dynasty of Omri and the wicked house of Ahab. On that memorable occasion he slew the queen-mother Jezebel, the seventy sons of Ahab, and forty-two relatives of King Ahaziah, also all the prophets of Baal, all his servants and all his priests. The royal house of Israel he exterminated, for he "slew all that remained of the house of Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kinsfolk, and his priests, until he left him none remaining;" the royal house or’ Judah he brought at the same time to the very verge of extinction. The slaughter of Ahab’s sons, of Jezebel and Joram, and that whole royal line, was, it is true, in compliance with God’s express command; and, for the measure of his obedience to that command, Jehu was rewarded by the promise of his family occupying the throne of Israel to the fourth generation. But what was the motive that prompted this performance of the Divine will? Was it really zeal for God, as he pretended, and consequent diligence in obeying the Divine direction? Or did human passion predominate and political advantage hurry him on? We trow not. Certain it is that his subsequent career rendered the purity of his zeal more than doubtful. He exterminated the idolatry of Baal, but he clave to the calves of Jeroboam at Bethel and Dan—the fundamental sin of the kings of Israel. In what he did, therefore, the act itself was right, for God commanded it; but the motive was wrong, for it was selfish ambition that prompted it. Thus it was with Baasha; he executed vengeance by command of God on the wicked house of Jeroboam I; and for so doing was exalted to be prince over God’s people Israel; but the word of the Lord came against him, as we read, "For all the evil that he did in the sight of the Lord... in being like the house of Jeroboam; and because he killed him." The Chaldee regards the blood shed by Jehu in Jezreel, though shed in a righteous cause and for the rooting out of the Baal idolatry, as innocent blood, because Jehu himself and his house turned aside to the idolatry of the calves. Jerome takes a similar view of the matter. Kimchi adopts the same; his words, literally translated, are the following: "And why does he call it the blood of Jezreel? Because it was shod in Jezreel. And though in this matter he did that which was right in the eyes of Jehovah, yet, since he did not observe to walk in the Law of Jehovah, and did not turn aside from all the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, the blood which he shed was reckoned to him as innocent blood." He then adduces as a parallel the case of Baasha already mentioned. And will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel. Jeroboam II; the third of Jehu’s family, was now reigning; a fourth member of the same was to occupy the throne. That fourth sovereign was Zechariah, whose short inglorious reign lasted only six months, at the expiration of which he fell a victim in the conspiracy by Shallum. Thus ended the dynasty of Jehu; while its overthrow paralyzed the strength of the northern kingdom. Anti, though the day of its complete destruction was deferred for half a century, yet the disorders, dethronements, anarchy at times, and repeated assassination of the sovereigns, to which Menahem was the only exception, prepared the way for the final catastrophe. The overthrow of the house of Jehu has been aptly termed by Hengstenberg "the beginning of the end, the commencement of the process of decomposition." Hosea 1:5 And it shall some to pass at that day, that I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel. Here we have a prediction of a most momentous event, with express statement of the place where it should occur, as also the time of its occurrence. The event itself was more than the downfall of a dynasty; it was the destruction of a kingdom. The date of that destruction is defined simply as the period when God would punish the sins of both the princes and people of Israel The close of Jehu’s dynasty was at once the preparation for and the commencement of the cessation of the kingdom of Israel. The place of this calamity was the Valley of Jezreel. This famous valley was the cockpit of Palestine. There Israel conquered the host of King Jabin; there Gideon overthrew the Midianites; there Saul was defeated by the Philistines, when driven up the slopes of Gilbea "the beauty of Israel was slain in thy high places;" there a defeat equally sorrowful and not less disastrous was aggravated by the death of good King Josiah, and proved fatal to the kingdom of Judah; there, too, in later times, the last conflict took place between the Crusaders and the Moslems, in which victory crowned the arms of Saladin; there, also, was fought the battle, as we learn from this passage, which decided the fate of the kingdom of Israel. The situation of this valley was admirably suited for such scenes. This plain, or valley, broad as it is beautiful, begins where the maritime plain, interrupted by the ridge of Carmel, turns aside and extends across the center of the country from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Jordan valley on the east, and from the hills of Galilee on the north to those of Ephraim or Samaria on the south. The form of this plain is triangular; its eastern side or base is fifteen miles, reaching from Engannim, now Jenin, to the hills below Nazareth; the north side along the hills of Galilee is twelve miles; the southern, formed by the hills of Samaria, is eighteen miles; while the apex of this somewhat irregular triangle is a narrow pass through which the river Kishon—"that ancient river, the river Kishon"—with its winding stream makes its way to the sea. On the east there are three branches in the direction of the Jordan, which bear a remote resemblance to the fingers of a hand. The northern branch passes between Tabor and Little Hermon, or Jebel ed-Duhy; the central one, which is the Valley of Jezreel proper, runs between Shunem and Jezreel, now Zerin; the southern between Mount Gilboa and En-gannim, now Jenia—this branch, having no outlet, loses itself among the eastern hills. The name of this plain was derived from the city of Jezreel, situated near its eastern extremity on a spur of Mount Gilboa, which Ahab chose as a royal residence, and which remained so for three successive reigns, though in the time of Jeroboam II. Samaria had again, as in the days of Omri, become the royal city. In this great plain, called by the Greeks Esdraelon, the bow of Israel was to be broken. The bow (qesheth, rad. qashah, hard, stiff, unbending) was the warrior’s weapon of offence and defense—strong and powerful; the breaking of his bow deprived him of his chief weapon, and left him at the mercy of the enemy to conquer or to kill; thus we read, "His bow abode in strength;" and again, "My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand." But while such general references prove the bow to have been an emblem of strength and power, as Kimchi explains it, still there is something very special and suitable in the expression of the prophet here. "In one important respect," says the author of the ’Jewish Church,’ "the ancient military glory of Israel was, if not confined to the northern kingdom yet regarded as eminently characteristic of it. Judah, with all its warlike qualities, had never been celebrated for its archery. The use of the bow was there a late acquisition (2 Samuel 1:18). But in Benjamin and Ephraim it had been an habitual weapon. The bow of Jonathan was known far and wide. The children of Ephraim were characterized as ’carrying bows.’ And so the chief weapon of the captain of the host of Israel was his bow. The King of Israel had always his bow and arrows with him. The sign of the fall of the kingdom was the breaking of the bow of Israel." The language employed by the prophet was thus singularly appropriate. An historical basis, though denied by some and pronounced precarious by others, is, we have little doubt, found for this prediction in Hosea 10:14 of this very book. The bow, that is, the archery in which Israel excelled so much, was broken in the Valley of Jezreel, when Shalmon, identified with Shalmanezer, King of Assyria by Pusey and Stanley, spoiled Beth-Arbel, or Arbela, the city between Sepphoris and Tiberias, and near the middle of the valley, and thus crushed Israel in an overwhelming defeat. If the identification be sustained, that day of battle was most calamitous to Israel, and as cruel as calamitous, for neither the helplessness of infancy nor the tenderness of womanhood was spared; the infants were dashed to death against the stones, and the mothers then hurled in mortal agony upon the dead bodies of their little ones. Kimchi explains it generally: "On that day when I shall visit the blood of Jezreel, I shall break the bow of Israel, that is to say, their might and power." Hosea 1:6 And she conceived again, and bare a daughter. And God said unto him, Call her name Lo-ruhamah. The first birth symbolized the blood-guiltiness and idolatry of Israel, and the consequent destruction. Two other births follow to confirm the certainty of the coming calamity, to develop it further, and exhibit the nation ever which it impended under new phases, as also to show the prospect of deliverance to be hopeless. The change of sex may indicate the totality of the nation, male and female, as Keil thinks; or rather the weak and defenseless condition of Israel after their bow was broken and their power crushed by the enemy. They are new ready to be led into captivity, like a female helpless and powerless and exposed to ell the insults of the conquerors. The birth of the daughter is thus explained by Kimchi: "After she had borne a so which is a proverbial reference to Jeroboam the son of Joash … she bore a daughter, who refers parabolically to Zechariah and to Shallum son of Jabesh, who reigned after him, who were weak as a female." The name given to the child is Unpitied, or Unfavored, if ruchamah be taken as a mutilated participle, the initial mere being dropped, though it is not found in close connection with a participle; or, She-is-not-pitied, if the word be a verb. In either case, the mercy which if exercised would save her from the miseries of captivity, is clean gone; and the love which, if it existed, would prompt that exercise of mercy, is no longer to be looked for. For I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel; but I will utterly take them away (margin, that I should altogether pardon them). Aben Ezra quotes the correct meaning as follows: "Some say that נילי is that I have up till now forgiven their iniquity; "and Kimchi: "Hitherto I have forgiven and pardoned them, because I have had mercy upon them; but I shall continue to do so no more." עוד, again, from עוּד, to return or repeat. The construction of the first clause is peculiar. Rosenmller cites as parallel Isaiah 47:1, Isaiah 47:5 and Proverbs 23:35; but more exact parallels are 1 Samuel 2:3 and Hosea 6:3, in both of which, and also in the text, Kimchi and Aben Ezra understand asher before the second verb. The last clause of the verse, however, presents a real difficulty, as we may infer from the variety of interpretations to which it has been subjected. The LXX. has Ἀνψιτασσόμενοςἀντιτάξομαι, "But I will surely set myself in array against them." Jerome, confounding the verb with נשׂה translates, "But I will entirely forget them." Rashi: "I will distribute to them a portion of their cup and of their deeds," viz. as they have deserved by their deeds, Kimchi: "I will raise up enemies against them, who shall carry them into captivity and lay waste their land."Aben Ezra: "I will take them away;" he quotes for this meaning of the text Job 32:2, and takes the prefix le as the Aramaic sign of the accusative, giving as a notable example of the same 2 Samuel 3:30, haregu leabner for eth-abner. The Syriac Version is similar. A more feasible rendering, if the meaning of "take away" be retained, is that of Hengstenberg and others, who translate it: "I will utterly take away from them, or with regard to them," viz. everything. We prefer the sense of "pardon," as given in the Chaldee; in the margin of the Authorized Version; by Ewald, Wunsche, and Delitzsch; and mentioned by Aben Ezra and Kimchi. Thus it will read: "I will no more favor them that I should verily forgive them." The flint verb literally means the pitiful yearning of parental love—the strong feeling of affection which the Greeks expressed by στοργή. Paul’s rendering of the word with the privative denotes absence of love; and Peter’s the absence of mercy. Both notions are contained in the word, and their relation is well explained by Pussy, who says, It is tender love in him who pitieth; mercy as shown to him who needeth mercy." Now, the connection between such tenderness of love and forgiving mercy is natural and close. Many an instance of this had been experienced in the previous history of Israel; many a time God’s compassion had been extended to his erring people, notwithstanding their manifold provocations; but that day is gone—the Divine long-suffering is exhausted. Once Israel is carried captive, there shall be no return; no mercy to restore them, as in the case of Judah. Hosea 1:7 But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God. Thus the contrast expressed in this verse increases the painful feelings with which the threatened abandonment and consequent destruction of Israel would be regarded. The promised mercy to the house of Judah is emphasized by the peculiar form of the expression. Instead of the pronoun, the proper name of Jehovah is employed; instead of saying, "I will save them by myself," he says in a specially emphatic manner, "I will save them by Jehovah," adding at the same time the important adjunct of "thy God," to remind them of that relationship to himself in virtue of which he interposes thus personally and powerfully on their behalf. An expression somewhat similar in form occurs in Genesis 19:24, "Then the Lord [Jehovah] rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord [Jehovah] out of heaven." And will not save them by bow, nor by sword, nor by battle (literally, war), by horses, nor by horsemen. This enumeration is quite in accordance with the prophet’s style, as may be seen at a glance by comparing Hosea 2:5, Hosea 2:11, Hosea 2:22; Hosea 3:4; and Hosea 4:13. The manner of this deliverance is very peculiar and unusual; while prominence is given to the absence of those means of defense or deliverance on which the northern kingdom so much relied. The deliverance would be accomplished without the ordinary weapons of war—bow and sword, in the use of the former of which Israel was so celebrated; also without war, that is, without its appliances and material of whatever kind—skilful commanders, brave soldiers, and numerous troops; likewise without horses and horsemen, a great source of strength in those days (parashim, equivalent to "riders on horses," as distinguished from rokebhim, riders on camels). This deliverance, in fact, was to be entirely independent of all human resources. All this points plainly and positively to the deliverance of Judah from Sennacherib in the days of Hezekiah, when in one night the angel of the Lord smote a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the flower of the Assyrian host, and Jehovah thus by himself delivered Judah. Thus, too, Judah is saved from that power before which Israel had previously and entirely succumbed. (Compare, on this miraculous deliverance, 2 Kings 19:1-37. and Isaiah 37:1-38) Hosea 1:8 Now when she had weaned Lo-ruhamah, she conceived, and bare a son. As Eastern mothers nurse their children some two or three years, the process of weaning at the end of that period would imply a corresponding interval. This may be merely an incident to complete the prophetic declaration, and pleasingly vary the narrative. It is rather, we think, a pause in the progress of the approaching calamity—a pause indicative of the Divine lothness to execute the final sentence. Or the weaning may be referred, with some, to the entire withdrawal of all spiritual nourishment and support, when promise and prophecy, instruction and consolation, symbol and sacrifice, would be abolished. Hosea 1:9 Then said God, Call his name Lo-ammi: for ye are not my people, and I will not be your God. Here we have the climax of Israel’s fate. The prophet’s children, whether actual, visionary, or allegorical, symbolized step by step the sad gradation in Israel’s fast-coming calamity. The name Jezreel, whether taken to mean their being scattered by God or their suffering the sorrowful consequences of their multiplied delinquencies, m either ease denotes the first blow dealt to them by Divine providence. Bat from that it was possible by repentance to recover; and, though dispersed, they were not beyond the reach of the Divine compassion, nor beyond the power of the Divine arm to collect and bring together again. But Lo-ruhammah, Unpitied, or Uncompassionated, imports another and a still heavier blow; and, though dispersed far and near, and though left in the places of their dispersion without pity and without compassion, still there might be a good time coming in the near or in the distant future, when a favorable change in their circumstances would be brought about so that they would be both collected together, or comforted and compassionated. The name Lo-ammi, however, puts an end to hope, implying as it does a total rejection and an entire renunciation of the people of Israel on the part of the Almighty. The national covenant is annulled; God has cast off his people, who are thus left hopeless as helpless, because of their sinful and ungrateful departure from the Source of all mercy and the Fountain of all blessing. The expression of this is very touching: "Ye" says God, now addressing them directly and personally, "are not—are no longer, my people; and I will not be yours." Such is the literal rendering of this now sad but once tender expression—tender, unspeakably tender, as long as applicable; sad, inexpressibly sad, now that its enjoyment is forever gone. Hosea 1:10 Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea which cannot be measured nor numbered. The division of the verses at this place is faulty both in our common Hebrew Bibles and in the Authorized Version. The former connects Hosea 1:10 and Hosea 1:11 with the second chapter, and the latter closes the first chapter with these verses, and thus detaches them from the first verse of the second chapter. The correct arrangement combines Hosea 1:10 and Hosea 1:11 of Hosea 1:1-11 with Hosea 1:1 of Hosea 2:1-23, and concludes the first chapter with these three verses which are so closely joined together in sense. Here is the usual cycle of events—human sinfulness, deserved punishment, and Divine mercy. Had the last element been wanting, the promise of a countless posterity made to Abraham, renewed to Isaac, and confirmed to Jacob, might appear abolished. Yet, notwithstanding the rejection of Israel, the Word of God remaineth sure. But who are the children of Israel, whose multitude, like sea-saint, defies numeration and measurement? The whole posterity of Jacob or Israel might seem included, as the words of the promise made to that patriarch and those of the present prediction so closely correspond; and Israel is occasionally taken in this wide and general sense. The context is opposed to this; especially does the distinction so sharply marked in the succeeding verse militate against this. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there it shall be said unto them, Ye are the sons of the living God. The place where this great change takes place is either the place where their rejection was foretold, or that where its fulfillment became an accomplished fact. The former was, as is obvious, Palestine; the latter, the place of their exile, and so the lands of their dispersion. Thus the Chaldee, adopting the latter, renders freely as follows: "And it shall come to pass in the place where they lived in exile among the peoples, when they transgressed my Law and it was said to them, Ye are not my people, they will turn and be magnified, and called the people of God." Once this change takes place, their true mission shall be attained and their relations to the living God shall be readjusted. The dumb, dead idols, to which they had bowed down in the days of their apostasy and unbelief shall be cast aside and away for ever. Jehovah the Living One alone shall be the object of their adoration in that day. Hosea 1:11 Then shall the children of Judah and the children of Israel be gathered together, and appoint themselves one head, and they shall come up out of the land. The phraseology of the older Scriptures is here followed. Thus we read in Exodus 1:10, in the words of Pharaoh, the children of Israel "getting them up out of the land" (comp. also Exodus 12:38 and Numbers 32:11); and again, on the report of the spies when the people murmured against Moses and Aaron, "they said one to another, Let us make a captain [head], and let us return into Egypt." In this way the scenes of former days were in some sense to be repeated: an exodus of some sort was again to take place; Egypt was to be abandoned and slavery left behind; they might have a wilderness to traverse, but here again the prospect of a land of promise was to cheer them on their journey and compensate them at its close; in fact, another or better Canaan was before them. Nay, more, the breach between Judah and Israel would be healed, and the disruption which had been so disastrous become a thing of the past. Judah and Israel would again unite and rally together under one head. But the important inquiry remains as to the how or when this prediction was to have fulfillment. Even if we admit the return from the captivity of Babylon to be a fulfillment, it would be but a very partial, though literal, fulfillment of such a grand prediction. That restoration was far too meager in its dimensions to come up to the requirements of, much less exhaust, such a splendid prophecy. Some of Israel—a mere fragment of the ten tribes—united with Judah in the relearn from Babylon: this poor miniature fulfillment, if we may so say, cannot be regarded, except perhaps typically or symbolically, as the fulfillment of the prophet’s vivid picture. We must look to gospel times and gospel scenes for the realization of the glorious promise under consideration. Jewish interpreters themselves refer it to the times of Messiah. Thus Kimchi says, "This shall take place in the gathering together of the exiles in the days of the Messiah, for unto the second house there went up only Judah and Benjamin that had been exiles in Babylon; nor were the children of Judah and the children of Israel gathered together; and they shall make for themselves one head,—this is the King Messiah;" similarly, in the ’Betsudath David,’ by Altschul, we read on this passage," They shall be gathered together: this will come to pass in the days of the Messiah. One head: this is the King Messiah. And they shall come up; out of the lands of the captivity they shall go up unto their own land." We cannot possibly mistake the objects of this prophecy; they are expressly declared to be "the children of Judah and the children of Israel"—the two distinctive branches of the Hebrew race, the two constituent elements of the Jewish nationality, and comprehending the whole natural posterity of Israel. There can be just as little doubt about the primary and proper application of the prophecy to the conversion of the people of the Jews. For a time they were not to be the people of God; but the testimony of the prophet to their again becoming the sons of the living God is quite unmistakable. They shall appoint themselves one head. "The prophet," says Calvin, "has, by the expression, characterized the obedience of faith; for it is not enough that Christ should be given as a King, and set over men, unless they also embrace him as their King, and with reverence receive him. We now learn that, when we believe the gospel, we choose Christ for our King, as it were, by a voluntary consent." The words are adopted by both Peter and Paul: the former (1 Peter 2:10) employs them as an appropriate description, in Old Testament language, of the happy change of condition consequent on the knowledge of the truth; the latter (Romans 9:25) quotes them more formally in an extension of their meaning beyond their primary import, and proper and literal application to the Jews, as an exemplification of the principle of once not my people, now my people. In this extension of their meaning they embrace, no doubt, the Gentiles, though not the objects originally and chiefly contemplated in the prophecy. (1) If the place mentioned in the previous verse be, the place or lands of their dispersion, on the change indicated taking place, namely, their conversion to Christ as King, then their coming up out of the laud under the sole headship of the Son of David, the true Shepherd of Israel, may denote their restoration out of all the countries of their dispersion to their ancient territory, again become their own land, and their own in perpetual possession. Thus the Targum understands it of the land of the Jews’ captivity; likewise Kimchi: "They shall go up out of the land of their captivity to their own land; for the laud of Israel is higher than all lands, and he that goeth thither goeth up, and he that goeth out of it goeth down." The initial and typical fulfillment was the return of Judah, joined by many Israelites, out of Babylon under Zerubbabel. The final fulfillment may be the restoration of the Jews, converted and believing in Messiah, under Divine guidance, to their own land. (2) If, on the other hand, the place of the preceding verse be Palestine, the land of their rejection and subsequent recognition as the sons of God, the going up may refer to the going up of the inhabitants of both kingdoms to Jerusalem, the dwelling-place of their common king of David’s line; not in the sense of going up, as Ewald and others understand it, to do battle in order to widen the boundaries of their native hind and make room for the returning exiles. (3) But whether the place be the country of Palestine or the lands of their dispersion, the going up may be understood spiritually of their coming up to join themselves to the Church, or rather to the Church’s Head, as under the old economy the tribes of Israel went up out of all parts of the land to worship at Jerusalem. It will thus apply properly enough to their spiritual journey onward and upward to the heavenly Canaan. For great shall be the day of Jezreel. The names of the prophet’s children were names of ill omen—God’s sowing in the sense of God’s scattering, Not-my-people, Not-pitied; now the evil is eliminated, the meaning of the second and third is reversed, and the first is read in a new signification, so that Not-my-people becomes My people, Unpitied becomes Pitied, God’s sowing is no longer God’s scattering but God’s growing. The curse is thus changed into a blessing; great, then, shall be the day so signalized by Divine goodness, so glorious in Divine grace, and so conspicuous for the wondrous works of the covenant-keeping God. Most of the older interpreters take Jezreel here, as in Exodus 1:4 and Exodus 1:5, equivalent to "scattered of God." Aben Ezra says, "But the iniquity of the house of Israel is punished. And behold, it is all said by way of reproach, not praise." Hosea 2:1 Say ye unto your brethren, Ammi; and to your sisters, Ruhamah. Divine mercy being now received, the recipients are urged to extend to each other the right hand of fellowship, exhorting one another, encouraging one smother, confirming each other in the faith, and mutually provoking each other to love and good works. "Because the comparison deals with a son and a daughter, the prophet therefore adds, ’your brothers and your sisters’" (Kimchi). Hosea 1:1-3 The sin of Israel sharply reproved. The great sin, the root-sin we may call it, of Israel at this time was idolatry. But that sin was not alone; it was aggravated, as usual, by accompanying abominations. All along, from the period of the disruption, idolatry had been their besetting sin. The oft-repeated statement that Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, "made Israel to sin" has a special significance in this regard. As long as Jerusalem remained the gathering-place of the tribes, arid Solomon’s temple remained the national sanctuary, Judah must have retained the supremacy. To undermine that supremacy, or rather to transfer it to Israel, required a stroke of bold, unscrupulous policy; but the audacity, or rather godlessness, of Jeroboam was quite equal to the occasion. Under pretence of facilitating the religious service of his subjects, as though it was too much for them to go up to Jerusalem, but in reality to prevent the people turning again in their allegiance to the dynasty of David, he changed the place of religious worship, appointing Dan and Bethel at the northern and southern extremities of his kingdom—the one on the Syrian and the other on the Judaic frontier. But this change of place necessitated other changes in keeping therewith. The mode of worship had to be changed from that of the true God to that of the calves, symbolical representations of the true God. With such symbolic representation of Deity he had, no doubt, become familiar in Egypt, as previously Aaron and the Israelites had carried it with them on their emancipation from that land. There was something very insidious in this change; it was only a half-measure, but a preparation for the whole. It was not the introduction of new gods, such as Baal and Ashtaroth, the dual deities of Phoenicia, of which sin Ahab was guilty; it was the worship of Jehovah under an external form. It was not the violation, at least directly, of the first commandment, which forbids the having of other gods; it was the transgression of the second, which condemns the making a graven image; so that Stanley says of Jeroboam that "to keep the first commandment he broke the second." The people took far too kindly to the change, and clung to it with fatal tenacity for two hundred years, subsequently even in the time of the Prophet Hoses, as we learn from several passages in this very book the calves were still objects of idolatrous worship. In our study of these verses we have for consideration the following. I. THE PERSON OF THE PROPHET. He introduces himself to us by his name and surname, or patronymic. His name, Hosea or Savior, is one of good omen and happy augury, at least in his case; his patronymic of Ben-Beeri, "son of my well," has also a pleasing significance of its own. By the former we are reminded of that Savior to whom the prophet pointed and to whom he bore his testimony, and thus became an instrument of salvation; while the surname may call to mind him who is the Well-spring of salvation and the Fountain of living water, according to his own words, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Or if the name have reference to the function of the prophet himself, it may denote his pouring out the water of life from the Divine Fountain of life. II. THE POWER WITH WHICH HE WAS . This, of course, touches on his Divine commission, and the corresponding inspiration which qualified him for the proper execution Of that commission. Like the apostles in after times, he claims to hold his commission from God, and to be charged with the commands of God. Thus in Luke 3:2 we read that "the word of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness;" and in Galatians 1:1 we find the apostle of the Gentiles speaking of his commission in the following terms: "Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead." Thus in the case of Paul, his apostolic authority was not from (ἀπὸ) men, as the source of that authority by whom it is conferred, nor by (διὰ) man, the single representative of any body of men, as the channel of that authority through whom it is conveyed. It was through the two Persons of the blessed Trinity—Son and Father, agent and origin, medium and source—a direct Divine commission. So with the prophet in this introductory passage. But he not only held his commission from God, he had his instructions from God. His position was like that of a diplomatist or ambassador sent out by an earthly sovereign, who is commissioned to represent his sovereign, and in that capacity to adhere faithfully to the instructions he has received, correctly interpreting the will and wishes of his monarch and scrupulously communicating the same. Three several times is the source of Hosea’s instructions insisted on. There is the first general statement of the word of the Lord coming to him; then there is the notification of the beginning of the word of the Lord being in Hosea; and next we learn that the Lord spake to him. The conveyance of these instructions is presented under a threefold aspect. They come to him from the Lord and so with Divine authority; they reach him by direct communication, for the Lord himself spoke to him; and they are in him, reflected on his mind and retained in his memory, and ready for present and practical use. God made him a depositary of his truth and thus fitted him for declaring it to others; he revealed his will to him, and by the inspiration of his Spirit qualified him to record it without error for the benefit of present and succeeding generations. Though not possessing or presuming to possess this special inspiration of prophets under the Old and apostles under the New Testament, the preacher of the gospel is truly commissioned and strictly commanded to declare the whole counsel of God, not with wisdom of words, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, not handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth commending himself to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. III. THE OF THE PROPHET. The official life of Hosea reached the length of an ordinary lifetime, falling little short of the ordinary three score years and ten. The summer’s heat and winter’s cold of all those long and weary years still found him at his post, as a prophet of the Lord. Many a dynastic change had taken place during that period: sovereigns might rise or sovereigns fall; men might come and men might go, but he went on as ever. Faithful to his God, faithful to his king and country, alike pious and patriotic, he persisted in the work to which God had caned him. To most men work long continued at last becomes irksome; the performance of duties in incessant round and for a lengthened period disposes men to seek respite or release; age itself, with its weight of years, brings manifold infirmities; but however it may have been with the prophet, he does not plead age, or infirmity, or length of service, or exhausted energies, or enfeebled strength, or failing powers either of mind or body, in order to obtain exemption from further service, or to secure in the evening of his days that ease or rest which he had so well earned; nay, unceasingly as uncomplainingly he persists in his onerous duties, and plies the task which Providence assigned him. IV. THE OF THE PROPHET. If our work be pleasant, and especially if it prove successful, we are greatly encouraged thereby, and in some sort enabled to persevere. Want of success, on the other hand, too often paralyzes men’s powers and puts an end to their exertions. Not so with Hosea. His efforts for the spiritual amelioration of his people were ineffectual; his labors in that direction were not crowned with the desired success. Yet in shadow as in sunshine, through evil report as good report, whether his work was appreciated or despised, with fruit or wanting it, he had learnt to possess his soul in patience. Many an untoward event, many a froward or perverse action on the part of those to whom he ministered, many a hard speech, discouraged his heart, we are sure, from the history of those evil days and the godless generation among whom he lived and wrought. His patience was tried—sorely tried, yet triumphed over all What a lesson to all who are engaged in work for God! V. THE OF THE PERIOD AT WHICH HE HIS , That peculiarity consists in the fact that it was a period of unwonted prosperity. Had it been otherwise; had it been a time of positive decline or partial disorganization; had disintegration actually and obviously set in as at a later period, it might have been said that coming events were so casting their shadows before that a sagacious calculator of probabilities might readily predict the coming catastrophe. But in the reign of Jeroboam II; son and successor of Joash, and largely by his prowess, the power of Israel was revived. During his reign of forty-one years he had enlarged his kingdom beyond all preceding limits from the time of its separation item Judah; he had recovered Damascus, the capital of Syria, though that city had been lost even in the days of Solomon, together with Hamath on the Oronte; the key of Eastern Syria, thus checking if not crushing that hostile power. The northern kingdom had reached an unprecedented height of wealth and power; the sovereign had been triumphant in war, and his subjects were now happy and prosperous in peace. But at this very period of material wealth and military glory, after he had "restored the coasts of Israel from the entering of Hamath [the lower part of the Coelo-Syrian valley, from the gorge of the Litany to Baalbek] to the sea of the plain," amid the splendor of his achievements and the opulence of his subjects, the prophet foretold, not merely the decline, but the actual downfall, of the kingdom of Israel. An important lesson connects itself with this. It is not only the truth of the prediction, so contrary to all calculation, so opposed to all seeming probability, but the warning thus furnished against mistaking temporal prosperity for a proof of Divine favor, or reckoning and resting on the permanence of earthly possessions. In the case before us, however, a worm was at the root of the gourd. The moral progress of the nation was in the inverse ratio of its material prosperity. VI. THE PAINFUL OF THE SIN. That sin was more than ordinary apostasy, bad as such a state of things assuredly is; it was idolatry which is spiritual adultery. This was expressed by the symbol of the prophet, whether in reality, vision, or parable, wedding an unchaste woman, a wife of whoredoms, by name Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim. If such a union, even in symbol, was humiliating to the pure spirit of the prophet, how dreadful for a people to be in a condition so disgustingly loathsome and fearfully sinful, exposed to the deserved wrath of the Almighty, and obnoxious to the doom he has pronounced against such, "Thou hast destroyed all them that go a-whoring from thee!" If such relationship is repulsive in the extreme to every man of proper sentiments and virtuous feeling, how unspeakably hateful to the infinitely holy God to stand in the position of husband to a people so abominably faithless and impure! Yet their Maker had been their Husband, even the Lord of hosts, which is his adorable name. Hosea 1:4-9 The sufferings of Israel symbolically recorded. The three children of the prophet by Gomer symbolize at once a degree of sin and a period of suffering. The forefathers of Israel had been idolaters in their native laud and in Egypt, as we learn from the admonition of Joshua (Joshua 24:14), "Put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt." But God took them into covenant with himself at Sinai; this new relation may be represented by the prophet’s espousing at the Divine command Gomer, notwithstanding her previous impurity and lewdness. But though God took the people of Israel into such a close and endearing relation to himself, yet their posterity, instead of proving themselves children of God, often forsook God and fell into idolatry, this apostasy of the descendants through succeeding generations is set forth by the children of whoredoms which the prophet had by a wife of whoredoms. So with ourselves tainted with original sin; we are stained by many actual transgressions. "Sin," it has been well said, "is contagious, and, unless the entail is cut off by grace, hereditary." I. THE NAME OF THE FIRST CHILD IMPLIES , Jezreel, if taken in its local sense, reminds of bloodshed as also idolatry, and of the nemesis that in due time followed; but if understood appellatively, the name of dominion implied in Israel degenerates into that of dispersion included in Jezreel. 1. Imperfect work is imperfectly rewarded. No work done for God can make him our debtor, yet he is graciously pleased to reward honest work in his service, the reward being entirely of grace and not of debt. Jehu executed God’s judgment on the house of Ahab, and had his reward in the succession of his family to the fourth generation. Though he pretended zeal he did not do the Lord’s work sincerely; his own selfish interests and his own base designs mingled largely with his motives, and marred the worth of his work. The obtainment of a kingdom for himself rather than obedience to God was the chief end on which his heart was set. Neither did he perform the Lord’s work thoroughly. He abolished the idolatry of Baal, but he adhered to the idolatry of the calves; obviously because the former served his own ends and helped to establish him in the kingdom, while the latter tended, as be thought, to secure his interest in the kingdom and keep his subjects detached from Judah. 2. Punishment, though slow, is sure. Yet a little while and the dynasty of Jehu became extinct; while fifty years afterwards the very kingdom over which that dynasty had ruled ceased altogether to exist. In the interval that elapsed between the extinction of the dynasty of Jehu and the total cessation of the kingdom of Israel a crushing defeat had been sustained in the valley of Jezreel, when the military strength of Israel was completely broken. Whether this was the battle of Betharbel, in which Shalmanezer was victorious, or some other reverse sustained in the invasion by Tiglath-pileser, to the success of which the inscriptions of that monarch testify, we have not perhaps sufficient means of ascertaining. This was the beginning of the end, and a premonition of what was near at hand. The sins of princes and people had gone on accumulating till at length the day of vengeance came. As with nations, so with individuals— "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all." 3. The unexpected often happens. Nothing could have appeared more unlikely in the reign of Jeroboam II. than the destruction of his kingdom within such a comparatively short space. He had proved himself a man of prowess and of power; he had extended the boundaries of his kingdom outwardly, and had consolidated its resources inwardly. He had restored the northern boundary of Israel to what it was in the days of Solomon; he had extended his kingdom southward by the sea of the plain, and to the valley of willows (Isaiah 15:7) between Moab and Edom; he had recovered what had been lost by the victories of Hazael; he had recaptured Damascus. He was, in fact, "the greatest of all the kings of Samaria. As if with a forecast of his future glory, he was named after the founder of the kingdom—Jeroboam II." Yet then, while King Jeroboam was at the zenith of his fame, and the kingdom at the height of its prosperity, the word of the Lord went forth against it. God, who seeth not as man seeth, directed the eye of his servant the prophet to sin unrepented of and unforsaken—that internal moral weakness and rottenness which no amount of material prosperity or power could either rectify or remove. II. THE NAME OF THE SECOND CHILD IMPORTS EXTREME OF . Israel is pictured as Lo-ruhamah, and thus represented as a woman, worthless; for she is one of the children of whoredom, weak, an easy prey to the spoiler, a victim of injury and insult, unpitied and unprotected, impenitent and unpardoned. Applied nationally, the conquered people are uncompassionated, and waiting to be carried into captivity. Applied personally, how dreadful is the state of that individual who, by a long course of iniquity, has sinned away the day of mercy, and against whom God has shut up the bowels of his compassion! This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Hosea 2:2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not thy wife, neither am I her husband. In this second chapter the same cycle of events recurs as in the first, with this difference, that what is expressed by symbol in the one is simply narrated in the other. The cycle is the common one of sin: its usual consequences of suffering and sorrow; then succor and sympathy in case of repentance. The persons addressed in the verse before us are those individuals in Israel who had still retained their integrity, and who, notwithstanding surrounding defection and abounding ungodliness, had continued steadfast in their loyalty and love to the Lord. They might be few in number, widely scattered, perhaps unknown to each other, and of comparatively little note; yet they are here called on to raise their voice in solemn warning and earnest protest against the national defection and wickedness. "The congregation in its totality, or whole people taken conjointly, is compared to the mother, but individual members to the children, and the sense is that they are to plead with each other to bring them back to the way of goodness" (Kimchi). The nation as such, and in its impiety, is the mother; the pious persons still found in it are here required to testify for God both by exhortation and example. "The congregation of Israel is compared to an adulteress, and the children of the different generations to the children of whoredoms. Before them the prophet says, ’Plead with your mother’" (Kimchi). Adultery per se is a virtual dissolution of the marriage-tie; idolatry is spiritual adultery; the close and tender relationship into which God has graciously condescended to take Israel is rendered null and void, and that through Israel’s own fault. God threatens the renunciation of it, unless perchance the pleading of the still faithful children might recall the erring mother to penitence and purity. A case the converse of this is that presented in Isaiah 1:1, where the mother’s divorce is attributed to the unfaithfulness of the children. "Where," asks the Lord in that passage, "is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away?… for your transgressions is your mother put away." Ki before the second clause is either recitative, introducing the words of pleading, or assigns a reason; the latter seems preferable. Let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts. The word mippaneyha is rather to be rendered "from her face" than "out of her sight." The expression is to be taken literally, as the word "breasts" in the parallel clause proves. Thus Kimchi rightly explains it, saying, "Since he compares her to harlot, he attributes to her the ways of harlots; for the harlot’s way is to adorn her face with various kinds of colors, that she may appear fair in the eyes of her paramours." But in addition to ornamenteth as earrings or nose-rings, and other ways of decking herself, as by painting, the expression may imply lascivious looks and wanton expressions of countenance; while the mention of breasts may indicate the making of them bare for the purpose of meretricious blandishments, or as indicating the place of the adulterer (comp. Ezekiel 23:3 and So Ezekiel 1:13). The Jewish commentators adopt the latter sense. Aben Ezra comments on the grammatical form of the words zenuncha and naaphupheha (the former by duplication of the second radical, and the latter by that of the third) as intensive; while Rashi and Kimchi refer to the pressure of the breasts. But others understand them figuratively, the countenance indicating boldness, and the breasts shamelessness. Thus Horace speaks of the brilliant beauty (nixor) and coquettishness (protervitas) of Glyeera. Hosea 2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born. The Lord, by his servant the prophet, enforces the preceding exhortation by a stern denunciation, and the threat of further severities unless averted by repentance; as an injured husband withdraws from a faithless wife all the gifts and presents he had made for her adornment, leaving her poor and bare. Not only the removal of her garments by way of degradation and disgrace, but exposure in that position to insult and ignominy would ensue. In other words, the nation is threatened with deprivation of all the blessings previously lavished upon them—property, prosperity, population, and privileges; while dishonor of the deepest dye would aggravate the misery. The day of the nation’s birth denotes the weakness and wretchedness of their infant state. To this corresponded their servile, suffering condition during their bondage and oppression in Egypt. Rashi thus explains it; Kimchi says, "The figure of birth is the time they are slaves in Egypt;" so also Theodoret,—the latter calls the day of her birth the sojourn in Egypt. The Prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:4) expands the idea, occasionally employing, as Rosenmüller remarks, the very words of Hosea. And make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and clay her with thirst. This part of the verse is susceptible of two explanations. The faithless female, under which character the northern kingdom is personified, may be compared to a wilderness, that is, according to Cyril, fruitless, parched, and productive only of thorns, thirsty and waterless. This comparison of a woman to a desert is wanting in suitability, and seems in some degree awkward in itself, beside being out of harmony with the closing clause; for to "slay with thirst," however applicable to a person, cannot with any propriety be said of a place, whether desert or otherwise. No doubt the wilderness may stand for those dwelling in it. We prefer, therefore, the alternative rendering, "make her as in a wilderness, and set her as in a dry land." Rashi aptly explains the threat to mean, "Lest I pronounce against them such a sentence as of old in this desert (Numbers 14:35), ’In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.’" There is, moreover, a natural connection of ideas between a wilderness, a dry land, and thirst. The nation’s birth, represented by or compared to their sojourn in Egypt, naturally suggests the idea of their wandering in the wilderness after their exodus from that country; a wilderness, again, suggests what is an ordinary feature of such a district, namely, a dry land; while a region thus without water is suggestive as well as provocative of thirst. The former explanation, however, is given by Kimehi: "I will make thee like the wilderness which is open to every one, and in which, moreover, one finds no means of subsistence, nor anything that man needs; so I’ll withdraw my goodness from them, and they shall be surrendered as a prey to every one." Hosea 2:4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms. The connection of this verse is carried on from the preceding, viz. and lest I will not have mercy upon her children. An exceedingly apt illustration of this verse is given by Jerome. It is to this effect: When the children of Israel were brought out of Egypt, the parents perished in the wilderness; but the children of those who had thus perished, and whose caresses had thus fallen in the wilderness, were spared and permitted to enter the land of promise. Now, however, the case is different, and the punishment aggravated. The adulterous parent perishes, and the children of that parent perish also. Further, the reason is assigned in the concluding clause. The children proved themselves no better than the mother that bore them; they were the worthless progeny of a worthless parent. Hosea 2:5 Nor their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath dons shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers. The charge of idolatry under the figure of harlotry, spiritual harlotry, is reiterated. "Mother" is repeated in and emphasized by the parallel words, "she that conceived them." A somewhat similar form of expression is that in Psalms 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." To bosh, to be ashamed, belong the Hiphil forms, hebhish and hobhish (the latter formed from zabhish), properly "to put to shame," but also "to practice shame or do shameful things." The nature of her shameful conduct is more definitely and distinctly expressed in the clauses which follow; and consisted of several particulars. There is the persistent pursuit of her lovers; then the unblushing boldness with which she avows her determination to continue that course; and next come her expectations from them. That give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink (margin, drinks). The original word here rendered "lovers" is the Piel participle, which may have either its usual intensive sense or its occasional causative sense in which it is taken by Rosenmüller, who has "a-mare me facientes," equivalent to "wooers." It matters little which way we understand it. The more important point is to determine who or what are here meant by lovers. Most commentators understand them to be those nations whose friendship Israel set such store by—the Assyrians and the Egyptians. Thus Grotius and Jerome,—the latter explains them of the Assyrians and Egyptians and other nations, with whose idols Israel committed fornication, and from which in distress they vainly hoped for help; so also Kimchi, in the following comment: "By ’friends ’ he implies the Assyrians and Egyptians joined in alliance to the Israelites, who delivered them from their enemies, so that they lived safely, in return for the gifts (tribute) which they (the Israelites) were in the habit of giving them. And as they lived in tranquility in virtue of the compact entered into with them, the prophet represents it as if they supplied them with all the necessaries of life. For with their help they tilled their land without fear and in safety traded from country to country." Kimchi quotes at the same time his father’s (Joseph Kimchi) interpretation: "But my lord my father of blessed memory explained ’after her lovers’ of the sun and moon and stars, which they worshipped; while their intention was that they gave them their food and their sufficiency, as they said, ’But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.’" This exposition of Joseph Kimchi is much nearer the truth than that of his son David; it is, however, too restricted. The "lovers" were the idols on which the people of the northern kingdom so dented, and on which they placed so much dependence. The blessings which they vainly expected from these idols are enumerated: they were—food and raiment and luxuries; the bread and water were the articles of food as it is written elsewhere. "Bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure;" the wool and flax were the materials for clothing; while the oil and drinks were, the former for ornament, the latter for refresh-merit, and so included all luxuries; thus in Psalms 23:5, "Thou anointest my head with oil;" and in Psalms 102:9, "And mingled my drink [literally, ’drinks,’ the same word, shigguyar] with weeping;" also in Psalms 104:15 we read of "wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengthened man’s heart." Hosea 2:6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. The sudden change of person from the third to the second is very observable. This directness of address is, in this instance, expressive of deep indignation. She had avowed her determination to pursue her evil courses shamefully and sinfully, as if in despite and defiance of the Almighty. In deep and undisguised displeasure, and with a suddenness springing from indignation, he affirms his determination to thwart her course of sin and shame; as though addressing her personally and promptly, he said, "Then thou shalt not be able to carry out thy plan or accomplish thy purpose; I will see to that." The hedge and wall are elsewhere, as in Job 1:10 and Isaiah 5:5, used for protection and defense, here for prevention and obstruction, and similarly in Job 19:8, "He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths;" and in Lamentations 3:7, "He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out," and Lamentations 3:9, "He hath enclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked." Thus Kimchi: "I will hedge thy way with thorns, so that they cannot go out of the city because of the devastation; and her lovers shall not be able to help her, and they are Assyria and Egypt." After quoting his father’s explanation of lovers, he pro-coeds: "So their way is as if there were in it a thorn hedge, and thorns that she could not pass through it, and could not find her paths in which she walked." The fence here is double one a hedge of thorns, sharp, prickly, and piercing, such as forbid her forcing a way through: the other a wall of stone that cannot be climbed, or leaped, or otherwise got over. We need not try to specify the particular circumstances that thus hedged in and walled about the adulteress—whether fightings within or foes beleaguering without, whether straitened means or stress of circumstances raising an impassable barrier against the practice of idolatry, or an enforced conviction of its futility. "If," says Kimchi, "she seek to Assyria and Egypt, they will not give her their friendship and their help." Hosea 2:7 And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. This portion of the verse expresses the consequence of the preceding. However eagerly she follows after them—and the form of the verb (Piel conjugation) expresses that eagerness—she shall only experience the ineffectual nature of her efforts, and feel the impossibility of overtaking the darling objects of her pursuit. However earnestly she seeks them (here the Piel is used again), she shall find every passage barred and every outlet obstructed, so that, unable to find them, she shall be forced to abandon her search as utterly vain and impossible. Then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. The difficulties of her position, the distress in which she found herself, stimulated her to increased eagerness in pursuit of her lovers; but it was only for a brief space, and the efforts were unsuccessful; the means as well as opportunity for the sacrifices and services of idol-worship failed, the obstacles placed in her way were insurmountable. Or, rather, the disappointment was so great and grievous, when all the fondly cherished hopes of help, or succor, or support from those idols were frustrated and found entirely vain, that heartsick and chagrined by unsuccess, she resolves on a change of course. With mingled feelings of remorse and penitence she makes up her mind to retrace her steps. She recalls the better days, the happier time, the more prosperous circumstances, of fidelity to her first and rightful husband and head; and now she is just ready to return to him. She is just now at that stage at which the prodigal in the parable had arrived "when He came to himself," and when he said, "How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father." Kimchi remarks," She will not say this until she has borne the captivity a considerable time." Hosea 2:8 For she din not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. From Hosea 2:6 to 13 inclusive, the suffering and sorrow consequent on, and occasioned by, her sins are enumerated; yet now and again certain aggravations of her guilt crop up. Here we have an account of her ignorance of, and ingratitude to, the true and or of her mercies, together with her sinful misuse and sad abuse of those mercies. The products of the earth which God bestowed on her were corn and wine and oil—all that was needed for food, refreshment, and even luxury; the prosperity in trade or commerce with which he favored her resulted in the multiplied increase of silver and gold. The perversion of these blessings consisted in her employment of them in the service of Baal or of idolatry in general. The sin of refusing to acknowledge the Author of such manifold mercies was grievously augmented by this gross abuse of them. The last clause is a relative one, asher, as frequently being understood; while the words asu labbaal do not signify that they made those metals into images of Baal, as implied in the Authorized Version; nor vet that they offered them to Baal according to Gesenius; but that they prepared or employed them in the worship of that idol and the service of idolatry in general. דגן, rad. דגה, to cover, multiply, i.e. multitude and plenty covering ever everything; comp. tego, תירוֹשׁ, rad. ירשׁ, take possession of the brain in intoxicating: יצהר, rad. צהר, to shine. Kimchi remarks as follows: "All the goodness in the possession of which she was, she had not except from me; because I sent my blessing on the corn and wine and oil, and sent my blessing upon the work of their hands, so that they had abundance of silver and gold; but Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked." Hosea 2:9 Therefore will I return, and take away my corn in the time thereof, and my wine in the season thereof, and will recover my wool and my flax given to cover her nakedness. The abuse of the Divine bounties mentioned in the preceding verse fully justifies the series of punishments that follow. God thus vindicates those penal inflictions. Accordingly he threatens them in this ninth verse with the deprivation of the bounties which they had misused as the means of idolatry and sin; in Hosea 2:10 with disgrace; in Hosea 2:11 with the departure of all her merry-makings; in Hosea 2:12 with the destruction of the sources whence the means of idolatrous worship were supplied; and in Hosea 2:13 with days of visitation proportionate to the time of declension and apostasy. The first clause of the verse under consideration is better rendered (1) according to the common Hebrew idiom, which employs two verbs to express one idea in a modified sense, the first denoting the manner, and so equivalent to an adverb with us, and the second signifying the matter; and it is thus translated by Keil: "Therefore will I take back my corn." (2) We admit the vav consecutive is opposed to this; and the LXX. has ἐπιστρέψωκαὶκομιοῦναι: and Jerome, "reverter et sumam." The manner of the dispossession intensifies the punishment, just as their abuse of those possessions had augmented their guilt. The food, refreshment, and raiment are to be taken away this certainly would be bad enough by itself, but the suddenness of the stroke adds poignancy to the infliction. The prospect of an indifferent harvest and of a bad vintage for weeks previously might have prepared them in some sort for the disaster. But when the time of harvest has already come and the season of vintage just arrived, by some sudden, unexpected calamity, whether tempest or hostile invasion, the bread-corn perishes and the wine-grapes are destroyed. The food is thus snatched, as it were, from their month, and the cup dashed from their lips; the sadness of the catastrophe is immensely increased by the sudden rudeness of the stroke by which it comes. Nor is this all. In the case of the raiment, or rather the material, the wool and the flax out of which it is formed, its removal reduces the intended wearer to perfect nudity, or, if we understand it as figure, to abject poverty and absolute penury. Aben Ezra attributes this disaster (verse 9) to hostile invasion: "At its season when I shall bring the enemies, to take away the corn and the wine;" Kimchi, on the other hand, sees in it a misgrowth: "I will return and take away my corn in its season, and my wine in its appointed time, because I will send a curse upon them in the time of harvest and at the season of vintage, instead of the blessing I used to send upon them. And so on all the work of their hands I shall send a curse, and all their gain shall be put into a bag with holes; and they shall not have bread to eat nor raiment to wear." Hosea 2:10 And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand. Deprivation is followed by disgrace, dispossession by dishonor. The figure of a faithless female being continued, the calamities of Israel are pictured in the extreme deplorableness of her condition. The word navluth does not elsewhere occur, but its meaning is not difficult to ascertain. It denotes literally, "slackness," "laxness," or a withered state, from navel, to be withered, and may be translated either "her shame" or "her turpitude." The LXX. has ἀκαθαρσίαν, while Jerome renders it stultitiam. Thus she is exposed to the derision and disgust of her former admirers and paramours; while deliverance is out of the question. Her lovers are the idols, or, according to Kimchi," Egypt and Assyria, which cannot deliver her." She who once was the object of delight is become the object of disdain and contempt; nor is there any of her quondam lovers desirous of or able to deliver her out of the hand of him who administers the justly deserved punishment. Hosea 2:11 I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. The enumeration is complete, "Her feast days" were the three annual festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. "Her new moons" were the monthly celebrations at the commencement of each month. "Her sabbaths’’ were the weekly solemnities of one day in seven, dedicated to the Lord. Then there is a general summing up of the whole by the addition of "all her solemn feasts,"—all her festal days and seasons, including, besides those named, the beginning of the years, the solemn assembly or holy convocation on the seventh day of the Passover and on the eighth day of Tabernacles. Preceding the enumeration is the general characteristic of all Israel’s festivities. They were times of joy, as we read in Numbers 10:10, "In the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets;" and in Dent. Numbers 12:12 it is expressly declared, "Ye shall rejoice before the Lord... ye, and your sons, and your daughters, and your menservants, and your maidservants, and the Levite that is within your gates." All this was to cease; the coming captivity would render all such celebrations impossible. Kimchi remarks on this (Numbers 12:11): "For in the distress there is no new moon and no sabbath; and the beginnings of months and sabbaths on which offerings were presented were days of joy. And so with respect to the feast days and solemn assemblies, which were days of rest and quiet joy, they shall not have in them any joy in consequence of the greatness of their distresses." He subsequently adds, "There is a chag which is not a moed, but joy wherewith men rejoice and eat and drink; and it is called chag," referring to Solomon’s feast of dedication; "and there is also a moed which is not a chag, as for signs and for seasons (moedim), and at the appointed time I will return unto thee" (moed, from יער, to appoint as time and place). Hosea 2:12 And I will destroy (make desolate) her vines and her fig trees, whereof she said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me. God had already threatened to deprive Israel of the means of support—the corn, wine, wool, and flax; he now threatens the removal of the very sources whence that support was derived. The vine and fig tree are usually conjoined, and by a common synecdoche convey the idea of all those sources that combine to support life and supply its luxuries. When the united kingdom of Judah and Israel, before the disruption, had obtained the zenith of prosperity in the reign of Solomon, it is thus expressed: Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon." Yet Israel knew not the time of her merciful visitation, and not only turned aside to idols, but most stupidly and most inexcusably attributed the many mercies she enjoyed to the idols which she worshipped. Like a foul adulteress despising the tokens of her husband’s affection and delighting in the rewards of lewdness received from licentious paramours, Israel forfeited all her privileges, and forced the Lord to withdraw his bounties and destroy their very source. גֶפֶן, rad. גפן, equivalent to תאן, to be bent, from the arch made by its drooping boughs, תְאֵנָה, rad. תאן, equivalent to תנן, to extend from its length. And I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. The places where fig trees flourished and vines abounded shall be stripped of those trees, with their pleasant fruits—shall become a forest. The vineyards being no longer hedged or fenced, no longer cultivated or cared for, the beasts of the field shall, in consequence, find free ingress and roam there at large, devouring and devastating at pleasure. The Septuagint translates the first part of the above sentence by καὶθήσομαιαὐτὰεἰςμαρτύριον, "and I will make them a testimony," thus reading, according to Jerome, עֵד, instead of יעַרַ; while Cyril comments on the words so read as follows: "For these things being taken away shall testify as it were against Israel’s depravity, and render their punishment more signal, and make the wrath conspicuous." The context, however, militates against the reading in question, for in time of war or general devastation places, through neglect, grow trees and brushwood, where wild beasts lair and lay waste. The explanation of the verse is well given by Kimchi in his commentary: "Because she said, ’These are the hire of my harlotry;’ because she said that from the hand of her lovers came the corn and must and oil and all good things;—I will make them a desolation, that she may know whether she had those good things from me or from them. אתנה, because he has compared her to a harlot, he calls those good things אתנה, equivalent to אחנן וינה; while their signification is identical with חנאי, and their root, תנה [extend, reach, give], the aleph being prosthetic. But Jonathan renders אתנה by יְקַר, precious things. And he mentions the vine and the fig tree because grapes and figs are the best part of the food of man after the produce of the earth (i.e. corn); and already he had said, ’I will also take away my corn in its season.’" Hosea 2:13 And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her ear-rings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forget me, saith the Lord. The name of Baalim, that is, Baals in the plural, has respect to the various forms of the Baal-idolatry,or modification of the Baal-worship; for example, Baal-peor, Baal-be-rith, Baal-zebub, Baal-perazim, Baal-zephon, Baal-zamar, Baal-shalishu. The name of Baal came to be used generally as the designation of any idol or false god. The days of the Baals were the days consecrated to Baal, and on which the worship of the true God was transferred to that idol. It matters little whether we render "wherein" or "to whom," referring to ימי, in which case, however, we should expect בם, though the latter answers better to the meaning of the preposition le in להם. After mentioning the object of their idolatrous worship, he specifies the manner of it, which was the burning of incense, the part of the process being employed by synecdoche for the whole. Every mincha, or meat offering, which was presented by itself as a free-will offering was accompanied with frankincense; every day, morning and evening, incense was burnt in the holy place; while on the great Day of Atone-meat the high priest carried a censer of coals from the golden altar into the holiest of all and there burnt incense before the mercy-seat. But the word has often a wider sense than that of burning incense, and is applied to the offering of any sacrifice whatever. Just as the festivals of Jehovah were transferred to Baal, so his service was turned into that of Baal. Titus Israel prostituted herself and acted the part of a spiritual adulteress by her worship of idols. The same unsavory figure is resumed; and her assiduous efforts to worship the idol acceptably and propitiate his favor is presented under the figure of a whorish woman decking herself with meretricious ornaments—nose-rings and jewels, thus making up by artificial means for the lack of natural beauty—to attract the attention and gain the admiration of her lovers. Thus Aben Ezra: "The meaning of ותעד is metaphorical in allusion to a whorish woman who puts a nose-ring in her nose and a necklace on her neck to make herself beautiful, in order to find favor in the eves of the adulterer." The word עַד has for its verbal root עדה, to overstep the boundary, transgress, plunder, draw to one’s self, put on; while חֶלְיָה, (masculine חְלַיִ) is from חלה, to rub, polish, be smooth. But when all fails to draw lovers unto her, she casts aside the last remaining fragment of female delicacy, and goes in pursuit of lovers. Thus did Israel. She put Baal or other idols in place of Jehovah; she made a transfer of Jehovah’s festivals to Baal; she burnt incense or offered sacrifice to her idol instead of the true God; she went to great pains to secure the acceptance of her false deities; "and me," says Jehovah very emphatically," she forgat;" that is, me the true God, her bountiful Benefactor, her gracious Lord. and loving Husband, she forgot. The visitation expressed by פקד with accusative of the thing, and על before the person, is commented by Kimchi as follows: "For the transgressions of her (Israel’s) iniquity in the exile I will visit upon her the time that she served Baalim; and I will let them remain long in exile for punishment, because they have left my service and served other gods. And even upon children’s children shall come this punishment, although they do not serve strange gods in exile; thus is the sentence [literally, ’judgment’] of their punishment, because their children’s children shall not be perfect in the service of God and in his commandments in exile, therefore thus shall the iniquity of their fathers who served strange gods unite with their own punishment." Hosea 2:14 Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. As in Hosea 2:2-5 we have an exposure of Israel’s sin, and in Hosea 2:6-13 an enumeration of her sufferings by penal inflictions; so Hosea 2:14-23 contain a touching exhibition of Divine succor and support. The transition is abrupt. Hosea 2:14-17 exhibit the gradual change wrought in Israel through the progressive means of improvement employed by Jehovah. Israel’s future is here reflected in the mirror of her past history. The events of that history are elegantly employed to represent as by type or symbol the mercies in store for Israel, wayward and rebellious though she had proved herself to be. Laken (from le causal, and ken, so, equivalent to "because it is so") at the beginning of this verse (14) is rendered by some, (1) "but" or "yet;" but its natural signification is (2) "therefore." It is like the Greek οὖν (from ὦν, Ionic ἔων, neuter ἐόν, contracted οὖν); it being so, therefore, and similar to the Latin phrase, quae cum ita slut, "therefore" implies because Israel can only be turned from her foolish idolatry by the penal measures named. Aben Ezra also understands it here, as elsewhere, in its literal sense; thus: "After she [the unchaste wife representative of Israel] shall know that all this evil has come upon her because that she had forgotten me, and had not known at the beginning that I dealt kindly with her; and when she will say, ’Yet will I go and return to my former husband;’ then will I allure her with words." פתה is from the root פת cognate with the Arabic in the sense of "dividing," "being open," "standing open;" thence it signifies "to be susceptible of outward impressions," "allow access and entrance;" in Piel, "to make one open … be susceptible or inclined," "induce by words." The word laken, "therefore," has somewhat puzzled commentators, because the connection between the judgments threatened in the preceding verses and the mercies proffered in what follows is not to a superficial view at once apparent. Yet it is mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace kissing each other. It is (3) the connecting link between the enormity of our sins and the greatness of the Divine mercy; between the vileness of our iniquities and the riches of Divine grace. In like manner the psalmist prays, "Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great;" and God promises by the prophet, "For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him; I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him and to his mourners." Long previously God had said, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth." The secret of such striking contrasts is that where sin abounded grace did much more abound. Egypt having been to Israel the house of bondage, the exodus from that land represents deliverance out of a servile, suffering condition. (1) The wilderness or Arabian desert into which they were brought on leaving that country was a place of freedom. They were emancipated, and breathed the free air of the wilderness; they were exercised with salutary discipline after their emancipation; as they traversed the wilderness they were trained and tried. The allurement which prefaces their deliverance refers to the persuasion of Moses and Aaron, who found it necessary to persuade and even coax their countrymen to turn their back on their bondage and follow the leaders whom God had sent them. The "comfortable words" mentioned in the clone of the verse were addressed to them at a subsequent period, when, allured out of the strange land where they had sojourned so long, they were led forth into the wilderness. The "comfortable words" comprehended both temporal and spiritual mercies—relief in every time of emergency, deliverance in danger and distress, a plentiful supply of their necessities, with pardon of their sins, assurances of grace, and renewed tokens of God’s favor on repentance. A difficulty has been found in the words, "and bring her into the wilderness," being interposed between the alluring and the speaking comfortably. The difficulty is removed (2) by translating vav, not by "and," but by "after," as if equivalent to acher; thus: "After I shall have brought her into the wilderness I wilt allure and comfort her." Then the meaning would be, "After I have humbled them thoroughly as I did their forefathers in the wilderness, then will I speak comfortably unto them." God humbled their forefathers in Egypt, yet that did not suffice; he humbled them afterwards in the wilderness, and then brought them into Canaan. Many times God sends successive afflictions upon his own people, to break their hearts, to humble them thoroughly, and at last "he speaks comfortably unto them." But (3) the wilderness may be viewed in another light. Besides the distresses experienced in the wilderness, there were deliverances enjoyed. The reference here may be to the latter, and all the more as this part of the chapter deals with merciful providences. The particle vav and other words of the verse then retain their natural sense; and, instead of a denunciation of further afflictions, God declares to Israel that he will perform on their behalf such works of power, wisdom, and goodness, at once great and glorious, merciful and wonderful, as he had wrought for their forefathers in the wilderness after their deliverance from Egypt. Thus the Chaldee: "I will work miracles and great works of wonder for them, such as I wrought in the desert;" as though he said, "Whatever the condition may be into which you shall be brought, vet you shall have me working in as glorious a way for your good and comfort as ever I did for your forefathers when they were in the wilderness." The explanation of "wilderness" under number (1) above, combining, as it does, deliverance yet discipline, care yet chastisement, deserves the preference; it is neither to be explained with Keil exclusively in the sense of promise, nor, on the other hand, exclusively in the sense of punishment with Rashi, who comments as follows: "I will lead her into the wilderness, which for her is like a wilderness and a dry parched land; and there she shall lay it to heart that it was better with her when she did my will than when she rebelled against me." Hosea 2:15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. The consolations of God are not confined to words; they comprise works as well as words. Friendly doings as well as sayings are embraced in the Divine goodness, and manifest the Divine mercy. On emerging from the wilderness, fruitful vineyards, such as Sibmah, Heshbon, and Elealeh, east of Jordan. and fertile valleys, like that of Achor near Jericho, to the west of Jordan, as coon as they have crossed the river, shall be given them. These vineyards and valleys would thus be the first installments of God’s promise, and a prelude to the possession of the whole, so that the door of hopeful expectation and of joyful anticipation would be thrown wide open to them. The verb עוה has three meanings—"humble one’s self … answer," "sing." Hence the LXX. and older interpreters adopt ταπεινωθήσεται: Calvin, "respondent;" and Aben Ezra and Kimchi, "she shall sing and play." The last deserves the preference. No wonder if’, under such circumstances, Israel responded with songs of praise and thanksgiving, as in that early day of the nation’s youth, when, coming up out of Egypt, they sang the song of Moses by the Red Sea’s margin, while Miriam and the maidens of Israel in full chorus completed the harmony. Now, all these experiences of the past were to repeat themselves in the future history of Israel. Their past captivity or dispersion was obviously implied in this promised deliverance and God’s gracious dealings with them in the future. There is a different explanation of one expression in this verse, which deserves careful consideration—an explanation which turns on what once transpired in that valley, and the meaning of the name of it, troubling, derived flora that transaction; we refer, of course, to the affair of Achan. The punishment of the transgressor in that case, and the putting away of sin in connection with penitence and prayer, reopened, after defeat, the door of hope, and restored the enjoyment of Divine help. The discomfiture that so troubled the host of Israel was immediately followed by the victory at At, which inspired them with the hope of soon possessing the whole land. So with Israel after the captivity—a dreary night of weeping was followed by a bright and blessed morning. So, too, in time to come, when, after a long and sorrowful expectation, Israel shall return from the lands of their exile to their fatherland, or by faith and repentance to the paternal God, the light of better and more hopeful days shall (lawn upon them. To the idea of troubling Kimchi attaches the notion of purification, quoting with approval Rashi and Aben Ezra to the same purpose. His comment is: "Because at the beginning, when they went into the land in the days of Joshua, this misadventure befell them, namely, the matter of Achan, he gave them confidence that they should not fear when they assembled in the land, and that no misadventure would occur to them, as they would all be refined and purified because, in the wilderness of the peoples, they would be purified. And that valley of Achor shall no more be called so, for its name is for depreciation; but a name of honor shall be given to it, and it is a door of hope. And inasmuch as he says ’door,’ and not ’valley,’ as it should be, it is because it shall be to them as a door, since from there they shall enter into the land as they did at the first, and it shall be to them hope and the aim of what is good; consequently they call it the door of hope. And the sage Rabbi Abraham explains the valley of Achor to be the valley of Jezreel, viz.’ because I [Jehovah] troubled her there, it will turn to a door of hope.’ And R.S.I. (Rashi) of blessed memory explains it as the depth of the exile, where they were troubled; so ’I will give her a door of hope, the beginning of hope, that out of the midst of those troubles I will give her a heart to return to me.’" To the same purpose he quotes a brief comment of Saadia Gaon. כֶרֶם, cognate with Arabic karma, to be noble, equivalent to "the more fruitful and productive." The word mishsham is, according to some, (1) an expression of time, equivalent to "from the time of their departure from the desert,"—so Keil; others explain it as (2) "thereout," i.e. "I will make their vineyards out of it,"—so Simson; and ethers, again, explain it "from there or thence." It is taken in the last-mentioned sense by Kimchi, as follows: "From the wilderness I will give the whole land, which she formerly possessed, as if he said, ’I will constitute her there in the wilderness to do good to her in her land,’ because that in the wilderness of the peoples he will purify them and consume the rebellious and the transgressors, so that the remainder shall fear (or flock reverently to him). Consequently they shall need consolations, and be shall speak to their heart. Because God—blessed be he!—shall give them their land as at the first; therefore he says, ’And I will speak to their heart.’ And although we have explained that the consolations shall spring out of the distress which they endured in exile, yet will the whole be as well for the one (viz. the consolation) as for the other (the trouble)." It is aptly remarked by Aben Ezra, in relation to the vineyards, that "the words form a contrast to the other words of the prophet, ’And I will destroy their vine;’" likewise Kimchi asking, "And why has the prophet only mentioned their vineyards (i.e. when purposing to give them the whole land)? Because he had mentioned in their punishment, ’I will destroy her vines,’ he mentions in the promised consolation her vineyards." Hosea 2:16, Hosea 2:17 In these verses a renewal of God’s covenant with Israel, under the figure of a marriage contract, is predicted. The name by which Israel shall address her beloved shall be henceforth Ishi, not Baali; that is, a term of tender affection, not of stern authority. (1) The title of "My Husband" will take the place of "My Lord." Some suppose that the latter title was the idol’s name, which, in the lips of Israel, had superseded that of the true God, the meaning being (2) "Thou wilt no more call to me, My Baal." Nay, the names of Baals shall become so abhorrent to their better feelings, as well as hateful to Jehovah, that they shall pass away at once from their mouth and from their memory, never more to be mentioned and never more to be remembered. Rashi’s comment favors (1); thus: "Ye shall serve me out of love, and not out of fear; ishi denoting marriage and youthful love; baali, lordship and fear." Hosea 2:18 A state of tranquility was to follow, a sort of golden age was to ensue. With both the rational and irrational creation they would be at peace, enjoying security from the one and safety from the other. Peace would be established with the hostile forces of the outer world, and peace at the same time national and political. With the beasts of the field—viz, the wild beasts, as contrasted with behemah, tame animals—and with the fowls of heaven—i.e. birds of prey, destructive of the fruits of the field—and with the creeping things of the ground, detrimental to the products of the earth, they would be in league; while weapons of war would be devoted to destruction, the bow and the sword and the battle being broken, and not only so, but banished out of the earth, so that Israel, free from the alarm of a night attack, and protected by night as well as by day, would be made to lie down safely. Milchamah is constructed with eshbor by zeugma; or it includes, as Kimchi explains it, "all the implements of war except the bow and sword, which he has already mentioned." Hosea 2:19, Hosea 2:20 Much as was included in these promises, more and better was to follow. The divorced wife was to be taken back; the marriage contract, which her shameful adultery had vitiated, was to be renewed, and past offences condoned. This certainly evidenced extraordinary forbearance and affection. But it was not all. A new and higher relationship was to be entered on; so entirely had God forgiven and forgotten, if we may so say, all the multiplied and aggravated transgressions of Israel against him, that that people is not to be received back as a repudiated wife, but to be henceforth regarded and treated as a chaste virgin, and in that capacity betrothed unto the Lord. And I will betroth thee unto me is the gracious promise thrice repeated, and each time with an additional element of mercy; nor is this betrothal of a temporary character and of short continuance, like the previous marriage compact which the wife’s guilt a short time had rendered null and void. It is a durable betrothal, lasting forever. Next to the time during which this betrothal shall continue is the manner in which it is effected, or rather, the basis on which it is established. Justice and judgment present righteousness under two aspects—subjective and objective. Tsedeq, equivalent to tsedaqah, being right, is subjective righteousness and an attribute of God. Mishpat, equivalent to objective right, either as executing judgment or as existing in fact Some attribute these characteristics to God and some to Israel, while others to both. Rashi and Kimchi understand both words tsedeq and mishpat, subjectively and in relation to the Israelites. The former: "In righteousness and judgment wherein ye shall walk;" the latter: "In righteousness which the Israelites shall practice." Wunsche and Hengstenberg understand the righteousness and judgment of God’s doing justice and faithfully fulfilling his covenant obligations to Israel. The latter has well remarked in relation to mishpat when distinguishing it from tsedeq, that a man may render what is right to persons and yet not be righteous; that is, there may be objective apart from subjective righteousness. Keil attributes the attributes in question, not only to God fulfilling his covenant engagements to his people, but purifying them through just judgment, and thus providing for their righteousness. That God possesses these is undeniable, but it is equally obvious that he bestows righteousness on his people both by imputation and impartation; he also executes righteousness in their case, purifying them by salutary chastisement, his object being, not only to cleanse, but to keep clean. And yet such is the frailty of man’s fallen nature, and so many are the faults and the failings to which he is liable, that loving-kindness (God’s condescending love, chesed, equivalent to ἀγάπη) and mercies (inmost compassion on man’s weakness, rachamim, σπάχγνα) on God’s part must be added to righteousness and judgment in order to secure the stability of those whom he takes into covenant, and the continuance of the contract. Nay; for the attainment of the desired end still more is requisite, for, after all his bestowments and all his discipline, and in addition to all his favor and forbearance, his faithfulness (unwavering steadfastness, emunah, corresponding as the reverse side to and securing the leolam) is indispensable to Israel’s perseverance; and thus, notwithstanding Israel’s failures, Jehovah’s faithfulness guarantees ultimate and lasting success. The special quality on Israel’s side is true knowledge of God. Hosea 2:21-23 The eighteenth verse pictures a scene of peace for Israel’s future; the verses following warrant the expectation of its perpetuity, owing to the higher and holier relationship; the verses before us are a vivid description of unlimited prosperity. The corn and wine and oil appeal, by a graphic personification, to mother earth; earth appeals to the over-canopying heavens; and the heavens appeal to him whose throne is in the heavens, but whom the heavens and heaven of heavens cannot contain. Soon the floating cloud is seen and the falling rain is heard; the parched earth drinks in the moisture; and its products, being nourished and refreshed, supply to the utmost the wants and wishes of Jezreel. Kimchi comments on this picture as follows: "He says that then, in the season of salvation, the heavens shall give their dew, and the earth shall give her increase. And he says, ’I will tear the heavens which were shut up when they were in the land, as in the days of Ahab; on their return to the land at the time of salvation they shall no more be shut.’ And he says, ’I will answer,’ as if the heavens asked that they might give rain according to their manner, and I will answer; [as if] their earth [asked] that they [the heavens] might give rain after their manner, even showers of blessing. And this ’ I will answer’ denotes that my favor shall be on them [the heavens]. ’And they shall answer the earth,’ as if the earth asked rain and longed for it. ’And the earth shall hear when it shall give its increase, and the tree of the field shall give its fruit …’ ’And they shall hear Jezreel,’ for in the multiplying of good things the eaters thereof multiply, for the steppes shall be full of the sheep of Israel. In the punishments he called the name of Israel Jezreel, because they were scattered among the nations. In the time of salvation he likewise calls them Jezreel, because they were sown in their land; accordingly, he says afterwards, ’I will sow them to me in the land.’" Such is the prophet’s pictorial representation of a prosperity including food in abundance, refreshment limited by moderation, and even luxuries without stint. Old things are passed away; sinful things have ceased; there is a complete reversal of the sorrowful circumstances into which sin had plunged Israel. God’s scattering has now become God’s sowing. "I sow her" is the remark of Aben Ezra, "that they may multiply and be fruitful as the seed of the earth." The unpitied one has found mercy; the rejected one is received with rejoicing. "I will say to them which were not my people, Thou art my people; and they shall say, Thou art my God." Hosea 2:2-5 The prophet exhibits the gross sin of idolatry. The prophet in this section exposes the shame as well as sin of idolatry. It is a mistaken notion to suppose, with some, that the tribe of Judah is here urged to plead with the tribes of Israel; for Israel cannot, with any propriety of speech or figure, be spoken of as the mother in this case, however possibly they may be addressed as brethren and sisters. The Church or nation is the mother, and the individual members, as nursed and brought up by her, are the children. The doctrines symbolized in the preceding chapter are here more fully developed and plainly set forth. I. . The explanation which Calvin gives of the first clause of this second verse is ingenious, yet we must regard it as rather specious than sound. Instead of "plead," he employs the word "contend;" and interprets the contention to imply that Israel, instead of censuring the seeming severity of God’s dealings with them, should rather condemn their mother’s sin as the guilty cause of that severity, and thus cast the blame of their sufferings, not on God, as though he had falsified his covenant, but upon their mother, the Israelitish Church or kingdoms that had fallen away and fallen far from fulfilling the conditions of the covenant. After referring to the mark of disgrace fixed on the children born by a marriage with a wife who has been repudiated by her husband, he says, "When a husband repudiates his wife through waywardness, the children justly regard him with hatred. Why? ’Because he loved not our mother as he ought to have done; he has not honored the bond of marriage.’ It is, therefore, usually the case that the children’s affections are alienated from their father, when he treats their mother with too little humanity or entire contempt. So the Israelites, when they saw themselves rejected, wished to throw the blame on God. For by the name mother are the people here called; it is transferred to the whole body of the people, or the race of Abraham. God had espoused that people to himself, and wished them to be like a with to him. Since, then, God was a Husband to the people, the Israelites were as sons born by that marriage. But when they were repudiated, the Israelites said that God dealt cruelly with them, for he had cast them away for no fault. The prophet now undertakes the defense of God’s cause, and speaks also in his person. ’Contend, contend,’ he says, ’with your mother [your dispute is not with me].’ He brings this charge against the Israelites, that they had been repudiated for the flagitious conduct of their mother, and had ceased to be counted the children of God … the blame of their rejection belonged to the whole race of Abraham (i.e. the mother); but no blame could be imputed to God." We rather understand the pleading mentioned as that which the pious remnant of the nation, who had still kept themselves separate from idolatry and the general degeneracy, are exhorted to address to their mother, that is to say, to the bulk of the people with the heads of the congregation and rulers of the nation. It is the duty of believers to plead for God and his truth, even though the great body of Church or nation should be opposed to them. This is specially the case in times of spiritual leanness, and in days of deep declension or entire apostasy. Thus our Lord and his apostles plod with the people of the Jews in their days, charging their rulers, the chief priests and scribes and Pharisees, with the gravest dereliction of duty. Yet there must be tenderness in this pleading. It is remarkable that, as Jerome remarks, he commands "the sons (children) to speak not at all to the wife of their father whom she forsook, but to their mother who bare them." Neither is there, on the other hand, any impropriety in thus pleading with an erring parent, for we find that Jonathan thus pleaded with his father, Saul, on behalf of David. Humble and modest, yet firm and faithful pleading, is not only lawful, but dutiful even on the part of private persons against national corruptions or public profanations, as of God’s Name, or Word, or day, or worship. II. . Though Israel had forfeited her right to the name or privilege of wife since she had so grievously fallen away from faithfulness and affection, and though God disowned the relationship as she had virtually dissolved her marriage union by her unfaithfulness, yet she had not actually and formally received the bill of divorce parting her away; in other words, her outward and public rejection. There was thus still left space for repentance, and room for hope in case of repentance. So great is the mercy of God, that if she lent an ear to the pleadings of her children orphaned through her misconduct, and put away her whoredoms or defilements with many lovers, and her adulteries or departures from her rightful Husband and Lord, she might hope for restoration. Thus God deals with sinners in general, if they will only hearken to the admonitions and invitations of his Word, and put away from them the objects, one or many, of their sinful attachment, which withdraw their affection from him who is their true and proper Object. There is a practical comment by Matthew Henry on the close of this verse which appears to us well worth quoting. He says, "Every sinful course persisted in is an adulterous departure from God; and here we may see what it is truly to repent of it and turn from it. (1) True penitents will forsake both open sins and secret sins; will put away, not only the whoredoms that lie in sight, but those that lie in secret between their breasts—the sin that is rolled under the tongue as a sweet morsel. (2) They will both avoid the outward occasions of sin and mortify the inward disposition to it." III. . The punishment threatened in case of impenitence consists of several particulars. 1. There is destitution of the extremest kind. Israel would be stripped of all the favors, temporal and spiritual, which God had bestowed, and be so situated that she could not help herself. The idea is more fully developed by Ezekiel, who in Hosea 16. presents us with a most pitiable picture—that of an infant exposed, neglected, nude, and helpless: "As for thy nativity, in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee; thou was not salted at all, nor swaddled at all. None eye pitied thee, to do any of these unto thee; but thou wast cast out in the open field, to the loathing of thy person, in the day that thou wast born." 2. Next to destitution is desolation. In this particular the representation is that of a wilderness and a dry land, or rather of a traveler in such a district. The nature of the wilderness or of the way through it is easily inferred from other Scriptures; thus we read of Israel’s departure from Horeb: "We went through all that great and terrible wilderness;" again it is written, "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness." A traveler, in journeying through that waste and howling and terrible wilderness, would meet with many a rough road, many a rugged way, many a rocky ascent, many an uncultivated waste, many a harsh sound, many a scaresome sight, many a tangled spot, many a thorny place, many a toil, and many a trial. Travelers passing through such a scene of desolation are said to wander "in the wilderness in a solitary way." 3. The dangers of the wilderness are manifold. There is the place of lions’ dens. and of the mountains el the leopards. There, too, the Israelites of old encountered the fiery serpents that infested it. For a time they had been restrained, but afterwards they were uncontrolled, and even commissioned to chastise the erring Israelites. 4. Death itself is included in the threatened punishment:" And slay her with thirst." There is no water to cleanse, no thirst-satisfying fountain, no life-giving spring. Of wayfarers in such a region it is written," They were hungry and thirsty; their soul fainted in them." IV. IN THE . The repetition of" lest" at the beginning of verse 4 is needed to make the meaning plain and carry on the connection. Particular members of a Church or nation too o[ten share the sins of the general body or rulers of the people; so too children, frequently following in the footsteps of godless parents, suffer by the sad heritage of those parents’ guilt; for God "visits the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate him." It has been well said that "God visits the sins of the parents upon the children until the entailed curse be cut off by repentance." V. IN SIN. The harlotry and shameful conduct of the libidinous woman, who represents Israel in this passage, evidence the greatest perversity. In spite of warnings ant threatenings, in spite of entreaties and exhortations, and in spite of inducements and invitations, Israel persists in her iniquitous idolatry and perseveres in her shameless conduct. Like an abandoned woman, who has renounced all the instinctive modesty of womanhood, and who, instead of waiting for the addresses of paramours, actually takes the initiative, and pursues them with her unwomanly appeals, Israel goes after her lovers, that is, her idols, or, as some think, her idolatrous allies We may not, however, overlook the fact that, besides the gross idolatry of Israel, there is a spiritual idolatry, to which all are exposed, and to which many are addicted. Anything that draws away our thoughts and affections from God, or that occupies that place in our heart that belongs to him, is an idol—not so rude as the image of wood, or stone, or metal, but not less perilous, not less pernicious, not less insidious. Let us beware of following such lovers; let us beware of spiritual harlotry, and of shamefully pursuing wealth, or fame, or power, or pleasure, anti of turning aside from God! VI. AS THE OF IDOLS. Israel in time of plenty forgot the important lesson that her prosperity came from God. Her sottish stupidity was only equaled by her ingratitude, when she attributed all she had to those miserable idols on which her heart was fixed, and of which she showed herself so dotingly fond. Put by Jehovah into the possession of such a lifesome land, of food in abundance, of raiment—garments tinier and outer—and of the luxuries as well as the comforts of life, she forgot—basely forgot—that she continued a pensioner on his providence and blessed by his bounties. Bad enough and base enough as such ingratitude was, it was still worse to transfer her love and her gratitude to idols dumb such as blinded nations fear. How unspeakably mean it was on Israel to form such a low estimate of religion as to value it according to the worldly advantages to be derived from it, or in proportion to the selfish interests served by it! How much worse stilt to depend on idols for such advantages, and in hope of furthering those interests! Hosea 2:6-13 The pains and penalties that are attached to sin. In the Book of Judges it is stated once and again that, when the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, he delivered them into the hand of their enemies. "They forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashtaroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them; The children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord And the Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin King of Canaan;" "And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord delivered them into the hand of Midian." This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This short chapter contains two sections, of which the first, comprising Hosea 3:1-3, is a symbolic representation; and the second, consisting of Hos 3:4 and Hosea 3:5, gives the explanation. The prophet bestows his affections on a worthless wife, who, notwithstanding his tender love to her, proves utterly unfaithful and lives in adultery. He does not cast her off, but, in order to reclaim her and bring her to repentance, he places her in a position of restraint, where she is obliged to renounce all intercourse with her paramours. Thus it was with Israel. They had had multiplied experience of God’s loving-kindness and tender mercies, but in spite of all his benefits, great and manifold, they were alike ungrateful and unfaithful. The remainder of the chapter foretells the long and sorrowful abandonment of Israel, as though forgotten by God and forsaken by man; and closes with an outlook into the far-off future, when Israel’s correction would issue in their conversion, so that they would return to the Lord their God and David their king in the latter days. Hosea 3:1 The general meaning of this verse is well given in the Chaldee Targum: "Go, utter a prophecy against the house of Israel, who are like a woman very dear to her husband, and who, though she is unfaithful to him, is nevertheless so greatly loved by him that he is unwilling to put her away. Such is the love of the Lord towards Israel; but they turn aside to the idols of the nations." The word עוֹר is in contrast with ’techillath, as the second part of Jehovah’s continued discourse. It is erroneously and, contrary to the accents, constructed with "said" by Kimchi and others (Ewald considers it admissible, Umbreit preferable). Kimchi’s comment on this verse is: "After the prophet finished his words of consolation, he returns to words of censure, turning to the men of his own time. And it is the custom of the prophets to intermingle reproofs with consolations in their discourses. But he says yet (again), because he had already commanded him to marry a wife of whoredoms, and now he speaks to him another parable." This time he does not employ the ordinary and usual word "take," but "love." plainly implying that he had already married her, so that her unfaithfulness took place in wedlock; or rather indicating the object of the union. Beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress. Her friend or companion is (1) her lawful husband, but contemporaneously and continuously with her husband’s love to her are her adulteries with others, as is implied by the participles. (2) רֵע, being indefinite as not having article or suffix, is understood by some to be an acquaintance or lover, and preferred, as a milder term, to מְאַהֵב. The contrast was realized in Jehovah’s love for Israel, notwithstanding their spiritual adultery in worshipping other gods. According to the love of the Lord toward the children of Israel who look (turn) to other gods. Two expressions in this clause recall, if they do not actually reflect, the words of two older Scriptures; thus in Deuteronomy 7:8 we read, "Because the Lord loved you;" and in Deuteronomy 31:18, "They are turned unto ether gods." (3) The LXX. has γυναῖκαἀγαπῶσανπονηρά, having probably read אֹהֶבֶת רַע. And love flagons of wine (margin, grapes). The term ashishe, according to Rashi and Aben Ezra, means "bowls," that is, "bowls of wine" (literally, "of grapes"). They probably connected the word with the root shesh, six, a sextorius, and hence any other wine-vessel. The Septuagint, however, renders the word πέμματαμετὰσταφίδος, "cakes with dried grapes." This meaning is to be preferred, whether we derive the word from אִשַׁשׁ, to press together, or from אֵשׁ, fire; according to the former and correct derivation, the sense being cakes of grapes pressed together; according to the latter, cakes baked with fire. Gesenius differentiates the word from צִמּוּק, dried grapes, but not pressed together into a cake, and from דְּבֵלַה, figs pressed together into a cake. These raisin-cakes were regarded as luxuries and used as delicacies; hence a fondness for such indicated a proneness to sensual indulgence, and figuratively the sensuous service belonging to idol-worship. Hosea 3:2 So I bought (acquired) her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley and an half-homer (margin, lethech) of barley. In narrating the prophet’s compliance with the Divine command, the word אֶכְּרֶהָ is connected by Aben Ezra with וֶכַר in the sense of making acquaintance with; but it is more correctly referred by Kimchi to כָרָה with daghesh euphonic in the caph as in יִקְּרֵךְ shall meet thee. "The daghesh of the caph is for euphony as in miqdush, and the root is כרה" (Kimchi). The meaning is then simply and naturally traced as follows: to dig, obtain by digging, acquire. The price paid for the acquisition in this case was either the purchase money paid to the parents of the bride, as to Laban in the case of Rachel and Leah by Jacob, or the marriage present paid (mohar) to the bride herself. Another view represents the prophet paying the price to the woman’s husband to whom she had been unfaithful, and who in consequence resigned her for so small a sum. It remains for us to attend to the amount thus paid. Fifteen pieces of silver or shekels would be about one pound fifteen shillings, or one pound seventeen and six-pence; while the price of the barley would he somewhere about the same. There were fifty or sixty shekels in a maneh, Greek mina, and Latin ulna; while the maneh was one-sixtieth of a talent (kikteer); and thus three thousand or three thousand six hundred shekels in a talent. The homer, the largest of the Hebrew dry measures, contained one cor or ten ephahs (= ten baths of liquids = ten Attic μέδιμνοι), and the half-homer or lethec (haemi-coros in LXX) was half a cop or five ephahs. These fifteen ephahs, at a shekel each—for under extraordinary circumstances (2 Kings 7:1) we read of" two measures of barley for a shekel"—would be equivalent to one pound fifteen or seventeen shillings and sixpence. Both together—the silver and the barley—would amount to thirty shekels, or three pounds and ten or fifteen shillings. Why this exact amount? and why such particularity in the reckoning? By turning to Exodus 21:32 we learn that thirty shekels were the estimated value of a manservant or maidservant; for it is there stated that "if the ox shall push a manservant or a maidservant, he shall give unto their master thirty shekels of silver." The price paid by the prophet partly in money and partly in kind was exactly the price of an ordinary maidservant. The barley (שְׂעֹרִים, plural, equivalent to "grains of barley") may hint the woman’s unchastity, as it was the offering for a woman suspected of adultery (Numbers 5:1-31) The low estate of the person purchased is a legitimate inference kern all this. The wife, for whom such a paltry sum should be paid, and paid in such a way, or to whom such a petty gift would be offered, must be supposed to be in a condition of deep depression or in circumstances of great distress. Thus the sum paid by the prophet for his partner symbolizes the servile state of Israel when Jehovah chose them for his peculiar people. Hosea 3:3 Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shall not be for another man. The prophet imposes certain restrictions of a very stringent character on his wife; he places her in a state of isolation; her past excesses and his purpose of effecting her reformation necessitate such measures, however strict and severe or even harsh they may appear. She is not to be admitted into full fellowship with her husband, nor is she to be allowed the possibility of intercourse with others. From friend, that is, husband and lovers, she is shut out; all sexual connection, whether illicit or legitimate, is peremptorily cut off. The clause, "thou shalt abide [or, ’sit still’] for me," denotes an attitude of waiting, not necessarily in sorrow, like the captive maiden who before marriage with her captor bewailed her parents for the period of a month, but in patient expectation of her husband’s fortune and favor, though in seclusion from him, as also exclusion of all others. During this long period of "many days" she is not only debarred the society of her lawful partner, but forbidden either to play the harlot with several or to attach herself to a single paramour. Jerome directs attention to the fact that the word "another" has no place in the original text; otherwise it would imply that she was prohibited from intercourse with any other than her husband, while the real meaning makes the prohibition absolute and inclusive even of conjugal connection with her husband. So will I also be for thee. The Hebrew expositors, Aben Ezra and Kimchi, repeat the negative flora the preceding clause and translate, "Nor shall I even come to you," that is, for marital society. This is not necessary to bring out the true sense, which is that, as she was to be restrained from intercourse with any and every other man, so he himself also would abstain from intercourse with her. "And also I will be for [unto] thee [i.e. thy husband] to preserve conjugal fidelity to thee, but hold aloof from thee during thy detention." Thus separated from both lovers and husband, Israel would for many a long day suspend her worship of idols, and be at the same time shut out from her covenant relation to Jehovah. Kimchi’s comment mounts to pretty much the same, as does also that of Aben Ezra. The explanation of the former is, "I said to her, After thou hast committed adultery against me, thy punishment shall be that thou shalt abide in widowhood of life many days; and the meaning of ’for me’ is, thou shalt be called by my name and not by another man’s; thou shalt say, I am the wife of such a one, and thou shelf not play the harlot with others, and also thou shalt not be the wife of any other man than myself." Aben Ezra makes mention of another interpretation of the verse, to the effect, "If ye shall return to me, I also will return to you." With this the Chaldee Targum is in accord, which represents God as commanding the prophet to say, "O congregation of Israel, your sins have been the cause of your exile for many days; ye shall devote yourselves to my service, and not go astray nor worship idols, and I also will have compassion upon you." Maurer considers the expression היאל־אי equivalent to היעִם אי, viz. remhabere cum muliere; but to this linguistic usage is opposed. Umbreit renders the phrase, "and I will only be for thee;" this, however, partakes more of the nature of a promise than of a punishment, and is not quite, therefore, in accord with the context. Ewald: "And yet I am kind to thee [i.e. love thee];" this is a rather trivial, as also ill-supported idea. Calvin’s exposition is pretty much the same as we have given, and is the following: "I also shall be for thee; that is, I pledge my faith to thee, or I subscribe myself as thy husband: but another time must be looked for; I yet defer my favor, and suspend it until thou givest proof of true repentance. I also shall be for thee; that is, thou shalt not be a widow in vain; if thou complainest that wrong is done to thee, because I forbid thee to marry any one else, I also bind myself in turn to thee." Hosea 3:4 For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and teraphim. For a long series of years they were thus doomed to be without civil polity, or ecclesiastical privilege, or prophetic intimations. More particularly they were to remain without royal rule, or princely power, or priestly function, or prophetic instruction. As the prophet’s wife was neither to be, strictly speaking, her husband’s nor yet belong to another man; so Israel, as represented by her, was destined to be deprived of independent self-government and princely sovereignty; of Divine service, whether allowed as by sacrifice—the central part of Hebrew worship—or disallowed as by statue; of oracular responses, whether lawful as by the ephod or unlawful as by teraphim. There was thus an entire breaking up of Church and state as they had long existed; of all civil and ecclesiastical relations and privileges as they had been long enjoyed. Without a king of their own nationality to sit upon the throne, or a prince of their own race as heir apparent to the kingdom, or princes as the great officers of state; without offering by sacrifice to Jehovah, or statue by way of memorial to Baal; without means of ascertaining the will of Heaven in relation to the future by the Urim and Thummim of the high-priestly ephod, only the more than questionable means of soothsaying by the teraphim;—the children of Israel were to be left. And what attaches special importance to this remarkable passage is the undeniable tact that these predictions were uttered, not only before the dissolution of the monarchy and the cessation of sacrifices, but at a time when no human sagacity could foresee and no human power foretell the future abstention of the Hebrew race from idol-worship so long practiced, and from heathenish divination resorted to from such an early period of their history. Rashi, in his comment, has the following: "I said to her, Many days shalt thou abide for me; thou shalt not go a-whoring after other gods; for if thou shalt play the harlot, thy sons shall remain many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice in the sanctuary in Judah, and without a statue of Baal in Samaria of the kings of Israel, and without an ephod with Urim and Thummim which declared to them secrets, and without teraphim; they are images that are made with the observation of one hour composed for the purpose, and which speak of themselves and declare secrets; and so Jonathan has translated, "Neither will there be an ephod nor one to give a response.’" Similarly Aben Ezra: "Without king, nor is there any objection from the Chasmoneans, for they were not of the children of Judah … without sacrifice to Jehovah nor statue to Baal, without ephod to Jehovah and without teraphim to the worshippers of idols, which Laban called his gods." It is a matter of much consequence that some of the ablest of the Jewish expositors realize these predictions as applicable to their own case and the existing circumstances of their nation. Thus Kimchi, in commenting on this verse, says, "These are the days of the exile in which we are this day, and we have neither king nor prince of Israel, for we are in the power of the Gentiles, and in the power of their kings and princes … no sacrifice to God and no statue for worshippers of idols … and no ephod which shall declare future things by Urim and Thummim, and no teraphim for idolaters which declare the future according to the notion of those who believe in them; and thus we are this day in this exile, all the children of Israel;" he then cites the Targum of Jonathan in confirmation of his sentiments. For the ephod, comp. Exodus 28:6-14, from which we learn that it was "a short cloak, covering shoulders and breast, wrought with colors and gold, formed of two halves connected by two shoulder-pieces, on each of which was an onyx engraved with six names of tribes, and held together round the waist by a girdle of the same material;" it was part of the high priest’s attire. The teraphim—from the Arabic tarifa, to live comfortably, and turfator, a comfortable life, were the household gods and domestic oracles, like the Roman penates, and deriving the name from being thought the givers and guardians of a comfortable life, חֶרֶף. They were images in human form and stature, either graven of wood or stone (pesel), or molten out of precious metal (massekhah). The first mention of them is in Genesis 31:19, and the name occurs fifteen times in the Old Testament. They appear to have been of Syrian or Chaldean origin. Aben Ezra says of them, "What appears to me most probable is that they had a human form and were made for the purpose of receiving supernal power, nor can I explain it further." The two principal species of offerings were the זבח, or bloody sacrifice, and the מנחה, or unbloody oblation. The former comprehended those entirely burnt on the altar, עֹלָח rad. עלה, to ascend, from going up entirely in the altar-smoke; and חלב, or those of which only the fat was burnt. According to the object of the offerer, they were chattah, sin offering, pointing to expiation or pardon for something done demanding punishment; or asham, trespass offering, implying satisfaction and acceptance, or something undone demanding amends; and shelamim, peace offerings. Hosea 3:5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord theft God, and David their king. The note of time in the beginning of Hos 3:5 is explained by Rashi to signify "after the days of the Captivity;" and by Kimchi as follows: "This will take place at the end of the days, near the time of salvation, when the children of Israel shall return in repentance." Though not comprehended in the symbolic representation that precedes, this statement is necessary to complete it. The future of Israel is the burden of this promise; the blessedness of that future is its brightness. It comprises three items—the reversal of their previous career, their loving return to the Lord their God, and their cordial reception of David their king. Contemporaneous with their sorrow for the sins of the past was their serious seeking of the Lord their God and submission to David their king. Their revolt from the Davidic dynasty in the days of Rehoboam was immediately followed by the idolatry of the calves which Jeroboam set up at Dan and Bethel. The reversal of this course is symptomatic of their complete recovery. The patriarch David was long dead and buried, and his sepulcher was in Palestine at the time when the prophet wrote; one, therefore, in the Davidic line, a descendant from, and dynastic representative of, the patriarch must be meant. That this was Messiah there can be no reasonable doubt; parallel passages in the other prophets prove this; for example: "I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them" (Ezekiel 34:23, Ezekiel 34:25; comp. also Ezekiel 37:24). Again in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 30:9) we read to the same purpose, "They shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them." We can by no means concur with those who refer this promise to Zerubbabel as a later occupant of the Davidic throne; and just as little with those who, like Wunsche, hold that the prophet has no particular period and no particular person in view, but presents the prospect of a happy and blissful future when Israel would return to the pure worship of Jehovah and enjoy his gracious protection, and when the national prosperity would equal or even far surpass that under the glorious reign of David himself. The best Jewish authorities are quoted in favor of the same; thus Rabbi Tanchum says, "He (the prophet) understands the son of David, occupying his place, from his lineage, walking in his way, by whom his name shall endure and his kingdom be preserved.’’ The Chaldee Targum translates in the same sense: "They shall seek the worship of Jehovah their God, and obey Messiah, the Son of David, their king." So Aben Ezra says that "David their king is this Messiah, Like ’My servant David shall be their prince forever’ (Ezekiel 37:25)." The well-known idiom of one idea expressed by two verbs, so that the rendering of the clause would be "They shall again seek the Lord their God, and David their king," if applied here, as undoubtedly it might, would weaken the sense, and so be unsuitable to the context. And shall fear (literally, come with trembling to) the Lord and his goodness in the latter days. The comment of Kimchi on the first part of this clause is as follows: "They shall tremble and be afraid of him when they return to him, and shall with repentance wait for the goodness of redemption on which they have trusted." A somewhat different meaning is assigned to the words by Aben Ezra: "They shall return in haste, when the end (i.e. the time of redemption) comes to their own land with hasty course suddenly." His goodness is taken by some in a concrete sense, as signifying the blessings which he bestows and the good gifts which he imparts; and by others in the abstract, as the Divine goodness or majesty, to which Israel resorts for the pardon of sin and the gracious acceptance of their petitions and answer of their prayers. Hosea 3:1-3 God’s mercifulness and Israel’s sinfulness are brought into contrast. Some are disposed to regard the woman mentioned in this chapter as identical with Gomer, whom the prophet had previously made his wife; and that she had in the mean time forsaken her husband the prophet, and had formed an adulterous connection with another man: while others regard the command of God to the prophet and his conduct in compliance therewith in the light of a new transaction with a different individual. In either case the whole is not an actual occurrence, but only a symbolical representation. I. THE LESSONS OF THIS CHAPTER ARE MIDWAY BETWEEN THE AND THE PROMISE . Calvin has plainly pointed out the position of this chapter in the series of God’s dealings with Israel. "It was God’s purpose," he says, "to keep in firm hope the minds of the faithful during the exile, lest, being overwhelmed with despair, they should wholly faint. This prediction occupies a middle place between the denunciation of the prophet previously pronounced, and the promise of pardon. It was a dreadful thing that God should divorce his people and cast away the Israelites as spurious children; yet a consolation was afterwards added. But lest the Israelites should think that God would immediately, as on the first day, be so propitious to them as to visit them with no chastisement, it was the prophet’s design expressly to correct this mistake; as though he said, ’God will indeed receive you again, but in the mean time a chastisement is prepared for you, which by its intenseness would break down your spirits, were it not that this comfort will ease you, and that is that God, although he punishes you for your sins, yet continues to provide for your salvation, and to be as it were your Husband.’" II. GOD’S LOVE TO ISRAEL AS WELL AS . The prophet’s treatment of the woman whom he was to take or had taken to be his wife evinced extreme forbearance and exceeding tenderness. He loved her before her fall,—this was natural enough; he loved her during and notwithstanding her fall,—this was not to be expected; he continued to love her after her fall,—this is contrary to all the ordinary feelings and instincts of humanity. This continued affection was designed, as it was calculated, to win her back from the error and evil of her ways. But where is the man who under ordinary circumstances would act so? Where is the husband that would treat a worthless wife with such mildness and compassion? But what man cannot find in his heart to do, what man cannot bring himself to do, God does in his treatment of Israel and in his dealings with sinners in general; "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." Notwithstanding all God’s love to his people Israel, from the very commencement of their national existence they showed a special proneness to apostasy, readily and recklessly turning aside to idolatrous worship; yet God’s love continued through it all, and outlived it all. It was love to the unlovable and unloving, to the undeserving and ungrateful; the current of his love runs on like the river broad and deep, which never ceases in its course till its waters form part of" the shining levels of the sea." III. THE OF HAVE A . Idolatry was usually associated with voluptuousness and sensuality; and indulgences of this sort tended, no doubt, to attract many votaries, and served as inducements to idol-worship. Whether we" take flagons of wine" to be the right rendering of the original, as the Authorized Version does, or rather "raisin-cakes," the nature of the attraction will be much the same—fondness for self-indulgence. The Levitical priests were forbidden the use of wine when they ministered before the Lord; the Nazarites were total abstainers all the time of their vow; but the worshippers of idols—priests and people alike—am represented as drinking bowls or flagons of wine. Raisin-cakes, sweet and luscious, formed parts of idolatrous repasts, and served as appetizing morsels in idol-feasts and for idol-worshippers. How like the seductive pleasures of sin in general! But they neither last long nor satisfy while they do last. The meat offerings of Mosaic ritual were of a severer sort, and less calculated to gratify the taste and please the palate. IV. THE MADE FOR ISRAEL IN THE SEASON OF HER . If the prophet had already espoused the woman whom he is directed to love, the pieces of silver and measures of barley could neither be dowry, nor purchase, nor present in any proper sense. How, then, are we to understand the matter? Probably we may regard the expenditure here indicated as a suitable allowance for her support—a sufficient maintenance for her during the period of her separation from her husband. She may now be conceived as living apart from her husband—shut out a mensa eta thoro, as it is said, and so deprived of her proper means of subsistence. During this sad state of things, which her own guilt has brought about, she is still the prophet’s wife, and neither forgotten nor forsaken by him. True, in one way she is unpitied and undeserving of pity, because of her vileness, yet in another she is not entirely bereft of her husband’s affection; in spite of her grievous departure from the path of rectitude and virtue, his love follows her, still striving for her reformation and yearning for her restoration. Meantime he provides her with nearly fifty bushels of barley for food, and with nearly two pounds sterling in cash for raiment and other necessaries of life. The money and grain together would afford a sufficient, though not very sumptuous, support. Thus God’s treatment of his Israel is symbolized. Though they were separated by sin from his immediate presence, and though they had forfeited his favors and proved themselves unworthy of his love, yet he has not entirely and finally cast them off. His eye still rests upon them; his mercy provides for them in their state of isolation; they are deprived indeed of the honor and dignity they once enjoyed and might still have retained, and they possess no longer the means of living in luxury and splendor as aforetime, yet they are allowed the necessary means of subsistence and an humble maintenance, with the prospect and for the purpose of their ultimate restoration to full favor, and unstinted possession of all the benefits and blessings still in store for them. V. ISRAEL’S AND STATE. She is doomed to sit in solitary widowhood. Restrained from all licentious intercourse on the one hand, she is not restored to conjugal rights on the other. She was not to be a harlot, neither was she to be a husband’s. That husband, however, still regards himself bound to her, and while she abides for him he promises her a like return: "So will I likewise be to thee-ward." He would stilt have regard to her and respect for her; feelings of kindness would animate him towards her; his guardian care and watchful providence would still be exercised on her behalf and for her benefit. The meaning and application of Hos 3:3 is well given in the following comment: "He, his affections, interest, thoughts, would be directed towards her. The word "towards" expresses regard, yet distance also. Just so would God, in those times, withhold all special tokens of his favor, covenant, providence; yet would he secretly uphold and maintain them as a people, and withhold them from failing wholly from him into the gulf of irreligion and infidelity." Sin is the cloud that darkens our sky and shuts out the bright light of our heavenly Father’s countenance; yet behind the dark cloud of afflictive providences he hides a shining face. VI. THE OF THE WHICH GOD MAKES WITH HIS PEOPLE. 1. We see here the Divine considerateness. God might have made out a bill of divorce, and dismissed them at once and forever. He does not deal with us with the rigor of law or in the strictness of justice, but according to the multitude of his tender mercies and loving-kindnesses. 2. The condition he proposes to us is that we be to him a people, and he will be to us a God. When punished for sin it is wise and well to justify God’s ways with us; we must wait with patience, and that perhaps for many days, until God again lift on us the light of his countenance. But besides all this, we must not turn again to folly, as Israel was strictly enjoined to eschew harlotry in the future; in other words, to shun every form of idolatry in all time to come. So, in dependence on Divine grace, we must resolve to follow the Lord fully, not wandering in the wilderness, not worshipping the idols of our own pride, or passion, or sensuality, or sin of any sort, and never more to go a-whoring from our God. 3. Another condition of the covenant between the sovereign and his once rebel but now repentant subjects is implied in this passage, and well stated in the following words: "If they will be for God to serve him, he will be for them to save them. Let them renounce and abjure all rivals with God for the throne in the heart and devote themselves entirely to him, and him only, and he will be to them a God all-sufficient. If we be faithful and constant to God in a way of duty, and will never leave nor forsake him, he will be so to us in a way of mercy, and will never leave nor forsake us." Hosea 3:4, Hosea 3:5 The applicability of these verses. There is an important question in connection with these verses which presses for solution, and that is—Are the children of Israel the descendants of the ten tribes exclusively? Or has the expression, as used by the prophet, that wider and larger signification in which we popularly employ it, namely, as including all the descendants of Jacob or Israel, in other words, all the Jewish or Hebrew race? These questions involve a prior consideration. The ten tribes were carried away into captivity and left in the lands of Assyria, B.C. 722 according to the common chronology; the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin were carried into captivity in Babylon about one hundred and thirty years subsequently. After a lapse of seventy years’ captivity the latter were permitted to return to their own land, and large numbers availed themselves of that permission. But what became of the ten tribes of Israel? They are still spoken of by some as the lost tribes; some, again, identify them with the Afghans; others with the American Indians. Such theories are easily enough formed, but can scarcely be said to be founded on facts. It is admitted that the fifty thousand who returned belonged mainly to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, while many of those two tribes remained behind in Babylon, and comparatively few of the members of other tribes joined their brethren in the return to Palestine. Where, then, are we to look for the main body of the ten tribes? We will try to answer this interesting and important question as best we can, and with a view to its bearing on the subject before us. After the restoration of the temple and city of Jerusalem, we find that there was an immense increase of the inhabitants of Palestine in the time and under the rule of the Maccabees. May we not regard it as more than probable that lingerers out of all the tribes were attracted to their native land after the restoration of its capital, and the revival of the country’s prosperity? But large bodies still remained behind in the lands of their dispersion; there would be a natural tendency on the part of the remnants of the two tribes and the ten to gravitate towards each other. Thus they may be supposed to have amalgamated. Hence James addresses his Epistle to "the twelve tribes which are of the dispersion," that is, "scattered abroad," according to the Authorized Version; and Paul says, "Unto which promise our twelve tribes instantly serving God day and night, hope to come." We may cite, as confirmatory, the opinion of the late Dr. M’Caul. He says, "I feel strongly inclined to the opinion that the ten tribes are now found mingled with the other two. I do not mean that the ten tribes returned from Babylon, for in Ezra and Nehemiah we are told particularly who did return, but that the main body of the Jews, who remained in Babylon, who were dispersed in Egypt and other countries, and who never returned, naturally mingled with their brethren of the other tribes, and that this intermixture increased after the destruction of the second temple." Their return to the house of David, intimated in verse 5, presupposes some such reunion with their brethren as that of which we speak. We are, therefore, inclined to believe that the Judahites as well as the Israelites are comprehended in this plural patronymic of "the children of Israel." I. THE OF THE OF THE JEWS WITH THAT HERE . The state of the Jewish people at the present day, as well as during centuries past, corresponds most exactly with that here described by Hosea. And where, it may be asked, is it possible to find any other nation whose condition—political and religious—is the same or even similar? Their condition is precisely what is here described with respect to Church and state, or public worship and civil government. No doubt in their dispersion they are subject to the king or rulers of the countries where they dwell; they have kings over them, but not of their own nation; they have laws by which they are governed, but those laws are not their own, nor the laws which God had given them. They have no king nor rulers to defend them from aggression without, nor king and high officers of state as the legislative and executive powers within. Kings of countries where they have sojourned have been mean enough and wicked enough to rob and plunder and oppress them cruelly. II. THE OF THEIR . "Here," says an old commentator, "is much privation—six ’withouts:’ (1) ’without a king;’ (2) ’without a prince;’ (3) ’without a sacrifice;’ (4) ’without an image;’ (5) ’without an ephod;’ (6) ’without teraphim;’ but the last verse makes up for all: ’They shall return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king.’ These ’withouts’ show the wonderfully confused estate that Israel was to be in for many days, many years, both in regard of their civil and of their Church estate." They had corrupted their way, setting up idols in Dan the place of judgment, and in Bethel the house of God; and that corruption now ends in confusion of both their civil and Church estate. They had combined the ordinances of God with their own devices, that is, the sacrifice and ephod with the image and the teraphim; now they are deprived of both. BY C. JERDAN Hosea 3:1-5 Hosea detains Gomer in seclusion. This chapter, like Hosea 1:1-11; is written in prose; all the other twelve being rhythmical. It deals, as Hosea 1:1-11. does, with the personal life of Hosea, giving one further glimpse of the bitter domestic sorrow by which God made him a prophet. The same wonderful providence which had led him to marry Gomer at the first now impelled him to rescue her from the wretchedness into which she had fallen. And his own quenchless love for his erring wife became a parable to him of Jehovah’s infinite compassion towards Israel. I. HOSEA’S NEW TO GOMER. (Verses 1-3) For we take the "woman" here to be Gomer, and "her friend" to be the prophet, her husband. After she had borne him three children (Hosea 1:3-9), she fell into adultery and forsook him. It would seem, too, that she by-and-by became the slave of her paramour. But Hosea, as he sat in his blighted home, thought of poor Gomer with compassionate tenderness. She was still "beloved of her friend." He felt that he must seek her out, and say to her (as King Arthur said to Guinevere), "I loathe thee, yet I love thee." He resolved to buy her back. Her ransom cost him in money only one-half of the ordinary price of a female slave; the rest of the payment being made in barley—the usual coarse food of the class to which she now belonged. The inexpensiveness of the ransom shows to what a depth of degradation Gomer had fallen. This was so great, indeed, that the prophet could not at once restore her to her place at his table, or to the other rights of a dutiful wife. He will bring her home at first only as his ward. He will protect her from her sins. He will test her penitence by a lengthened probation, looking forward, however, to the time when the "receiving" of her again shall be as "life from the dead" to his long-widowed heart. It is pleasant to think of Gomer as not only rescued from her sinful courses, and by-and-by restored to her earthly husband, but as eventually also won back to the love of Jehovah. It is delightful to cherish the hope that the three children too became God’s; their original names being purged of their vile associations, and becoming suggestive of spiritual blessing (Jezreel, Ruhamah, Ammi), so that "When soon or late they reached that coast, O’er life’s rough ocean driven, They would rejoice—no wanderer lost— A family in heaven!" (Burns) II. THE MEANING OF THIS NEW . (Verses 1, 4, 5) Generally, it is a sign of Jehovah’s love towards Israel, notwithstanding her idolatry and sensuality (verse 1). It reflects the debasement, to which sin leads, the discipline which God metes out to the penitent, and the irrevocable covenant of love which he makes with those who return to him. Hosea’s family history stands out as a picture and a prediction. In particular, his new relation to Gomer foreshadowed: 1. Israel’s long seclusion. (Verse 4) Although the primary reference of the passage is to the ten tribes, the prophecy really embraces the whole Hebrew nation. God has not utterly rejected Israel; she is still "a people near unto him;" but he does not meantime dwell with her as of old. The specific features of her seclusion are noted in the six "withouts" of the verse, and these arrange themselves naturally into three pairs. The whole representation strikingly describes what has been the actual condition of the Jewish nation during the last eighteen hundred years. (1) Without civil polity. It had been a passion with Israel to have a king. But within three generations after the Lord gave Hosea this oracle, the tea northern tribes were "without a king, and without a prince." And when at last "Shiloh" came, "the scepter" finally "departed from Judah" also. That was a memorable day on which the spiritual leaders of the nation professed so emphatically their willing subjection to the world-power: "We have no king but Caesar" (John 19:15); but during all the subsequent centuries Jerusalem has "sat solitary," and "is become as a widow." (2) Without temple service. The temple was the center of the Hebrew religious system. When it was destroyed the Mosaic ritual collapsed. Such worship as the Jews now offer is conducted "with maimed rites." How sad that they should be "without a sacrifice"! Sacrifice was the very soul of the Hebrew worship. Every sinner needs a sacrifice of atonement before he can stand in God’s gracious presence; but the poor Jew, who still clings to the old covenant, has none. It follows that he is also "without an ephod." The ephod was part of the dress of the high priest. In the breast of it were the Urim and Thummim, by which Jehovah gave responses. But now, alas! to the Jew "the oracles are dumb." He has no altar, no priest, no access! (3) Without gross idolatry. In Hosea’s time the nation was attempting to combine the worship of Jehovah and of the Baalim; but the Lord tells him that for "many days" the people shall be without any god, true or false. They shall be "without an image," i.e. any public monument of idolatry such as the two golden calves were. And "without teraphim," i.e. those portable household gods which were sometimes kept as tutelary deities, and worshipped as the givers of earthly prosperity. It is a fact that ever since the Assyrian exile the Hebrew nation have not been able to endure any gross idolatry. They doubtless break the first commandment after the more refined fashion of civilized peoples; many Jews, e.g; are money-lovers, and "covetousness is idolatry." But they have been at least free from the guilt of setting up "an image" or of worshipping "teraphim." Israel was to "abide many days" in this long seclusion; and it has already lasted for two millenniums. During all that period the Jewish nation has been the miracle of history. Its situation since Christ came is one of the most convincing of the external evidences of Christianity. And that situation shall continue until Messiah, the Prince of the house of David, shall assemble all the children of Jacob under his spiritual scepter. 2. Israel’s final restoration. (Verse 5) This is to take place "afterward"—"in the latter days," i.e. in gospel times, and as one of "the last things" of the Christian dispensation. Both Jewish and Christian commentators understand by "the latter days" the Messianic economy, which was to be ushered in by the advent of the Messiah himself. The restoration shall be characterized by: (1) Religious earnestness. They shall "seek Jehovah their God," and make the most assiduous efforts to find him. The Jews as a nation are not yet doing this. It is true, doubtless, that there are many devout families among them—many who cherish the deep piety which Sir Walter Scott has expressed so beautifully in his "Hymn of the Hebrew Maid," in ’ Ivanhoe.’ But among the cultured Jews much skepticism prevails. Many are pantheists, like the eminent Jew Spinoza. And among the mercantile Jews there is often an excessive devotion to wealth, together with indifference to all religion. "In the latter days," however, the Hebrew nation shall diligently "seek Jehovah their God." (2) Loyalty to King Jesus. They shall resume also the allegiance to the royal line of David which the ten tribes renounced when they apostatized from Jehovah under Jeroboam I. The Jewish rabbis themselves acknowledge that "David" in this verse means the Messiah. But Christendom is persuaded that he began to reign eighteen hundred years ago, and that he is reigning still. Jesus of Nazareth is "the Root and the Branch of David." His birth Gabriel announced beforehand to his mother (Luke 1:32, Luke 1:33); and Israel, at the time of her restoration, shall accept that angelic oracle and rejoice in it. (3) Holy reverence for her Divine Husband. Israel "shall fear Jehovah and his goodness." She shall have such a grateful remembrance of his loving-kindness in forgiving her adultery as shall constrain her to the most vigilant obedience. "In the latter days" her heart shall say "Amen" to the devout sentiment of the ancient psalm, "There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared" (Psalms 130:4). She shall find that to know the Lord (Hosea 2:20) and to partake of "his goodness" are blessings inseparable from each other. . The threatened isolation of Israel has been abundantly fulfilled; and shall not also the promised restoration? If verse 4 has already become matter of history, and so very marvelously, may we not expect that verse 5 shall also, in the Lord’s time? We are sure that it shall. Jehovah’s promise must be fulfilled. "Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion!"—C.J. BY J.R. THOMSON Hosea 3:1 The love of the Lord toward the children of Israel. This exquisitely beautiful phrase comes in the midst of a passage of the most painful and distressing character. As a fend husband may tenderly love his wife, even though she abandon herself to a course of infidelity and profligacy, so the God of Israel is represented as cherishing towards his people, even in their defection and apostasy, the sincerest compassion, the most invincible affection. I. HOW THE LOVE OF THE LORD TO ISRAEL WAS FIRST . 1. In their selection from amongst the nations of the earth as the object of his special favor and calling. 2. In the communication to them of peculiar advantages and privileges. They were the depositaries of his truth, the conservators of his worship. II. How THE LOVE OF THE LORD TO ISRAEL WAS TRIED AND TESTED. 1. By their forgetfulness of him. 2. By their neglect of his ordinances. 3. By their rejection of his messengers and prophets. 4. By their addictedness to idolatry. 5. By their violation of his commandments. 6. By their blasphemy of his Name. III. HOW THE LOVE OF GOD ENDURED AND IN THE TEST TO WHICH IT WAS . 1. Israel was spared, although deserving abandonment to destruction. 2. Promises of grace were addressed, when threats of desertion were to be expected. 3. Opportunity of repentance and reconciliation was afforded, and Israel was entreated not to abuse it.—T. Hosea 3:4 The kingless state and priestless Church. The singular symbolism of this book is intended vividly to depict the misery of Israel, by which she was to be driven in penitence and contrition to seek again the Divine favor she had forfeited. The woman whom the prophet purchased and married was to be deprived at once of her husband and of her lovers, and in this forlorn and anomalous state was to be an emblem of Israel, cut off at the same time from Jehovah, her true Husband, to whom she had been unfaithful, and from the spiritual paramours after whom she had gone, but in whom no kelp and no joy were now to be found. I. THE OF KING AND PRINCE WAS FOR . Jehovah was himself the King of the Israelites; their kingdom was a theocracy. He had sent Moses the lawgiver; he had raised up judges; he had heard their prayer and given them a king. In revolting from the house of David, the ten tribes had dishonored God. Whether we are to look for the fulfillment of this threat in the collapse and captivity of the northern kingdom, or in the present dispersion of Israel, is immaterial. The lesson is plain. The nation which misuses national privileges and neglects national opportunities shall lose them both, and without a head, a corporate life, a settled abiding-place, shall learn the truth of the saying, "The Lord reigneth. He taketh down one, and setteth up another." II. THE OF WAS FOR AND . The Hebrews were highly favored in their possession, not only of the Law, but of a priesthood, a dispensation of sacrifices and festivals and various means of communion with Heaven. As preparatory to a more spiritual economy, these arrangements were invaluable. But the enjoyment of them was justly made dependent upon their proper estimation and employment. The northern tribes, by their secession, forfeited some of these advantages, and they largely corrupted to their own injury such as remained. The time came when, in Oriental captivity, they mourned the loss of advantages they had too often despised and misused. And now, as they are scattered among the nations, they possess neither the sacrifices of the heathen nor the sacrifice of the Messiah, and are either condemned to a barren and unhappy seclusion or to a yet sadder alliance with the deists of the lands in which they dwell. A lesson to all who neglect the precious opportunities with which they are favored by Providence. "Walk in the light whilst ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you."—T. Hosea 3:5 Returning to God. This is another instance of the remarkable conjunction of threat and promise. It seems as if the prophet no sooner uttered a word of denunciation, a prediction of wrath, than he followed it up with a prospect of reconciliation and an assurance of blessing. I. THE OF THIS RETURN. There is no note of exact time; but the reference is to "the latter days," to a period described as "afterward." Comparing this language with the context, we infer that this return to God should follow upon departure from God, and upon a bitter experience of the evil consequences of such forsaking. How often, as in the case of Israel, is it necessary that the sinner should learn that "the way of transgressors is hard"! Surely chastening, which is designed to produce a juster estimate of sin and a sincere desire for deliverance, is not to be resented, but rather received with humility, that it may lead to contrition, repentance, and amendment. II. THE PURPOSE OF THIS RETURN. Observe: 1. To whom should Israel return. To "the Lord their God," whom they had forsaken in order to worship the vain gods of the heathen, but who, nevertheless, had a claim upon them that none other had, and who never ceased to be their God. In this Israel represents mankind; whoever returns to the Lord, returns to his own, proper, rightful God. To "David their king," from whose dynasty they had revolted in the pride, self-sufficiency, and rebelliousness of their heart. David was representative of the theocracy, for he was "the Lord’s anointed," and he was an emblem of him who was David’s Son and David’s Lord. So that whoever returns to the Lord by the gospel of Jesus Christ, returns unto David, whose "sure mercies" are ratified in the Divine Savior. 2. In what spirit Israel should return. They should "seek" the Lord, and should "fear" or approach with reverential devoutness the Lord and his goodness. The spirit thus described is a spirit of true earnestness, a spirit of lowly repentance, and a spirit of trembling confidence in that "goodness" upon which alone a contrite sinner can rely, and upon which he can never rely in vain.—T. BY J. ORR Hosea 3:1-5 Love to the adulteress. It has been shown in Hosea 2:1-23. that the punishment of Israel is designed to work for the nation’s moral recovery. A new symbol is accordingly employed to set forth this aspect of the truth; as formerly the punitive aspects of God’s dealing with the nation had been exhibited in the symbols of Hos 1:1-11. The symbol is again drawn from the prophet’s relations to his wife. I. THE PROPHET’S LOVE FOR HIS WIFE. (Hosea 1:1) Gomer, adhering to her adulterous courses, had apparently left her husband, and had sunk to a condition of great wretchedness. The prophet, however, had not lost his love for her. She was still a woman "beloved of her friend," i.e. her husband. His love was the more remarkable that it is rarely a husband retains his love for an adulterous wife. Hosea, it may be inferred, felt that there was something uncommon in his relations with this woman. He did not, therefore, renounce her when she abandoned him. He still cherished towards her a husband’s affection; retained his love for her, though unworthy; followed her in her devious ways with a pure, steadfast, unalterable, and wholly disinterested regard. In this his love became a fit image of Jehovah’s love "toward the children of Israel." It was the image of it then, while the kingdom of Israel stood, and the people were zealous in their pursuit of" other gods;" and it would be still more the image of it when the threatenings of the previous chapter had taken effect, and the people were eating the bitter fruits of their sins. Is it not also the image of God’s love to the sinful world as a whole? We had departed from him, and had bestowed our affections adulterously on the creature; but he did not on this account cease to love us, he saw us lost, sinful, and degraded; but he still looked on us with pity, and sought opportunity for our recovery. He so loved us that he gave his Son as the price of our salvation. This love of God to sinners finds no explanation in the nature of its objects. It is love to the unworthy, to the wicked, to the ungrateful; a love, therefore, entirely pure, self-caused, unbought, and disinterested. How warmly should our love go back to him who has thus loved us! II. THE PROPHET’S OF HIS WIFE. (Verses 2-4) Consider here: 1. The condition in which he found her. It was a very deplorable one. She had sunk so low that it became necessary to "buy" her. The price paid—fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley—seems the equivalent of the price of a slave. If so, it is an additional token of her deeply humbled state. Either (1) she had sunk to the condition of a slave, and required to be redeemed out of it; or (2) "it was perhaps an allowance, whereby he brought her back from her evil freedom, not to live as his wife, but to be honestly maintained, until it should be fit completely to restore her" (Pusey). Barley was the coarsest food, so that, if maintenance was the object, her condition was still a hard and unenviable one. In this see a picture of the state to which sin reduces those who follow after it. It is a picture true to the life as respects the state to which sin reduced Israel But it is surely not less true in the representation it gives of the results of a life of sin generally. The sinner, in beginning his career, promises himself liberty and happiness. He cheats himself with the belief that he is taking the true way to obtain these objects of universal desire. How soon he finds out his mistake! He obtains neither of the things he wishes. The pleasure he found in his vices soon dies out. His means are squandered. Friends desert him. His character, reputation, influence, are gone. He finds himself the victim of evil habits, perhaps of disease. He has lost his own self-respect. He feels that he has forfeited the respect of others. What remains for him but poverty and disgrace; or perhaps a life of crime? The whole history is depicted in the memorable parable of the prodigal—the beginning, waste of substance in riotous living; the end, snatching a morsel at the swine-trough (Luke 15:11-32). "The way of transgressors is hard" (Proverbs 13:15). The prophet’s wife should be a warning to every female tempted to go astray. 2. The restraint under which he placed her. He did not admit her at once to full conjugal rights. He put her under trial. He bound her, in the mean time, to refrain from further immoral conduct. She was not to play the harlot. He, on his part, would abide in separation from her. This was to continue "many days." It would take a long time to wean her from her immoral ways, and thoroughly to test her disposition. The intention was that she might be trained to be again a faithful wife to him. Analogous to this would be God’s method of dealing with Israel. "For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king," etc. In the light of the subsequent history this prophecy is very striking. There is involved in it: (1) Long exile. The people were to abide "many days" without king or prince (civil government), without sacrifice or pillar (religious worship), without ephod or teraphim (means of inquiring into the future). This implies expulsion from their own land. The objects of Jehovah and idol worship are mixed up in this description to indicate the then mixed state of the nation’s religion, and to show that in exile "the Lord would take away both the Jehovah-worship and also the worship of the idols, along with independent civil government" (Keil). (2) Continued preservation. The nation, it is further implied, though east off, was not to be destroyed. It would still be the object of a Divine care. It would preserve its identity and distinctness through the" many days." "God would, in those times, withhold all special tokens of his favor, covenant, providence; yet would he secretly uphold and maintain them as a people, and withhold them from falling wholly from him into the gulf of irreligion and infidelity" (Pusey). (3) Ultimate recovery. God’s end in his treatment of the nation was its salvation. Its banishment was not to be perpetual. A day of recovery was set for it (verse 5). It will be admitted that the prophecy has had, in its first two parts, a singular fulfillment. The tribes—remnants both of the ten and of the two—are at this hour precisely in the condition of the prophet’s wife. They are in a manner "waiting on God, as the wife waited for her husband, kept apart under his care, yet not acknowledged by him;" not following after idolatries, yet cut off through unbelief in Christ from full covenant privilege. They have been in this condition "many days," "praying to God, yet without sacrifice for sin; not owned by God, yet kept distinct and apart by his providence for a future yet to be revealed" (Pusey). The object of the present exile is (1) to wean Israel entirely from idols,—this end may be said to be effectually accomplished; (2) to train her to value lost privileges; (3) to educate her to constancy; (4) to create a longing for reconciliation and restoration. These ends attained, restoration will follow. In a similar way God often deals with sinners for their good, cutting them off from the objects of their sinful desire, trying them by experiences of privation, leaving them without the comforts of his presence and the privileges of his worship, so teaching them the vanity of past pursuits, inciting them to seek him, and preparing them to receive his mercy when it is at length proposed to them. III. THE RESULT OF GOD’S OF ISRAEL. (Verse 5) "Afterwards shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God, and David their king," etc.; that is, Israel, when recovered to God, would return to its allegiance to the Davidic house, and specially to him whom prophecy pointed to as the Messiah. It is to be noticed: 1. Return to God is the designed end of moral discipline. 2. Return to God is connected with submission to his Son. 3. The result of return to God is experience of his goodness." "They shall fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days." 4. God is to be served by those who return to him in holy "fear." This fear is awakened by the experience of his "goodness," as well as by the remembrance of his chastisements. It is a holy, filial fear, born of reverence and love, and dreading to displease One so good. It has nothing in common with the slavish fear which combines love of sin with dread of the Punisher of it.—J.O. Hosea 4:1 A new and distinct division of the book commences with this fourth chapter and continues till the close. What had previously been presented in figure and symbol is now plainly and literally stated. The children of Israel are summoned in the first verse of this chapter to hear the charge preferred against them and the sentence pronounced. Having convened, as it were, a public assembly and cited the persons concerned, the prophet proceeds to show cause why they are bound to give an attentive hearing. In God’s controversy with the people of the land the prophet acts as his ambassador, accusing the people of great and grievous sins, and vindicating the justice of God’s judgments in their punishment. The ki with which the last clause of the verse commences may be either causal or recitative, and may thus specify either the ground or subject of controversy. It is commonly understood here in the former sense. Israel is charged with want of truth, mercy, and the knowledge of God. Kimchi comments on this controversy as follows: "With the inhabitants of the land of Israel I have a controversy, for I gave them the land on the condition that they should exercise righteousness and judgment, and on this condition I pledged myself to them that my eyes would be upon them from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. But since they practice the opposite—cursing, lying, etc.—I also will act with them in a way contrary to what I assured them, and will hide my face from them." He adds, "There were some righteous among them, but they were few, and they hid themselves from the face of the multitude who were wicked." Truth and mercy are at once Divine attributes and human virtues; it is in the latter sense, of course, that they are here employed. Truth includes works as well as words, doing as well as saying; it implies uprightness in speech and behavior—thorough integrity of character and conduct, Mercy goes beyond and supplements this. We sometimes say of such a one that he is an honest but a hard man. Mercy combined with truth, on the contrary, makes a man kind as well as honest, benevolent as well as upright. In a somewhat similar sense the apostle conjoins goodness and righteousness when he says, "Scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die." The knowledge of God is the real root of these two virtues of truth and mercy. If we know God as he is in himself and as he stands in his relations to us, we shall conform our conduct to his character and our actions to his will. If we know God to be a God of truth, who delighteth in truth in the inward parts, we shall cultivate truth in our hearts, express it with our lips, and practice it in our lives. If we know God as a God of mercy, who has shown such boundless mercy to us in pardoning our multiplied and aggravated offences, we shall imitate that mercy in our relations to our fellow-man; nor shall we enact the part of the merciless man in the parable, who owed his lord ten thousand talents, and who, having nothing to pay, was freely forgiven the debt; but finding his fellow-servant, who owed him only an hundred pence, laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, "Pay me that thou owest," and, deaf to that fellow-servant’s supplications, east him into prison till he should pay the debt. The intimate connection of the knowledge of God with the virtues in question is confirmed by the Prophet Jeremiah, "Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? he judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well with him: was not this to know me, saith the Lord?" Hosea 4:2 Having given a picture of Israel negatively, he next presents the positive side. The absence of the virtues specified implies the presence of the opposite vices. In the most vivid and impressive manner the prophet, instead of enumerating prosaically the vices so prevalent at the time, expresses them more emphatically by a species of exclamation, using (1) infinitives absolute instead of finite verbs; thus: "Swearing, and lying, and murdering, and stealing, and committing adultery." They may, however, be regarded as in the nominative as subjects to יֵשׁ. Instead of either supplying לְשָׁוְא, to allot, or closely connecting" allot" with the verb "to lie," which immediately follows, it is better to understand the two verbs separately, as expressing two different species of sin; that is, swearing and cursing, and lying. So the Septuagint renders them by the nouns ἀρὰκαὶψεῦδος, equivalent to "cursing and lying;" as also the Chaldee, "they swear falsely and lie." The commandments which the children of Israel thus violated were the third, the ninth, the sixth, the eighth, and the seventh. (2) The construction, adopted in the LXX; Vulgate, and by Luther in his version, takes the infinitives (nounal expressions of habitual or continued actions) as nominatives to the verb paratsu; thus: "Cursing, and lying, and murder, and theft, and adultery abound (κέχυται or εκκέχυται) in the land;" "Maledictum, et mendacium, et homicidium, et furtum, et adulterium innndavernut;" and Luther translates, "Gotteslastern, Luger, Morder, Stehlen, and Ehebrechen hat uberhand genommen." The common mode (3) of constructing the infinitives independently as above in (1) or gerundively as in the Authorized Version, and in either ease understanding an indefinite subject to paratsu, is preferable on the whole; thus: "By swearing, etc; they break out." The allusion to the water overflowing its banks and spreading in all directions, implied in the Septuagint Version, is approved by Jerome in his Commentary: "He (the prophet) did not say est, but, to demonstrate the abundance of crimes, introduced inundaverunt (overflowed)." The common meaning of parats is to tear or break—break in upon, especially with violence, as robbers and murderers; so paritsim has the sense of murderers and robbers. It is better, therefore, to take the verb here as a present perfect connecting past and present, and to translate it" break through," or" in to," that is, as burglars into houses. So Kimchi, though figuratively: "They break through the wall which is the fence of the Law, and multiply transgressions." Similarly, De Wette has "Gewaltthat uber sie;" and Maurer likewise: "Jurare et mentiri et occidere et furari et adulterari! Violenter agunt et sanguines sanguines altingunt." The Massoretic accentuation favors (putting athnach at naopt) this construction; while the context, which speaks of bloodshed, is quite in keeping with acts of violence. Hosea 4:3-5 These verses relate, with much particularity, the sufferings consequent on sins, especially such as are specified in the preceding verses. The montaging of the land mentioned in Hosea 4:3 may be understood either figuratively or literally. If in the former way, there are many Scripture parallels which represent nature in full accord with human feelings, sympathizing with man, now in joy, again in sorrow; for example: "The little hills rejoice on every side;" the valleys "shout for joy, they also sing;" on the other hand, "The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish." But if the expression be taken literally, it conveys a solemn fact, and one in perfect harmony with the entire tone and character of the old economy, according to which moral evil transmutes itself into physical evil, and impresses itself in dismal characters on the face of inanimate nature. The Hebrew commentators seem to understand the statement literally; thus Rashi: "The land shall be laid waste, and there shall be great mourning;" likewise Kimchi: "The land of Israel shall be laid waste and desolated." The latter has this further comment: "After the land of Israel shall have been laid waste, man and beast shall be cut off out of it. But under the beasts of the field the prophet does not mean the wild beasts, but the large domestic animals which dwell with the sons of men, likewise called חיה. It is also possible that even the beasts that roam at largo are included, for the wild beast does not come to inhabited places that are laid waste, unless they are partially inhabited." He also adds, in reference to the fowls of heaven, "When he speaks of the fowls of heaven, it is because most of the fowls do not dwell in the wilderness, but in inhabited places, where they find seeds and fruits and blossoms of trees. Or the fowls of heaven are mentioned by way of hyperbole to represent the matter in its totality; and, according to this sense, it is used in the Prophet Jeremiah; and it explains itself in like manner in one of these two ways." With the mourning of the land the dwellers therein languish. Nor is this languishing condition confined to rational beings; it comprises the irrational as well, and that without exception. The dominion assigned man at the beginning over the whole creation of God is here reversed in the case of Israel; while the denunciation of wrath has that reversal for its dark background. The terms of the dominion to man by the Creator are, "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth;" but in this denunciation these terms are reversed and read backwards, being," with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven; yea, the fishes of the sea also." Thus all nature, inanimate and animate, and all creation, rational and irrational, are involved in the consequences of Israel’s sin. The particles "yea, even," preceding "the fishes of the sea" (such as the Sea of Galilee or other inland seas and rivers), show the entirely unexpected as well as unusual nature of the event. The Chaldee paraphrases the clause as follows: "And even the fishes of the sea shall be diminished in number, on account of their (Israel’s) sins." Earth refuses sustenance to man and beast, no longer yielding grass for the cattle or herb for the service of man; the waters of the sea, being lessened by drought or becoming putrid by stagnation, no longer supply their accustomed quota of fishes for human food. An illustration of the literal sense has been quoted by Rosenmller and Pusey from Jerome. It is the following: "Whoso believeth not that this befell the people of Israel, let him survey Illyricum, let him survey the Thraces, Macedonia, the Pannonias, and the whole land which stretches from the Propoutis and Dosphorus to the Julian Alps, and he will experience that, together with man, all the creatures also fail, which afore were nourished by the Creator for the service of man." The le before היis explained by Abarbanel in the sense of through, as though the inhabitants would be slain by wild beasts: by Hitzig as extending to; by Keil as of in enumeration. It is simply with. Verse 4 looks like an interjected clause, coming in the middle of the enumeration of Divine judgments; and the purpose is not so much to justify the severity of those judgments as to intimate their inefficacy, owing to the incorrigible character of the people. There is (1) the rendering of the Authorized Version, Yet let no man strive, nor reprove another. This seems to show that mutual reproof was out of place, since one was as bad as another; or that every one was to look to his own sins, and not throw the blame on others; but this rendering is not tenable nor capable of being supported by such an expression as ish beish. The correct rendering (2) is rather, only let no man strive (with them), and let no man reprove them. This imports (a) that reasoning with them would be useless, and reproof thrown away, in consequence of the desperate obstinacy of these offenders; or (b) that they were so self-willed that they would not allow any one to reprove them for their conduct. The rendering (1) is favored by Kimchi: "Let a man not strive, nor reprove his fellow for his wickedness, for it profits him not, because he also does evil like him." The fact often experienced in a season of public calamity, that every one comes forth as a correcter of morals, and transfers to his neighbor the cause of such calamity, Hitzig illustrates by the following words of Curtius: "Quod in adversis rebus fieri solet, alius in allure culpam transferebat." The explanation (2, b), which is pretty much that of Ewald, is supported by the comments of Rashi and Aben Ezra. The former explains: "Ye warn the true prophets against striving with you and against reproving you;" the latter: "There is no one that strives with another or reproves him: and yet it was the right of the priest to reprove Israel; but now they turn to reprove the priest, for he also is wicked in his works." But (3) Pusey’s rendering, though only a slight modification of the preceding, conveys a different sense. It is "Only men let him not strive, and let not man reprove," which he explains as follows: "God had taken the controversy with his people into his own hands; the Lord, he said (verse 1), had a controversy (rib) with the inhabitants of the land. Here he forbids man to intermeddle; man let him not strive (he again uses the same word). The people were obstinate and would not hear … so God bids man to cease to speak in his Name. He himself alone will implead them, whose pleading none could evade or contradict." The rendering (2) is, in our opinion, decidedly entitled to the preference both on the ground of simplicity and agreement with the following clause. That clause, for thy people are as they that strive with the priest, is thought by Abarbanel to allude to the opposition of Korah and his company to Aaron the high priest, as recorded in Numbers 16:1-50; and referred to in Psalms 106:1-48. In the former passage, at the eleventh verse, it is asked, "And what is Aaron, that ye murmur against him?" while in the latter, at Psalms 106:16, we read the statement: "They envied Moses also in the camp, and Aaron the saint of the Lord." This allusion, by which the Israelites of the prophet’s day were compared to the Korathires, will appear to most as far-fetched. (1) The usual acceptation is both simpler and more satisfactory. It takes the expression to denote such contumacy as is reproved in Deuteronomy 17:12, "The man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel." The contumaciousness of Israel is thus compared to that of persons who were so obstinate and presumptuous as neither to obey nor reverence, but rather rebel against, the true priests of Jehovah, who, in his Divine Name and by Divine authority, instructed or reproved. Such persons neither feared God nor regarded man. It was the refractoriness of pupils acting in opposition to their teacher, or of a people rising in rebellion against their spiritual instructors. Thus the Chaldee understands it: "And thy people contend [quarrel] with their teachers." The last clause of Deu 17:4 is fairly well explained by Kimchi (except that he explains kaph of certainty and not similitude) as follows: "The prophet says, The priest should have taught, striven with, and reproved the people; but at this time the people strive with the priest; for it is not enough that they do not receive his reproof, but they strive with and reprove him, after the way they say, ’A generation that judges its judges.’ Or the explanation is, ’The priest is as wicked as they, and if he reproves them so also they reprove him.’" (2) The LXX. has ὡςἀντιλεγόμενοςἱερεὺς, as a priest spoken against. The text being thus somewhat doubtful, Michaelis made a very slight change in the pointing, putting a patach instead of tsere in the word for "contend;" thus: כִמְרבַי instead of כִמְרִיבֵי, so that the translation would be, "And thy people are as my adversaries (those who contend with me), O priest." The people that should have learnt the Law from the lips of the priest would not even submit to reproof from the Most High himself. The expression, "priest-disputers" or "priest-gainsayers," is admittedly an unusual one, and given as a specimen of the peculiarities of this prophet’s style, to which, however, there is a parallel in "boundary-movers" (cf. Hosea 5:10). Still, we see no real advantage gained by the conjectural emendation of Michaelis, though some are disposed to accept it on the ground that the representation of the incorrigibleness of a people by gainsaying opposition to the priest appears incongruous with the immediately succeeding denunciation of the priesthood. The objection is obviated by understanding, as above, opposition to the true priests of the Lord. Another conjectural reading is that of Beck, via וְעַמִּי כַכְּמָרָיו, equivalent to "and my people are like their priests." Such conjectural emendation is needless as useless. Hosea 4:5 The parallelism of this verse is marked by the peculiarity of dividing between the two members what belongs to the sentence as one whole. Instead of saying that the people would fall (literally, stumble) in the day, and the prophet with them in the night, the meaning of the sentence, divested of its peculiar form of parallelism, is that people and prophet alike would fall together, at all times, both by day and by night, that is to say, there would be no time free from the coming calamities; and there would be no possibility of escape, either for the sinful people or their unfaithful priests; the darkness of the night would not hide them, the light of the day would not aid them; destruction was the doom of priests and people, inevitable and at all times. And I will destroy thy mother. Their mother was the whole nation as such—the kingdom of Israel. The expression is somewhat contemptuous, as though he said of the individual members that they were truly their mother’s children—resembling her erewhile in sin and soon in sorrow. (1) Though the verb דמה is seldom used in Qal to denote "likeness," Abarbanel, as quoted by Rosenmller, translates, "I have been like thy mother," and explains of the people addressing priest and prophet as a mother reproving her petulant children in order to improve them. Besides the far-fetched nature of such a rendering, there is the formidable grammatical objection that, in the sense of "similitude," this verb requires to be constructed with le or el. so that it should be le immeka or el immeka. "This word, when derived from demuth, likewise has el with seghol after it; but without el, it has the meaning of destroy," is the statement of Aben Ezra. The LXX; assigning to the verb the sense of "similarity," renders the phrase by πυκτὶὀμοίωσατὴνμητέρασου, "I have compared thy mother to night." (2) Jerome, connecting the verb with דוּם or דָמַם, understands it in the sense of "silence:" "I have made thy mother silent in the night; that is, "Israel is delivered up in the dark night of captivity, sorrow, and overwhelming distress." The Syriac likewise has: "And thy mother has become silent" (if shathketh be read). The Chaldee, though more periphrastic, brings out nearly the same sense: "I will overspread your assembly with stupefaction." To the same purport is the exposition of Rashi: "My people shall be stupefied as a man who sits and is overwhelmed with stupor, so that no answer is heard from his mouth." The meaning "destroy" is well supported by the cognate Arabic, and gives a good sense; thus Gesenius renders: "I destroy thy mother, that is, lay waste thy country." Rather, the nation, collectively, is the mother; while the members individually are the children. Nor shall private persons escape in the public catastrophe—root and branch are to perish. Kimchi’s comment on דמיחי is: "I will cut off the whole congregation, so that no congregation shall remain in Israel; for they shall be scattered in the exile, the one here, the other there." Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Here the verb is plural and its subject singular, because, being collective, it comprehends all the individual members of the nation. The word כדמו is rendered (1) by Jerome in the sense of "silence:" "conticuit populus incus," which he explains to mean "sinking into eternal silence." So also the Chaldee. (2) The LXX; understands it in the sense of "likeness:" "My people are like (ὡμοιώθη) as if they had no knowledge." Aben Ezra disproves this sense as follows: "This word, if it were from the root signifying ’likeness,’ would have after it el with seghol, as, ’To [el with seghol] whom art thou like in thy greatness?’ (Ezekiel 31:2); but without the word el it has the meaning of ’ cutting off.’" So Kimchi: "Here also it has the sense of ’cutting off.’" The article before "knowledge" implies renewed mention and refers to the word in verse 1; or it may emphasize the word as that knowledge by way of eminence, which surpasses all other knowledge, and without which no other knowledge can really prove a blessing in the end. The knowledge of God is the most excellent of all sciences. Paul counted all things but loss in comparison with its possession; and our blessed Lord himself says, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent;" while the Prophet Isaiah attributed the captivity to its absence: "My people are gone into captivity because they have no knowledge." Because thou hast rejected knowledge … seeing thou hast forgotten the Law of thy Son. The cause of this ignorance is here charged on the unfaithfulness of the priesthood. They rejected knowledge and forgot the Law of their God. The two concluding clauses of this verse may be regarded as "split members" of a single sentence. As rejection implies the presence of the object rejected, while forgetfulness implies its absence from the mind or memory, some have understood rejection of knowledge as the sin of the priest, and forgetfulness that of the people. This separation is not necessary, for what men continue for a time to despise they will by-and-by forget. The forgetfulness is thus an advance upon rejection. The sin of these priests was very great, for, while the priests’ lips were required to keep knowledge, they neither preserved that knowledge themselves nor promoted it among the people; hence the indignant and direct address. Thus Kimchi says: "He addresses the priestly order that existed at that time: Thou hast rejected he knowledge for thyself and to teach it to the people, consequently I will reject thee from being a priest unto me. Since thou dost not exercise the office of priest, which is to teach the Law, I will reject thee so that thou shalt not be a priest in my house." I will also reject thee that thou shalt be no priest to me … I will also forget thy children, even I. The punishment resembles the offence; the human delinquency is reflected in the Divine retaliation. To make this the more pointed, the "thou on thy part (attah)" at the head of the sentence has its counterpart, or rather is counterbalanced by the "even I" or "I too (gam ani)" at its close. The severity of the punishment is augmented by the threat that, not only the then existing priests, but their sons after them, would be excluded from the honor of the priesthood. This was touching painfully the tenderest part. It needs scarcely be observed that forgetfulness is only spoken of God in a figurative sense, and after the manner of men, that being forgotten which is no longer the object of attention or affection. "The meaning of אשׁ fo g," says Kimchi, "is by way of figure, like the man who forgets something and does not take it to heart." The unusual form אֶמְאָסְאָךָ has been variously accounted for. The Massorites mark the aleph before caph as redundant; it is omitted in several manuscripts of Kennicott and De Rossi, as also some of the early printed editions. Kimchi confesses his ignorance of its use. Olshausen treats it as a copyist’s error; but Ewald "regards it as an Aramaean pausal form." Some take the reference to be to Israel as a kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:6) rather than to the actual priesthood. Hosea 4:7, Hosea 4:8 As they were increased; rather, multiplied. Whether כְּרֻבָּם be taken as infinitive with suffix and prefix, or as a noun, it will amount to the same. The reference is rather to the multitude of the population than to the greatness of their prosperity or the abundance of their wealth. In the latter sense it is understood by the Chaldee paraphrase, but in the former by the Syriac translator. So also Kimchi, where he says, "As for Aaron the priest their father, the Law of truth was in his mouth; but now that his sons have multiplied and spread abroad, they have sinned against me and forgotten my law; according as I did them good they did evil." He also gives as the explanation of others, "As I increased them in wealth and riches, they sinned against me." Their glory will I change into shame. The "therefore" of the Authorized Version is inserted unnecessarily. Both the Chaldee and Syriac render, "And they changed their glory into shame;" as they took אָמִיר for the infinitive הָמִיר, and that in the sense of the preterit; or the infinitive in the gerundival sense: "changing their glory into shame." Kimchi explains the meaning correctly: "Therefore I made them beads over the people and expiators, yet if they do not observe my Law I will change their glory into shame; and the people will contemn and despise them." Their numbers multiplied with the multiplication of idols, and the apostasy of the people kept pace with both; and now as a fit punishment they are to be deprived of their priestly glory—their dignity and splendor. They eat up the sin of my people. The word חַטַּאה may be understood in either of two senses; and the meaning of the verse will correspond thereto. It may either mean that these faithless priests lived upon the sin of the people, deriving their livelihood and profit from the people’s idolatrous practices; or that they were delighted with their sin, approving rather than reproving them for the same. The other explanation understands the word of sin offering, and is thus expressed by Kimchi: "They are only priests for eating up the sin and trespass offering which the people offer on account of sins, not for teaching the Law or right way." To their iniquity they lift up (each one) his soul. They set their heart upon and eagerly desire the continued practice of sin on the part of the people that they may profit by the sacrifices. Thus Kimchi explains this clause in accordance with his exposition of the former: "The priests lift up every one his soul to the sin of the people, saying, When will they sin, and bring sin offering and trespass offering that we may eat?" Hosea 4:9 Like people, like priest. As it had fared with the people who had sinned and had been punished, as is stated in the third and fifth verses; so shall it be with the priest or whole priestly order. He has involved himself in sin and punishment like the people, and that as the consequence of his extreme unfaithfulness; whereas by faithful dealing with the people and discharge of his duty he might have delivered his own soul, as stated by Ezekiel 33:9, "Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul." It is well explained by Kimchi as follows: "These two caphs of likeness are by way of abbreviation, and the explanation is—the people are like the priest and the priest is like the people. And the meaning is that, as the people and the priest are equal with respect to sin, so shall they be equal in relation to punishment." And I will visit upon his ways, and his doings I will bring back to him. The retribution here threatened includes the whole priestly order, not people and priest as one man, according to Pusey, who, however, makes the following excellent comment on מעלליו: "The word rendered doings signifies great doings when used of God, bold doings on the part of man. These bold presumptuous doings against the Law and will of God, God will bring back to the sinner’s bosom," or rather, down overwhelmingly upon his head. The singular individualizes; so both Aben Ezra and Kimchi: "Upon every one of them." Hosea 4:10 For they shall eat, and not have enough: they shall commit whoredom, and shall not increase. This part of the verso states the punishment to be inflicted and the reward to be received; it is thus an expansion of the closing clause of the preceding verse, with an obvious allusion to the sin specified in the eighth verse. To eat and not be satisfied may occur in time of famine, or be the effect of disease or the consequence of insatiable craving. "Since," says Kimchi, "they eat in an unlawful manner, their food shall not be to them a blessing." This was one of the punishments threatened for violation of the Law, as we read in Leviticus 26:26, "When I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied." Further, the multiplication of wives or concubines would not increase their posterity; Solomon long previously had been a notable exemplification of this. "So in their cohabitation with their women, since it is in a whorish manner, they shall not increase, for they shall not have children by them; or, if they have, they shall die from the birth." The Hiph. hiznu has rather the intensive sense of Qal than that of causing or encouraging whoredom. Because they have left off to take heed to the Lord. The verbal lishmor either (1) has Jehovah for its object, as in the Authorized Version; or (2) durko or darkair may be supplied, as is done by Kimchi and Aben Ezra. The former has, "To observe his ways, for they have no delight in him and in his ways; to observe his ways they have left off;" the latter has, "They have forsaken Jehovah, to observe his way or his Laws." But (3) Kimchi informs us that "Saadiah Gaon of blessed memory has connected the word with the verse that comes after it; they have forsaken the Lord to observe whoredom and wine and new wine." Hosea 4:11 It makes no great difference whether we regard this verse as concluding the foregoing or commencing a new paragraph, though we prefer the latter mode of connecting it. It states the debasing influence which debauchery and drunkenness are known to exercise over both head and heart: they dull the faculties of the former and deaden the affections of the latter. The heart is not only the seat of the affections, as with us; it comprises also the, intellect and hill; while the word יִקַּת is not so much to take away as to captivate the heart, Rashi gives the former sense: "The whoredom and drunkenness to which they are devoted take away their heart from me." Kimchi’s explanation is judicious: "The whoredom to which they surrender themselves and the constant drunkenness which they practice take their heart, so that they have no understanding to perceive what is the way of goodness along which they should go." He further distinguishes the tirosh from the yayin, remarking that the former is the new wine which takes the heart and suddenly intoxicates. The prophet, having had occasion to mention the sin of whoredom in Hosea 4:10, makes a general statement about the consequences of that sin combined with drunkenness in Hosea 4:10, as not only debasing, but depriving men of the right use of their reason and the proper exercise of their natural affections. The following verses afford abundant evidence of all this in the insensate conduct of Israel at the time referred to. Hosea 4:12-14 The first of these verses exhibits the private life of the people as depraved by sin and folly; the second their public life as degraded by idolatry and lewdness; while the third points to the corresponding chastisement and its cause. My people ask counsel at their stocks (literally, wood), and their staff declareth unto them. Rashi explains "stocks," or literally, "wood," to mean "a graven image made out of wood;" while Aben Ezra prefaces his exposition of this by an observation which serves well as a link of connection between the eleventh and twelfth verses. It is as follows: "The sign that they are in reality without heart, is that my people turn to ask counsel of its stocks and wood." Kimchi not inaptly remarks, "They are like the blind man to whom his staff points out the way in which he should go." The stupidity of idolatry and the sin of divination are hero combined. By the "wood" is meant an idol carved out of wood; while the staff may likewise have an image carved at the top for idolatrous purposes, or it may denote mode of divination by a staff which by the way it fell determined their course. Theophylaet explains this method of divination as follows: "They set up two rods, and muttered some verses and enchantments; and then the rods falling through the influence of demons, they considered how they fell, whether forward or backward, to the right or the left, and so gave answers to the foolish people, using the fall of the rods for signs." Cyril, who attributes the invention of rabdomancy to the Chaldeans, gives the same account of this method of divination. Herodotus mentions a mode of divination prevalent among the Scythians by means of willow rods; and Tacitus informs us that the Germans divined by a rod cut from a fruit-bearing tree. "They (the Germans) cut a twig from a fruit tree, and divide it into small pieces, which, distinguished by certain marks, are thrown promiscuously on a white garment. Then the priest or ’the canton, it’ the occasion be public—if private, the master of the family—after an invocation of the gods, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, thrice takes out each piece, and as they come up, interprets their signification according to the marks fixed upon them." The sin and folly of any people consulting an idol of wood about the success or otherwise of an undertaking, or deciding whether by a species of teraphim or staff divination, is sufficiently obvious. But the great aggravation of Israel’s sin arose from the circumstance not obscurely hinted by the possessive "my" attached to "people." That a people like Israel, whom God had chosen from among the nations of the earth and distinguished by special tokens of Divine favor, and to whom he had given the ephod with the truly oracular Urim and Thummim, should forsake him and the means he had given them of knowing his will, and turn aside to gods of wood, evinced at once stupidity unaccountable and sin inexcusable. "The prophet," says Calvin, "calls here the Israelites the people of God, not to honor them, but rather to increase their sin; for the more heinous was the perfidy of the people, that, having been chosen, they had afterwards forsaken their heavenly Father… Now this people, that ought to be mine, consult their own wood, and their staff answers them!" For the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a-whoring from under their God. In this part of the verse the prophet attempts to account for the extreme folly and heinous sin of Israel, as described in the first clause. It was an evil spirit, some demoniac power, that had inspired them with an insuperable fondness for idolatry, which in prophetic language is spiritual adultery. The consequence was a sad departure from the true God and a sinful wandering away from his worship, notwithstanding his amazing condescension and love by which he placed himself in the relation of a husband towards them. Hosea 4:13 They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good. The prophet here enlarges on the sin of idolatry mentioned in the preceding verse, and explains fully how it showed itself in the public life of the people. Two places are specified as scenes of idolatrous worship: one was the tops of mountains and hills; the other under every green tree, here specified as oaks, poplars, and terebinths, whether growing alone or in groves, in vale or upland. The hills and mountain-tops were selected on account of their elevation, as though the worshippers were thus brought nearer to the objects of their adoration; the green trees as affording shade from the scorching heat of an Eastern sun, secrecy for their licentious rites, and a sort of solemn awe associated with such shadow. In such scenes they not only slew victims, but burnt odors in honor of their idols. The resemblance to, if not imitation of, the rites of heathenism in all this is obvious. Among the Greeks the oak was sacred to Jupiter at Dodona, and among the old Britons the Druidical priests practiced their superstitions in the shadow of the yaks. The poplar again was sacred to Hercules, affording a most grateful shade; while in Ezekiel 6:13 we read that "under every thick terebinth" was one of the places where "they did offer sweet savor to their idols." The inveterate custom of these idolaters is implied in the Piel or iterative form of the verb; the singular of the nouns, under oak and poplar and terebinth, intimates that scene after scene of Israel’s sin passes under the prophet’s review, each exciting his deep indignation; the mention of the goodly shadow seems designed to heighten that feeling of just indignation, as though it came into competition or comparison with "the shadow of the Almighty," the abiding-place of him that "dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High." Therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses (properly, daughters-in-law) shall commit adultery. כַּלָּה primarily signifies "bride," but for the parents of the bridegroom, "daughter-in-law," its secondary sense. The bad example of the parents acts upon their children and reacts upon themselves; on their children in causing bad conduct, on themselves by way of chastisements. The parents had been guilty of spiritual whoredom by their idolatry; their daughters and daughters-in-law would commit whoredom in the literal and carnal sense. This would wound the parents’ feelings to the quick and pain them in the tenderest part. Their personal honor would be compromised by such scandalous conduct on the part of their daughters; their family honor would be wounded and the fair fame of posterity tarnished by such gross misconduct on the part of the daughters-in-law. The following observations are made on the last member of this thirteenth verse by the Hebrew commentators: "Because the men of the house go out of the city to the high mountains and under every green tree there to serve idols, therefore their daughters and daughters-in-law have opportunity to commit whoredom and adultery" (Kimchi). To like purpose Aben Ezra writes: "The sense is—On the bare mountains and so on the hills they sacrifice; they say to the priests of Baal that they shall sacrifice; and therefore, because the men go out of the cities in order to burn incense, the daughters and daughters-in-law remain in the houses behind, therefore they commit whoredom." Somewhat different is the explanation of Rashi: "Because ye associate for idolatry after the manner of the heathen, and the heathen associate with you, and ye form affinities with them, your daughters also who are born to you by the daughters of the heathen conduct themselves after the manner of their mothers, and commit whoredom." Hosea 4:14 I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery. The spiritual adultery of parents and husbands would be punished by the carnal adultery of daughters and wives; sin would thus be punished by sin. Their own dishonor and disgrace, through the unfaithfulness of persons so near to them, would impress them with a sense of the dishonor done to God, the spiritual Husband of his people; their feeling of pain and shame in consequence would convey to them a clearer notion of the abhorrence which their offences had occasioned to God. But their punishment would become more severe, and their pain intensified by the Divine refusal to avenge them by punishing the lewdness that caused such dishonor. While punishment would prevent the sin and consequent reproach, impunity, or the postponement of punishment, would leave the offenders to go on in their course of sin and shame. Aben Ezra comments on this fourteenth verse as follows: "The sense is—It is not to be wondered at if the daughters commit whoredom; for they themselves, when they go up to the tops of the mountains to burn in-cerise, eat and drink with harlots and commit whoredom—all of them. And, behold, the sense is, not that he shall not punish them at all, but he speaks in regard to, i.e. in comparison with, the fathers; for they teach them to commit whoredom doing according to their works. Perhaps the daughters are still little, therefore I shall not punish." Rashi thinks that this threatening refers to the disuse of the bitter waters of jealousy, so that suspected guilt could not be detected. But there is nothing to intimate such a reference; nor would it be in keeping with the scope of the passage. Again, some, as in the margin of the Authorized Version, read the words, not indicatively, but interrogatively—"Shall I not punish," etc.? This would require such a meaning to be read into the passage as the following: "Assuredly I shall punish them; and not the daughters and daughters-in-law only, but the parents and husbands still more severely, because of their greater criminality." Equally unsatisfactory is the explanation of Theodoret, who, taking פָקַד in a good sense, which it has with the accusative, understands it of God’s refusing any protection or preservation of their daughters and spouses from outrage at the hands of a hostile soldiery, so that such sins as they themselves had been guilty in private, would be committed with the females of their family in public. For they themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots. The change of person appears to imply that God turns away with inexpressible disgust from such vileness, and, turning aside to a third party, explains the grounds of his procedure. The Qedesheth were females who devoted themselves to licentiousness in the service of Ashtaroth, the Sidonian Venus. Persons of this description were attached to idol temples and idolatrous worship in heathen lands in ancient times, as in India at the present time. The ’Speaker’s Commentary’ calls them "devotee-harlots," and cites an allusion to the custom from the Moabite Stone, as follows: "I did not kill the women and maidens, for I devoted them to Ashtar-kemosh." After stating the humiliating fact that fathers and husbands in Israel, instead of uniting with their wives in the worship of Jehovah, separated themselves, going aside with these female idolaters for the purpose of lewdness, and shared in their sacrificial feasts, the prophet, or rather God by the prophet, impatient of the recital of such shameless licentiousness, and indignant at such presumptuous sinning, closes abruptly with the declaration of the recklessness, and denunciation of the ruin of all such offenders, in the words—the people that doth not understand shall fall; margin, be punished; rather, dashed to the ground, or plunge into ruin (nilbat). Both Aben Ezra and Kimchi give from the Arabic, as an alternative sense of silbat, to fall into error. Hosea 4:15-17 In this section the prophet, as if despairing of any improvement or amendment on the part of Israel, still resolutely bent on spiritual whoredom, addresses an earnest warning to Judah. From proximity to those idolatries and debaucheries so prevalent in this northern kingdom, and from the corruption at least of the court in the southern kingdom during the reigns of Joram, Ahaziah, and Ahaz, Judah was in danger; and hence the prophet turned aside, with words of earnest warning, to the sister kingdom not to involve herself in the same or similar guilt. Rashi’s brief comment here is, "Let not the children of Judah learn their ways." Hosea 4:15 And come not ye unto Gilgal, neither go ye up to Beth-avert, nor swear, The Lord liveth. From a solemn warning in general terms, he proceeds to a specific prohibition. The prohibition forbids pilgrimages to places of idol-worship, such as Gilgal and Bethaven; it also forbids a profession of Jehovah-worship to be made by persons inclined to idolatrous practices. Gilgal, now the village of Jiljilia, which had been a school of the prophets in the days of Elijah and Elisha, had, as we may rightly infer from passages in Hoses and Amos, become a seat of idolatrous worship. The Hebrew interpreters confound the Gilgal here referred to with the still more renowned Gilgal between Jericho and the Jordan, where Joshua circumcised the people a second time, and celebrated the Passover, and where, manna failing, the people ate of the old corn of the land. "And why," asks Kimchi, "to Gilgal? Because at Gilgal the sanctuary was at the first when they entered the land; therefore when they went to worship idols they built high places there for the idols. But with respect to the tribe of Judah, what need has it to go to Gilgal and to leave the house of the sanctuary which is in their own cities?" And Beth-el, now Beitin, had become Beth-avon—the house of God a house of idols, after Jeroboam had set up the calf there. Judah was to eschew those places so perilous to purity of worship; also a practice hypocritical in its nature and highly dangerous in its tendency, namely, confessing Jehovah with the lips, and by a solemn act of attestation indicative of adherence to his worship, but belying that confession by complicity in idolatrous practices, like the peoples who "worshipped Jehovah, but served their own gods." Kimchi observes as follows: "For ye engage in strange worship, and yet swear by the Name of Jehovah; this is the way of incensing and despising him." Hosea 4:16 For Israel slideth back as a back, sliding heifer: now the Lord will feed them s, a lamb in a large place. This verse conveys the reason of the warning contained in the preceding; and that reason is the punishment which is to overtake Israel as the consequence of their refractoriness. If this view of the connection be correct, it will help to the right understanding of a difficult passage. The "backsliding," according to the Authorized Version, is rather "stubbornness," "intractableness," or "unmanageableness." Keil renders it "refractory." This refractoriness was Israel’s sin; the people would have their own way, and became refractory, like an unmanageable heifer, which rebels upon being trained. Aben Ezra explains סֹרֵרָה (which, by the way, has tsere before the tone syllable) as follows: "סי is he who turns aside from the way that is appointed him, so that he does not walk in it. And, behold, he compares Israel to a stubborn cow, with which a man cannot plough." So also Kimchi: "Like a heifer which goes on a crooked way, and curves itself from under the yoke, that a man cannot plough with it; so Israel are crooked under their God, as they have taken upon them the yoke of the Law and of the command-meats which he commanded them, and curve themselves under the yoke, and break from off them the yoke of the commandments." Israel rebelled against instruction, waxed stubborn and intractable. They would have their own way, and worshipped according to their own will, in indulging all the while with a high hand in vilest lusts. Now the season of punishment is arrived; and as they refused instruction and rebelled against Divine guidance, God, in just judgment and deserved punishment, leaves them to themselves. Carried into captivity, they may worship what they will, and live as they list. In these circumstances they will resemble a lamb taken away into a wilderness, and left there to range the wild and live at large, but without provision and without protection. Untended by the shepherd’s watchful care, unguarded from ravening wolves or other beasts of prey, that lamb is in a lost and perishing condition. So shall it be with Israel. Aben Ezra gives as an alternative sense: "Now (Jehovah will feed them like a lamb) alone in a wide place, and it wanders to and fro." Kimchi cites as the opinion of others: "Some say, Now will Jehovah let them feed alone in a wide place, like a lamb which bleats and goes to and fro, and neither rests nor feeds." Another meaning has been attached to the verse, to the effect that Israel, subdued by chastise-meat, will renounce their stubbornness, and, rendered tractable and tame, become like a lamb, which, brought to feel its helplessness amid a wilderness, requires and receives the shepherd’s care. We much prefer the former. Hosea 4:17 Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone. Ephraim being the dominant tribe, gave its name to the northern kingdom. The idols were Ephraim’s folly, and to that they were wedded; and in consequence they are left to their folly, and at the same time surrendered to their fate. They may persist in their folly; they cannot be prevented. "Give him rest," as the words literally mean, from exhortations and expostulations, from remonstrances and reproofs; he will persist in his folly, prepare for his fate, and perish by his sin. This abandonment of Ephraim proves the desperate nature of his case. Left to his own recklessness, he is rushing towards ruin. Judah is warned to stand aloof from the contagion, lest by interference he might get implicated in the sin and involved in the punishment of Ephraim. The Hebrew commentators express the word rendered "joined to" in the Authorized Version (Hosea 4:17) by words importing "yoked to," "allied with," and "cleaving to." Again, הַנַה, imperative of הֵנִחַ, is explained by them as follows:—Rashi: "Leave off, O prophet, and prophesy not to reprove him, for it is of no use." Aben Ezra: "Let him alone till God shall chastise him; perhaps his eyes shall then open." Kimchi: "Jehovah says to the prophet, Cease to reprove him, for it is of no use ... As a man who is angry with his fellow, because he will not hearken to him when he reproves him, and says, Since thou hearkenest not to me, I will cease for ever to reprove thee." Hosea 4:18, Hosea 4:19 The first of these two verses gives a picture of the degeneracy of the times; the second predicts the destruction that would ensue. Their drink is sour (margin, is gone): they have committed whoredom continually. If the first clause be taken literally, (1) it denotes a charge of drunkenness preferred against Ephraim. To this vice the people of the northern kingdom, as is well known, were addicted: the wine, from oft-repeated potations, became sour in the stomach and produced loathsome eructations. (2) Some, connecting closely the first and second clauses, and translating as in the margin, explain the meaning to be that "when their intoxication is gone they commit whoredom." But though drunkenness and debauchery frequently go together, it is rather during the former than afterwards that the latter is indulged in. (3) The first clause had better be understood figuratively, and the latter either literally or figuratively, or both. Thus the sense is the degeneracy of principle among the people in general, or rather among the principal men of that day. By the finest wine becoming vapid, the prophet represents the leading men of the nation, on whom so much depended and from whom so much might be expected, as becoming unprincipled, and as being addicted to immorality or idolatry, or probably both (hazneh hiznu): "whoring they have committed whoredom." (1) Her rulers (margin, shields) with shame do love, Give ye; or rather, (2) her shields lore, love shame. The first takes הֵביּ for הָבוּ, as imperative of יָהַב, to give, and should rather be, "Her shields love, ’ Give ye—shame, as there is no preposition before the word "shame;" even thus it is awkward. Most modern expositors take הֵבוּ as a contraction of אָהֵב å, and so a repetition of part of the full verb preceding; thus: אָחְבוּ הֵבוּ, equivalent to "loved, loved." Ewald, Delitzsch, and Pusey understand it so; the latter says this "is probably one of the earliest forms of the intensive verb, repeating a part of the verb itself with its inflection." And Keil calls it "a construction resembling the pealal form." Among the sebirin, or conjectural readings, we find both words united into one; thus: אֲהַבהֵבוּ, equivalent to "mightily love." The shields are the princes, or natural protectors of the state, as in Psalms 47:9, "The princes of the people are gathered together.; for the shields of the earth be. long unto God." The shame they loved was the sin which is a shame to either princes or people, causes shame, and ends in shame. Isaiah expounds the thought (in Isaiah 1:22), a comparison of which confirms the above exposition. (1) The wind hath bound her up in her wings; or, (2) she hath bound up the wind with her in her skirts. In the one case the wind is the strong storm-wind of Divine wrath that will seize on Ephraim, wrap her up with its wings, and carry her away. In the other, Ephraim wraps up the wind, that is, disappointment, the result of her sin, in the fold of her skirt. The (1) translation of the first clause of verse 19 is supported by Rashi: "The storm takes her in its wings, as that bird which the wind does not let rest until it makes him go far away; so the enemies will come upon them and carry them into exile." Translation (2) is favored by Aben Ezra and Kimchi; the former says, "As the man who binds the wind in the folds of his robe without finding anything therein." And they shall be ashamed because of their sacrifices. Frustrated in her hopes, and disappointed by the idols, from which she hoped so much and got so little, she is ashamed of the sacrifices she offered them; not of the altars (LXX), for the preposition min is indispensable. Hosea 4:1-5 Israel’s sin and consequent suffering. The prophet is Jehovah’s mouth-piece, and as such he calls on his fellow-men to hear the word of the Lord; he thus speaks by commission and with authority. Having thus claimed an attentive hearing in his Master’s Name, he denounces Israel’s sins, and declares the judgments that await them. In this discharge of his duty the prophet has a twofold object in view. By his timely and truthful warning he hopes to reclaim some, at least, of his countrymen, and in any case he means to leave all without excuse. God by his ambassador displays in this way both his mercy and his justice. His mercy in that he speaks to them before he strikes them—he warns them of their danger while it is yet impending, and before they are actually involved in it; his justice—for he condescends to debate the matter with his people, and convince them of the reasonableness of his dealings, that they may see that he does not contend with them without cause, and that when he is forced to execute sentence for their sills, that sentence has been well deserved. I. IS THE SURE OF . True religion begins with a saving knowledge of God. This is the fountain-head; moral duties are the salutary streams that issue from it. Godliness is the source of uprightness; piety towards God produces propriety of conduct in demeaning ourselves and in dealing with others; where the right knowledge of God is absent, we need not expect truth or mercy among men. On the contrary, a profession of piety without the performance of duty to our fellows God will disown; without truth and mercy religion is only a pretence, a painful hypocrisy. Religion, then, is the rich soil in which virtue strikes root and its growth is maintained. II. THE OF THE VIRTUES HERE . With regard to mercy and truth, Kimchi has well remarked that "no truth" imports that there is "no one doing the truth, and no one speaking the truth;" while on the words "nor mercy," he adds, "Hew much [does it follow thence] that there is no mercy, for mercy is the superabundance of goodness over and above what is meet; and as to him who does not maintain either truth or justice, how much less will he show mercy?" The combination of truth, mercy, and knowledge of God may be compared with the triple duties specified by Micah, as doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God; and with the apostolic triad of living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. In each of these our duty to ourselves, to our neighbor, and to our God is expressed; so, too, in the verse before us. While mercy mainly respects the duty we owe our fellow-man, and knowledge of God our relation to him, truth has to do with a man himself as well as with his neighbor. We are to be true to conscience, seeking to have it enlightened, striving to keep it clear, and having the courage of our convictions. We are to be true to ourselves, in our strangely composite personality; true to the soul by seeking its salvation, for "what shall it profit a man, should he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" true to the body by preserving its purity, maintaining its sobriety, and securing its health, that we may possess a sound mind in a sound body. Of course, truth has large scope in our intercourse with others. We are required to be truthful in our utterances, true to our promises, true in all our engagements, true and just in all our dealings. The duty of mercy, in a world where sin has wrought such ruin and caused such misery, is obvious. As sinful creatures, we need the mercy of our Creator; as suffering, sorrowful beings, we are strongly obligated to the exercise of mercy towards each other. "The quality of mercy is not strain’d: It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes: The mightiest in the mightiest;…" while "In the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation." III. SOON MAKE WAY FOR . When the duties of truth, mercy, and the knowledge of God were omitted, the grossest sins succeeded and took their place. But we must notice the expression, "in the land;" this appears to mean more than the general prevalence of such through all this country; it seems to hint at Israel’s ingratitude. God had given them that good land, where God should have had grateful worshippers and a holy people. Kimchi makes the following judicious comment on this subject: "I have a controversy with them (the inhabitants of the land of Israel), for I gave them the land conditionally that they should exercise justice and judgment; and herein I made a covenant with them, that my eyes should be upon it from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year. But since they acted in a way contrary to this—perjuring, stealing, and committing adultery—I also will act towards them in a way contrary to what I promised, and hide my face from them; and the land shall mourn, and all the dwellers in it shall languish." The sins committed by Israel at this period evidence an almost disorganized state of society. The most important duties were omitted and the most enormous sins committed; nor was this strange, when there was no knowledge of God in the land; and yet this very circumstance was the great aggravation both of their omissions and commissions. It was the privilege of the highly favored inhabitants of that land to know God; as we read, "In Judah is God known: his Name is great in Israel. In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion." But while both tables of the Law were transgressed, and fearfully transgressed, the violations of the sixth commandment were something shocking. This black feature in Israel’s iniquity is made prominent by the prophet, and specially noticed by the Hebrew expositors. Rashi says, "They multiply the shedding of bloods until the blood of one slain man touches the blood of his neigh-bout;" and Kimchi’s comment is, "The bloods of the slain touch one another from abundance." Though we may not be able to fix with certainty the period referred to, it may with considerable probability be conjectured that about this time the numerous and dreadful regicides occurred. Shallum slaying Zechariah; Menahem slaying Shallure; Pekah slaying Pekahiah; and Hoshea slaying Pekah; so that "the land was polluted with blood." IV. HUMAN DRAPES NATURE IN WEEDS OF WOE. We have here at once an expansion and illustration of the sentiment of the psalm (Psalms 107:33, Psalms 107:34), "He turneth … a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein." Man and beast, fish and fowl alike, are sufferers in consequence of human sin. The whole creation groaneth and suffereth together in consequence of the creature having been subjected to vanity. "When," says Jerome, on this verse, "the inhabitant is removed, the beasts also, and fowls of heaven, and fishes of the sea shall fail; and even the dumb elements shall feel the wrath of God." Many actual illustrations of this state of things, we doubt not, had taken place in the history of Israel, as in the days of Ahab and many a time besides. When rain was long delayed and drought ensued, the land mourned and its inhabitants languished. V. IS A FOR . When people become so froward and perverse as to be beyond reproof, so that God says of them, as he does in effect of Israel in this passage, "Let them proceed and reproof cease," they are on the very verge of a fearful precipice. Israel had gone so far towards that perilous position that no private person was permitted to warn, if so disposed, or reason with his neighbor; not even the priest, God’s appointed minister, in those days dared venture to do so, or if he did it was labor lost. They stumble and fall, teacher and taught, prophet and people together. As also both night and day alike; by day, when danger was least and the disgrace greatest; in the night season, when darkness made destruction inevitable. Worst of all, no helper to be hoped for; or, rather, the mother—she that might be expected to hold up or lift up her children—is herself doomed. That mother, whether Samaria, the mother city, or the commonwealth itself, the mother of them all, was devoted to the silence of destruction. Hosea 4:6-10 Priestly neglect and its consequences. This section deals with the sin and punishment of the priests, as the preceding one had described the sin and punishment of the people. The priests here referred to were probably Levitical priests still scattered through the northern kingdom, since God speaks of them as his priests; while those which Jeroboam appointed out of other tribes than that of Levi, and from all, even the lowest, ranks of society, were rather priests for the worship of the calves. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Hosea 5:1 Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye house of Israel; and give ye ear, O house of the king. The persons here addressed comprise all the estates of the realm—priests, people, and princes. The house of Israel is the northern kingdom; and the house of the king is the members of the king’s family, of his court and of his government. Thus the rulers and the ruled, the spiritual teachers and the taught, are comprehended in this address. Neither priestly office, nor popular power, nor princely dignity was to be exempted. But, though all are summoned to give audience, the heads of the people, the men of light and leading, are first arraigned. For judgment is toward you, as the clause is correctly rendered; not, "it devolves on you to maintain judgment," as some understand it. It had, indeed, been the province of the priest to teach, and of the king to execute the judgments of God in Israel; but now they are themselves the subjects of judgment. Judgment was now to begin at the house of the king and of the priest; God was about to execute judgment upon them—the judgment from that judgment-seat where justice never miscarries, and where no mistake is ever made. The cause of this is assigned. Because ye have been a snare on Mizpah, and a net spread upon Tabor. Instead of being safeguards of the people, they had been a snare to them; instead of being true leaders, as God had intended them, they had misled them; instead of contributing to their security, they had seduced them to sin and so helped to prepare them for destruction; they had been a snare to entrap and a net to entangle. East as well as west of the Jordan their evil influence had wrought ruin. Mizpah, now es-Salt, was on the east of the river among the hills of Gilead, where Jacob and Laban entered into covenant; Tabor, like a solitary cone or sugar-loaf, rises up from the plain of Jezreel, or Esdraelon, on the west of the river. On the wooded slopes of Tabor and the beacon-hill of Mizpah game, no doubt, abounded and found covert, and hence the origin of the figure here used; but they had probably become scenes of idolatry or wickedness. Hosea 5:2 And the revolters are profound to make slaughter (or, profuse in murders or in sacrifices, or in dealing corruptly), though I have been a rebuker of them all (rather, but I am [bent upon] chastisement for them all). The literal rendering of the first clause is, slaughtering they have made deep, which is an idiom analogous to "they have deeply revolted;" literally, "they have made revolting deep" (Isaiah 31:6). The slaughtering, though understood by Wunsche of sacrifices, is rather meant of the destruction and carnage which the revolters caused to the people. Rashi explains it literally in this way: "I said, Every one that goes not up to the stated feasts transgresses a positive precept; but they decree that every one who goes up to the stated feasts shall be slain." This seems to imply that liers-in-wait were set probably on Mizpah and Tabor, the places mentioned in the preceding verse, to slay the Israelites that were found going up to the feasts at Jerusalem. Aben Ezra, taking this second verse as continuing the sentiment of the first, interprets as follows: "Ye have been a snare on Mizpah that ye might not allow them to go up to the feasts to the house of the Lord; and to slay (victims) in the usual way." The revolters or apostates he takes to be the worshippers of Baal. "They made deep," he adds in his exposition, "the snares, those that are mentioned, that passers-by might not see them; but I will chastise all of them for this evil which they have done, since it is not hidden from me why they have hid (made) it so deep." The slaughtering is thus understood by Aben Ezra of slaying the sacrificial victims. Similarly Kimchi interprets thus: "He says that the revolters who are the worshippers of idols, who depart from the ways of God—blessed be he!—and kern his service, like a woman who is a revolter from under her husband, have made deep their revolt, slaying and sacrificing to idols." lie would understand the slaughtering neither of victims with Kimchi and Aben Ezra; nor of literally slaying Israelites to prevent persons going up to Jerusalem, the proper seat of Jehovah’s worship; but of the destructive consequences which the conduct of these apostates brought on the people. The work of chastisement God now takes in hand in good earnest. Droppings of the coming shower there had been; but now the full flood is to descend, for God presents himself to misleaders and misled alike under the sole aspect of rebuke. "I," he says, "am chastisement" (give myself to it). A like form of expression occurs in Psalms 109:4, "I am prayer;" that is, am a man of prayer, or give royal. If to prayer. Thus Kimchi explains the idiom: "The prophet says, Say not that no man shall correct and reprove them, therefore they sin; for I am the person who reproves them all, and day by day I reprove them, but they will not hearken to me. But raani moser wants the word ish, man, as (in Psalms 109:4) raani tephilah, which we have explained raani ish tephilah." Hosea 5:3 I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me. All attempts at concealment are vain, though sinners try ever so much to hide their sins from the Divine Majesty. However deep they dig downward, God will bring their evil doings up and out to the light of day and punish them. For now, O Ephraim, thou committest whoredom, and Israel is defiled. Israel is the northern kingdom, and Ephraim, being the most powerful tribe, is often identified with Israel; here, however, they are distinguished—Israel is the kingdom as a whole, and Ephraim is its leading tribe. This powerful tribe, ever envious of Judah, was the ringleader in the calf worship of Jeroboam and other idolatries; and through Ephraim’s evil influence the other tribes, and so all Israel, were defiled. Hosea 5:4 In this verse their evil doings are traced to an evil spirit of whoredoms that is, of idolatries, which impels them blindly and resistlessly to evil, while at the same time it expels the knowledge of God. The first clause is differently rendered. The textual rendering of the Authorized Version, viz. they will not frame (literally, give, direct) their doings to turn unto their God, denotes their total and absolute refusal to repent or to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. The actions are an index of the state of the heart, but neither the thoughts of Israel at this time, nor their deeds which indicated these thoughts, were in the direction of repentance. In heart and life they were impenitent. This rendering is supported by most of the Hebrew commentators. Rashi says, "They forsake not their evil way;" Aben Ezra," They perform not works so as to turn." Kimchi also gives an alternative sense: "Or the sense of the words is thus: They cling so closely to their evil works, that even should they for once conceive in their heart the idea of turning, they immediately repent them of it." The marginal rendering also yields a good sense; it is, Their doings will not suffer (allow) [them] to turn unto their God. The pronominal suffix for "them" is wanting, yet it may be dispensed with, as the appending of it to "doings" and "God" makes the sense sufficiently explicit. It is favored by Ewald, Keil, the Targum, and Kimchi, who explains: "Their evil works do not allow them to return to their God, as if he said, To such extent have they multiplied transgression that there is no way left them to return, until they receive their punishment." Such and so great was the power of their evil habits that they could not break them off or break away from them by repentance; or so intimately connected is a change of heart with a change of life that, in the absence of the latter, the former is impossible. According to either rendering, the reason assigned is contained in the next clause: For the spirit of whoredoms is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord. So overmastered were they, as though by some fiendish spirit that held them in check and exercised despotic power over them, that they rushed headlong down the steep incline, like the Gadarene herd of swine, which, when the unclean spirits entered into them, ran violently down a steep place into the sea. Neither was there any counteracting force to turn them back or reverse their course. Such a force might have been found in the knowledge of God, of his covenant mercy, of his power, love, grace, and goodrich. But this was wanting, and the absence of this knowledge at once increased their impenitence and aggravated their guilt. It was Israel’s privilege and Israel’s duty to know the Lord; for he had revealed himself to them as to no other nation; he had given them his Law, he had made them depositaries of his truth and the conservators of his living oracles; their ignorance, therefore, was altogether inexcusable, while it evinced greatest ingratitude to Jehovah, who had taken them into covenant with himself, and declared himself to be their God. Hosea 5:5 And the pride of Israel doth testify to his face. This may be understood (1) of Jehovah, who was Israel’s glory, as we read in Amos 7:7 of "the excellency of Israel." This explanation suits at once the sense and the context. They knew not God, notwithstanding the special advantages they enjoyed for that knowledge; they had no liking to the knowledge of’ Go,], they did not concern themselves about it; and now Jehovah, who should have been their excellency and glory, but who had been thus slighted by them, will testify against them and bear witness to their face by judgments. But (2) another interpretation recommends itself as equally or more suitable. This interpretation understands "pride" more simply to mean the prosperous state and flourishing condition of which Israel was proud, or rather, perhaps, the haughtiness of Israel, owing to those very circumstances of worldly wealth and greatness. This vain pride and self-exaltation was the great obstacle in the way of their turning to the Lord. If this sense of the word be accepted, the verb had better be rendered" humbled," a meaning which it often has; thus, "humbled shall be the pride of Israel to his face" (that is, in his own sight). Such is the translation of the LXX.: ΤαπεινωθήσεταιἡὕβριςτουἸσραήλεἰςπρόσωποναὐτοῦ, "The pride of Israel shall be brought low before his face;" while the Chaldee translates similarly, "The glory of Israel shall be humbled while they see it;" the Syriac has, "The pride of Israel shall be humbled in his presence," or before his eyes. Aben Ezra also takes the idea of the verb to be humiliation or depression; while Kimchi takes gaon not so much in the sense of the inward feeling, as of those outward circumstances that promoted it—their greatness and grandeur and glory; and, alluding to the words of the Chaldee rendering, "in their sight," he says, "While they are still in their land before their captivity, they shall perceive their humiliation and degradation, instead of the glory which they had at the beginning." Kimchi, however, as well as most other commentators, seems to have understood the verb in the sense of "testify;" thus, "Israel’s pride will testify to his face, when he shall take upon him its punishment." Therefore shall Israel and Ephraim fall in their iniquity; Judah also shall fall with them. Pride usually goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. The consequence of Israel’s pride was the fall here mentioned. The ten tribes composing the northern kingdom fell into gross and grievous sin, and therefore also into long-suffering and sore sorrow. Even Ephraim, that tribe pre-eminent for power as for pride, and the perpetual rival of Judah, shall fall as well as and with the rest. Judah also, that is, Judah proper, and Benjamin, participating in the same evil course, fell like Israel into sin, and, though more than a century later, into ruin. In verses 6-10 the prophet details the unavailing and ineffectual efforts of Israel to avert, or at least escape from, the threatened judgments. Hosea 5:6 They shall go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the Lord. In this way they attempt to break, if not pro-vent, their fall. With numerous and costly sacrifices they endeavor to propitiate Jehovah. With sheep and goats out of their flocks, and with bullocks and heifers out of their herd, they try to make reparation for the past or to secure present and future favor. But in vain. Israel might go to Bethel and Judah to Jerusalem; but to no purpose. They shall not find him; he hath withdrawn himself. Their repentance came too late; or when it did come it wanted sincerity; or it was a wrong motive which prompted it—fear of approaching calamity and not love to their Creator; or their sins ran parallel with their sacrifice. Forgetting that obedience is better than sacrifice, they cherished a disobedient spirit or continued in their course of disobedience notwithstanding their outward sacrificial service. For one cause or other they fail in their efforts to find him; for, instead of being a present help in time of trouble, he has withdrawn beyond their reach; he has removed the Shechinah-glory of his presence from among them; or he has loosed himself from all those ties that once bound him in mercy to them, just as a husband frees himself from all responsibilities and disarms all liabilities on behalf of a faithless partner whom he has been forced to divorce. And such is the specific reason assigned in the next verse. Hosea 5:7 They have dealt treacherously against the Lord: for they have begotten strange children. This may refer to inter. marriages with idolaters, when the offspring of such forbidden unions departed still further from the worship of Jehovah; or the children of godless Jewish parents reflected yet more the wicked works and ways of such parents. In consequence of the infidelity of the wife, the children were not the offspring of lawful wedlock or conjugal union; in other words, they were children of whoredom—an adulterous generation. Lord’s infidelity to the holy covenant had as its result a graceless, godless race—children strange and supposititions in the spiritual sense. Now shall a month devour them with their portions. If (1) "month" be the right rendering, it is a note of time like "the day of the Lord;" and the sense is that a short time shall see the end of them—not only of their persons, but their properties, that is, their hereditary portions in Palestine. But (2) if "new moon" be the correct translation, the new moon, or sacrificial feasts celebrated at that season, will only rut,, not relieve, them. Their sinful sacrifices and vain oblations, on which they now placed their reliance, will procure, not their salvation, but perdition. Hosea 5:8, Hosea 5:9 Blow ye the cornet in Gibeah, and the trumpet in Ramah. Intimation had been given in the preceding verse that the period of their fast-approaching destruction was at hand; that, as Kimchi expresses it, the now moon would soon come at which their enemies would destroy them. Now he pictures them as already on the march, and just advancing to execute the work of destruction; while the terror and alarm consequent thereon are here presented with great vividness, but at the same time with much brevity. A similar scene is depicted at full length by Isaiah 10:28-32, where the line of the Assyrians’ march seems to be indicated, if, indeed, it be not a poetic representation of it, which the prophet gives. Thus from Aiath (el-Tell) to the pass of Michmash, now Mukmas, where he lays up his baggage; forward to Gobs, where they quarter for the night; then on to Nob, where he halts in sight at the holy city, and scarce an hour’s march distant. The alarm was to be sounded with the shophar, or far-sounding cornet, made of curved horn, and the chatsotserah, or straight trumpet, made of brass or silver, used in war or at festivals. This signal of hostile invasion was to he sounded in Gibeah, now Tuleil-el-Ful, some four miles north of Jerusalem, and in Ramah, now er-Ram, two miles further distant. Both these towns, situated on eminences, as the names denote, belong to the northern boundary of Benjamin. The overthrow of the northern kingdom is rims presented as an already accomplished fact; while the invading host has already reached the frontier of the southern kingdom. Cry aloud at Beth-avon, after thee, O Benjamin. This cry is the sound at’ the war-signals already mentioned, and the repetition intensifies the nature of the alarm and the urgency of the case. Beth-avon was either Bethel, now Beitin, on the border of Benjamin, or a town nearer Michmash, belonging to Benjamin. The meaning of the somewhat obscure words in the concluding clause can give little trouble, when read in the light of the context. The sounding of the alarm of war indicates with tolerable plainness what was coming behind Benjamin; nor is there need to supply the words, "the enemy rises behind thee," with same, or" the sword rages behind thee," with others. The signals announce the foe as arrived at the frontier of Judah. The enemy is close behind thee, Benjamin, in close pursuit after thee, upon thy very heels. Ephraim shall be desolate in the day of rebuke. The day of rebuke is the season when God rebukes sin by punishment; the punishment in this case is no slight rebuke or temporary chastisement. On the contrary, it is extreme in severity and final in duration. Famine, or pestilence, or war might lay a country desolate for a time, and yet relief might soon ensue and recuperative power be vigorously developed. Not so here. Ephraim is made more than desolate partially and for a short period; it becomes a desolation—"an entire desolation," as the words literally mean. In this desolation the other tribes would be involved. Nor was the menace lightly to be regarded or treated as meaningless; it was firm—well grounded as the word of the Eternal, and irreversible as his decree. Hosea 5:10 The princes of Judah were like them that remove the bound. The individual who had the temerity to remove his neighbor’s landmark was not only guilty of a great sin, but obnoxious to a grievous curse. Thus Deuteronomy 19:14, "Thou shall not remove thy neighbor’s landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance;" and again Deuteronomy 27:17, "Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’s landmark. And all the people shall say, Amen." The removal of the landmark characterizes the conduct of men entirely regardless of the rights of others—utterly reckless. The Jewish nobles, the king’s ministers and high officers of state, are compared to those who remove the landmark, disregarding alike what was due to their fellow-men and to their God. The Jewish commentators differ in their exposition between tact and figure—some of them taking the removal of the boundary as a matter of fact, the caph being for confirmation; thus D. Kimchi; while I. Kimchi explains it of the rejection of the appeal for justice against removers of landmarks; others understanding it figuratively, and the whole as expressing general lawlessness, thus Rashi: "Like a man who removes his neighbor’s landmark, just so they hasten to hold fast the ways of Israel their neighbors … according to the literal sense, They grasped at the fields; but this, in my opinion, is harsh, for then the prophet must have written merely מסיגי, and not נמסיגי." Similarly Aben Ezra: "They exercise violence towards those who are in their power, whilst they are like those who secretly remove the landmark." The people of Judah had also sinned, and, like Israel in sin, they resemble them in suffering. Therefore I will pour out my wrath upon them like water. The word "wrath" here is from a root which signifies "to overflow;" it is thus the overflowing of Divine indignation; while the outpouring thereof denotes the full flood of wrath that will overwhelm those lawless leaders of a misguided and misgoverned people. The execution of the threatening was reserved for the Assyrians. who, under Tiglath-pileser and Sennacherib, invaded and laid waste the land. And yet those judgments, though so severe and plentiful, were not to end in total and lasting devastation as in the case of Israel. The following verses 11-15 teach the inevitable nature of the judgments that were coming upon both Israel and Judah, and from which no earthly power could deliver them. The only relief possible depended on their seeking God in the day of their distress. Hosea 5:11 Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment. The expression retsuts mishpat is (1) by some explained, "crushed by the judgment," that is, of God, according to which mishpat would be the genitive of the agent as mukkeh Elohim. But "crushed of judgment" or in judgment is justly preferred by others, the genitive taking the place of the accusative. Again, though the combination of ‛ashūq with rutsuts is frequent, occurring as early as Deuteronomy 28:33, the latter is the stronger term. The oppression is (2) not that which their own kings and princes practiced upon their subjects, according to Aben Ezra, "Their kings oppressed and cheated them;" nor the injustice practiced by the people of Ephraim among themselves, as implied by the LXX; "Ephraim altogether prevailed against his adversary, he trod judgment underfoot." The reference (3) is rather to Ephraim being oppressed and crushed in judgment by the heathen nations around; thus Rashi explains, "Oppressed is Ephraim ever by the hand of the heathen—chastised with chastisements;" so also Kimchi, "By the hand of the heathen who oppressed and crushed them through hard judgments." The construction is asyndetous, like So Ezra 2:11, "The rain is over, is gone." Because he willingly walked after the commandment. This clause assigns the reason of Ephraim’s oppression. They evinced ready willing-hood in following (1) the commandments of men instead of the commandments of God. Tsav is thus understood by Aben Ezra, and in like manner Ewald explains it to mean an arbitrary or self-imposed precept. The LXX. (2) seem to have read שָׁו, equivalent to שָׁוְא, vanity, translating, "for he began to go after vanities (τῶνματαίων);" which the Chaldee and Syriac fellow. But (3) it is rather the commandment of Jeroboam about the worship of the calves which lay at the root of the nation’s sin. It is welt explained by Kimchi: "Although the word ’Jeroboam’ is wanting, so that he makes no mention of it after tsav, such is the scriptural usage in certain places, i.e. to omit a word where the sense is plain. For it was a well-known fact that in that generation they walked not after the commandment, but after that of Jeroboam; therefore he has abbreviated the word to indicate the worthlessness, and used tsav instead of mitsvah." Perhaps it may have the concrete sense of the object of idolatrous worship. Hosea 5:12 Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness. This verse is well explained by Calvin as follows: "The meaning of the prophet is by no means obscure, and that is, that the Lord would by a slow corrosion consume both the people; and that, though he would not by one onset destroy them, yet they would pine away until they became wholly rotten." The two agents of destruction here named—the moth which eats away clothes, and the woodworm which gnaws away wood—figuratively represent slow but sure destruction. They are found together in Job 13:28. Kimchi explains the sense in like manner: "Like the moth which eats away garments, and like the woodworm which consumes bones and wood, so shall I consume you." The pronoun at the beginning of the verse is emphatic: "I your God, who would have been your protector and preserver, whom you have sinfully forsaken, and whose commandments you have arbitrarily set aside—even I am to you as the source of rottenness, and of slow but sure ruin." Hosea 5:13 Then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb. Both kingdoms became conscious of their disease and decline; Ephraim felt its sickness or internal consumption, Judah its wound or external corruption (mazor, a festering wound, from zur, to squeeze out); they were both conscious of rottenness in their condition. That diseased condition was rather spiritual apostasy than political adversity, though these were connected as cause and effect. But, instead of applying to Jehovah, Ephraim had recourse to Assyria and its king for health and help, but in vain; for no earthly power could avert the Divine judgments. The punishment threatened in the twelfth verse prompts the efforts to obtain succor mentioned in this. The general sense of the verse is given by Kimchi as follows: "When Ephraim and Judah saw that the enemies were constantly invading and plundering them, they seek help from the King of Assyria; but turn not back to me, nor seek help from me, but from flesh and blood, which, however, cannot help them when it is not my pleasure." (1) Some, as the Jewish interpreters, refer the first clause as a matter of course to Ephraim, but the second to Judah; thus, Jerome in like manner understands Ephraim’s visit of that to Pul, recorded in 2 Kings 15:1-38; and the message of Judah to Tiglath-pileser (2 Kings 16:1-20); but an interval of thirty years lay between the two events thus described as synchronous. Rashi explains the former clause of Hoshea’s visit to Shalmaneser the King of Assyria, and the second of Ahaz’s to Tiglath-pileser; Kimchi, again, refers the former to Menahem visiting Pul, and the second of Ahaz to Tiglath-pileser. But (2) Ephraim is the subject in both clauses, so that there is no need of a supposed reference to Judah in the second. Calvin correctly restricts them both to Ephraim, and accounts for the restriction as follows: "Why, then, does he name only Ephraim? Even because the beginning of this evil commenced in the kingdom of Israel; for they were the first who went to the King of Assur, that they might, by his help, resist their neighbors, the Syrians; the Jews afterwards followed their example. Since, then, the Israelites afforded a precedent to the Jews to send for aids of this kind, the prophet expressly confines his discourse to them." He admits, however, that the accusation had respect to both in common; or Ephraim may have applied on behalf of Judah as well as for herself. There is much diversity of opinion with regard to the word "Jareb." Some take it (1) for a proper name, either of an Assyrian king or of some place or city in the country of Assyria. as the LXX; Aben Ezra, and Kimchi; but the absence of the article is opposed to this, neither is Jeremiah 37:1, "and Zechariah reigned as king" (vayyimloch melech), a proper parallel. Others (2) more correctly explain as a qualifying epithet to "king," that is, "pleader," "striver," or "warrior," in ether words, a warlike or champion king, like the epithet of σωτήρ among the Greeks. The indefiniteness in this case gives the idea of majesty or might, as in Arabic; thus, "a champion king, and such a king!" Yet could he not (yet shall he not be able to) heal you (plural, and so Ephraim and Judah), nor cure you of your wound. Whatever the distress was, whether arising from hostile invasion or domestic troubles, those degenerate kings had recourse to foreigners for aid. With the profitlessness as well as the sinfulness of such attempts they are hero sharply rebuked. Thus Calvin: "Here God declares that whatever the Israelites might seek would be in vain. ’Ye think,’ he says, ’ that you can escape my hand by these remedies; but your folly will at length betray itself, for he will avail you nothing; that is, King Jareb will not heal you.’" Hosea 5:14, Hosea 5:15 These verses assign a reason for the powerlessness even of the mighty Assyrian monarch to help; and that reason is the Divine interposition. The irresistible Jehovah himself (the addition of the pronoun intensifies, yet more its repetition) now interferes for the destruction of the apostate and rebellious people. For I am unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah. As we are taught in these words, Jehovah’s mode of procedure is now changed. Before it had been slow and silent, though sure destruction, as signified by the moth and woodworm; but now it will be public and patent to the eyes of all, as wall as decisive and powerful, as intimated by the comparison of a lion and young lion. Nor is that all: lion-like, lie will rend before removing the prey—a tearing in pieces and then a carrying away. This well-known habit of the lion finds its counterpart in the subsequent facts of Hebrew history. The northern kingdom was first rent or broken up by Shalmaneser; subsequently the population were carried away into captivity; in like manner the southern kingdom suffered at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar. I will go and return to my place. The figurative comparison with a lion is continued in the first clause of Hos 5:15 also. The lion tears his victim and carries it away, then he retires into his cave or den; so Jehovah, after bringing calamity upon Israel, withdraws from the scene and retires to his own place in heaven, though the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. There, in that unapproachable ether, he is inaccessible to and beyond the reach of the guilty nation that knew not nor valued the former times of merciful visitation. One remedy, and only one, is left and that is found in penitence and prayer. Once they find out their guiltiness and humble themselves in repentance, they may hopefully seek his face and favor. Turning away from human help, and supplicating the gracious help of the Divine presence, they are encouraged by the prospect of relict’ and revival; while the means to that end are, no doubt, painful, yet profitable. In the school of affliction they learnt penitence and were brought to their knees in prayer. Hosea 5:1-5 God here arraigns the sins of princes, priests, and people. Their degeneracy had been very great and their sins very grievous. Though there is no formal catalogue given of those sins, yet they are incidentally exhibited in the reproofs and rebukes which follow. I. ALL CLASSES ARE BY THE DIVINE WORD. It is directed to the high and to the low alike; to the rich and to the poor; it speaks to every grade in society and every rank in life; there is none so high as to be above its teaching, and none so lowly as to be beneath its notice. To sovereigns as to the meanest subjects of their realm; to magistrates and men in authority, as well as to those under their jurisdiction, the warnings and admonitions of Scripture reach. To all, of every class and condition, of every caste and clime, the Divine Word is offered as a light to their test and a lamp to their path. II. ALL CLASSES ARE TO THE DIVINE . The judgments of God are denounced against all workers of iniquity—from the poorest and meanest of the people to the priests who should be their instructors and examples, and to the princes and principal men, who should not only rule and guide, but protect and preserve them to the utmost of their power. And yet there is a distinction; for those who, through their exalted position or extensive influence, seduce others to sin, expose themselves to sorer condemnation. But, while those who entrap others into sin are doubly guilty, the persons entrapped are not on that account guiltless. Subjects sometimes suffer through the mistakes of their sovereigns; but when subjects and sovereigns are both involved in guilt, they must expect to have their respective share in punishment. When God has a controversy with a people, and his judgments are approaching, it is a time for serious consideration and solemn reflection. Hence we have a triple call to attention in this first verse: "Hear ye this, hearken ye, give ye ear." It was an earnest time and an emphatic call; for God "will at last force audience and attention from the most stubborn." III. ALL CLASSES HAD THE WAY. The revolters seem to have belonged to all ranks and to have comprehended all classes. If the "slaughter" which they made refers to the slaying of sacrifices, it is spoken of with contempt, because those sacrifices, whether from defects in their own nature, or imperfection in the manner in which they were offered, or the wrongness of the motive with which they were presented, were unacceptable to God. Accordingly he speaks of them disparagingly; for "though the prophet spake of sacrifices, he no doubt called sacrificing in contempt killing; as though we should call the temple the shambles, and the killing of victims slaughtering." If, on the other hand, the slaughter referred to be understood literally of actual murder, the criminality is still greater, and they bear the brand of red-handed assassins. In either case, the idiom employed is a very energetic mode of expression "The slaughter they have made deep," or, "they have gone deep in slaughtering," conveys the idea of the great length to which they had gone, either in sacrifices to idols and contrary to legal appointment, or in murderously shedding blood, or even in the more modified sense of causing destruction. They had gone to an extreme in the direction indicated, whichever sense is assigned to slaughtering. It is not so much that they hid their doings deep, as that they went deeply into their works, or sunk deeply in their sin. Further, the aggravation of their sin consisted in its being without excuse. They could not plead ignorance, for they had had line upon line, and precept upon precept. They could not say that they had been left to themselves without let or hindrance, for had they not enjoyed the instructions and admonitions of those prophets of God whose sphere of labor lay in the northern kingdom? Warnings they had had from Ahijah, Elijah, Elisha, and others; corrections moderate in measure and salutary in design they had, no doubt, been favored with. Yet all had been to no purpose; they sunk deeper and deeper in the slough of sin, so that their sin had become exceeding sinful. IV. ALL OF SINNERS ARE TO THE EYE OF . Many are the pretences men make to cover their sins, and artful the pretexts by which they seek to hide them. But however men may strive to conceal their sins from their fellow-men, however they may gloss them over so as to deceive their own souls, and however they may cloak them, as though it were possible to cheat the Almighty; yet all such artifices, by which they try to deceive their neighbors, or blind themselves, or even escape the eye of Omniscience, will prove miserable evasions, leaving them at last—even the inmost thoughts and intents of their hearts—open and naked before the eyes of him with whom they have to do. "The Lord seeth not as man seeth: for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." The sin of Ephraim, the premier tribe of Israel, was known to God, and he pronounced it whoredom, spiritual whoredom, that is, idolatry. The effect of that sin, which, originating with Ephraim, infected all the other tribes of Israel, was not hid, and could not be hid, from the omniscient One, and he denounced it as defilement—pollution loathsome as sinful. Many a specious excuse had been offered, we cannot doubt, for the worship of the calves. Did it not originate with Jeroboam, that patriot king who came to the rescue of the people, and delivered them from unjust and grinding taxation? Was not Jerusalem too far distant from the center of the country to be the gathering-place of the tribes? Was not Bethel a consecrated place—a holy spot from that early time when Jacob had his wondrous vision of the ladder connecting earth with heaven? Was not Dan conveniently situated for the northern and remoter tribes? These, and such arguments as these, might serve to palliate the will-worship of Ephraim and the idolatry of Israel. But no; the eye of God saw through it all; for now, whatever excuse might be alleged; now, whatever plausibilities might be employed; now, whatever veil might be thrown over their procedure;—it stood out in its true colors, and in the sight of Heaven, idolatry, defilement—sin in inception and sin in execution, sin in act and sin in effect. Thus Omniscience is proof against all the plausible pretexts with which men surround their sins by way of excuse, apology, or palliation. V. SINS, LIKE SORROWS, LOVE A TRAIN. How often one sin leads to another, and that, again, to many more! Sins not infrequently are linked together. Israel by this time was bound by the chain of their own sins; and the links of that chain were many. Beginning our enumeration with idolatry, we find in its wake impenitence, ignorance, insolence, and iniquity in general. 1. It is bad enough when men fall into sin, but worse when they persist in it; nor is there any real repentance unless there are fruits meet for repentance. But when men will not have recourse to any of those outward means that might tend toward repentance, the obduracy of their heart is extreme and their condition desperate. Thus was it with Israel when they would not" frame their doings to turn unto their God." 2. The alternative rendering of these words shows us the slavery of sin. Never was there a more cruel bondage than that of iniquity. "Their doings will not suffer them to turn;" they have put the yoke on their neck, and having worn it long they are loath to part with it; and if they would they could not. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." So in Peter we read of persons "having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin." 3. When men continue long in a course of sin, hardening themselves against remonstrance and reproof, and holding out against all inducements and invitations to repent, God may, and sometimes does, give them up to judicial blindness of one kind or other. An evil spirit of idolatry or impunity, or both, had taken possession of the people’s heart at this period. "A strong man armed keepeth his palace—his goods are in peace;" so the infatuation of a particular course of sin, like a Satanic spirit and with Satanic power, completely overmastered and dominated them. 4. Profession without practice is both hypocritical and vain. The Israelites at this time had a profession of religion, for God is called "their God," which could only be by their profession, or owing to the original covenant engagement, the conditions of which they had fallen away from, or by reason of his long-suffering mercy waiting for their return. It is, rather, the first of these that justified the use of the possessive in this case. And that being so, they claimed to possess knowledge of God; but "as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind," or, as the margin has it, "to a mind void of judgment." Continuance in sin proves men’s ignorance of the true character of God, of the beauty of holiness, of the hatefulness of sin, and of the dreadful consequences of backsliding. The custom of sinning deprives men of whatever knowledge of such things they had or seemed to have, so that "he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath." 5. This ignorance was evidence of their ingratitude. "The prophet," says Calvin, "extenuates not the sin of the people, but, on the contrary, amplifies their ingratitude, because they had forgotten their God who had so indulgently treated them. As they had been redeemed by God’s hand, as the teaching of the Law had continued among them, as they had been preserved to that day through God’s constant kindness, it was truly an evidence of monstrous ignorance that they could in an instant adopt ungodly forms of worship, and embrace those corruptions which they knew were condemned in the Law." VI. PROOFS AND CAUSES OF ISRAEL’S PRIDE. Ephraim’s pride and envy of Judah produced the disruption and perpetuated it. Two privileges of the birthright forfeited by Jacob’s firstborn had been shared by these tribes. Joseph got the double portion in connection with Ephraim and Manasseh; and Judah gained the pre-eminence. Though Judah was superior both numerically and by largeness of territory in the land of promise, Ephraim enjoyed countervailing advantages. All along from the blessing of Jacob Ephraim was inspired with the hope of great things for himself and tribe. The Ephraimites had the choicest of the land, and a central position contributing to their influence over the other tribes. Joshua, the chosen chief who had led the people into the land of promise and settled them in it, sprang from Ephraim; Samuel, the last of the judges, was a native of Mount Ephraim; for three centuries and a hair’ the national sanctuary remained at Shiloh, within the confines of the tribe of Ephraim; the men of that tribe had highly distinguished themselves in the war with Midian, securing the fords of Jordan and beheading the two Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb, who had escaped at the head of fifteen thousand men. Igor were they slow to assert their claims; such was their pride, that they could not brook a subordinate position, but insisted on pre-eminence. Their self-assertion and even unreasonable petulance were severely chastised by Jephthah. For a time the superiority inclined or actually belonged to Ephraim; but the preponderance given to Judah by the elevation of David, and Solomon his son, completely turned the scale. Moreover, the transference to Jerusalem, both of the seat of ecclesiastical authority from Shiloh and of the civil capital from Shechem, deeply wounded the pride of Ephraim, and greatly increased the rivalry with Judah. To the slight thus put upon Ephraim there is a distinct reference in several verses of the seventy-eighth psalm; thus, "God was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel: so that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men;" and again, "He refused the tabernacle of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved." For seven years they held out against David; they were the strength of the Absalomic rebellion; they abetted the usurpation of Jeroboam, and accepted the idolatrous worship which, for political purposes, he commended to them; and all from their pride and overweening estimate of themselves, and envy towards their brethren of Judah. VII. THE OF PRIDE, OR ITS . 1. This overbearing spirit of Israel as a nation, and of Ephraim its kingly tribe, was sorely crushed, and the pride of both sadly humbled, when, as had been foretold, they first went into captivity. 2. The other rendering of testify is well explained by the following observations of Pusey: "They could not give up this sin of Jeroboam without endangering their separate existence as Israel, and owning the superiority of Judah. From this complete self-surrender to God their pride shrank and held them back. The pride which Israel thus showed in refusing to turn to God, and in preferring their sin to their God, itself, he says, witnessed against them, and condemned them." 3. It must have been an addition to Israel’s calamity that they had been a snare to Judah, and helped to drag them down into the same slough of sin, and eventually into the same catastrophe with themselves. 4. But how are we to account for the seeming contradiction between the safety previously promised Judah and the calamity now denounced? Calvin’s reply to a similar inquiry is pertinent and plain. "The prophet," he says, "speaks here not of those Jews who continued in true and pure religion, but of those who had with the Israelites alienated themselves from the only true God and joined in their superstitions. He thus refers here to the degenerate, and not to the faithful Jews; for to all who worshipped God aright salvation had been already promised." Hosea 5:6-10 No place found for repentance. They would seek the Lord with sacrifices from the flock and from the herd, but they would not find him; they multiplied sacrifices, but the Lord had withdrawn himself. Thus in the New Testament we read that Esau "found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears;" or, according to the Revised Version, "even when he afterward desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected (for he found no place of repentance), though he sought it diligently with tears." In one of our Lord’s parables—the parable of the ten virgins—we read that after those who were ready had gone in with him to the marriage, "the door was shut." This brief sentence is in one aspect of it among the most impressive and solemn in the whole Word of God. The sentiment conveyed by it is somewhat, indeed much, akin to that of the statement of the prophet in reference to Israel. I. IT IS TO REALIZE THE NATURE OF SUCH . The loss of earthly friends or their estrangement from us is much to be deplored; how much sadder it is when we forfeit the favor of Heaven, and God withdraws himself! On earth friends may, from misconduct on our part, or misconception on their part, or misrepresentation on the part of some intermeddler, or misapprehension of one kind or other, shut the door against us, or we may shut the door against ourselves. But however such an event is to be regretted, still a proper understanding may reopen the once friendly door, or time may unbar it, or the kindly interposition of mutual friends may again open it; or, failing all this, another door may be opened in its stead, and other friends replace those whose friendship has been lost, or even better friends may be raised up in their room. But when the Lord shuts to the door and withdraws himself, no interposition shall unbar it, no time reopen it, no explanation ever fling or force it back; nothing shall ever be able to remove the bar that closes it. Once shut, it is shut forever; once closed, it never opens; once locked, no key can enter its wards; once bolted, that bolt remains an everlasting fixture. II. IT IS WELL TO REFLECT ON THE TIME WHEN GOD HIMSELF AND IS NO LONGER TO BE FOUND. There may be some difficulty in ascertaining the precise times when God withdraws himself and is no longer found. 1. One thing, however, is abundantly certain, that in the case of sinners who live and die in sin, impenitent and unpardoned, this withdrawal takes place at death; for there is neither knowledge nor device in the grave. Then the day of grace is concluded, then the time of probation ends, then the means of salvation terminate, then the space for repentance is past, and God has forever withdrawn himself. Death seals the sinner’s doom irreversibly; the last opportunity is gone, and for ever; prayer is then powerless and penitence hopeless. There remains only the dooming, damning sentence, "I know you not whence ye are." Hollow-hearted hypocrites ye must have been, workers of iniquity, and nothing more and nothing better, false professors, fruitless fig trees, cumbering and cursing the rich vineyard soil. Children of God ye never were; I never owned you as such; I cannot do so now. And thus he withdraws, leaving them to their fate. 2. But even before death this withdrawal may take place, at least in a certain sense. We are warned in Scripture that the Spirit will not always strive. To the Israelites of old he swore that they would never cuter into his rest, and so a whole generation of them was excluded from the land of promise; in reference to which the inspired penman utters the solemn warning, "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall alter the same example of unbelief". In this very book God’s abandonment of Ephraim and consequent withdrawal are affirmed. "Ephraim is joined to his idols: let him alone." Let us, then, beware of provoking God to withhold or withdraw the gracious influences of his Spirit, and thus leave us to judicial blindness. Let us beware of sinning away our day of grace, and in this respect outliving it. 3. We would not venture to limit the mercy of God, or set bounds to his sovereign grace. "While the lamp holds out to burn The vilest sinner may return." But God at any moment may withdraw the breath of his Spirit, or withhold the oil of his grace, and the lamp go out in everlasting darkness! Pusey makes a very interesting distinction, as follows: "The general rule of his dealings is this: that when the time of each judgment is actually come, then as to that judgment it is too late to pray. It is not too late for other mercy, or for final forgiveness, so long as man’s state of probation lasts; but it is too late as to this one." III. IT IS OF MOMENT TO ASSIGN SOME REASONS WHY GOD HIMSELF. This frequently takes place, we doubt not, in consequence of men silencing conscience and stifling convictions. Conscience may become callous or seared, and convictions may wear gradually weak, nay: at length cease altogether. The same result may be brought about by allowing any sin to have the mastery, and in consequence of not seeking grace to resist it, or not summoning up resolution to break its yoke. 1. The people particularly referred to by the prophet had not sought the Lord in time. It was only when ruin stared them in the face that they bethought themselves of seeking God; it was fear drove them to his service. 2. They were only half-hearted in his service, and it was a divided allegiance they rendered; but God claims the whole heart of his worshippers, otherwise he will not be found of them. 3. Their repentance was not genuine; it appears to have been outward sacrifice, not inward service. They brought their herds, not their hearts; their flocks, not the feelings of their souls. 4. Their faithlessness had a prospective as well as present evil influence. Their children, instead of being trained in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, inured to idolatry and irreligion both by the precept and example of their parents, would, as a matter of course, prove as faithless and godless, or more so than they. 5. No wonder God set a time to ease him of his adversaries and avenge him of his enemies. That time, a month, was certain, short, and sudden. IV. GOD SPEAKS BEFORE HE STRIKES. God suffereth long with the provocations of sinners. He warns them of the evil of their ways; he apprises them of the ruinous consequences of their sinful courses. 1. He threatens before he inflicts the blow; he gives notice of his judgments before they arrive. Dark clouds precede the coming storm. Milder judgments are sent as precursors of more severe visitations. It is of God’s mercy that men are not only informed of their duty, but apprised of their danger. Ministers of the gospel are to sound the alarm, that men may flee from the wrath to come. 2. When God’s judgments are near at hand, their approach has a startling effect. Those who made light of them, or thought them far off, are confounded and amazed; while this confusion may be reflected in the very abruptness of the expression, "After thee, O Benjamin;" at thy back comes the enemy—disaster, destruction, desolation. 3. The judgments of God, thus announced as near, at the very door, are represented as sure. They are no mere menaces or make-believes; they are not meant merely to alarm; they are dread realities, which impenitent sinners can by no means escape or evade. "Among the tribes of Israel have I made known that which shall surely be." To all notice had been given, so that no one could urge the plea of ignorance on his own part, nor charge precipitancy on the part of God. In his mercy he had made it known to all without exception, in his truth he will make it sure. They had been warned, called to repentance, chastened paternally; but they had despised all this. And the day of mercy is now past; the time of judgment is come; the final doom, fixed and irreversible, is denounced. When princes, making their will law, trample on the privileges of their people, or infringe the Law of God, or in any way set aside sacred and solemn obligations, they incur a fearful responsibility. When, not only by their edicts but by their example, they set aside the enactments of Heaven, and encourage their subjects to do likewise, they open upon themselves the flood-gates of Divine wrath which God pours out upon them, like the waters of the deluge on the guilty antediluvians. Pusey supposes that the reference to the princes of Judah being "like them that remove the bound," contains some such allusion as the following: "Since the prophet had just pronounced the desolation of Israel, perhaps that sin was that, instead of taking warning from the threatened destruction and turning to God, they thought only how the removal of Ephraim would benefit them by the enlargement of their borders. They might hope also to increase their private estates out of the desolate lands of Ephraim their brother." Hosea 5:11-15 God’s judgments differ both in degree and kind. Ephraim had obeyed man rather than God, and God gives them over to man for punishment. The men who oppressed Ephraim acted unjustly, but God, in permitting that unjust oppression, was exercising his prerogative of justice. Neither could Ephraim palliate their sin by alleging compulsion on the part of their rulers, nor throw, the blame entirely on the ungodly commandment of an ungodly rang, or those who might enforce it by pains and penalties. They obeyed it, not by constraint, but willingly; not through compulsion, but of a ready mind. I. THE DESIGN AND NATURE OF MINOR AND MILDER . The moth and woodworm may symbolize lesser judgments. Such visitations frequently have for their object the repentance and reformation of the people or persons so visited. God’s design in sending them is gracious; his purpose is merciful. The process, notwithstanding, is painful and the affliction grievous. It goes on silently, so that little alarm is made; noiselessly, so that little apprehension is felt; hence it is that grace is needed for men to know the time of such visitation. It proceeds slowly, so that time is allowed men to mend their ways, and space given them for repentance. The judgments here spoken of proceed gradually, and are designed to prevent greater. Thus mercy is mingled with judgment; for judgment is God’s strange work, while mercy is his darling attribute. II. THE OF MERE HUMAN HELPERS. They felt their sickness, they suffered from their painful wound, and became conscious of rottenness in their state. They did not discern with equal clear-sightedness the cause of that sickness, nor perceive the source whence that rottenness proceeded. They were equally blind to the right way of relief. Had they seen their sin in their suffering, God’s hand in their stroke, and his justice in its infliction, they would have been nearer the right way to the remedy. They sought help from the creature, not from the Creator; from the monarch of Assyria, not from the King of kings, and yet he only distressed them and helped them not. So with men too often in time of their distress. They put confidence in human means, but find at last that they are leaning on broken reeds; they hew out for themselves cisterns, but find too late that they are broken cisterns, that can hold no water. Not only so, by such sinful expedients they are in no way bettered, but rather get worse, and increase thereby at once their sin and their sorrow. III. WHY THE SORER AND SEVERER ARE TO. The lion and the young lion are emblematical of the severer judgments. God threatens to deal with the people of Israel and Judah more rigorously than heretofore. "I will not be any longer like a moth and a worm; I shall come like a lion to you, with an open mouth to devour you.... I will rage against you as a fierce wild beast: your grievance shall not now be from moths and worms; but you shall have an open and dreadful contest with the lion and the young lion.... Men, when they attempt to oppose vain helps to the wrath of God, gain only this, that they more and more provoke and inflame his wrath against themselves. After God has first gnawed, he will at length devour; after he has pricked, he will deeply wound; after he has struck, he will wholly destroy." But why are these severer visitations had recourse to? The answer is very well given by Cyril as follows: "As in human bodies such affections as are violent and do not yield to gentle remedies are frequently overcome by fire and sword, in like way and manner affections occurring in human souls, if they do not give way to mild words, and are overcome by prudent reasoning, are expelled by labor and chastisement and severe calamities." IV. A RESPITE IN . The infliction of punishment is represented as executed in lion-like fashion: he is not forced to retreat, nor is there any possibility of rescue, nor does he retire stealthily and with fox-like secrecy and cunning, but openly, powerfully, and victoriously. When God visits with judgments, he comes forth out of his place and men are forced to feel his presence; when his corrections are completed, he returns to his place, and there, though he seems to take no notice of, and to be far removed from, his people, he has taken his place on the mercy-seat and is waiting to be gracious. God here speaks after the manner of men; "for he neither so hides himself in heaven that he neglects human affairs, nor withdraws his hand but that he sustains the world by the continued exercise of his power, nor even takes his Spirit from men, especially when he would lead them to repentance; for men never of their own accord turn themselves to God, but by his hidden influence." Thus, when God had punished both Israel and Judah by exile, he seemed to hide his face from them, as though unmindful of them, and having neither care nor regard for them. This hiding of his face allowed time for repentance. His purpose was to induce them to repent and return to him. This was the true and only remedy. V. MEN RETURN TO GOD BY AND FAITH. The first step men take as they return to God is confession of sin—"they acknowledge their offence;" the first part in the process of healing is the correct diagnosis of the disease and discovery of its cause. The second thing required for reconciliation with God is to "seek his face." Thus repentance and faith go hand in hand; not that either of them is the meritorious cause of pardon. The one is a condition—a suitable condition or proper qualification for pardon; the other is the cordial acceptance of pardon, or rather of that righteousness which is the true ground of pardon. The mercy of God is transparent throughout the entire process, while a practical realization of persons acknowledging their offence and seeking the tare of God is found in the case of Daniel, as may be seen by a perusal of the ninth chapter of the book of that prophet. VI. SERVES AS A . During the long and dreary period of the seventy years’ captivity in Babylon the captives had a convenient season to repent of their sins and return to the Lord; nor did they ever after backslide into idolatry. During the present prolonged dispersion of that wonderful people, many of them will repent of their national rejection of Messiah and return to God, looking unto him whom their forefathers pierced with tearful eyes; and at the close of the period in question, though" blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in, all Israel shall be saved." . "When," says a godly Puritan expositor, "we are under the convictions of sin and the corrections of the rod, our business is to seek God’s face.... And it may reasonably be expected that affliction will bring those to God that had long gone astray from him, and kept at a distance. Therefore God for a time turns away from us, that he may turn us to himself and then return to us." BY C. JERDAN Hosea 5:1-10 National sin and punishment. The general strain of this chapter is similar to that of the preceding. "The judgment" (Hosea 5:1) which has already been pronounced there is still continued. In Hosea 4:1-19; however, Judah was addressed as occupying a different position, morally and religiously, from Israel; whereas here the southern kingdom is represented as sharing in Israel’s guilt and condemnation. It would appear, therefore, that when the warning of Hos 4:15 was uttered, Judah’s defection was already beginning. I. THE NATURE OF SIN. It is a "dealing treacherously against Jehovah" (Hosea 4:7), the rightful Spouse of the soul, who expects from his people that faithfulness which a wife owes to her husband. It is also "whoredom" (Hosea 4:3); for infidelity to the marriage covenant leads to the cherishing of many objects of sinful desire. It is also "pride" (Hosea 4:5)—that deeply rooted self-will which is the secret spring of idolatry. Sin in all these forms dishonors God and grossly defiles the soul. II. THE ROOT OF SIN. Sin is not merely an outward work. It is not confined to acts of the will. The root of it is "the spirit of whoredoms" (Hosea 4:4). This spirit has its seat at the very center of man’s being. The Apostle Paul calls it "the law of sin" (Romans 7:23, Romans 7:25). It is the controlling principle of the unregenerate life, and it often leads the believer captive even in spite of his renewed nature. "The spirit of whoredoms" dominates the soul like a demon, and the sinner serves it as its slave. Satan lays hold upon this spirit as his helper in his constant assaults upon the minds of men. And only the Holy Spirit can impart adequate strength to prevail against it. III. THE OF SIN. The condition of Israel at the time to which the prophet here refers graphically illustrates this. Hosea saw that the national life was leavened with iniquity. The pyramid of the commonwealth, from apex to base, was honeycombed with idolatry and impurity. The national sin was shared by: 1. The priests. Instead of being the spiritual guardians of the people, they were as snares and nets to entrap them. Ministers of religion become such: (1) By neglecting teaching, as the priests of the ten tribes had done (Hosea 4:1). (2) By preaching unsound doctrine. So, in ’The Pilgrim’s Progress,’ the Flatterer, "a black man clothed in white," led Christian and Hopeful into his net. (3) By living inconsistent lives. So the wickedness of Eli’s sons made many unbelievers. 2. The courts. The princes, too, were men-trappers—"sportsmen rather than watchmen" (Jerome). Jeroboam L had been such. He "drove Israel from following the Lord, and made them sin a great sin" (2 Kings 17:21). Ahab had been such, in introducing the worship of Baal and Asbtaroth (1 Kings 16:30-33). Menahem was such, for his reign was steeped in cruelty, and he laid his help upon King Pul of Assyria rather than upon the God of Israel (2 Kings 15:19). Even the princes of Judah were becoming such; they were removing the landmarks between the worship of Jehovah and idolatry (verse 10). Our rulers in like manner entrap the British nation into sin, when they promote immoral legislation upon pleas of expediency or state policy (e.g. the attempted state regulation of vice in the army, and the patronage of the opium trade between India and China). 3. The entire Hebrew nation. The people of both kingdoms foolishly fell into the snares and nets which were spread for them. They were full of "pride" (verse 5) and vain confidence. They despised prophetic instruction, and became contumacious and refractory in their sin. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Hosea 6:1-3 These three verses have, by the division into chapters, been violently and improperly torn from the preceding chapter, to which they naturally belong. Their connection with the foregoing sentiments is indicated by the ancient versions—Chaldee and Septuagint, the LXX; for example, inserting λέγοντες, as if the reading had been לֵאסֹר: This (1) represents the Israelites exhorting one another in that good time which the prophet encourages them to expect. But (2) it may be regarded as the prophet’s own exhortation to the exiles; their affliction urging them to seek the Lord, and their encouragement consisting in the knowledge of his ability and willingness to heal the wounds which his own hand had inflicted. Hosea 6:1 He hath torn, and he will heal us. The presence of the pronoun imparts emphasis to the statement, so that it is rather, he it is that hath torn; and the preterit of this verse, compared with the future in verse 14 of the foregoing chapter, implies that the destruction there predicted has become an accomplished fact. He hath smitten, and he will bind us up. The language is figurative, and borrowed from medical science. Jehovah, not Jareb nor any sovereign of Assyria, is the physician. Long before he had assured his people Israel of this, saying, "I am the Lord that healeth thee" (Exodus 15:26); and again, "I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal" (Deuteronomy 32:39). Aben Ezra, commenting on yachbeshena, alludes to the ancient mode of surgical practice, probably as indicated m Isaiah 1:6: A wound needs to be pressed out and bound up, and afterwards softened with oil." Hosea 6:2 After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. The expression of time here employed denotes a comparatively short period, and implies that Israel’s revival would be speedily as well as certainly accomplished. Paucity is signified by the binary number in Old Testament language, just as we speak of two, or a couple, in the sense of fewness. In 1 Kings 17:12 we find "two" used in this way: "Behold, I am gathering two sticks;" so in Isaiah 7:21, "A man shall nourish a young cow and two sheep;" in Isaiah 17:6 a small number is spoken of as "two or three;" while a short period is similarly described in Luke 13:32, "Behold, I east out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected." The important idea of this verse connects itself with the terms corresponding to revival, resurrection, and restoration to the Divine favor and protection. The drooping, declining, dying state of Israel would be revived; their deathlike condition would undergo a resurrection process; their disfavor would give way to Divine complacency; and all this, though not immediately, yet in a comparatively short time. This appears to us the import of the prophecy. Similar figurative language, and with like significancy, is employed by Ezekiel (37) in his vision of the valley and the resurrection of its dry bones; as also by Isaiah (26), where the same or a similar thought is presented in briefer, but still more beautiful, language: "Thy in the second clause. The second clause is a more emphatic and energetic reaffirmation of the first, urging to active anti zealous effort and steady perseverance in obtaining the knowledge of God—a knowledge theoretic, but especially practical. Aben Ezra understands the exhortation of intellectual knowledge: "To know Jehovah is the secret of all wisdom, and for this alone was man created. But he cannot know God till he has learnt many doctrines of wisdom, which are, as it were, a ladder ha order to mount up to this highest step of knowledge." Kimchi, on the other hand, though quoting Aben Ezra’s comment with approval, inclines to the practical side of knowledge: "Let us follow on to know Jehovah, exercising justice and righteousness." His going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth. Here, again, the translation of the Authorized Version is susceptible of improvement: his going forth is fixed as the morning dawn; and he shall come to us as the plentiful rain, as the latter rain which watereth (or, watering) the earth. Here we have two beautiful figures—the morning dawn and the fertilizing rain. The going forth of Jehovah is represented as the sun rising upon the earth, or rather as the dawn which heralds the day. The advent of salvation to his people is identified with, or symbolized by, his appearance. But the dawn of day only brings the commencement of salvation; its complement is found in the fruits and blessings of salvation. The root of motsav is zatsa, which is applied to the sunrise in Genesis 19:23, as also in Psalms 19:7. Parallel passages are found in Isaiah 58:8, "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning (dawn), and thy health shall spring forth speedily;" and Isaiah 9:2, "The Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee." Further, the word nakon, meaning "prepared," "fixed firm," is applied to the clear bright light of morning, as in Proverbs 4:18, "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect (nekon) day." The plentiful rain is that which falls after the sowing of the seed in October (the beginning of the Hebrew year) and in the following months; while the malqosh is the late or spring rain, which, tailing in March and till the middle of April, precedes and promotes the harvest. The LXX. translates the (1) concluding clause by ὑετὸςπρώιμος and ὄψιμος erroneously, for zoreh is not a noun with b, being understood before "earth;" neither is it (2) the future Hiph; which would necessitate the ellipse being supplied by asher; it is the Qal participle in the sense of" watering." Geshem is "a violent or plentiful rain," stronger than the usual word for" rain," matar; while malqosh is "the late rain" which ceases a short time before harvest. The explanation of the "dawn" by Aben Ezra is erroneous: "The intelligent man at the beginning knows God—blessed be he!—by his works, like the dawn of day in its going forth; but moment after moment the light increases, until the full truth becomes visible." Kimchi more correctly explains the figure as follows: "If we shall do this, viz. follow on to know the Lord, then he will be to us as the morning dawn, of which the going forth is fixed [purposed by God and certain] as though he said, He will cause his light and his goodness to shine over us." His comment on the second similitude is equally appropriate: "He will come to us as the plentiful rain, as the plentiful rain which revives the dead plants; so man sunk in sorrow is like one dead; but when deliverance comes to him it is with him as if he revived out of his dead state." Thus he shall be to his people as "morning to the weary watcher," and as "plentiful rain to the parched ground." Hosea 6:4 For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away. A new section here commences. God, having tried various expedients and many ways to restore Israel to faithfulness, finds all those methods unavailing; and now he asks what further means of reclamation he can resort to; what further punishment he is to inflict. Thus in Isaiah 1:5, "Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more!" or what additional privileges can be vouchsafed? Thus in Isaiah 5:4, "What could have been done more to my vineyard, than I have not done in it?" The reason is then assigned for such questioning; it was the brief duration of Israel’s piety. It was evanescent as the early cloud which floats across a summer’s sky and which the sun soon scatters for ever, or which promises a refreshing shower, but which is exhaled by the sun’s heat; it was transient as the dew which lies in pearly drops of beauty upon the grass, but which the foot of the passing traveler brushes away in a moment. The prophet had, in the opening verses, referred to real repentance; but now, turning to Israel, he reminds them of their repentance by way of con-trust, showing them that it was neither of the consistency nor permanent character required. Proofs of their deficiency lay on the pages of their national history. Hezekiah had done "that which was right in the sight of the Lord;" but his son and successor, Manasseh, "wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, to provoke him to auger." Josiah, again, was eminent for piety, so that "like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might;" but his successors degenerated, for it is added, "neither after him arose there any like him." The connection and meaning are well given by Kimchi: "How shall I heal you, and how shall I bind you up, as your repentance is by no means perfect? For if the kings of Israel did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, so have they soon turned to do evil, like Jehu. And likewise the kings of Judah, who in the days of Josiah did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, turned again to do evil in the days of his son and son’s son." Thus he reproves them for the superficial and fleeting character of their goodness. The participles mashkim and holek are either co-ordinated asyndetously, thus: "coming in the morning, going away;" or the latter is subordinated to the former: "in the morning passing away." Kimchi takes the former word as a noun after the form of makbir, equivalent to "abundance" (Job 36:31); the right rendering is, "as the dew early going away." A somewhat different rendering is proposed by Wunsche, viz. "Your goodness goeth away like a morning cloud, and like the dew in the morning;" "goodness" being the subject, "goeth away" the predicate, "like morning cloud and dew" nearer definitions. Hosea 6:5, Hosea 6:6 The consequence of Israel’s unsteadiness and inconstancy is here stated. Because of the fluctuating and formal nature of their religiousness, God cut them down (instead of rearing them up) through his prophets by fierce denunciations, and slew them (instead of reviving them) by the Divine word. The judgment of Jehovah went forth as the lightning-fish, or was as clear and conspicuous for justice as the light of day. Neither could outward services expiate their sins, when the proper feelings and meet fruits were absent. I have hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth. The language is figurative—the first clause seems borrowed from hewing hard wood and shaping it so as to assume the required form; so God dealt with Israel to bring them into shape morally symmetrical, and make them correspond to the character of a holy people. The slaying is metaphorical, and consisted in the denunciation of death and destruction to the impenitent; in this way he killed, but did not make alive. A different rendering of the clause is given by the LXX. and also by Aben Ezra; the former has, "Therefore have I mown down your prophets; I have slain them with the word of my mouth;" the latter has, "The sense is that he slew some of the prophets who misled the people so that they did not turn (repent)." But be does not imply his hewing in among the prophets; it is instrumental. And thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth. The judgments here spoken of are the Divine judgments denounced against, or inflicted on, the people. Another reading has the pronominal suffix of the first person: "My judgment goeth forth as the light;" to which the Septuagint corresponds: κρίμαμου, equivalent to "my judgment." I desired mercy (or, mercy I delight in) … and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. The former is the right state of the life, the latter the correct condition of the heart; the former manifests itself in practice, the latter embraces the proper feelings and affections; the former is seen in works of charity and benevolence, the latter consists in right motives and the right relation of the soul to God. The Hebrew form of speech here used denotes inferior importance, not the negation of importance. A similar sentiment occurs in 1 Samuel 15:22, "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." Parallel statements are found in Isaiah 1:11-17; Psalms 40:7-9 and Psalms 40:1:8; also in Micah 6:8. Our Lord cites the first clause of Mic 6:6 twice—once against Pharisaic ceremonialism (Matthew 9:13), and again against rigorous sabbatarianism (Matthew 12:7); while there is an allusion to it in Mark 12:33, where love to God and to one’s neighbor is declared to be better, or "more than, whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." Sacrifices in themselves, and when offered at the proper time and place, and as the expressions of penitent hearts and pure hands, were acceptable, and could not be otherwise, for God himself had appointed them. But soulless sacrifices offered by men steeped in sin were an abomination to the Lord; it was of such he said, "I cannot away with" them. It is to such that the prophet refers here, as is plain from the following verse. Hosea 6:7 But they like men (margin, like Adam) have transgressed the covenant: there have they dealt treacherously against me. This verse is variously rendered. (1) They like men (that is, men in general, or the rest of mankind, to whom they are in no way superior) have transgressed the covenant. (2) They are like men who transgress a covenant; according to this rendering the word אדם is otiose, or adds nothing, nor is indeed required. (3) They like Adam have transgressed the covenant; this rendering, supported by the Vulgate, Cyril, Luther, Rosenmller, and Wunsche, is decidedly preferable, and yields a suitable sense. God in his great goodness had planted Adam in Paradise; but Adam violated the commandment which prohibited his eating of the tree of knowledge, and thereby transgressed the covenant of his God. Loss of fellowship with God and expulsion from Eden were the penal consequences that immediately followed. Israel, like Adam, had been settled by God in Palestine, the glory of all lands; but, ungrateful for God’s great bounty and gracious gift, they broke the covenant of their God, the condition of which, as in the case of the Adamic covenant, was obedience. Thus the comparison projects the shadow of a coming event when Israel would Jose the land of promise. There is still the word "there" to be accounted for. It cannot well be rendered "therein," nor taken as a particle of time equivalent to "the," with Cyril and others. It is local, and points to the place where their breach of covenant and faithlessness had occurred. Yet this local sense is not necessarily so limited as to be referred, with some, to Bethel, as the scene of their apostasy and idolatry. "There, to Israel," says Pusey, "was not only Bethel, or Dan, or Gilgal, or Mizpah, or Gilead, or any or all of the places which God had hallowed by his mercies and they had defiled. It was every high hill, each idol-chapel, each field-altar, which they had multiplied to their idols. To the sinners of Israel it was every spot of the Lord’s land which they had defiled by their sin." The word thus acquires a very suggestive significance, reminding Israel of God’s goodness on the one hand, and of their own sinfulness and ingratitude on the other. Hosea 6:8, Hosea 6:9 In these two verses the prophet adduces proof of that faithlessness with which he had just charged Israel. Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood. The latter clause is more literally rendered, foot-printed or foot-tracked from blood. Two things require consideration here—the place and its pollution. Gilead is sometimes a mountain range, and sometimes the mountainous region east of the Jordan; it has Bashan on the north, the Arabian plateau on the east, and Moab on the south. It stretches from the south end of the Sea of Galilee to the north end of the Dead Sea—some sixty miles in length by twenty in breadth. The part of Gilead between the Hieromax and the Jabbok is now called Jebel Ajlun; while the section south of the Jabbok forms the province of Belka. In the New Testament it is spoken of under the name of Pertea, or beyond Jordan. Sometimes the whole trans-Jordanic territory belonging to Israel is called Gilead. In the passage before us it is the name of a city, though some take it to mean the whole land of Gilead. The men of Gilead and the Gileadites in general seem to have been fierce, wild mountaineers; and yet they are represented as still worse in this Scripture. They are nut only barbarous and wicked, but murderous and infamous for homicidal atrocities. As evidence in some sort of the justness of this dark picture, the murder of Pekahiah by Pekah with "fifty men of the Gileadites." as recorded in 2 Kings 15:25, may be specified. The word עְקַוּבָּה is taken (1) by some as the feminine of the adjective עָקוב, crafty, cunning, wily; thus Rashi explains it: "Gilead is full of people who lie in wait for murder;" and Kimchi likewise has, "Gilead is a city of evil-doers, who are crafty to murder men." But (2) it is rather the Qal Pual participle feminine from עָקַב, to seize the heel of any one, hold, tread in the footsteps, follow, go after; which is the right meaning, viz. "tracked," as given above. We retain the Authorized Version of the first clause of 2 Kings 15:9, slightly modified, viz. (1) As troops of robbers wait for a man, so is the company of priests; חַכֵּי equivalent to חַכֵּה, wait, being an anomalous form of the infinitive Piel for חַכּוֹה; thus Kimchi says, "The yod stands in the place of he, and the form is the infinitive." Both Aben Ezra and Kimchi translate the first clause as above; the former beg, "The sense is, As robber-troops wait for a man who is to pass along the way, that they may plunder him, so is (or so does) the company of the priests;" the latter explains, "As troops of robbers wait for a man passing along the way to plunder him, so is the company of priests, he means to say, as the priests of the high places who combine to plunder those who pass along the way. There is (2) another translation, which, connecting ish taken collectively with gedhudhim, and making it the subjective genitive of the infinitive ,ë is, "Like the lurking of the men of the gang, s is the company of the priests." This first clause is (3) quite misread and not rendered by the LXX.: Καὶἡἰσχύςσουἀνδρὸςπειρατοῦἔκρυψανἱερεῖςὁδόν, "And thy strength is that of a robber: the priests have hid the way." Instead of כְּחַכֵּי they read כְּחַךָ, and for חבד they read חבו or חבאו. In the second clause we prefer decidedly the translation which is intimated in the margin of the Authorized Version; thus: Along the way they murder even go Shechem. The word derekh is an adverbial accusative of place; and Sichem, the present Nablus, was situated on Mount Ephraim between Ebal and Gerizim. It was a Levitical city and a city of refuge; it thus lay on the west as Gilead on the east of Jordan, and both cities, thus perhaps nearly parallel in place on opposite sides of the river, were equal in crime and infamy. The prophet does not tell us who the wayfarers were, or whither they were bound; he only intimates that they fell victims to certain miscreant priests located in these quarters. As this city lay on the main route from the north to Jerusalem, pilgrims to the annual feasts passed along this way. The priests of the calf-win, ship, being in general persons taken from the dregs of the people, waylaid those pilgrims, whether for plunder, or through hostility to the purer worship still maintained in the holy city, or from sheer cruelty. Or it is even possible that the wayfarers referred to may have been persons going from Samaria, the northern capital, to the idolatrous worship at Bethel. In either case, on the way to their destination or on the return journey they were set upon and robbed, or, in the event of resistance, they were murdered. For they commit lewdness; rather, yea, they have committed enormity. The zimmah, or infamy, here mentioned is referred (1) by some to unnatural wickedness (comp. Leviticus 18:17; 19:29); it is rather (2) a designation of wickedness and abominations in general; thus Kimchi explains it of "evil and abominable work of every kind." He further remarks: "The prophet says, Net this alone have they done; but all their works are zimmah. And perhaps zimmah may be explained of thought, as if he said, As they have thought in their heart so they have acted." On this verse generally it may be briefly remarked (1) that "by consent" of the Authorized Version would require אחד to be joined with "shoulder;" (2) the connection of the first and second clauses in the Authorized Version is much the same with that of Ewald: "And as troops lie in wait the company of priests murder along the way to Sichem." (3) His explanation is that the priests murdered those that fled by the way before they reached the refuge, perhaps at the command of some leading persons ill disposed towards them. Hosea 6:10 I have seen an horrible thing in the house of Israel: there is the whoredom of Ephraim, Israel is defiled. The house of Israel comprises (1) the ten tribes of the northern kingdom, according to some; it seems more correct (2) to understand it of the whole nation, including both the northern and southern kingdoms, in which case the remainder of the verse relates to the northern kingdom of the ten tribes, and the succeeding verse to the southern kingdom of the two tribes. Further, Israel is not synonymous with the parallel Ephraim, as Keil thinks; the latter is the principal tribe which led the way in Israel’s apostasy. The "horrible thing" comprehends every sort of crime and abomination; while the" whoredom," literal or spiritual, is specified as an example thereof. (For the explanation of "there," see on Hosea 6:7) Hosea 6:11 Also, O Judah, he hath set an harvest for thee. The subject of shath is the indeterminate third person, like the French on, and our "they" or "one." The third person singular masculine, the third person plural, the second person singular masculine, and the passive voice are all used in this way. So here it is: "One hath appointed (set) a harvest for thee," or "a harvest is appointed for thee." The harvest is either recompense or retribution, and thus it is either good or evil, for as a man sows he maps. The context shows that the reaping here is punishment. Judah had sinned like Israel; and, in the case of both, a seed-time of sin produced a harvest of suffering and sorrow. When I returned (better, return, or, restore) the captivity of my people. The restoration here mentioned is thought (1) by some to be the bringing back of the captives; but (2) Keil and others, with good reason, understand it to be turning of the captivity, and that figuratively, that is to say, the restoration of his people’s well-being. The shebhuth is the misery of the Hebrew people; the shubh shebhuth, recovery end restoration of them to their true destroy, But this necessitates a previous purification by punishment: with this Judah, as well as Israel, shall be visited. It is as though God said, "Let not Judah claim superiority over Israel, nor expect to escape Divine judgment more than Israel. Each reaps what he sows. When Israel has received the deserved chastisement, Judah’s turn shall then come also." The "turning of captivity" is a formula denoting the restoration of the lost fortune or well-being of a people or person; thus Job 42:10, "And the Lord turned the captivity of Job." Hosea 6:1-3 Exhortation and encouragement to repentance. Whether the opening words of this chapter be those which the penitents address mutually to each other, or whether they be the exhortation of the prophet encouraging the people to return to God, the sentiment they contain is equally important, and the duty enjoined is equally imperative. I. THE URGENCY OF THIS APPEAL IS . From whichever of the sources indicated this appeal proceeds, its urgency is unmistakable, as implied in the cohortative form of the verb "return," as also in the hortatory "come" at the commencement. In God’s dealings with mankind we find now reproofs for sin and threatenings of wrath, again invitations to repentance and promises of mercy. We are warned to flee from the wrath to come on the one hand, and urged to return unto the Lord on the other. It is our duty to exhort one another with earnestness, and even affectionate importunity, to return to him from whom we have wandered, to seek him whom we have slighted, and, like the prodigal in the parable, to arise and go to our Father with confession of our many wanderings of heart and life from the living God. II. THE SOURCE WHENCE HEALING COMES. They had tried Assyria, but to no purpose; they had sent to King Jareb, but in vain. A greater power than that of Assyria, great though that was, was needed; a mightier monarch than Jareb, champion sovereign though he was, was required to heal the disease and bind up the wounds of Israel at this time, or indeed at any time. None but the hand that tore could heal; none other than he who smote could bind up. Nay, he wounds in order that he may heal; he sends afflictive providences that we may apply to him for the restoration of prosperity; he produces conviction of sin before that, and in order that he may impart to us everlasting consolations. His method is to convince us in order that he may comfort us, to show us our sin that he may lead us to the Savior, to show us our ruin and then apply the remedy. He shows us our danger and then urges us to the discharge of our duty; he shows us our fat, and how we are to rise again; in short, he urges us to repentance, showing us what to do and what to say, and encouraging us withal by God’s readiness to receive penitents. III. LIFE FROM THE DEAD IN GOD’S GOOD TIME. The guilt of sin may for a time overwhelm us, terrors of conscience alarm us, afflictions of various kinds crush us to the earth; there may be fightings without and fears within. In our distressed and downcast state we may look upon ourselves, and be looked upon by others, as dying—almost dead. 1. In this deathlike condition the sorrows of death may compass us and the pains of hell get hold on us, we may find trouble and sorrow; we may be like those that go down into the pit. All this may continue for a time, and the time may appear long; yet we may not despair nor despond. Rather let us imitate the example of the psalmist, who in his distress called upon the Lord and cried unto his God. For did he cry in vain. God heard his voice out of his temple, and his cry came before him even into his ears. In like circumstances of disaster on another occasion he called upon the name of the Lord and said, "O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul;" and as usual a reply and relief came. "I was brought low, and he helped me;" "He delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling." Thus God deals with his people still. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." For two days—a relatively brief period—the sleep or sorrow of death may be upon us, but he will then restore us to life, revive and quicken us; and on the third day, when we have been thus restored to animation and vigor, he will raise us up. 2. The words of Hos 6:2 are, no doubt, applicable to the death and resurrection of our Lord, and they have been so understood by many Christians both in earlier and later times. "The resurrection of Christ," says Pusey, "and our resurrection in him and in his resurrection, could not be more plainly foretold.... It was not the prophet’s object here, nor was it so direct a comfort to Israel, to speak of Christ’s resurrection in itself. He took a nearer way to their hearts. He told them, ’All we who turn to the Lord, putting our whole trust in him, and committing ourselves wholly to him, to be healed of our wounds and to have our griefs bound up, shall receive life from him, shall be raised up by him.’ They could not understand then how he would do this. The ’after two days’ and ’on the third day’ remained a mystery to be explained by the event. But the promise itself was not the less distinct, nor the less full of hope, nor did it less fulfill all cravings for life eternal and the sight of God, because they did not understand—how shall these things be?" 3. The sequel of revival and resurrection is life in God’s sight, or, "before his face," according to the literal rendering. The face of man is the index of the mind and heart; of the operations and various workings of the former, and of the feelings and emotions of the latter. We turn away the face in sorrow or in mirth; we look the object of our love or satisfaction full in the face. God had withdrawn himself and turned away his face until they acknowledged their offence and sought his face. But life is not only restored; it is life in God’s sight, that is, before his face. This is real life—life in God’s favor, with the light of his countenance lifted up upon us; with his eye on us to guide and to direct us as well as to guard and protect us. We live in his sight when, whatever we do, we do it as unto the Lord. Every duty is discharged as in his immediate presence and under his all-seeing eye. Our thoughts, our purposes, our plans, our feelings, the inmost actings of our spirit, are all ordered with the abiding impression that they are in God’s sight, open and naked before the eyes of him with whom we have to do. IV. THE OF GOD AND GROWTH THEREIN. What is the great end of man’s being? What is the thing that chiefly concerns him? To such questions various answers will be returned according to the tastes, or habits, or capacity of the individual. Some will answer and say that life itself, its preservation and well-being, is the great concern of man; or that health—health of mind with health of body, a sound mind in a sound body—is chiefly to be attended to. Others, again, will reply that the advancement of one’s family or the increase of one’s fortune is the main thing to be sought and attained. Whatever truth may be in any of these, it is not the right answer. There is something higher and holier, nobler and better, than any of the things specified. The glory of the Creator and the good of the creature must be placed above everything else. But to glorify the Creator, and thereby and therewith to attain to the good of the creature, we must know God. 1. Wherein does the knowledge of God consist? What do we mean by the knowledge of God? It is to know God as he has made himself known, in the two great volumes which he has spread out before us. The one is the volume of his works, open to the eyes of all men; but that volume only takes us a short way; we get the knowledge of his Godhead, or existence as God, and of his power; we learn that there is an eternal Power that called created things into being, and that that Power is neither blind physical force nor the pantheistic spirit of the universe, but a Divine Person; for" the invisible things of him since the creation are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." The other volume is his Word, in which he has fully revealed his will. From this volume we know his various attributes and infinite perfections—his holiness in hating sin, his justice in punishing it, his wisdom in devising the plat, of salvation, his love in sending his Son to work it out, his mercy in shedding down his Spirit to apply it. But, over and above all this, the knowledge of God must be personal, experimental, and practical. We need to know God as our God through Jesus Christ our Lord; we need to know by happy experience his love to our souls; we need to know the duty which we are bound to render to him in gratitude far his amazing loving-kindness, and in love to him who first loved us. 2. How is this knowledge attained? There must be diligent, prayerful study of the Divine Word under the teaching of the Divine Spirit. The physician never dreams of gaining a knowledge of his profession, and of qualifying himself for the performance of its responsible duties, without years of preparatory study in order to grasp its principles and master its details; nor can he afford to abandon that study even after he has entered on the practice of his professional labors—earnest thought and unwearying diligence are still required. The merchant who would succeed in mercantile life must devote much attention to the principles of commerce and the various departments of trade; days of rail and nights of close application to business are indispensable. The agriculturist, if he would attain to eminence or even respectability in his calling, cannot expect to do so without suitable training and diligent attention in order to acquaint himself with the proper methods of tillage. Shall men willingly devote their noblest energies and highest powers and best days to the occupations of time, and yet afford only some brief intervals of leisure, or some spare hours, and very slight attention to attain the knowledge of that God who is above them, and to prepare for that eternity that is before them? 3. By what means do we gain increase of this knowledge? What promotes ore’ growth at once in grace and the knowledge of God? The answer is before us. We are to follow on, hunt after, strive zealously to know the Lord. There must be continued diligence, constant perseverance; there must be devout and daily reading of God’s Word—some time every day less or more should be given to the study of Holy Scripture; there must be fervent prayer for the teaching of the Holy Spirit: for "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness unto him, because they are spiritually discerned." Have we already acquired some knowledge of God, not merely out of the volume of creation, or by the light of our own intellect, or from the teachings of others, but from this Word of God, which is brimful of the knowledge of God; and do we know God to be a just God and yet a Savior—our God and Father through Jesus Christ our Lord? Then we must beware of becoming cold, or languid, or lifeless. We must avoid everything and anything that would turn us aside, or tempt us to prefer our secular business to salvation, or to set the trifles of time in the place of the realities of eternity. But should coldness creep over us, or should a spirit of slumber overtake us as the virgins in the parable, or should our little progress in the Divine life and Divine things discourage us, let us repair at once to the mercy-seat for Divine help and grace; and the Spirit of truth will guide us into all truth. Let us ever bear in mind that we must persevere to the end in order to be saved, that we must be faithful unto death if we would obtain the crown of life, and that if, after having put our hand to the plough, we turn back, the Lord will have no pleasure in us. Follow on, then, as the runner in the race to win the prize, as the warrior in the conflict to gain the victory, as the mariner steers his homeward-veering bark to reach his native shore. V. THE TO THOSE WHO IN THE OF GOD. The promised blessing is here presented under two beautiful figures—the returning light of morning, and the refreshing rain. 1. There is freshness in the morning air, there is beauty in the morning light, there is loveliness in natural scenery when the light of morning shines on it. One of the oldest Greek poets often speaks of morning, and usually with some epithet of praise or admiration, such as "saffron-robed Aurora," or "Aurora, daughter of the dawn." "The morning." We associate morning with the idea of refreshment and relief. If you have been laid on a bed of sickness, or tossing on a bed of pain, or watching by the bedside of one dear to you as your own life, how welcome is the light of morning! After tossings to and fro till the dawning of the day, the morning brings some measure of relief or relaxation. Many a one in the circumstances supposed is crying out, "Would God it were morning!" or sighing out, "Oh for the light of morning, to shorten the weariness of the night, or bring some alleviation!" There, again, is the mariner toiling through the dreary hours of a stormy winter night, while neither moon nor stars appear; how he wishes and longs for the light of morning! Or a traveler has been overtaken by the darkness of the night, and has lost his way in some pathless wilderness, or among the glades of a mountain forest; how he waits and watches for the first gleam of morning light to extricate him from his perplexity and peril! In all these cases the morning is looked forward to for relief; nor is it ever looked for in vain, for morning is sure to come. It may seem slow in coming, and long before it comes; or the weary watcher may be many a time on the point of giving up in despair. But the return of morning, after a night however long, or dark, or painful, or perilous, is certain to take place; its return is prepared; it is a fixed ordinance of nature. So, to every persevering seeker after the knowledge of God, the Lord’s going forth is fixed and cannot fail; it is sure as the morning sunrise. To every afflicted, anguished spirit, to every weary waiting soul, the morning dawn shall come surely as the day succeeds the night and the light alternates with darkness, for God has established this order of things. The Dayspring from on high, with the light of saving knowledge and spiritual healthfulness, shall visit all who patiently wait and perseveringly pursue the knowledge of God. There is a joyousness of spirit, a buoyancy of feeling, peculiar to the morning, and not experienced to the same extent, or perhaps at all, during the remainder of the day. Delightful as is the figure, the fact represented by it is even more so. What joyfulness comes with morning to the bewildered wayfarer, or tempest-tossed sailor, or sorely afflicted sufferer! Then hope rakes the place of despair, and joy succeeds to sorrow. To the soul that waits upon the Lord, his coming is as sure as the return of the morning light; and brings with it peace and joy in believing, favor and forgiveness. To him who has waited long, and watched with patience till hope deferred had begun to make the heart sick, the Lord’s going forth is certain as the morning dawn; and simultaneously therewith the light of his countenance is lifted on the soul, and cheerfulness is imparted to the spirit. It is a blessed assurance that none ever waited upon the Lord in vain; no one ever trusted him and was disappointed. Wait, then, for his going forth. It may tarry, but wait for it; for at last it will come and will not tarry; for the time is fixed, and the Sun of righteousness shall arise on every patient soul with healing under his wings. Fortified by this assurance, the psalmist says, in language we would do well to adopt and act on, "I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in his Word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning." 2. That the Authorized Version is inaccurate, is obvious from its making the latter rain precede the former. The reverse is the natural order and the order here observed, geshem standing for the one or rather for "plentiful rain" in general, malqosh for the other or "latter rain," and retch not a noun at all. This beautiful figure is specially suitable to the Orient, and finds its most striking application in Eastern lands; it is also more or less appropriate in all lands. Not only so, it forms a fitting counterpart to the figure which precedes, and with which it is so intimately connected—the one exhibiting the fact, the other the fruit, of salvation; the one the beginning of salvation, the other its benefits; the one its commencement, the other its consummation. In the land of Israel, as well as other countries of the East, soon after seed-time, when the seed has been sown in the furrows, comes the early rain to make the seed germinate and the tender blade spring up; but there is also the latter rain in the weeks preceding harvest, to fill the ear and mature the growing grain. With a rich Eastern soil below and a warm Eastern sun above, the beneficial effects of the former and latter rain are obvious. In connection with the combined action of sun and soil and shower, there are first the blade, then the ear, and eventually the ripe corn in the ear. Thus in spiritual husbandry, the seed of Divine and saving knowledge has been no sooner cast into the furrows than the rain-shower of Divine grace waters it, so that it germinates and grows—blade and ear and ripened grain as in the natural world; nor are showers of grace withheld before and up till the reaping-time, so that even in old age there is abundant fruitfulness. "They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing [margin, ’green’];" and when the time of the end comes and the harvest day arrives, they resemble a shock of corn in its season, rich with golden grain, ripe and ready to be gathered into the heavenly garner. Thus shall it fare with the soul that follows on to know and love the Lord. Sure as the dawn brings on the day; sure as the sun goeth forth out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run his race; sure as the alternation of day and night; sure as the succession of the seasons; sure as the rain comes down from heaven, and returns not thither again till it has moistened and fructified the earth;—God shall bless that soul with light and life and love. Therefore let us know, let us follow on to know the Lord; for "it is good that a man quietly wait and patiently wait for the salvation of God." Hosea 6:4-9 Israel’s inconstant. The Lord had just comforted the truly godly portion of the people; he now turns aside and expostulates with the ungodly. Judah as well as Ephraim—the two tribes and the ten—fell far short, unspeakably short, of the picture of penitence, with the annexed promises, which he had just placed before them. Their state had become so desperate that destruction had become their desert, not because of his severity, but their own sin, themselves being judges. I. THE OF THEIR . 1. God here speaks as if all remedies had proved futile, and as if he were at a loss to know how to deal towards them or what to do with them. Various means had been tried, diverse methods resorted to: he had sent them precious promises of mercy and alarming threatenings of wrath; means and expedients had been exhausted; but they had gone from bad to worse. And now, as though resourceless, the Almighty puts the question as if to their own conscience, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?" 2. Or perhaps we may rather understand such questions as a lamentation over their case, so deplorable had it become. Thus our Lord wept over Jerusalem and the desperate state of its doomed inhabitants. Nor was it a few tears he dropped (ἐδάκρυσε), as at the grave of Lazarus; his eyes brimmed over with tears (ἔκλαυσε), while his lips uttered the touchingly pathetic words, "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace( but now they are hid from thine eyes." 3. The picture of their inconstancy is sadly appropriate. The morning cloud is an attractive object as it floats sublimely overhead on a summer’s morning; but it is as evanescent as conspicuous, suddenly fading away into the "azure deep of air." Still more lovely is the dew which lies copiously on the herbage in the early morning, glistening on every blade of grass and flower petal, and beautifying with its pearly drops the lawns and pasture-grounds. Soon, however, the footstep of man or beast brushes it aside, and it disappears; or it is exhaled, and vanishes by the heat of the advancing day. Thus it was with the goodness of the Hebrew people, both north and south, at the time referred to. Several cases of reformation had taken place in Judah; revivals of religion had occurred, as in the days of Hezekiah, and subsequently in the time of Josiah; and even in Israel we read of the humiliation of Ahab and the zeal of Jehu; but these were to a large extent transient and temporary. So, too, it often happens in times of awakening, sorrow for sin may becloud the brow of the penitent and tears of contrition bedew his eyes; but ere long the excitement dies away, and that sorrow and those tears have passed away, and all serious impressions and gracious influences have vanished with them. II. OF THE OF. These consequences are enumerated with some detail in Hosea 6:5-7, though the fifth verse is differently understood by some, as though it contained two different kinds of messages sent by God to Israel—messages of coming wrath to arouse and awaken them, thus hewing them by the prophets and slaying them by the words of his mouth; and messages of mercy, bright as the light and beautiful as the sunbeams, to encourage them, thus causing his judgments to go forth as the light. But this latter sense does not suit the context. 1. First of the consequences is denunciation of wrath, when God denounced their destruction with severity by his messengers the prophets, and the words of his mouth which constituted the message which they delivered; while the justice of the judgments thus visited on them was positively demonstrated and plainly proved, so that it was seen to be and must have appeared even to the guilty sufferers clear as the light. 2. The second consequence is degeneracy in religion. It had degenerated into mere formalism. In place of mercy came sacrifices, and for the knowledge of God burnt offerings were substituted. Outward observances took the place of inward devotion. Instead of piety towards God and charity to man, a tedious round of services was performed. Ritualism was substituted for religion; ceremonialism for clean hands and a pure heart. Obedience to the commandments of God, whether prescriptive or prohibitory, was neglected; morality was dissociated from religion; mere rites supplanted moral or religious duties. 3. But a third consequence was declension of spiritual life in general; this was additional evidence of the religious degeneracy just referred to. Covenant-breaking and treacherous dealing are specified. Like the most reckless of men, they were truce-breakers, bound by no compact, and regardless of the truth of promises. Besides being thus practically dishonest, they were altogether unreliable and faithless. Their sin in this respect, though declared to be against God, involved a fortiori similar conduct in relation to their fellow-men. III. OF ISRAEL’S GUILT. Two places are specified as instances, and their inhabitants singled out as specimens of the wickedness of the times—Gilead on the east and Shechem on the west of Jordan. If Gilead be a city—Ramoth-gilead, perhaps—a city of refuge and a Levitical city, the sin of its inhabitants was something shocking. When men, who by profession should be an example and pattern to others, descend to practices directly opposed to that profession, and degrade themselves by criminal actions of the worst and basest kind, religion is evil spoken of, a stumbling-block is cast in the way of the weak, the Master himself is stabbed in the house of his professed friends. The people of this highly favored place had set themselves to work iniquity, and that of no ordinary kind; the blood of murdered innocence clave to their hands. Shechem was even worse in this respect. In this other city of refuge the privilege of asylum was profaned. Either guilty persons were admitted and protected for a bribe, when they should have been delivered up to death; or, in addition to thus screening the guilty, those who had committed homicide unwittingly, but who were too poor to offer bribes, were ruthlessly given up to the blood-avenger; or, worst of all and vilest of all, the priests who had got settled in the place formed themselves into robber-gangs or common banditti to rob, and in case of resistance murder, the travelers who were so luckless as to journey that way, or from a bloodthirsty spirit of revenge they waylaid and assassinated the objects of their displeasure. In one way or other blood was defiling the land and crying to Heaven for vengeance. Long before a bloody deed had been done in this very place, when Simeon and Levi in cruel wrathfulness put the defenseless Shechemites to the sword; history in a still worse form now repeated itself. IV. IN CRIME. The proverbial expression of" Like priest, like people," was fully verified in the case before us. When priests perpetrated such atrocities, what could be expected from the populace? When religious teachers distinguished themselves as ringleaders in wickedness, what could be hoped for among the less privileged of the population? There was, in fact, a community in crime. In the house of Israel, or main body of the people in the northern kingdom, there was wickedness so horrible as to make one shudder or the hair stand on end. However men might attempt concealment, God’s eye detected and discovered their horrid iniquity, while his justice denounced vengeance against it. Ephraim is again foremost and first in the present iniquity, as previously in the idolatrous calf-worship and original revolt. Their whoredom, whether literal or figurative, exercised a contaminating effect on the rest of the ten tribes. How baneful the effects of evil influence! How great the responsibility connected with the exercise of influence! Judah also, from whom better was to be expected, with the ancient sanctuary among them and a purer ritual, had been seduced to sin; the example and influence of their brethren in the north had, no doubt, helped their depravation, evil communications corrupting good manners. Be this as it may, they had sown the wind and must in consequence reap the whirlwind. As they had sown and what they had sown, they must by-and-by reap. The general judgment is likened to harvest; so also are special judgments. (For the time specified, see Exposition) The Judahites who had been made captives by Israel had been set at liberty through the interposition of the prophet Oded (2 Chronicles 28:8-15). God had spared them then, but set them a harvest at another time; as it has been remarked, "Preservations from present judgments, if a good use be not made of them, are but reservations for greater judgments." BY C. JERDAN Hosea 6:1-3 Repentance and saving knowledge. We view these verses as closely connected with the last verse of the preceding chapter. There the Lord has said that Ephraim and Judah, when they shall have been well punished for their apostasy, will at length return to him. Here, accordingly, he anticipates what they shall say to one another when they do so. "In their affliction they will seek me early, saying, Come, and let us return unto the Lord." This prediction, doubtless, has already once and again been partially fulfilled; but its complete accomplishment belongs to "the last things." I. AN TO GODLY . (Hosea 6:1, Hosea 6:2) The opening clause of Hos 6:1 consists of an earnest self-exhortation, and this is succeeded in the remainder of the two verses by arguments in support of it. The nerve-thought of these is, that restoration to the Divine favor wilt succeed repentance. The expatriated Hebrews, in their miserable exile and God-forsakenness, shall have a profound conviction of their guilt wrought within their hearts; and they shall return to their long-slighted Lord in the confident hope of a favorable reception. Their restoration, they are persuaded, will be: 1. Certain. The words of verses 1, 2 evince strong faith. There is in them the pulse-beat of a firm confidence. He who tore will also heal. lie who inflicted the agony will bestow the joy. True penitence is always accompanied with some measure of faith. It cherishes the hope of mercy. It lays hold of the truth contained in that magnificent proverb, "God never strikes with both hands." It accepts the testimony of the Eternal, that he "dwells with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit." 2. Speedy. The definite limits of time here mentioned (verse 2) are intended to assure us that the restoration of Israel shall come not only certainly, but quickly. Jehovah is slow to chide, but he is swift to bless. It may seem to us a long time since Israel’s rejection; it is now nearly two thousand years since the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. But "one day is with the Lord," etc. (2 Peter 3:8). Many commentators have judged that Christ’s resurrection "in the third day" is indicated here. And no doubt an analogy is traceable between the events of Israel’s history and events in the life of the Messiah (cf. Hosea 11:1 and Matthew 2:15). But it is one thing to apply the prophet’s words to the great fact of Christ’s resurrection, and another thing to conclude that that event is even so much as indirectly foretold by this language. 3. Complete. "We shall live before his face" (verse 2). The face is an index of character. It reveals the mind and heart. A man naturally turns his face towards the person whom he loves, and turns it away from one whom he dislikes. God had "withdrawn himself from" Israel (Hosea 5:6, Hosea 5:15); but now again, in the day of their revival, he shall "cause his face to shine upon them." The contrite ones live in the open smile of the Divine favor, and enjoy the perpetual sunshine of the Divine presence. II. AN TO SAVING . (Verse 3) The first part of this verse should be translated, "Then let us know, follow on to know, Jehovah." This is a further self-exhortation, parallel to that in verse 1. Jehovah had become unknown in Israel (Hosea 4:1). But the resolve to "return" to him involves the resolution to "know" him, and to grow in that knowledge continually. Such knowledge has a very practical aim. It is a life, not a mere science; an experience, not a speculation. It leads a man to own God and to serve him. It will fill the mind with brightness, and the life with fruitfulness. We sometimes call theology "the queen of the sciences;" but this heart-knowledge of God is more—it is "life eternal" (John 17:3). Two attractive emblems are presented in the latter part of the verse for our encouragement in the pursuit of saving knowledge. With the ancient Jewish rabbins, we are to be in these an anticipation of the Redeemer of men. Jehovah comes in the Person of his Son, Jesus Christ, as "the morning;" and he comes in the Spirit of his Son, as "the rain." 1. "The morning." The Lord Jesus is the Aurora, or Dayspring from on high;—the Sun of righteousness, who has arisen with healing in his wings, He will be welcomed yet as such by the entire Hebrew nation. His coming has flooded the world with the light of life. "His going forth," like the morning, brings brightness and joy to the believer. "O happy day, that fixed my choice," etc. It brings also freshness; for the knowledge of Jesus is to the Christian always new, and full of infinite variety. The morning is irresistible in its coming; and the "going forth" of Christ "is prepared as the morning," i.e. decreed in the purposes of Jehovah’s love. The morning comes increasingly; and thus also the believer who follows on to know the Lord shall "go from strength to strength," from the dawning light "unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18). 2. "The rain." In Palestine, the two rainy seasons here referred to were most necessary and precious. The "former rain," which fell in October, preceded the seedtime, and prepared the earth for cultivation. The "latter rain," which felt in April, filled the ears before harvest, and perfected the fruit. Now, God shall come to Israel in the last days—as he comes to his people in every age—by his Holy Spirit, "as the rain." The rain is refreshing; and so the knowledge which the Spirit imparts comforts the hearts of young converts, and matures the character of experienced Christians. The rainfall is variable; and the coming of the Spirit varies in like manner, according to God’s will and our faith. The rain is trouble-giving—it comes amid shadow and gloom, sometimes with thunder and tempest; and so the Spirit often visits the soul by means of deep and painful heart-searchings on account of sin. The rain is fertilizing—its absence would cause dearth and barrenness; so the knowledge of God will make those hearts fruitful which beforetime yielded only thorns and briers (Hebrews 6:7, Hebrews 6:8). . Although we in this age do not live in the last days of Israel’s restoration, the sweet voice of this mutual appeal is for us. We need to stir up our own hearts to exercise the grace of repentance, and to pursue the study of saving knowledge. Some of us perhaps have gone astray into very miry paths, and have been sorely chastised for our sin. Oh for grace to respond to this twofold appeal, that we may know the Lord our Savior as the bright Morning and the genial Rain, and that we may "live in his sight"!—C.J. Hosea 6:4, Hosea 6:5 Fugitive piety. A thoughtful reader cannot fail to observe the contrast here suggested between the constancy of Jehovah’s grace (Hosea 6:3) and the inconstancy of Israel’s piety (Hosea 6:4). If Israel would (rely "return," and "follow on to know the Lord" now, all would yet be well. But, alas! the twelve tribes are as fickle as he is faithful. I. GOD’S THE JEWISH PEOPLE. (Hosea 6:4) In Eastern lands the sky is often heavily hung with clouds at early dawn; lint, so soon as the sun rises, he begins to suck them up—their many-colored glory quickly fades, and in an hour is time they are gone. In the morning, also, the dewdrops adorn the herbage like myriads of sparkling diamonds; but the first acts of radiation after sunrise dissipate all the jewelry, and soon leaf and blade languish in the heat. Those two figures the Lord uses in this touching expostulation. Israel’s piety, when the people did show any, was similarly fascinating, promising, and evanescent. It could no more be reckoned up,0n than "a morning cloud." It was short-lived as "the early dew." There are many examples in Scripture of such fugitive piety. (1) In the national history of Israel. At Sinai the people promised obedience, and then made the golden calf. The age of the Judges was a time of alternate sinning and repenting, and repenting and sinning. Each of the reformations under John, Elijah, and Hezekiah turned out to be "as a morning cloud." (2) In the lives of individuals. It is enough to mention such cases as King Saul, the young ruler who came to Jesus, Felix, Demas, the Galatian professors (Galatians 5:7). We meet with morning-cloud religion constantly still. It is frequently found: 1. In the time of childhood. "The dew of youth’ is always beautiful; and sometimes the grace of the Holy Spirit is in it, and it fertilizes. The morning cloud of childhood’s faith is often a "vision splendid," for "Trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our Home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!" (Wordsworth) But the piety of childhood does not always bear the test. It sometimes turns out to be merely emotional, and nothing more. In the hour of temptation "it goeth away." 2. In the season of affliction. Many a man, in the day upon which some storm of sickness or bereavement has strewn his life with wreckage, resolves that when the clouds are removed he will cultivate the friendship of God, and trust in his providence, and keep his Law. But, after prosperity has returned, he does not "pay that which he has vowed." 3. As the result of common grace. Common grace is that influence of the Holy Spirit which is more or less granted to all men. In connection with his operations men who are unregenerate have their seasons of deep conviction, and of anxious thought regarding spiritual things. Sometimes riley "receive the Word with joy" (Matthew 13:20), and are "made partakers of the Holy Ghost" (Hebrews 6:4), and begin to lead an externally religious life. But, if experiences of this kind are not accompanied by a real change of heart, they pass away like "a morning cloud." Such fugitive piety is fatally defective. It is: (1) Unreal. For, a characteristic mark of true religion is steadfastness. "The path of the just" is not "as a morning cloud," but "as the morning" itself, "that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18). (2) Unhappy. Those who do not "follow on to know the Lord," but allow themselves to be hindered by the discouragements and sufferings which belong to the Christian life, come to identify religion only with these. "Pliable" associates piety with the "Slough of Despond," "Formalist and Hypocrisy" with "the Hill Difficulty," ’’Timorous and Mistrust" with "the lions." It is only pilgrims like "Christian," who endure to the end, that shall taste the joys of" the House Beautiful," and "the Delectable Mountains," and "the land of Beulah." (3) Unhopeful. Those who "receive the Word into stony places," or "among the thorns," become a very hopeless class. The habit of taking sudden fits of goodness, each of which is followed by a relapse into sin, is very hardening to the heart. II. GOD’S METHOD WITH THE PEOPLE. (Verse 5) The Lord speaks as if he has been at his wit’s end to know what measures to adopt in order to win the nation back to godliness. His words are, "What shall I do unto thee? What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it?" (Isaiah 5:4). His wisdom can devise no new expedient. His policy hitherto has been one of mingled goodness and severity, and all that he can do is to continue that policy still. So: 1. He sends his prophets to "hew." The figure here is taken from the art of the statuary. Human souls are like blocks of marble, and God is the great Sculptor. He sent the Hebrew prophets to cut and carve Israel into the Divine image; for, while the nation’s piety was thin as vapor, its heart was hard as adamant. This metaphor has a lesson in it regarding the Christian ministry. A large part of the preacher’s work is to prick slumbering consciences, and to hammer stony hearts. It is true, of course, that the New Testament message is emphatically "the gospel;" yet the background of the "good news" is necessarily the bad news of guilt and sin and wrath. Christian sermons addressed to the natural man cannot avoid being denunciatory. Our pulpit teaching, both in matter and manner, should reflect as clearly as possible the teaching of the New Testament. In delivering the message of condemnation especially, the speaker should take care to be not only faithful but tender. 2. He uses his Law to "slay." "The words of God’s mouth" are fitted to produce the recognition of sin in its true nature and consequences. The ministry of the Law convicts and condemns. God’s word "slays" when it convinces of guilt and pollution, and produces thereby self-condemnation and remorse. A man must be thus slain in relation to sin before his heart, can be prepared for the reception of the gospel. "Is not my Word like as a fire? saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 23:29). "The Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword," etc. (Hebrews 4:12). This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This chapter may be divided into three sections. In the first section, including Hosea 7:1-7, the prophet reproves with much but deserved severity the depraved morals of king and princes. In the second section, consisting of Hos 7:8-11, he rebukes their sinfulness, silliness, pride, and stupid obstinacy, notwithstanding the many manifest tokens of decay. Otherwise the first section deals with the internal corruption of the northern kingdom, and the second exposes their sinful and harmful foreign policy. The third section, continuing from the twelfth verse to the end of the chapter, that is, Hosea 7:12-16, threatens the infliction of punishment incurred by their gross wicked. Hess and base ingratitude to God. Hosea 7:1-3 When I would hays healed Israel. We may, with some, understand this healing of those (1) prophetic admonitions and rebukes by which God designed to cure the transgressions and heal the backslidings of his people. (2) It is more probable, however, that the reference is to the partial restoration of the national prosperity in the days of Jeroboam II; who "restored the coast of Israel from the entering of Hamath unto the sea of the plain." (3) Jerome’s exposition is not so natural when he says, "The sense is: When I wished to blot out the old sins of my people, on account of ancient idolatry, Ephraim and Samaria discovered new idols;" the old sins and ancient idolatry he refers to the making and worshipping of the golden calf in the wilderness, while the new idols were the calf-worship which Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim instituted, and the people of the capital, Samaria, adopted. When God would heal, or as often as he proceeded to heal, Israel, the evils broke out afresh, or came more fully to light, just like a wound the dangerous nature of which is discovered by the surgeon’s probe in the effort to heal it. Then the iniquity of Ephraim was discovered, and the wickedness of Samaria. The sin of the northern kingdom manifested itself in high quarters—in the premier tribe of Israel, and in the capital city of Samaria. "Because," says Abort Ezra, in his comment, "they said, He hath torn, and he will heal us, he says, When I was disposed to heal them, the wickedness concealed in their heart stood before my face, which they have not left off until the present time, for they practice falsehood; by night they steal, and by day troops (of bandits) spread themselves outside the cities." Similarly, Rashi explains: "When I was willing to help and to heal them, their iniquities manifested themselves before me, for they practiced lying constantly; while thieves of their number entered in continually, and stole the wealth of their companions, and even their gangs spread themselves for robberies to rob men." For they commit falsehood; and the thief cometh in, and the troop of robbers spoileth (margin, strippeth) without. Here follows an enumeration of the crimes of which they were guilty. There was falsehood, or fraud, or deception generally, and that, not only in words, but in works; next comes dishonesty, both in public and in private. The thief privately entered the houses, and committed burglary; gangs of highwaymen publicly infested the roads, spoiling the passers-by, or rather roamed or spread themselves abroad for plunder, since it is the causative conjugation of pashat that has the signification of stripping or spoiling others. The thief within, the rubber robs without. Hosea 7:2 And they consider not in their hearts (margin, say not to their heart) that I remember all their wickedness. Between the common reading libravken and bilravken found in several manuscripts by Kennicott and De Rossi, there is a not unimportant difference. The latter, equivalent to saying "in their heart," which is the usual expression, denotes one’s inward thoughts or reasonings with himself; the former, equivalent to saying "to their heart," is an address to, or remonstrance with, the heart with the view of restraining its evil purposes. God’s remembrance of wickedness imports its punishment. Now their own doings have beset them about. Their doings (1) have become evident or conspicuous as a robe or garment with which a man is surrounded, or a troop of body-guards placed about him. Or (2) the terrors and penal consequences of their sins have surrounded them like a garment, as we elsewhere read, "He clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment." In this latter sense the figure is rather taken from enemies besieging a town or city, and beleaguering it closely all around, or from lictors, i.e. officers of the law surrounding them, or even witnesses confronting them on every side. Kimchi explains the sense as follows: "Now their evil deeds surround them, which were before my face and were not hidden from me; and, while they receive the punishment, they will remember that 1 know all the whole, and that it is I who return their reward upon their head." They are before my face, in the last clause, has a striking and awe-inspiring parallel in the ninetieth psalm: "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance." Aben Ezra’s exposition is somewhat obscure; it is as follows: "They think that I do not see them, and they do not observe that their actions encircle them, as they are before my face." Hosea 7:3 They make the king glad with their wickedness, and the princes with their lies. The moral corruption and depravity of Israel were extreme and universal. They reached from the rabble to royalty, from the common people to the princes of the court. The king and princes were in full accord with fellows of the basest sort, taking pleasure in their wickedness trod applauding their lies. (1) Rosenmüller quotes the explanation of Abarbanel to the following purport: "He (the prophet) means to say that the violent men of that ago were accustomed to narrate their atrocities to their kings, that the latter might thence derive entertainment." It is much the same whether the king and princes of that time took pleasure in the villanies which were perpetrated, or in the narratives of those villanies to which they listened, (2) A somewhat different rendering, and consequently different exposition, have much to recommend them: "In their wickedness they make the king merry, and in their feigning the princes;" their wickedness was their diabolical design to assassinate king and princes; with this object in view they make the king merry with wine so that he might fall an easy and unsuspecting victim; their feigning was their fell purpose of assassination under the profession of friendship. Such was the desperate treachery of those miscreant conspirators. This view tallies well with the context. Hosea 7:4-7 Hosea 7:4, Hosea 7:6, and Hosea 7:7 are linked together by the figure of an "oven," common to them; while 4 and 6 have also in common the figure of a "baker." Further, we are helped to the literal meaning of the metaphorical language of Hos 7:4 and Hosea 7:6 by Hosea 7:5 and Hosea 7:7 respectively. They are all adulterers, as an oven heated by the baker. Whether the sin indicated was idolatry, which is often represented as spiritual adultery, or adultery in the literal sense, which was its frequent accompaniment; or in a larger sense faithlessness to solemn obligations such as treason, treachery, or perfidy in general; it was their habitual practice, as intimated by Piel participle in its iterative or intensive sense. The persons charged with this sin were kullam, all of them—sovereign and subjects, princes and people alike. The traitors of the time referred to, or rather their heart heated with lawless lust and pernicious passion, is pictured by the prophet as an oven; and the oven is heated by tile baker, or more literally, burning from the baker. Who or what is represented by the baker? This may be a personification of the spirit of treason like the spirit of whoredoms (Hosea 5:4), or evil agency that impelled these men to their nefarious deeds; or we may understand by the "baker" those persons who were the prime movers in such matters, and who instigated others to become their tools and execute their plans. In either case the burning, once commenced, continued of itself; the primary instigators had no difficulty in securing agents ready and willing as themselves for such bad and bloody work, and who, once set ageing, needed no further impulse, but of their own motion delighted to carry it through. Who ceaseth from raising after he hath kneaded the dough, until it be leavened. An interval of time elapses between the inception and execution of the work. The baker ceaseth from raising, more literally, from stirring or stoking; after kindling the fire in the oven he lets it burn on and leaves off stirring it until the kneaded dough is fully fermented. This respite is allowed that the leaven of wickedness may do its work, and completely pervade the minds into which it has been introduced, and until matters are thoroughly matured for action. Meantime the fire burns steadily and sufficiently, until the oven requires to be more highly heated for the well-prepared and perfectly leavened dough. The use of the participle מֵעִיד is well explained by the principle stated by Ewald as follows: "Just as the idea of the verb ’to be’ is placed in immediate construction with the word which more exactly forms the predicate, so also may those verbs which describe a somewhat more specific kind of being, e.g. verbs which signify ’commencing’ to be, i.e. becoming … verbs of hastening, i.e. quickly becoming … and those of ceasing to be, Hosea 7:4 … The following verb, if such a word be required for the more specific predicate, most readily chooses the participial form.; verbs denoting continuance would be constructed in the same way." The particle עַד, equivalent to usque ad, implies the completeness of the leavening. Hosea 7:5 In the day of our king. This may mean the anniversary of his birth—his birthday celebration, or the anniversary of his accession or coronation; or it may have been used in an ambiguous sense, and to include the day of his destruction, like the tragic irony or contrast between the knowledge of the spectator and the supposed ignorance of the actor. The expression "our" is either a real acknowledgment of the kings of Israel, or rather the lip-loyalty of the traitorous princes who were compassing his ruin. The princes have made him sick with bottles of wine. The literal rendering is, have made sick the heat of him; i.e. made him sick with heat from wine. The construction resembles Micah 6:13, "I will make sick thy smiting;" i.e. I will make thee sick through smiting thee. The heat from wine repeats in some sort the preceding figure of a heated oven. The object of these wretches was twofold—to inflame their passion, and nerve their hands for the bloody work on which they were set; and to leave the king powerless, a helpless victim in their hands. He stretched out his hand with scorners. Whatever the real origin of this phrase may be, the meaning is plain—he joined in fellowship with those wicked princes, and took part on terms of equality with them in their brutish debauch and profane carousal. He stretched out his hand and hailed them as boon-companions. Hosea 7:6 For they have made ready their heart like an oven, whiles they lie in wait: their baker sleepeth all the night; in the morning it burneth as a flaming fire. Their heart is the oven, as the comparison here teaches us; the fire by which it is inflamed is the fire of sinful passion, and the fuel that feeds the flame is the murderous machination on which they are at present so intent; the baker is either the original contrivers and prompters of their wickedness, or their own wicked spirit, or the evil one himself at the head of all. But, though there is a temporary suspension, there is no real cessation of their evil purpose; they are only biding their time, lying in wait; the baker sleeps, but it is only whilst the dough is leavening. Soon as the suitable time has come, soon as the occasion has arrived, and all circumstances in readiness, in the morning the baker rouses from his nocturnal slumber, stirs up the fire, and sets the oven ablaze Now that the dough is sufficiently leavened, and the oven thoroughly heated, the bread is put in—the meditated assassination is accomplished—it burneth as a flaming fire. This is the second and last stage of the proceeding, the last scene of the last act of the tragic drama, Hosea 7:7 They are all hot as an oven, and have devoured their judges; all their kings are fallen. Here we have the application, and so the explanation of the figurative language of the preceding verse, which, as we have seen, is the second stage of the action. The heat of the oven denotes the intense violence of their passion, as also their fierce and fiery power of destruction. Inferior rulers and magistrates fell victims to it; while regicides in incredible number were the result of it. Three regicides were perpetrated in thirteen years; and four in less than forty, the victims being Zechariah, Shallum, Pekahiah, and Pekah. Also Nadab, Elah, Zimri, Zibni, and Jehoram perished by their successors. There is none among them that calleth unto me. Amid such horrid scenes of blood and violence, of disorder and anarchy, there was none of them to realize the calamities of the times or recognize the cause. Consequently there was no one to discover the remedy, and apply to the true and only source of relief. NOTES Hosea 7:4 The difficulty of the section including Hosea 7:4-7 has occasioned considerable difference of exposition; it may not, therefore, be amiss to supplement the foregoing observations. 1. Aben Ezra accounts for בערה being accented as milel (1) on the ground that, though a feminine formation, it is really masculine (to agree with תניו), like נחלה and לילה, both of which, though feminine in form, are notwithstanding of the masculine gender. Abarbanel, who is followed by Wunsche, (2) takes בֹּעָרְה as a participle feminine for בֹּעָרהָ or בֹּעֶרָח, which is justified by the circumstance that the names of fire and of what is connected therewith are feminine in the Semitic, so that חנור is feminine. 2. The word מֵעִיר, which Ewald and others take, properly we think, (1) as participle of Hiph; is treated (2) by Genenius and Maurer as infirmitive Qal with min prefixed, which would occasion the awkward and unusual combination of two infinitives each prefixed with min in immediate sequence; while (3) Kimchi takes it as infinitive Hiph. contracted for מֵהֵעִיר. 3. More important still is the interpretation of the verse. There is (1) that already given, and which is in some measure supported by the following rabbinic comments: "Their evil passion," says Rashi, "which stirs them up, rests from kneading the dough until it is leavened, i.e. from the time that any one has thought on evil in his heart how he shall execute it, he rests and sleeps till the morning, when he shall be able to execute it, as the baker rests from kneading the dough until it is leavened, when he can bake it." Similar and yet somewhat peculiar is the concluding portion of Kimchi’s comment: "As soon as he lays the pieces of wood into the oven, in order to heat it, he commands the women to knead, and he ceases to stir them (the women) up until the dough is leavened, as he estimates it in his heart, and then he rouses them to come with the dough to bake it. And this is the time when the oven is heated." (2) The LXX. takes עיר as a noun prefixed with the preposition min (ἀπὸτῆςφλογός), and translates the whole as follows: "They are all adulterers, as an oven glowing from flame for hot-baking, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened." The interpretation (3) of Wunsche differs considerably from both the preceding; it is, "They are all adulterers, like an even, burning from a baker, who rests while stoking from the kneading of the dough till its fermentation;" and he cites in favor of this view Aben Ezra as follows: "This verse is inverted, and accordingly the sense is: As the oven of a baker burneth from the kneading of the dough till its fermentation, so that the baker can scarcely cease to stir it up, but must stir it up and heat it violently." Hosea 7:5 A like diversity of exposition is found in connection with Hosea 7:5, at least it, first clause. 1. There is (1) the rendering already given; but (2) Wunsche, taking החלו from חלל, to begin, as is done by the LXX; Syriac, Chaldee, and Jerome, translates:" The princes begin [i.e. open] the day of our king in the heat of wine." Consequently, yom is (a) the object of this verb; while, (b) according to the usual rendering, it is the accusative of time, equivalent to ביוֹם; others again (c) take the word as a nominative absolute, or translate the clause as an independent one; thus Simson: "It is the day of our king." 2. Again, חֲמַח st. construct of חֵמָה, from the root חמם or יחם, (for the construct state is used, not only for the genitive-relation, but also before prepositions, the relative pronoun, relative clauses, even ray copulative, etc), is (1) the accusative of the clause, equivalent to "in the heat (proceeding) from wine;" or (2) be may be understood; or (3) the preposition rain may be regarded as transposed,—Rashi explains it: "From the heat of the wine that burneth in them;" or (4) בַּעֲלֵי may be supplied, as Wunsche suggests, equivalent to "possessors (bearers) of heat from wine." 3. לֵץ is a scoffer and worse than כְסִיל, a fool, or פְחִי, a simpleton; the last acts through inexperience, the second from unwisdom, the first, though possessing in some measure both wisdom and experience, acts in disregard of both. The meaning is given by Kimchi in the following comment: "The sense of חי מי is that the one came with his bottle full of wine, and the other with his bottle; and they made the king sick;" and to this there is an exact parallel in Habakkuk 2:15, "Woe unto him that giveth his neigh-hour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also." In the second clause the expression, "drawing out the hand," is borrowed from drunken carousals, in which the hand is stretched out in asking, receiving, and handing the goblets; or, more simply, according to Pussy, who says, "Men in drink reach out their hands to any whom they meet, in token of their sottish would be friendliness." Hosea 7:6 This verse, Wunsche thinks, is probably the most difficult in the whole book. 1. The translation of the first clause in the Authorized Version is susceptible of a more literal and improved rendering. (1) "For they bring near as an oven their heart, whilst they lie in wait;" that is, they approach the king with loyalty on their lips, but hatred in their heart. Their heart (which is the fact) is heated with evil passion, as an oven (which is the figure) is heated for baking purposes; while they are secretly set for wickedness. (2) Wunsche, after enumerating a great variety of renderings and expositions, with none of which he is satisfied, gives the following: "For they press close together; like an oven is their heart in their artifice (cunning)." The meaning, according to the same author, is that all, scoffers and king alike, press near each other, being of one heart and disposition; cunning makes them one single society. (3) Keil translates more simply as follows: "For they have brought their heart into their ambush, as into the oven." In this rendering he combines the explanation of Ewald and Hitzig. 2. In the second clause which Keil translates in the same sense as (1) the Authorized Version, Wunsche (2) changes the common reading into אַפְהָם, equivalent to אַפָם, their anger, and translates accordingly, "All night their anger sleeps, in the morning it burns like flaming fire." That the reading here is somewhat doubtful may be inferred from the fact that the LXX. has Ἔφραιμ: while the Chaldee and Syrian rugzehon, their fury; still, as it is only a conjectural emendation, we prefer abiding by the ordinary reading and rendering, at least in this instance. The following explanation of the whole verse by Aben Ezra gives a consistent sense: "By בארבם are meant their evil purposes, which they devise all night long. And their heart is like an oven, only with the difference that there the baker sleeps the whole night, and only in the morning kindles the oven; but their heart does not sleep at all, but devises evil the whole night." It is curious how Rashi and Kimchi, while giving in the main the same explanation with Aben Ezra, differ from him about the meaning of the sleeping. The former has the following brief comment: "Their baker lights the oven. After they have prepared their heart and thought out the consummation of their wickedness, how they could carry the same into effect, then their baker sleeps, that is, they sleep till morning; at the break of day, however, they burn like fire, until they have brought their wickedness fully to an end." Kimchi goes into the matter a little more fully, as is usual with him; he comments as follows: "The heart is the instrument of the thought, and the power that works therein is the baker by way of figure. And as the baker lights the oven at night, and in the morning finds that the pieces of wood have burnt out, and he baketh therein the bread, which is the chief end of the work of heating; and lo, the baker sleeps in the night after he has put the pieces of wood into the oven, because he has nothing more to do till the morning. Just so the baker in this figurative sense, which is the power of thought—he sleeps in the night; as if he said he lies there and rests, because the project comes not forth into execution until the morning; and the prophet calls him who thinks sleeping, because that there is no effort of the body in thought, In the morning he burneth, as if he said that they are in flame in the morning to execute the evil which they have devised at night." Hosea 7:7 1. "To call unto me (God)" is to cry to God for help and succor, to seek safety and deliverance with him. It is not the same with that other expression, viz. "to call on the Name of Jehovah," which is rather to reverence and worship Jehovah. 2. The word דין is more poetic than שָׁפַט, though the meaning of both is "judging," the latter probably derived from שָׁפַח, to set, then to set right, defend. 3. Their not calling unto God is well explained by Kimchi as follows: "Also they (the people) had failed by the hand of their enemies, the kings of the Gentiles; but, notwithstanding this, no one among them calls to me. They should have thought in their heart, There is no power in the hand of our king to help us out of our distress; we will turn to Jehovah, for he will be our Helper." This verse is not so difficult as the three preceding; we proceed, therefore, in regular order to the next. Hosea 7:8 Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people; Ephraim is a cake not turned. The people of the northern kingdom had fallen away from Jehovah, and mixed themselves with the heathen nationalities. They resembled a cake which, through neglect of turning, was burnt on the one side and raw on the other. The best commentary on the first clause of this verse is found in Psalms 106:35, Psalms 106:36, and Psalms 106:39; they "were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works. And they served their idols: which were a snare unto them … Thus were they defiled with their own works, and went a-whoring with their own inventions." The second clause is well explained by Bishop Horsley as follows: "One thing on one side, another on the other; burnt to a coal at bottom, raw dough at the top. An apt image of a character that is all inconsistencies. Such were the ten tribes of the prophet’s day; worshippers of Jehovah in profession, hut adopting all the idolatries of the neighboring nations, in addition to their own semi-idolatry of the calves." Similarly, the Geneva Bible has, "Baked on one side and raw on the ether, he is neither through hot nor through cold, but partly a Jew and partly a Gentile." Jehovah had chosen Israel out of the nations of the earth, and given them a special constitution. The object of this segregation was that Israel should be a peculiar people and a holy nation. Thus distinguished, they were to dwell alone; but, ungrateful for this high distinction, and unmindful of their high destiny, they mingled with the nations, learned their heathenish ways, and worshipped their hateful idols. Thus they forfeited their theocratic pre-eminence. While it was their privilege as well u duty to follow the precepts of Jehovah, and serve him with undivided affection, they fell away from his service and adopted the idolatries and habits of the heathen; it was only a just retribution, therefore, when God gave them ever into the hand of those heathen peoples to waste their resources and leave them shorn of their strength. The second clause is the counterpart of this; exactly like the peoples subsequently brought from Assyria, and planted in the lands of the dispossessed Israelites, they worshipped the Lord, but served their own gods—they were neither true worshippers of Jehovah nor out-and-out followers of Baal. In religion they were mongrels—inconsistent and worthless hybrids; they were, in fact, what Calvin in rather homely phrase says of them," neither flesh nor fish." The comment of Kimchi is concise as it is clear: "The prophet means to say, He (Israel) mixes himself among the peoples; though God—blessed be he I—separated them from them, yet they mix them. selves among them and do according to their works." His explanation of the second clause is not so satisfactory when he says, "As a cake which is baked upon the coals; if they do not turn it, it is burnt below and not baked above, so is the counsel that is not right when they do not turn it from side to side (sense to sense) until they bring it upon their wheels (into action). So (thoughtless and hasty) is Ephraim in his determination to serve the calves and other gods without proving and choosing what is good." (2) Other explanations need only be referred to in order to be rejected, as (1) that of Rashi, who is followed by Grotius. He takes the verb in the future sense: "Ephraim in exile shall be mixed among the peoples." But it is obviously the present, not the future time, that is intended—the present sin, not its future punishment. There is (2) the explanation of Aben Ezra, followed by Eichhorn and Maurer, referring to the alliances or treaties which the northern kingdom formed with their neighbors to repel their enemies, and by which the resources of the land were consumed; while the second clause, (a) according to Aben Ezra, refers to the over-hastiness and thoughtlessness with which Israel proceeded in their resolutions; and, (b) according to Maurer, Jerome, and Theodoret, it signifies what is spoiled, ill-advised, and worthless. Hosea 7:9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not. Israel’s intercourse with other nationalities could not but issue in disaster; a specimen of that disaster is here given. As the Greeks called all who did not speak the Greek language, whether they were savage or civilized, barbarians, so Israel called all foreigners, whether near or far off, strangers. The foreign nations here meant were those with which Israel had entered into treaties or formed alliances, in contravention of the constitution which God had given them. These nations, moreover, devoured their national resources by the imposition of taxes and hostile incursions; thus the King of Syria left "of the people to Jehoahaz only fifty horsemen, and ton chariots, and ten thousand footmen; for the King of Syria had destroyed them, and had made them like the dust by threshing;" again, when "Pul, the King of Assyria, came against the laud," we read that Menahem gave Pul a thousand talents of silver, that his hand might be with him to confirm the kingdom in his hand. And Menahem exacted the money of Israel, even of all the mighty men of wealth, of each man fifty shekels of silver, to give to the King of Assyria;" then, "in the days of Pekah King of Israel came Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazer, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria. "The strength here mentioned includes all those things which constitute the wealth and well-being of a country, the produce of the soil and the riches of its inhabitants. Thus Aben Ezra rightly explains this clause, referring it to "the tribute which the Israelites gave to Assyria and Egypt, as is written in the Book of Kings." Yea, grey hairs are here and there (margin, sprinkled) upon him. What from foreign foes and internal feuds, the body politic was manifesting unmistakable symptoms of decay and decrepitude and approaching dissolution, just as grey hairs on the human body give indication of the advance of old age, with its decay of strength and nearness to the tomb. "The course of nature," says Aben Ezra, "has sprinkled grey hairs upon him, just as grey hair comes on men in consequence of the course of nature;" this corresponds to the sentiment of the preceding clause, for, according to the commentator just named," the grey hair denotes that their power is weakened and their possession perished." Yet he knoweth not is parallel to. "And he knoweth (it) not," and repeats the same sentiment, of course with emphasis of what was Israel thus ignorant? Not, surely, of the declining state of the national strength and the decay of the national importance. After so many drains upon their resources and the unsatisfactory position of their foreign relations, they could not shut their eyes upon the steadily and even rapidly approaching decadence. But though they could not pretend ignorance of the fact, they remained in ignorance of the cause, its consequence, and the cure. Notwithstanding the already exhausted condition of their country, and the process of exhaustion still going on, they overlooked the lamentable cause of all, which was their sin, national and individual, in departing from the Lord; and at the same time the dangerous consequences that were neither remote nor capable of being staved off; as also the only possible cure to be found in direct and immediate return and application to that God from whom they had so revolted. The "it" supplied in the Authorized Version (1) had better be omitted; (2) the construction adopted by Rashi and others, who make the first part of each clause the object of the second, is erroneous, as we have shown in the preceding observations. "They took it not to heart that the kings of Syria consumed them in the days of Jehoahaz" is the exposition of Rashi just referred to; but that of Kimchi favors the first and correct construction, as may be inferred from the words, "And he (Israel) knows not that on account of his iniquity all this has come upon him, and yet he turns not from his wickedness." Hosea 7:10 And the pride of Israel testifieth to his face: and they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this (amid all this). If with Keil and others (1) we understand "the pride of Israel" to mean Jehovah the glory of Israel, and take the verb in the sense of "testify," the meaning will be that Jehovah bore witness to the face of Israel by the weakening and wasting of their kingdom, as portrayed in the preceding verse. We prefer (2) to understand "the pride of Israel" in the souse of "the haughtiness" of Israel, and the verb in the sense of "being humbled," as at Hosea 5:5. The real meaning, then, is expressed in the following rendering: And the haughtiness of Israel shall be humbled to his face. This humiliation is the effect of the wasting mentioned in the preceding verse; while the evidence of their humiliation is specified in the succeeding verse by their resorting to Egypt and repairing to Assyria from a consciousness of their helplessness. This rendering is countenanced by the LXX; both here and at Hosea 5:5; while Rashi says, "The verb עגה has the meaning of "humiliation." For all this. This emphasizes the obstinate blindness and perverseness of Ephraim, when, amid all the calamities and miseries of the kingdom both within and without, they turned not to Jehovah to solicit help and deliverance, but concluded treaties or made alliances with foreign nations in hope of being lifted up out of their national impotence. On this Aben Ezra makes the judicious remark: "They turned not to Jehovah as paupers who have nothing more to give foreign nations that they may help them." Hosea 7:11 Ephraim also is like a silly dove without heart. The silliness of the dove, with which the stupidity of Ephraim is compared, is not manifested by its missing its nest and resting-place, and then helplessly fluttering about, according to Ewald; nor by its falling into the net of the bird-catcher in its effort to escape from the hawk, according to Hitzig; nor by its neither grieving nor searching for its young when it is robbed of them, according to Jerome; nor by its becoming dejected or devoid of consideration when it has lost its young, according to the Targum; but by its flying right into the net of the bird-catcher, without suspecting or observing it in its search for food, according to Rosenmller. Thus Kimchi explains it: "The prophet compares Ephraim to a dove which gets caught in a net owing to its simplicity, because it has no sense to perceive that, when it goes to gather grains of corn, a net is spread there to catch it. So Ephraim, when they went and asked help from Assyria or from Egypt, (did not perceive) that they went to their hurt, when they sought help from the foreign nations and not from God—blessed be he!—in whose hand all is. And he mentions the dove, though it is the manner of other birds, because the dove has no bitterness, as if it went in simplicity and without apprehension of the evil that would come upon it." They call to Egypt, they go to Assyria. The position of Palestine exposed its inhabitants to attacks from the two great rival powers of Egypt and Assyria, or Babylon. "It stood midway," says Stanley, "between the two great seats of ancient empire, Babylon and Egypt. It was on the high-road from one to the other of these mighty powers, the prize for which they contended, the battlefield on which they fought, the lofty bridge over which they ascended and descended respectively into the deep basins of the Nile and Euphrates." Accordingly the rulers of the people sought help, now from Egypt to strengthen them against the oppression of Assyria; at another time they sought to secure the support of Assyria. The most powerful enemy of the northern kingdom was Assyria, which distressed that kingdom more and more, until at last they made an end of it. "But," says Kimchi, "while they think to obtain help by them (Egypt and Assyria), they fall into the net of the Almighty—blessed be he—and this is what he says (in the following verse). As they go I spread my net over them." Hosea 7:12 When they shall go, l will spread my net over them. Threats of punishment are contained in this and the following verses. He begins by the application of the comparison of Ephraim to a dove. Exactly as a dove in its silliness falls into the net set by the fowler, so Israel runs into the net of destruction in seeking help from Egypt and Assyria. The literal rendering is, according as they go, or, whatsoever way they shall go. God threatens to spread a net over them, from which there can be no escape. The chief aim of Hebrew sovereigns and rulers was to defend themselves from Egypt by the help of Assyria, or from Assyria by the aid of Egypt; in either case God threatens to spread over them the net of destruction as the bird-catcher. The application to one or other of these powers God forbade, but when they go to either for relief, the result is sure to prove fatal. The image of a net is frequent in Ezekiel; so in Job, he "hath compassed me with his net." I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven. The comparison with birds and bird-catching continues. Though their sunward soaring flight be high as the eagle’s, or rapid as the soft swift wing of the dove, they cannot outspeed or escape the hand of God, but shall be brought down to earth. Or the idea may be that, swiftly as a bird of prey swoops down out of the free air of heaven upon its quarry on the low-lying earth, Jehovah will bring Israel down out of the air of freedom into the net of captivity. Thus in Obadiah 1:4 we read, "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord;" likewise in Amos 9:2, "Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down." I will chastise them as their congregation hath heard. The word אַיְסִידֵם is an anomalous Hiph. instead of אֵיסִירֵם, that is, yod mobile instead of yod quiescent or diphthongal zere. The literal rendering makes the meaning more obvious; it is: "I will chastise them according to the tidings [or,’ announcement ’] to their congregation." In the Law and by the prophets it was repeatedly declared that judgments would fall upon the disobedient and rebellions. As specimens of such announcements, we may refer to Leviticus 26:14-39; Deuteronomy 28:15-68; and Deuteronomy 32:15-35 The prophet now assures Ephraim that the judgments so frequently and forcibly announced to the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness, and repeated in subsequent times by the prophets, would be executed on the rebellious rigorously, and in exact accordance with those many previous denunciations. Kimchi has the following comment: "I will assemble them through the chastisement of the peoples, as I announced to their assembly in the wilderness words of chastisement, which are written in the Law, if they will not hearken to the words of the Law." The LXX. may have read צרתם, as their rendering is ἐντῇἀκοῇτῆςθλίψεωςαὐτῶν, equivalent to "’I will chasten them with the rumor of their (coming) affliction," Hosea 7:13 Woe unto them! for they have fled from me: destruction (margin, spoil) unto them! because they have transgressed against me. Of these exclamations, the first is general and indefinite, the second is specific and precise. The thought of coming chastisement calls forth the exclamation of woe; while the second exclamation fixes the character and explains the nature of that woe denounced. In neither case does יְהִי or יֱבֹא need to be supplied; the opposite expression is שָׁלוֹם לָהֶם or בְּלָכָה לָהָם In assigning the reason, there is a retrospective reference to the figures of the two immediately preceding verses. The word נָדַד with rain is employed in relation to birds which, when scared from their nest, fly away. Kimchi thinks it applies to the abstention or withdrawal of the Israelites from Divine service in the national sanctuary in Jerusalem. His comment is: "They fly from me, from the service of the house of my sanctuary, to the service of the calves; and this is a breach of faith and defection from me." The LXX. translate the beginning of the second clause freely by δειλαῖοιεἰσὶν, equivalent to "they are cowards;" and Jerome by "miseri (maticulose) erunt, et semper timentis ac formidantes." The cause assigned is their breaking covenant with God, which is expressed by פָשַׁע, literally, "to break away from," "tear one’s self loose from." Though I have redeemed them. This first part of the last clause is rendered (1) as a past by some, as Jerome, who refers it to the redemption from Egypt; thus also the Chaldee: "And I was their Deliverer." Rosenmller approves of this, but, instead of restricting it to the deliverance from Egypt, includes their recent deliverance from the Syrians by Jeroboam II. It is (2) better rendered in a voluntative or optative sense: "I would (should like) to redeem them, but they speak lies against (or, concerning) me." The verb ’ephdem cannot with any propriety be taken for a preterit. Yet they have spoken lies against me; rather, but they on their part have spoken lies concerning me. The prophet had already charged them with lying at Hosea 7:3, and previously at Hosea 4:2; but their lies were not confined to their intercourse or dealings with their fellow-men; they spoke lies against or, as the preposition sometimes signifies, concerning God. The lies in question included, no doubt, a denial of his essential Deity or sole Divinity; of his power or willingness either to protect or punish. Or they might consist in their falsehood in drawing near to God with their lips without either true faith or real affection in their hearts; some were directly opposed to the claims of Jehovah, some insincere in his service, and others turned aside to the idolatry of the calves—all, with probably some honorable exceptions, had proved false to his covenant with Israel. The last clause has been taken (3) independently by Ewald, without any considerable alteration of the sense: "I, for my part, would redeem them, but they, on their side, speak lies against me." Other acceptations, (a) interrogative and (b) conditional, evidently mistake the sense. The whole clause is correctly explained by Kimchi thus: "It was in my heart to redeem them out of their distress; but they speak lies against me, while they say that I know nothing nor exercise any providential care over their actions, whether their actions are good or bad. Therefore I have withdrawn my providential oversight, and have hidden my face from them, and they shall be consumed." Hosea 7:14 And they have not cried unto me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds. This clause may be more correctly rendered, They did not cry to me in their heart, but howl upon their beds. Their falsehood manifested itself in works as well as words; a practical example is here given. They did not, in reality, seek help from God; if they sought at all, it was insincerely. They cried to God, but that cry did not proceed from their heart. They gave vent to their feelings of distress by howlings upon their beds; but those howlings were the expression of unbelief and despair, not by any means evidences of faith. "They do not cry to me," says Aben Ezra, "as the sick man cries to the physician." The comment of Kimchi is still fuller and more explicit: "They have not cried to me in their heart, because of their notion that I do not see their cry nor know what is good or bad for them; but they howl upon their beds, i.e. when they are upon their bed and when they think of that misfortune which is coming upon them. They howl and weep because of their evil case, and do not think that the evil falls on them from me, because they have broken faith with me." The form of יְיֵלִלִוּ is correctly explained by Gesenius as future Hiph. with preformative put before the third person, the yod of the simple form being superficially taken to belong to the stem. His derivation from אֵל, God, as if a cry to him for help, is incorrect; it is really an onomatopoetic word. They assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against me. What this (1) assembling of themselves was does not clearly appear; whether it was in the market-place or elsewhere to purchase corn in time of famine, as some think; or in idol-temples to propitiate their deities, like the Roman supplicatio or lectiosternium, as others suppose; or for the performance of some extra rite of worship to Jehovah; or for the purpose of plunder in a season of scarcity; or generally their assembling in knots and crowds to discuss anxiously and lament despairingly the distressed state of the country;—their chief design and highest aim being a good supply of corn and wine, that is, the supply of mere bodily wants. (2) The LXX. seem to have read ויתגדדו, as their rendering is κατετεμνόντο, equivalent to "they cut themselves," or" pined for corn and wine;" corresponding to which rendering is Cyril’s exposition: "As enthusiasts and fanatics making incisions with steel in their breasts and both hands, and absurdly all but shedding in sacrifice their own blood, perhaps to graven images." (3) Jerome, taking the verb from גָּרַר, to ruminate, translates accordingly: "super triticum et vinum ruminabant." (4) The Syriac, tracing it to גוּר, to be afraid, translates: "They feared (or, were fearfully anxious) about corn and wine." The common reading and rendering are clearly preferable; Kimchi’s exposition is in harmony therewith: "When corn or new wine comes into the city for sale, they all assemble at (or, round) it on account of the famine which is in the city; and yet they fall away from me." The construction of the last clause is pregnant, that is (1) "they turn aside (and turn) against me." Here, again (2) the LXX. seem to have read יִוָּסְרוּ, to which their translation, ἐπαιδεύθησανἐνἐμοί, equivalent to "they were instructed by me," corresponds. Hosea 7:15 Though I have bound (margin, chastened) and strengthened their arms, yet do they imagine mischief against me. The first clause of this verse is more accurately translated as follows: And yet I have instructed, have strengthened their arms. Here we have another instance of God’s goodness and Israel’s ingratitude. He had done much for them, and would fain have done more; and yet the return they made was devising mischief against him. The arms are the seat and symbol of strength, as the hands and fingers symbolize skill; thus, in reference to the latter the psalmist says, "Blessed be the Lord my Strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight;" and with regard to the former he says, "He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms." Two benefits are here included in the prophet’s enumeration. He instructed the arms, by which is meant that he showed them how and where to get strength. But this was not all; he not only directed to the source, and taught the secret of acquiring strength, he actually supplied strength, thereby giving them power to contend against and conquer their enemies. At a time when "there was not any shut up, nor any left [that is, ’neither bond nor free’] nor helper for Israel … the Lord … saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash." Notwithstanding all this, they (1) acted the part of apostates and rebels against him: they devised mischief against him by their idolatry which denied him the Godhead glory which was his due, and by their rebellion which aimed at depriving him of his kingly power and dignity. The reference of the last clause, (2) according to Ewald, is to the treaties which Israel entered into with Assyria and Egypt for safety and defense; and (3) according to Kimchi, to Israel’s false representations of the government and providence of Jehovah: "For they say the good or evil does not come to them from me, but is purely accidental." With respect to יסר, it must be borne in mind that, like ינח, it has two meanings, viz. the chastisement of punishment (κόλασις) and the chastisement of love (παιδεία). Hosea 7:16 They return, but not to the Most High. This verse is closely connected in sense with the preceding. Their God-defying attitude, as described in Hosea 7:15, is represented in Hosea 7:16 allegorically as a deceitful bow, which fails to scud the arrow to the mark; also their unsuccess is represented as exposing them to the derision of Egypt; while the princes who spake so exceeding proudly, and who instigated their ungodliness and consequent wretchedness, would be slain with the sword. This is the drift of the whole verse; its details, however, demand more particular consideration. 1. The word עַל is by some identified in meaning with (1) the adjective עֶלְיוֹן, equivalent to "the Most High;" by others (2) it is taken adverbially, and translated "upwards." (3) The Septuagint does not express it. translating ἀπεστράφησανεἰςοὐθέν, "They turned aside to that which is not [literally, ’nothing’]." (4) Jerome translates it as is עֹל, were equivalent to "yoke: They returned that they might be without a yoke." Their return, according to Jerome, would be to their pristine condition before the can of Abram, like the other nations, without yoke or knowledge of law. 2. The return spoken of implies that there were junctures at which they seemed disposed to return to religiousness, but ere long they again relapsed into idolatry. They disappointed the high hopes raised, and missed their own high destiny, and thus they resembled a bow, of which the string, losing its elasticity, could not propel the arrow to the object aimed at. Appearing to return to the worship of Jehovah, they turned aside to an idol. Thus in Psalms 78:57, they "turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow." Hosea 7:1-7 Crimes charged on Israel; people and princes. It was a time of great corruption and of atrocious crimes. Nor were those crimes committed only by persons "of the baser sort;" people and princes alike, rulers and ruled, had their share in them; the country and the capital, Ephraim and Samaria; the chief tribe and the chief city, with the common people as well as elite, in the former, and members of the court in the latter. All classes contributed their portion to the national tins, and sins of almost all classes were freely indulged in. I. THE OF SIN AS A DISEASE. Sin is represented in Scripture as a disease—an all-pervading disease; it is as universal as the race, for all have sinned; it is an all-embracing disease, for it extends to the faculties and feelings of the soul, and employs as its instruments all the members of the body. It infects whole peoples as well as individual persons. The description which Isaiah gives of its widespread ravages applies to the body politic as well as to the body human: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores." It is thus a loathsome disease, a dangerous disease, a deadly disease; and, unless arrested in time, it is a fearfully fatal disease. The Apostle James gives us the genesis and development of this disease: "When lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death;" and the symbol of this spiritual malady is leprosy—one of the most frightful scourges of humanity. II. THE MEANS OF HEALING . The disease is so desperate that God alone can cure it. 1. If there is balm in Gilead and a physician there, God himself is that Physician, and a Physician who not only supplies the balm but applies it; he has provided the remedy and prescribed the way in which it is made available. Thus the Prophet Jeremiah prays," Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my Praise." To a people as well as a person laden with sin, God promises relief when it is earnestly sought and properly applied for; thus we read in 2 Chronicles 7:13, 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; if my people, which are called by my Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." If, then, sin-sick souls are not healed, it is not that God is either unwilling or unable to heal them. When Christ would have gathered the people of Palestine, or the inhabitants of its principal city, with all the tenderness and all the carefulness that the parent bird exercises in gathering its brood under its outspread wings, they would not. So is it still; sinners condemnation is self-procured as well as justly deserved, while the salvation of the righteous is only of the Lord. 2. The means which God employs for healing, though various, are yet pretty much the same at all times. One of these means, and that most commonly employed, is the Word of his grace read, preached, or meditated on. In all ages the chief instrumentality for reclaiming men has been his message of mercy. Thus he dealt with his ancient people: "The Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling-place: but they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy" (margin, "healing"). Other means used for the same end are afflictions and adverse circumstances of whatever kind; cases of thin sort, such as dearth, or famine, or pestilence, or impoverishment, or sore sickness and of long continuance, were frequent experiences of God’s people in the past. But the purpose was benevolent and salutary: "By this therefore shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged; and this is all the fruit to take away his sin." It is so still; for while "no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby." Again, God sends intervals of prosperity with like design. This he did with Israel in the reign of Jeroboam II; in the days of Joash, and at other periods in their history, in order to wean them from sin and win them to himself. Another means of healing which God resorted to in the case of his ancient people was the removal of ringleaders in iniquity and notable apostates, as when he made an end of the dynasty of Ahab. Not a few similar instances in subsequent and modern times might be, pointed out. III. THE EXTENT OF THE HURT BY THE ATTEMPT AT HEALING. While God was manifesting his intentions of mercy towards Israel, the virulence of their disease became evident. God here, in condescension to our weakness, accommodates himself to the manner of men and adopts their mode of speech. As though he had not known the desperate state of matters before, he speaks of it being now discovered. It is by probing a wound that a surgeon discovers its depth, and whether it reaches some vital part; it is only by careful examination a physician detects the character of his patient’s disease, and whether it is curable or likely to prove fatal. So with the good physician on closely examining the state of Israel; he found it even worse than had been supposed—much worse than it appeared to the superficial observer. Much, no doubt, must have appeared on the surface, and much lay hid in secret; it had been, in fact, "half revealed, half concealed." When the iniquity of Ephraim was fully discovered and the wickedness of Samaria clearly seen, it proved incurable, so enormous was their guilt, so hardened were they in their transgressions, above all, so impenitent were they and so unwilling to be helped and healed. Their obduracy barred the door against the entrance of mercy, their refusal to part with their enormities checked the outgoings of the Divine goodness towards them. Nay more; as when a rock rises up in a river-bed, or the stream is narrowed by the encroaching banks, the water rushes with greater violence and is lashed into foam, so the very attempt to repress the sin of Israel rendered it more violent and outrageous. The rulers and those who occupied high places, as the inhabitants of the metropolis Samaria, and the people of the preeminent tribe of Ephraim, proved the most incorrigible of all. Among the vices of the time were falsehood and fraud, and the fraud was both private and public. IV. THE SINS CHARGED AGAINST ISRAEL ARE COMMON TO THEM, WITH THE UNGODLY, AT ALL TIMES. This assertion is proved by the further enumeration of these sins by Hosea. There was also sinful security and senseless stupidity. 1. They did not confer with their own hearts in reference to their state in the sight of God, nor impress on themselves their responsibility to him. They were strangers to any right searching of heart, or any serious reflection on the issues of their conduct and conversation. It is thus with hundreds of our fellow-men; want of consideration has ruined thousands Both for time and eternity; hence the earnest wish of the great lawgiver, "Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!" Hence, too, the solemn command of "the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways." 2. The want of consideration or of communing with their own heart had special reference to the relationship in which they stood to God. They did not reflect that God remembered all their wickedness, consequently they did not recollect their liability to punishment for their wickedness at the hand of God, and therefore they did not feel any remorse on account of their wickedness when committed. Being spared after their wickedness, and not visited with immediate vengeance because of their wickedness, they thought themselves certain of impunity; enjoying a season of prosperity notwithstanding the greatness of their wickedness, they were emboldened in their wicked ways. 3. Atheism, theoretical or practical, or both, was at the root of the matter with them. The first article of belief embraces the existence of God, and the existence of God implies a Being of Divine attributes and infinite perfections; the second article includes a belief in God that he is a Recompenser of men’s actions—a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him, and a Punisher of all workers of wickedness. They rejected, at least practically, these rudiments of the faith, these primary articles of belief; "as if God could not see their wickedness, though he is all eye; and did not heed it, though his name is Jealous; or had forgotten it, though he is an eternal mind that can never be unmindful; or would not reckon for it, though he is the Judge of heaven and earth. This is the sinner’s atheism; as good say there is no God, as say he is either ignorant or forgetful; none that judgeth in the earth, as say he remembers not the things he is to give judgment upon; it is a high affront they put upon God, it is a damning cheat they put upon themselves, when they say, The Lord shall not see" nor remember. 4. The eyes of such shall be opened one day. They shall wake up out of their daydream, and their delusion shall vanish when their doings shall beset them about and the sad effects thereof shall entangle them as in a net. They shall see their sins in the punishments they bring upon them; they shall feel them in the sorrows and sufferings that attend them; and they shall recognize that God had them before his face all the time, having knowledge of them when committed, taking notice of their demerit, and remembering them for the exercise of his retributive justice. Even men’s secret sins God sets in the light (literally "luminary," maor) of his countenance; the fire-flashing eye of the Omniscient penetrates the deep recesses of the human heart, and brings forth its secret workings into the sight of the sun and the broad light of day. V. TO RULERS IN THEIR SINFUL OR COURSES IS . It may please ungodly sovereigns or civil rulers to find subjects so pliable as at once to fall in with their wicked works and ways; or to he flattered by them; or to hear the upright who oppose their vileness slandered; or to listen to the lies by which the unscrupulous seek to ingratiate themselves; but such pandering must prove pitiful and profitless work for both the persons who indulge in it and the princes who encourage it. The former have often realized, though not perhaps to the same extent, the hitter experience of the great cardinal when he said- "Oh, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favors I There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have; And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again ... Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age Have left me naked to mine enemies." There is an alternative interpretation of verse 3 which presents the other side, and another aspect of the case, namely, when deceitful men wickedly and mendaciously impose on the credulity of princes by false professions of friendship at the very time they are plotting their downfall and planning their destruction. The ordinary acceptation, however, suits the sense of the passage very well. When people are so wicked as to conform to the idolatrous worship prescribed by godless rulers, or to imitate their impious and immoral practices, or to applaud their worthless favorites, or to calumniate those known to be obnoxious to them, those rulers are more than gratified add gladdened by such lying and baseness, they are encouraged and stimulated in their wrongdoing, while a terrible responsibility rests upon the head of both. Thus Herod, after harassing the Church and slaying games the brother of John, "because he saw it pleased the Jews, proceeded further to take Peter." People, again, when they see that their acts of wickedness please their rulers, or their accounts thereof amuse them, are emboldened to proceed yet further. Thus sovereigns and subjects encouraging each other in sin ultimately work each other’s destruction. There is probably a reference to the people’s facile complaisance with the idolatry of the calves legalized by Jeroboam, or of Baal by Ahab—a conscienceless acquiescence which in the end was fraught with the most baneful results to princes and people. VI. THE COURSE OF SIN IS A SLOPE. After reprehending the profligate pleasure which both princes and people took in sin, the prophet reproves the servile submission of the latter to idolatry, and the debaucheries of the former. The adultery which he proceeds to stigmatize may be understood literally as welt as spiritually, the former being so frequent an accompaniment of the latter. In this case the heart is aptly compared to an oven, its lusts the fire with which it is heated; while Satan supplies by his temptations the fuel to the fire, and at the same time puts the leaven in the dough. Whether the baker, after kindling the fire, ceases from stirring it till morning, by which time the dough is leavened and ready for the oven, which he then raises to a greater heat; or whether he rests comparatively while still stoking during the interval that elapses from kneading the dough till it is leavened and ready for use; in either case there is a respite, not from the fire of lust abating or the fuel of temptation ceasing, but from want of opportunity or courage or ability. Soon, however, as the occasion presents itself or opportunity is afforded, or means of gratification are available, or hope of impunity is cherished, the fire of lust that seemed smoldering flames up with increased intensity; the wicked plot is executed; the covert passion breaks out into the overt act; the half-stifled concupiscence finds vent; the lustful, covetous, or ambitious project is accomplished. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This chapter deals with the punishment of apostasy. Once more the sins of the northern kingdom are enumerated and its approaching fall predicted. There is a close connection between the verses in the first section of the chapter. That connection is as follows: The first verse begins with an exclamation containing Jehovah’s command to the prophet to act as his herald, putting the trumpet to his mouth and sounding the alarm about coming calamity. In the second clause of the same verse the nature of the calamity is announced. In the third and last clause of it the cause of the calamity is declared. The second verse represents Israel in their extremity crying to God for deliverance; the cry is very earnest, and proceeds from every member of the community, backed also with the assertion of their acquaintance with Jehovah. In the third verse Jehovah rejects their cry and refuses to interpose between them and the enemy, because their knowledge of him was merely historical and neither spiritual nor practical, as their dislike of what was good continued unabated. The fourth verse specifies facts in proof of Israel’s renunciation of Jehovah. The fifth verse shows a just retribution, for, inasmuch as Israel disliked what was good, the object of their idolatry has disgusted Jehovah or cast them off. The sixth verse contains the doom of this silly, sinful, and disgusting idol. In the seventh verse the threat of such destruction is accounted for on a broad principle taken from agricultural life, that the harvest will correspond to the seed sown; and so Israel shall reap the fruit of their ungodliness. Hosea 8:1 The exclamation in this verse, A trumpet to thy mouth, supersedes the necessity of supplying a verb. The alarm of war or of hostile invasion is to be sounded by the prophet at the command of Jehovah. The (1) trumpet is at once to be employed for the purpose. The rendering of both the Targum and Syriac (2) expresses the same idea, though under a different form; the former has, "Cry with thy throat, as if it were a trumpet;" and the latter, "Let thy mouth be as a trumpet." According to this view, the Prophet Hoses expresses here very briefly what Isaiah has done more fully in the words, "Cry aloud [Hebrew, ’with the throat’] spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." (3) The LXX. here deviates considerably from the Maseoretic Hebrew text, translating εἰςκόλπον (תֵיקְךָ) αὐτῶν, ὡςγῆ, of the meaning of which Jerome acknowledges his ignorance, though he attempts to explain it. Cyril connects the words with the concluding part of the preceding chapter, thus: "This their setting at naught (of me) in the land of Egypt shall come into their own bosom. As the land, as the eagle against the house of the Lord;" while his explanation is as follows: "Since, though I preserved them and instructed them, and gave them victory over their enemies (for I strengthened them), they have impiously set me at naught, worshipping demons for gods, and have trusted to the land of the Egyptians, and have fancied that their help shall be sufficient for their prosperity, therefore their attempt shall return unto their own besom, and they shall find no good reward of their temerity; but they shall receive, as it were, into their bosom the deserved punishment. For he shall come, he shall come who shall lay them waste—the King of Assyria, with an innumerable multitude of warriors, and he shall come to them as the whole land and region and country, that one might think that the whole region of the Persians and Medes had wholly migrated and had come into Samaria. This is the meaning of the whole land (ὡςγῆ). He shall likewise come as an eagle into the house of the Lord." (He shall come) as an eagle against the house of the Lord. These words cannot mean, (1) as Hitzig thinks, the rapidity with which the prophet is directed to convey his tidings of alarm, as if it were, "Fly [דאה imperfect being supplied], thou prophet, as an eagle;" nor yet, with others, the loudness of the alarm he was to sound. The meaning abruptly though vividly expressed refers (2) to the approaching invasion of the enemy, though there is no need to supply ידאה, or יבא, It is the substance of the prophet’s alarm. As an eagle the enemy (as is evident flora verse 3) shall come against the house of the Lord. The enemy was, in all probability, the Assyrian, in whose symbolism the eagle bulks largely; while the griffin vulture, scenting from afar, and coming down with rapid and terrific swoop upon its prey, is an appropriate image of the sudden and impetuous character of his invasion. The house of the Lord is neither the temple at Jerusalem, for the prophecy relates to the northern kingdom; nor the temple at Samaria, which could not be called Beta Yehovah, but Bethbamoth; nor the land of Israel, which could not with any propriety be called a house; but the people of Israel, which, owing to God’s covenant relation to that people, is called his house, as in Numbers 12:7, "My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house." The figure seems an echo of Deu 28:49, "The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth;" while it has a parallel in Matthew 24:28, "For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together." Because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my Law. These words exhibit the cause of Israel’s being exposed to the sudden hostile attack which the prophet was commissioned to proclaim. The provocations of Israel consisted in violating the covenant which God had been pleased to make with them, and in proving unfaithful to that Law, obedience to which was the condition of the covenant. The explanation of the whole verse thus given is confirmed by the Hebrew commentators; thus Rashi says, "The Shechinah (or Divine Majesty)says to the prophet, ’Let the voice of thy palate be heard and sound the trumpet and say, The enemies fly hither as the eagle flieth and come unto the house of the Lord.’" Abeu Ezra more concisely conveys the same sense: "It is the words of Jehovah to the prophet, ’ Set the cornet to thy palate, for the enemy flieth as the eagle against the house of the Lord.’" Kimchi differs in two respects from his brethren, understanding the address to be not that of Jehovah to the prophet, but of the prophet to the people; and the house of the Lord to include the whole laud of Israel and temple at Jerusalem: "The cornet to thy palate, as he said above, ’Sound the trumpet in Gibeah.’ Many a time the prophet speaks to the people in the singular and many a time in the plural. He says, ’Put the trumpet to thy mouth, for behold! the enemy flies hither like the eagle over the house of Jehovah; ’he means to say,’ Over the whole land and also over the house of Jehovah, in order to destroy it.’ And he joins the trumpet to the palate (and yet man sets the trumpet to the mouth) because the voice passes over the way of the palate after it comes out of the throat." Hosea 8:2 Israel shall cry unto me, My God, we know thee. The more literal as well as more exact rendering is, to me wilt they cry, My God, we know thee, we Israel! Notwithstanding their provocation, their unfaithfulness to the covenant of God, and their disobedience to the Law, they appeal unitedly and severally to God in the day of their distress, and urge two pleas—their knowledge of God, or acknowledgment of him as the true God; and their high position as his people. Thus the Chaldee paraphrase has: "As often as calamity comes upon them they pray and say before me, Now we acknowledge that we have no God beside thee; deliver us, because we are thy people Israel." As to the construction, either "Israel" is in apposition to anachnu, the subject of the verb, or there is a transposition. Thus Rashi: "We must transpose the words, and explain, ’ To me, cries Israel, My God, we know thee; ’" so also Kimchi and Aben Ezra. The former says, "’ Israel ’ which comes after, should be before, after לייו, and many inversions of this kind occur in Scripture, as Ezekiel 39:11 and Psalms 141:10." The word "Israel" is omitted by the LXX. and Syriac, and in many manuscripts of Kennicott and De Rossi. Hosea 8:3 Israel hath cast off the thing that is good: the enemy shall pursue him. This is the reply of Jehovah. The good which Israel rejected is not exactly God the One Good, nor Jehovah the greatest Good, nor the Law, which was good; but all the goodness which he bestows on such as keep his covenant. This Israel rejected, and in turn is rejected of God and delivered up into the hands of his pursuers. Hosea 8:4 They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not. Here was the first instance and evidence of Israel’s rejection of Jehovah. Their conduct was not guided by Divine direction, nor in obedience to the Divine will, nor with the Divine sanction. This state of things began with Israel’s revolt from the house of David, and rebellion against the son of Solomon their legitimate sovereign, and was repeated in subsequent usurpations. Perhaps we may go further back, even to the appointment of the first king of the yet undivided kingdom, when "the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them." Usurpations such as those of Zimri, Omri, and Shallum at least are comprehended in the appointments referred to—appointments on making which the people did not inquire of the Lord, nor act under his guidance, nor seek his sanction. Some go so far as to include all the kings of Israel that succeeded Jeroboam. Thus Cyril says, "He denies the kingdom of Israel and his successors on the throne of Israel." Aben Ezra also extends the statement to the kings of the northern kingdom from the days of Jeroboam: "They inquired not of God with respect to the making of Jeroboam king, although it is written, ’ Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom the Lord thy God shall choose.’" A seeming contradiction here exists between the statement of the prophet here and that in 1 Kings 11:37, where God promises by the Prophet Ahijah, "I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel," and the fact of Jehu’s anointing being ordered by the Prophet Elisha, who sent one of the children of the prophets for that purpose with the words, "Thus saith the Lord, I have anointed thee king over Israel." The plotting of Jeroboam, and the conspiracy of Jehu against Joram, and the conspiracies of other usurpers, were things which God could not approve; and so we must distinguish between the permission and approval of Jehovah; in his government he permits many things which from his nature we know he does not and cannot approve. השירו is usually and properly rendered, "they have made princes;" but Aben Ezra and Rashi translate it as הסידו equivalent to "they have removed;" while the Massora reckon השרו in the number of those words which are written with shin but are read and explained with samech. Some manuscripts also of Kennicett and De Rossi have הסירו. Of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they (literally, it) may be cut off. This is a second proof of Israel’s renunciation of Jehovah. They used their gold in making the idolatrous calves, and their silver in supporting their idolatrous worship; or they made the idol-calves, some of silver, and others of gold. The consequence rather than the purpose is the destruction of it, namely, the gold and silver; or the ruin of the kingdom or of each member of it; or the cutting off of their name, according to Kimchi. The word לְמַעַן, like ἱνα in Greek, is generally relic, denoting "purpose;" nor is it ecbatic here, denoting "result," though, according to the Hebrew mode of thought, design and consequence often coincide. Its meaning here is well explained by Keil, לי describes the consequence of this conduct, which, though not designed, was nevertheless inevitable, as if it had been distinctly intended." Hosea 8:5 Thy calf, O Samaria, hath east thee off; mine anger is kindled against them. This portion of the verse has occasioned much diversity of translation and exposition, and yet the general meaning is much the same. (1) In the translation (a) of the Authorized Version the word "thee" is supplied; others (b) supply "me," meaning Jehovah, thus, "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast me off;" while (c) Rosenmller prefers supplying "them," viz. the Israelites: "Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast them off," i.e. has been the cause of their rejection, which is favored by בָם in the following clause. The meaning of (b) is plain, the import being that the idol-worship had led to the rejection and so the withdrawal of Jehovah; while the sense of (a) conveys the idea that the golden calf which the country represented by its capital and the government had established at Bethel as the symbol of their worship, so far from protecting its worshippers, would fall itself into the hands of the Assyrian invader. (2) The Septuagint translates by ἀπότρεψαιτὸνμόσχονσουΣαμάρεια, equivalent to "Cast off [as if זְנַח] thy calf, O Samaria;" which is an exhortation to Samaria, and not only Samaria, but the entire country, with the inhabitants of the capital at its head, to cast aside the calf-worship by which they had incurred the wrath of the Almighty. Jerome, reading זֻנַּח (Pual), renders, "Cast off is thy calf." (3) Some modern scholars translate, "He has cast off thy calf," and refer it to the enemy, and rather in the sense of carrying off the golden image as a spoil; or to Jehovah; thus De Wette has, "[Jehova] verwirft deiu Calb, Samarien," which is not in keeping with the first person in the next clause. (4) Others take the verb intransitively, and give it the meaning of "smelling bodily," "emitting intolerable stench." "being loathsome or disgusting;" thus Keil has, "Thy calf disgusts, O Samaria." So Wunsche: "Anekolt deiu Calb." Israel loathed or felt disgust at pure worship and what was really good; now Jehovah in turn is disgusted with their golden calf and hateful idolatry. No wonder it is added, Mine anger is waxed hot (has burnt or blazed out) against them; i.e. not the calf and Samaria, nor the calves, but their stupid, sinful worshippers. How long will it be ere they attain to innocence? Or it may be translated, How long will it be ere they shall be able to endure (bear) innocence (guiltlessness)? The verb יכל, has frequently to be supplemented by another verb, as in Psalms 150:5, לא אוּכַל, "A proud heart will not I suffer;" so also Isaiah 1:13. The speaker here turns, as it were, from unwilling auditors to others more ready to lend ancar, and asks, "How long are they incapable of purity of life instead of the abominations of idolatry? How great the madness that, while I allow space and place for repentance, they are unwilling to return to soundness of mind! " The Authorized Version rendering is supported by Aben Ezra and Kimchi. The former explains: "It is as if æwere written double, ’Thee as thy calf cast off—thee Samaria, as if it has rejected thee, for the city shall be laid and its inhabitants shall go into captivity;’" and Kimchi says, " æis transitive, and has the meaning of ’ remove,’ as in Lamentations 2:7. He says, ’O Samaria, thy calf has removed thee,’ that is, on account of it thou art removed out of thy land." The last clause is also well explained by Kimchi, though in a different sense from that given above, thus: "How long are they unable to purify themselves from this guilt (i.e. idolatry)?" Hosea 8:6 For from Israel was it also: the workman made it; therefore it is not God. The prophet here vindicates the justness of Jehovah’s complaint and the folly of Israel’s conduct. The first clause points out the orion of this idolatry—this god of gold was out of Israel, it proceeded from them and was invented by their kings. The second clause shows that it was of human manufacture; while the natural inference follows in the third clause to the effect that, having its origin with man and being made by man, it could not be God. Or if the rendering, "Thy calf disgusts," be adopted, the ki introduces the explanation of the disgust which that abomination caused. This idol was of home manufacture, not imported from abroad, as Baal and Ashtaroth from the Sidoniaus, Chemosh from the Moabites, and Moloch from the Ammonites. The Israelites themselves and their king Jeroboam made for the northern kingdom what had been learnt in Egypt. Thus Israel’s god was a creature of Israel’s own devising. How stupid and how absurd! Israel’s god man-made, how enormous and abominable the iniquity! But the calf of Samaria shall be broken in pieces. It shall become splinters; the hapaz legomenon, שבי is derived from an Arabic root, shaba, to cut; and thus, as the calf at Sinai was burnt and pulverized, the calf of Samaria shall be broken into splinters and destroyed. The whole verse is well explained by Kimchi: "Now ye will see if the calf is able to deliver its worshippers; it cannot even deliver itself, for it shall become splinters, as if he said that the enemies shall break it up and carry it away for the worth of the gold, not for any utility that is in it while it is still in the form of a calf. שבי is equivalent to שבדים (broken pieces, shivers), fragments." The Septuagintal rendering, πλανῶν, is probably due to the reading שׁוֹבֵב, Micah 2:4, "turning away." Hosea 8:7 For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. The harvest corresponds to the seed-time; their foolish and vain idolatries shall have corresponding results. This proverbial expression imports more than merely labor in vain; it denotes labor that has an injurious and destructive result. It has more than a negative significancy of lost labor; it conveys the idea of positive detriment. "The prophet," says Kimchi, "means to say that they will weary themselves in vain in this service (of idols), just as if a man who sows the wind, in which there is nothing substantial, shall only reap the wind, or even still less; as if he had said, ’ Ye shall not obtain the least enjoyment, but only injury.’" If, then, the wind denote the vanity and nothingness of human effort, the whirlwind is the image of destruction and annihilation, viz. a storm or hurricane remorselessly tearing all away with it. Suphah itself intensifies the notion included in ruach, while the paragogic äintensifies still more, so as to denote a storm of greatest violence. The double feminine ending is regarded by most as strengthening the sense in this word suphathah, עֶזְרָתָה אֵימָהָה, etc. It hath no stalk (margin, standing corn): the bud shall yield no meal; better, shoot brings no fruit. This is a further development of the figure. When wind is the seed sown, destruction represented by tempest is the harvest reaped. The seed sown produces no stalk, or at least no stall= with grain in it—no standing corn. If the seed shoot up at all, tile shoot has no fruit. Here the play on words, of which the Hebrews were so fond, is obvious—the tsemach has no yemach; the halm has no malm; the Spross no Schoss; the corn no kern. If so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up. When, or if, any fruit is attained, the invasion of rapacious foreigners swallows it up. First, then, when the wind of vain human efforts is the sowing, destruction is the harvest. If the seed spring up at all, the ear does not fill; or if the ear should fill, there is no substance in it; or if it fill and have substance, the rapacity of hostile invaders consumes it. Thus a blight falls on all they do. Kimchi explains the verse fully as follows: "Because the prophet compares their works to one who sows the wind, he adds further to the same image, and says, ’It has no stalk, it reaches not the time when it shall be stalk’ (or ’standing corn’). Now קמה is the name of the corn when it stands ready for the harvest, from which the husbandmen (literally, ’sowers’) soon expect enjoyment, i.e. after harvest, when they shall make it into meal. Yea, even at the time they expect profit from their works, they shall have none. And he says further, ’The shoot shall not produce fruit or meal,’ as if he said, ’ Even should the seed spring up after the sowing.’ He thus represents in a figure that should they prosper a little in their works after they have begun to do evil, yet that prosperity will not last, and it will not come to perfect enjoyment (beauty) like corn which comes to harvest and to grinding. And if it should yield, strangers devour it. Perhaps for a time it may produce so as to come to meal, as if he said that, should they prosper in their possessions so that a little enjoyment should be accorded to them at the first, then strangers shall come and devour it, and their enjoyment will not be complete." Hosea 8:8 Israel is swallowed up. Not only shall the productions of their land be swallowed up, but the persons of the Israelites shall be consumed; nor is the event far off in the distant future, though the Hebrew commentators translate the past as prophetic future; already has the process beam. Such is the extension of the punishment. Now shall they be (rather, are then become) among the Gentiles as a vessel wherein is no pleasure. The prosperity, population, property, and even nationality, are swallowed up—engulfed as in some abyss, so as to be undiscoverable to the present time; while their reputation has suffered so sorely that they are despised as a worthless household vessel—a vessel unto dishonor, never of much worth, but now cast away as entirely unfit for use. Hosea 8:9 For they are gone up to Assyria, a wild ass alone by himself: Ephraim hath hired lovers. All their misery and misfortune they have brought upon themselves. They have prepared this fate for themselves, and made themselves meet for their fate. The second clause is correctly rendered, a wild ass goes alone by itself; and this clause is an independent statement—not connected by n- of comparison either with the clause preceding nor with the succeeding one. Instead of saying that Epraim, that is, Israel, went up to Assyria like a stubborn wild ass alone by itself, or that like a wild ass going alone Ephraim hired (sued for) lovers, the statement stands independent and in a measure detached, the meaning being that even a wild ass, stupid and stubborn as that animal is, keeps by itself to secure its independence. The conduct of Israel, however, appears to disadvantage in contrast with that of a stupid wild ass; it is more stupid and senseless; their folly is seen by the comparison: it maintained its independence by going alone, Ephraim lost independence by soliciting help from heathen allies. What, then, was the object to the attainment of which this foolish conduct was directed? In other words, why did Israel go on this stupid mission to Assyria? What did they seek to gain by it? The third clause contains the answer: they sought help and succor from the Assyrians. Thus the first clause, giving a reason for their calamity, shows it was self-procured by Ephraim going up to Assyria; the second clause exposes the folly of such conduct in seeking prohibited and pernicious foreign alliances; the third clause specifies the precise object of Ephraim’s sinful and foolish mission, namely, the procuring of succor from Assyria. The above explanation, (1) which is in substance Keil’s, and which is a contrast between the independence of the wild ass and Ephraim’s servile suing for foreign help, is, we think, simpler and more correct than (2) the common one, which is a comparison of the willfulness, waywardness, and wantonness of the wild ass roaming solitarily by itself with Ephraim’s willful waywardness in going up to Assyria for succor, and wantonness in suing for idolatrous alliances. The expression, "going up," alludes to going to the interior of the country, or to the capital of the monarch Assyria now owned as sovereign, or to a place of refuge. The hiring of lovers, or lover, by Ephraim stigmatizes their shameful conduct as that of a shameless harlot, who, instead of receiving, bestows presents on lovers, or as the reward of endearments. Hosea 8:10 Yea, though they have hired among the nations, now will I gather them. Instead of "have hired," "sue" would make the sense more obvious. But who are they of whom it is here said, "I will gather them"? (1) The nations, among whom Ephraim has been suing for endearments from paramours, shall be gathered together to effect the hurt or ruin of Ephraim; while for this explanation Ezekiel 16:37, is cited as parallel: "Behold, therefore, I will gather all thy lovers, with whom thou hast taken pleasure, and all them that thou hast loved, with all them that thou hast hated; I will even gather them round about against thee, and will discover thy nakedness unto them, that they may see all thy nakedness." But (2) others maintain that the persons gathered are the Ephraimites whom the Lord will gather, that is to say, (a) will bring them all together among the nations, leading them thither; and to this exposition Hosea 9:6 is thought to furnish a parallel, at least as far as the meaning of the verb "to gather" is concerned: "Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them." (b) Or the Ephraimites shall be gathered together to be led away in chains and dispersed among the nations; (c) or shall be gathered for death and to perish by sword and famine; or (d) to be gathered together unto Samaria and other fortified cities, in order to be taken to. gather and carried by their enemies away into captivity. (3) Rashi understands the gathering together of Israel, but in the sense of a promise "Though they have sued for endearments among the nations, I will gather them out of the nations among which they have been dispersed, as the same verb, קבץ, is used in Isaiah 54:1-17. and Jeremiah 31:10, viz. ’I will not delay their deliverance."’ This exposition is not in harmony with the context, from which we expect a threat of punishment rather than a promise of reward. Both Kimchi and Aben Ezra favor exposition (1) "What benefit is it to them, asks the prophet, that they sue among the nations? For soon I will gather the nations against them to carry them into captivity." Thus Kimchi and somewhat similarly Aben Ezra. Whether we take the verb as pointed with daghesh in the tav, and so from נחן, to give, that is, gifts to lovers, or without daghesh, and from חנה equivalent to נָחַן אֶחִנִח, to hire or bargain, makes little difference in the general sense of the clause. And they shall sorrow a little for the burden of the king of princes. This fixes with more definiteness the meaning of the foregoing member of the verse. According to (1) this rendering of יַחֵלוּ (Qeri) Hiph. from הוּל, "a little" would require to be taken Ironically; it is better, therefore, to render it "in a little time." The burden is not that of taxation or even deportation, but of oppression in exile. The oppressor is the monarch of Assyria, who asks boastingly. "Are not my princes altogether kings?" Another (2) translation is, "They will begin to diminish on account of the burden of the king of princes.’ According to this the verb וַיָּהֵלוּ is future of Hiph. חֵחֵל from חלל, to begin, and מְעָט is either an infinitive for מַעט, or rather a verbal adjective: and the sense is that they begin to be or become fewer in consequence of the Assyrian’s oppression. But (3) taking the verb from the same root חלל cognate with Greek χαλάω, loose, set free, Gesenius translates, "And they (the hostile nations) shall presently force them from the burden (i.e. the unpleasant dominion)of the king." The Septuagint (4) read מִמָּשַׁח instead of מִמַּשּׂא, and a copula between, i.e." and princes;" and render, Καὶκοπάσουσιμικρὸντοῦχρίεινβασιλέακαὶἄρχπντας, equivalent to "And they shall cease a little to anoint a king and princes." Our choice must lie between (1) and (2) in interpreting this difficult clause; there is a modification of (1) worth mentioning; it is: "They shall in a little while sorrow for the burden which they pay (i.e. the tribute which they pay) kings and princes," viz. all of them, the two concluding words being thus in apposition to the subject of the verb. On the whole, we prefer there rendering of the clause in the Authorized Version, as both grammatical and supplying a sense consistent with the context. The prophet foretells that Israel would ere long feel painfully the sorrowful consequences of their going to Assyria and suing there for help. Oppressed by a yearly tribute to the Assyrian king, they would smart under the yoke, and long to be free. Hosea 8:11, Hosea 8:12 These two verses are closely connected with the preceding verse and with each other. Hosea 8:11 not only accounts for, but justifies, the threat of punishment announced in Hosea 8:10 by reference to Ephraim’s sin; and Hosea 8:12 shows the inexcusableness of Ephraim in thus sinning. Because Ephraim hath made many altars to sin, altars shall be unto him to sin. Instead of the one sanctuary with its altar in the place which the Lord their God would choose out of all their tribes to put his Name there and to accept the offerings of his people, they multiplied altars contrary to the express command of God; while those altars which they erected in any places that pleased them were not for the service of the true God, but for the worship of idols, the calves, Baal, and ether vanities of the heathen. Thus they multiplied their sin by every altar they reared and every idol they worshipped. Their altars, instead of proving their piety, plunged them in greater sin and deeper guilt. I have written to him the great things of my Law, but they were counted as a strange thing. For the Athenians, whose city Paul found full of idols, and which in addition to its many other altars had one to an unknown god, there was some excuse, for they were not privileged with a revelation of the Divine will in a written Law; but for Israel no such apology was possible. This verse proves plainly that, in their sinning by multiplying idols and altars, they were entirely without excuse. The kethic or textual reading has ribbo for ribboth by the omission of tar and equivalent to רְבָבָה, that is, ten thousand, or myriads; the Qeri or Maasoretic correction, רֻבֵּי, plural of דב, multitudes. The idea conveyed is the numerous directions, preceptive and prohibitive, of the Pentateuch; the commandments, so full and explicit, comprehending alike the great things and the little; the details, so minute as well as manifold, that there was no possibility of mistake, provided there was any mind to be informed. Still more, these commandments, directions, and details were not only communicated verbally and orally to Israel; they were committed to writing, and thus placed permanently on record. And yet, notwithstanding all this, the great things of God’s Law were regarded by many or most of those to whom they were addressed as instructions foreign to their interest, with which they had no concern, and which consequently had no claim on their attention and deserved no place in their recollection. The variety of names for the Divine commands is very noteworthy. There are commandments equivalent to all precepts of which the motives are assigned, as of circumstance to distinguish Israel from ether people; statutes, for which no motives are assigned, as in the case of the red heifer, prohibition against wearing garments of mixed material, and ceremonial prescripts in general; testimonies, precepts intended to keep up the memory of any event of fact as the Passover to remind of the departure from Egypt; precepts, rational injunctions, left, so to say, to our intelligence, as the unity of the Deity and the fact of his being the Creator; and judgments, judicial directions relating to buying and selling, inheritances, and such like. Hosea 8:13, Hosea 8:14 For the sacrifice of mine offerings, they sacrifice flesh and eat it; but the Lord accepteth them not. The mention of altars naturally suggests that of sacrifices, and, as a matter of fact, with the multiplication of those altars they multiplied their sacrifices, so that the latter kept pace with the former, and a due proportionateness maintained between them. And yet, numerous as those sacrifices were, they were not real sacrifices; they were no more and no better than slaying so many animals and feasting on their flesh; the spirit of devotion was absent, therefore God did not accept them. Now will he remember their iniquity, and visit their sins: they shall return to Egypt. The turning-point was now reached, their iniquity was full, and the time of punishment had arrived. God had delivered their fathers out of the bondage of Egypt; now he will send their posterity into a bondage similar to or even worse than that of Egypt. For Israel hath forgotten his Maker, and buildeth temples (or, palaces). Here Israel’s sin, with the consequent suffering, is traced to its source. The origin of all was their forgetfulness of God and false confidence in man—them-selves and others or both. And Judah hath multiplied fenced cities. Israel forgot his Maker, and built shrines on high places, "consecrating," as Jerome says, "whole hills and mountains and shady trees to Baal and Ashtaroth and other idols." Judah also, though aware that Israel had renounced the love of Jehovah and had been punished for their sins, did not return to God, but trusted in fenced cities. But I will send a fire upon his cities, and it shall devour the palaces thereof. To the word for "city" the masculine suffix is attached; while with "palaces" the feminine suffix is employed. With the proper names of peoples either gender is used: (a) the masculine with reference to the people or population, and the feminine in relation to the country; or the reference may be to Israel and Judah, the masculine referring to their respective peoples, and feminine to their lands; though (b) Aben Ezra refers the feminine suffix of "palaces" to עיר, city, which is feminine. (c) The Septuagint has τὰθεμέλια, foundations, instead of palaces Hosea 8:1-3 Ministerial faithfulness. The prophet is represented as a messenger with alarming tidings, or sentinel at his post to give warning of the enemy’s approach, or rather as a herald commissioned to declare war. Earthly kings have heralds or special messengers for this purpose, and here the King of kings charges the prophet as his herald to proclaim war. "Go, then, and let the Israelites know, not now by thy mouth, but even by thy throat, by the sound of the trumpet, that I am an enemy to them, and that I am present with a strong army to destroy them." The presence of a herald on such occasions presupposed the preparation of the enemy—that they were ready to take the field, or were actually on the march. As the prophets of old, so ministers still require to act boldly, bravely, with earnestness and faithfulness in rebuking sin, warning men of approaching peril and punishment, and calling on them loudly and fearlessly to repent and return to God. I. IN PURSUIT OF THE GUILTY. Even a heathen poet has sung, "Seldom does punishment, though lame of foot, quit the criminal who goes before." Sometimes the prophet is summoned to declare the people’s sin, showing them its guilt and dangerous consequences; sometimes to denounce its punishment. We have a notable example of the former in a passage a good deal like the opening verse of this chapter; thus Isaiah is commanded by God in the words, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." But the Prophet Hosea is here enjoined to proclaim the punishment which the sin of Israel was surely and swiftly bringing upon them: "He shall come as an eagle against the house of the Lord." The abruptness imparts vigor to the expression, while it indicates the sad and sudden reality. When the cup of a people’s iniquity is brimful, calamity is just at hand; when they are ripe for judgment, the enemy is ready to execute it; when the day of vengeance has arrived, no distance can secure them from it. From the far-distant land of Assyria, the Assyrian eagle, Shatmaneser, like the great Babylonian eagle, Nebuchadnezzar, of a later date, "kith great wings, long-winged, full of feathers," came from afar, swift in his advance, sudden in his approach, sure of his prey, and savage in rending it. No boasted privileges can delay that day of disaster, nor deliver when it comes; even the house of the Lord shall not be exempt. Israel, though God’s people, his house and family, shall fall by the assault of the Assyrian. God usually speaks before he strikes, and warns before he pours down his wrath; nor does he either threaten or strike until he has been provoked by sin. II. THE CAUSE OF ISRAEL’S . "Because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my Law;" such is the cause which God assigns for the threatened punishment. God thus indicates his proceedings, exhibits his justice, asserts his patience and long-suffering, declares his hatred of sin, and gives to all a solemn warning against its commission. Here again the mercy of God is made manifest, Notwithstanding God’s supreme right over men and absolute authority to dispose of them as he pleases, yet he graciously condescends to enter into a covenant with his creatures, stipulating promise of reward to obedience, and penalty in case of disobedience. Nor could Israel plead ignorance of the conditions of this covenant; for the Law, with its commandments, exhibited those conditions, explicitly declaring all the duties of the covenant. They, however, broke the commandment, and so prepared the way for breaking the covenant; they trespassed against the Law, and so transgressed the covenant. They violated the commandments of the Law that taught them their duty to their neighbor; they broke the covenant that bound them to their God. Usually men proceed from omissions to commissions, and frequent violations of the Law make way for the final and entire renunciation of the covenant. III. WITHOUT IS MERE . Israel had, no doubt, more knowledge of the true God than any of the neighboring nations. God s Name was known among them; to Israel belonged "the adoption, the glory, and the covenants." They depended much on this, and in their adversity they urged with much vehemence the plea, "My God, we know thee." So at last many will cry, "Lord, Lord, open to us;" or, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy Name, and in thy Name cast out devils, and in thy Name done many wonderful works?’ But this plea shall only meet, as it merits, the indignant response, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." Here is the secret of their rejection: their profession was not supplemented by practice. They pretend to know God in the day of their distress; but as long as they basked in the sunshine of prosperity, they neither desired the knowledge of God’s ways, nor delighted in the duties required of them; nay, they despised practical piety. They had a name to live, but were dead; they had a form of godliness, but denied its power in their heart and life. Alas I how many professors of religion are in this same state. "What stead will it stand a man in to be able to say, ’My God, I know thee,’ when he cannot say, ’My God, I love thee,’ and ’My God, I serve thee, and cleave to thee only’?" Israel had cast off the thing that is good; they had cast off God, the supreme Good. There is nothing truly great but God, and nothing really good but God; and in rejecting God they rejected all that is good. God is the Author of all goodness, and nearness to him is the sure way of getting good. "Whatsoever any man hath or enjoys of good, is from his relation to him, his nearness to him, his congruity with him." Israel cast off the Law of God, though that Law was holy and just and good; they cast off his worship, though that conduced both to their temporal and eternal good; they abandoned his service, though it was good for all the relations of life; they had east over everything good and upright, just and true; and now in turn they are cast off. The contrast is observable; they had driven away from all that was good, and now the enemy drives in hot pursuit after them. Hosea 8:4-8 The causes of the Divine judgments are more particularly specified. The first sin which brought down the Divine displeasure was their civil apostasy, as it has been called, or change of civil government. I. NATURE OF THE FIRST SIN BY WHICH ISRAEL DIVINE WRATH. By this we are not to understand, with some, the election of Saul, because this political offence, if we may rightly so term it, included the twelve tribes in common, whereas it is the ten tribes of the northern kingdom with which the prophet here deals; neither are we, according to others, to confine the sin with which Israel is here charged to certain usurpers who, by treachery, or conspiracy, or assassination, forced their way to the throne, for this was long after the disruption, and was the sin of a few individuals rather than of the whole people, though undoubtedly the whole people suffered by the transgression of these particular persons. It is to the separation of Israel from the Davidic dynasty and the southern kingdom in the days of Jeroboam that the prophet refers. II. THE SAME THING DONE AND NOT DONE BY GOD. An objection is sometimes urged against the severity with which Israel is reproved for the disruption of the kingdom of David, seeing that God had predestined and promised it. 1. It is true, indeed, that God had predicted the rending of the kingdom of Solomon; it is true he had promised ten tribes to Jeroboam by Ahijah the Shilonite; it is true also that he had even predetermined the whole. How, then, can it be maid to have taken place without God’s consent? Or why should Israel be so sharply rebuked for the sin? God had determined to punish Solomon by rending ten tribes from the kingdom of his son and successor, though he himself was allowed to retain the government of the whole till the end of his days, and by handing them over to Jeroboam. The part enacted by the people was not with the Divine knowledge, that is, the Divine consent, approval They did not consult God about the matter, or the manner of it, or the time of it; they did not wait for his command to do it; they did not seek his approbation in doing it; they were no way concerned about executing the Divine purpose—nothing was further from their thoughts. They revolted from the house of David not in order to obey God; of this, as far as the history shows, they never thought. What they did was done from a spirit of sedition; what they aimed at was a relief from oppressive taxation. They had no regard to the Divine mind in the whole movement. They were bent on carrying out their own cherished project, and yet unwittingly, unintentionally, they were carrying out the purpose and promise of God, though without any reference to the mind and will of God. 2. The following illustration of this difficult subject is given by Calvin. "God," he says, "designed to prove the patience of his servant Job. The robbers who took away his property, were they excusable? By no means. For what was their object, but to enrich themselves by injustice and plunder? Since, then, they purchased their advantage at the expense of another, and unjustly robbed a man who had never injured them, they were destitute of every excuse. The Lord, however, did in the mean time execute by them what he had appointed, and what he had already permitted Satan to do. He intended that his servant should be plundered; and Satan, who influenced the robbers, could not himself move a finger except by the permission of God—nay, except it was commanded him. At the same time, the Lord had nothing in common or in connection with the wicked, because his purpose was far apart from their depraved lust. So also it must be said of what is said here by the prophet." III. THE SECOND CAUSE OF DIVINE . The second sin and cause of judgment was their religious apostasy in the worship of the calves. 1. The first sin, as so often happens, led to the second. The idolatry of the calves was intended by Jeroboam to help and uphold his usurped sovereignty. Not only had the national religion fallen into decay, but it had degenerated into superstitious will-worship. Next to the subversion of the Davidic kingdom came the perversion of the legitimate priesthood. 2. The sin of their apostasy was aggravated by their abuse of the wealth which God had given them. All they had they owed to God, and were in duty bound to employ it for his honor; instead of doing so, they dishonored him by making idols of their silver and gold. Men are sometimes found to be more lavish of their gold and silver in support of a false religion than in maintaining the pure worship of the true God. Israel might pretend that their calves of gold were only representations of Jehovah; but Jehovah refuses to be so represented, forbidding men to make any graven image of metal, or stone, or wood, standing out prominently and in high relief, or any likeness el anything on a fiat surface as a picture, for the purpose of doing it homage by worship or serving it by sacrifice. If, then, men neglect the Divine prohibitions or precepts, they must remember that God will not be mocked by their professions or pretences, but will estimate them by their practice in the light of his Law. 3. Israel was destroying himself by this sinful idolatry. "That he may be cut off;" such is the literal sense, as though it meant the whole nation as one man—one and all. Such was the tendency of their conduct, though it was not their intention; such was the inevitable end of their course, though they were not aware of it. "So a man chooses destruction or hell, if he chooses those things which, according to God’s known Law and Word, end in it. Man hides from his own eyes the distant future, and fixes them on the nearer objects which he has at heart." Some take the clause to mean that the gold and silver so sadly misused and sinfully perverted would be cut off; it appears rather to refer to the persons who were the possessors thereof; in any case their money would perish, either passing out of their possession or along with the possessors. IV. THEIR SIN AND ARE ON. The striking amplification of the same subject seems designed to impress on the people’s mind that they themselves, and no other, had wrought their ruin, and that they need not try to transfer the fault to others, or charge God foolishly. Nor is it necessary to suppose that a calf had been set up at Samaria, or that one of those at Dan and Bethel had been removed thither. Samaria was the metropolis of the northern kingdom, and as such took a leading part in the calf-worship and contributed largely and liberally to its support. Of the different renderings of the first clause of verse 5, all tending pretty much in the same direction, we may safely adhere to that of the Authorized Version as affording a good sense. Israel, we read in verse 3, "had cast off" God and goodness; now the calf which they had set up as their god had cast them off, left them in the lurch, or caused their removal to another and a foreign land; thus their sin and its punishment are linked together by the same word, "cast off" (רנה). The thing is represented in the past because sure of accomplishment; they had renounced God, and now the thing which they substituted for God had abandoned them. So shall it ever be; whatever object men make an idol of, and set it up in their heart instead of God, giving it that place in their affections which belongs to God alone, will one day assuredly cast them off, desert them in their sorest need, and leave them in distress. Is wealth our idol? Do we make gold our god, and fine gold our confidence? That calf of gold will cast us off; for fiches make themselves wings and fly away, as has been the sorrowful experience of thousands! Is fame the god we follow? Is popular applause the idol we worship? Are worldly greatness and its accompanying glory the idols, the objects, of our idolatry, and dear to us as the calves at Dan and Bethel were to Israel? This calf of vain-glory will surely cast us off; for fame is a bubble that bursts before it goes far along the stream of time; popularity is often false, always fickle as the breeze. The words of Wolsey prove with wondrous power how the calf of worldly glory casts off its worshippers. "Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness! This is the state of man: Today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing freest; And,—when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening,—nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, This ninny summers in a sea of glory; But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me; and now has left me, Weary, and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!" Do the pleasures of sin engross our affections, and are they the idol on which our heart dotes? Our idol will cast us off. The pleasures of sin are short-lived; they last but for a season, and that season is at most and best a short one; nor do they satisfy while they last. Is beauty the object of our idolatry? This calf, so greatly admired and much beloved, in a little while casts off and disappoints its many worshippers. For beauty is a fair but fleeting flower; it fades and fails. "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away." The heir to or actual owner of a large estate, with its broad acres and princely mansion, sets his heart on his splendid possessions; his magnificent property becomes his idol, but his calf casts him off. If only heir, he may never enter on the actual possession, and so he is disappointed of it; if already owner, he may in many ways be disappointed in it, or he may be deprived of it by force, or fraud, or casualty, or death; in either case the calf casts off the idolatrous worshipper. The hereditary estate, secure it as men will by deeds and settlements, shall change proprietorship and be taken away; there is no real fixity of tenure here on earth. The baronial residence shall in time become a ruin grey, round which the ivy twines. 2. But why does the calf of Samaria, or, generally speaking, men’s idol, prove so unsatisfactory, blighting men’s hopes and blasting their expectations, so that they are left a prey to disappointment, disgust, distress, or even despair? Just because God’s anger is kindled against it. God is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another, or his praise to graven images. Whatever course of sin men pursue becomes like a conductor of electricity, and brings down the scathing lightning of the Divine wrath upon their guilty heads. 3. But the anger of God is not only kindled against them; it is aggravated and intensified by their obduracy of heart and persistent course of evil. "How long," asks God, "will it be ere they attain to innocency?" that is to say, how long will they persevere in their present evil ways, neither purging themselves from the sin of idolatry and putting away their idols, nor striving to attain to purity of life and uprightness of character? The omniscient One himself in asking this question seems surprised—with reverence be it spoken—at their suicidal obstinacy, as if bent on their own destruction and rushing on their own ruin. He waits to be merciful, but they repel the overtures of his grace; he stretches out his hand to receive and welcome them, but they refuse to return. No wonder our blessed Lord, during the days of his flesh, is reported in a certain place to have "marveled because of men’s unbelief." 4. We are further shown in the following verse the justness of God’s indignation against those stupid calf-worshippers. This worship was no institution of God.; it was Israel’s invention. They could not lay the blame of it on others. Sinners sometimes feel a miserable satisfaction or even palliation in endeavoring to make others the scapegoat of their own iniquities. This is an old story. Adam laid the fault of his eating the forbidden fruit on Eve; Eve in turn transferred it to the serpent. No doubt a load is lightened when it is laid on the shoulders of several persons instead of a single individual. Not so with Israel in this case. No prophetic intimation induced Israel to adopt the calf-idolatry, neither could they find fault with their neighbors for seducing them into it. It was their own device, and had its origin with their king and themselves. How sad that Israel should make themselves so vile!—that Israel, forgetful of their high lineage; that Israel, unmindful of their great progenitor, whose title of nobility was "prince with God;" that Israel, whom God had taken into covenant to be his peculiar people, and who at the foot of Sinai avouched the Lord to be their God, should prove so unspeakably sottish as to worship a man-made God, having "changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass"! But those calves of Dan and Bethel, or this calf of Samaria, in its collective sense comprehending all and considered by them as a "sort of tutelary deity of the ten tribes," was as contemptible in its end as at its beginning. Made by man’s hand, it was to be unmade by the same; fashioned by man, it was doomed to be broken into fragments by man, and, like Aaron’s calf at Sinai, broken into pieces and ground to powder. V. A MORAL SEED-TIME AND ITS HARVEST. The account of Israel’s punishment is continued in two striking similitudes, one of which presents the positive side and the other the negative. The positive side is that of a man sowing the wind and. reaping the whirlwind, as if a person took immense pains, toiling and laboring like a husbandman when he sows his seed; but the seed sown is wind, a thing of naught and unsubstantial-mere empty sound, and nothing more or better; then when harvest comes, as might in such circumstances be expected, there is grievous disappointment, and not only disappointment, but destruction, utter destruction, represented by a fearful whirlwind (the double termination intensifying the meaning). "If it may be supposed," says Pococke, "that a man should sow the wind and. cover it with earth, or keep it there for a while penned up, what could he expect but that it should be enforced by its being shut up, and the accession of what might increase its strength to break forth again in greater quantities with greater violence?" Israel expended gold and silver on their idols, and were assiduously laborious in their worship; but instead of reaping any benefit from them, or increasing their prosperity by them so as to equal the idolatrous nations around, they labored in vain and wearied themselves for very vanity. Nor was that all; they reaped ruin, being swept away by the whirlwind of Divine wrath. The negative side exhibits three degrees of development, or three stages of progress. They sow, and, as the husbandman expects a crop, so they look for a harvest of peace, plenty, and prosperity. But lo! the seed they sow never comes up, it has neither blade nor stalk; or if it should spring up, produce a stalk or standing corn and develop an ear, it never reaches maturity—the ear does not fill, there is no ripe corn in the ear, and so the bud yields no meal; or suppose it to advance yet further, and to ripen and yield meal, it becomes a spoil to the enemy, for strangers swallow it up. How many every year, every month, every week, ay, every day, are sowing in this way foolishly and even fatally, being doomed to reap, not only disappointment, but destruction! The apostle tells us that they who sow to the flesh shall reap corruption. It is observable that in the passage referred to (Galatians 6:8) there is a distinction: the seed (ὅγὰρἐὰνσπείρη) and. the soil, or the field (εἰςτὴνσάρκα), and that which is sown in it. The field is the flesh, or sensuality in general: in that field some sow the seed of licentiousness, and they reap rottenness; some sow intemperance, and they reap corruption. VI. THE SAD SEQUEL OF ISRAEL’S SIN. The figure now resolves itself into a fact—a threefold fact—namely, Israel’s consumption, captivity, and contempt. 1. They are swallowed up as a victim is swallowed by a beast of prey, and consumed from being a nation. And yet this consumption is not annihilation, nor extinction, as we learn from the remainder of the verse. It is rather impoverishment—their substance devoured by strangers, and the produce of their land eaten up. The expression may be paralleled by the Homeric— "Priam and all his house and all his host Alive devour; then, haply, thou wilt rest." More appropriate still is the Scripture parallel, "Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as. they eat bread." 2. Their dispersion and captivity m Gentile lands were soon and certainly to come to pass. Driven from their own country, and deprived of those ordinances which, when they might have enjoyed and profited by them, were abused and despised, they shall ere long find themselves strangers in a foreign land and among heathen people; for "now shall they be among the Gentiles." 3. In addition to captivity, they are doomed to contempt, like vessels put to the vilest use, and into which the filthiest things are poured. They have been vessels of dishonor, despised broken vessels, in which there is no pleasure. And has it not been so with Israel for nearly, or perhaps we might say for more than, two thousand years? Notwithstanding the eminence to which individuals of that race have risen in the different professions and in various walks of life, they have as a people, in the lands of their dispersion, been subject to outrage, treated with contumely, scorned and spoiled and peeled. 4. Though these calamities were peculiar to Israel in a special manner, yet less or more they have been common to sinners at all times and in all lands. Those that corrupt religion or contemn its privileges are not infrequently deprived of them; gospel-despisers are deprived of the gospel; those that dishonor God are dishonored by their fellow-men, for "them that honor me," says God, "I will honor; and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." Hosea 8:9-13 The justice of the judgments threatened with further additions. Their errand to Assyria added to their sin; they sought heathen helpers to uphold them in their apostasy and idolatry, increasing their sin. I. ONE SINFUL ACT IS OF MANY MORE. One sinful course draws on another, just as one lie necessitates one or more to make it plausible, or prop it up or cloak it. The revolt from the Davidic dynasty was a wrong step and a sinful one; the idolatry Of the calves was still more wicked. The progression was from bad to worse; but to have recourse to foreign allies to secure them in their twofold national iniquity was yet another step down the steep incline of sin. II. SIN IS AT ONCE A FOOLISH AND THING. 1. Ephraim’s conduct was as perverse in this regard as the headstrong wild ass that refuses all restraint, and stubbornly pursues its own headlong course through the desert; or, if it be a contrast and not a comparison, the folly of Ephraim is reproved by the wild ass, which is sufficiently wise to roam at large in its own solitary way, keeping aloof from all interference with its liberty and retaining its independence. 2. But Epraim’s folly cost them dear. Like a shameless wanton, wooing and not waiting to be wooed, they resorted to sinful helps which were as much adultery as idolatry itself; they hired help by such adulterous alliances. The help they thus procured in reality helped them not; they submitted to the suzerainty of Assyria, and became subject to imposts and tribute. To escape one master, men sometimes put themselves in the power of a worse, repeating the experience of the poet’s fable " A lordly stag, arm’d with superior force, Drove from their common field a vanquish’d horse, Who for revenge to man his strength enslaved, Took up his rider and the bit received; But, though he conquer’d in the martial strife, He felt his rider’s weight, and champ’d the hit for life." II. GOD ALONE IS THE SURE REFUGE OF HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR STRAITS. In time of trouble men often sin against God, and sin against their own soul by going elsewhere in search of help. If in their straits they seek help of God, all will be well with them in the end. When trouble comes, when affliction comes, when we are in distress, instead of simple shifts we are to seek help from God; instead of putting confidence in creaturely succors, we must apply to the Creator. To neglect him and sue for relict elsewhere, is forsaking our own mercies and turning our back on God; to depart from God and depend on sinful means of help, is hurtful in the effort and in the effect, as well in the emergency as in the issue and end. Nor need we ever distrust his care or doubt his kindness, if only in earnest we apply to him; his help is real, his help is effectual; he bestows it without stint and without fee or reward, without money and without price. As the psalmist sings so beautifully "God is our Refuge and our Strength, In straits a present Aid; Therefore, although the earth remove, We shall not be afraid." IV. WRONG MEANS OF HELP PROVE RUINOUS. The help which Israel hired among the heathen, so far from availing them, put them in a worse position than before. 1. God would frustrate their purpose, gathering their hired allies against them, or themselves as exiles among aliens and enemies. If "a little ’ be not referred to time nor understood ironically, it may mean that heavy as was the tribute imposed by the Assyrian monarch, and grievous to be borne so that it caused revolt, it was the source of little grief compared with what followed, when first a portion and then the whole of the nation were carried into Captivity. 2. Partly similar and partly dissimilar is the following exposition of Kimchi: "They at first murmured and complained on account of the burthen of the king and the princes, as is written in the Book of Kings that the kings of the nations imposed tribute on them; and this the prophet calls a trifle in comparison with the Captivity." The taxes and burdens with which they were oppressed were, indeed, mere trifles, and easily borne in respect of the Captivity and the calamities that succeeded. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Hosea 9:1-9 Contain a warning against security arising from temporary prosperity. Hosea 9:1 Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people. The occasion on which the prophet penned this section was so no idolatrous merry-making in connection with harvest, and not any change of political situation. (1) The literal rendering of the first clause is, rejoice not unto exultation, or exceedingly, as the same expression is translated in Job 3:22; it is thus climactic. (2) The old versions take el-gil as imperative, and read אַל; μηδὲεὐφραίνον, equivalent to "nor make merry;" and the Vulgate has noli exultare; but al is constructed with the future, not with the imperative. Again, some read be instead of ke, and so render, "among the peoples," the words being addressed, not to Israel in exile, but still resident in their own land. For thou hast gone a-whoring from thy God, thou hast loved a reward upon every corn-floor. (1) According to this, which is the common rendering. the clause with ki assigns a reason for their foregoing such joy. But (2) Ewald and others translate by "that or for that thou hast committed whoredom," understanding this clause to express the object of their joy. We prefer the former, for their faithlessness and foul idolatry were sufficient reasons to prevent Israel indulging in the joy of harvest. The blessings of the harvest were regarded by them as rewards for the worship of their idol-gods, in other words, as gifts from Baalim and Ashtaroth or other idols, and thus as ethnan, a harlot’s hire; not as tokens and pledges of the favor of Jehovah. Hosea 9:2 The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them, and the new wine shall fail in her. Thus Israel was not to enjoy the blessings of the harvest; the corn and oil and new wine, or corn and wine, would not prove as abundant as they expected or plenty would be succeeded by scarcity; or, rather, the people would be prevented enjoying the abundant produce of their land in consequence of being carried away captive to Assyria, as seems implied in the following verse. The floor and press—whether wine-press, or rather oil-press, as the mention of new wine follows—are put for their contents by a common figure of speech. The expression, "fail in her," is literally, "lie to her," and has many parallels; as, "The labor of the olive shall fail [margin, ’lie’]," and Horace’s "fundus mendax," equivalent to "a farm that belies his hopes." Hosea 9:3 They shall not dwell in the Lord’s land; but Ephraim shall return to Egypt, and they shall eat unclean things in Assyria. The Lord’s land was Canaan, which Jehovah chose to dwell there by visible symbol of the Shechinah-glory, and which he gave to Israel as his people. Israel expected to have it for a permanent place of abode, but that hope was frustrated by their sin. The remaining clauses of the verse may be understood either (1) that Ephraim would return to Egypt to obtain auxiliaries, but to no purpose,—for they would be carried away captive and be compelled to eat unclean things in the land of Assyria; or (2) the prophet threatens that some of them would go as exiles into Egypt, and others of them into Assyria This latter explanation is much to be preferred; while with regard to Egypt the threats, ring thus understood would re-echo an crier prophecy in Deuteronomy 28:68, "The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man shall buy you." In Assyria also they would be obliged to cat things ceremonially unclean, as it would be impossible to conform to the requirements of the Law, according to which the eating of certain animals was prohibited. There is yet (3) another interpretation, which takes Assyria to be the place of exile, while Egypt figuratively represents the condition of that exile, namely, a state of hard bondage and sore oppression, such as Israel endured in Egypt in the days of yore. Hosea 9:4, Hosea 9:5 They shall not offer wine offerings to the Lord, neither shall they be pleasing unto him: their sacrifices shall be unto them the broad of mourners; all that eat thereof shall be polluted. Having predicted their inability to observe the ritual distinctions between clean and unclean, which the Law prescribed, whether from the tyranny of their oppressors or from scarcity, or from the absence of sanctification by the presentation of the firstfruits, the prophet proceeds to predict their cessation altogether. Such is the prophet’s picture of their miserable position in Assyria. It is aptly remarked by Grotius that "they failed to pour out libations to the Lord when they could; now the time shall come when they may wish to make such libations, but cannot." According to the Massoretic punctuation and the common rendering, (1) which is that of the Authorized Version, the people themselves are the subject of the second verb. They were neither able to offer drink offerings, a part for the whole of the meat offerings and unbloody oblations; nor, if they did, could they hope for acceptance for them away from the sanctuary and its central altar. (2) Hitzig supplies niskeyhens, their drink offerings, from the foregoing clause, as subject to the verb of the following one, and the verb is explained by some in the sense of "mire." If (3) we neglect the segholta, and make zibh-chehem the subject, the meaning is clearer, and the contrast between the unbloody and bloody offerings more obvious; thus: "They will not pour out libations of wine to Jehovah, nor will their sacrifices [equivalent to ’bloody oblations’] please him," that is to say, not such as were actually offered, but such as they might feel dis. posed to offer. The same noun may be repeated in next clause; thus, their sacrifices, or rather slaughtered meats, are unto him as bread of mourners, or, what is better, their food (supplied from ke lechem) shall be unto them like bread of mourners. Mourners’ bread is that eaten at a funeral feast, or meal by persons mourning for the dead, and which was legally unclean, since a corpse defiled the house in which it was and all who entered it for seven days, as we read in Numbers 19:14, "This is the law, when a man dieth in a tent: all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days." Of course, all who partook of the food would be polluted; so with that of Israel in exile, being unsanctified by the offering of firstfruits. For their bread for their soul shall not come into the house of the Lord. "Their bread for their soul," that is, for appeasing their appetite, whatsoever their soul lusted after, or bread for the preservation of their life, would not come into the house of the Lord to be sanctified by representative offerings. What will ye do in the solemn day, and in the day of the feast of the Lord? On such occasions they would feel the misery of their position most keenly. Away in a far foreign land, without temple and without ritual, they would bewail the loss of their annual celebrations, their national festivals and religious solemnities—those holiday-times of general joy and spiritual gladness. The distinction between moed and chag is variously given. (1) By Grotius and Rosenmüller mood is referred to one of the three annual feasts—Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles; and chug to any of the other feasts, including the new moon. (2) Others restrict chag to the Feast of Tabernacles, or harvest festival, the most joyous of them all. Keil makes the words synonymous, except that in chag festival joy is made prominent. Hosea 9:6 For, lo, they are gone because of destruction: Egypt shall gather them up, Memphis shall bury them. Their future exile was seen in prophetic vision; and in consequence and because of its certainty he speaks of it as having already taken place. The destruction is the desolation and wasting of their native land, because of which, or away from which and leaving it behind, they are gone. The land of their banishment was the land of their bondage. There, far from the land of their birth, they were doomed to die and to be gathered together for a common burial. Memphis was the ancient capital of Lower Egypt; its situation was on the western bank of the Nile, and south of Old Cairo. There its ruins are still seen, with extensive burial-grounds, while amid those ruins is the village of Mitrahenni. Kimchi identifies Moph with Noph. The pleasant places for their silver, nettles shall possess them: thorns shall be in their tabernacles. The literal rendering of the first clause is, (1) their cherished delight of silver. By this some understand (a) silver idols; (b) others, valuables in silver; (c) the Jewish commentators, the houses of the precious treasures of their silver—so Rashi; "Their precious buildings where their silver treasures were"—so Kimchi; (d) Jerome understands their mansions and all the ornaments of their mansions purchased by silver; Keil also has, "houses ornamented and filled with the precious metals." This explanation is pretty generally accepted, and appears to us to deserve the preference. Their former homes, so pleasant and so richly decorated, were so utterly desolate and deserted that thorns and thistles overspread them. But (2) the sentence is differently translated and explained by Rosenmüller and some others; thus: "Moph (Memphis) will bury them out of desire for their silver." This violent divulsion destroys the parallelism of the second hemistich, besides ignoring the athnach. The LXX; again (3) puzzled by the word maehmad, mistook it for a proper name: "Therefore, behold, they go forth from the trouble of Egypt, and Hemphis shall receive them, and Machmas (Μάχμας) shall bury them." Giving a decided preference to (1) (d), we have a thrilling picture of distress. First comes the destruction of their native city; having looked their last look on the ruins where once stood their home, they have set forth—a miserable band of pilgrims—to the land of the stranger, and that stranger their conqueror and oppressor; they have reached the place of exile, there to find, not a home, but a grave, and not a single grave for each, according to the Jews’ mode of sepulture to the present day, but a common place of burial into which they are huddled together, Egypt gathering them and Memphis burying them; while in the land that gave them birth, their once happy homesteads, richly decorated and expensively adorned, are left utterly desolate—a heritage for thorns and thistles. Hosea 9:7-9 These verses describe the season and source of punishment. The days of visitation are come, the days of recompense are come. Commentators have appropriately compared the Vergilian "Venit summa dies, et irreluctabile tempus," equivalent to" The final day and inevitable hour is come." Israel shall know (it): the prophet is a fool, the spiritual man is mad. Here the prophet and the man of the spirit (margin) are (1) the false prophets which pretended to inspiration, and flattered the people with false hopes and vain promises of safety and prosperity; and thus helped to confirm them in their sinful courses. The object of Israel’s knowledge, though not introduced by ki, is the folly of such false prophets, and the madness of such pretenders to prophetic inspiration. That ish ruach may be used of a false prophet as well as of a true one is proved from ish holekh ruach, a man walking in the spirit, applied by Micah 2:11 to one of these pretenders: "If a man walking in the spirit and falsehood do lie, saying, I will prophesy unto thee of wine and of strong drink; he shall even be the prophet of this people." Israel is doomed to know by bitter experience the folly and madness of those prophets who deceived and duped the people by lies soon detected, and their own folly and madness in giving ear to the delusive prospects they held forth. This explanation agrees with Kimchi’s comment: "Then shall they confess, and say to the prophets of lies, who had led them astray, and had said to them, Peace (in time of greatest peril)—then shall they say unto them, A fool the prophet, a madman the man of spirit." The predicate precedes the subject for emphasis, and the article prefixed to the subject exhausts the class of those false prophets. (2) Aben Ezra, Ewald, and many others understand the prophet and spiritual man to mean true prophets, which the people called fools and madmen, and treated is such, contemning and persecuting them. Thus Aben Ezra: "The days of recompense are come to you from God, who will recompense you who said to the prophet of God, He is a fool, and to the man in whom the spirit of God was, He is mad." The word meshuggah is properly the participle Paul used as a substantive, and kindred in meaning to μάντις of the Greek, from μαίνομαι, to be frenzied. In confirmation of (1) setup. Ezekiel 13:10 and Jeremiah 28:15; and in favor of (2) 2 Kings 9:11. (3) The Septuagint has καὶκακωθήσεται, equivalent to "And shall be afflicted," taking, according to Jerome, yod for vav, and daleth for resh; while Jerome himself translates scitote, as if reading דְעוּ. For the multitude of thine iniquity, and the great hatred. The source of all was sin. The visitation threatened, which was retributive—a recompense—was for the greatness of their iniquity. The last clause is thus dependent on and closely connected with the first, עַל ruling the construction first as a preposition, then as a conjunction: "And because the enmity is great." Ewald says, "If the first member states a reason (e.g. by using the preposition על, on account of, because of, and the following infinitive), the meaning requires that, whenever a finite verb follows, the conjunction ’because’ shall be employed in forming the continuation." The hatred was (a) that of Israel against their fellow-men, and their God or his prophetic messengers; though others (b) understand it of the hatred of God against transgressors who had provoked his just indignation. The first exposition (a) suits the context, and is supported by the following verse. The watchman of Ephraim was with my God. This rendering is manifestly inaccurate, as the first noun is in the absolute, not in the construct state; the right rendering, therefore, is either, "A watchman is Ephraim with my God;" or, "The watchman, O Ephraim, is with my God." (1) If we adopt Aben Ezra’s explanation of the prophet and spiritual man as true prophets whom the people jeeringly and scornfully called fools, fanatics, and madmen, the meaning of this clause of the next verse presents little difficulty. The prophet makes common cause with these divided prophets: his God was their God, and, however men treated them, they were under Divine protection. The sense of the im, with, in this case is well given by Pusey as follows: "The true prophet was at all times with God. He was with God, as holden by God, watching or looking out and on into the future by the help of God. He was with God, as walking with God in a constant sense of his presence, and in continual communion with him. He was with God, as associated by God with himself in teaching, warning, correcting, exhorting his people, as the apostle says, We then are workers together with him. In the next clause the false prophet is described by way of contrast as a snare. (2) The word צוֹפֶה is properly a participle, and Ephraim is thus exhibited by the prophet as on the outlook, (a) not for counsel and help beside or apart from God, as Gesenius understands it; but (b) as on the outlook for revelations and prophecies along with my God; i.e. Ephraim, not satisfied with the genuine prophets, had prophets of his own, which spake to the people according to their wish. This exposition is in the main supported by Rashi and Kimchi: the former says, "They appoint for themselves prophets of their own;" and Kimchi more fully thus, "Ephraim has appointed for himself a watchman (or seer) at the side of his God; and he is the false prophet who speaks his prophecy in the name of his God." (But) the prophet is a snare of a fowler in (over) all his ways, and hatred in the house of his God. Whether we adopt (1) or (2) as the explanation of the first clause, we may understand the prophet of this clause as (1) the false prophet who—by way of contrast if we accept (1), or by way of continuation if we prefer (2)—is like the snare of a bird-catcher over all the people’s path, to entangle, entrap, and draw them into destruction (a) He is, moreover, inspired with hostility—a man of rancorous spirit against God and his true prophets. "This prophet of lies," says Aben Ezra, "is a snare of the bird-catcher." Similarly Kimchi says in his exposition, "This prophet is for Ephraim on all his ways as the snare of the bird-catcher that catcheth the fowls; so they catch Ephraim in the words of their prophets." (2) Some understand "prophet" in the middle clause of the verse as the true prophet, and the snare as the hostility and traps which the people prepared for the messengers of God; so Rashi: "For the true prophets they lay snares to catch them." According to this exposition we must render, "As for the prophet, the snare of the bird-catcher is over all his ways." (b) In the last clause, "house of his God," may mean the temple of the true God, or the idol-temple; thus Aben Ezra: "Enmity is in the house of his god;" while Kimchi thinks either sense admissible: "We may understand ביה אי of the house of the calves, which were his god, and the false prophet acted there as prophet, and caused enmity between himself and God; or we may explain it of the house of the true God, that is, the house of the sanctuary." Thus the hostility may refer to the prophet himself, of which he is the subject as (a) or the object according to Kimchi just cited, or the detestable idol-worship, or perhaps the Divine displeasure against the false prophet and the people led astray by him. They have deeply corrupted themselves, as in the days of Gibeah. The historical event here alluded to was the abominable and infamous treatment of the Levite’s concubine by the men of Gibeah. This was the foulest blot on Israel’s history during all the rule of the judges. For the loathsome particulars, Judges 19:1-30. may be consulted. The construction is peculiar. The two verbs הי שׁי are coordinated appositionally; "The leading verb, which in meaning is the leading one, is subordinated more palpably by being placed alongside of the preceding verb without a joining and" (Ewald). The former verb is often constructed with an infinitive, and sometimes with a noun. Some trace the reference, as already stated, (1) to the enormity of the men of Gibeah in relation to the Levite’s concubine; others to the election of Saul, who was of Gibeah, to be king. Rashi mentions both: "Some say it was Gibeah of Benjamin in the matter of the concubine; but others say it was Gibeah of Saul, when they demanded for themselves a king and rebelled against the words of the prophet." Therefore he will remember their iniquity, he will visit their sins. The sin of Gibeah was fearfully avenged; its punishment re-suited in almost the total extinction of a tribe in Israel—that of Benjamin. And as Israel had paralleled that of the men of Gibeah, he gives them to understand first implicitly that like punishment would overtake them, then he explicitly denounces visitation for their iniquity and retribution for their sin. The clause thus closes, as it commenced, with the sad note of coming calamity. Hosea 9:10 I found Israel like grapes in the wilderness; I saw your fathers as the first-ripe in the fig tree at her first time. Grapes and first figs are among the choicest and most refreshing fruits; but to find such delicious fruits in a dry, barren wilderness is specially grateful and delightful. There are three possible constructions of bammidhbor: (1) with "found," (2) with "grapes," and (3) with both. According to the first, which, on the whole, seems preferable, the meaning is, "I found Israel of old as a man finds grapes in a desert;" and the sense is God’s good will towards and delight in Israel. Grapes found by a weary, exhausted traveler in a wilderness are a real boon, refreshing and strengthening him for continuing his journey and reaching his destination. Rashi gives the sense clearly and concisely thus: "As gropes which are precious and delicious in a desert, even so have I loved Israel." Aben Ezra, in his exposition, refers to Deuteronomy 32:10, "He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye;" and then adds, "As grapes in a wilderness where no one dwells; every one that finds them rejoices in them, and so in the first-ripe figs." The comment of Kimchi is fuller and more satisfactory: "As a man, when he finds grapes in the wilderness which is dry and fruitless, rejoices over them; and as he rejoices when he finds a first-fruit in the fig tree in its beginning; even so have I found Israel in the wilderness, and fed them and nourished them: they lacked nothing, equally as if they had been in an inhabited land; but they have not recognized my goodness." As the fig harvest is rather late in Palestine—about the middle of August—early figs have special worth, and are regarded as a delicacy. The comparison then is, according to Rashi, with the "early fig on the fig tree, which is ripe; like the fig on the fig tree in its beginning, i.e. in the beginning of the ripening of the figs;" then he subjoins, "Even so did your fathers appear in my eyes, that I loved them." But they went to Baal-peor, and separated themselves unto that shame. Israel did not continue long in a condition so pleasing to God, but fell away from him, forgot his benefits, and turned aside to the abominable idols of the surrounding Gentiles. As Aben Ezra somewhat pathetically expresses it, "Yet my joy was only small and of short duration, for they did homage to Baal-peor, and separated themselves from me." Long, therefore, before the sin of Gibeah they transgressed in Baal-poor; in the early period of their history they apostatized and proved unfaithful to Jehovah. To this hideous god, corresponding to Priapus of the Greeks, the maidens of Moab sacrificed their virginity. The Israelites were designed to be Nazarites, that is, separated to Jehovah and consecrated to his service, but they separated themselves unto that shame, either the idol or his worship. And their abominations were according as they loved. If men are slaves to appetite, they make a god of their belly; if to lust, Baal-peor is their god; and men become like what they worship, and abominable as the idols they serve, as the psalmist says, "They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them." They "became abominations like their lover" (ohabh, paramour; namely, Baal-peor), that is, as abominable and loathsome in the sight of God as the idols which they adulterously worshipped. Hosea 9:11-14 Having referred to the most flagrant instances of Israel’s transgressions in the past—Gibeah in the time of the judges, Baal-peor at a still earlier period even in the days of Moses, and having merely indicated the parallel between their present sin and previous enormities, the prophet proceeds to denounce the punishments deserved and ready to descend upon them. As for Ephraim, their glory shall fly away like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception. The greatest glory, perhaps, of Ephraim was their fruitfulness—"double fruitfulness" being the very meaning of the name and the multiplication of their numbers; now that glory of populousness was to vanish speedily and entirely, like birds winging their way swiftly and out of sight. After the figure comes the fact, and it is expressed in anti-climactic form—no child-bearing, no pregnancy, no conception. The course of barrenness takes the place of the blessing of fruitfulness. Though they bring up their children, yet will I believe them, that there shall not be a man left. Even if their sons should grow up to manhood and attain maturity, yet they would be cut off by the sword and swept away by death, so that their progeny would perish. This accords with the threatened punishment of unfaithfulness recorded in Deuteronomy 32:25, "The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of grey hairs." The negative sense of rain, equivalent to "so that not," is common before verbs, also before nouns the min being put for the fuller מֵהְיוֹת. Yea, woe also to them when I depart from them! This accounts for the coming calamity; it is the departure of Jehovah from Israel, and the withdrawal of his favor. The word שׂוּר (1) stands for סוּר, sin and samech being interchanged; or (2) it may be for שׁוּר, sin put for shin by a clerical error. The meaning is a little different: "when I look away from them." Rashi mentions the fact that this word belongs to those words written with sin but read with samech. His comment on the verse is correct: "For what benefit have they when they bring up their children? Because, if they do bring them up, then I bereave them so that they do not become men;" similarly Kimchi: "If there be some among them who escape these mishaps and reach the birth, and they (the parents) bring them up yet shall they die in youth, and never reach the season when they shall be called men." (3) The misreading of בְּשָׂרִי instead of בְּשׂוּרִי by the LXX. led to the strange misrendering, "Wherefore also there is a woe to them (though) my flesh is of them (διότικαὶοὐαὶαὐτοῖςἐστισάρξμονἐξαὐτῶν,) of which Cyril connects the first member with the preceding words, and, detaching the remainder, interpreted, "Let my flesh be far for exemption from the punishment threatened. Ephraim, as I saw Tyrus, is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer. The first member of this verse has called forth great diversity of translation and interpretation. It were tedious, and not conducive to the right understanding of the verse, to enumerate the various expositions given of it. A very few of the most important may be briefly noticed. (1) The LXX; reading לָצוּד, בְנֵירֶם, rendered, "Ephraim, even as I saw, gave her children for a prey (εἰςθήραν)" (2) Ewald, conjecturing צוּרָה, renders," Ephraim is, as I judge, according to the form, a planting in a meadow." Rejecting both these, we come (3) to that of Gesenius: "Ephraim, like Tyre (as if it were Tyre), is planted in a beautiful meadow;" De Wette’s is," Ephraim, when (or if) I look as far as Tyre, is planted on a pleasant meadow;" Keil has, "Ephraim, as I selected it for a Tyre planted in the valley; so shall Ephraim lead out its sons to the murderer." All these renderings are faulty in one respect or other; some of them miss the sense altogether, and others of them obscure it. (4) The rendering that appears to us simplest, most in harmony with the Hebrew, and most suitable to the context, is that of Wunshe, but with a modification that of a secure dwelling-place instead of meadow: "Ephraim, as I look towards Tyre, is planted on a meadow [rather, ’sure resting-place’], and Ephraim must lead out its sons to the murderer." The meaning, then, is that Ephraim is a lovely land in whatever direction one looks towards it, like the famous Tyre; it was beautiful and blooming, populous as well as pleasant; or rather, strong in its natural fortifications, like the famous capital of Phoenicia; yet the wrath of Heaven hung over it—it would become waste and emptied of its male population, Ephraim being obliged to send forth the bravest of her sons to repel the hostile invader, and to perish in the tumult of the battle. By combining a part of Rashi’s exposition with part of Kimchi’s, we reach the correct sense. Rashi has, "Ephraim as I look towards Tyre, which in its prosperity is crowned above all cities, so I look upon Ephraim planted on a meadow;" so far the explanation is correct, not so what follow: "And Ephraim—how does he reward me? He is busied in bringing forth his sons to the murderer in order to sacrifice them to idols;" in place of this latter part we substitute the following of Kimchi: "The enemies shall come upon them, and they shall march out from their cities to meet them in battle, and the enemies shall slay them." The infinitive with le, לְהוצִיא, implies the necessity imposed on Ephraim to do so. Ephraim is to had out, or must lead out, his sons to the murderer. Rosenmller, in his commentary, has the following remark on this idiom at the fifteenth verse of the forty-ninth psalm: "Tempus infinitivum positum esse fututri sire aoristi, vice, pro eo quod plenum esset עתיד לי = paratus est," etc. He adds that the Syriac prefixes arid, equivalent to paratus est to the infinitive with lomad, and so makes a paraphrase of the future; while the Hebrews omit arid. Driver says of this usage of the so-called "periphrastic future," "Hero the infinitive with ,ì expressing as usual a direction, tendency, or aim, forms the sole predicate: the subject, as a rule, stands first, so as to engage the mind, the purpose which is postulated for it follows; and thus the idea arises of an inevitable sequence or obligation , though net one of a formal or pronounced character, which is expressed in Hebrew by other means (i.e. by the addition of על, or of ,ì as עָלַי, equivalent to ’incumbent upon me’); Hosea 9:13, ’And Ephraim is for bringing forth his sons to the slayer;’ or, as this is the entire scope and object in regard to which Ephraim is here considered—is to or must bring forth." Give them, O Lord: what writ thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. The prophet seems at a loss to know what he should ask for his countrymen. Though it was not total excision, but rather diminution of numbers, that was threatened in accordance with the statement, "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this Law … ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude;" yet at every stage their offspring was to be cut off, or, if spared to arrive at manhood, it was only to fall by the hand of the murderer. No wonder, then, the prophet is perplexed in regard to the petition that would be most expedient for them. He hardly knew what was best to ask on their behalf. (1) The thought at length flashed upon him that utter childishness was preferable to bringing up children to be slain with the sword or trained in idolatry; hence tie prayed for what he regarded as the less calamity—"a miscarrying womb and dry breasts." Or (2) the prophet is agitated between compassion for his countrymen and indignation at their sin. Justly indignant at the heinousness of their iniquity, he is about to appeal to Heaven for vengeance on the transgressors, but in pity for the erring people he cheeks the half-uttered imprecation, or softens it into the milder request for their extinction by childlessness. Hosea 9:15-17 After the interruption by the excited question of the prophet in Hosea 9:14, the terrible storm of denunciation sweeps on to the end of the chapter. All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there I hated them; or, there I conceived hatred against them, the verb being used in an inchoative sense. Gilgal had been the scene of many mercies; there the rite of circumcision, the seal of the Abrahamic covenant, after its omission dining the sojourn in the wilderness, was renewed; there the Passover, also intermitted from its second observance at Sinai, was kept; there the twelve memorial stones had been set up; there the Captain of the host of the Lord had appeared to Joshua, reassuring him of Divine protection; there the tabernacle had stood before its removal to Shiloh; yet that very place—a place of such blessing and solemn covenanting-had become the scene of idolatry and iniquity. The wickedness of Israel had been concentrated there as in a focus; there Israel’s rejection of the theocracy in its spiritual form had taken place; there that first-plague’s pot of ruin had been contracted; there the calf-worship had been developed; there the form of civil government had been shaped according to their own erring fancy, and their mode of religious worship had been corrupted. Thus Gilgal had become the center of all their sin; but the scene of mercy became the source of wrath, for there God’s fatherly love was turned by Israel’s wickedness into hatred. For the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of my house, I will love them no more. They were driven out like Hagar out of the house of the patriarch, that Ishmael might not inherit with Isaac; like an unfaithful wife divorced and driven out of the house of the husband whom she has dishonored; or like an undutiful and disobedient son whom his father has disinherited. Further, God disowns the rebellious son, and acknowledges the paternal relationship no longer. The princes of Israel had become rebellions and stubborn: by an impressive Hebrew paronomasia, their sarim, rulers, had become sorerim, revolters. Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit. Ephraim is a pleasant plant, but a worm has smitten the root and it has withered; Ephraim is a goodly tree, hut the lightning of heaven has scorched and dried it up; there may be leafage for a time, but no fruitage ever. Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay the beloved fruit of their womb. The desires—margin, dear delights, or, darlings—perish, and so the figure is now dropped, and the fact is seen in all its severe and stern reality, while the dread denunciation of verses 11 and 12 is repeated and emphasized. My God will cast them away, because they did not hearken unto him; and they shall be wanderers among the nations. The prophet submits his will to the Divine will, and acquiesces in the disposals of his providence, and in his own proper person predicts Israel’s coming doom. He fills up the outline of the dark picture by stating the cause of their rejection. He specifies at the same time the character of rejection, namely, dispersion among the nations, like birds driven from their nest, for so the term nodedim denotes. Hosea 9:1-6 Sin is the cause of sorrow and the source of sadness The merrymaking of wicked people is often both hollow and heartless; it is always without true ground or real cause; while the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot. The people of Israel were jubilant at the time referred to. The reason of their jubilation does not distinctly appear. It may have arisen from some losses having been retrieved, or some advantages gained, or some successes achieved, or some useful alliances secured, or the ordinary joy of harvest. Whatever it was, there was no good cause for it nor continuance of it. "Joy is forbidden fruit to wicked people." Among the losses which sin entails are, as we learn from the verses before us, the following:— I. THE LOSS OF JOY. 1. Religion makes men joyful as well as cheerful. "Rejoice in the Lord always," is the exhortation of an apostle, and an exhortation which he repeats. The joy of the Lord is our strength. How different with the wicked! They deprive themselves of all real joy. They may be outwardly prosperous and rejoice in that prosperity; but the wrath of God abideth on them, and a worm is at the root of their joy. 2. The professing people of God sometimes envy the seeming prosperity of the wicked; seeing the outward success of sinners, they are tempted to imitate their works and ways. They forget that in doing so their sin is more heinous than that of other people; it is aggravated by their engagement to be the Lord’s, by the vows of God which are upon them, and by the various means and motives which they enjoy for pursuing the right course. Their sin is thus greater than that of other people; they are therefore forbidden to rejoice with the ordinary joy of other people. It. was thus with Israel, when, forgetful or unmindful of their covenant relation, they went a-whoring from their God, and committed spiritual adultery by following idols. 3. Some men make a profession of religion for sake of worldly gain; they calculate the benefits, pecuniary, professional, political, or social, which they expect from religion; they estimate religion by the outward advantages which they think to derive from it; or, what is much the same, they profess that religion or attach themselves to that denomination from which they hope for the greatest gain. Thus Israel attributed to her spiritual harlotry any temporary prosperity she enjoyed; it was her idols she thanked for any season of plenty that she was favored with; she loved a reward on every corn-floor. Thus her religion was mercenary, her idolatry shameful, her prosperous state of short continuance, and her joy ill founded as evanescent. II. THE LOSS OF THE MEANS OF NOT FOLLOWS FROM A COURSE OF SIN. A career of sin has often reduced a man to a morsel of bread, or left him without bread altogether. When men are bent on the obtainment of worldly blessings, and make them their chief end, they are often denied the blessings which they covet: frequently they are disappointed of them; more frequently are they disappointed in them; even when they secure them they fail to find the satisfaction which they seek. "The floor and the wine-press shall not feed them," says the prophet; "much less feast them," quaintly but truly observes an old commentator, adding, "It shall either be blasted by the hand of God or plundered by the hand of man; the new wine with which they used to make merry shall fail in her We forfeit the good things of the world if we love them as the best things." III. THE LOSS OF HOUSE AND HOME HAS OFTEN FROM SINFUL . A time of famine necessarily becomes a time of extensive emigration. But, apart from seasons of scarcity, who. men are forced, in order to procure the means of a decent livelihood, to seek a home and a country in some distant land, it is no rare occurrence for men to find themselves expatriated through their own vices. When they beggar themselves by vicious indulgence, their last resort is a foreign land. In the case of Israel the hardship was peculiarly distressful. The land of promise was, in a special sense, "the Lord’s land;" it was a good land, a gladsome land. How glowing as well as eloquent the eulogy bestowed upon it by the sacred writer when Israel was about to enter it! "The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey; a Land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." Besides these blessings of a temporal kind, possessed by that land into which the Lord had led Israel, it was the Lord’s land because of the spiritual privileges enjoyed there. It was distinguished by his special favor and gracious presence; it was the home of his priests and prophets; it was the seat of his holy oracle, and in all respects a delightsome land. But Israel had forfeited their title to it. It had been leased to them by the Lord, but by their idolatries and many sins they had broken every clause in that lease; and now they must turn their back on tiffs land which the Lord had given them. They had loved idols, and now to the land of idols they must go. Into bondage in Egypt or into captivity in Assyria they are driven; the Lord’s land "shall not only cease to feed them, but cease to lodge them, and to be a habitation for them; it shall spew them out, as it had done the Canaanites before them." Their performance of outward ceremonies had not sprung from a principle of love to the Divine Law; now they are no longer in a position, even if they are disposed, to obey that Law. They had abused the abundance of good things which God had given them; now for very want they must eat unclean things as repugnant to their feelings as opposed to their ritual. They had shown an infatuated fondness for idols in their own land, the Lord’s land; now they must eat the unclean things offered to idols in a foreign land. Great had been their sinfulness, great in degree and similar in kind is their punishment. IV. Loss OF IS ANOTHER AND A WORSE OF THEIR SINS. One of the greatest privations is the loss of the public ordinances of religion. Though the enjoyment of them when possessed may be little valued, the withdrawal of them is severely felt. There is no famine more distressing than that of hearing the Word of the Lord. Unfaithfulness to the light men have has often caused the candlestick to be removed out of its place. So with Israel at the period to which the prophet refers. They were deprived of libation as well as oblation, and of every offering whatever. Without the material, they were also without the means of offering any acceptable sacrifice. In a heathen land they were necessarily without sanctuary and altar and priest. How sad their condition! And sadder still when they felt it to be the legitimate consequence of their sin, national, social, and individual! V. LOSS OF IS AN OF THEIR LOSS OF . The solemn day, or day of the feast of the Lord, as often as it came round, was a high day as well as a holy day; a day of joy and gladness, of thanksgiving and praise. Besides the weekly sabbath solemnity and the monthly solemnity of the new moons, there were the three great annual festivals of the Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. Of the benefit and blessing of these solemnities, with all their instruction, edification, comfort, and encouragement, they are now deprived. No wonder the prophet asks in a tone of pity, not unmingled with pathos, "What will ye do then?" To this inquiry a practical commentator makes the following not inappropriate reply: "You will then spend those days in sorrow and lamentation, which, if it had not been your fault, you might have been spending in joy and praise. You will then be made to know the worth of mercies by the want of them, and to prize spiritual bread by being made to feel a famine of it." To this he adds the pithy remark, "When we enjoy the means of grace, we ought to consider what we shall do if ever we should know the want of them; if either they should be taken from us, or we disabled to attend upon them." VI. LOSS OF ALL THINGS ONCE HELD DEAR THIS SAD SUMMARY OF THE EVIL EFFECTS OF SIN. Never was there a darker outlook, never was there a gloomier prospect! What havoc sin works! What distress it occasions! In a single verse are crowded together the destruction of their country by one heathen power, that of Assyria; their dispersion in the country of another, namely, Egypt; their death in that foreign land, and their deprivation of decent sepulture; the desolation of the dwellings they had left behind—a desolation so great that nettles had sprung up in their treasuries and thorns in their tabernacles; nor was respite, or relief, or restoration to be expected. They had deluded themselves with false hopes and had resorted to carnal devices, distrustful of God, as men often do, and with like result. Instead of returning to that God against whom they had rebelled, and who might have opened to them a door of hope, they departed more and more from him, placing their dependence on the sinful, unavailing shifts of their own devising. Hosea 9:7-9 There is no joy, any more than peace, to the sinner. However men put away from them the evil day, they can neither stave it off altogether nor delay its coming. I. THE OF THE DIVINE SINNERS. In the previous verse the prophetic past is used, to intimate that, though the event predicted had not yet taken place, yet was it as sure of accomplishment as if it had already occurred. Here the words "are come" are repeated to apprise sinners of its certainty; thus we read in the same tense, and with like repetition, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen." So also in Ezekiel 7:6, "An end is come, the end is come … behold, it is come;" while in the verse preceding, and in the one succeeding, the same expression is repeated to impress men with the fact of the threatened judgments being both sure and near, and thus prevent self-deception. II. THE OF THE DIVINE . 1. They are days of Divine visitation. Men’s sins shall be searched out and brought to light; they shall be scrutinized by the omniscient and heart-searching God. 2. They are days of recompense, when not only shall an exact account be taken, but a just recompense of reward dealt out to each according as his work shall be. The recompense shall correspond to the visitation; the stricter the former, the juster and more exact the latter. 3. They are days near at hand, so near as well as certain that they are spoken of as already come. III. THE CONDUCT OF THE PROPHET. If, as some suppose, the prophet here mentioned is (1) the false prophet, he deluded the people with false hopes, and God gave the people over to strong delusion that they might believe a lie They awake not out of their day-dream until roused by the visitation and recompense of the Almighty. God, by afflictive dispensations, has to stir men up when milder means have failed. But (2) the prophet mentioned may be a true prophet, and it may only be in the estimation of the people that he is fool and madman. In this case, those that thus treated him with contempt and ridicule shall be awakened by the visitations of the Almighty to a sense of their sin and shame. Then (3) shall they know, as stated in the first clause, not only the nearness and certainty of the Divine visitation and recompense, but shall also know that a prophet had been among them, that he had discernment of the times, and had faithfully conveyed to them the message of God. They (4) shall know too, to their cost and by bitter experience, many things about God, about his ambassadors, and about their own heartless misconduct. They shall know, says an old divine, these things: "1. What a great God they had to deal with. 2. How vile a thing sin is. 3. The vanity of all their shirtings. 4. The dreadfulness of Divine wrath. 5. The faithfulness of God’s prophets. 6. The wisdom of those who dared not do as they did. 7. The folly and vanity of all the false prophets that did before seduce them." IV. THE CAUSE OF ALL THEIR ERRORS WAS THE OF THEIR SINS. Faults in their life, as is not unusual with wicked men, bred errors in the brain. Their iniquity had been great and aggravated, and, in addition to their multiplied iniquity, they were just objects of hatred and subjects of the same—at once "hateful and hating." Besides their vile heart and wicked life, they hated God, his ambassadors, his ways, and. all godliness. Could they fail to be children of wrath while their carnal mind was thus enmity to God? It was reasonable that God should abandon such persons to prophets of lies, to deceive and undo their souls; or, on the other hand, it was in keeping with the malignity of their hearts and the malice of their nature to calumniate the prophets of the Lord and vilify them as fools and madmen; while the fact of accounting them so, aggravated their sins, hastened the fast-coming visitation, and intensified the recompense of reward. Hosea 9:10, Hosea 9:11 God’s goodness met with ingratitude by a sinful people. Instead of repenting of their sins, they persevered in their rebellion against God. As if God overlooked or connived at their enormities, they added their deep corruption in the matter of Gibeah, in the days of the judges, to the iniquity of Baal-peor at a still earlier period; while the sins of Gibeah and Baal-peor were equaled by those of the prophet’s own day. I. THE DELIGHT WHICH GOD TOOK IN THEIR FATHERS. Their sainted sires had been the favorites of Heaven; the fathers and founders of their race had sought God’s "face and favor free;" and, walking in his ways, enjoyed his benediction. 1. God’s pleasure in the piety of his people is truly astonishing, though that piety is entirely traceable to his own gracious dealings with them. When a weary wanderer in a wilderness comes upon grapes rich and ripe, or figs the first and finest of the season, how he is refreshed by fruits so rare and luscious! Such is the strong and suggestive figure by which God expresses his delight in his servants of old; nor does he take less delight in them in the present than in the ancient days. Men like Abraham the faithful, or Isaac the meditative, or Jacob the prayerful, or Joseph the pure, or Moses the meek, enjoy the sunshine of God’s favor still. 2. Where much is given much is required. If God thus delights in his people, surely his people should delight in God. If God views with such complacency the fruit of his own Spirit’s operations in the hearts of his people, and the effects of his own grace seen reflected in their lives, surely it is our bounden duty as well as high privilege to reciprocate in some measure the Divine goodness, delighting in the Divine ordinances, living in the Divine service, and promoting the Divine glory. 3. God is particularly delighted with the firstfruits, and not only so, but with the first of the firstfruits. Here is special encouragement to the young to devote themselves early to God, and early to delight themselves in him. They are invited to give their young hearts to God when the dew of their youth is heavy upon them—when their perception is keen, their conscience tender, their affections warm, and their memory retentive. II. THEIR . Their fathers had been to God as grapes in a desert land, and as the first ripe in the fig tree at her first time; but the degenerate descendants of such godly ancestry had become like fruit bitter and sour. They resembled fruitless fig trees, or the wild vine with its small harsh berries; and that, notwithstanding all Jehovah’s care and culture, they had long ceased to walk in the ways or follow the steps of their godly forefathers. The holiness of those forefathers, refreshing as grapes of best quality and figs of the first growth to the heart of God, was no longer to be found; their fruit was sour, their ways corrupt. The God of their fathers had ceased to be their God. "Oh! it is a comfortable thing," says an old divine, "when a child is able to say, as Exodus 15:2, ’My God,’ and "My father’s God." "God was my father’s God, and delighted in my father; and, blessed be his Name, he is my God, and I hope he has some delight in me." III. THEIR . They for their part (the use of the pronoun adds emphasis) went to Baal-peor. 1. Here they are either contrasted with their godly forefathers, or the contrast is rather between God’s care and goodness on the one hand, and their ingratitude and baseness on the other. The complaint of God resemble, that of a fond and indulgent husband who has lavished his love on a worthless wife, and who, to his unspeakable mortification, discovers that he has been cherishing an adulteress. Instead of reciprocating his affection, She plays the wanton; instead of a suitable return for his many acts of kindness, tenderness, and care, she dishonors him by turning aside to some base adulterer. So with Israel when they turned from the living God to dumb idols; so with any people who, instead of seating their affections on God, transfer them to any earthly, sensual, or sinful object. 2. We see in the conduct of Israel a notable example of the perverted use of the Divine mercies. God had segregated Israel from the nations around them, and separated them to himself to be a peculiar people. The Nazarite who by his vow was separated and specially consecrated to Jehovah, was symbolical of the whole nation in its separation and consecration to God. But, regardless of God’s mercy and reckless of their own privileges, they separated themselves to the service of a shameful idol. When they went to Baal-peor, whether the idol itself or rather the place of the idol (the same as Beth-peer), they engaged with full consecration, rather desecration, of all their powers in the infamous worship of Baal, here called Bosheth, their shame. 3. Their abominations were according as they loved; that is, (1) they became as abominable as that which they loved; or (2) their abominable idols were multiplied according to their heart’s desire; or (3) their abominations were according as they loved. They were guided in the choice el them, not, of course, by the Word of God nor by the Law of God, but by their own inclination. In matters connected with religion and religious worship men should beware of being influenced by their personal likings, or private inclinations, or aesthetic tastes, but make sure of a warrant from the Word of God. Another evil is to be avoided in this matter, that of allowing our judgment to be overmastered by our affections, and thus of being unduly influenced in our religious views by those whom we love, whether husband, or wife, or kindred, or friends, or family. If the other sense be preferred, according to which people become as abominable as the objects which they love, it is an illustration of the well-known principle that men come to resemble those whom they love. A child imitates and so gets assimilated to the parent whom he loves; looking up to and admiring that parent, he comes in time to resemble him in habits of thought and modes of acting. 4. Here, in passing, we observe one of the many references and allusions of the prophet to the earlier books of Scripture. Through the evil counsel of Balsam a stumbling-block was placed in the way of the people of Israel, when they were enticed to impurity and so to idolatry by the daughters of Moab, and when, in consequence of their sin in the matter of Baal-peor, so many thousands perished in the plague. IV. THEIR . Ephraim’s glory consisted of many elements—prosperity, pomp, and power, but most especially their population and numerous progeny as contributing to that population. In this particularly did Ephraim glory; but the day of their glory comes to a speedy and disastrous end. 1. The departure of their glory is compared to the flight of a bird, and thus that departure is represented as sudden, like the flight of a bird when it is startled from its nest in the greenwood, or when some one throws open the door of the cage in the dwelling where it has been imprisoned; as swift, like the flight of the eagle toward heaven; as irretrievable, like the bird of powerful pinion, which distances pursuit and escapes beyond the possibility of being ever caught or found again. 2. Disaster awaits them at every stage—conception, gestation, and parturition. The curse of God pursues them from first to last, hindering the conception, or causing abortion, or preventing the birth. . Learn hence: 1. The folly of glorying in any earthly prosperity or worldly advantage. "Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not? for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven." 2. The prosperity of the wicked lasts not long. Ephraim, comprehending the ten tribes, had enjoyed great prosperity, and had surpassed Judah in numbers. This was particularly the case in the reign of Jeroboam II; to which this Scripture may probably refer. They had enjoyed prosperity so long, they thought it would last always; yet it passed away as in a moment. 3. Let us seek the glory that is real and abiding. "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he under-standeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord." 4. What reason we have to bless God for his preserving care. "He preserved us in the very conception, preserved us in our mother’s womb, and then in the birth; and then in the cradle, in our childhood, in our youth, in our middle age, and in our old age; for we lie at his mercy at every point of time." "Thy providence my life sustained, And all my wants redressed, When in the silent womb I lay, And hung upon the breast." Hosea 9:12-17 The wicked shall not go unpunished. If they escape one calamity, they are sure to be overtaken and overwhelmed by another. I. OF TWOFOLD KIND . There is: 1. Bereavement, and that of a most painful nature. To be childless altogether, or to lose children in infancy, is sorrowful enough; but to be bereft of children when they have grown up to manhood or womanhood is an unspeakably greater sorrow. After labor, and trouble, and care, and thought have been expended in their upbringing; after all difficulties have been surmounted; and when sons have become like plants grown up in their youth, and daughters like corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace; when the conduct of both is characterized by dutifulness, love, and obedience; and when parents naturally expect much help and comfort from them, and have their affections twined round them—at such a time, to be deprived of them either by a sudden stroke, or by slow disease, is a condition more than ordinarily sorrowful. It is only the grace of God in large measure that can sustain and support parents so afflicted; while the exercise of grace on their part has no doubt compensatory blessings. The bereavement of Israel was to be complete-without a man left. If left, they might be left without the intellect of a man, or the physical strength of a man; they might be imbeciles or invalids, and thus in a worse condition than if not left at all. 2. But a still worse woe impends, namely, that of Divine desertion. This is God’s withdrawal from a people or a person. When he thus withdraws, he withdraws his goodness and mercy, common graces, gifts, and comforts. When this withdrawal takes place we are utterly helpless; as the king of Israel said to the poor woman who cried for help, "If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?" or as the apparition of Samuel to Saul, "Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the Lord is departed from thee?" We may pass through fiery trials, or be plunged in the deep waters of affliction; but if we enjoy the Divine presence we need not be afraid. As long as the Lord of hosts is with us, and the God of Jacob is our Refuge, we need not fear the raging of the great sea-billows, or the upheaval of the mountains, or even the shock of the earthquake. The sorest of all troubles is to be forsaken by God. Oh, how sad the lot of a man who, forsaken by God, is left in the power of his enemies! "I am sore distressed," said the unhappy monarch; "for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me." II. A . Ephraim is compared to Tyre in prosperity, in position, in population, and in military prowess; and yet God was preparing to take his departure from them. 1. His presence maintains health, strength, and various other comforts; or if, in his wise providence, he sees fit to withdraw any of these, he sanctifies that withdrawal. But when God himself withdraws, then his mercies prepare for flight too; nor is any blessing left behind. Not only so; even when men are at the height of prosperity, as they think, God may be on the point of departing from them, as from Israel in the days of Jeroboam II; if we are right in referring this comparison of the prophet to that period. 2. How we should prize God’s presence and pray for its continuance, saying, "Leave us not," and avoid whatever would force or hasten his departure! But how may we be sure that he has not already forsaken us? The answer may be learned from the words of the psalmist: "I will keep thy statutes: oh, forsake me not utterly." As long as we are resolved to keep his statutes, we may have little fellowship with, but cannot be forsaken by, God. 3. How dreadful the doom of those from whom God has actually and already departed! It is like the withdrawal of the sun from the firmament. "Take a delightful summer’s day, and how beautiful it is! Now compare that with a winter’s dark, dismal night. What makes the difference between these two? The presence of the sun in the one, and its absence from the other. This is but the presence or the departing of one of God’s creatures. Oh l if that makes such a difference in the world, what must the presence or departing of the infinite God do to the soul?" In the case of Ephraim, their children are brought forth to the murderers—not only murdered, but that murder perpetrated before the eyes of their parents. This seems the severest stroke of all. Even a heathen poet has most pathetically portrayed the extreme sadness of this condition in the death of Polites, a son of Priam, who addresses his murderer Pyrrhus in the well-known words: "May the gods, if there be any kind power in heaven to watch such deeds, yield you your due reward, who have defiled the father’s eyes by the sight of his son’s murder." III. . The prophet prays for his people, but seems straitened in his petitions, or rather he is at a loss to know what was most expedient for them and conducive to the Divine glory. He does not pray for peace, nor for deliverance, nor for prosperity. He dared not venture. He knew too well the sins of his countrymen, their abuse of the Divine mercies, their contempt of warning, their hardness of heart, their searedness of conscience, and their gross misuse of all means used for their recovery. No wonder he pauses and hesitates. He cannot pray for a numerous progeny to be vouchsafed to his people, or for children at all Better they should never come into the world at all than to be made the prey of the spoiler; better not to be born than to become victims of the murderer; better perish before birth or from the birth than live a life of sin and misery, and die a death of violence and hopelessness! At length, in view of the sinfulness of the people, the misery of times not far distant, and the fast-approaching calamities, he prays either that children might not be born at all, or that they might not be sustained so as long to survive their birth. IV. EXPOSED. We are here reminded of the plan of Israel’s criminal conduct, of the punishment of it, and of the princes who were ringleaders in it. 1. The place of their chief and greatest crimes was Gilgal. What a contrast[ The place that testified to God’s greatest mercies also witnessed Israel’s greatest wickedness. In Gilgal the memorial stones were set up after the passage of the Jordan; in Gilgal the first Passover was celebrated after the Exodus; in Gilgal the rite of circumcision was renewed and the reproach of Egypt rolled away; in Gilgal Israel first ate the fruits of the promised land. Yet all their wickedness, their chief wickedness, was wrought there. There they threw off the government of God by judges, and would have Saul to be their king; there, in their superstition, they worshipped God instead of at Jerusalem, and thus trampled underfoot the Divine appointment. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The concluding thought of the last chapter is the commencing one of this; while the sad subject of Israel’s guilt being resumed continues in the first section (Hosea 10:1-8) of the chapter, and that of their punishment in the second section (Hosea 10:9-15), with a solemn caution to make a better use of the future than they had clone of the past. Hosea 10:1 Israel is an empty vine. The comparison of Israel to a vine is frequent; but the epithet boqeq is variously rendered; (1) as "empty." Thus Aben Ezra explains it as "empty in which there is no strength to bring forth fruit, nor fruit;" and thus also Kimchi explains it: "An empty vine in which there is not any life-sap;" and in the same sense בי ומי, "empty and sick," Nahum 2:11. This, too, is the meaning of the Authorized Version, but is irreconcilable with the statement in the following clause, "he bringeth forth fruit." The Chaldee had preceded in giving the word the sense of "plundered," "empty," "waste." But (2) some take boqeq transitively, and attach to it the signification of "emptying out its fruit." In this way Rashi explains it: "The Israelites resemble a vine which casts all its good fruit;" and similarly the marginal rendering of the Authorized Version has, "a vine emptying the fruit which it giveth." There is (3) a signification derivable from the primary meaning of boqeq more suitable than either of the preceding. From the primary sense of "pouring," "pouring itself out," or" poured out," and so overflowing, comes that of "luxuriant." Accordingly Gesenius translates, "a wide-spreading vine." This agrees with the Septuagint εὐκληματοῦσα, "a vine with goodly branches," to which the Vulgate frondosa, "leafy," nearly corresponds. In like manner De Wette renders it wuchernder, "growing prosperously." It was thus a vine of vigorous growth, and extending its branches far and wide; a parallel expression is found in the גי סֹרַחַת of Ezekiel 17:6, "a spreading vine." He (rather, it) bringeth forth fruit unto him self (itself). The word יְשַׁוֶּהliterally signifies "reset to" or "on," and is rightly rendered by Gesenius "to set" or "yield fruit." It is variously interpreted by the Hebrew commentators, but more or less erroneously by them all. Rashi takes it in the sense of "to profit;" Aben Ezra, "to bear" or "make equal;" and Kimchi informs us that the older interpreters understood in the sense of "lying," as if שוא, the whole phrase meaning, "the fruit will lie to him," that is, deceive or fail him (like Hosea 9:2). Kimchi himself takes the verb in the right sense, but, misled by his erroneous explanation of boqeq, empty or plundered, takes the clause interrogatively: "How shall he set on himself [equivalent to ’yield’ any fruit], since he is as a plundered vine; for the enemies have plundered him and set him as an empty vessel? how should he still thrive and become numerous in children and treasures?" It makes little difference whether we take the second part of the first clause relatively or independently, as the sense amounts to the same. The meaning of the two difficult and disputed words then we take to be respectively "luxuriant" and "yield;" and the sense of the whole is either (1) a comparison of the former state of Israel to a vine luxuriant and likely, as far as appearance went, to set forth fruit; but the luxuriance degenerated into leafage, and the likelihood of fruitage failed; or (2) Israel is compared to a vine luxuriant in growth and abundant in fruit—but only for itself. The former explanation accords with that of Jerome when he says, "Unpruned vines luxuriate in the juice and leaves which they ought to transmute into wine. They disperse in the idle ambitious show of leaves and branches." The more abundantly a fruit tree gives out its strength in leaves and branches, the less abundant and the worse the quality of the fruit. Thus it was with the fig tree, with its abundant leaves and no fruit, which our Lord cursed. But with the same or a similar rendering there is the alternative sense of prosperous growth and plenteous fruit, but that fruit wasted on self or sin; and thus the meaning in either case is much the same. The Septuagint favors this by ὁκαρπὸςεὐθηνῶναὐτῆς, equivalent to "its fruit exuberant." Cyril favors this latter also in saying, "When Israel still wisely led a life in accordance with the Divine Law, it was as a beautiful vine adorned with branches, which even the neighboring nations admired." This was exactly the state of Israel in the days of Joash and Jeroboam II.; but their prosperity was prostituted to purposes of idolatry. Jerome also, in any other part of his exposition, approaches this sense. Taking ישוּה, in the sense of "to equal," he says, "The fecundity of the grapes equaled the fecundity of the branches: but they who had previously been so fruitful before they offended God, afterwards turned the abundance of fruits into multiplied occasions of offence; and the greater the population they possessed, the more altars they built, and exceeded the abundant produce of the land by the multitude of their idols." Or the verb may mean, "it made fruit equal to itself;" nearly so the Vulgate. The fruit is agreeable to it. According to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars. In this second or middle clause of the verse the figure passes into the fact represented by it. It is no longer the vine, but Israel. The altars kept pace with the increase of population and abundant produce; the multiplication of altars for idolatrous sacrifice and service was proportionate to their prosperity. The le here and in next clause marks the circumlocutory genitive, and the ke is quantitative. According to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images (margin, statues, or, standing images). The matstsevoth here mentioned are στήλης in the LXX; that is, statues or pillars, and those pillars were erected to Baal or some other idol, as we read in 1 Kings 14:23. The plural of the verb in this last clause arises from Israel being a noun of multitude. Rashi gives the following brief exposition: "Just in proportion as I caused their prosperity to overflow to them, they multiplied calves for the altars;" but Kimchi explains both clauses more fully and accurately thus: "As I increased their prosperous state in treasures and children, they multiplied altars to Baal; as I did good to their land in corn and wine and oil, they waxed strong in setting up pillars for other gods;" the verb חטי has the same sense here as ההטי in Jonah 4:9. Hosea 10:2 Their heart is divided. Here their wickedness is traced to its fountainhead; its source was in the corrupt state of the heart. Their heart was (1) divided, and so they halted between two opinions—between the worship of Jehovah and idolatry. Chalaq is taken in this signification by the Chaldee, Syriac, Septuagint, and Jerome, as also by the Hebrew commentators. The LXX. have (a) ἐμέρισεν in the singular, which affords some support to Hitzig’s rendering, "He (God)divided their heart,"—but this is unsuitable and unscriptural; another (b) reading of the same version is ἐμέρισαν, "They have divided their hearts," which is somewhat better, yet incorrect. (c) The Authorized Version is also questionable, as the verb is not used intransitively in Qal. (2) Kimchi, indeed, understands chalaq as equivalent to niehloq in the Niphal, and interprets, "From the fear of God and from his Law their heart is divided," i.e. separated; similarly Rashi: "Their heart is divided from me;" Aben Ezra somewhat peculiarly, though to the same purport: "They (their heart) has not one part (but several),"or is divided. But, notwithstanding this consensus in favor of the meaning of "divide," the rendering preferred, and justly so, by modern expositors in general, is "smooth." This is, indeed, the primary sense, that of "divide" being secondary, as division was made by lot or a smooth stone, cheleq, used for the purpose. (3) "Their heart is smooth," that is, bland, deceitful, hypocritical; though it must be admitted that the word is mostly applied to the tongue, lip, throat, mouth, speech, and not to the heart. Their heart was hypocritical and faithless. Now shall they be found faulty; rather, they shall be dealt with as such, or punished; better still, perhaps, is the rendering, now shall they atone. The "now" defines sharply the turning-point between God’s love and God’s wrath. The state of things hitherto existing cannot continue; it must soon come to an end. Ere long they are doomed to discover their guilt in its punishment; they shall find out their sin by suffering; suddenly and to their cost they shall have a fearful awaking to a sense of their iniquity by the inflictions of Divine wrath upon their guilty heads. He shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images. The verb עדףis peculiar; being a denominative from ערֶף, the neck, it signifies "to break the neck of," like the Greek τραχηλίζειν, decollate, then figuratively "tear down," "break in pieces." This bold expression of breaking the neck of the altars may allude to their destruction by breaking off the horns of the altars, or rather to their beheading, cutting off the heads of victims at those altars. The Hebrew expositors make the heart of the people, not God, the immediate object of the verb. "Their heart," says one of them, "shall tear down their altars and lay waste their pillars, because it is divided from me. It will tear down their altars which they are said also to have multiplied, and lay waste their pillars which they made so goodly." The means of sinning shall be taken from them and destroyed—their altars broken down and their images spoiled. As the heads of victims had been cut off at these altars erected for idolatrous worship; so the heads of their altars would be broken off. Hosea 10:3 For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord. In the day of their destruction Israel would be brought to see and even feel that the king appointed through their own self-will and fancied plenitude of power was unable to protect or help them, and that because they had rejected Jehovah and cast aside his fear. The point of time denoted by "now" is either when they see destruction before their eyes, or when Israel is already in captivity. Rashi explains it in the former sense: "When destruction shall come upon them, they shall say, ’We have no king,’ that is, our king on whom we set our hopes when we said, ’Our king shall go out before us and light our battles,’ affords us no help whatever." Kimchi explains similarly, but fixes the "now" in the time of the Captivity: "Now, when they shall be carried out of their land, they shall recognize and say, ’We have no king;’ the explanation is, as it’ we had no king among us, for there is no strength in him to deliver us out of the hand of our enemies, as we thought when we asked for a king who should march at our head and fight our battles. God—blessed be he!—was our King, and we needed no king, and he it was that delivered us out of the hand of our enemies when we did his will." Aben Ezra and others understand it as the expression of a wild licorice on the part of Israel, recklessly giving vent to an anarchical and atheistic spirit: "As soon as their heart was divided they had no wish to have a king over them, and had no fear of Jehovah; therefore they had no fear, and every one did what was right in his own eyes." This exposition neglects the note of time, as also the causal particle that follows. They bethought themselves that, as they had not feared Jehovah, but neglected his Law, the king which they had demanded could do them no good. "What," they asked, "can the king do for us? He has no power to deliver us, since God is angry with us, for we have sinned against him?" Such is the confession of Israel in captivity. Pusey remarks in reference to this: "In sin, all Israel had asked for a king, when the Lord was their King; in sin, Ephraim had made Jeroboam king; in sin, their subsequent kings were made, without the counsel and advice of God; and now, as the close of all, they reflect how fruitless it all was." Hosea 10:4 God, by the prophet, had charged Israel with fruitlessness, or with bringing forth fruit to themselves; with perverting the bounties of his providence in promoting idolatry; with their division of heart, or deceitfulness of heart. He had also threatened to punish them for their sin, and to deprive them of the means of sinning by destroying the instruments thereof, and to prevent their obtaining any help from their king, proving to them the folly of depending on him. He now proceeds, in this and following verses (Hosea 10:4-8), to point out their moral corruption, the usual consequence or concomitant of irreligion and of false religion, instancing their deceptive dealing in the common affairs of life and their perjury in public compacts or covenants, as also their general unrighteousness. He threatens to destroy their idols to the distress of their worshippers and ministering priests as well as of their chief city. He threatens further to cause their calf-idols to be carried into captivity, pouring shame and contempt on their enterprises; to cut off their king; to leave the places of their idol-worship desolate, filling the people with distress and despair because of all their sins. They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant. In this fourth verse the prophet deplores the absence of truth, faithfulness, and loyalty to duty. This expression, "they have spoken words," is generally understood to signify (a) "empty words," "false words," only words and no more, like the Latin verba alicui dare. Thus their vain, deceitful, lying words in private transactions and common affairs of everyday life would correspond to their perjury in public treaties and covenants. Their words were deceitful and their oaths falsehood. In their ordinary business transactions they used words, empty words, words without truth, corresponding thereto; in international concerns they had pursued the same course of falsifying and covenant-breaking. After entering into an engagement with the Assyrian king Shalmaneser, they made a covenant with So King of Egypt, as we read in 2 Kings 17:4, "And the King of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So King of Egypt, and brought no present to the King of Assyria, as he had done year by year." In this latter case they acted as covenant-breakers, and at the same time contravened the Divine command, which forbade them entering into covenants with foreigners. The first clause, however, is understood by some (b) in the sense of "deliberating.’ Thus Kimchi understands it, erroneously referring it to Jeroboam and his countrymen; thus: "Jeroboam and his companions took counsel what they should do in order to strengthen the government in his hand, and they deliberated (or held consultation) that the people should not go up to Jerusalem to the house of the sanctuary; and for this purpose they bound themselves by oath and made a covenant. But their oath was a vain one, because their oath was intended to frustrate the words of the Law and the command of God, and to make images for their worship." The words אָלוֹת שָוְא have been explained by some (1) as "oaths of vanity," that is, oaths by vanity or an idol, as an oath of Jehovah is an oath by Jehovah, אָלוֹת being taken for a noun in the plural; (2) as predicate, while the following words supply the subject; thus: "their covenant contracts are oaths of vanity." This mistake of taking אָלוֹת for a noun arose from the anomalous form of the word, which is really a verb. The form is explained by Aben Ezra, who calls it an irregular formation, as if it were compounded of the infinitive construct as indicated by the ending ־וֹת, and the infinitive absolute as indicated by the qamets in the first syllable; it is in reality the infinitive absolute, and the irregularity is owing to the assonance with karoth thence resulting. As to the construction, it is that of the infinitive standing in place of the finite verb, of which Gesenius says, "This is frequent... in the expression of several successive acts or states, where only the first of the verbs employed takes the required form in respect to tense and person, the others being simply put in the infinitive with the same tense and person implied." The meaning of the clause is obviously that there was no longer any respect for the sanctity of an oath; while the treaties refer to those made with the Assyrian king, with the object of securing and upholding the government. Thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field. The judgment here spoken of is understood (1) by the Hebrew interpreters, following the Chaldee Version, as the judgment of God and consequent punishment of Israel because of sin; thus Kinchi: "Therefore there springs up against them the judgment of chastisements and punishments like hemlock, which is a bitter herb that springs up on the furrows of the field." Some, again, (2) explain it of the decree of the kings of Israel in reference to the worship of idols, which, like a bitter herb, was to issue in national ruin. We much prefer (3) the more obvious sense of the clause which refers it to the perversion of judgment and justice. Thus Amos addresses them as those who "turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth," and calls on them to "establish judgment in the gate;" and Habakkuk writes, "Wrong [wrested] judgment proceedeth." It is implied in the mention of furrows that there has been careful preparation for the intended crop. The seed they sow is injustice; and the plant that springs up from it is a poison-plant—hemlock, bitter and noxious, and is everywhere rampant. Another (4) explanation understands "judgment" in the sense of crime which calls on judgment for punishment. The field is that of the Israelitish nation; in all the furrows of that wide field judgment, that is, crime, springs up as luxuriantly and abundantly as hemlock. The multiplication of crime in Israel, like a luxurious noxious growth in some large field, is the idea thus conveyed. This explanation has the appearance at least of being somewhat strained and forced, though it yields a good sense. Hosea 10:5 The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear Because of the calves of Beth-aven. Samaria was the capital of Israel, the northern kingdom. Bethel means "house of God," once a place of sacred memory from its association with the history of the patriarch Jacob; afterward one of the two centers of idolatrous worship, and here called Beth-aven, "house of vanity," because of the idolatry. The word for "calves" is in the feminine, in order to express contempt for those idols which Jeroboam set up. With this have been compared the following expressions in Greek and Latin: Ἀχαΐ́ιδεςοὐκἔτἈχαιοὶ, and O vere Phrygiae, nec enim Phryges! The Hebrews ignored the existence of female divinities, as of their, ten names of the Deity all are masculine. The feminine may also imply their weakness; so far from helping their worshippers, their worshippers were in trepidation for them, or rather it, lest it should be carried away captive. Further, this same word is in the plural, to cast ridicule on it, as if mimicking the plural of majesty, or rather, perhaps, to include that of Dan, or to intimate that the calf of Bethel, the more celebrated place, was that after which the calf of Dan and probably those of other places were fashioned, especially so as it is afterwards referred to in the singular. Besides, a few—a very few—manuscripts, it is true, read the singular, as also the LXX; which has μόσχος, and the Syriac; while Bathe, relying on these authorities, maintains the reading to have been לְעֶגְלַת in the singular. Others suppose an enallage of both gender and number; or an indefinite generality is expressed by the plural, while for abstracts the feminine is used. The coming punishment is casting its shadow before, so that the inhabitants, perceiving symptoms of its approach, tremble for their god of gold, now, like themselves, in greatest jeopardy. For the people thereof shall mourn over it. The people of Israel are now called the people of the calf, as once they had been the people of Jehovah, and as Moab was called the people of Chemosh. They had chosen the calf for their god. Of their own free-will they had done so, though at first enjoined and prompted to adopt this course by the mandate of their king; they had even rejoiced and gloried in it. Now they mourn for their idol, which can neither help itself nor them. And the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it. According to this rendering, the relative must be understood before "rejoiced," which, though quite possible and not ungrammatical, is, however, unnecessary. The Hebrew commentators all understand the word in the sense of "joy" or "jubilation;" thus Rashi says," Why is it that its people mourn over, it and its priests, who always rejoiced over it, now mourn over its glory that is gone away?" The word גִיל, however, is primarily "to twist or whirl one’s self," and is thence applied to any violent emotion, generally of joy, also of anxiety and fear, as here, so that the simpler and more correct rendering is, the priests thereof shall tremble for it, for its glory, because it is departed from it. The priests here mentioned have a peculiar name, kemarim, from kamar, to be black, from the black garments in which they ministered, and are thus distinguished as ministers of a foreign cult; for kohen is the usual word for a Hebrew priest, and his robe of office is said to have been white. The glory of the calf-god was not the temple treasure at Bethel, nor its glory as the state God set up there, but the honor and the Divine halo with which its worship there was surrounded. Thus Kimchi: "When its glory is departed from it; and this means the honor of its worship. When the calf is broken before their eyes its glory shall depart from it." The perfects of "mourn" and "departed" are prophetic, denoting the certainty of the events, though yet future; while galah and yagilu form the favorite assonance. But a question still remains—Why is Samaria and not Beth-avert said to mourn? To this the explanation of Kimchi is a satisfactory reply: "The inhabitants of Samaria tremble. And the prophet makes mention of Samaria, though there were no calves there, because it was the metropolis of the kingdom, where the kings of Israel resided, and it was these kings who strengthened the people in the worship of the calves. And he says," When Bethel is laid waste, and the calves cannot deliver it, the inhabitants of Samaria tremble for themselves, which place (Samaria) the King of Assyria laid siege to for three years." Hosea 10:6 It shall he also carried unto Assyria for a present to King Jareb. Here we have an explanation and confirmation of what has just been said in the preceding verse. The calf, the glorious and magnificent national god, as Israel considered it, is brought to Assyria, and there offered as a present to the Assyrian king. The word gam is emphatic; that is, "it also," "itself also," or "it also with men and other spoils"—the golden idol of Beth-aven. Kimchi’s explanation of gam is as follows: "Genesis, extension or generalization of the term, refers to the glory he bad mentioned. He says, ’Lo, in its place the glory shall depart from it as soon as they shall break it. Also, the stump of the calf, namely, the gold thereon, after its form is broken, they shall take away as a present to King Jareb.’" The sign of the accusative with suffix אוֹחו, which here stands before a passive verb, may be taken either (1) absolutely, "as to it also," "it shall be brought ;" or (2) as an instance of anacoluthon; or (3), according to Gesenius, the passive may be regarded as an impersonal active, and thus it may take the object of the action in the accusative. The word yubhal is from yabhal, primarily used of flowing in a strong and violent stream, and so the root of מַבּוֹל, the flood; then it signifies "to go," "to be brought or carried." The minchah here spoken of cannot well mean tribute, but is rather a gift of homage to the Assyrian conqueror, whom the prophet m vision sees already wasting the land of Israel and carrying away all its treasures and precious things. Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel. The feminine form, בָשְׁנָה—of which נּשֶׁן, the masculine, by analogy, is not in use—is wrongly explained by the Hebrew expositors as having a pleonastic nun. The construction usually preferred is (1) that given above. (2) Others render it, "Shame shall seize Ephraim;" but tiffs constructs a feminine noun with a masculine verb, contrary to grammar. (3) Hitzig translates," He (the Assyrian king) shall take away or carry off the shame of Ephraim; that is, the calf-idol." He remarks that the construct feminine does not always in the speech of North Israel end in ־ת, and cites several passages in proof. The counsel of which Israel would be ashamed is understood (1) of the consultation held before making a covenant or treaty with the King of Assyria; (2) it is generally and more correctly understood of Jeroboam taking counsel with his tribesmen of Ephraim about setting up the calf idols. Jareb is a proper name, or rather an appellation. The King of Assyria, or the great king, was looked up to by the smaller Asiatic states for protection, and consequently styled their Jareb, avenger or defender, just as σώτηρ, savior, was a title applied to or assumed by certain kings for a similar reason, as Ptolemy Soter and others. The object of Israel’s idolatry is carried off as a present to propitiate or appease the wrath of the Assyrian patron and protector—probably Shalmaneser in the present instance—or taken as a trophy to grace the triumph of the conqueror. So far from defending the calf-people, as Israel had become, their calf-god could not defend itself; instead of preserving its worshippers from deportation, it was doomed itself to deportation. Ephraim, the premier tribe. received shame, and Israel, the remaining tribes that had followed its lead and adopted its evil counsel, shared the shame; all of them together were thoroughly put to shame because of their mistaken and wicked policy. The counsel of Jeroboam—for to it, in our opinion, is the reference—appeared an able stroke of policy; but this policy, by which he hoped to detach Israel from Judah, was not only frustrated, but proved positively ruinous, so far were the means from effecting the end, or the end from justifying the wisdom of the means. Hosea 10:7 As for Samaria, her king is out off as the foam upon the water (face of the waters). Instead of the throne of Samaria being established, or the kingdom consolidated by the idolatrous measures which Jeroboam had adopted for the purpose, the king himself was cut off as foam upon the surface of the waters, or as a chip carried off by the current, and the kingdom ingloriously ruined. Though the sense is sufficiently plain, the sentence has been variously constructed. Thus (1) one of the Hebrew commentators renders it, "In the city of Samaria her king has been made like foam on the surface of the water" (be being understood and נדמה taken in the sense of "being like"). (2) Rashi, understanding the verb to signify being "reduced to silence," explains, "The King of Samaria is brought to silence." (3) The correct signification of the verb, however, is "cut off" or "annihilated," while the construction may be (a) an asyndeton; thus: "Samaria (and) her king;" or (b) Samaria taken as nominative absolute,—thus in the Authorized Version, "(As for) Samaria, her king is cut off;" or (c) supplying נדמה to the second noun, with Aben Ezra, "Samaria is cut off, her king is cut off." Some (d) consider it simpler to translate as follows: "Samaria is cut off; her king is like [literally, ’as’] a chip on the surface of the waters." In this way the Massoretic punctuation is neglected. Shomron is feminine, as the names of cities and countries usually are, and therefore the suffix to "king" is feminine, while the masculine form, נִדְמֶה, is justified by its position at the head of the sentence; for, according to Gesenius, the predicate at the beginning of a clause or sentence "often takes its simplest and readiest form, viz. the masculine singular, even when the subject," not yet expressed, but coming after, "is feminine or plural." קצף is explained either as "foam" or "splinter." The latter is, perhaps, preferable, as the verbal root cognate with the Arabic katsapha signifies "to break," "break off," "crack;" then "to be angry" (its most common meaning) from the sudden breaking out or breaking loose of passion, with which may be compared the Greek ὀήγνυμι. The word קצפה in Joe 1:7, from the same root, is literally a" breaking or breaking off," "barking," The word דמה, again, has two principal meanings—one "to be like," the other "to be silent" (connected, according to Gesenius, with a different root, damam, dum, like the English "dumb"); or the meanings are traceable to one root, in the sense of "making flat," "plane," "smooth;" then "silent," and so "reduced to silence," "destroyed." Hosea 10:8 The high places also of Avon, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed. By Aven is generally understood Beth-aven, that is, Bethel; but some take the word as an appellative, and thus bamoth-aven would signify the "high places of iniquity." These unlawful places of sacrifice and unholy places of iniquity are further characterized by the appositional "the sin of Israel." By constructing and frequenting such places Israel had primarily and grievously sinned. By sacrificing to and worshipping even Jehovah on these high places instead of in Jerusalem, the only legal place for Divine service under the Law, their national sin in the matter of worship began; subsequently, however, things became worse, and these high places became scenes of most abominable idolatries and shamelessly sinful practices. Those places—one and all—are in the words before us doomed to destruction. The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars. The destruction is thus vividly described as total and complete; those bad eminences were devoted to entire wasteness and desolation. "It is a sign of extreme solitude," says Jerome, "so that no traces even of wall or buildings remained to be seen;" similarly Rashi says, "Thorns and thistles shall grow up upon their altars, because the worshippers thereof have departed and no one longer remains to attend to them" so Kimchi: "On the altars of Israel which they (the enemies) shall lay waste shall thorns spring up." And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us. The sight of such fearful ruin and desolation overwhelms the wretched inhabitants of the land with distress and dismay; in sheer despair and even desperation they invoke a sure and sudden death as much preferable to their remaining longer spectators of such heart-rending scenes. Their exclamation appears to be proverbial, and to have had its origin in the custom of the Israelites fleeing, in seasons of great calamities, to the mountains and clefts of the rocks to hide themselves; thus in Judges 4:2 we read that "because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and eaves, and strongholds." The object of their exclamation is to be buried under the hills or mountains rather than endure such calamities longer; or rather than the enemies should see them in their shame. Aben Ezra makes "altars" the subject of "shall say," as if it were the wish of the altars to be covered that they may never more be seen. Theodoret considers the sense of the passage to be that the multitude of calamities in the war occasioned by hostile invasion would be so great that there would be no one who would not prefer being overwhelmed in an earthquake or by the sudden fall of the mountains, rather than endure the calamities inflicted by the enemies. Similarly, but more concisely, Jerome says, "They are more willing to die than see the evils that bring death." Hosea 10:9 O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah. Two explanations given of this clause—namely, that which understands, min comparatively, that is, "more than"—their sins were greater than those of the Benjamites in the days of Gibeah; and that which refers the sin here spoken of to the appointment of Saul, who was of Gibeah of Benjamin, to be king—must be unhesitatingly rejected. Tile sin of the men of Gibeah was the shameful outrage committed on the Levite’s concubine by the men of Gibeah, which with its consequences is recorded in Judges 19:1-30. and 20. That sin became proverbial, overtopping, as it did, all ordinary iniquities by its shameless atrocity and heinousness. By along-continued course of sin, even from ancient days, Ephraim has been preparing for a fearful doom. There they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them. This portion of the verse is not a little perplexing, and in consequence has called forth considerable diversity of exposition. There is (1) that which is implied in the Authorized Version, viz. "there they stood," smitten twice but not destroyed, chastened but not killed, the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them then so as utterly to destroy them, but it shall overtake them now. Or if the verb "overtake," which is future, be strictly rendered, the meaning is—Not a battle like that in Gibeah against the children of iniquity shall overtake them, but one much more sanguinary and terrible, resulting, not in the reduction of a single tribe to six hundred men, but in the extirpation of ten tribes. (2) That of Keil and others, though not the same, is similar. It is: "There, in Gibea, did they remain, persevering in the sin of Gibeah, and yet the war in Gibeah against the sinners has not overtaken them." This makes the meaning of the prophet to be that since the days of Gibeah the Israelites persevered in the same or like sin as the Gibeahites; and, though the Gibeahites were so severely punished, actually destroyed, because of their sin, the ten tribes of Israel, persisting in the same or similar sin, have not yet been resisted with any such exterminating war. Jehovah announces his intention now to visit them with punishment and severest chastisement for all. The meaning which Keil aims at may be better brought out by rendering the latter clause interrogatively; thus: "There they stood—persisting in the criminality of Gibeah—shall there not overtake them, living as they do in Gibeah, the war which exterminated the children of crime?" It is admitted that עמר may have been the meaning of "persevering;" but a better sense (3) is gained by Wunsche referring the subject of עמדו to the Benjamites; the suffix of תשינם to the בני עולה, or "children of iniquity," that is, their guilty tribesmen in Gibeah; taking the intermediate clause parenthetically; and עמד with על to "stand in defense of;" thus: "Since the days of Gibeah hast thou sinned, O Israel: there they (the Benjamites) stood in defense of the children of iniquity, that the war might not reach them in Gibeah." This gives a satisfactory sense, and intimates that, by a long-continued course of iniquity and crime, the Ephraimites were preparing themselves for a fearful fate. Already from days long gone by grievous guilt cleaved to them; thus in the days of Gibeah they (the Benjamites) stood by their iniquitous brethren that the battle in Gibeah might not reach them. As this was before the disruption, the Benjamites were part and parcel of Israel here represented by them. (4) Rosenmller’s explanation is the following: "They (the Benjamites) survived (עָמַד, opposed to אָבַד, as in Psalms 102:27) being severely punished, though they did not entirely perish, six hundred being left to revive the tribe." But a still severer punishment awaits the Israelites (the person being changed from the second to the third, and the prophet addressing himself to hearer or reader): not the war waged in Gibeah (or on account of the crime committed there) against the children of iniquity shall overtake them, but a far more deadly and destructive war. The word עלוה is by metathesis for עולה as זְעַוָה for זְוָעָה, commotion; כֶשָׂב for כֶבֶשׂ; and שַׂלְמָה, for שִׂמְלָה. Hosea 10:10 It is in my desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them. This is better translated thus: When I desire it, then (vav of the apodosis) shall I chastise them; and the peoples shall be gathered against them. This expresses God’s determination to punish sin and vindicate his justice as the infinitely Holy One. It means, not only that his desire to punish them does exist, but that, this desire being taken for granted, there shall be no let nor hindrance; nothing can stay his hand. Then the mode and means of chastisement are indicated—peoples, foreign invaders, shall be gathered against them. The verb אָסֹר is future Qal of יסר irregularly, as if coming from נסד, the daghesh in samech compensating for the absorbed yod. When they shall bind themselves in their two furrows; margin, When I shall bind them for their two transgressions, or, in their two habitations. (1) Gesenius, Ewald, and others, abiding by the Kethir or textual reading of the original, translate, "Jehovah will chastise them before with their eyes," that is, not in secret, but openly before the world. They thus refer the word to עַיִן, eye, but עְינָוֹת is "fountains," not "eyes." (2) The Hebrew commentators, Aben Ezra and Kimchi, explain the word in the sense of "two furrows" as in Authorized Version; and refer them to Judah and Ephraim. Thus Kimchi says, "The prophet compares Judah and Ephraim to two plowing oxen. I thought they would plough well, but they have ploughed ill, since they have bound themselves together one with the other and have allied themselves the one with the other to do evil in the eyes of Jehovah." Similarly Rosenmller: "To be bound to two furrows is said of oxen plowing when they are bound together in a common yoke, so that in two adjacent furrows they walk together and with equal pace." (3) The Septuagint rendering, based on the Qeri and followed by the Syriac and Arabic, gives a better and clearer sense than the preceding. It is, Ἐνταῖςδυσὶνἀδικίαιςαὐτῶν, and is followed by Jerome in Super duas iniquitates suas, as also by the most judicious expositors of ancient and modern times. Yet there is great variety as to what those iniquities are. Some, like Jerome, refer to the double idolatry—that of Micah and that of Jeroboam; others, like Dathe, to the two golden calves set up at Dan and Bethel; Cyril and Theodoret to the apostasy of Israel from Jehovah, and devotion to idols; De Wette and Keil to the double unfaithfulness of Israel to Jehovah and the royal house of David. The exact rendering would, according to any of these views, be, "When I bind them to their two transgressions," or, "When I allow the foreigners to bind them on account of their two transgressions;" that is to connect or yoke them to their two transgressions by the punishment, so that they, like beasts of burden, must drag them after them, whatever be the view we take of the nature of those transgressions. Hosea 10:11 And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn. Ephraim is compared to a heifer trained. The work she was taught to do was treading cut the corn; by training and habit it had became a second nature, so that she took delight in it. The connecting vowel occurs seldom, and usually with an antique coloring in prose, according to Ewald; it is poetical besides, and used in the concourse of words somewhat closely connected, but not in the strict construct state. Thus is אֹהַבֵתִּי accounted for. This work was probably easier, at all events pleasanter, than plowing or harrowing. In treading out corn oxen were not yoked together, but worked singly, treading it with their feet, or drawing a threshing-sledge, or iron-armed cylinder, over it; they were unmuzzled also, so that they were free to snatch an occasional mouthful of the grain, and frequently fattened by such indulgence. Such had been the position of Ephraim in easy employment, comfortable circumstances like the heifer threshing and allowed to eat at pleasure, pleasantly situated prosperous, self-indulgent, and luxurious. The victories of Ephraim—threshing and treading down may perhaps be also hinted at. But I passed over upon her fair neck (margin, the beauty of her neck): I will make Ephraim to ride; Judak shall plough, and Jacob shall break his clods. Times have changed, as is here indicated a yoke, that of Assyria, is placed on the fair neck, a rider is set on the sleek back. Mere onerous and less pleasant labor is now imposed. Judah too is to share the toil, being put to the heavier work of plowing while Jacob—the ten tribes, or the twelve including both Judah and Israel—shall cross plough; and thus both alike shall be henceforth employed in the heaviest labors of the field and the severest toils of agriculture. Once victorious, Ephraim is now to be subdued; once free and intractable, it must now receive the yoke and engage in laborious service. The expression עבר, followed by על, is generally used in a bad sense; "to pass over," says Jerome, "especially when it is said of God, always signifies inflictions and troubles." The fatness of the neck is the ox’s ornament or beauty. That is now to be assaulted or invaded gently it may be, and softly, as men are wont to approach a young untamed animal in order to put the yoke upon it. This passing over, however tender, fixes the yoke on Ephraim’s neck all the same. A more difficult word is אדכיב, which Ewald (1) renders, "I will set a rider" on Ephraim, of course to subdue and tame; (2) Jerome has, "I will mount or ride," thus representing Jehovah himself as the mediate rider on Ephraim. The first sense has a parallel in Psalms 56:12, "Thou hast made men to ride over our head," and thus ruling them at pleasure. Unwilling to bear the easy yoke of their Divine Ruler, they shall be subjected to the tyrant mastery of man. But (3) Keil says the word here is "not" to mount or ride, ’but’ to drive or use for drawing and driving,’ i.e. to harness," as to the plough and harrow. This meaning is best reached by understanding the words thus: "I will make the yoke to ride on Ephraim’s neck;" as הרכב is used in 2 Kings 13:16, for "put thine hand upon the bow," margin, "make thine hand to ride upon the bow." The remaining clauses of the verse is a further development of this expression, but extending to Judah; and thus including both Judah and Ephraim, or Jacob—both kingdoms. The Septuagint version of the last clause is peculiar; it is ΠαρασιωπήσομαιἸούδανἐνισχύσειαὐτῷἸακώβ. That is, as explained by Jerome, "I shall leave Judah for the present and say nothing about him; but whoever, whether of Ephraim or Judah, shall observe my precepts, he shall acquire strength for himself and be called Jacob." Hosea 10:12, Hosea 10:13 Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy. These two verses contain a call to repentance and reformation of life, in figurative language borrowed from the same department of human industry, לצדי is "for righteousness;" that is, sow such seed as that righteousness may spring from it. לפי הי is "according to," or "in proportion to, mercy." When two imperatives are joined, is here, the latter indicates a promise, and may be expressed by a future, as, "Do this and live," i.e. "ye shall live" (Genesis 42:18). Kimchi explains it correctly, thus: "Sow to yourselves, etc; that is, do good in mine eyes, and the recompense from me shall be far greater than your good deeds, just as if one sows a measure (seah), and hopes to reap therefore two measures (seahs) or still more. Therefore, he uses in sowing righteousness, and in connection with reaping grace, in order to intimate that grace surpasses righteousness. Or that God rewards men’s actions, not according to merit, but according to grace. As men sew, they reap; accordingly Israel is directed to sow ac-eroding to righteousness—to act righteously in their dealings with their fellow-men; and their reaping or reward would be, not in proportion to what they had sown, not merely commensurate with their righteous actions or dealings, not proportionate to what justice would give; but in proportion to mercy—Divine mercy, and so far above their highest deserts. They are promised a reward far above their poor doings, and irrespective of their sad failings—a reward, not of debt, not of merit, but of grace. The seed-time of righteousness would be followed by a reaping-time proportionate to the boundless measure of the Divine mercy. Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. Here they are urged to turn over a new leaf, as we say; to begin a new life; to root out the weeds of sin; to eradicate those evil passions that checked and stifled any noble feelings, as the husbandman runs his plough through the fallow field, and breaks it up, clearing out the weeds and roots, that the ground may be pure and clean for the sowing of the seed in spring. The LXX; reading נוּרו, instead of נֵיר נירוּ for נִיר, and דָּעַח for וְעֵח translates accordingly by φωτίσατεἑαυτοῖςφῶςγνώσεως. They are further reminded that it is high time to begin this process, laying aside their stiff-necked, perverse ways; expelling from their heart the noxious growth that had overspread it; and by every way and means working earnestly and zealously for a renewal of life and return to the long-neglected work and worship of Jehovah. Neither were they to relax their efforts till the blessed end was attained, עד, with imperfect, marking the goal to be reached; nor would their efforts be in vain. The Lord would rain—bestow abundantly upon them, or touch (another and more frequent meaning of the word), their righteousness. Thus the ground that had long lain fallow must be broken up; its waste, wild state must cease and give place to cultivation; the ploughshare must be driven through it; its wild growths and weeds must be cut down and uprooted. A process of renewal must succeed; the vices of their natural state, the idolatrous and wicked practices that had sprung up, must be abandoned. Renewal and radical reform are imperatively demanded. Matters had remained too long in a miserable and unsatisfactory condition. A long night of sinful slumber had overcome them; it was high time to awake out of that sleep. Too long had they shamefully forgotten and forsaken God; it was more than time to wait upon him. Nor would such waiting, if persevered in, end in disappointment; notwithstanding their great and manifold provocations, he would come and rain righteousness in welcome, refreshing, and plenteous showers upon returning penitents; and with righteousness would be conjoined its reward of blessing and salvation, both temporal and spiritual. Hosea 10:13 Ye have ploughed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies. Hitherto their course had been the very opposite of that which they are now exhorted to enter on. Hitherto their work had been wickedness, and their wages, as might be expected, the fruit of iniquity. What they had wrought for they reaped. Their plowing had been sin, their sowing wickedness, and their harvest sorrow. Wickedness against God and man was what they both ploughed and sowed; oppression at the hand of their enemies was the harvest or reward of iniquity which they reaped. Their lies, including their idolatry in reference to God, disloyalty to their king, their false words and false works with one another, bore fruit, bitter fruit, sour fruit, and they were obliged to eat that fruit till their teeth were set on edge. Thus Kimchi explains it: "After the plowing follows the sowing, and both of them are a figurative representation of work, as we have explained it. The prophet says, ’Ye have done the opposite of that which I commanded you, when I said, Sow to yourselves in righteousness.’" The harvest is the reward of the work done; the genitive is expressive of contents—that in which the fruit consists; the fruit of lies against God is the fruit which disappoints those who wait for it Ki directs attention to the ground of Israel’s gradual declension and final destruction; the two fundamental errors, or rather evils, that led on to Israel’s ruin, were apostasy from Jehovah and sinful self-confidence. Sunk in idolatry, they no longer looked to Jehovah as the Source of their power and strength; while they pursued their own ways, confident of the excellence of their own sagacity and foresight. Because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men. They had placed their confidence in the wisdom of their own ways—their prudent plans and wise counsels; in the heroism of their soldiers and the excellence of their preparations of war. By these means they fancied themselves independent of the Almighty, and sufficiently defended against their enemies. "Thou hast trusted," says Kimchi, in his exposition, "to thine own way which thou goest; and that is the way of iniquity and of confidence in evil; and in like manner thou hast trusted in the multitude of thy men of war which thou hast had among thine own people, or among the Egyptians, from whom they sought help, and thou hast made flesh thine arm, and not trusted in me; therefore thou hast stumbled." Hosea 10:14 Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled. This was the fruit of their doings, the result of their sins. The tumult of war is already heard, and the work of destruction has begun. The word shaon, tumult, is from שָׁאָה, as applied to the loud rushing of waters, then the tumult of advancing warriors. The preposition be is rendered (1) as above by the Authorized Version, Umbreit, and others; and, joined with "peoples" (which is plural), signifies that the confused noise of war would be heard among their own peoples, or the multitude of the mighty ones in whom they had had such confidence; or the plural may refer to the tribes of Israel, each of which was an עם, though Keil would confine this meaning to Pentateuchal times. Host of the versions read the singular, like our own Authorized Version, yet it must still be referred to the people of Israel. But (2) the preposition is translated "against" by many modern interpreters, and thus the confused noise of the advance of the enemy against Israel is denoted. The attack of the invaders is directed against the fortresses, or fenced cities, so called from a verb denoting "to cut off" (בצד), as if all approach to them were cut off, and assault impossible. Nevertheless they were to go down, all of them, before the enemy—laid waste and spoiled; while inhuman cruelty would characterize the conquerors. As an illustration of or specimen resembling that cruelty, an obscure piece of history is quoted. As Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children. In the great variety of opinion with respect to the event referred to, and the consequent diversity of exposition, we shall not venture to do more than select that which on the whole, notwithstanding a certain chronological difficulty that lies against it, appears the most probable. Accordingly, Beth-arbel may have been Arbela, mentioned in 1 Macc. 9:2 and more than once by Josephus, in Upper Galilee, in the tribe of Naphtali, between Sephoris and Tiberias, now Irbid; and Shalman may be an abbreviation for Shalmaneser; while the circumstance here mentioned may have been an incident of the campaign of which we read in 2 Kings 17:3, 2 Kings 17:5. "Against him came up Shalmaneser King of Assyria; and Hoshea became his servant … . Then the King of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years." The manifestation of the cruelty was when the mother, with true motherly affection, bent over her children to defend them, and she and they perished in a common ruin, or when the children were dashed to the ground before their mother’s eyes, and she, done to death, hurled upon them. Hosea 10:15 So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness (margin, the evil of your evil): in a morning shall the King of Israel utterly be cut off. Their coming sufferings were all traceable to their sin. Bethel, the principal place of calf-worship, was the cause of their coming calamities, not the place itself, but the wickedness of which it was the scene. The real cause was the great and crowning wickedness practiced there. Bethel, once the house of God, would in consequence become another Beth-arbel, the house of the ambush of God. In the morning, when perhaps a season of prosperity seemed beginning to dawn, or at an early dale and in a speedy manner, quickly as the morning dawn gives place before the rising sun, the king, Hoshea, or perhaps no particular king, but merely the representative of the royal office, would be cut off-entirely cut off. Thus their main refuge would come to an ignominious end, bringing along with it the frustration of all their hopes and the conclusion of their mistaken and misplaced confidences. Hosea 10:1-3 Sin and its retribution. I. USE OF . Israel is a vine not empty, nor emptied, nor plundered, according to Calvin, say, by the tribute paid to Pul; for, if empty, how then could he bring forth fruit, except, indeed, at some subsequent season? He is compared, rather, to a wide-spreading vine, pouring out its strength in luxuriant leafage and show of fruit; or even suitable fruit. But the fruit thus yielded was not fruit to God, as it should have been, but fruit to itself and for itself. The figure of a flourishing vine, condensed by the prophet here, is fully expanded and developed by the psalmist in the eightieth psalm: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt: thou hast cast out the heathen, and planted it. Thou preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like the goodly cedars. She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river." Such had Israel been aforetime. Their fruit trees produced abundantly; their land was very fertile: the fruit of man and beast and tree multiplied, and their land increased in fertility: but these blessings of Providence were abused. Instead of leading them to repentance, these good gifts of God’s providence were sadly misused and shockingly perverted; instead of being employed in the service and to the glory of the Giver, they were used for idolatrous purposes, and thus they ministered to sin. Altars were reared to idols and statues set up; they multiplied their altars and made goodly images. II. IS SURE TO FOLLOW SUCH . God had blessed them with prosperity and plenty, but they made a poor return; nay, they returned evil for his goodness. They might well be compared to an emptying vine, casting its fruit before it was ripe, according to one explanation of the word, for they emptied themselves of the riches he conferred on them by sending presents to foreign princes, or purchasing their alliance, or paying tribute to their conquerors; or they wasted their wealth on their idols and in idolatrous practices, or on self and sin in some form. Or, if they brought forth fruit unto maturity, that fruit did not redound to the Divine glory; the fruit borne by them was not the fruit of righteousness; the seemingly good works done by them were not to the praise and glory of God. What they did they did for their own profit or pleasure, or to gain the praise of men. The blessings bestowed on them were not used to promote the Divine glory, or to help the Divine service, or to advance the cause of true religion in any way, but were lavished on their own lusts, or selfish gratifications, or abominable idolatries, multiplying altars to their idols, offering sacrifices more numerous and expensive, making pillars or statues of costlier metal and with richer ornaments. 1. The root of the evil was within. The seat of all their sin was within, and out of the heart it proceeded; their heart was divided, or hypocritical, and therefore not right with God. Persons guilty of such sin and folly and gross ingratitude God could not hold guiltless. They were dealt with as guilty and punished, or were left desolate—their land wasted, and themselves led into captivity. 2. Accumulated wrath issues in aggravated punishment. The means God graciously gave them for charitable and noble purposes of benevolence, or for high and holy service, they threw away recklessly on vile and worthless objects; as the means increased, the wickedness increased. God tried them with prosperity; he proved them, but they did not stand the test; every day they persisted in their mad career of sin. They were treasuring up for themselves wrath against the day of wrath. 3. God corrects in measure that men may repent of sin and turn to God. If the day of visitation is improved, it is well; if, when God withdraws his hand and grants a respite, or suspends the stroke, his gracious design is duly responded to, the chastisement is sanctified, and the person so treated has good cause to say, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." If otherwise, if individuals are found faulty, if their sin has found them out, then the means of sinning are suddenly and unexpectedly snatched from them, and themselves swept awfully as with the besom of destruction. 4. Whoever be the instrument or whatever the memos, the Author of the infliction is God. The subject here is not specified; as far as the grammar goes, it might be the Assyrian or other enemy that broke down their altars and spoiled their images, but sense and Scripture lead the thoughts up to God. Though indefinite, the emphatic use of the pronoun fixes the sense. III. OF A GLOOMY FUTURE IS THE NATURAL SEQUEL OF A SINFUL PRESENT. Thus it is with those who, having perverted the gifts of God’s goodness, do not profit by punishment mildly administered. Israel, who had rejected their heavenly King, were Soon to find themselves deprived of their earthly king, and reduced to a state of anarchy. They would soon be forced to say," We have no king, no protector." This is assigned as the cause of the preceding statement about the wreck of their altars and the ruin of their statues or pillars. This catastrophe is looked upon as brought about in consequence of their having no kingly protection or defense. Their rejection of Jehovah in the double capacity of God and King, by their turning to idolatry and refusing the theocracy, led eventually to ecclesiastical disaster, and civil or secular distress. Forsaking God as King, they have now no king—no upholder of either Church or state; consequently their altars, as they conceived, were broken down and their images spoiled. Thus they bemoan their present anomalous and perilous position. But they bethink themselves that even if they had a king he could do them no good, seeing that Divine power was opposed to them, and Divine wrath incurred by them. What, then, under such untoward circumstances, could a king do for them? Here is the exact converse of the believer’s confidence: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Jerome’s exposition brings out the sense well, as follows: "After God shall have shattered the images of Israel, and utterly destroyed their altars and statues, and the final captivity shall have come, they shall say, "We have no king." And lest they should think that the sentence would be deferred for a long time, he added, They shall say now: when they are being laid waste, when they shall perceive that Hoshea, their last king, has been removed from them, a king is taken away from us, because we did not fear God, our true King, for what could a human king avail us?’" Hosea 10:4-8 Israel’s sin, sorrow, shame, and suffering. These verses exhibit them with marvelous conciseness and great impressiveness. I. ISRAEL’S SIN OF . Israel’s unfaithfulness at the period of which the prophet speaks was of the most reckless kind. It took the form (1) of idolatry with respect to God, (2) of disloyalty to their sovereign, and (3) of falsehood in their dealings with their fellow-men in general. By their idolatry they renounced the covenant of their God, which had the seal of circumcision; their promises of reformation, when they made such, were falsified; the vows wrung from them in distress or otherwise they failed to pay. The most sacred bonds did not bind them; subjects violated their oath of allegiance, and sovereigns their coronation oath; alike in treaties with foreign powers as in contracts with their fellow-men, they made no conscience of keeping faith. Add to all this the perversion of justice and the misuse of judgment, and the picture is complete; perfidy, perjury, and the perversion of judgment being in the foreground, and untruthfulness the dark background of all. Such was the growth, prolific and pestiferous as hemlock, which at this period overspread the land of Israel as if in furrows specially prepared for it. II. ISRAEL’S SORROW IN OF SIN. Men may be sure that their sin shall find them out, by detection, or punishment, or both; while sorrow follows in the wake of sin. The inhabitants of the northern capital, like the people of Bethel or Beth-area, being calf-worshippers, and therefore, called the people of the calf, would naturally be overwhelmed with consternation and alarm, when the news of an invading host approaching the provincial town, which was the chief seat of the calf-worship, reached them; still more so when that hostile host had actually entered it and carried off their idol. Their fear before the event would be succeeded by sorrow after it. Not only would the Samaritans sympathize with their coreligionists of Bethel in their calamity and loss, but tremble because of their own proximity to peril, not knowing how soon the tide of conquest should sweep over themselves. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ In Hosea 11:1-4 Jehovah enumerates the benefits conferred on Israel all along from the time of their departure out of Egypt. But parallel with this enumeration runs the history of Israel’s ingratitude. Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt. Driver uses this verse to exemplify the principle that when the reference is to what is past or certain, rather than to what is future or indefinite, we find the predicate or the apodosis introduced by וַּ, though not with nearly the same frequency as ìperfect and vav causes (1) with subject or object pre-fixed; (2) after time-determinations. The life of a nation has its stages of rise, progress, and development, like the life of an individual man. The prophet goes back to that early period when the national life of Israel was in its infancy; it was then that a few patriarchs who had gone down to sojourn in Egypt were becoming a people; the predicate precedes, to emphasize, that early day when Israel became God’s peculiar people. The vav marks the apodosis recording God’s love in choosing that people, calling them into the relation of sonship, and delivering them out of Egypt. Thus Kimchi says, "When Israel was vet a child, i.e. in Egypt, then I loved him, therefore I am more angry with them than with the rest of the nations; for from their youth onward I have loved them, and delivered them out of the bands of their enemies. But when they transgress my commandments it is incumbent on me to chastise them as a man chastises his son." (1) The people of Israel is called God’s son in consequence of God choosing them and bringing them into close relationship to himself, such as that of a son to a father. The commencement was the message to Pharaoh by Moses in the words, "Israel is my son, even my firstborn: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me." This sonship was solemnly ratified by the giving of the Law at Sinai; and the condition clearly stated that, in the event of their preserving the knowledge of God, fulfilling his Law, and doing his will, they would at all times enjoy Divine protection, defense, and blessing, while from generation to generation they were addressed by that honorable title. (2) As the deliverance hem Egypt is always described as a "leading" or "bringing out," and never elsewhere as a "calling out," some expositors maintain that the words, "out of Egypt," signify from the time Israel was in Egypt, and are parallel to "when Israel was a child," both referring to time, the time of national infancy. From that period God began to manifest his love, and in its manifestation he called him by the endearing name of "son"—my son. The words of this verse are applied by St. Matthew to the sojourn of Jesus in Egypt. The older interpreters refer (a) the first part of the verse to Israel and the second part typically to the history of Messiah’s childhood, in whom that of Israel reached its completeness. Rather (b) the verse was applied typically to Israel, and to Jesus as the antitype; to the former primarily, and to the latter secondarily. Thus the head and the members are comprehended in one common prediction. Hosea 11:2 As they called them, so they went from them: they sacrificed unto Baalim, and burned incense to graven images. (1) Adverting to his own call mentioned in the first verse, God here refers to the many subsequent calls which he addressed to them through his servants the prophets and other messengers. (2) The subject of the verb is erroneously understood by some, as, for example, Aben Ezra and Eichhorn, to be the idols, or their false priests or prophets; while (3) Jerome is also mistaken in referring the words to the time of Israel’s rebelling when Moses and Aaron wished to lead them out of Egypt. The correct reference is that first stated, and the sense is that, instead of appreciating the invitations and monitions of the prophets of God, they showed their utter insensibility and thanklessness, turning away from them in contempt and scorn. Nay, the more the messengers of God called them, the more they turned a deaf ear to those who were their truest friends and best advisers. Pursuing their idolatrous practices, they sacrificed to Baal, that is to say, the various representations of that idol, and burned incense to their images, whether of wood or stone or precious metal. Thus Kimchi correctly comments as follows: "The prophets which I sent to them called to them morning and evening to turn to Jehovah, so (much the more) did they go away from them, not hearkening to their words nor desisting from their evil works." The word כֵן, even so, denoting the measure or relation, corresponds to ואשר to be supplied in the first clause. The imperfects imply continuance of action or a general truth. (4) The Septuagint rendering, followed by the Syriac, is ἐκπροσώπουμουαὐτοὶ, "from my presence: they;" as if they had read on מִפָנַי הֵם instead of the present text. Hosea 11:3 I taught Ephraim also to fro, taking them by their alms; but they knew not that I healed them. This picture of God’s guiding and guarding care of Ephraim is very touching and tender. It is that of an affectionate parent or tender nurse teaching a child to walk by leading-strings; taking it up in the arms when stumbling or making a false step; and in case it fell curing the wound. Thus, nurse-like, God taught Ephraim, his wayward perverse child, to use his feet (so the original word imports), all the while lending considerate help and seasonable aid. He took them by the hand to guide them, that they might not stray; he took them in his arms to hold them up, that they might not stumble and to help them over any obstacle that might lie in the way; and when, left to themselves during a short season, and in order to test their strength, they did stumble and fall, he healed their hurt. And yet they did not apprehend nor appreciate God’s gracious design and dealings with them in thus guiding and guarding them, and in healing their diseases both temporal and spiritual. There is, perhaps, an allusion to Exodus 15:26, "I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee." This promise, it will be remembered, was vouchsafed immediately after the bitter waters of Marah had been sweetened by the tree which, according to Divine direction, had been cast therein. Thus Kimchi: "And they have not acknowledged that I healed them of every sickness and every affliction, as he said, ’I will put none of these diseases upon thee.’" The reference is rather to all those evidences of his love which God manifested to them during their forty years’ wandering in the wilderness; or perhaps to his guidance of them by ’his Law throughout their entire history. Rashi remarks that "they knew it very well, but dissembled [literally, ’trod it down with the heel,’ equivalent to ’despised’] and acted, as if they did not know." The word תדגלחי is properly taken both by Kimchi and Gesenius (1) for הרגלחי; the former says; "The tav stands in place of he: this is the opinion of the grammarians;" the latter regards it as a solitary example of Tiphel; others again consider it a corrupt reading instead of the ordinary form of Hiph. (2) Some take it for a noun, as J. Kimchi, who says it is "a noun after the form of חפארחי, and although the word is Milel (while in תפארחי it is Milra), yet it is the same form;" thus the translation is, "As for me, my guidance was to Ephraim;" so Jerome, "I have been as a nurse to Ephraim;" likewise also Cyril. The former explanation is simpler and also otherwise preferable. (3) The Septuagint has the incorrect rendering συνεπόδισα, "I bound the feet of Ephraim," which Jerome explains, "I bound the feet of Ephraim that they might not fly further from me," though his own rendering is that given above. The word קהם has also occasioned some difficulty and consequent diversity of explanation. (1) Some explain it to be an infinitive construct equivalent to the Latin gerund in -do, as elsewhere. Thus in the Authorized Version it is "taking them by their arms;’ but the common form of the infinitive of this verb is קחַת; besides, the suffixes ־ָם and יָ־ו are contradictory. (2) Olshausen and Ewald read אֶקָּהֵם in the first person, the received text having, according to the latter, maintained its place only through ורועחיו; but this is conjectural and wants manuscript authority. (3) Still worse is Abarbanel’s interpretation, who understands the subject of the verb and the suffix of the noun as referring to Ephraim; thus: "He (Ephraim) took them (i.e. the idols) on his arms." (4) The correct explanation, as we think, is that of Kimchi and Gesenius, who take the verb for לְקָחָם by a not unusual aphaeris of the lamed: "He took them in his arms," the transition from the first to the third person being justified by the pictorially descriptive style of the passage. The following comment of Kimchi is worthy of attention: "The prophet only mentions Ephraim (instead of all Israel), because it was he that made the calves. He says, ’And how does Ephraim reward me for this that I bestowed on them so many benefits, and accustomed them to go on their feet, and did not burthen them with my commandments and my service?’ And because he has compared Ephraim to a boy, he uses the word, ’I led them by strings.’ Just as one leads a boy that he may accustom himself to go little by little without trouble, so I led them from station to station, when I brought them out of Egypt; I led them gradually without overexertion, the cloud going before them by day, and the pillar of fire by night." Hosea 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love. This verse contains a further representation of Jehovah’s fatherly guidance of Israel. The cords of a man are such as parents use in leading weak or young children. Bands of lore qualify more closely the preceding expression, "cords of a man," and are the opposite of those which men employ in taming or breaking wild and unmanageable animals. The explanation of Rashi is similar: "I have always led them with tender cords such as these with which a man leads his child, as if he said with loving guidance." Aben Ezra and Kimchi, in their explanations, carry out more fully the same idea. The former says, "The bands of love are not like the bands which are fastened on the neck of a plowing heifer;" the latter, "Because he compared Ephraim to a heifer, and people lead a heifer with cords, he says, ’I have led Israel by the cords of a man, and not the cords of a heifer which one drags along with resistance, but as a man draws his fellow-man without compelling him to go with resistance: even so I have led them after a gentle method;’ and therefore he afterward calls them (cords of a man) bands of love." The LXX; taking חֶבֶל from חָבַל, in the sense of" injure," "destroy," have the mistaken rendering ἐνδιαφθορᾶἀνθρώτων ... ἐξέτεινααὐτοὺς, "When men were destroyed I drew them." The other Greek versions have the correct rendering. And I was to them as they that take off the yoke. The word herim does not mean "to lift up on" and so "impose a yoke," as some think, nor "to take away the yoke," but "to lift it up." The figure is that of a humane and compassionate husbandman raising upwards or pushing backwards the yoke over the cheeks or dewlaps of the ox, that it may not press too heavily upon him or hinder him while eating. The reference is, according to Kimchi, to "taking the yoke off the neck, and letting it hang on the jaw, that it may not pull but rest from labor one or more hours of the day." The fact thus figuratively expressed is, not the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, but the loving-kindness of Jehovah in lightening the fulfillment of the Law to Israel. (2) The LXX. omit the word עֹל, yoke, and strangely translates the clause, "I will be to them as a man smiting (another) on the cheeks." And I laid meat unto them. The older and many modern interpreters, (1) taking וְאַט as the first person future apoc; Hiph; from נטח, translate, "And I reached them food to eat," namely, the manna in the wilderness. This would require וָאַט, which some substitute for the present reading. (2) Ewald, Keil, and others take אט as an adverb in the sense of" gradually," "gently," translating, "And gently towards him did I give him feral," or "I gently fed him." Some, again, as Kimchi, take (a) אוכיל as a noun, after the form of אופיר; and others (b) take it to be an anomalous form for אַאַכִיל, the first person future Hiph; like אוֹבִיר for אַאֲבִיד (Jeremiah 46:8). (3) In this clause also the Septuagint, probably reading as follows: וֵאַט אֵלָיו אוּכַל לוֹ, translates, Ἐπιβλέψομαιπρὸςαὐτὸνδυνήσομαιαὐτῷ, "I will have respect to him; I will prevail with him." Continuing the several clauses of this verse, we may express the meaning of the whole as follows: "Cords of a man" denote humane methods which Jehovah employed in dealing with and drawing his people—not such cords as oxen or other animals are drawn by; while "bands of love" is a kindred expression, explaining and emphasizing the former, and signifying such leading-strings as those with which a parent lovingly guides his child. The means employed by God for the help, encouragement, and support of his people were kind as they were bountiful. His benevolent and beneficent modes of procedure are further exhibited by another figure of like origin; for just as a considerate and compassionate man, a humane husbandman, gives respite and relief to the oxen at work by loosening the yoke and lifting it up off the neck upon the cheeks; and thus affords not only temporary rest and ease, but also allows an occasional mouthful or more of food, or even abundant provender, to the animal which toils in the yoke while plowing or at other work; so Jehovah extended to Israel, notwithstanding their frequent acts of unfaithfulness, his sparing mercy and tender compassions, supplying them in abundant measure with all that they needed for the sustenance and even comforts of life. Thus their sin in turning aside to other gods, which were no gods, in quest of larger benefits and more liberal support and succor, was all the more inexcusable. Hosea 11:5-7 The next three verses (5-7) describe the severe chastisement Israel incurred by ingratitude for, and contempt of, the Divine love. Hosea 11:5 He shall not return into the land of Egypt, but the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to return. These words sound like an announcement that the season of Divine grace, so long extended to that sin-laden people, had at length expired; and that on account of their stubborn and on-grateful rebellion against Jehovah they would be forced, to go into exile and become subject to the monarch of Assyria. (1) They had been threatened with a return to Egypt and its bondage in Hosea 8:13, "They shall return to Egypt;" and Hosea 9:3, "Ephraim shall return to Egypt;" vet now God, without any change of purpose, changes his mode of procedure, not allowing them to return to Egypt, but dooming them to a worse bondage under the Assyrians. (2) Having been tributary to Assyria from the time of Menahem, they had revolted and applied to Egypt for help; now, however, no help would be permitted to come from Egypt nor even an opportunity of applying for it allowed. The power of Assyria would be paramount; instead, therefore, of native kings and Egyptian auxiliaries, Israel would have to submit to that iron yoke. However desirous of returning to Egypt, they would have neither the power nor the privilege of doing so. And this poor privilege of a choice of masters they were refused as a just retribution, because they had not repented of their sin and returned to God. Various methods have been resorted to, to harmonize the apparent contradiction alluded to, that is, between the affirmative and negative statements about Israel’s return into Egypt. (1) Dathe, Eichhorn, and De Wette agree with the LXX. in reading לוֹ instead of לא, and connecting it with the preceding verse; but the other versions, as well as the manuscripts, support the received text. (2) Jerome and Rosenmller explain it of the people’s desire to conclude an alliance with Egypt in order to throw off the yoke of Assyria, being frustrated by the superior power of the latter; thus the sense is that they shall not return any more to Egypt, as they had lately done by their ambassadors, to seek help from that land or its people. Then he assigns the reason why they would not again send ambassadors to Egypt for the purpose indicated, because the Assyrian alone would be their king. The objection to this is that lo yashubu must refer to the whole people rather than to their ambassador going to and fro between the countries. (3) Ewald, Maurer, and others cut the knot by taking lo interrogatively, as if it were halo, and thus equivalent to an affirmative, i.e. "Shall they not return to Egypt and the Assyrian be their king?" The expected answer would be in the affirmative. Neither grammar nor context sanctions this interrogative sense. (4) According to Hitzig, Keil, Simson, and others, we are to understand Egypt in the previous places, viz. Hosea 8:13 and Hosea 9:3, as received of the land of bondage, where in the present passage the typical sense is inadmissible, owing to the contrast with Assyria. Into Egypt Israel should not return, lest the object of the Exodus might seem frustrated, but a worse lot lay before them—another and harder bondage awaited them; the King of Assyria would be their king and reign over them, and all because of their impenitence and refusal to return to Jehovah. The following is the explanation of Kimchi: "They should not have returned to the land of Egypt to seek help; I had already said to them, ’Ye shall henceforth return no more that way;’ for if they had returned to me, they would not have needed help from Egypt. And against their will Assyria rules over them, and they serve him and send him a present year by year. And why is all this? Because they refused, etc.; as if he said (they refused) to return to me; for if they had returned to me, foreign kings (literally, ’kings of the nations’) would not have ruled ever them, but they would have ruled over the nations as they had done in the days of David and Solomon, when they did my will; and so have I assured them, ’Thou shall reign over many nations, but they shall not reign over thee.’" The root of מאן is cognate with מנע, to hold back, refuse; the le strengthens the connection of the objectival infinitive with the governing verb; the ellipsis of אֵלֶי is obvious. Hosea 11:6 And the sword shall abide on his cities, and shall consume his branches, and devour them. A more accurate rendering would be, and the sword shall sweep round in its cities, and destroy its bolts and devour. Nay, they could not free themselves from invasion and attack. The sword of war would whirl down upon their cities and consume the branches, that is, the villages, or the city bars, or the strong warriors set for defense. Some understand the word so variously interpreted in the sense of "liars," and refer it to the prophets, priests, and politicians who spake falsehood and. acted deceitfully. The word הלח is rendered (1) "the sword," as the principal weapon in ancient warfare anti the symbol of war’s destructive power shall sweep round in, circulate, or make the round of the cities of Israel; but (2) others," whirl down," "light on ;" thus both Rashi and Kimchi. Again, בַדּים is, as already intimated, variously rendered. The most appropriate translation (a) is (literally, "poles for carrying the ark," Exodus 25:13) "bolts or bars" for securing gates, the root being בדד, to separate. (b) Some explain it as a figure for "mighty men;" so Jerome and the Targum, as also Rashi: "It destroys his heroes and consumes them." this is the meaning of the word preferred by Gesenius. (c) Ewald understands it in the sense of "fortresses," especially on the frontier, by which a land is shut against or opened to the enemy. (d) Aben Ezra and Kimchi take it to mean "branches," i.e. villages, and are followed by the Authorized Version. "The explanation of בי," says Kimchi, "is ’ branches,’ and it is a figure for villages, for he had already mentioned his cities; and villages are related to cities as branches to a tree; in like manner they are called ’ daughters,’ being related to a city as daughters to a mother." (e) The LXX. render it by ἐνταῖςχερσὶναὐτοῦ, having read בְיָדָיו, as also the Syriac. Because of their own counsels. The cause of all their calamitous invasions, which city gates barred and bolted could not shut out, was their evil counsels in departing from the Lord, as Kimchi correctly explains: "All this comes upon them in consequence of their evil counsel, because they have forsaken my service to serve other gods." Rashi draws attention to the peculiarity of the accentuation—tasha and sellug—to separate it from the preceding word. The Septuagint here again blunders, obviously reading וְאָכְלוּ, and translating, "And shall eat (the fruit) of their evil counsel." Hosea 11:7 And my people are bent to backsliding from me. This first clause of the verse is very expressive, every word almost having an emphasis of its own. With all their sinfulness and shortcomings, Israel was still the people of God—my people; they were guilty of the sin of backsliding, and of backsliding from God, the best of benefactors and their chief good. Nor was it occasionally and after long intervals of time that they backslided; it was their habit, their tendency. They were suspended on, or rather fastened on, backsliding. Though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt him; margin, together they exalted him not. This second clause signifies either (1) that the prophets called Israel from their idols to the Host High, yet none exalted him (literally, "together they did not or would not exalt him") by abandoning their idols and abstaining from backsliding; or, (2) "though they call him (Israel) upwards, yet not one of them all will lift himself up," that is, they together—one and all—refused or neglected to lift themselves upward towards God or goodness. The word תלוּאיס is equivalent to תְלֻאִים, the same as תלוים, from תלא, equivalent to תָלָה, so that it signifies, according to Keil, (1) "suspended," "hung up, hanging fast upon," "impaled on; ’ Hengstenberg, (2) "swaying about from inconstancy," and "in danger of falling away;" but Pusey seems to combine both in the original sense of the word, and explains it as follows: "Literally, hung to it! as we say, ’a man’s whole being hangs on a thing.’ A thing hung to or on another sways to and fro within certain limits, but its relation to that on which it is hung remains immovable, Its power of motion is restrained within these limits. So Israel, so the sinner, however he veer to and fro in the details and circumstances of his sin, is fixed and immovable in Iris adherence to his sin itself." Though Rashi and the Targum of Jonathan make משובה as synonymous with תשובתּ, thus: "When the prophets teach them to return to me, they are in suspense whether to return or not to return; with difficulty do they return to me,"—they are, however, distinguished as turning away from and turning to God—aversion from and conversion to him; while the suffix ־ִי is objective, that is, "My people are hung to apostatizing from me." The phrase אֶל־עַל is variously interpreted, by some as (1) "upwards," the prophets being the subject; thus Rashi: "To the matter that is above him (Israel) the prophets call him unitedly; but my people do not lift themselves up nor desire to do it." Corruption was so deeply seated in Israel, that the idle mass gave no response to the voice of the prophets urging them upwards. (2) Aben Ezra and Kimchi both take על as an adjective, and synonymous with אֶלְון, the Most High. Kimchi explains as follows: "He says, My people oscillate between distress and freedom; sometimes distress comes upon them, and again they are in the condition of freedom, and this takes place for their backsliding from me, as if he said, because of the backsliding and rebellion which they practice against me … The prophets call them constantly to return to God most high." So Aben Ezra: "The interpretation is, the callers call him to the Most High, and they are the prophets of God; but they all in one way raise not the head." (3) Jerome takes it for עֹל, a yoke, and renders accordingly: "But a yoke shall be imposed on them together, that is not taken away." The verb ירְוֹמְם signifies, (1) according to Gesenius and many others, "to celebrate with praises," or "extol." It is rather (2) "to lift one’s self up," "rise upwards;" nor is it necessary with this sense to supply ירְאֹשׁוֹ, his head, with Grotius, nor yet to understand it written for or in the sense of ירְוֹמַם, with Joseph Kimchi. Similarly the Syriac: "They call him to God, but they think together, conspire, and do not raise themselves." The word יתד is "all together," and therefore יַחַדלא is "no one." The LXX. translate (3) the second clause as follows: "But God shall be angry with his precious things, and shall not at all exalt him," having probably read וְאֶל־עַל יְקָרָיו יִהַר Hosea 11:8 How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? This verse paves the way for transition to promise. Although the Israelites on account of such conduct had merited complete annihilation, yet Jehovah, for his love and mercy’s sake, substitutes grace for justice, and will not destroy them from off the face of the earth. One rendering (1) gives the clause the turn of an exclamation rather than of an interrogation; thus: "How readily and justly could I [or should I, or how thoroughly could I if I punished thy rebellion as I deserved] give thee up to destruction!" We prefer (2) the ordinary rendering, by which it is treated as a question: "How shall I give thee up to the power of the enemy, and not only that, but destroy thee?" Calvin’s exposition seems indeed to favor the former: "Here," he says, "God consults what he is to do with the people; and first, indeed, he shows that it was his purpose to execute vengeance such as the Israelites deserved, even wholly to destroy them; but yet he assumes the character of one deliberating, that none might think that he hastily fell into anger, or that, being soon excited by excessive fury, he devoted to ruin those who had lightly sinned, or were guilty of no great crimes By these expressions of the text God shows what the Israelites deserved, and that he was now inclined to inflict the punishment of which they were worthy, and yet not without repentance, or at least not without hesitation. He afterwards adds in the next clause, This I will not do; my heart is within me changed." Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together. The עַל, literally, "upon," "with," then, "in," or "within:" "My heart is turned or changed from anger to pity in me." The expression, יַהַד נִכְמְרוּ, signifies, according to Rashi, "one warmed," as in Genesis 43:30, where this same word is rendered in the Authorized Version," yearned:" "His bowels did yearn upon his brother," or "warmed towards." But (2) many modern interpreters understand the word in the sense of" gathering themselves together:" "The feelings of compassion gathered themselves together;" nichumim, from Piel נִחֵם, a noun of the form הבוד, less definite than rachamim, bowels, as the seat of the emotions, "gathered themselves together," or "were excited all at once." The cities of the plain included Admah and Zeboim, Sodom and Gomorrah, all of which, in consequence of their sins, were overthrown and perished in one common calamity. In Deuteronomy 29:23 these cities are all named, though Admah and Zeboim are not mentioned by name in the narrative of the catastrophe contained in Genesis. Though Israel had been as guilty and deserving of wrath as these, God expresses strong reluctance to deliver them over into the hands and power of their enemies, or to give them up to destruction. His heart revolted at the thought, and turned aside from the fierceness of his anger, though so fully deserved, into the direction of mercy; a new turn was given to his feelings in the direction of compassion. All his relentings or repentings together—one and all—yearned or were at once aroused. Repenting on the part of God is an expression suited to human comprehension, implying no change of purpose on the side of God, but only a change of procedure consistent with his purpose of everlasting love. "The Law speaks in the language of the sons of men." Hosea 11:9 I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim. The promise of this verse is in harmony with the spirit of compassion expressed in the preceding. It is at once the effect and evidence of that feeling of Divine compassion. God would neither execute the burning heat of his wrath, for so the words literally mean, nor destroy Ephraim utterly, or again any more as formerly. The historic event referred to may be the destruction effected by Tiglath-pileser, ally of Ahaz King of Judah against Pekah King of Israel and Rezin King of Syria, when he carried away captive the inhabitants of Gilead, Galilee, and Naphtali, as we read in 2 Kings 15:29, "In the days of Pekah King of Israel came Tiglath-pileser King of Assyria, and took Ijon, and Abel-beth-maachah, and Janoah, and Kedesh, and Hazer, and Gilead, and Galilee, all the land of Naphtali, and carried them captive to Assyria." But while this is probably the primary allusion, there is an ulterior reference to the future restoration of Israel. For I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city (or, come into bumming wrath, Keil). A reason is here assigned for the exercise of the Divine commiseration just expressed; this reason is God’s covenant of everlasting love. He is God, and must be measured by a Divine standard—not man, implacable and revengeful; though his people’s provocation had been grievous, God was in the midst of them as their God, long-suffering and steadfast to his covenant of love and purposes of mercy. He would not enter (a) into the city as an enemy, and for the purpose of utter destruction, as he had entered into the cities of the plain for their entire and final ruin; or, (b) if the alternative rendering be preferred, he would not come into burning wrath. The fiery heat or fierceness of God’s wrath tends to destruction, not the amendment of the impenitent. The expression, "I will not return," may also be understood as equivalent to (1) "I will not turn from my pity and promises;" or, "I will not turn away from Israel;" but (2) it suits the context better to translate on the principle of two verbs expressing one idea in a modified sense, i.e. "I will not return to destroy," that is, "I will not again destroy Ephraim." Jerome’s explanation favors the first, and is, "I will not act according to the fury of my anger, nor change from my clemency to destroy Ephraim; for I do not strike to destroy for ever, but to amend... for I am God and not man. Man punishes for this purpose of destroying; God chastises for the purpose of amending." As God, his purpose of mercy was changeless; as the Holy One in Israel, he was infinitely pure and absolutely perfect, "the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning." The meaning (1) already given of coming into the city is supported by ancient versions, Hebrew expositors, and some of the ablest Christian commentators; yet (2) we prefer that which understands עיּד in the sense of "the heat of wrath," deriving it from עוּד effervescence, which is that given in Keil’s translation. There is (3) an explanation strongly advocated by Bishop Lowth and adopted by Rosenmller. It is as follows in the words of the bishop: "Jerome is almost singular in his explanation: ’I am not one of those who inhabit cities; who live according to human laws; who think cruelty justice.’ Castalio follows Jerome. There is, in fact, in the latter member of the sentence, לאאי בי, a parallelism and synonym to לי אי in the former. The future אי has a frequentative power (see Psalms 22:3 and Psalms 22:8), ’I am not accustomed to enter a city: I am not an inhabitant of a city.’ For there is a beautiful opposition of the different parts: ’I am God, and not man.’ This is amplified in the next line, and the antithesis a little varied: ’ I am thy God, inhabiting with thee, but in a peculiar and extraordinary manner, not in the manner of men.’ Nothing, I think, can be plainer or more elegant than this." The bishop’s rendering of the whole verse is— "I will not do according to the fervent of my wrath, I will not return£ to destroy Ephraim: For I am God, and not man; Holy in the midst of thee, though I inhabit not thy cities." Hosea 11:10 They shall walk after the Lord: he shall roar like a lien: when he shall roar, then the children shall tremble from the west. Others translate, "After the Lord shall they go as after a lion that roareth." But this necessitates a double ellipsis of "after which." They would go after the Lord in obedience to his summons. That summons is represented as far-reaching and terrible. Calling his people to return, the Lord roars as a lion, to denote at once the loudness of the call, and the awful majesty of the Lord when thus calling his people to return. "As a lion," says Kimchi, "which roars that the animals whose king he is may assemble to him, so the Israelites shall assemble on hearing the voice of the Lord when he roars." The roaring of the lion may signify his terrible judgments on Israel’s enemies, when he calls his people home from the lands of their dispersion. The result would be a speedy return of his children from the lands of the West—the countries round or beyond the Mediterranean. Hosea 11:11 They shall tremble as a bird out of Egypt. The trembling here is eager haste, or precipitate agitation, in which they would hurry home, and that from west and east and south—from west as we infer from Hosea 11:10, from Assyria in the east and Egypt in the south. They would thus hurry as a bird home to its nest in the greenwood; as a dove no longer a silly dove, but flying home to its window. This chapter is regarded by some as ending here. Others include Hosea 11:12. Hosea 11:12 Ephraim compasseth me about with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit: hut Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints. The first clause sets forth the faithlessness and insincerity of Israel, and that in contrast with Judah. Thus understood, the verse properly belongs to the present chapter. But others understand the last clause differently, and deny the contrast, viz. "Judah is yet defiant towards God and towards the All-Holy One, who is faithful." Hosea 11:1-4 A rich display of God’s mercy, love, and long-suffering. One chief design of Scripture is to recommend to sinners the goodness and grace of God "The whole Scripture," says Luther, "aims especially at this, that we doubt not, but certainly hope, trust, and believe that God is gracious, merciful, and long-suffering." I. GOD’S LOVE IS . This is evident from the condition of Israel when he became the object of this love. That condition was one of childhood, and so of childish ignorance, of childish impotence, of childish folly; for folly is bound up in the heart of a child. Nay, if we compare Ezekiel 16:4-8, we find the natural state of the nation to have been still worse; that wretched state is there vividly exhibited under the similitude of a poor perishing infant in the most pitiable condition. So with persons individually as well as nationally. When, to use the figure of the prophet, we were polluted, literally trodden down, and perishing in our own blood, he passed by us end looked upon us, and his tone was a tone of love. II. GOD’S LOVE IS A LOVE OF . He calls Israel his son. The relation of a son to a father is a very near and dear one. The privilege of sonship is very great. David esteemed it no light thing to be a king’s son-in-law. How unspeakably greater it is to be a son of God by adoption as well as by creation, and thus to be an heir of glory I "Is Ephraim my dear son?" God inquires; and again he says, "I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him." But though the privilege of being a son of God is great and the dignity high, it does not necessarily exempt us from sore trials and severe sufferings; it rather secures for us such paternal chastening as for the present is not joyous but grievous, nevertheless afterward productive of the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Though Israel was God’s son, yet Israel was for years in Egypt. III. GOD’S LOVE IS A LOVE OF . God not only wishes well but does well to every son whom he receiveth into his family. Though Israel had been long in Egypt, he was not allowed to remain there. God in due time called his son out of Egypt. It was a night much to be remembered when that call reached them. God speaks the word and it is done; his call is effectual for the purpose intended. However great our distress, it only requires a word from God to relieve us; and that word is as easily spoken as the call which one man addresses to another when he would invite him from some distance to his side. Strange indeed it may appear to us that God’s people Israel had been so long left in Egypt, and equally strange it is that the dearly beloved of his soul are often delivered into the hand of their enemies. "It is a strange sight indeed to see a child of God, an heir of heaven, a co-heir with Jesus Christ, one dearer to God than heaven and earth, subject to the power, the caprice, and lusts of wicked, base, ungodly men; yea, it may be, for a time slaves to Satan." IV. GOD’S LOVE IS LOVE. As God by his messengers called Israel, Israel turned his back upon those messengers and a deaf ear to their call. Nay, like disobedient children or stubborn servants, they actually turned in the opposite direction. As God’s mercy was manifested in delivering them out of the furnace of affliction and then calling to obedience; so their stubbornness appeared in, and their sin was aggravated by, their refusal to hearken to that call, and still more by their running in a direction the right opposed. Thus we read in Jeremiah, "They turned unto me the back, and not the face." V. GOD’S LOVE IS TENDER LOVE. 1. It combines the tenderness of a parent with the carefulness of a nurse. When the way was dark and obscure, he guided them as by the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. Thus he pointed out the way and showed them the direction in which they were to walk. Thus he taught them to go. When obstacles lay in the way and difficulties blocked it, he lifted them up by the arms and carried them over all hindrances. Similarly we read in Deuteronomy, "In the wilderness, where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son, in all the way that ye went." Now he took them by the hand and led them again; he lifted them up and carried them in the arms, ever conducting them in the right way. 2. So with us all more or less the path in life is untrod upon; frequently we are at a standstill; often we are sorely perplexed to know which way we should go; often and often we go astray and wander from the way. Again, there are stumbling-blocks in the way, and we stumble and fall over them. What need we have to depend on Divine love all the way, ever praying, "Lord, take us by the hand and lead us; Lord, hold up our goings in thy paths that our footsteps slip not; Lord, keep our feet from falling, our eyes from tears, and our soul from death"! 3. The way may be strait, as when Israel was hemmed in between mountains, the sea before them and Pharaoh’s host behind; or it may be difficult, and so steep as well as steep, it; or it may be dangerous, for in the way through the wilderness there is the place of lions’ dens and the mountains of the leopards; but, notwithstanding all such drawbacks, we have reason to bless God for leading us forth by the right way. And when we are in greatest straits and the way is hardest, we have only to cry to God in our trouble; and as he led Israel of old, so will he lead us also forth by the right way. "They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn." Thus God not only bears his people, but bears with his people; and commissions his ministering servants to do likewise, as he commanded Moses, "Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child." VI. GOD’S LOVE IS . In spite of all God’s love and care, we run into the way of danger through our own frowardness or folly. We stumble and fall, getting many a sore bruise and severe knock. Yet God in his love restores us; he heals us. As the child, when hurt, runs to the parent for sympathy—to the mother kiss the wound and make it well; so, when unhappily we have strayed from the way, and got bruised and hurt and painfully wounded through our own willfulness, we are encouraged to return to God, and he will heal us. God might, indeed, if he dealt with us in strict justice, leave us to ourselves and to the sad consequences of our own sinful waywardness, and refuse to lead us any more. Not so, however. As he says by the Prophet Isaiah, "I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts unto him, and to his mourners." VII. GOD’S LOVE IS MORALLY, NOT . He deals with us as a rational being, treating us neither as machines nor yet as "dumb driven cattle." The lower animal must sometimes be drawn, or forced with a degree of violence; but God does not draw men in this way. In drawing them he uses neither hard cords nor iron bands. He draws us by rational means, addressing himself to our intelligence and appealing to our affections. Thus Paul says, "I speak as to wise men; judge ye what I say." He draws us by persuasion and argument. He draws us with gentleness, and not by force. He employs the mildest means and the tenderest motives. He draws us in a manner suitable to the dignity of our nature. Made in the image of God, originally created in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, and still possessed of great susceptibilities, strong affections, warm emotions, and tender sensibilities, we are treated by God with a considerate regard to the high qualities with which he has endowed us. Accordingly he draws us with human cords and Divine love. The instrumentality employed is human, and the love that employs it is Divine. VIII. GOD’S LOVE IS LOVE. As the humane husbandman lightens the labor of the weary beasts, and lifts up the yoke on its jaws in order to ease it and give it some respite, so God lifts up the weight that presses on the back of poor humanity. He sustains us under our burdens, or even shares with us the load. Sometimes he removes the yoke entirely; oftener he gives respite and refreshment; always he sanctifies the load of labor, or care, or trouble, or suffering, or sorrow of whatever kind which his own hand has laid on the back of his people, and never does he lay more on them than he enables them by his grace and strength to bear. IX. GOD’S LOVE IS LOVE. The figure is continued in the words, "And laid meat unto them." The same kind hand that lifts up the yoke, by way of respite and relief, supplies provender for the purpose of refreshment. God laid meat before his people in the desert, when he rained down manna and sent them quails. The same bountiful Benefactor spreads a table before us daily, and makes our cup run over. Better still, and surer token of his love, is the abundant spiritual provision he has made for the souls of his people, in giving them the bread that cometh down from heaven. "We are satisfied with the goodness of his house, even of his holy temple." Hosea 11:5-12 The ingratitude of Israel and its punishment. Both are remarkably manifested in these verses. After all God’s loving-kindness they refuse to turn to God. I. THEIR . History repeats itself. This is true ecclesiastically as well as civilly, under the Jewish economy as in the Christian dispensation. Once before, at an early period in Hebrew history and on a remarkable occasion, the Israelites, discouraged by the teachings of the spies, debased by previous servitude, deficient in moral courage, and, worst of all, distrustful of Divine providence, refused to march into Canaan. They murmured against God and against Moses. "Back to Egypt," was their cry. And back they went, not to Egypt, but to wander in the wilderness for eight and thirty years longer, as a justly merited punishment for their unthankfulness and rebellion against God. Similarly on the occasion to which the prophet here refers. They bad grievously sinned against God, yet they fancied they would find refuge in Egypt; they had rebelled and resisted all the means employed to bring them back to God, but they would not return to him. And now they cry, like their forefathers, "To Egypt," as if shelter and safety could be obtained there. But God frustrates their silly, sinful purpose. A worse than the bondage of Egypt awaits them; they were destined to go into captivity to Assyria. 2. So with stubborn and stout-hearted sinners still. They will go anywhere, or resort to any expedient, even returning to Egypt, rather than return to God. For a time the prodigal would rather be a swineherd, and share the husks on which the swine fed, than return to the abundance of his father’s house. "Some stubborn children care not what miseries they suffer rather than return and humble themselves to their parents;" so some stubborn spirits seem disposed, in their folly and desperation, to return to their former state of bondage and misery rather than repent and submit themselves to God. Let such beware lest, owing to their impatience and impenitence, a worse thing befall them. II. THEIR . The three chief scourges by which God chastises a disobedient people are famine, pestilence, and the sword. 1. Of the three, the sword is, perhaps, the worst. At all events David thought it so. When he was called to make choice between seven years of famine, three days’ pestilence, and three months’ flight before the pursuing sword of the enemy, he preferred falling into the hand of God rather than into the hand of man, choosing the pestilence rather than the sword. 2. And yet the sword also has its commission from God, as we learn from the exclamation of the prophet, "O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still." But it is added, in answer to this inquiry, "How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea-shore? there hath he appointed it." 3. The Prophet Hosea pictures the severity of the stroke either by the wide area which the sword swept over, or the length of time it continued to distress them; also by the fact that the cities which were looked upon as the strong fortresses, at all events the strength of the land, were the main objects of attack. Elsewhere in the fields or open country the ravages of war are not quite so dreadful as in the city with its crowded population, where human beings, densely massed together, are literally mowed down. Nor yet were the villages spared, nor did their bars shut out the enemy. 4. The duty of prayer is incumbent in time of war. This lesson is inculcated by the example of the psalmist. After speaking in the fifty-fifth psalm of having seen violence and strife in the city, while men hurried to and fro upon the walls, with other sad accompaniments of troublous times—mischief, sorrow, wickedness, deceit, and guile—he announces the course he pursued: "As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and call aloud: and he shall hear my voice;" while peace and deliverance were the happy outcome of his prayers: "He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me." III. THEIR TO . Proneness to backsliding was not peculiar to the people or the period of Hosea’s prophesyings. The unregenerate heart is invariably the source of backsliding. When a religious profession is influenced only by external motive and not by internal power, men may be expected to backslide. In the days of our Lord it was sorrowfully said of some that they went back and walked no more with Jesus. In seasons of religious revival, of many who make a profession of religion, that profession, in the case of some, proceeds from an outward impulse, certain convictions, or even the power of sympathy, and soon as the time of excitement is over they backslide; their convictions did not ripen into conversion; the root of the matter was never in them. The same is occasionally found in the case of some young communicants. At the first communion, the boy in the freshness of his youth, the girl in the purity of her childhood, feel much ardor of affection and manifest much fervor of devotion; but what from unfavorable surroundings, or evil communications, or little sins unchecked, the love of their espousals grows cold, and backsliding ensues. Even in the case of persons truly converted, a degree of coldness creeps over them; they seem to grow weary of the ways of God; they become apathetic, and backslide for a time. Beware of grieving the Holy Spirit; beware of resisting the strivings and stirrings of conscience; beware of putting the hand to the plough and then turning back or turning aside to folly; in a word, beware of backsliding. Be warned by that solemn Scripture, "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." IV. THE CAUSED TO THE . With reverence be it spoken, the conduct of Israel seems to have puzzled the all-merciful One himself. Judgment was due, but love holds it in check; the vials of wrath were ready to be poured out, but the voice of mercy intercedes; punishment was well deserved, but the hand of pity pushes it aside. They had been called to the Most High, to acquaint themselves with him, to acknowledge him, and to accept him as their God and King; but they stopped their ears against those calls. They refused to lift themselves up from their low groveling course of conduct, and they refused to exalt the Most High, or to bless that glorious Name which is above all blessing and praise. We cannot exalt God, or make him more glorious than he is, "yet then God accounts himself to be exalted when he is known and acknowledged as the high, supreme, first Being; when we fear him as God; when we humble ourselves before him as before a God; when we are sensible of the infinite distance there is between him and us; when we are willing to consecrate what we are, or have, or can do, to the furtherance of his praise; when his will is made the rule of all our ways, and especially of his worship; when we make him the last end of all; when it is the great care of our souls and work of our lives to do what possibly we can, that he may be magnified and lifted up in the world; and when we account the least sin a greater evil than can be recompensed by all the good which heaven and earth can afford us;—when we do thus, God accounts himself exalted by us." But Israel had acted in opposition to all this; hence the controversy, the perplexity, the puzzling questions which follow. Four questions are followed by four answers. (1) "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?" to which the answer is, "Mine heart is turned within me." (2) "How shall I deliver thee, Israel?" to which the reply is, "My repentings are kindled together." (3) "How shall I make thee as Admah?" to which the response is, "I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger." (4) "How shall I set thee as Zeboim?" to which the rejoinder is, "I will not return to destroy Ephraim." V. THE PURPOSE . He will not execute the fierceness of his wrath, nor return to destroy Ephraim, nor enter into the city. Here we note a remarkable contrast in God’s dealings with us. He compares himself to a man in the exercise of mercy. It is different in regard to the execution of his wrath; then he is God and not man. In expressing his mercy he speaks after the manner of men; in the yearnings of his bowels, in the extent of his mercifulness, he expresses himself as man, though more, infinitely more, than man. But when he speaks of wrath, he assures us he is God and not man. A man of war may, with the soldiers under him, come upon a town or city, capture it, and plunder it; months or years elapse, and he returns to the same place again, lays siege to it, and sacks it, leaving it in a much worse state than at first. But God will not so return to destroy. He is God, not man. Free from all the weakness of human passion, from all vindictiveness of feeling, from all fickleness of purpose, from all the littlenesses of the human spirit, he dens not revoke his purposes nor recall his promises of mercy, neither does he retain his anger for ever, nor renew the outpouring of the vials of his wrath. 1. He is, besides, the Holy One: even in his vindicatory justice he is holy; no unholy element of any kind mingles with his wrath. Holiness is at once an attribute of his nature and a characteristic of all his administrations. Oh, to be holy as God is holy, pure as Christ is pure, perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect! His presence is with his people, according to his promise, "I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people;" nay, more, "I will dwell in them, and walk in them." 2. When, in the close of verse 9, God says, "I will not enter into the city," it is "to be taken in reference to the manner of God’s proceedings in the destruction of Sodom; after he had done conferring with Abraham, he entered into the city, and destroyed it by fire and brimstone. God many times stands at the gates of a city, ready to enter in and destroy it, but humiliation in prayer and reformation keep him out Oh! let not our sins cause a merciful God to go out, and a provoked God to enter in." VI. THE UTTERED. 1. The walking after the Lord here predicted is to follow the Lord whithersoever he leadeth. The Savior is given fur a Leader to his people; he is represented as the Captain of salvation, and just as a good soldier follows his superior officer at the head of the storming party or in the perilous breach, in the onward march and in the unwelcome but necessary retreat; so the Christian soldier, loyal to his Lord, follows him fully, faithfully, fearlessly, through evil report as well as good report, closely, carefully, and constantly. "These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth." The path may appear perilous, the way may he difficult; we may have to turn our backs on our dearest delights, on our sweetest comforts; we may be ignorant of the immediate goal to which the Lord leads us, or the use he intends to make of us, or what he means to do with us; yet none of these things shall doter us. If we only make sure that the Lord is leading us, we run no risk in following him; and though he lead us by a way that we know not, we are sure it is the right way, the safe way, and in every respect the best way in the end. The opposite course is that pursued by those who walk, not after the Lord, but after the lusts of their own hearts, or their own inclinations, or their own inventions, or their own counsels, or the example of wicked men. 2. The prediction includes a hasty return in obedience to the Divine summons. God’s calling people to return to him is not inaptly compared to the roaring of a lion. By judgments on the adversary, or by a solemn awe on the spirits of his people, or by terrible things in righteousness, God summons men to submission and obedience. 3. When God speaks the word in whatever way, his children hurry home out of many lands from the far West, the distant East, and the remote South. Thus it is in seasons of revival, thus it shall be more literally in the millennial period, and in the time of the restitution of all things When the Spirit shall be poured out from on high in Pentecostal power and in Pentecostal plenty, men shall, as at the first Pentecost, when they were assembled from many lands, join themselves to God’s people. They shall not only come hastily, but swiftly. Their hasty arrival is compared to a flight resembling that of the dove, which flies swiftly, as implied in the psalmist’s words, "Oh that I had wings like a dove!" They shall, moreover, arrive in great numbers, as doves fly in flocks, as implied in the words of the prophet, "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as doves to their windows?" 4. A place of rest is promised them. When men walk after the Lord and unite themselves lovingly with his people, they are assured both of rest and refreshment. Whether this may have had a literal fulfillment, in the return of members of the ten tribes from Assyria with their brethren of Judah from Babylon, and others of the same people from Egypt, we do not know for certain; but this much is sure, that such a return of God’s people to him shall actually take place in the day of the restitution of all things; while its figurative application repeats itself in every real revival of religion, when sinners, truly penitent like the prodigal, shall return from many a far country of sin and shame and sorrow to their Father’s house and home, renouncing the swineherd’s husks for that rich spiritual abundance of bread enough and to spare. VII. THE OF ISRAEL. The people of Israel, or the ten tribes with Ephraim at their head, that is, rulers and ruled, are here charged with lies and deceit. Their professions of worship were nothing better than lying pretences; their political schemes were little less than deceitful maneuvers. Their piety and their policy were alike hollow and futile. With such false worship and carefully devised strokes of policy, which were but deceitful tricks, they compassed God as though they could deceive the omniscient One himself. The following illustration from an old divine seems apt, though homely: "I am, in respect of their sins, as a man beset round, who would have egress, but when he goes one way there he is stopped, and another way he is stopped there too. God compares himself to such a man, as if, in going on in the ways of mercy, he is there stopped by some course of sin, and entering on another part he is there stopped again." How many there are whose acts of worship are so many solemn lies! Their professions of piety are mere pretences; their prayers may be eloquent and comprehensive, but they do not proceed from the heart; their presence in the sanctuary is only bodily, their thoughts being away about their worldly business, or reaming over mountains of vanity. Many there are who are ready to acknowledge God, his greatness and glory, his glorious majesty, his almighty power, his infinite wisdom, and his sovereign disposal of all human affairs; but they do not realize the august nature of the Divine attributes, nor the wondrous workings of his providence. Many, too, confess their great sinfulness, and profess deep humiliation on account of it; but their confession is not accompanied by contrition, nor is their professed humiliation either provable by facts or practical in its effects. 3. Strange, passing strange, it is that men thus impose on themselves, or attempt to deceive God! "They did flatter him with their mouth," says the psalmist, "and they lied unto him with their tongues." And if this is the conduct men venture on in relation to God, how much more likely they are to compass their fellow-men with lies, or overreach them by deceit! If they carry their deceit into the sacred exercises of religion and the solemn services of the sanctuary, how much more may we expect to find fraudulent transactions and deceitful dealings in their intercourse with fellow-men! VIII. THE PRE- OF JUDAH. While Israel or the ten tribes were besetting God with their lies and provoking him by deceit, their worship being idolatrous and their service false, Judah for so far continued in the true worship. With not a few drawbacks and many defects, they had hitherto adhered to the ordinances he had prescribed, the place he had chosen, and the mode and ministers of religion he had appointed. Such is the drift of the verse according to the Authorized Version. Assuming this to be the right rendering, we find Israel left without excuse. They could not plead the example of Judah. If an evil example had been set them by Judah, it might have in some sort extenuated, but could not have excused, sin in Israel. The absence of such example was no small aggravation of their guilt. 3. It redounded to the honor of Judah that in the day of Israel’s defection they persevered in the way of truth, and maintained the true worship of Jehovah. It is recorded to the credit of those Sardians who remained faithful in a corrupt place and a degenerate age, "Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy." 4. When we serve God we reign with him. It is righteousness that exalts a nation and elevates an individual. To serve God is our highest glory, and to enjoy him our greatest happiness. To serve God is the most honorable service; hence our blessed Lord has made us kings as well as priests unto God. Luther, commenting on this verse, speaks of certain errorists "not venturing to embrace the true doctrine for fear their rule should be lost. So is it with many people; they are afraid of the loss of their rule if they should entertain the true ways of God’s worship; they think that the true ways of God’s worship cannot consist with their rule and power, and therefore they had rather retain them and let the true worship of God go." BY C. JERDAN Hosea 11:1 Called out of Egypt. These words refer primarily, of course, to the historical event of the Exodus. But they are also prophetic words, and as such they have been already verified, and still await further verification. When a stone is thrown into a pond, a series of ever-enlarging concentric rings is formed, which extend perhaps to the banks of the water; so in like manner, although the first fulfillment of a prophecy may be near at hand, the prediction may also receive various further and wider fulfillments, until at last it is completely verified, on the largest scale, at the end of the world. The words before us have several applications. They apply— This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ In Hosea 12:1-6 God continues his complaint against Ephraim, charging them specially with the pursuit of vain and futile courses to their great detriment. Instead of repairing to the true and everlasting source of safety and salvation, they had recourse to foreign alliances to support and strengthen their decaying state and sinking interests. And yet the only staying power was Jehovah. The controversy now embraces Judah also; and thus Jacob—both Israel and Judah—is threatened with such punishment as their doings deserved. The mention of their great ancestor Jacob naturally suggests a contrast; while his conduct is proposed to them for an example. They are accordingly invited to follow in his footsteps, imitate the piety and wisdom of his course, and so entertain good hope of similar success from the unchanging and unchangeable God of their pious ancestor. Hosea 12:1 Ephraim feedeth on wind, and followeth after the east wind. "Wind" is employed figuratively to denote what is empty and vain, of no real worth or practical benefit. 1. To feed on wind is to take pleasure in or draw sustenance from what can really afford neither; while following after the east wind is (1) to pursue vain hopes and ideals which are unattainable. According to this view, the prominent idea of the east wind is its fleetness, which passed into a proverb; thus Horace says, "Agents nimbos Oeior Euro." To outrun the swift and stormy east wind would represent an undertaking at once impracticable and hopeless. But (2) it is rather the blasting influence of the east wind that is referred to, so that it is a figurative representation, not so much of what is vain and hopeless, as of what is pernicious and destructive. Thus their course was not only idle, but injurious; not only delusive, but destructive; not only fruitless, but fatal. Their career, which is thus represented, included their idolatry and foreign alliances Kimchi explains this clause as follows: "In his service of the calves he is like him who opens his mouth to the wind and feeds on it, though he cannot support life thereby." And followeth after the east wind; ’ he repeats the sense in different words, and mentions the east wind because it is the strongest and most injurious of winds to the sons of men. So with them: it is not enough that the idolatry of the calves does not profit them, but it actually injures them." 2. The Septuagint rendering is ὉδὲἘφραὶμπονηρὸνπνεῦμαἐδίωξεκαυδώνα, equivalent to "But Ephraim is an evil spirit; he has chased the east wind." He daily (rather, all the day) increaseth lies and desolation. Some understood these words (1) as descriptive of Ephraim’s attitude towards Jehovah; and thus what is figuratively set forth in the first clause is here represented literally. Thus Kimchi says, "He does not turn back from his wickedness, but all the days he multiplies lying which is the worship of the calves, and so increases the desolation and destruction that shall come as a punishment for their service. And with all this he does not perceive nor return from the worship of the calves to the worship of the blessed God." But (2) we prefer understanding the second clause of Ephraim’s conduct towards his neighbor or fellow-man. Titus, Hitzig, who shows that שֹׁד cannot refer to their conduct towards Jehovah, nor could their lies and desolation continue the whole day if referred to his service. חָמָס וָשׁד, "violence and robbery," or "spoil," are also jointed in a similar manner in Amos 3:10 and Jeremiah 6:7, to characterize men’s conduct towards their neighbors. In the passage before us, if we refer the words, "lies and desolation," as we think they ought to be referred, to Ephraim’s conduct towards men, the ריב and שד may be distinguished thus: the former designates low lying and fraudulent dealing; while the latter expresses that brutal violence by which dishonest men unscrupulously take possession of their neighbors’ property. And they do make a covenant with the Assyrians, and oil is carried into Egypt. This fondness for foreign alliances is specified as a positive proof of their apostasy from, and want of confidence in, Jehovah. This is well explained by Kimchi in the following comment: "But what doeth Ephraim? When oppression of the enemy comes upon him, they make a covenant with Assyria for their assistance, and likewise with Egypt—one time with this, another time with that." The expression כרת ברית, "to cut a covenant," has its parallel in the Greek ὀρκίατεμνεῖν and Latin foedus fetire, as also in the Arabic, doubtless from the circumstance of slaying the victims in its ratification. The conduct here censured is Ephraim’s faithlessness to the then static covenant rather than their treacherous maneuvering in "playing off" Egypt against Assyria, and Assyria against Egypt alternately. The land of Israel abounded in oil-olive and honey, as we read in Deuteronomy 8:8 and elsewhere. The object of sending it to Egypt was as a present to the Egyptians to secure their interest and help against Assyria. It is thus properly explained both by Rash! and Kimchi. The former says, "And their oil they bring to Egypt to give it to them as a present that they may help them;" the latter likewise, "They bring their oil to the Egyptians for a present, for oil came to Egypt and to other lands out of the land of Israel. The land of Israel was rich in olive oil." Hosea 12:2 The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah; and will punish (margin, visit upon) Jacob according to his ways. God here presents himself at once as plaintiff and judge, widening the range of his pleadings. The controversy with Israel takes a wider sweep, and comprehends Judah culpable, though apparently in a less degree. But though Judah comes in for a share of punishment, that punishment shall be proportionate to their delinquencies—those like Judah that sinned less shall suffer less; while the more heinous transgressors, such as Israel had proved to be, would come in for severer punishment. To Jacob, here embracing the ten tribes of Israel and the two of Judah, the chastisement would be meted out in exact accordance with his ways. The apparent contradiction between Hosea 12:12 of last chapter, where, as most translate it, Judah is represented as ruling with God and being faithful with the saints, and the present inclusion of Judah in controversy with Jehovah, occasioned (1) a rendering and explanation of this verse which Aben Ezra declares to be both ungrammatical and unscriptural. "He" says Aben Ezra." who explains that Judah is faithful and he shall be reproving, and asserts that Scripture makes no mention of Jehovah having a controversy against Judah, but [employs] עם the sense being that Jehovah and Judah have a strife against Ephraim, errs from the way of Scripture and grammar, for the prophet has written above (verse 13), ’Judah saw his wound;’ ’I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plough;’ and in reference to both of them he says,’ Ye shall eat the fruit of lies.’ He also forgets ’The herdmen of Gerar did strive with (עם) Isaac’s herdmen;’ ’And the people strove with Moses;’ and many other places [i.e. where עם is found with the sense of ’contending’]. Therefore he joins Ephraim with Judah, and says, ’The Lord hath also a controversy with Judah, and will punish Jacob according to his ways, because this name (i.e. Jacob) comprehends them both (Ephraim and Judah)." (2) The meaning is given concisely and correctly by Rashi thus: "He (Jehovah) announces to them the words of his controversy which their brethren of the house of Israel had caused him; and they should not wonder if he would punish (literally, ’visit on’) Jacob according to his ways." The change in the ease of Judah, Kimchi accounts for by reference to their subsequent apostasy, especially that of their kings, as follows: "Although he said, ’And Judah yet reigneth with God,’ he meant, although be holds fast by the service of God in the house of the sanctuary; so afterwards they practiced evil deeds as their kings were evil; therefore he said,’ Jehovah has a controversy and correction with Judah and Jacob to visit upon them according to their doings, as their kings were evil, for they did not remember my mercy with them and with their father Jacob, because the whole was for sake of his posterity; and I showed him a sign which should be to his seed after him, if they gave their heart to me … . And the sign which I showed them is only done for sake of his seed. But they have not acknowledged this, for if they had acknowledged this, they would have cleaved to me and my service, and I would have ratified to them the blessing of Jacob their father.’" The infinitive with le is not infrequently employed in the sense of our future, thus, לפקד, it is to be visited, equivalent to "he shall or must visit upon it’ This idiom is common in Syriac, but always with atid. According to his doings will he recompense him. The milder expression is applied to Judah—he has a controversy with him, but will punish Jacob, restricted by some to Ephraim or the ten tribes. Better understand Jacob of both Judah and Israel, who are both to be recompensed, each according to his works. Hosea 12:3 He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power (margin, was a prince, or, behaved himself princely) with God. In this verse and the following the prophet looks away back into the far-distant past; and this retrospect, which is suggested by the names Jacob and Israel, reminds him of two well-known events in the life of the patriarch-The meaning and intention of this reminiscence are differently interpreted. The two leading views are the following: (1) Some are of opinion that the prophet means to give an example by way of warning, and to mention a trait of Jacob’s overreaching cunning, and likewise of his violence, and thereby show that Jacob had incurred guilt in a manner resembling that of the then present generation; that is to say, his conduct had been like to theirs in deceit, lying, and violence. But (2) according to others, and we agree with them, the object of the prophet in these verses is to admonish them to imitate the conduct of their progenitor, and to remind them of the distinction which he had obtained thereby, as an encourage-merit to them to go and do likewise. (3) Another interpretation, somewhat similar to (2), is that of those who admit that Jacob’s laying hold of his brother’s heel in the womb is proposed to his posterity by the prophet for the purpose of emulation and encouragement, at the same time to exhibit God’s electing grace from eternity. Thus Jerome: "While he was yet in the womb of Rebekah, he laid hold of his brother’s heel, not by his own strength, it is true, who was incapable of perception, but by the mercy of God, who knows and loves those whom he has predestinated." So also Rashi: "All this I have done to him; he took his brother by the heel for a sign that he would prevail over him." Calvin explains more fully thus: "Their ingratitude is showed in this, that they did not acknowledge that they had been anticipated, in the person of their father Jacob, by the gratuitous mercy of God. The first history is indeed referred to for this end, that the posterity of Jacob might understand that they had been elected by God before they were born. For Jacob did not, by choice or design, lay hold of the heel of his brother in his mother’s womb; but it was an extraordinary thing. It was, then, God who guided the hand of the infant and by this sign testified his adoption to be gratuitous. In short, by saying that Jacob held the foot of his brother in his mother’s womb, the same thing is intended as if God had reminded the Israelites that they did not excel other people by their own virtue or that of their parents, but that God of his own good pleasure had chosen them." Aben Ezra and Kimchi explain the seizing of Esau’s heel by Jacob as owing to the impartation of Divine power, but as a sign of victory over his enemies. We must reject (1) for the following reasons: (a) The reference is not to Genesis 27:1-46; where Jacob’s overreaching Esau is recorded, but to Genesis 25:26, where it is written, "After that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel;" (b) the patriarchs are always exhibited as patterns of piety—besides, Hosea never employs the name Israel in any but an honorable sense. We must elect between (2) and (3); and we incline to (2), as the gist of the passage is to exhibit Jacob’s earnestness in seeking the Divine blessing as an example to his posterity. Already in his mother’s womb, before he saw the light of the world even in his condition of unconsciousness, he had laid hold of the heel of his elder brother Esau, in order to anticipate him as the firstborn, and thereby appropriate the Divine promises. The second clause describes how with zeal, by labor and effort, he had struggled for the position of pre-eminence, sorely struggling for the Divine blessing. In the maturity of his manhood he wrestled with God, or rather with the angel of the covenant, and prevailed so that his name was changed to Israel. This picture the prophet presents to Jacob’s posterity for their imitation, with implied promise of like happy result. Though Aben Ezra and Kimchi, in their exposition of the verse, rather explain in their own way the significance of the original event as recorded in Genesis than the application which the prophet here makes of it, yet it may not be out of place to subjoin their comments, which are as follows: Aben Ezra, "With respect to him who explains ’in the womb’ in the sense that Jehovah then decreed the matter of the birthright and blessing, I know not how the meaning of ’in the womb’ bears on that, as the Scripture says, ’Before I formed thee in the womb I knew thee.’ According to my opinion it should be taken according to its literal sense, that ’ he took his brother by the heel in the womb; ’ and this is made clear by’ and his hand took hold on Esau’s heel.’ Now the purport is, ’Why do the sons of Jacob not remember that I chose their father, and effected preeminence for him over all that are born? For when he was in the womb I gave him strength to lay hold of the heel, and this was as the working of a miracle, for the fetus has, in the womb and at the time of the opening of the matrix, no strength to lay hold of anything until it comes forth from the womb into the air of the world. And lo! when he was in the womb I gave him strength; and afterwards he wrestled with the angel, and he (the angel) did not prevail over him, although one angel slew the whole host of Assyria, and from his sight the children of men flee in terror as David who was frightened; how much was it to wrestle with him.’ The meaning is that all the children of the world should know that his (Jacob’s) seed shall endure for ever, and in the end conquer his enemies. But Ephraim thinks that Ephraim himself has found the power." The comment of Kimchi on the first part of the verse is much the same with that of Aben Ezra just cited; while on the concluding clause he remarks, "And yet another sign I have shown him to be a sign to his children after him, for I gave him strength to wrestle with the angel and to be a prince in relation to him as if he was in the same rank with him. And this sign I showed him that his sons would be the portion of Jehovah alone, that star and angel should not prevail over them all the time they would do my pleasure, and by the signs of the heavens they should not be terrified, for they have no strength (physical) nor power (moral) over them, because the providence of God most blessed cleaves to them during all the period they would do my will, nor shall they succumb to any accident of time." Hosea 12:4 Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him. As Jacob’s position at birth symbolized the pre-eminence which God’s electing love had in store for him, and as in his manhood’s prime he put forth such earnestness and energy to obtain the blessing, so Israel, by the example of their forefather, are encouraged to like strenuous exertion with like certainty of success. The example is more fully described and dwelt on in this verse for the purpose of more powerfully stimulating the Israelites of the prophet’s day to imitate it. From this verse we learn the following facts: (1) the nature of the conflict as of a spiritual kind; (2) the visible embodiment of the invisible deity, so that the angel is not an entire identification with God in the preceding verse, bat the organ of Divine manifestation; and (3) the weapons used, or the means employed, namely, weeping and supplication, in a word, the instrumentality of prayer; and (4) the true way of prevailing with God, which is real humility and sin-core supplication, not stiff, necked and defiant resistance to the Divine will and word, like that of Israel at the period in question. This verse "is," according to Aben Ezra, "an explanation how he put forth prowess with God." Kimchi regards it as "the repetition of the same thought for the put. pose of intensifying, for it was a great wonder for a man to wrestle with an angel." כָבָה (1) commences a new clause; while (2) the punctuation of it as a participle, בֹבֶח, and the connection of it with "prevailed," leaves the following clause isolated without any improvement of the sense. The rendering in this latter case would be "prevailed weeping," a somewhat awkward expression. But (3) there is an exposition adopted by the Hebrew expositors and advocated by Hitzig, which appears to us to do violence to the true signification of the passage. Thus Rashi: "And the angel besought him, ’ Let me now go. The end of the Holy and Blessed One is that he may reveal himself to thee in Bethel, and there shalt thou find him.’" Similarly Aben Ezra: "He (the angel) almost wept and supplicated him to let him go. And the signification of עי הש,Genesis 32:26, is: ’before the light strengthened, that Jacob might not be alarmed.’" Also Kimchi: "This is not mentioned in the Thorah; and the explanation is as if the angel wept and supplicated Jacob to let him go, as he said, ’Let me go, for’ the day breaketh.’" Such exposition introduces into the text an intolerable anthropopathism. Jerome long before had given the correct explanation thus: "He wept and asked him, when he said, ’I will not let thee go, unless thou shalt have blessed me!’ For the wrestling was that which he engaged in with the angel, holding him by prayers that he might bless him, not by the strength of work. If any one weeps and exercises penitence, and supplicates the Lord, he shall find him in the grief of his heart, and when he has invoked him, he shall hear him answering." He found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us. The prophet here records the result of Jacob’s faithful wrestling. Them in Bethel, the very place where years after idolatry and immorality found a home, God had manifested himself to the patriarch. The fruit of Jacob’s victory was that (1) he found God at Bethel; not that (2) God found him, as some explain it. The historical basis of the prophet’s statement is not Genesis 28:11, which narrates the appearance of God to the patriarch as he fled into Mesopotamia, but Genesis 35:9, when the new name of Israel, "prince with God," was confirmed to him, and the promise of all the families of the earth being blessed through his seed renewed. Of the two visions at Bethel the second is the one here referred to, as it comes after that at Penuel, the scene of the patriarch’s wrestling with the angel; while the accompanying circumstances keep us to the right understanding of the expression, "He found him in Bethel," which we are considering. Jacob on that memorable occasion prepared himself and household for seeking God by putting away the strange gods that were among them, by ceremonial purifications, and putting on change of garments. Thus, seeking with holy purpose and prepared heart, he found the Lord at Bethel, and enjoyed heavenly fellowship with him there. Aben Ezra favors (2) making Jehovah, not Jacob, the subject; thus: "As he was returning to his father, the angel found him there; and because the angel appeared to him twice in Bethel, behold the place is the gate of heaven; therefore I and Amos have prophesied about Jeroboam at Bethel, which is the place of his kingdom." Kimchi approves of the exposition of the angel finding Jacob, but mentions a modification of that of Jacob finding the angel; thus: "The angel found him in Bethel and also blessed him there; and the word ימי, equivalent to ’found him,’ is the future instead of the past. But my lord my father, of blessed memory, explains it according to its literal import, that the angel said to him (when wrestling with him) that he would find him in Bethel The blessed God announced to him the good tidings that he would there manifest himself to him and call his name Israel." The last clause of this verse states the additional fact that God spoke (1) through the patriarch to his posterity. "Let it be observed," says Lackemacher, as quoted by Keil, "that God is said to have talked at Bethel, not with Jacob only, but with all his posterity. That is to say, the things which are here said to have been done by Jacob, and to have happened to him, had not regard to himself only, but to all the race that sprang from him, and were signs of the good fortune which they either would or certainly might enjoy." Though the suffix of ימי, in the Massoretic text is well attested, yet, instead of (a) the third person, Ewald reads it (b) as the first plural, and consequently so renders the word that the clause implies, not a narrative of the past, but a prophecy of the future; thus: (2) "He will find at Bethel, and there he will speak with us." The. Septuagint, again, with other Greek versions, as also the Syriac and Arabic, read in the last part of the clause עִמּו, equivalent "to him," instead of עִמָּנוּ, equivalent to "us," which identifies the patriarch with his posterity. The translation by which a relative is understood before immanu, equivalent to "Them he spoke to Jacob the things that are with us," or "happened us," or "pertained to us," is neither necessary nor in accordance with good taste. Kimchi understands the verb in the present tense that is, God speaks (a) with us—Hosea and the other prophets, to reprove the idolatry rampant in Bethel; (b) rather with the prophet and the people descended from the patriarch. On the words, "there he spake with us," Kimchi comments as follows: "These are the words of the prophet. He says, ’ There in Bethel he (Jehovah) speaks with me and with Amos to reprove Israel for the worship of the calf in Bethel,’ as Amos (Amos 5:4) says, ’Seek ye me, and ye shall live: but seek not Bethel.’ But my lord my father, of blessed memory, explained ’And there he will speak with us’ as the words of the angel. He (the angel) says to him (Jacob), ’The blessed God will find us in Bethel, and there he will speak (c) with us, with me and with thee, in order to confirm to thee my blessing, and to call thy name Israel, saying, For as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.’" But others, as Saadia Gaon, explain the word, not in the sense of "with us," but (d) "on account of us," or "about us." Hosea 12:5 Even the Lord God of hosts; the Lord is his memorial. Here we have at once a confirmation and a pledge of previous promises. Jacob had wronged Esau, and thereby incurred his displeasure; he had offended God by the injury inflicted on his brother. He is consequently in a position of peril with respect to both God and man; he repented of his sin, and with many and hitter tears supplicated safety—salvation in the highest sense. Jacob, or Israel, in Hosea’s time were involved in greater guilt and exposed to greater danger; the same unfailing remedy is recommended to them, and the same way of safety is laid open before them; let them only repent, turn to the Lord, and with tears of genuine sorrow seek his face and favor free; and the prospect would soon brighten before them. The Name of God was a sufficient guarantee: he is Jehovah the Everlasting, and therefore Unchanging One—the same to Jacob’s posterity as he had been to the patriarch himself, equally ready to accept their repentance and equally willing to bless them with safety and salvation. He is God of hosts, and thus the Almighty One, governing all creatures, guiding all events, commanding all powers both heavenly and earthly, and ruling the whole history of humanity. His name is a remembrancer of all this, and thus his people were assured that he neither lacks the will nor the power to bless them with all needful blessings, and do them greatest good. The name of an individual is that whereby he is known; on mention of his name the memory of him is recalled. The mention of the Divine Name not only reminds us of his being and Godhead, but recalls to our memory his attributes. Rashi has the following brief comment on this verse: "As I have been from the beginning, so am I now; and if ye had walked with me in uprightness as Jacob our father, I would have dealt with you as dealt with him." Thus to Abram in a land of strangers, imperiled and defenseless, God revealed himself as God Almighty; to Moses, after centuries of unfulfilled promise, he made himself known as the Unchanging One, still challenging the confidence of his people; to Hosea he brings to mind his unchanging counsel in regard to all the events of time and his unlimited control over all the realms of space and their inhabitants, and so the suitability of his attributes to the multiplied necessities and varying circumstances of his people. Hosea 12:6 Therefore turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually. God’s character in itself, and his conduct towards the great forefather of the Hebrew race, call at once for confidence and contrition. The evidence of their repentance is twofold: one aspect is manward, consisting of mercy and judgment; the other is Godward, being a constant waiting upon God. The literal rendering brings out the meaning more clearly; it is, "And thou, in [or, ’by’] thy God thou shalt return." If we render the preposition by "in," we may understand it to imply entire dependence on God, or close and cordial fellowship with God; if we take it to mean "by," it signifies the power or help of God; while the return is moral and spiritual, with perhaps material and literal restoration implied A parallel for be in the signification of "by" occurs in the first chapter of this book at the seventh verse: "I will save them by (be) the Lord their God;" also in Deuteronomy 33:29, "O people saved by (be) the Lord." We prefer the former sense as more simple and suitable; it is concisely and correctly explained by Keil as follows: "’שׁוב with בְ is a pregnant expression, as in Isaiah 10:22, ’So turn as to enter into vital fellowship with God; ’ that is, to be truly converted … . The next two clauses are to be taken as explanatory of תשוב. The conversion is to show itself i, the perception of love and right towards their brethren, and in constant trust in God." The difference between שׁוּב בְּ and שוּב אֶל is that the latter signifies "to return to," and the former "to return into," and thus expresses inward union with him. The general sense of the clause is thus expressed by Aben Ezra: "If thou wouldst return to God, he would be thy help to bring thee back to him;" and by Kimchi as follows: "But thou who art the seed of Jacob, if thou art willing, canst return unto thy God, i.e. thou canst rest in him, as ’In returning and rest shall ye be saved’ (Isaiah 30:15)." The second point of the verse has an instructive parallel in Micah 6:8, "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" In regard to the waiting upon God, of which the last clause speaks, Aben Ezra has the pithy remark, "Depend not upon thy riches nor thy strength, for the strength thou hadst from him, also the riches." Kimchi comments on the same more fully, as follows: "On this condition thou canst rest and not be afraid of the enemy, if thou wilt observe to do mercy and judgment: for his conditions are as he said, ’I am the Lord which exercise loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.’ And although he does not mention righteousness here, yet he has said in another place, ’Keep ye judgment, and to justice [literally, ’righteousness’].’ And he says here, ’And wait upon thy God continually;’ now it is righteousness and equity that thou waitest on thy God continually. And even when thou shalt have great possession and riches and wealth, thou shalt say to thyself, ’ It is all from him; thou shall remember him continually and wait on him, as he says in the Law (Deuteronomy 8:18), ’ Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God, for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth; not like Ephraim, who says, ’I am become rich, I have found me out substance.’" The Septuagint has ἔγγιζε, equivalent to "draw near to," having probably read קְרֹב instead of קַוֵּה. Hosea 12:7-14 Contain a fresh description of Israel’s apostasy. To this the prophet is led by the preceding train of thought. When he called to mind the earnestness of the patriarch to obtain the blessing, the sincerity of his repentance, and the evidences of conversion, consisting in mercy and judgment and constant waiting on God, he looks around on Israel, and finding those virtues conspicuous by their absence; he repeats the story of their degeneracy. Hosea 12:7 He is a merchant (margin, Canaan), the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to oppress. This verse is more exactly rendered, Canaan is he, in his hand are the balances of deceit: he loveth to oppress. How the sons have degenerated from the sire! No longer do we see Jacob wrestling in prayer with the angel of the covenant, and knighted in the field with the name of Israel, or "prince with God;" but a fraudulent merchant Kenaan, seeking to aggrandize himself by cheating and oppression. His conduct is the opposite of what God requires; instead of the mercy and judgment and trust in God enjoined in the preceding verse, we have the Canaanitish (Phoenician) trader, with his false scales in his hand and the love of oppression in his heart. The word Kenaan sometimes denotes Canaan, the son of Ham, and ancestor of the Canaanitish nation; sometimes the land of Canaan, or lowlands (from כָּנַע, bow the knee, γονυγνυγνυπετεῖν, genu, knee; then "to be low" or "depressed") as opposed to אֲרָם, or" highlands" (from רוּם, to be high); sometimes Phoenicia, the northern part of Canaan; also, from the Canaanites or Phoenicians having been famous as merchants, a man of Canaan, or any merchant, so Job 40:1-24:30 and Proverbs 31:24, just as Kasdi Chaldaean is applied to an astrologer. At the time of Hosea, the Phoenicians were the great merchants who had the commerce of the world in their hand. Canaan is thus a figurative designation of Ephraim in their degenerate condition as indicated by the false balances and love of oppression. The verse is well explained by Theodoret: "And thou, Ephraim, imitating (1) the wickedness of Canaan, hast an unjust balance of mind: thou despisest justice, thou greedily desirest unjust power, thou art high-minded in rich, S, and dost arrogate to thyself very much in prescribing and determining the conditions thereof." Rashi more briefly remarks, "Ye depend upon your wealth because ye are merchants and defraud; and of your riches ye say, ’Yet I have become rich, and shall not serve the Holy One;’" while Kimchi marks the contrast between Israel as he ought to be and Israel as he actually is, thus: "But thou art not so (i.e. practicing love and righteousness), but thou art like the Canaanite, i.e. as (2) the merchant, in whose hand is the deceitful balance." The character of the Phoenician trader is thus given in the ’Odyssey’—"A false Phoenician of insidious mind, Vers’d in vile arts, and foe to humankind." But, in addition to secret fraud, open violence is here charged against Israel. Hosea 12:8 And Ephraim said, Yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance. Ephraim in this verse boasts of his riches, though procured by fraud and violence, while he maintains at the same time that he has not sinned thereby so as to expose himself to punishment or deserve severe reprehension. The particle—אַךְ—has two principal meanings: (a) "surely" and (b) "only." In the former sense the clause (1) may allude to the injunction contained in Hosea 12:6 to wait on God, and may signify, "No doubt I have become rich, yet not through Divine help, but by my own exertions;" in the latter sense it may signify, (2) "I have only become rich; I have done nothing else; I have done nothing amiss" Aben Ezra regards אַךְ as introducing the apodosis, and explains it nearly in the sense of (1), thus: "The sense of אךְ is, ’God has not given me the wealth, but I by myself [i.e. my own unaided efforts] have become rich, for I am not as the Canaanite,’ that is, the merchant, as ’There shall be no more the Canaanite’ (Zechariah 14:21) ;" he then proceeds to show the connection, "And the meaning [according to the context] is, ’Why does he say, Keep mercy and judgment, and be not an oppressor like the Canaanite [nor am I]? yet all is my own honest earning; none of the sons of men shall find that I have sinned.’" The interpretation of Kimchi is similar, but somewhat simpler, thus: "The words, ’I am become rich,’ are the opposite of ’Wait on thy God continually.’ But he (Ephraim) does not wait on God the blessed, and he does not acknowledge that he gave him strength to acquire wealth, but says, ’My own power and the strength of my hands have made for me this wealth,’ and he forgetteth God the blessed, who gave him power to work, as it is written in the Law (Deuteronomy 8:14), ’And thou forget the Lord thy God.’ This is what he (the prophet) means by ’I have become rich;’ he means to say, ’I have become rich from myself,’" i.e. by my own labor. The word אוֹן denotes both physical or bodily strength, and also, like חַיִל, riches, Latin opes, probably as procured thereby. The flourishing state of the kingdom during the reigns of Joash and Jeroboam II. may have induced their overweening self-confidence and their amazing forgetfulness of God, and at the same time this surprising ignorance of their real condition. (2) The Septuagint rendering is εὕρηκαἀναψυχὴνἐμαυτῷ, "I have found refreshment for myself," and Jerome, "Inveni mihi idolum," as if אָוֶש had been read instead of אוֹן. In all my labors they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin; margin, all my labors suffice me not: he shall bare punishment of iniquity in whom is sin. Here two modes of construction are possible and each has had its advocates; thus, יְנִיעַי may be (a) the subject of the verb, as in the LXX; which is, "None of his labors shall be found available for him on account of the sins he has committed." This is the rendering followed and interpreted by Cyril and Theodoret. (b) The words in question, instead of being taken as the subject to the verb, may be employed absolutely or with the ellipsis of a preposition, as in the Authorized Version; thus: "As to my labors, or the fruits of my labors," for יני, is used in both senses. The meaning of the passage then is (1) that, besides the sins of fraud and oppression, Ephraim did not shrink through shame to vindicate his conduct and to maintain that. in all the riches he had acquired with such labor, no one could show that those riches had been unjustly acquired by him, or that there was sin contracted in their acquisition. Thus Kimchi: "He (the prophet) mentions another vice, saying that he (Ephraim) oppresses, and asserts that, in all he has labored for and gathered together, they shall not be able to find (a) any riches of iniquity and sin. אי תי is the same as iniquity and sin, and thus (Ecclesiastes 5:18) ’it is good and comely’ (asher here also for vav). Or the explanation of it is: (b) They shall not find with me iniquity. nor any matter in which there is sin pertaining to me. And חי is less than עי iniquity, for sin comes sometimes by reason of error. Or the explanation of ’iniquity which were sin’ is: (c) Iniquity in which there was sin to me; as if he said, with regard to which I had sinned; for if riches came into my hand through iniquity and robbery, it was not with my knowledge; he means: so that I sinned in relation to it, and took it by iniquity with my knowledge; and in this way (Leviticus 22:16) ’they lade themselves with the iniquity of trespass; עי being in construct state, that is to say, iniquity with regard to which they trespassed." לִי signifies "belonging to me;" while חטא is read, not as a noun, but as a verb in the Septuagint, ἃςἅμαρτεν. (2) The Chaldee, which is explained by Rashi, gives an explanation identical, though only partially so, with the marginal rendering of the Authorized Version, namely, "It were good for thee if thou consideredst with thyself: all my riches do not suffice me, in order to expiate the iniquity which I have committed." This, and the marginal reading—both where they coincide and where they diverge—we must unhesitatingly reject as far-fetched, artificial, and having no real basis in the text. To their other sins Israel added this protestation of innocence, which was the solemn protestation of a falsehood. The clause (3) may admit another sense; thus: If in ray gains by labor iniquity should be found, that indeed would be sin; but such is not the case. Thus, like the Pharisees of a later age, did they justify themselves before men; but God knew their hollow-hearted hypocrisy. Hosea 12:9 And I that am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast. This verse consists of two parts which in the original are coordinated; but in the Authorized Version the one is subordinated to the other by supplying an awkward and unnecessary ellipsis. It is better, therefore, to translate thus: And I am the Lord thy God, from the land of Egypt: I will yet make thee to dwell in tabernacles, as in the days of the solemn feast. Some understand this verse as a threatening; not a few as a promise; while others combine both. (1) Theodoret, who may be taken as representing the first class of interpreters, comments thus: "That thou mayest understand this and learn wisdom by thy calamity, I will bring thee back again to that point that thou must again dwell in tents and wander as an exile in a foreign land." (2) Kimchi may represent those who understand it as a promise, or rather a promise with an implied threatening, and thus combine both. His exposition is as follows: "Even so am I ready to bring you forth out of the captivity where ye shall be, as I did when I brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, and sustained you in the wilderness and made you dwell in tents; so am I ready yet again, when I shall have brought you forth out of the lands of the Gentiles, to cause you to dwell in tents in the wilderness by the way, and to show you wonders until ye shall return to your land in peace." (3) Wunsche rejects both the preceding, and refers the statement to the other, present time, taking עוֹד, not in the sense of "yet again," but in the equally allowable meaning of "further," or "still further;" thus his rendering of the verse is, "And yet I am thy God from Egypt, still I let thee dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast." Thus we have a remembrance of God’s goodness to Israel all along from the Exodus to the time then present, including the celebration of their feasts, especially that of Taber-uncles, the most joyful of them all. This is favored by the interpretation of Aben Ezra, which is the following: "The sense is, ’Shouldst thou not remember that I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt in great riches for which thou didst not labor, and nourished thee in the wilderness when thou wast in tents?’ In like manner he shall be able to do unto thee as in the days of the solemn feast of thy coming out of Egypt." We prefer, notwithstanding, the exposition number (2), which includes, or rather implies, a threatening of being driven out of their good laud into a wilderness state, because of their forgetfulness of, and ingratitude to, God, as also because of their proud self-confidence; while, with this implied threat of punishment, God holds out to them the promise and prospect of like guiding care and sheltering guardianship, as in that early period of their history, the remembrance of which was still kept up by the mo’ed, or Feast of Tabernacles, during the seven days of which the people dwelt in booths, in commemoration of their having dwelt in booths in the wilderness after they had been delivered out of the land of Egypt. Thus, as Hengstenberg has well observed, "the preterit is changed into a future through the ingratitude of the nation." Hosea 12:10-11 Hosea 12:10 and Hosea 12:11 prove God’s continual care for the spiritual welfare and best interests of Israel all along, and, at the same time, the inexcusableness of Israel in forgetting God and in arrogating to themselves the power of controlling their own destinies in the matter of wealth and prosperity; while multiplied prophecies and visions testified to both, viz. to God’s care and Israel’s recklessness of warnings. Moreover, their persistence in sin prepared them for and precipitated the punishment. Hosea 12:10 I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes, by the ministry of the prophets. The vav before the verb in the beginning of the verse is copulative, and the verb is in the preterit as the accent is on the penult; if the vav were conversive of the preterit into the future, the verb would have the accent on the ultimate. The preterit denotes what has been taking place up to the present. עִל is explained (1) by Knobel to denote that the Divine revelation or inspiration descended on the prophets from heaven; but (2) Kimchi explains it as equivalent to אִם, with; thus: "’Upon (עִל) the prophets ’ is the same as ’ with (אִם) the prophets,’ as (in Exodus 35:32), ’And they came both men and women [literally, ’men, עַל with, or rather in addition to, women’]. He (Jehovah) says, ’What could I do to you and I did not do it, so that ye should not forget me? And what did I do with your fathers? I spoke constantly with the prophets to admonish you from me, and I multiplied visions to you many days.’" The Authorized Version (3) employs "by" as the equivalent of עַל here. The pronoun veanoki is emphatic, viz. "I even I," as though he said, "I and not another;" while the preterit proves Jehovah to have continued his visions to the very moment at which the prophet speaks. To the word אַדַמֶּה, (a) use similitudes, some supply a verbal noun of corporate sense, דְמוּתות or דִמְיוּנִים. This, however, is unnecessary, as a verb often includes its cognate noun, of which we have several similar ellipses, e.g. Genesis 6:4, "They bare children [יְלָדִים understood] to them;" also Jeremiah 1:9, "They shall set themselves in array [הֲערָכָה understood] against her." The LXX. (b) has ὡμοιώθην, "I was represented; "and Jerome renders it assimilatus sum. The three modes of Divine communication here referred to are prediction, vision, and similitude. The word for vision, חָזוֹן, is used here as a collective; it differs from the dream in being higher degree of Divine revelation, also the senses of the receiver are awake and active, while in the dream they are inoperative and passive. Of the similitude, again, we have examples in Isaiah’s parable of a vineyard (Isaiah 5:1-30), and in Ezekiel’s similitude of a wretched infant, to represent the natural state of Jerusalem. Aben Ezra remarks, I have established emblems and comparisons that ye might understand me;" and Kimchi, "I have given emblems and parables by means of the prophets, as Isaiah says, ’My well-beloved hath a vineyard;’ and Ezekiel, ’Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan.’ And the explanation of ביד is that by their hand he sends them emblems and similitudes as (Le Ezekiel 10:11) ’which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses’" Thus God, as Rosenmller observes, "left no means of admonishing them untried." Hosea 12:11 Is there iniquity in Gilead? surely they are vanity. In reference to hypotheticals, Driver remarks, "With an imperfect in protasis. The apodosis may then begin (a) hath vav con. and the perfect; (b) with the infinitive (without vav); (c) with perfect alone (expressing the certainty and suddenness with which the result immediately accomplishes the occurrence of the promise. Hosea 12:12 (היו in apodesis, ’of the certain future’)." The first part of this clause has been variously rendered. Some take אִם (a) affirmatively, in the sense of certainly, assuredly; others translate it (b) interrogatively, as in the Authorized Version, though even thus it would be more accurately rendered: Is Gilead iniquity of Pusey, following the common version, explains it as follows: ’The prophet asks the question in order to answer it more peremptorily. He raises the doubt in order to crush it the more impressively.’ Is there iniquity in Gilead? ’Alas I there was nothing else. Surely they are vanity; or, strictly, they have become merely vanity." There does not appear, however, sufficient reason for departing from the ordinary meaning of the word, (c) namely, if thus, If Gilead i, iniquity (worthlessness), surely they have become vanity. The clause thus rendered may denote one of two things—either— (α) moral worthlessness followed by physical nothingness, that is, moral decay followed by physical—sin succeeded by suffering; or (β) progress in moral corruption. To the former exposition corresponds the comment of Kimchi, as follows: "’If Gilead began to work vanity (nothingness),’ for they began to do wickedness first, and they have been first carried into captivity. אךְ שׁ can connect itself with what precedes, so that its meaning is about Gilead which he has mentioned, and the sense would be repeated in different words. Or its sense shall be in connection with Gilgal. And although zakeph is on the word היו, all the accents of the inter. prefers do not follow after the accents of the points." Similarly Rashi: "If disaster and oppression come upon them (the Gileadites) they have caused it to themselves, for certainly they are worthlessness, and sacrifies bullocks to idols in Gilgal. The verb הָיוּ is a prophetic perfect implying the certainty of the prediction, as though already an accomplished fact." The exposition of Aben Ezra favors (β); thus: "If the Gileadites, before I sent prophets to them, were worthlessness, surely they have become vanity, that is, instead of being morally better, they have become worse." To this exposition we find a parallel in Jeremiah 2:5, "They have walked after vanity, and are become vain." They sacrifice bullocks in Gilgal. שְׁוָרים for שׁוֹמרים, like חֲוָחִים from חוֹחַ. The inhabitanta of Gilgal on the west were no better than the Gileadites on the east of Jordan; the whole kingdom, in fact, was overrun with idolatry. The sin of the people of Gilgal did not consist in the animals offered, but in the unlawfulness of the place of sacrifice. The punishment of both Gilgal and Gilead is denounced in the following part of the verse. Yea, their altars are as heaps in the furrows of the fields. Gilead signified" heap of witnesses," and Gilgal "heaping heap. The latter was mentioned in Hosea 4:15 and Hosea 9:15 as a notable center of idol-worship ("all their wickedness is in Gilgal") and retained, as we learn from the present passage, its notoriety for unlawful sacrifices, sacrifices customarily and continually offered (viz. iterative sense of Piel); the former was signalized in Hosea 6:8 as "a city of them that work iniquity," and "polluted with blood." The altars in both places are to be turned into stone-heaps; this is expressed by a play on words so frequent in Hebrew; at Gilead as well as Gilgal they are to become gallim, or heaps of stones, such as husbandmen gather off ploughed and leave in useless heaps for the greater convenience of removal, חֶלֶם (related to toll, a hill, that which is thrown up) is a furrow as formed by casting up or tearing into. The ruinous heaps of the altars implied, not only their destruction, but the desolation of the country. The altars would become dilapidated heaps, and the country depopulated. The Hebrew interpreters, however, connect with the heap-like altars the idea of number and conspicuousness: this they make prominent as indicating the gross idolatry of the people. Thus Rabbi: "Their altars are numerous as heaps in the furrows of the field. תי שי is the furrow of the plougher, called telem;" Aben Ezra: "כני is by way of figure, because they were numerous and conspicuous." Pococke combines with the idea of number that of ruinous heaps—"rude heaps of stones, in his sight; and such they should become, no one stone being left in order upon another." Kimchi’s comment on the verse is the following: "The children of Gilgal were neighbors to the land of Gilead, only the Jordan was between them; they learnt also their ways (doings), and began to serve idols like them, and to practice iniquity and vanity, and sacrificed oxen to strange gods in the place where they had raised an altar to Jehovah the blessed, and where they had set up the tabernacle at the first after they had passed over Jordan: there also they sacrificed oxen to their idols. Not enough that they made an altar in Gilgal to idols, but they also built outside the city altars many and conspicuous, like heaps of stones on the furrows of the field." Hosea 12:12, Hosea 12:13 And Jacob fled into the country of Syria, and Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he kept sheep. And by a prophet the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved. The connection of this verse with what precedes has been variously explained. The flight of Israel and his servitude are intended, according to Umbreit, "to bring out the double servitude of Israel—the first, the one which the people had to endure in their forefather; the second, the one which they had to endure themselves in Egypt." Cyril and Theodoret understand them to give prominence to Jacob’s zeal for the blessing of the birthright, and his obedience to the command of God and his parents. Pusey says, "Jacob chose poverty and servitude rather than marry an idolatress of Canaan. He knew not whence, except from God’s bounty and providence, he should have bread to eat or raiment to put on; with his staff alone he passed over Jordan. His voluntary poverty, bearing even unjust losses, and repaying the things which he never took, reproved their dishonest traffic; his trustfulness in God, their mistrust; his devotedness to God, their alienation from him and their devotion to idols." There may be an element of truth in each of these explanations, and an approximation to the true sense; but none of them tallies exactly with the context. There is a contrast between the flight of the lonely tribe-father across the Syrian desert, and the guidance of his posterity by a prophet of the Lord through the wilderness; Jacob’s servitude in Padan-aram with Israel’s redemption from the bondage of Egypt; the guarding of sheep by the patriarch with the Shepherd of Israel’s guardian-care of them by his prophet when he led them to Canaan. Thus the distress and affliction of Jacob are contrasted with the exaltation of his posterity. The great object of this contrast is to impress the people with the goodness of God to them in lifting them up out of the lowest condition, and to inspire them with gratitude to God for such unmerited elevation and with thankful yet humble acknowledgment of his mercy. Calvin’s explanation is at once correct and clear; it is the following: "Their father Jacob, who was he? what was his condition? He was a fugitive from his country. Even if he had always lived at home, his father was only a stranger in the land. But he was compelled to fit into Syria. And how splendidly did he live there? He was with his uncle, no doubt, but he was treated quite as meanly as any common slave: he served for a wife. And how did he serve? He was the man that tended the cattle." This, it may be observed, was the lowest and the meanest, the hardest and worst kind of servitude. In like manner Ewald directs attention to the wonderful care of Divine providence manifested to Jacob in his straits, in his flight to Syria, in his sojourn there as a shepherd, and also to Israel his posterity delivered out of Egypt by the hand of Moses an, I sustained in the wilderness so that one scarcely knows what to think of Israel who, without encountering such perils and distresses, and out of sheer delight in iniquity, so shamefully forsook their benefactor. Such is the substance of Ewald’s view, which presents one aspect of the ease, though he does not bring out so fully the fact of Israel’s elevation and the humble thankfulness that should be exhibited therefore. The exposition of the Hebrew commentators agrees in the main with what we have given. Rashi says, "Jacob fled to the field of Aram, etc; as a man who says, ’Let us return to the former narrative which we spoke of above;’ and he wrestles with the angel; and this further have I done unto him; as he was obliged to fly to the field of Aram ye know how I guarded him, and for a wife he kept sheep." "Ye ought to consider," says Aben Ezra, "that your father when he fled to Syria was poor, and so he says, ’And he will give me bread to eat’ (Genesis 28:20). And he served for a wife,’ and this is, ’Have I not served thee for Rachel?’ ’And for a wife he kept sheep ;’ and ’ f made him rich.’" The exposition of Kimchi is much fuller, and is as follows: "And they do not remember the goodness which I exercised with their father, when he fled from his brother Esau. Yea, when he was there it was necessary for him to serve Laban for a wife, that he should give him his daughter, and the service consisted in keeping his sheep, and so for the other daughter which he gave him he kept his sheep in like manner. And I am he that was with him and blessed him, so that he returned thence with fiches and substance. And further, I showed favor to his sons who descended into Egypt and were in bondage there; and I sent to them a prophet who brought them up out of Egypt with much substance, and he was Moses. The forty years they were in the wilderness they were guarded by means of a prophet whom I gave them, and they wanted nothing. But all these benefits they forget, and provoke me to anger by abominations and no-gods." Hosea 12:14 Ephraim provoked him to auger most bitterly: therefore shall he leave his blood upon him, and his reproach shall his Lord return unto him. Instead of humble thankfulness and due devotedness, Ephraim provoked him to anger most bitterly. Therefore his blood-guiltiness and consequent punishment are left upon him; his sin and its consequences are not taken away. The dishonor done to God by Ephraim’s idolatry and sins shall bring back a sure recompense and severe retribution. Hosea 12:1-6 Reproof, retrospect, and exhortation. Ephraim is reproved for the pursuit of empty and vain courses, and courses detrimental to their best and real interests. Judah is included in the threatening which follows. They are exhorted to follow the example of the patriarch which is proposed for their imitation, with implied promise of similar success. The unchangeableness of God, who not only accepted Jacob, but blessed and prospered him, is held out to the descendants of Jacob as a guarantee of like blessings in case of their turning to God and bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. I. THE NATURAL OF THE HEART TO GOD. This feature of the natural heart is patent in the case of Ephraim. The people of the northern kingdom spared neither pains nor expense to obtain human help rather than seek help from God. 1. We notice the expensive nature of their proceeding. They made a covenant with the Assyrians, and that was an expensive compact; for Menahem King of Israel had to pay Pul the Assyrian monarch a thousand talents of silver for the desired help, and Hoshea became tributary to Shalmaneser, and gave him costly presents; while the national exchequer was drained in another direction, valuable exports of oil being sent into Egypt. 2. The energetic pursuit of their purpose. They are represented as "following after," and "daily increasing." They imposed more toil on themselves to get away from God than they would have required to turn to God. They had "no less pains by going out of God’s way than if they had kept in it; but God’s way, as it is undoubtedly the surest, so in many respects it is even the easiest, course." 3. The empty consequences of this course. Their hopes were doomed to bitterest disappointment, and their human helps proved hurtful in the extreme. The presents which they had lavished on the Egyptians had no other effect than to compromise them with the Assyrians; while the issue was the imprisonment of this prince and the captivity of the people. So is it still; men’s carnal confidences deceive them, like wind which may fill but cannot feed them; and not only deceive, but draw down on them greater calamities than those they hoped to escape from. Thus they prove not only profitless as the wind but pernicious as the east wind. The outcome of all is not only lying vanities but desolation. II. THE OF GOD’S OWN PEOPLE, HOWEVER PARTIAL AND , IS JUSTLY . God does not connive at sin in his saints that serve him, any more than in sinners that have never sought him; neither do men’s ordinary good deeds atone for their occasional misdeeds. Sin in the people of God is sure to bring chastisement in some form. At first sight it might seem strange, or even contradictory, that the Lord should have a controversy with Judah, of whom it had been asserted a few verses before that "Judah yet ruleth with God, and is faithful with the saints." But a ready and right solution of the apparent difficulty is found in those striking statements of the Apocalypse, in which God, after bestowing deserved commendation on certain Churches for this or that course of conduct, immediately adds, "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee." Their goodness, of whatever kind it was, did not cause their ill deserts to be overlooked. "Some there are," says an old writer," who, if there be any evil in men, can see no good in them; this is wicked, But there are others that, if there be any good in them, can see no evil; this is too much indulgence. They err in both extremes." III. THE OF THE DIVINE . 1. It is not a little strange how men sometimes try to screen themselves by the sins of others, or to palliate their wrongdoing by the yet greater wrong-doing of others. It might have been so with Ephraim; they might have pleaded the sins of Judah in extenuation of their own, or even charged the Most High with uneven dealing with them in punishing their sin, when Judah’s sins were condoned. They might have said, "We are not so very much worse than Judah; there are sins in Judah as well as in Israel; why, then, should Judah escape?" So with many still; they are ready to say, "We are not worse than others; we have our faults, so have our neighbors; if we deserve punishment, so do others as well." God shows us that his ways are equal, that he will not punish Ephraim and allow Judah to escape, but that he will render to every man as his works shall be. 2. But their plea might be easily turned against them to their great discomfiture. If Judah is admittedly superior to Israel, and retains the true worship of Jehovah though with certain drawbacks, and if Israel has renounced that worship, and is in other matters in a worse ease, might it not be asked in words similar to a New Testament Scripture, If even with Judah God has a controversy, how can Israel expect to escape? "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" 3. Though every sin deserves the severest judgment, being an infinite offence against the infinitely Holy One, yet he proportions his chastisements to the degree and aggravation of each offence, and the obstinacy of the offender. IV. THREE OUT OF THE LIFE OF JACOB AND THEIR LESSONS, These histories record the three great struggles of the patriarch’s life. 1. His birth, when he takes his brother by the heel, gives evidence of a Divine instinct or a divinely directed inclination to struggle for the birthright and its blessings. (1) The first lesson taught us in the Scripture record of Jacob’s birth (Genesis 25:22, Genesis 25:26) is the electing love of God, or that gracious favor which God is pleased to extend to men, and that without respect to their works of merit or deserts of any kind. Not only are the People of God chosen by him from eternity, as we read," He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world," and consequently before they have done either good or evil, but sometimes they are made partakers of his sanctifying grace from the womb; thus we read of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5), "Before I sowed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou earnest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee;" so also of John the Baptist (Luke 1:44), "Lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy." (2) Jacob’s struggle to anticipate Esau in being the firstborn, and so to secure the birthright and its blessing, presaged the high spiritual position to which in the purpose of God he was to attain. Even the unsuccess of the effort does not lead Jacob to relax his efforts or relinquish his object, till grace compensated his natural disadvantage and crowned his persistent struggling with success. (3) The posterity of the patriarch are here taught not to fall back on, and boast of, the dignity and privileges of their ancestor, but to bestir themselves as he had done to secure spiritual blessings. (4) When God bestows grace in any it furnishes abundant cause of thanksgiving, but especially is this the case when that grace is granted in early life, so as to prevent those youthful follies and lusts that war against the soul, and which, in the case of those afterwards converted, often make them to posses the iniquities of their youth and embitter all their after-years. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The first eight verses of this chapter form the premises from which the prophet, in the ninth verse, draws the conclusion that the conduct of Israel had been suicidal; that they had brought on themselves the calamities which they had experienced, and ultimately the ruin in which those calamities eventuated. The various particulars of their sin are enumerated, with the provocation caused or the punishment incurred by each. Thus the idolatry of Baal stripped them of the authority they once possessed, and issued in the dissolution of their state. After they had been to some small extent reclaimed from this national sin, and had somewhat retrieved their position, their perseverance in the calf-worship and the progress of their idolatrous practices provoked Jehovah so grievously as to threaten their sudden and entire destruction. Then their gross ingratitude to God for his great goodness and long-continued mercies, followed by pride and haughtiness and forgetfulness of the Most High, brought down on their guilty heads fearful vengeance. All these circumstances justify the conclusion to which he comes, that while God had been their Helper and Deliverer all along, they were chargeable with their own destruction. Hosea 13:1 When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel. This rendering of the Authorized Version (1) is supported by the Syriac, which is: "When Ephraim spake trembling, then he was, and was great in Israel." Rashi has a similar rendering of the word retheth, which is an ἅπαξλεγόμενον, and causes the diversity of translation in this clause; but his exposition of the whole sentence is vague and unsatisfactory. Referring it to Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim, he explains as follows: "When Jeroboam, zealous for God, spoke against Solomon hard words, and with terror, Solomon was a great king." Pococke’s exposition is in harmony with the Authorized Version, and is the following: "When Ephraim spake with fear and trembling (like his forefather Jacob, in his humble supplication to God), he exalted himself in Israel." But (2) the rendering adopted by most moderns, is decidedly preferable, as agreeing better with the context, and much more in bar-runny with tribal characteristics of Ephraim, as intimated in this very book, and exhibited elsewhere. The translation we thus prefer is: "When Ephraim spake, there was trembling; he, even he, exalted himself in Israel." Such was the fear inspired, and the deference paid to the authority of that powerful tribe. The word reheth, though not found elsewhere, has a cognate root in Aramaic, with the meaning here assigned to it; for רתת is to fear, shudder, tremble; there is also, in Jeremiah 49:24, the word רֶטֶט, equivalent to "fear," similar in both sense and sound. The Chaldee supports this rendering; its paraphrase is: "When one of the house of Ephraim spake, trembling seized the peoples." Also Aben Ezra and Kimchi. The former’s brief comment is: "Before his speaking the peoples were afraid; and the word ־תת has no analogue except in the Aramaic." Kimchi’s explanation is, "From the beginning, before Ephraim sinned, the fear of him was great over the peoples who surrounded him; for when he spake, fear and trembling were wont to seize him who heard him; and he was great and strong among the tribes of Israel, as it was said of him, ’ And his seed shall be a multitude of nations.’" (3) The LXX. renders reheth by δικαιώματα, thus:" According to the word of Ephraim, be adopted ordinances for himself in Israel," that is, when Ephraim spoke, the rest of the Israelites assented to his ordinances and rights, reverencing his authority, so that the general sense differs little from the Chaldee. (4) Rosenmüller constructs and explains differently; his exposition runs somehow thus: "When Ephraim spake, instituting that horrible worship of the calves, he himself bore the sin of that horrible dictum, i.e. was guilty of, and bore its punishment." This explanation of נשא is farfetched and unnatural. We have no hesitation in preferring "lifted up," i.e. his head, or exalted himself, for, though it is usually the Hithp. that is employed in this sense, examples also occur in which Qal is so used, for example Psalms 89:10 and Nahum 1:5. Kimchi supplies rosho. We adhere, therefore, to the rendering and exposition of (2). But when he offended in Baal, he died. This was not merely the calf-worship which, for political reasons, Jeroboam instituted and his successors retained, but the worship of Baal for which, no doubt, the calf-worship had prepared the way, and which had been introduced by Ahab at the instigation of his Sidonian queen. And though the people were partially and temporarily reformed through the efforts of Elijah the prophet and by the royal authority of Jehu, son of Nimshi, the evil was not eradicated, but frequently broke out again. The exaltation of Ephraim was not so much his distinction among his brethren as the governmental predominance at which that tribe ever aimed. That elevation, however, was soon followed by religious declension, culminating in the idolatry of Baal, which soon sealed the doom of the northern kingdom, thenceforth given up to destruction. The sentence of death was pronounced, and the actual dying commenced with the introduction of idolatrous worship. Thus, correctly, Kimchi: "He lifted up his head in Israel. And after he offended in Baal he died, as if he said, he was beaten before his enemies, as if he were dead, the power of his hand had departed." Hosea 13:2 And now they sin more and more (margin, add to sin), and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen. This part of the verse declares their persistent adherence to idolatry. The note of time, "and now," marks the transition from the past period, when Baal-worship had been introduced by Ahab and subsequently overturned by Jehu, to the prophet’s own day. Not content with the calves of Jeroboam and the worship of Baal, they added new superstitions and new hideous objects of worship. מַסֵּכָה, a molten image, like the molten calf of Aaron, is singular, but used collectively, so as to correspond with עֲעַבִּים, idols, which is plural. The reference here is, (1) not to the calves or to Baal, but to various other idols which they had adopted, as at Gilgal and Beersheba (Amos 8:14). Or, (2) not content with the calves, they introduced gods of their own as their penates. The material out of which these molten images were manufactured was silver. Kimchi, however, gives a curious explanation in proof that the material was gold: "The calves," he says, "were not silver, but he means to say that, of the silver which they each one gave to procure gold to make the calves, they made for themselves idols according to their understanding; and these were the calves." The manner in which they made these idols was (1) in their understanding, that is, in their understanding, such as it was, so stupidly employed in such sensuous work, or their proficiency in the art of graving. Kimchi explains it somewhat differently: "The explanation of בתבונם is, ’As if they had carefully reflected on the matter what form they should give it, and then had agreed to make a calf, as they did in the wilderness.’" The reading of the word בתי is disputed, but without sufficient ground. No doubt the Septuagint, which is followed by the Chaldee, Arabic, and Jerome, probably read כִּתְבוּנַת, rad בנה, to build, like תַּבְנִית, figure, or כִּתְמוּנַת; for they translate (2) according to the likeness or fashion of idols; while some manuscripts of Kennicott and De Rossi present (3) the reading כִּבְבוּנַם, according to their understanding, their own peculiar notions or fancy, and not as Moses, who made everything after the pattern showed him in the mount. The full form would be בִּתְבוּנֶתָם, but the feminine form is shortened before the suffix, like מִדָּה for מִדָתָה (Job 11:9); and פִנָהּ for פִּנָתָתּ (Proverbs 7:8); צוּרָם for צוּרָתָם (Psalms 49:15). Some suppose it from a masculine form, תְּבוּן, of the same meaning. The defect of this man-made god is expressed by its being all of it the work of the craftsmen, without any element of sense, spirit, or divinity in it. On which Kimchi has well observed: "The whole calf is the work of the hands of the craftsman; there is nothing spiritual in it; as he says, ’There is no breath at all in the midst of it’ (Habakkuk 2:19)." They say of them, Let the men that sacrifice (margin, the sacrificers of men) kiss the calves. The best explanation of this difficult clause is, in our opinion, (1) that of Keil. His translation, though slightly different from that of the Authorized Version, has the same general import; thus: "Of them (the ‛atsabbim, idols) they say, viz. ’the sacrificers from among men’ equivalent to ’the men who sacrifice,’ Let them worship calves. By the apposition zobheche ’adam, and the fact that the object ‛agalim is placed first, so that it stands in immediate contrast to ’adam, the absurdity of men kissing calves, i.e. worshipping them with kisses (see at 1 Kings 19:18), is painted, as it were, before the eyes." As parallel to zobheche ’adam, comp. evyone ’adam (Isaiah 29:19). Several eminent modern commentators give the same or a similar explanation, with the exception that, instead of translating לָהֶם, "of them," i.e. the idols, as Keil does. They translate it "to them," i.e. the idol-worshippers. Kimchi in the main favors this explanation; he says, "On their account (i.e. on account of the calves) the priests of the calf say to the people who come to offer sacrifice: by the זי אי he means: whoever of the children of men that wish to offer, ’Let them kiss the calves on their mouth; for their worship shall not be perfect until they shall kiss them,’ for so was their custom." But (2) many of the older interpreters among the Hebrews, as also Jerome, Cyril, and Theodoret among Christians, refer the expression to human sacrifices, thus: "Sacrificing men, they kiss, that is, adore, calves." The explanation according to this view, as given by Schmid, is to the following purport: "To these who now worship many idols, and among them Moloch, to whom they even sacrifice men, those the fathers of such as only worshipped the calves or Baal, would say, if they were alive, ’Let those who sacrifice men give over such cruel sacrifice, and rather kiss calves as we did.’" Rashi’s comment is: "The idol priests say to Israel, ’He that sacrifices his son to idols is worthy to kiss the calf, for he has presented to him a pleasant gift.’ So have our rabbins in (the tract) Sanhedrin explained, and it suits the text of Scripture bettor than the translation of Jonathan;" while that of Aben Ezra is as follows: "To them say the sons of men, in order to mock them [kiss the calves], because they kiss Baalim which are the images of calves, as ’And every month that has not kissed trim’ (1 Kings 19:17), while they shed innocent blood, and this is, ’ And his blood shall he leave upon him’ (Hosea 12:1-14:15). And lo! he has reversed the manner of’ every man, for man kisses man who is his fellow, and slays calves for his food." The method of kissing the hand in worship is attested by the derivation of the word adore, from ad and os; while in Job 31:27 we read of homage thus rendered: "Or my mouth hath kissed my hand: this also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge." The Septuagint, (3, as if reading זִבְהוּ for zobheche, and ישקטין, instead of ישקון, translate by, "They say, ’Sacrifice (θύσατε) men, for the calves have come to an end’ [or, ’failed,’ ἐκλελοίπασι]." "Thus," says Jerome, in explanation, "is shown the greed of demons, who are nourished on the blood of victims, that, when victims raft, they desire men to be sacrificed to them." Hosea 13:3 Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind cut of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. The illative particle with which the verse begins has reference to the sins of Israel, so great and multiplied that punishment could not be long delayed. Their irrational and God-dishonoring conduct was bringing on them sure and swift destruction. The prophet employs four figures to exhibit their political extinction. Two of these, the morning cloud and early dew, or rather the dew early passing away, have already been employed by him to characterize the transient nature of Israel’s goodness; here they denote the evanescent nature of their national existence. The other two are the chaff and the smoke; the former whirled away by the storm-wind from the threshing-floor, the latter dissipated and speedily vanishing as soon as it escapes from the chimney or lattice. Such shall be the utter extermination of Israel. The senselessness of their idolatry had been treated with derision in the preceding verse; the punishment of their sin is sternly denounced in this. Kimchi comments concisely and correctly thus: "Therefore they shall go to destruction, and shall be as the morning cloud, or as the dew speedily disappearing in the morning, width vanishes when the heat of the sun has touched it; so they shall go away speedily. So also shall they be as chaff—it is the fine particles of straw, which the wind whirls away from the threshing-floor; thus shall they be whirled away from their land. Or as a pillar of smoke which goes forth out of the lattice, which shall speedily disperse and cease." Instead of אֲרֻבָּה lattice, from ארב, to knit or twist, the Septuagint, according to Jerome, read אַרְבֶּה locusts, as may be inferred from their rendering ἀτμὶςἀπὸἀκρίδων in the Complete-Man edition of the LXX; erroneously written in some copies δακρύων, that is, vapor from locusts or from tears. Hosea 13:4, Hosea 13:5 These verses make it evident that the punishment inflicted on Israel could not reasonably be accounted too severe; such had been the goodness of Jehovah and the gross ingratitude of Israel. Hosea 13:4 Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt. The prophet here commences a recital of God’s favors to Israel from ancient times, all which they forgot, ungratefully and impiously turning aside from the worship of Jehovah. Jehovah had been Israel’s God long before, but never before had the evidence of his power and love to his people been so signal and conspicuous as at the period of the Exodus and onward. And thou shalt know no god but me. The use of תֵדָע in the imperfect is to connect the future with the past. It may be rendered either (1) "Thou knowest," viz. a God of such wonderful attestation thou knowest or findest not beside me—the opposite of the statement, "Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them" (Deuteronomy 13:3); or (2) "Thou shouldest not know or recognize any god beside me." So Kimchi: "Thou shouldest not know other gods, nor serve them beside me, for ye see there is no helper Beside me." Likewise Rashi: "Thou shouldest not rebel against me." Also Aben Ezra: "How hast thou turned to kiss the calf, which does not save nor satisfy, and hast left him who has been thy God from ancient days, who has helped thee and knows all thy necessities." The word זוּלָחִי (from זוּל, which, as the cognate Arabic signifies, "to go forth or away") is synonymous with בִּלְתִּי. Hosea 13:5 I did know thee in the wilderness. The pronoun at the beginning of the verse is emphatic: As for me; or, I it was that knew thee. The meaning of the sentiment is: I acknowledged thee with kindness, with paternal care and kind providence watching over thee. "Thou shouldest gratefully acknowledge me," is the comment of Kimchi, "because I knew thee in the wilderness, and cared for thy necessity in the wilderness, in which there were no means of livelihood." In the land of great drought. The root of the word תַּלְאוּבֹת is לאב, unused in Hebrew, but signifying, in Arabic, "to burn, dry, be dry," akin to לָחַב. Aben Ezra correctly explains it to be "a dry and thirsty laud, and so in the Arabic language; and (that it is so called) on account of all hardships being in it, is the allegorical explanation and not the literal sense." Instead of a lengthened enumeration of all God’s loving-kindnesses to Israel at the Exodus and during the desert wanderings, the prophet sums up all in the expressive, "the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt;" and "I it was that did know thee in the wilderness." It is as though he had said, "I pitied thee in the bondage and among the brick-kilns of Egypt; I brought thee forth with a strong hand and outstretched arm; I led thee through the wilderness; I relieved thee in thy straits; I gave thee bread from heaven to satisfy thy hunger, and water from the rock to quench thy thirst; I defended thee from enemies; nor did I relax my care till I gave thee the goodly laud of promise." Hosea 13:6 According to their pasture so were they filled. The literal rendering is, according to their pasturing so were they filled. The reference is rather to the care in pasturing than to the pasture-ground. By God’s care to the sheep of his pasture they waxed full. They were filled, and their heart was exalted. Two consequences followed from God’s great goodness to Israel—the immediate consequence was pride of heart; the more remote was forgetfulness of God. Perhaps these results should rather be regarded as concurrent, being in point of time simultaneous or nearly so. Therefore have they forgotten me. This forgetfulness of God is identified with the abandonment of his worship in the Chaldee Version, which is, "They have abandoned my service." The metaphor contained in this verse is taken from a domestic animal, which, in a too luxuriant pasture, becomes headstrong and unmanageable. Thus Rash: "As soon as they came into the land of their pasture, they were filled." The last clause of the verse notices the misuse which Israel made of the riches and blessing of Jehovah, by forgetting their gracious Benefactor; this the prophet attributes to the abuse of the blessings so richly bestowed upon them. Aben Ezra identifies the blessings here mentioned with those vouchsafed to them on their entrance into Canaan; thus: "The prophet enumerates the benefits which Jehovah bestowed on their fathers when they came out of the wilderness into the land of Canaan." Kimchi quotes, as a parallel to this passage, Deuteronomy 8:1-20; of which it is undoubtedly a reminiscence; he says, "When they entered into the place of their pasture, and it was the land of Canaan, they had all good, and were filled; and their heart was exalted, and they forgot me, as it is said in the Thorah that they were ready to do so. He said, ’Lest when thou hast eaten and art full … then thine heart be lifted up, and then forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt … who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness … who fed thee in the wilderness.’" Hosea 13:7, Hosea 13:8 These verses teach that the result of their sins is inevitable destruction, and that Jehovah, merciful and gracious though he is, has now divested himself of all compassion on them. The appropriateness of the terrible figures here employed arises from the fact that Israel had been compared in the previous verse to a flock fed and filled in a luxuriant pasture; the punishment of that flock is now fitly compared to "the tearing in pieces and devouring of that fattened flock by wild beasts." The beasts in question are a lion, a leopard, a bear, a lioness, and fierce wild beasts in general. Hosea 13:7 Therefore I will be unto them as a lion. The verb, וָאֱהִי is the future changed into the preterit or past tense by vav consecutive, and marks the consequence of forgetting God. So Aben Ezra: "The preterit in reference to the evils which Jehovah brought upon them." While the past thus implies that the punishment has commenced, the futures which follow denote its continuance. Rosenmller regards the preterit hero as prophetic and continuative, and paraphrases the meaning by, "I have at length become and have been, and shall continue to be to them." He considers the reference of the preterit to be to past disasters, especially the various defeats sustained by Israel at the hand of the Syrians (2 Kings 8:12; 2 Kings 10:32) and the Assyrians (2 Kings 15:29). He also very aptly compares Isaiah 63:7-10 in relation to the subject in hand. The Prophet Isaiah, after relating the loving-kindnesses of the Lord and his praises and his great goodness to the house of Israel on the one hand, and their rebellion and vexing his Holy Spirit on the other hand, adds, "Therefore he was turned to be their enemy, and he fought against them." As a leopard by the way will I observe them. The lion and the leopard are frequently conjoined, as animals of like natural ferocity, by the ancients both in sacred and secular writings. The outlook on the way is for the purpose of springing upon the passers-by. The word אשׁוּר is properly (1) the future of שוּר, to look around, and thence, to lie in wait; but (2) some, taking the initial aleph as radical and the word as participle of אָשַׁר, translate it by "trodden way," that is, away trodden and frequented by men and animals. The LXX. and Vulgate again, also Jerome, Hitzig, and Ewald, (3) translate it by" on the way of the Assyrians," either referring to the time when they would be led captive by the Assyrians or when they persisted in going thither to sue for aid. But the name of Assyria is always written אָשוּר, as Rashi rightly observes: "In every place where אשׁי occurs in Scripture (i.e. as a proper name) it has daghesh (i.e. in the shin); yet here it has raphe, [to show] that it is not the name of a place, but a verb: ’I observe and keep watch,’ as ’I shall observe him, but not nigh’ (Numbers 24:17)." Kimchi explains the verse as follows: "Because they have forgotten me, I also have rejected them, and have left them in the hand of the peoples; and have become to them like a lion or leopard, which observes the way, and is prepared to tear whatever passes by it on the way. Just so have I been to them, for I have caused their enemies to rule over them, and they have not had power to deliver themselves from their hand until they returned to me, and I took pity upon them." Hosea 13:8 I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart. The noun דֹב is epicene, that is, the one form serves for both genders, as here the masculine includes the feminine, and is used as such. Of all animals, Jerome says, the she-bear is the fiercest, either when robbed of her whelps or in want of food. Seghor being that which encloses the heart, is either the pericardium, the immediate and proper enclosure of the heart, or the breast itself. The reference is to a beast of prey which seizes its victim by the breast and tears it open, so that the heart is exposed. The verb פגש is akin to פגע, the meaning of the root-syllable פג, to meet, strike, being the same in both. Such is the continuation of the picture of the threatened punishment. The picture of the severity of the Divine judgment here presented is very terrible. Kimchi remarks on this picture: "A bear robbed, whose young ones they have slain, which is bereft and bitter in spirit, if it find man or beast rends it speedily." Some understand the verse figuratively, as though it meant "’I will rend their obstinate heart,’ the enclosure of the heart being equivalent to a shut or obstinate heart, as, in Hosea 13:5 of this same chapter, ’a land of drought’ is pretty much the same as ’a dry or parched land.’ Thus the Chaldee translates, ’I have broken the wickedness of their heart.’" And there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them. Sham there refers (1) to ‛al-derekh of the preceding verse; or, (2) as Kimchi explains it, as referring to their cities: "There in their cities shall I destroy them by pestilence and by the sword of the enemy, like the lion that teareth without pity;" or, (3) more simply still, "there on the spot." The שֵחִת, equivalent to אתָּה, is the wild beast as opposed to בִי, domestic animals. While some were to be destroyed by famine and pestilence, others would perish by the wild beast of the field. "Also," says Kimchi, "shall the wild beast of the field rend them outside (i.e. outside their cities), as, ’ I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number.’" Hosea 13:9 O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help. The literal rendering of this verse is, (1) It hath destroyed thee, O Israel, that thou hast been against me, against thy Help. The ellipsis is accounted for by the strong emotion of the speaker, שֵחִת is (a) the Piel third person, and has the suffix of the second person, from which the pronoun אתָּה may be supplied as subject of the concluding clause. The preposition be has here the meaning of "against," as in Genesis 16:12 and 2 Samuel 24:17, while בִי is in apposition to it. The Hebrew commentators take שי as a verbal form; thus Rashi: "Thou hast destroyed thyself, O Israel;" and Kimchi: (2) "The calf has destroyed thee which he had mentioned above; he says, ’This has destroyed thee; for unless this had been so, thy help had been in me.’" (b) The Septuagint and Jerome take שחחךְ as a noun, the former translating by τῆδιαφθορᾶ: "Who will aid thee in thy destructions" the latter by "Thy destruction, O Israel; but in me is thy help," the noun being of the form קֵטֵּר דִבֵּר. The explanation of Rashi, who understands (c) the verb as second person preterit Piel with suffix, is: "’Because thou hast acted unfaithfully against me, thou hast rebelled against thy help.’ The Scripture uses brevity, but he who understands the language of Scripture will recall to mind that כי בי is ’because against me is the rebellion with which thou hast rebelled. And if thou shouldst say, What does it concern thee? Against thy help hast thou rebelled when thou didst rebel against me.’" Kimchi remarks in the two beths servile that one of them would suffice, and that the sense might have been expressed by כי בי עזרךְ or כי אני בעזרךְ. All the disaster and destruction previously mentioned are charged on Israel’s misconduct; they had brought all upon themselves by their rebellion against Jehovah who would otherwise have been their Shield and Deliverer. The sense is well expressed by Calvin thus: "How comes it, and what is the reason, that I do not now help thee according to my usual manner? Thou hast indeed found me hitherto to be thy Deliverer … . How comes it now that I have cast thee away, that thou criest in vain, and that no one brings thee any help? How comes it that thou art thus forsaken, and receivest no relief whatever from my hand, as thou hast been wont to do? And doubtless I should never be wanting to thee, if thou wouldest allow me; but thou closest the door against me, and by thy wickedness spurnest my favor, so that it cannot come to thee. It then follows, that thou art now destroyed through thine own fault: (3) Something then hath destroyed thee." It will be observed that the rebellion against Jehovah here complained of is not that of all Israel, when they are said to have rejected Jehovah by asking a king of Samuel; but the defection of the ten tribes that cast off their allegiance to the house of David and made Jeroboam their king. Hosea 13:10-16 The concluding verse is at once a conclusion and commencement—an inference from what preceded, and the beginning of a second line of proof showing that, while their ruin was by themselves, their restoration would be by God. When the kings and princes whom they had sinfully sought, and who had been given to them in anger would fail, God himself would be their King, as is stated in Hosea 13:10 and Hosea 13:11. Further, when in consequence of their iniquities treasured up, their sorrows and sufferings would be extreme, as stated in Hosea 13:12 and Hosea 13:13, yet they would be raised up as out of their graves, as promised in Hosea 13:14. Hosea 13:10, Hosea 13:11 Israel had shown contempt for Jehovah by putting confidence in kings of their own choice, yet these kings could not afford them help, whence the questions of Hos 13:10. The usual rendering is at fault. I will be thy King. This should rather be, Where now is thy king? though ehi may be either verb or adverb. Where is any other that may says thee in all thy cities? Better take both clauses together and in connection, thus: Where, now, is thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities? (1) The word ehi we take, with Ewald, to be a dialectic variation for אֵיַּה, or shortened form אֵי, and this is strengthened by אֵפוֹא, equivalent to the Greek ποτε or Latin tandem, for sake of emphasis. The purpose for which the Israelites had asked a king was that he might "judge them and go out before them to fight their battles" (1 Samuel 8:20). The question, then, does not indicate the want of a king, or the prevalence of a state of anarchy, but that a crisis had come when such a king as they had requested should exhibit his prowess and display his power. It is as though the prophet asked, or rather God by his servant," Where is now the king that can defend the besieged cities, or deliver the attacked fortresses; and defeat the Assyrian foeman who is now threatening both? Or where are the judges (shophetim), or the princes (sarim), who constitute his cabinet or royal counselors sharing in the counsels of state, and administering the affairs of the kingdom under him?" The answer implied is that those visible helps, on which Israel had so confidently calculated, turned out valueless; the kingly constitution on which they had set their heart proved a failure, as far as help and deliverance were concerned. (2) Kimchi and others take אהי as first person future of the verb היה; thus: "I shall be established for ever, but where is thy king? Whereas thou didst reject my kingdom, and demanded a king who should save you; and it should be he that would save you in all your cities against which the enemies came." Hosea 13:11 I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath. The imperfects אחי and אקי here are correctly explained by Keil as denoting "an action that is repeated again and again, for which we should use the present; and refer to all the kings that the kingdom of the ten tribes had received and was receiving still, and to their removal." Hitzig calls it here the historical present. Jerome, Aben Ezra, and Kimchi refer the first clause to Saul as given in anger; and the second to Zedekiah as taken away in wrath. Hosea 13:12 The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid. This verse is in tended to remove all doubt about the punishment of sin, whatever interval may have elapsed. The day of reckoning would certainly come, for the sin of Ephraim was neither forgotten nor blotted out. As a miser puts his money in a bag and seals it to prevent it being lost, so the Almighty had, as it were, hoarded Ephraim’s sin, putting it in a bag and tying it. A parallel expression occurs in Job 14:17," My transgression is sealed up in a bag, and thou sewest up mine iniquity." Usually when men put money into a bag, purse, or treasure-house, they count it; so the sins of Ephraim were reckoned, laid up in the treasury of wrath, till the amount should be full and the day of reckoning arrive. The sinner himself is represented as treasuring up unto himself wrath against the day of wrath. Aben Ezra only remarks on the place where it is treasured: "It is bound up in my heart; I shall not forget it as they have forgotten me, as is written above" (verse 6, "They have forgotten me"). Hosea 13:13 The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him. The threatened punishment that is to overtake them is compared to the throes of a parturient woman, on account of their severity, as 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Their sinfulness, which stands in the way of their success, shall be succeeded by severe sufferings and many sorrows. But eventually these worldly sorrows shall, under Divine grace, issue in the godly sorrows of repentance: then, and not till then, shall a new and happier period of existence be ushered in. The sorrow of travail shall give place to the joy of birth Delay of confession and repentance defers that joy, prolongs the sufferings, and puts the life of both parent and child in peril, so far as their personality is identical. He is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. Here the unwisdom of Israel is accounted for: it is folly, sheer folly that postpones repentance, and delays efforts and aspirations after new spiritual life, The literal rendering of the last clause is— (1) For it is time, he should not tarry at the place of the breaking forth of children; or rather, (2) When it is time, he does not place himself at (literally, stand) or come forward to the opening of the womb; and some translate עֵתִ (3) "at the time," but that would rather require לְעֵת; it might, indeed, be duration of time, and Aben Ezra so renders it: "Therefore at the time he will not stand in the breaking forth of children." Also Wunsche: "He is an unwise son, for at the time he stands not in the breaking forth of children." It might be expressed, as in the Authorized Version, with a slight modification; thus: For otherwise he would not stand long time in the place of the breaking forth of children. The figure is now shifted from the mother to the child; such abrupt and sudden transitions are not infrequent in Scripture, especially in the Pauline Epistles (setup. e.g. 2 Corinthians 3:13-16). The danger is represented as extreme, as may be inferred from the similar expression, "The children are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth." A perilous period in Israel’s history is indicated, and to escape the danger he must make no tarrying, but advance at once into the new life of faith and repentance. Kimchi has the following comment: "Because he has compared his pains to the pain of a woman in travail, he says, ’The children are not wise,’ as if he said, ’The coming generations, who have seen their fathers in affliction because of their iniquities, are not wise, and do not consider that distress has overtaken their fathers because of their iniquity; and turn not from the evil deeds of their fathers, but have done wickedness like them.’" He adds: "There are children lively by nature in their coming forth out of the womb; so also would these, if they were wise, not stay a single hour in distress, but immediately On returning to the Lord be delivered out of their distress." The LXX. omit the negative and render מי by ἐνσυντριβῇ: "This wise son of thine [employed ironically] shall not stand [or, ’endure’] in the destruction of his children or people." Hosea 13:14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. God here promises them deliverance from utter ruin; the grave shall be thus deprived of his victim, and the victim rescued out of the tyrant grasp of death. פָדָה is to redeem by payment of a price; גאל by right of kinship; while שְׁאוֹל, the under world, is derived (1) by some from שָאַל, to ask or demand, and is favored by such statements as the following: "There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things say not, It is enough: the grave," and so on; "Who enlargeth his desire as well, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied." Others (2) derive it from שאל, equivalent to שעל (by a softening of the ayin into aleph), to be hollow; but this signification of the word is not satisfactorily established. A third (3) derivation is שׁוּל, to hang down loose or slack, then to be deep, or low, and so the noun comes to signify sinking, depth, abyss. O Death, I will be thy plagues; O Grave, I will be thy destruction. Thus אֶהִי is (a) incorrectly taken by some for the first person future of היה; it is (b) more properly taken in the sense of "where," as in Hosea 13:10 of the present chapter. בְבָרֶיךָ is plural, referred by some to דָבָר, hence δικηῆ, LXX.; it is, however, the plural of (c) דֶבֶר, pestilence, and קָטָבְךָ, pestilence, destruction, from קְטֹב, to cut off, akin to חטב. Hitzig says that קְבֹל קְטֹב, and קְטֹן are originally infinitives, and the last two designate instruments or members, and thus give a sort of support to the traditional κέντρον of the LXX. Now, this verse has been understood by some in the sense (1) of consolation; and by others (2) in that of combination. In the latter sense it is understood by the Hebrew commentators, and by not a few Christian interpreters. Thus Rashi: "I am he who redeemed them from the hand of Sheol, and delivered them from death; but now I will set myself to speak against thee words of death." Aben Ezra: "I redeemed thy fathers; now I shall be thy deadly pestilence; I will also be thy destruction." Kimehi is more diffuse, as usual; he explains thus: "I would have redeemed them from the power of Sheol, if they had been wise. But now that he is not wise, but a feel, and denies my goodness, it is not enough that I shall not redeem thee from death, but I shall bring upon thee death by pestilence, and by the sword, and by famine, and by evil beast." The condition supplied by Kimchi is entirely arbitrary and without anything in the context to suggest it. Calvin in like manner interjects a condition; thus: "I will redeem them from the power of the grave, I will redeem them from death; that is, except they resist, I will become willingly their Redeemer. Some have, therefore, rendered the passage in the subjunctive mood, ’From the hand of the grave I would redeem them, from death I would deliver them … . I will then redeem them, as far as this depends on me;’ for a condition is to be introduced, as though God came forth and declared that he was present to fulfill the office of a Redeemer. What, then, does stand in the way? Even the hardness of the people. He afterwards adds, ’I will be thy perdition, O Death; I will be thy excision, O Grave.’ By these words the prophet more distinctly sets forth the power of God, and magnificently extols it, lest men should think that there is no way open to him to save, when no hope according to the judgment of the flesh appears. Hence the prophet says, ’Though men are now dead, there is yet nothing to prevent God to quicken them. How so? For he is the ruin of death, and the excision of the grave;’ that is, ’Though death should swallow up all men, though the grave should consume them, yet God is superior to both death and the grave, for he can slay death, for he can abolish the grave.’ He afterwards proceeds to "answer to that which is said of Paul quoting this passage. The solution is not difficult. The apostles do not avowedly at all times adduce passages which in their whole context apply to the subject they handle; but sometimes they allude to a word only, sometimes they apply a passage to a subject in the way of resemblance, and sometimes they bring forward passages as testimonies. When the apostles use the testimonies of Scripture, then the genuine and real truth must be sought out; but when they glance only at one word, there is no occasion to make any anxious inquiry; and when they quote any passage of Scripture in the way of resemblance, it is a too scrupulous anxiety to seek out how all the parts agree. But it is quite evident that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58; has not quoted the testimony of the prophet for the purpose of confirming the doctrine el which he speaks. What then? As the resurrection of the flesh was a truth very difficult to be believed, nay, wholly contrary to the judgment of nature, Paul says that it is no matter of wonder...because it is the peculiar prerogative of God to be the perdition of death and the destruction of the grave.... He is endued with that incomprehensible power by which he can raise us from a state of putrefaction; nay, since he created the world from nothing, he will also raise us up from the grave, for he is the death of death, the grave of the grave, the ruin of ruin, and the destruction of destruction; and the simple object of Paul is to extol by these striking words that incredible power of God, which is beyond the reach of human understanding." Others viewing the subject in the same light, read the clauses interrogatively, and the imperfects in a subjunctive sense; thus— "From the power of Sheol should I ransom them? From death deliver them?’ The answer being, "Certainly not." "Where are thy pestilences. O Death? Where is thy destruction, O Sheol? Let those pestilences and that destruction be produced for Ephraim’s ruin." Repentance (relenting) shall be hid from mine eyes. This Rashi explains: "I will feel no regret over this calamity." But we greatly prefer the sense of consolation assigned by many Christian interpreters to the passage. No doubt the verse before and that following this fourteenth verse are a threat which probably induced so many, as we have seen, to include this verse in the menace. But the abruptness of the prophet’s style sufficiently accounts for a bright Messianic promise to relieve the gloom of the dark predictions among which it is interjected. Redemption from the power of Sheol signifies, not merely deliverance from danger and deliverance from death, but deliverance from the under world by rescuing the living from the region of the dead, or rescuing from the realm of death those already subject to his grim dominion; while the destruction of death is celebrated in words of triumph, as Theodoret says, "He gives command to sing a paean over [literally, ’against’] death." To the Israelites the promise signified the power of the Lord to redeem from death and restore them from destruction to newness of life, just as the dead dry bones of Israel in the valley of Ezekiel’s vision are restored to life. The use which Paul makes of this verse when he couples it with the words of Isaiah, "Death is swallowed up in victory," in 1 Corinthians 15:55, is to confirm the full and final annihilation of death at the resurrection. This fuller and deeper meaning, dimly unfolded to Old Testament saints, was clearly brought to light in New Testament Scripture. The absence of repentance denotes the irrevocable accomplishment of the Divine purpose of salvation. Pussy has pertinently remarked upon this verse: "God by his prophets mingles promises of mercy in the midst of his threats of punishment. His mercy overflows the bounds of the occasion upon which he makes it known. He had sentenced Ephraim to temporal destruction. This was unchangeable. He points to that which turns all temporal loss into gain, that eternal redemption. The words are the fullest which could have been chosen. The word rendered ’ransom’ signifies rescued them by the payment of a price; the word rendered ’redeem’ relates to one who, as the nearest of kin, had the right to acquire anything as his own by paying that price. Both words, in their exactest sense, describe what Jesus did, buying us with a price … and becoming our near kinsman by his incarnation … . The words refuse to be tied down to a temporal deliverance. A little longer continuance in Canaan is not a redemption from the power of the grave; nor was Ephraim so delivered." Hosea 13:15 Though he be fruitful among his brethren. It should rather be, for he bear fruit among brethren. כִּי, in this verse, is neither a particle of time, "when," nor a conditional particle, "if," but "for," adducing "a reason to prove that the promised grace of redemption would certainly stand firm." Ki is distinguished from אִם by being "only used in cases where a circumstance is assumed to be real For one that is merely supposed to be pebble, אִם is required," as may be inferred from the interchange of the two words in Numbers 5:19 and Numbers 5:20. The name Ephraim, signifying "double-fruitfulness," shall be verified, confirming the promised redemption from death, and, by the pledge of blessing, which the name implies affording a guarantee that the coming storm would not quite overwhelm them. The play on the name Ephraim fixes the meaning of יַפְרִיא, the aleph taking the place of he. The Septuagint διαστελεῖ, equivalent to "shall cause a division," and Jerome’s divider, suppose יַפְרִיד or יַפְלִיא. But though fruitful among the other tribes, yet the abuse of that fruitfulness invited the instrument of destruction. There is an allusion to the patriarchal blessing, "Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well;" the source of his fruitfulness was that well or fountain; while the drying up of it would be the certain cause of barrenness. An east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness. Thus, while Ephraim presents the pleasing picture of a fair and fruitful tree, the element of destruction is already on the way. A wind, the east wind, with its rude vehemence, blighting heat, and desolating effect, was coming. It was a wind, not coming by chance, but commissioned by Jehovah as a minister of vengeance to execute his wrath. It was, moreover, a wind issuing forth from its home in the desert, and fraught with fiery heat from the scorching sands of the Arabian desert. And his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up. This flourishing tree, planted by the living spring, to which it owed its vigor and verdure, was doomed soon to wither in consequence of the drying up of the waters, that nourished it, by the east wind. He shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels. Here the figure merges in the fact. The Assyrian conqueror was the blustering east wind, that swept like a whirlwind with his armies from the east. He not only ravaged the country, but rifled the treasures of the capital The keli chemdah included all the valuables and treasures of Samaria referred to in the following verse. Kimchi explains the verse as follows: "For Ephraim was fruitful among brethren as long as he did not make calves. He became increasingly great and fruitful among his brethren, as Jacob said of him.... And now that he has sinned, an east wind of the Lord shall come; and it is the King of Assyria that is meant. And he compares him to the east wind, because it is a wind from the east, for the land of Assyria lies to the east of the land of Israel; and further he says, ’east wind,’ because it is a violent wind. And he says, ’wind of Jehovah,’ to magnify the wind and emphasize it; and he says also, ’spirit of Jehovah,’ because Jehovah the blessed stirred up his spirit (i.e. spirit of the King of Assyria) to come against Israel, ’goeth up from the wilderness;’ wind is always in the wilderness. Or the explanation is, because the wilderness is between the land of Israel and the land of Assyria; and before this wind, which is the King of Assyria, is dried up the fountain of Ephraim, which was at first like a tree flourishing by the waters." And now before this wind shall its spring become dry and its fountain dried up. The verb יֵבוֹשׁ, as from בּוֹשׁ, is an irregular formation for הוֹבִישׁ, as on the contrary we find the Hiph. הוֹבִישׁ, as if from יָבֵשׁ. Hosea 13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God. Others translate shall atone, i.e. bear guilt or punishment. In the latter sense it is from אָשֵם, to atone or suffer the punishment of contracted guilt; in the former sense it is from שָׁמְם, and it is translated accordingly by ἀφανισθηδεταῖ in the LXX; and pereat by Jerome; so also Aben Ezra: "It shall be laid waste;" Kimchi: "The aleph has seh’wa alone, and the signification ’desolation,’ and so the dwellers therein shall be made desolate." He thus intimates that aleph, having sch’wa alone without seghol, does not belong to the root, which is not אשם (for its future would be תֶּאֱשׁם), but שָׁמַם. Rashi, however, understands it in the sense of "atone," or "find out her guiltiness;" he says, "From now will her guilt manifest itself." The reason of Samaria being thus mentioned is not only that it was the capital of the northern kingdom, but, as Kimchi says, "it confirmed Israel in the worship of the calves; for if the kings had been good, they would have brought back Israel to what was good." The ki assigns the reason of Samaria’s desolation or guilt; it was rebellion against Jehovah, for Samaria was the seat and center of idolatry, and hence it spread throughout the land. They shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. The destruction thus described was to be complete. The present population would perish by the sword; the future progeny would be extinguished and all posterity cut off. Not only the children already born, but those unborn, were devoted to destruction; and all this in the most savage and barbarous manner. The word עוֹלֵל presents childhood on the side of playfulness or petulance. The pronominal suffix attached to הרי refers to the city; and the feminine noun itself, forming subject to verbs in the masculine, arises from the fact that the feminine of the imperfect plural becomes rarer; or because the feminine plural only gradually distinguishes itself by a peculiar form from the masculine. The cruelties here specified may have been occasioned by those of the same kind with which Menahem King of Samaria smote Tiphsah. On that occasion "all the women therein that were with child he ripped up" (compare, for the cruel practice, ’Iliad,’ 6.58; ,2 Kings 8:12 and 2 Kings 15:16). Hosea 13:1-8 Justification of the ways of God to man. Israel had been the cause of their own calamities—another proof that sin is the procuring cause of all human suffering and sorrow. God’s character is seen to be everlastingly the same—long-suffering and merciful, ever gracious to penitents, abounding in goodness and truth to all, but by no means clearing the guilty. I. THE SECRET OF SUCCESS. Most men are fond of power, all men value prosperity; yet few men know the right road, and fewer still pursue it. Righteousness is the right road to success of any kind, and the sure way of elevation; it exalts either nation or individual who practices it. 1. As long as Ephraim worshipped the true God and abstained from idolatry, which subsequently became their besetting sin, they had power and pre-eminence. When they spake, their word was with power and not infrequently inspired terror; it was sure to come with authority and to command respect among the other tribes of Israel. Ephraim had long been the premier tribe, enjoying the credit of great names, Joshua and Samuel; and of great deeds, the defeat of Midian and the death of the two Midianite princes, Oreb and Zeeb; also of great privileges, the national sanctuary having been for three centuries and a half at Shiloh, within the confines of that tribe. Nor were they slow to assert themselves and advance their claims. 2. But the tide turned. They offended in Baal; then came national degradation and political death—they fell by their own hand as moral suicides. Sin brought Ephraim down from his high and exalted position, and laid his honor in the dust. He became like a dead man, despoiled of his authority, deprived of many of his subjects, and on the verge of ruin; his activities and vigor gone and his dignity departed, himself already dead though not yet buried. "When Ephraim forsook God and took to worship images, the state received its death-wound, and was never good for anything after. Note: deserting God is the death of any person or persons." II. SIN IS A SLOPE. The sin of idolatry was gradually developed in Israel. It began with the modification of the national worship by Jeroboam, when he changed the place and plan of that worship. When he had audaciously transferred the place of worship from Jerusalem to Dan on the Syrian frontier, and to Bethel on the border of the kingdom of Judah, in order to keep the people away from Jerusalem, the true place of worship and seat of the Davidic dynasty, he proceeded further to introduce the worship of the calves—a relapse, at least as to form, into the idolatry of Egypt. His design was not, indeed, the introduction of a new and rival deity, but the modeling of Jehovah’s worship under an external and symbolic form. The sin did not stop here; it progressed until, in the days of Ahab, the Phoenician deity Baal became an object of worship. It was bad enough to make a graven image or material representation of the true God and bow down to it, thus violating the second commandment and neglecting the solemn instruction that the worship of God must be spiritual, not material; but it was still worse to introduce other gods, as the Phoenician Baal, in direct violation of the first commandment of the Law, which requires the exclusive worship of Jehovah. Thus the sin of idolatry progressed in Israel. Nor is this all; along with the worship of Baal the idolatry of the calves, as we learn from this Scripture, still survived two hundred years after its introduction by Jeroboam. Thus they "grew worse and worse; coveted more idols, doted more upon those they had, and grew more ridiculous in the worship of them." Superstition is an expensive thing. Israel used much of the means God had them in making molten images. It is a whimsical thing; men follow their own fancies in carrying it out. It is an unspeakably stupid thing; that image which is man’s work, man’s wisdom, the product of man’s willfulness, becomes the object of man’s worship. It is, moreover, a debasing thing; the fervor of their worship is stimulated by an authoritative, perhaps a royal, edict, enjoining reverence and homage to the senseless image of a calf But whether the command proceeds from priests, or people, or prince, the kissing of the calves was in token of "the adoration of them, affection of them, and allegiance to them as theirs." It has been justly remarked by Pusey that "sin draws on sin. This seems to be a third stage in sin. First, under Jeroboam, was the worship of the calves. Then, under Ahab, the worship of Baal. Thirdly, the multiplying of other idols (2 Kings 17:9, 2 Kings 17:10), penetrating and pervading the private life, even of their less wealthy people." III. THE SHORT-LIVED STATE OF SINNERS. They have often the show of prosperity, but their prosperous state is short-lived. "I have seen," says the psalmist, "the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree" (or a green tree growing in its native soil). "Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but he could not be found." This truth is illustrated by four very striking similitudes. The morning cloud glowing in the early sunshine, assuming phantastic forms and displaying varying hues of beauty, often presents itself as a forerunner of the rain-shower to moisten the dry parched ground; but ere long it vanishes, and the cloudy morning ushers in a clear and rainless day. The early dew, with its pearly drops so bright and beautiful on the grass of a summer morning, which appears as if to promise sufficient moisture to the earth even in the absence of the long looked-for rain, is soon brushed aside by a passing foot, or coal rates before the day has far advanced. Both similitudes had already been employed by the prophet to exhibit the fleeting and transitory nature of Israel’s religious profession and the consequent disappointment to the Divine expectations, so they are used here in turn to represent the transient character of sinners’ prosperity and their disappointment from worldly things. The two other similitudes, though less pleasing, are equally powerful as representations of what is evanescent: the worthless chaff, which is whirled away in winnowing; and the offensive smoke, which, as has been pithily said, swelleth, welleth, and vanisheth—both soon dissipated and disappearing. "While these four emblems in common," says Pusey, "picture what is fleeting, two, the early dew and the morning cloud, are emblems of what is in itself good, but passing; the two others, the chaff and the smoke, are emblems of what is worthless. ’The dew and the cloud were temporary mercies on the part of God which should cease from them; good in themselves, but, to their evil, soon to pass away.’... Such dew were the many prophets vouchsafed to Israel; such was Hosea himself, most brilliant, but soon to pass away. The chaff was the people itself, to be carried out of the lord’s land; the smoke, "its pride and its errors, whose disappearance was to leave the air pure for the household of God." IV. SIN IS BASE TO GOD. 1. God assures Israel that, however far they had degenerated and fallen, however much they had changed, the change had been entirely on their side, not on his; as though he had said, "And I, even I," fur the pronoun is emphatic, "am still Jehovah, the same unchanging and unchangeable Being, the same in mightiness to succor, the same in willingness to help is also thy God, the same in covenant relation, the same in faithfulness to every promise, and the same in ability to fulfill the word he has pledged." 2. He pleads their past experience and the many proofs he had given them of his goodness; he appeals to them in regard to his treatment of the fathers and founders of their race, going back to the period of the Exodus, and thus gently hinting the covenant entered into at Sinai and reminding them of its conditions. In view of God’s faithfulness and their own faithlessness, of God’s goodness and their ingratitude, of his enduring mercies which they and their progenitors had experienced for centuries, and of the fitful and infrequent conformity of their conduct therewith, they must surely have hung their head in shame and cried out in the language of another prophet, "O Lord, righteousness belongeth unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day." 3. The law of reciprocity demands a return on the part of the people of God. He had made himself known to them by his Word and by his works, by his providences and by his prophets; he had made himself known to them as their fathers’ God, as their own God in a special relationship, acknowledging them as his peculiar people, he naturally claimed, not only their knowledge, but acknowledgment of himself. It was their bounden duty, in turn, to acquaint themselves with him, to know him to be their God and no other, to acknowledge him in his ineffable perfections, in his glorious attributes, and in the ordinances of his worship, and also to own allegiance to him alone. And if all this was a duty incumbent on Israel, surely it is a duty equally incumbent, yea, much more so, upon ourselves; while neglect of such duty on our part brands us with an ingratitude deeper, blacker, and baser than that of Ephraim when the prophet wrote. 4. He backs all with the assurance of his saving power, and assigns as a special reason for knowing and acknowledging God that there is no Savior besides him. Of this he had given abundant proof by the deliverances he had wrought and the provision he had made for them, as for their fathers before them, under the most trying circumstances, when they were in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. The very idea of God implies saving power on his part, and happiness in time and eternity for all who are his true Israel; and "as where we have protection we owe allegiance, so where we have salvation and hope for it we owe adoration." Now, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Such a Friend was God to Israel, an all-sufficient Friend; and just such a Friend is God to his people still. V. SIN, BY REASON OF CERTAIN , BECOMES MORE HEINOUS IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. This is the case specially when the good gifts of his providence are used to the dishonor of God and the neglect of his service. It was thus with Israel, when pride of heart and forgetfulness of God were the return they made him for all his goodness to themselves and their fathers during all the years that had been from their entrance into the land of promise. The Lord himself had been their Shepherd; he had tended them with greatest care, leading them in green pastures and by still waters. But "Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked." How often is this conduct of Israel repeated! Prosperity pampers pride, and pride makes men forget God, as if it were men’s necessities that kept them mindful of God. "It is sad that those favors which ought to make us mindful of God, and studious what we shall render to him, should make is unmindful of him, and regardless what we do against him. We ought to know that we live upon God, when we live upon common providence, though we do not, as Israel in the wilderness, live upon miracles." VI. SIN’S SAD SEQUEL. The sins of the people grew worse and became more aggravated; the Divine judgments are in proportion. In an early verse (third) of the chapter they are threatened with the evanescence of their prosperous condition, but something much worse and more alarming is predicted (verses 7, 8) as ready to follow. Not only was all good to be taken from them, but all evil was to come upon them. The Lord’s flock is to lose the Shepherd’s care; thus deserted, they will soon fall victims to savage beasts—nay, their former Shepherd not only abandons them to beasts of prey, but does himself assume the character and put forth the fierceness of such beasts. The ferocity of the lion, the fleetness of the leopard, and the fury of the robbed or ravenous she-bear, now represent the means which he employs against them. And as if it were not enough to specify the lion, the leopard, the bear, and the lion a second time, he adds "the wild beast," that is, wild beasts in general. It appears as if the dreadfulness of all wild beasts combined was required to exhibit the power of God’s wrath and the fury of his anger. If the sinner escaped from the lion, a leopard overtakes him; or if he escapes the vigilance of the leopard’s keen vision, a bear meets him; in a word, the fierceness of all wild beasts together is not equal to that of God’s wrath. "All the dreadfulness of ell creatures in the world combined meets in the wrath of God." A sorrowful contrast is here presented. God had once watched over them for good; now, leopard-like, he watches their wanderings, and with lynx-eyed vigilance waits as if to take advantage of them. On the other hand, their heart had been puffed up with pride, as well as hard and closed against the gentlest admonitions and most faithful instructions; now their heart shall be torn open with leonine force and violence. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Hosea 14:1 The foregoing part of this book abounds with denunciations of punishment; this closing chapter superabounds with promises of pardon. Wave after wave of threatened wrath had rolled over Israel and come in unto their soul; now offer after offer of grace is made to them. O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God. The invitation to return implies previous departure, or distance, or wandering from God. The return to which they are invited is expressed, not by אֶל, to or towards, but by ער, quite up to, or as far as right home; the penitent, therefore, is not merely to turn his mind or his face toward God, but to turn his face and his feet home to God; he is not to go half the way and then turn aside, or part of the way and then turn back, but the whole way; in other words, his repentance is to be complete and entire, wanting nothing, according to the state merit of the psalmist, "It is good for me to draw near to God." As punishment was threatened in case of obstinate impenitence, so mercy is promised on condition of thorough repentance. For thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. A reason is here assigned for the preceding invitation; kashalta is properly "thou hast stumbled," "made a false step," fallen, yet so that recovery was among future possibilities. The same thought may be included in the fact that Jehovah continues to call his erring people by the honored and honorable name of Israel, and to acknowledge himself their God. Further, many and grievous were the calamities into which by their fall they had been precipitated; neither were any to blame but themselves—their iniquity or their folly was the cause, nor was there any one to lift them up, now that they lay prostrate, save Jehovah. After referring to the desolation of Samaria and the ruthless destruction of its inhabitants, as portrayed in the last verse of the previous chapter, Jerome adds, "All Israel is invited to repentance, that he who has been debilitated, or has fallen headlong in his iniquities, may return to the physician and recover health, or that he who had fallen headlong may begin to stand." The penitent is to direct his thoughts to Jehovah; to him as Center he is attracted, and in him he finds his place of rest; nor is there ether means of recovery or source of help. Thus Kimchi says, "For thou seest that through thine iniquity thou hast fallen, therefore it behooves thee to return to Jehovah, as nothing besides can raise thee from thy fall but thy return to him." "There is none," says Aben Ezra, "can raise thee from thy fall but the Eternal alone." Hosea 14:2 Take with you words, and turn to the Lord. (1) Some render this clause. "Take with you [i.e. forget not, neglect not, but receive with obedient spirit] my words." This rendering is obviously erroneous. (2) The correct translation is that of the Authorized Version, and the words referred to are such as express prayer for pardon and confession of sin—the audible sound of the heart’s desires. There is an allusion, perhaps, to the requirement of the Law: "None shall appear before me empty." Not outward sacrifices, but words of confession, were the offering to be presented. Thus Cyril eloquently explains it: "Ye shall propitiate the Deity, not by making offerings of riches, not by dedicating gold, not by honoring him with silver vessels, not gladdening him by sacrifices of oxen, not by slaughtering of birds; but ye shall give him discourses and wish to praise the Lord of the universe, appeasing him." To the same purport is the exposition of Aben Ezra: "He desires not from you, when ye go to seek his favor, treasures or burnt offerings, only words with which ye are to confess;" so also Kimchi: "He does not require of you on your return to him silver or gold or offering, which the Israelites lavished at great expense on their idols, but good works with which ye are to confess your iniquities." Say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously. On turning to the Lord with their whole heart, not with their lips only, they are furnished with a form of sound words which God by his prophet puts into their mouth. Elsewhere a formula is prescribed, thus: "Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save thy people, the remnant of Israel" (Jeremiah 31:7); compare also Isaiah 48:20; Psalms 16:3; 1 Chronicles 16:35. The position of כָל before the verb creates a difficulty and causes diversity of rendering; for example, (1) besides the ordinary rendering, which takes kol as holding its peculiar position by an hypallage, there is a modification of it: "All take away of iniquity." (2) Some supply mem, and translate accordingly: "From all take away iniquity." Kimchi explains it as a transposition: "All iniquity forgive," and compares Ezekiel 39:11; or, understanding le, "Forgive to every one iniquity." The object of the separation may be for greater emphasis. In like manner, the following clause is also subject to diversity of translation and interpretation. There is (1) the rendering of the Authorized Version, which appears to supply le before tov: "Receive us for good," viz. in bonam partem, or graciously; or, "receive our prayer graciously." (2) Another rendering or exposition is: "Take what is good (of thine own to bestow it on us);" thus in the sixty-eighth psalm at the nineteenth verse God is said to receive gifts among men, i.e. for distribution among men, and hence the apostle, in Ephesians 4:8, substitutes ἔδωκε for ἔλαβε, and thus expresses the sense. The literal sense (3) is the correct sense, namely, "and receive good:" "And receive good," says Jerome, "for unless thou hadst borne away our evil things we could not possibly have any good thing to offer thee, according to that which is written, ’Cease from evil and do good.’" Thus also the words are translated and interpreted by Pusey: "When then Israel and, in him, the penitent soul, is taught to say, receive good, it can mean only the good which thou thyself hast given; as David says, ’ Of thine own we have given thee;’’ while he adds in a note on these words, "No one would have doubted that קי è means, ’receive good,’ as just before, קי די means ’take words,’ but for the seeming difficulty—What good had they?" So will we render the calves of our lips. This is more accurately rendered, (1) "So will we render young bullocks, even our lips." The word shillem, to render, or repay, is almost technical in its application to thank offer-tugs or sacrifices in fulfillment of a vow; the best animals for thank offerings were parm, or young oxen; but the lips, that is, the utterances of the lips, consisting of prayers or praises, or both, are to take the place of the animal sacrifices offered in thanksgiving. Thus the psalmist says, "I will praise the Name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving. This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs." (2) The Septuagint, reading פְרְי instead of פָרְים, renders by καρπὸνχείλεων, to which the inspired author of Hebrews alludes, "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks [margin, ’confessing’] to his Name;" or perhaps the reference in Hebrews is to Isaiah 57:19, "I create the fruit of the lips." Further, as words of confession in Isaiah 57:2 take the place of sacrifices of sin offerings, so here words of thanksgiving replace sacrifices of thanksgiving. Hosea 14:3 Asshur shall not save us: we will not ride upon horses: neither will we say any more to the work of our hands, Ye are our gods: for in thee the fatherless findeth mercy. This was the practical side of Israel’s repentance; this was bringing forth fruits meet for repentance. Here was a renunciation of all hope of safety from the world-powers—both Assyria and Egypt. They would never again have recourse to Assyria for help, nor to Egypt for horses; nor confide in their own unaided power or prowess; while this renunciation of worldly power and carnal confidences implied, as its opposite, unfaltering faith in the protecting power and saving strength of Jehovah. All thin was much, and yet more was required; next to such renunciation of merely human aid, as indicated, and its contrary, the recognition of Divine assistance, comes the absolute and complete abandonment of their national and besetting sin of idolatry. They have so far come to themselves and received the right use of reason as to confess that the manufacture of man’s hands cannot be man’s god, thus giving up with feelings of contempt and disgust the groveling sin of idolatry with its attendant vices. Still more, they are penetrated with the conviction that man without God is a poor fatherless creature, in no better, if not in a worse, condition than that of a weak orphan child. They have the consolation at the same time that for all such, on their return to him, the father of the fatherless and the God of the orphan has bowels of tenderest compassion. To the presumed prayer of the penitent an answer overflowing with mercy is promised at once, and by God himself in the next section, consisting of— Hosea 14:4-7 I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him. The penitential prayer put in the mouth of the people receives in this verse a gracious response; words of contrite confession are echoed back in accents of compassion and consolation. When thus penitent and prayerful they returned to the Lord, he promises them favor as well as forgiveness, so as to heal the moral malady under which they had long labored, remedy the evil effects of their apostasy, and withhold the stripes he was going to inflict. Meshubhatham means (1) their turning away from God and all included therein—defection, rebellion, idolatry, and other sins. The disease would be healed, and its consequences averted. (2) Some, however, understand the word, in a good sense, to mean "conversion ’ or "the converted," the abstract being put for the concrete; the blessing is thus promised them when they turned or returned to God. Thus the Syriac version. (3) The LXX. again, connecting meshubhah with yashav, to sit or dwell, render it by κατοικίαν, that is," I will heal their dwelling." There is little doubt that (1) is the correct translation, and it is generally accepted as such. They are next assured of God’s love, and that spontaneously (נְדָבָה, the preposition le understood) with ready willinghood and unfeignedly. God’s love is (a) free, anticipating its objects, not waiting to be merited or purchased, without money and without price; it is (b) also purest and most sincere affection, altogether unlike that feigned affection sometimes found among men, who profess much love while their heart goeth after their covetousness, or after some other and different object from that pretended. Then follows an assurance that there is no barrier to the exercise and no obstacle to the outgoing of God’s love; the turning away of God’s anger from Israel is the ground of such assurance. Some copies read mimmeni, my anger is turned away from me, instead of mimmena; this, however, is erroneous, though the sense is not much affected by it. The error may have arisen from a misunderstanding of Jer 2:35. Rashi explains the verse correctly: "After they have thus spoken before me: I will heal them of their apostasy, and love them of my own free will; although they themselves are not worthy of love, yet will I love them freely, for mine anger has turned away from them." Aben Ezra says. "Backsliding is in the soul what disease is in the body, therefore he uses the word ’heal.’ But God proceeds to perform what he has promised; he does not confine his goodness to words, he exhibits it in works, as the following verses show." I will be as the dew unto Israel. "The Jussive assumes different shades of meaning, varying with the situation or authority of the speaker … . Sometimes, from the circumstances of the case, the command becomes a permission: Hosea 14:6, ’I will be as the dew to Israel: let him flourish, וְיַךְ, and strike forth his roots as Lebanon’" (Driver). In lands where there is little rain, the dew, falling copiously, fertilizes the earth, refreshes the languid plants, revives the face of nature, and makes all things grow. Thus the dew becomes the source of fruitfulness. So God, by his Spirit’s grace, is the Source of Israel’s spiritual fruitfulness. He shall grow (margin, blossom) as the lily. This comparison suggests many qualities, any one of which may characterize, or all of which may combine in, the spiritual growth thus pictured. There is the purity of the lily, the beauty of the lily, the fecundity of the lily, the perfume of the lily, the rapidity of its growth, the stately slightness of its stem. We may combine the rapidity of its growth; its fecundity, with regard to which Pliny informs us that a single root produces fifty bulbs; its beauty, to which our Lord refers in contrast with the glory of Solomon. But its root is weak, and he, on that account perhaps, subjoins: And cast forth (margin, strike) his roots as Lebanon. Whether it mean that the roots are as the trees of Lebanon or the mountain of Lebanon itself, the thought expressed by this comparison is stability. "As the trees of Lebanon," says Jerome, "which strike their roots as far down into the depths as they lift their heads up into the air, so that they can be shaken by no storm, but by their stable massiveness maintain their position." His branches shall spread; margin, go; rather, go on. This feature in the representation denotes enlargement or expansion. The tender branches (suckers) spreading out in all directions very aptly set forth the multiplication of Israel or their growth and increase numerically. But branches straggling, crooked, and ill-shaped would rather be a blemish than a beauty. It is, therefore, added: His beauty shall be as the olive tree. The olive has been called the crown of the fruit trees of Palestine, but besides, its fruitage so plentiful and useful, the splendor of its green, and the enduring freshness of its foliage, make it a vivid picture of that beauty of holiness or spiritual graces which it is here employed to represent. There is still an additional element of interest pertaining to this goodly tree, namely, And his smell as Lebanon. This signifies the fragrance of this beautiful tree of righteousness. The smell of Lebanon is referred to in So Hosea 4:11, "And the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon." What with its cedars, and spices, and fruit, and flowers, and aromatic shrubs, and fragrant vines, Lebanon must perfume the air with the most delightful odors. Thus acceptable to God and pleasing to man shall Israel become. The commentators quote with commendation Rosenmller’s explanation of the individual features of this inimitable picture: "The rooting indicates stability; the spreading of the branches, propagation and the multitude of inhabitants; the splendor of the olive, beauty and glory, and that constant and lasting; the fragrance, hilarity and loveliness." The simile changes into the metaphor; Israel, from being likened to a tree, becomes the tree. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow (margin, blossom) as the vine: the scent (rather, renown) thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. There is some difficulty and consequent diversity of rendering and explanation in connection with this verse. If the tree be Israel in its collective or national capacity, the dwellers under its shadow are the members of the nation, separate]y and severally, flourishing under the widespread branches of this umbrageous tree. The word yashubhu is explained: (1) (a) return, i.e. betake themselves to his shadow, which is incongruous, for how could they be said to return to their own shadow or dwell securely under it? (b) return to their native land, so the Chaldee,—this is somewhat better; (c) return to the worship of Jehovah, said of Israelites who had abandoned it, not properly of Gentiles turning to that worship; (d) Rosenmüller, comparing Judges 15:19 and 1 Samuel 30:12, explains it in the sense of coming to themselves, reviving. (2) Keil constructs yashubhu adverbially by a common idiom with yechayyu, and (a) translates "shalt give life to come again," that is, "Those who sit beneath the shade of Israel, the tree that is bursting into leaf, will revive corn, cause it to return to life, or produce it for nourishment, satiety, and strengthening." Similarly the Vulgate, "sustain life by corn." This, however, must appear tame after the splendid promises that went before. (b) Vivify; i.e. produce seed like corn, and rejoice in a numerous offspring as from a seed of corn many proceed; according to this, "seed" (זֶרַע) must be supplied, and caph of comparison. The added clause agrees with this, for the flourishing of the vine also symbolizes prolific persons (comp. Psalms 128:3). Further, the vine does not always flourish, yet, not like the corn which after harvest ceases and is no more seen, its root remains, and next year grows green and yields its fruit anew. The fame of the wine of Lebanon is celebrated for its taste and fragrance. Kimchi cites Asaph, a physician, as writing that the wine of Lebanon, of Hermon, of Carmel, of the mountains of Israel and Jerusalem and Caphior, surpass all others in flavor, taste, and for medicinal purposes. Hosea 14:8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? This is full, final, and for over a renunciation of idolatry on the part of Israel. I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found. This is God’s promise, that his eye is fixed on Israel in order to look after him, care for him, and provide for him, and to protect and prosper him; while the figure of a green fir tree is the pledge of shelter and security. But, though the fir tree is evergreen, it is fruitless; and therefore it is added that God will prove the Source of fruitfulness, and supply all that his people shall or can ever need. Hosea 14:9 Who is wise, and he shall understand these things? prudent, and he shall know them? for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them: but the transgressors shall far therein. This verse demands attention to all the prophet has written, whether for warning, or reproof, or correction in righteousness, or encouragement to piety and virtue, and evidently alludes to Deuteronomy 32:4. The ways of the Lord are those he prescribes for them to walk in, as also the ways he takes in guiding, guarding, and governing men. Like the dictates of the Word, so the dispensations of his providence are to some the savor of life, to others the savor of death; therefore it is added that, while the righteous walk therein, the wicked stumble in them (comp. Deuteronomy 30:19, Deuteronomy 30:20). Hosea 14:1-3 The fallen invited to return. The history of Israel is the moral history of the world, at least in miniature. I. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. The history of Israel repeats itself in the history of mankind in general. Their history is the history of sin and of salvation, of ruin and of recovery, of the mercy of God and of the backsliding of man. Their bondage in Egypt represents the slavery of sin; their rescue out of the hand of the oppressor, our redemption; their sojourn in the wilderness, our strangership on earth; their entrance into Canaan, our admission into the better country, even the heavenly; their backsliding from time to time, our own wanderings of heart and life from the living God; their return to the path of obedience, our repentance. II. GOD’S TO RECEIVE THE . The reproofs for sin and threatenings of wrath scattered over the preceding chapters of this book now give place to invitations to repentance and promises of mercy. The former were a preparation for the latter. Not only so, even interspersed with reproofs for sin we find most gracious calls to repentance; alongside the threatenings of wrath are the most precious promises. It is in this way that God wounds in order to make whole; when he convinces us of sin, his object is to comfort us; when he brings to mind our sin, it is that he may lead us to the Savior; when he proves to us our ruin by sin, he is at pains to point us to the remedy and provide for our restoration; having warned us of our danger, he urges us to the discharge of duty. He deals with us as with Israel at the time to which the prophet refers, showing us our fall and how we are to rise again; he urges us to repentance, instructing us what to do and what to say, and encouraging us withal by God’s willingness to receive us on repentance. III. MAN’S FALL AND ITS CAUSE. In the passage before us the words apply in the first instance to Israel; they had stumbled, such being the meaning of the original word. Their stumbling-blocks were their idols; they had forgotten the living and true God; they had proved ungrateful for his benefits and unmindful of his favors. Despising the riches of his goodness and forbearance, they had lapsed into gross idolatry; they had sunk deep into that degrading sin, making molten images of their silver and idols according to their own understanding,—all of it the work of the craftsman. Their ingratitude for the Divine goodness made their iniquity still less excusable, for according to the multitude of his fruit they increased the altars, according to the goodness of his land he made goodly images. No wonder the Majesty of heaven was provoked with that stiffnecked and rebellious people. But the fall of Israel reminds us of the fall of man, and leads us naturally to revert to the infancy of our race. 1. Before the Fall. When we picture to ourselves, as far as the Scripture record enables us, the place of our first parents in the state of pristine innocence, we think of that lovely garden "planted eastward in Eden ;" of its trees and shrubs; of its fruits and flowers; of the rivers that watered it; of its unclouded sky; of the genial warmth of the glorious sun fructifying and beautifying it; of the dews that refreshed it; of man its caretaker and cultivator of his pleasant position in that paradise, placed there as he was to dress it and to keep it. To this must be added the communion of the creature with the Creator, so close, so cordial, and so confidential as that communion then must have been. If Enoch, after sin and Satan had done their worst, still walked with God; if Abraham was called, not only the father of the faithful, but the friend of God; if God spake face to face with Moses, as a man speaketh with his friend;—we may form some faint idea, and it is only a faint idea, of that heavenly communion which man there enjoyed with his Maker as he walked in the garden in the cool of the day. 2. After the Fall. We know how the scene was changed—suddenly and shockingly changed. We have seen a picture designed to represent the change which sin introduced into Paradise, and the wreck which iniquity wrought. In one part of the picture all is beauty, all is loveliness; the sky is cleat’, earth beneath is charming; above, below, around, everything appears inexpressibly gay and grand and gorgeous. Man is the monarch of all; every bird of every wing is subject to him, every animal of every species is submissive to his sway, even the most savage beast of prey owns his sovereignty. The lion crouches at his feet, he strokes the tiger with his hand. But no sooner has he tasted the forbidden fruit than the sky is clouded, lightning flashes with fearful fury, the elements are at war with him. The animals, lately so meek and mild, rise in rebellion against him—the lion opens his mouth in wrath, the tiger is wild with fury. Our first parents themselves, shivering with horror, shuddering with fright, are hurried out of Paradise. A flaming sword prevents their return, and guards on every side the tree of life. Such is the painting referred to, and it pictures a dread reality. It points out how man fell, and how far he fell from his state of primeval bliss, of fellowship with the Holy One, and of Divine favor. 3. The cause of such a fall. Iniquity was the cause, as we here read of Israel, "Thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." In that iniquity there were various elements; when analyzed it is found to be made up of several component parts. There was the lust of the flesh, for the tree was good for food; there was the lust of the eyes, for that tree was pleasant to the eyes; there was the pride of life, it was a tree to be desired to make one wise—"Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." There was, in short, rebellion against the mildest authority; there was disobedience to the most reasonable command. 4. Consequences of the fall are seen in posterity. When we read the records of the ancient nations of heathendom, even the most enlightened and polished, we cannot fail to be convinced of the deep degradation into which man by iniquity had fallen. In Egypt, the cradle of civilization, men worshipped animals and plants, and even reptiles. In Greece, with all its boasted intellectual superiority, aesthetic tastes, and fine arts, men worshipped a host of false gods, deified men, and even impersonations of the lowest passions and worst vices that agitate the human heart; while of Athens itself it was said that you could as easily find a god as a man in that celebrated city in Rome men multiplied gods, for, in addition to the national divinities, they readily admitted into their pantheon the gods, however monstrous and motley, of the nations which they conquered. Among the people of Israel in the prophet’s time the great besetting sin was idolatry with all its foul accompaniments. In heathen lands at the present day it is still the same; multitudes bow down to stocks and stones, and call these vanities gods. Can anything afford clearer evidence of the fearful fall of our race than this sottish idolatry of ancient and modern heathen, as also of the Hebrew people, though so highly favored with the written Law, besides that which they had in common with their heathen neighbors? We forbear to speak of the gross impurities and shocking immoralities that go hand-in-hand with idolatry. 5. Illustration of the Fall. Of manifold illustrations which the subject admits take that of a stately tree. Its dimensions are mighty and magnificent—its top waves high in air, its branches spread far around, its leafy honors are luxuriant, its foliage umbrageous; it claims or seems to claim supremacy over all the forest trees. But the axe is laid to its root. You beg the woodman to spare that tree. It is vain, however; he has made up his mind, and it is doomed to fall. Blow after blow is struck; the sturdy strokes are redoubled; at length the root is giving way, the top is nodding, the tree topples to its fall. One creak, one crash, and the goodly tree is prostrate; ruin spreads the ground. Ere long the branches wither and the leaves decay. What a contrast between that tree flourishing in the stateliness of its strength and the loveliness of its life, and that same tree felled to the earth, its leaves stripped off, its branches lopped, the whole a sad emblem of decay, a solemn memorial of destruction! Such is the contrast between man in his original purity, while standing by faith, and man at the present day fallen by iniquity. 6. Greatness of the Fall. When the great Roman dictator had usurped the liberties of his country and changed the republican form of government to the imperial; when he had overcome all opposition, conquered all enemies, and fully gained the mastery; when he had reached the summit of popularity and power;—just then the daggers of the conspirators smote him to the earth. He fell at the foot of his great rival’s statue. The friend who spoke his funeral oration and improved the occasion did justly magnify that fall, exclaiming, as well he might, "What a fall was there, my countrymen!" But what, after all, is the fall of the warrior, or hero, or emperor, even from the pinnacle of his fame and of his fortune, compared with the fall of an immortal soul by sin, dragged down into the deep pit of perdition? The sight of the fallen warrior, as he sat amid the ruins of Carthage, has furnished a subject for men to moralize on, while historians have commented on the fact; and it is indeed sufficiently impressive. The harmony that existed between the person and the place was necessarily striking and even startling; the fate of the one was so like that of the other, the downfall of the one was so similar to the desolation of the other, that we scarcely know which of the two is more entitled to the tear of pity or sigh of sympathy—the degradation of the chieftain or the destruction of the city. Yet greater far are the degradation and desolation which the blight of sin brings upon person or place. 7. Practical considerations. We need not travel far for proof of our fallen state; we do not need to go back to our first parents except for the purpose of tracing the evil to its fountain-head; we need not visit pagan lands, whether past or present; we do not require to quit the lands of Christendom. The condition of the Hebrew people as set forth by the Prophet Hosea is one that often repeats itself in the experiences—some of them sad enough—of everyday life. How many have fallen by iniquity around us! How many are falling by iniquity at our very doors, on this side and on that! How many have we known to begin life well, but they fell by iniquity! The wrecks of the fallen are strewn on the right hand and on the left. Some fall by drunkenness, some by lewdness, some by want of rectitude and right principle, some by what the world calls unsteadiness. If the sword slays its thousands, iniquity slays its tens of thousands. 8. Personal duties. Several personal duties of much importance may be learnt from this part of the subject; these may be expressed in Scripture language as follows: "Let him that standeth take heed lest he fall;" "Give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall;" "Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness." Also pity the fallen; try to lift them up; pray for the backslider who has fallen back from the position he seemed to have attained, and seek to restore such a one in the spirit of meekness. IV. THE RETURN OF THE . Many motives, and those of the most powerful kind, urge the sinner to return to God. 1. There is the character of the invitation. It is an earnest one, a precious one, and a glorious one. It is the gospel re-echoing through the past and resounding about us at the present. This invitation proves the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the Divine goodness. 2. There is the Author of the invitation. It proceeds from the Friend whom we have treated so ungratefully and so ungraciously; he comes after us, as it were, calling and entreating us to return; he promises us a hearty welcome when we do return; he assures us that his heart and hearth and home stand open to receive us; his arms are stretched out to embrace us. 3. There are the persons invited. The vilest are subjects of this invitation; the oldest, the worst, the most wicked, are comprehended; they are offered present pardon, they are assured of instant forgiveness, and all without money and without price: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." Oh, then, since God is waiting and willing to be gracious, let not the sinner ignore that goodness, nor regard it with insensibility, nor trample underfoot his great mercy, nor treat his gracious overtures as the idle wind that passeth by; but allow himself to be led by the goodness of God to repent race. V. THE MODE OF TO GOD. We are to take with us words, as the worshipper in the olden time did not go empty-handed, but brought with him an offering when he went to worship God. 1. The words we are required to bring are words of confession, like the poor prodigal when he said, "Father, I have sinned against Heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;" like the contrite publican when he cried, "God be merciful to me a sinner." If we thus confess our sins, he "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 2. There must be petition as well as confession; our words must be words of earnest pleading. Nor are we left without instruction on this head; suitable petitions are suggested, and the very words put in our lips. There is, according to the Authorized Version, a petition for forgiveness and one for favor. The former is, "Take away all iniquity;" for it is iniquity that has wrought our ruin, it is sin that is the source of all our sorrows; take it away, for by it we have fallen. Take it all away—the guilt of it, the defilement of it, the dominion of it, the love of it, and the practice of it. Take it all away and forever, for it is only thus we can be saved; only thus our souls are washed and justified and sanctified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. The second part of the petition pleads for favor; it is, "Receive us graciously;" that is, receive us into thy favor, thy family, and thy service. Receive us graciously, that is, gratuitously, of thy free favor and sovereign grace; not on the ground of innocence, for— "Not in our innocence we trust— We bow before thee in the dust: And through our Savior’s blood alone We seek acceptance at thy throne." Not on the ground of merit, for we have sinned and merit only wrath; not on the ground of price, for we have nothing to pay— "Nothing in our hand we bring, Simply to thy cross we cling." Not on the ground of works, for we are saved solely of the Divine mercy, according to the riches of his grace in Christ Jesus. 3. There are words of thanksgiving. The calves, even the lips, are the thank offerings and service of the lips in general; nor do these differ aught from the fruit of the lips. Thanksgiving, praise, prayer, self-dedication, and self-surrender are all expressed by the lips, and are thus their offerings or their fruit. "Nay, rather unto me, thy God, Thanksgiving offer thou; To the Most High perform thy word. And fully pay thy vow: And in the day of thy distress Do thou unto me cry; I will deliver thee, and thou My Name shalt glorify." VI. FRUITS MEET FOR . These in the present instance consist in the complete rejection of carnal confidences and sole dependence on God. The penitent Israelite renounces all confidence in worldly policy, and worldly allies as secured by such policy—the Assyrian and the Egyptian alike. He renounces his idolatrous practices and superstitious devotions; and, depending no longer on foreign help, or objects and observances of idol-worship, or domestic resources, he places his entire and undivided trust in the living God. Henceforth the rule of his conduct and motto of his life may be conceived as summed up in the words of the psalmist: "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God." It has been well said that "there is no sin more usual among men than carnal confidence; to lean on our own wisdom, or wealth, or power, or supplies from others; to deify counsels and armies, or horses and treasures, and to let our hearts rise or fall, sink or bear up within us, according as the creature is helpful or useless, nearer or further from us; as if God were not a God afar off, as well as near at hand." This was one of Israel’s great sins, and which on repentance is renounced. This is a common sin, and one which all must renounce, trusting, not in an arm of flesh, but sanctifying the Lord alone in our hearts. It is when we feel our condition in this world to be one of orphanage, of weakness, destitution, desolateness, and distress, that we repose trustfully and securely in the Divine mercy and gracious fatherhood of God. Hosea 14:4-7 These verses describe the happy result of Israel’s penitence and the merciful response to Israel’s prayer. 1. The pardon sought is secured, and that for the greatest sin—that of backsliding, and so for all minor trespasses. The acceptance prayed for is presently and plentifully vouchsafed. The dark storm-cloud of God’s wrath is dispersed and dispelled forever. 2. We next learn the fullness of God’s forgiving love and his superabundant mercy to them that trust in him. By the most pleasing figures we are taught what God promises to be to his people; what they themselves become; and what a blessing they prove to others. I. OF DIVINE . We find great variety as well as great beauty in the lessons of the Bible. There is great variety, for all nature, animate and inanimate, is laid under contribution to supply fit illustrations of Divine things; there is great beauty, for the loveliest objects above us, around us, and beneath us are employed for this purpose. In the passage before us there is a cluster of lovely natural objects employed in this manner to set forth spiritual truths with all the reality of nature and all the vividness of life. Here we read of the dew, the deep-rooted and everlasting hill, the lily, the tall tree with umbrageous foliage, the olive ever green, and Lebanon ever fragrant. We read also of the springing corn, the blooming vine, and wine of aromatic odor. These, it must be acknowledged, are beautiful figures, and the facts which they are intended to convey are equally blessed. But what enhances the beauty and the blessedness is the circumstance that the persons to whom these facts and figures have reference are those very persons who had erred and strayed from the Lord their God—even Israel who had fallen by their iniquity, Israel who had sadly backslidden, Israel who had grievously provoked the just anger of the Almighty; but Israel repenting and returning, praying and pleading, giving up their false refuges and casting aside their false gods. Oh how cheering and encouraging that God welcomes his erring children to return! Like the father in the parable, he runs to meet the prodigal, he casts the arms of his love around him; he receives the penitent to his fond embrace, laying aside the wrath that had been provoked; he bestows the love that had been undeserved; he forgives the sins that had been committed; he foregoes the punishment that had been incurred; and, physician-like, he heals the backslidings great and manifold. II. OF THE DEW. Figurative applications of dew are frequent in Scripture. Sometimes it signifies temporal benefits, as when Isaac blessed his son Jacob, saying, "God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." Sometimes it denotes spiritual blessings, as in the case of Israel, of whom we read," His heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the Shield of thy help, and who is the Sword of thy excellency!" Sometimes it implies the reviving power and refreshing nature of the Divine Word, as when Moses the man of God, before he went up to the top of Pisgah and closed his eyes in death, addressed the people in that lovely song in which he says," My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew." Solomon compares the king’s favor to "dew upon the grass." The psalmist compares brotherly love and union and peace to dew. "As Hermon’s dew, the dew that doth On Zion hills descend; For there the blessing God commands— Life that shall never end." He also speaks of the children of God who have been born of the Spirit—born from above as dew, because Divine light shines in upon them the Divine image is reflected in them, and, like the morning dewdrops, they deck and ornament the wide field of humanity; thus: "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth." In like manner the Prophet Micah, speaking of the conversion of the Jews, and of the benefit which they shall in that day confer upon the rest of the world, and of their blessing to the peoples among whom they have been long scattered, says, "The remnant of Israel shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord." So also Isaiah, in a beautiful and highly poetic passage in which he refers to the resurrection of the dead, says, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs." Here God, speaking of himself, says, "I will be as the dew unto Israel." III. OF THE DEW AS OF THIS PROMISE. The first and perhaps most obvious property of the dew is its refreshing quality. 1. This refreshing property is experienced most in the summer months, and especially during a season of drought, like that with which the land of Israel was visited, when, for three years and a half, there was neither rain nor dew. At such a time the ground is dry and parched; vegetation languishes; gardens and meadows and corn-lands are scorched; fields of grain, blades of grass, and leaves of trees wither; fruits and flowers droop. The showers of the sky have been withheld; rain-clouds, it may be, have gathered and darkened and promised much; but they have passed over without the long-hoped-for and much-required rain. Oh, how refreshing at such a juncture is the dew when it comes down copiously on the bosom of the thirsty earth! There it lies like a shower of gems upon the ground, shimmering in the morning sunrise; it covers the surface with pearly beauty. "As Morn, her rosy steps in th’ Eastern clime Advancing, sows the earth with Orient pearl." But those dewdrops are as refreshing as they are beautiful: they water to some extent the fields; they invigorate the languishing herbs; they refresh every green thing; they revive the plants and shrubs, the grasses, herbs, and flowers, and lift up their drooping heads; they gladden all nature. The transition from the soil to the soul is easy and not unnatural. What the dew is to the soil, grace is to the soul. In the natural world, where all erewhile was parched and scorched, dry and hard, waste and withered, consequently bleak and bare and barren, abundant dews, largely supplying in Eastern lauds the place of rain, descend; soon new life springs up and revives the half-withered plants and exhausted herbage, new loveliness appears in the leaves of trees and flower-petals. Just so when the grace of God is vouchsafed to the soul, and when the Spirit of God communicates it in rich abundance, new life is imparted to the soul, new energies are awakened, new spiritual vigor manifests itself, and new holy sympathies are developed. Sometimes, too, after the first bestowal of grace and impartation of life, believers may droop and their graces languish; the winds of the wilderness may blow upon us, the drought of the desert may scorch or wither us; in other words, the world, with its trials and temptations, Satan and his snares, sin and its enticements, the flesh and its lusts, all tend to dry up the spiritual affections of the soul, exhaust its energies, and check the heavenly flow of its feelings. Again a fresh communication of the dew of Divine grace is granted, and spiritual greenness springs up afresh and spreads throughout the soul, a renewal of spiritual life ensues, so that we live no longer to self and sin, but to him who died for us; no longer to the world, but are crucified to it; no longer to the flesh to serve it in the lusts thereof. 2. Dew has a fertilizing and fructifying property. Hence the dew is indispensable to germination and growth. Without it the husbandman would labor in vain and spend his strength for naught. He might industriously break up the fallow ground and carefully scatter the seed, but without the moisture of rain or dew the seed sown would neither bud nor grow; so in spiritual husbandry, men may plough and sow, but without the dew of Divine grace there will be no increase. How different when the dew of God’s grace is abundantly bestowed l Then hard hearts are softened, stubborn wills renewed, invitations of the gospel accepted, the warnings of the Divine Word touch the conscience, its instructions impress the heart, awakenings take place in Churches, revivals occur throughout the land. Nay, more, the weakest means become effectual, the simplest instrumentalities powerful; while in individual life the weak Christian is strengthened, the weary is refreshed, the fainting revived, the unlovely spiritually beautified, and the spiritual fruitfulness or virtues of all developed or revived. 3. God’s wise economy of the dew. There is not a single drop of dew formed by the rude hand of chance or made in vain. Neither is there a shrub, or herb, or leaf, or flower, or blade of grass that does not collect as much dew as is needed 10r its peculiar wants. Grass-lauds and cultivated soils radiate very freely by night the heat which they absorb by day; consequently they cool down speedily and condense plentifully into dew the vapor of the air as it passes over them. Gravel, rocks, barren lands, on the contrary, radiate very slowly and very little heat, so that very little dew forms upon them. Thus there are places where little or no dew falls and which no dew refreshes. There is the barren rock—no dew refreshes it; there are the gravel walk and the sandy desert—little or no dew is formed, collected, or needed thereon; there is the stone-paved street—no dew is needed to moisten it. Exactly so there are hearts so hardened by unbelief that no dew of grace either settles on them or softens them. The seed of Divine truth may be scattered on them from sabbath to sabbath, but it makes no impression on them, and takes no root in them; it lies, it may be, for a little on the surface, then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown thereon. It is not for want of willingness in God to bestow the dew of his grace, or for want of sufficiency in Divine grace, that such is the case; but because the heart has been so hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, the conscience so seared by iniquity, and the whole man so alienated from the life of God, that there is no disposition to receive or profit by the heavenly boon. IV. EFFECTS BY THE DEW OF GOD’S GRACE. The first effect is growth as of the lily. 1. The growth of the lily is rapid as it is beautiful. Here we may consider it as an emblem of beauty. Thus our Lord says, "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That oven Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." In a passage in Ezekiel God says to his people, "Thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty: for it was perfect through my comeliness, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God." The comeliness to which the prophet refers is the comeliness of the soul. There is nothing so beautiful as holiness; there is no ornament like piety. The earth is beautiful when God adorns it with the bounties of his providence; when he replenishes it with fruit and flower, with grass for the cattle and herb for the service of man; when he carpets its surface with living green, clothing the fields with verdure, and covering the hills with corn. There is beauty in the over-canopying sky, in the bright orbs that sparkle like gems in the firmament. There is beauty in the widespread world of waters, and in the waves that dimple ocean’s cheek. There is beauty twinkling in every star above us, sparkling in the dewdrops at our feet, and shining in every shimmer of noonday splendor. All these testify how beautiful this world once was, and how beautiful it would still be but for sin. There is beauty in the human face divine: there is beauty in the face of fair woman, and beauty of a rougher east in the countenance of man, and beauty, playful, cheerful beauty, in the pretty countenance of childhood. But all the varied beauties of a lovely world are not to be compared with the beauty of holiness. It is a beauty that reflects God’s own image, and by which we resemble Christ. "Come, then, O house of Jacob, come, To worship at his shrine; And, walking in the light of God, With holy beauties shine." There may be beauty in the adorning of the person, in the plaiting of the hair, the wearing of gold, and the putting on of apparel; but the true beauty is the hidden man of the heart in that which is not corruptible, even the beauty of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. 2. The next characteristic of this growth is stability. The growth of the lily may be fair or fast, but it soon fades; it may be easily plucked up, and so another figure is added to show the firmness of the believer. He is firmly rooted as well as spiritually fair. Some colors are very beautiful and very showy, but they are not fast colors; they soon fade, they soon lose their vividness. Some plants are very beautiful in their bloom, but weak in their root and soon uptorn. Not so the Christian. He casts forth his roots as Lebanon—either as the mountain itself, one of earth’s deep foundations; or as the forest trees, those cedars of God, deeply rooted therein. Thus, with the flower of the lily, the believer has the root of the mountain or of the cedar tree, over which the winds of heaven have swept for centuries. He is fair as the one and firm as the other, for Christ dwells in his heart by faith; he is rooted and grounded in love; he is rooted in Christ and established in the faith, abounding therein with thanksgiving. He is, moreover, "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord," forasmuch as he knows that his labor is not in vain in the Lord. Besides, as the root of trees draws up nourishment from the ground, so the Christian derives nourishment and strength from Christ; while the union is so close and so constant that nothing can separate him from Christ, nothing can wrench him from that rock in which he is rooted, nothing can detach him from the foundation on which he rests. 3. The next characteristic is expansiveness, as expressed by the words, "His branches shall spread." While his roots spread far and sink deeply into the soil, his branches spread. The application of this promise is to Israel literally, and so to the Church in general, as well as to the individual Christian. The Church of God is destined to grow to a great extent, and to spread her branches widely on every side, sending out "her boughs into the sea, and her branches unto the river," and ultimately to fill the whole earth. The Christian’s growth likewise is expansive. He grows inwardly in the graces of the Spirit, outwardly in good works, upward in heavenly mindedness, and downward in humility. He adds to his faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. These things are in him and abound, and thus is neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of God and in the doing of the Divine will. Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy, he thinks on and practices these things. His profiting appears to all, and his holy demeanor is so manifested that he promotes the growth of grace in others, and consequently the progress of the gospel in the world. He resembles the shining light, which continues to spread more widely and to shine more brightly until the perfect day. 4. The next element of this growth is permanence of beauty and abundance of fruit. In addition to the beauty or glory of the lily, the stability of the cedar rooted in Lebanon, or of Lebanon itself, the expansiveness of numerous and magnificent branches, we have also the abiding beauty and rich fruitage of the olive. The beauty of the lily is frail and its glory lading; but the greenness of the olive is perpetual; and as abundance of branches and plenty of leaves may make a show for a time, and suggest the idea of a sort of empty ostentatiousness, the prophet gives a fresh touch to his picture by adding the greenery of the olive, which is lasting, and the fruitfulness of the olive, which is so profitable and for many purposes serviceable—enlightenment, nourishment, and embellishment. Thus the psalmist says, "I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever." So also in Jeremiah 11:8 God calls his people a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit; such too is the individual believer—planted in the garden of the Lord, watered by the dew of heaven, his leaf is ever fresh and his fruit ever seasonable. Even in the winter of adversity the leaf of the righteous is green; in the winter of age they still bear fruit; in the wintry storms of the world their beauty remains like that of the olive tree, ever green, ever fresh, and ever flourishing. The beauty of an evergreen is enhanced, like most other things, by contrast; it appears most when other shrubs and trees are stripped and bared by the wintry blast; it is seen to most advantage when deadness and desolation reign around. In like manner, when the storms of’ life, when the decrepitude of age, when the languor of decay, has stripped the mere worldly professor of the leaves of a merely assumed and temporary profession, a profession without reality, then true Christians stand out in striking contrast. "Those that within the house of God Are planted by his grace, They shall grow up and flourish all In our God’s holy place: And in old age, when others fade, They fruit still forth shall bring: They shall be fat and full of sap. And aye be flourishing." 5. By the smell of Lebanon is set forth the fragrance of holiness. There is nothing so pleasing to God as holiness proceeding from faith in Christ and love to God. The believers’ efforts in the cause of God have a rich perfume; their zeal and devotedness are like ointment poured forth; their spiritual sacrifices send forth the savor of a sweet smell. Thus the children of God are trees of righteousness, God’s own planting, precious in his sight, pleasant and pleasing to God, and to all who love God and are like God. God compares his Church to a garden of spices: "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphor, with spikenard, spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices." 6. The people or Church of God become a blessing to others, Not only are they blessed themselves, but are made a blessing to others; they benefit all around. Like the pebble dropped into a pool and sending out wavelets to the furthest shore, so the people of God communicate benefits that, may reach to the utmost bound of earth and to the very end of time. Such as are converted through their influence, repenting of sin and returning to God, will join themselves to God’s people and rest under the shadow of God’s Church—shall be spiritually fruitful, reviving like the corn, of which a grain when it dies in the earth brings forth many more; and prolific as the vine, which, when pruned, produces many clusters, and each cluster many grapes; while their persons and their services are fragrant and even medicinal spiritually, as the scent of the far-famed wine of Lebanon physically. So with the Church of the old dispensation; so with that of the new; so with God’s Church still. Hosea 14:8, Hosea 14:9 A call to understanding. The former verse exhibits Ephraim brining forth the fruits of repentance, abandoning idolatry forever. God on his part hears his prayers, grants his petitions, and makes him the object of his paternal care and kind providence. Nor is that all; he becomes to him refreshment in every time of need, and the source of fruitfulness at all times. It is the part of understanding and the privilege of the prudent to devote due attention to and to attain to proper discernment of such things. By the judicious exercise of their natural powers, quickened and strengthened by grace, they convince themselves of the rightness and justness of God’s ways, and continue, to their own unspeakable comfort, to walk therein; but transgressors stumble at God’s dealings and fall into the perdition of ungodly men. BY C. JERDAN Hosea 14:1-3 Return to God: its beginnings. The long and terrible storm of denunciation is now at last over; the wrath-clouds roll away, and the sunshine of the Divine love bursts forth with healing in its wings. Beyond all the hurly-burly of the tempest sent as the punishment of sin, the prophet discerns the paternal tenderness and the loving patience of the God of Israel. So he begins this closing chapter of his book with a last tender entreaty to return to him who "sitteth upon the flood," and who "will bless his people with peace." How changed the prophet’s style, in this final strophe, from what it is in most of the preceding! When denouncing Ephraim’s sin and doom Hoses is obscure, abrupt, rugged, and volcanic; but in Hosea 14:1-9. all is pellucid and restful and full of beauty. The whirlwind and the earthquake and the fire have given place to the still small voice. The subject in these opening verses is—The beginnings of spiritual revival. In its rise there are three stages. I. THE LORD . (Hosea 14:1) As applied to Israel, the exhortation has for its background all the judgments which have been threatened throughout the Book. And since these words were written Israel "has fallen" indeed. The ten tribes were soon carried into Assyria; Judah was by-and-by driven away to weep beside the rivers of Babylon; regained Jerusalem was at length fiercely overthrown by the Romans; and for eighteen centuries now the Jews have been dispersed over the wide world, and exposed to reproach and persecution and cruelty. All this has been the punishment of Israel’s own "iniquity"—the political schism, the calf-worship, the Baalism, the godless pride, the unblushing immorality, and at last the rejection and murder of the Son of God. Jehovah could not avoid punishing; he could not but allow the apostate nation to lie under its doom during centuries and millenniums; but all the while the Divine heart is saying, "O Israel, return!" How wonderful that the eternal God should condescend to entreat men to repent! But "the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations" (Psalms 100:5). If, however, there is to be salvation, there must be repentance, and all true repentance takes its rise in the call of God’s Spirit. The Lord seeks the sinner with his grace before the sinner can seek him. And thus "Return unto the Lord" is the burden of the entire revelation of the Bible; it is the key-note of all Hebrew prophecy, as of all New Testament gospel. Not only so, but in this passage God also condescends to direct the people as to the thoughts and words" with which they may acceptably approach him in complying with his urgent entreaty (verses 2, 8). How different all this from "the manner of man"! II. THE PRAYING. (Verse 2) This verse and verse 3 form a sort of "Lord’s Prayer" for backsliders. God desires no longer the animal sacrifices of the Law; indeed, the twelve tribes cannot in their exile offer any, for the temple-worship has now ceased. But he requires "words" which shall be the evidence of "a broken and a contrite heart." Even these, however, he here provides for his penitent children. "What need God words? He knows our hearts before we speak unto him. It is true, God needs no words; but we do, to stir up our hearts and affections" (Sibbes). Although the Lord does not now demand sacrifices, the kind of" words" which he asks recalls to our minds the three principal forms of sacrifice ordained by the Levitical Law, viz. the propitiatory, the dedicatory, and the eucharistic, represented respectively by the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering. In a true return to God there will be: 1. Words of confession. "Take away all iniquity." A child who has done wrong recovers his father’s favor so soon as he confesses his fault; so Jehovah’s children, who have made themselves "fatherless’ by their apostasy, take the first step in the direction of" finding mercy ’ when they "return up to" (verse 1) him with words of repentance. The penitent draws near with the leper’s confession, "Unclean! Unclean!" and with the publican’s prayer, "God be merciful to me a sinner." His first and deepest need is pardon; he wants mercy for the past, and grace to help for the future. He prays to be delivered from the power of evil; and pleads, in doing so, the merit of Jesus Christ as his Sin Offering. 2. Words of dedication. "Receive us graciously;" literally, "receive good." The barrier of sin being removed through faith in the atonement, the next step in revival is the presentation of the person "a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God" (Romans 12:1). It is true that of ourselves we have no good which we can offer; but we are to give to the Lord of his own. The grace which he bestows upon us we are to employ in his service and for his glory. The Christian dedicates his renewed humanity, in body and soul, to his Redeemer (Micah 6:6-8). 3. Words of thanksgiving. "So will we render the calves of our lips," i.e. we shall offer our lips as a peace offering, instead of calves. The praise of a redeemed heart is an acceptable sacrifice, and "shall please the Lord better than a bullock that hath horns and hoots" (Psalms 69:31). The soul that has been forgiven much loves much, and should therefore overflow with thanksgiving and praise (Hebrews 13:15). Such are the three sorts of "words" which God expects from all who "return" to him. He wants words of confession like those of Psa 51:1-19.; of self-dedication, like those of Psa 116:1-19.; of thanksgiving, like those of Psa 103:1-22. And, now that Christ has come, these are "the sacrifices of God," alike for the sons of Israel and for sinners of the Gentiles. III. THE -. (Psalms 103:3) After the threefold word-sacrifice, comes the promise of practical amendment and reformation. Israel resolves to forsake his great national sins, viz. his habit of looking for help to Assyria, his reliance upon the cavalry of Egypt or other warlike strength, and his idolatry of Baal and the calves. The people will show the sincerity of their conversion by endeavors after new obedience. They will realize that away from God they are helpless orphans; and, in all their approaches to him, appeal to his "mercy "as the "Father of the fatherless," This is just what every sinner must do in returning to the Lord. We all have Asshurs and horses and idols which we must abjure. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/