Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 13:1
When Ephraim spoke trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
1. When Ephraim spake trembling, &c.] The Hebrew is difficult, and the soundness of the text is perhaps questionable. At any rate, the rendering will depend on one’s impression of the requirements of the context. To the present writer, no translation appears preferable to that of King James’s Bible, and he has a pleasure in finding himself in accord with this version, which must of necessity rarely be the case in obscure passages. The single objection to the rendering is that expressed by Mr Huxtable in the Speaker’s Commentary, viz. that it ‘would give to the tribe of Ephraim a character out of harmony alike with Hosea’s description of it in Hos 5:5 and with the history.’ But the passage referred to requires to be explained differently, and as to the history of the tribe, we are not here concerned with the facts as viewed critically, but as they presented themselves to a preacher in search of edification. Hosea has once already pointed the people of Israel to the golden age of the past, when Israel as a whole was comparable to ‘grapes in the wilderness’ and ‘the firstripe in the fig tree’ (Hos 9:10, see note); he conceives of Jehovah as kindly overlooking the human frailty of his child in consideration of Israel’s latent possibilities. ‘When Ephraim spake trembling’, &c., may therefore be expanded thus, ‘When the Ephraimites in trembling accents responded to the divine call (comp. Hos 2:15), they rose to the exalted position which its prophetic ancestor foreshadowed (Gen 49:22-26).’ The reference is partly to the leadership of the Ephraimite Joshua, partly to the prosperity which attended the tribe of Ephraim even when it no longer supplied a general, a judge, or a king to the entire nation. The other chief renderings are, ‘When Ephraim spake, [there was] terror’, &c., i.e., men listened to Ephraim with fear and trembling; and, ‘When Ephraim spake of revolt (?), [and] lifted itself up [as a rebel] in Israel’, continuing in the next clause, ‘it became guilty through Baal, and died.’ In the latter case, the reference is to the revolt of the Ten Tribes, and the public sanction then given to a retrograde religion. The advantage of this view is that it enables us to give precisely the same meaning to Ephraim in both parts of Hos 13:1; but as the text stands, the writer feels unable to accept it, as the sense of ‘revolt’ cannot be justified. It is very possible that the text is corrupt.
but when he offended in Baal, he died ] Rather, if the Authorized Version’s view of the meaning be retained, but he became guilty through the Baal, and died. That is, in course of time, the Ten Tribes severed themselves definitely from the progressive teaching of the higher spiritual prophecy, and by so doing sealed their doom as a nation. The Baal-worship spoken of is not the form of religion against which Elijah thundered; that was introduced from Phnicia, whereas a simpler but still idolatrous worship was offered by the northern Israelites to Jehovah under the name of ‘Baal’ (see on Hos 2:13; Hos 2:16). Finding a multitude of Canaanitish sacred places dedicated each to its own ‘Baal’ or patron-deity, they forthwith identified this Baal with their own Jehovah, and so fell under the same condemnation as their heathen predecessors. They failed to go forward with Amos and Hosea, and so they could not but fall behind to a degenerate and lower type of religion.
died ] Ephraim was ‘dead while he lived’ (1Ti 5:6, comp. Pro 9:18, and Dante, Inferno XXXIII. 139 157). So Gen 2:17, ‘in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.’ Till Adam ate of the forbidden fruit, there was the hope that, though not created immortal, he might yet be exempted from decay and death. So, till Ephraim deliberately corrupted his religion, there was always the possibility that God might recognize him as a permanent factor in the religious history of the world. Comp. on Hos 5:12.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 8. Israel signed his own death-warrant when he lapsed into Baal-worship. Foolish as it is to ‘kiss calves’, they persist in the practice. Therefore the nation can but drift away, like cloud, or chaff, or smoke. How little Jehovah deserves such treatment! But Israel’s destruction has already begun: they shall be torn piecemeal.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
When Ephraim spake trembling – that is, probably there was trembling. : Ephraim was once very awful, so as, while he spake, the rest of the tribes were ready to tremble. The prophet contrasts two conditions of Ephraim, of prosperity, and destruction. His prosperity he owed to the undeserved mercy of God, who blessed him for Josephs sake; his destruction, to his own sin. There is no period recorded, when Ephraim spake trembling, i. e., in humility. Pride was his characteristic, almost as soon as he had a separate existence as a tribe (see the note at Hos 5:5). Under Joshua, it could not be called out, for Ephraim gained honor, when Joshua, one of themselves, became the captain of the Lords people. Under the Judges, their pride appeared. Yet God tried them, by giving them their hearts desire. They longed to be exalted, and He satisfied them, if so be they would thus serve Him. They had the chief power, and were a terror to Judah. He exalted himself, (or perhaps he was exalted,) in Israel; but when he offended in Baal he died; literally, and he offended in Baal and died.
He abused the goodness of God; his sin followed as a consequence of Gods goodness to him. God raised him, and he offended. The alliance with a king of Tyre and Sidon, which brought in the worship of Baal, was a part of the worldly policy of the kings of Israel (1Ki 16:31, see Introduction). As if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took to wife the daughter of Ethbaal, king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. The twenty-two years of Ahabs reign established the worship. The prophets of Baal became 450; the prophets of the kindred idolatry of Ashtoreth, or Astarte, became 400; Baal had his one central temple, large and magnificent 2Ki 10:21-22, 2Ki 10:25, a rival of that of God. The prophet Elijah thought the apostasy almost universal; God revealed to him that He had reserved to Himself seven thousand in Israel. Yet these were all the knees which had not bowed to Baal, and every mouth which had not kissed him 1Ki 19:18.
And died – Death is the penalty of sin. Ephraim died spiritually. For sin takes away the life of grace, and separates from God, the true life of the soul, the source of all life. He died more truly, than he who is dead and at rest. Of this death, our Lord says, Let the dead bury their dead Mat 8:22; and Paul, She who liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth 1Ti 5:6. He died also as a nation and kingdom, being sentenced by God to cease to be.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Hos 13:1
When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
Two conditions of Ephraim
Spake trembling, i.e., there was trembling. Ephraim was once very awful, Bishop Hall says, so as, while he spake, the rest of the tribes were ready to tremble. The prophet contrasts two conditions of Ephraim, of prosperity and destruction. His prosperity he owed to the undeserved mercy of God, who blessed him for Josephs sake; his destruction, to his own sin. There is no period recorded when Ephraim spake tremblingly, i.e., in humility. Pride was his characteristic, almost as soon as he had a separate existence as a tribe. Under Joshua, it could not be called out, for Ephraim gained honour, when Joshua, one of themselves became the captain of the Lords people. Under the judges, their pride appeared. Yet God tried them, by giving them their hearts desire. They longed to be exalted, and He satisfied them, if so be they would thus serve Him. They had the chief power, and were a terror to Judah. But he abused the goodness of his God; his sin followed as a consequence of Gods goodness to him. God raised him, and he offended. The alliance with a king of Tyre and Sidon, which brought in the worship of Baal, was a part of the worldly policy of the kings of Israel. The twenty-two years of Ahabs reign established the worship. The prophets of Baal became 450, the prophets of the kindred idolatry of Ashtoreth, or Astarte, became 400; Baal had his one central temple, large and magnificent, a rival of that of God. The prophet Elijah thought the apostasy almost universal. (E. B. Pussy, D. D.)
The responsibility of those having authority and influence
When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling. There was a time when Ephraim was very honourable among the tribes, when the very speaking of Ephraim had great power, and took great impression upon whomsoever he spoke to.
1. It is an honour to have respect from others when we speak, to have what we say received with reverence and respect, showing that it impresses the hearts of others, and is not cast out as a vain and worthless thing. Let children, servants, and all inferiors, learn to give due honour to those whom God has set above them.
2. Those who are in place of power over others account it their honour, not only that those under them should regard, but that they should tremble at what they say. Man greatly delights to lift himself above others, and to lord it imperiously over them.
3. The subjection of the hearts of men to those in authority is a work of God, and God is to have the glory of it.
4. The meaner the beginnings of men are, the more imperious they often prove when in power.
5. Sin will bring mens honour down. Let men take heed of trusting their former repute, for let them have done what they will heretofore, yet if they depart from God, their honour will depart too. (Jeremiah Burroughs.)
Gods gifts dependent on mans mood
s:–Over and over again Hosea denounces Ephraim for their infatuated idolatry. All through the history idolatry, like a hideous disease, disfigured the national life, but yet in varying degree. With their faith went their strength, and in those days individual prophets or pious kings were powerless to stem the wave of destruction that overwhelmed the land. The lesson is for all time. God matches His gifts to mans believing. They who tremble, acknowledge their guilt before Him, are made strong. They who go after idolatry are heavily punished or swept away. Idolatry has changed its symbols, but it has not changed its nature. What are our own temptations to idolatry in England at the end of the nineteenth century? One of our chief dangers is idolatry of the visible. The difficulty of believing that love means something besides ministry to the body and mind. But national benevolence and national progress will never make up for national apostasy. Once lose hold on the unseen, once rest satisfied with our good intentions, and we, as a nation, shall cease to carry on our mission. For a nation to be true to itself is for it to be true to its best. The national faith is the first thing to preserve. (W. R. Hutton, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XIII
Thus chapter begins with observing that the fear of God leads
to prosperity, but sin to ruin; a truth most visibly
exemplified in the sin and punishment of Ephraim, 1-3.
As an aggravation of their guilt, God reminds them of his
former favours, 4, 5;
which they had shamefully abused, 6;
and which now expose them to dreadful punishments, 7, 8.
He, however, tempers these awful threatenings with gracious
promises; and, on their repentance, engages to save them, when
no other could protect them, 9-11.
But, alas! instead of repenting, Ephraim is filling up the
measure of his iniquity, 12, 13.
Notwithstanding this, God promises to put forth has almighty
power in behalf of his people, and, as it were, raise them
from the dead, 14;
although, in the meantime, they must be visited with great
national calamities, compared first to the noxious and parching
east wind, 15,
and described immediately after in the plainest terms, 16.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIII
Verse 1. When Ephraim spake trembling] When he was meek and humble, of a broken heart and contrite spirit.
He exalted himself in Israel] He became great in God’s sight; he rose in the Divine esteem in proportion as he sank in his own. But this did not continue.
He offended in Baal] He became an idolater.
He died.] The sentence of death from the Divine justice went out against him.
This has been differently understood: “As soon as Ephraim spake (To your tents, O Israel!) There was a trembling or commotion: then the kingdom was exalted in Israel.” Thus taken, it refers to the division of the ten tribes from Rehoboam, son of Solomon, 1Kg 12:16, c., and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam in opposition to that of Judah which breach was never healed.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
When; so soon as, or according as, as the Hebrew phrase bears it, and implieth there was a time when according to the word of Ephraim there was deep impression on the hearers. Ephraim; Jeroboam son of Nebat, an Ephraimite, say some; but this is wide of truth, nor suits the text, which refers to their worshipping of Baal, and this came into use in Israel in Ahabs time, 1Ki 16:31; his wife Jezebel, daughter to Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, prevailed with him to take her country idol and add to Jeroboams calves.
Ephraim here is either the tribe of Ephraim, which was of all the ten tribes most powerful, and when angry and discontented made the other tribes afraid; or rather the whole kingdom of Israel, called frequently in Hosea Ephraim.
Spake; when he consulted, commanded, threatened, or sent out his proclamation; it is a speaking like a kings or kingdoms speaking, which is backed with power sufficient to act as they speak;
trembling; the tribes and the neighbouring kingdoms apprehended danger, were put into a fear of the consequence too, all men felt a commotion within them. Such once was the authority, power, and glory of Ephraim.
He exalted himself in Israel; was magnified, advanced, and made glorious, the kingdom flourished in multitudes of people, in abundance of wealth, in the successes of their counsels, and in their credit abroad. In this flourishing state Ephraim, a principal tribe, and which first set up for the royal dignity and carried it, had-principal share, and is mid to exalt himself in or with Israel.
But when, so soon as he sinned,
he offended in Baal, by taking Baal to be their god added this idolatry to their former sins,
he died; undid himself, lost his power, glory, and bravery, as a dead man.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. When Ephraim spaketremblingrather, “When Ephraim (the tribe most powerfulamong the twelve in Israel’s early history) spake (authoritatively)there was trembling”; all reverentially feared him [JEROME],(compare Job 29:8; Job 29:9;Job 29:21).
offended in Baalthatis, in respect to Baal, by worshipping him (1Ki16:31), under Ahab; a more heinous offense than even the calves.Therefore it is at this climax of guilt that Ephraim “died.”Sin has, in the sight of God, within itself the germ of death, thoughthat death may not visibly take effect till long after. Compare Ro7:9, “Sin revived, and I died.” So Adam in theday of his sin was to die, though the sentence was not visiblyexecuted till long after (Gen 2:17;Gen 5:5). Israel is similarlyrepresented as politically dead in Eze37:1-28.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel,…. Or, with trembling, as Jarchi: so Jeroboam, who was of the tribe of Ephraim, spake before Solomon, a great king, as he observes. R. Moses the priest interprets it of Jeroboam; but it may be understood of the tribe in general, and especially of the heads of it, at anytime before it fell into idolatry; when they spake with submission and humility, they were attended to by the other tribes in all consultations and debates, and great deference was paid unto them; and they were find in great esteem, and highly honoured, agreeably to that common saving of our Lord, “he that humbleth himself shall be exalted”, Lu 14:11; or, “when [he] spake [there was] trembling” q; either the neighbouring nations, when he threatened them with war: or among the other tribes of Israel, when he spake in counsel, and with authority, they rose up and heard him with great reverence and respect; see Job 29:8. So the Targum,
“when anyone of the house of Ephraim spake, trembling laid hold on the people; they became princes in Israel.”
Some refer this to the times of Joshua, who was of that tribe, and whom the Israelites feared as they had feared Moses, Jos 4:14; others to the times of Gideon and Jephthah, with whom the tribe of Ephraim expostulated, Jud 8:1; but others interpret it of Jeroboam’s idolatry, of his setting up the worship of the calves, which he did upon his exalting himself, and setting himself up as king of the ten tribes; and, in some agreement with this, Schmidt understands, by “trembling”, a terrible and horrible thing, idolatry, which he commanded and appointed; and which he “bore” or “carried”, as the word r is interpreted by him, and may be; that is, his sin, and the punishment of it, which Jeroboam and his posterity did bear; and so it agrees with what follows:
but, or “and”,
when he offended in Baal, he died; or when he sinned, and became guilty of more idolatry still, by worshipping Baal, as well as the calves, which was done in the times of Ahab, 1Ki 16:31; when Ephraim or the kingdom or Israel fell into distresses and calamities, sunk in their grandeur and authority, declined in their wealth and riches, and were insulted by their enemies, particularly by Benhadad king of Syria, who sent to Ahab, and challenged his silver and gold, his wives and children, as his own, 1Ki 20:3; and so they gradually decreased in credit and reputation, in power and authority, in wealth and substance, and at last were delivered to the sword of the enemy, and to captivity, which was their civil death.
q – “quum loqueretur–tremor erat”, Pagninus, Vatablus; “terror erat”, Zanchius, Drusius. r “portavit ipse, [sub.] iniquitatem suam”, Schmidt.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Because Israel would not desist from its idolatry, and entirely forgot the goodness of its God, He would destroy its might and glory (Hos 13:1-8). Because it did not acknowledge the Lord as its help, its throne would be annihilated along with its capital; but this judgment would become to all that were penitent a regeneration to newness of life. Hos 13:1. “When Ephraim spake, there was terror; he exalted himself in Israel; then he offended through Baal, and died. Hos 13:2. And now they continue to sin, and make themselves molten images out of their silver, idols according to their understanding: manufacture of artists is it all: they say of them, Sacrificers of men: let them kiss calves.” In order to show how deeply Israel had fallen through its apostasy, the prophet points to the great distinction which the tribe of Ephraim formerly enjoyed among the tribes of Israel. The two clauses of Hos 13:1 cannot be so connected together as that should be taken as a continuation of the infinitive . The emphatic is irreconcilable with this. We must rather take ( . . , in Aramaean = , Jer 49:24, terror, tremor) as the apodosis to k e dabber ‘Ephraim (when Ephraim spake), like in Gen 4:7: “As Ephraim spake there was terror,” i.e., men listened with fear and trembling (cf. Job 29:21). is used intransitively, as in Nah 1:5; Psa 89:10. Ephraim, i.e., the tribe of Ephraim, “exalted itself in Israel,” – not “it was distinguished among its brethren” (Hitzig), but “it raised itself to the government.” The prophet has in his mind the attempts made by Ephraim to get the rule among the tribes, which led eventually to the secession of the ten tribes from the royal family of David, and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel by the side of that of Judah. When Ephraim had secured this, the object of its earnest endeavours, it offended through Baal; i.e., not only through the introduction of the worship of Baal in the time of Ahab (1Ki 16:31.), but even through the establishment of the worship of the calves under Jeroboam (1Ki 12:28), through which Jehovah was turned into a Baal. , used of the state or kingdom, is equivalent to “was given up to destruction” (cf. Amo 2:2). The dying commenced with the introduction of the unlawful worship (cf. 1Ki 12:30). From this sin Ephraim (the people of the ten tribes) did not desist: they still continue to sin, and make themselves molten images, etc., contrary to the express prohibition in Lev 19:4 (cf. Exo 20:4). These words are not merely to be understood as signifying, that they added other idolatrous images in Gilgal and Beersheba to the golden calves (Amo 8:14); but they also involve their obstinate adherence to the idolatrous worship introduced by Jeroboam (compare 2Ki 17:16). from , with the feminine termination dropped on account of the suffix (according to Ewald, 257, d; although in the note Ewald regards this formation as questionable, and doubts the correctness of the reading): “according to their understanding,” i.e., their proficiency in art.
The meaning of the second hemistich, which is very difficult, depends chiefly upon the view we take of , viz., whether we render these words “they who sacrifice men,” as the lxx, the fathers, and many of the rabbins and Christian expositors have done; or “the sacrificers of (among) men,” as Kimchi, Bochart, Ewald, and others do, after the analogy of in Isa 29:19. Apart from this, however, zobh e che ‘adam cannot possibly be taken as an independent sentence, such as “they sacrifice men,” or “human sacrificers are they,” unless with the lxx we change the participle arbitrarily into the perfect . As the words read, they must be connected with what follows or with what precedes. But if we connect them with what follows, we fail to obtain any suitable thought, whether we render it “human sacrificers (those who sacrifice men) kiss calves,” or “the sacrificers among men kiss calves.” The former is open to the objection that human sacrifices were not offered to the calves (i.e., to Jehovah, as worshipped under the symbol of a calf), but only to Moloch, and that the worshippers of Moloch did not kiss calves. The latter, “men who offer sacrifice kiss calves,” might indeed be understood in this sense, that the prophet intended thereby to denounce the great folly, that men should worship animals; but this does not suit the preceding words , and it is impossible to see in what sense they could be employed. There is no other course left, therefore, than to connect Zobh e che ‘adam with what precedes, though not in the way proposed by Ewald, viz., “even to these do sacrificers of men say.” This rendering is open to the following objections: (1) that after would have to be taken as an emphatic repetition of the pronoun, and we cannot find any satisfactory ground for this; and, (2) what is still more important, the fact that ‘amar would be used absolutely, in the sense of “they speak in prayer,” which, even apart from the “prayer,” cannot be sustained by any other analogous example. These difficulties vanish if we take Zobh e che ‘adam as an explanatory apposition to hem : “of them (the atsabbm ) they say, viz., the sacrificers from among men (i.e., men who sacrifice), Let them worship calves.” By the apposition zobh e che ‘adam , and the fact that the object agalm 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 1Ki 19:18), is painted as it were before the eye.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Reproofs and Threatenings. | B. C. 722. |
1 When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died. 2 And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. 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 out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. 4 Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.
Idolatry was the sin that did most easily beset the Jewish nation till after the captivity; the ten tribes from the first were guilty of it, but especially after the days of Ahab; and this is the sin which, in these verses, they are charged with. Observe,
I. The provision that God made to prevent their falling into idolatry. This we have, v. 4. God did what was fit to be done to keep them close to himself; what could have been done more? 1. He made known himself to them as the Lord their God, and took them to be his people in a peculiar manner. Both by his word and by his works all along from the land of Egypt he declared, I am the Lord thy God; he told them so from heaven at Mount Sinai, that he was the Lord and their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt. This he continued both to declare and to prove to them by his prophets and by his providences. 2. He gave them a law forbidding them to worship any other: “Thou shalt know no God but me; not only shalt not own and worship any other, but shalt not acquaint thyself with any other, nor make the rites and usages of the Gentiles familiar to thee.” Note, It is a happy ignorance not to know that which we ought not to meddle with. We find those commended who have not known the depths of Satan. 3. He gave them a good reason for it: There is no saviour besides me. Whatever we take for our God we expect to have for our saviour, to make us happy here and hereafter; as, where we have protection, we owe allegiance, so where we have salvation, and hope for it, we owe adoration.
II. The honour that Ephraim had, while he kept himself clear from idolatry (v. 1): While Ephraim spoke trembling, or with trembling (that is, as Dr. Pocock understands it, while he behaved himself towards God as his father Jacob did, with weeping and supplications, and spoke not proudly and insolently against God and his prophets, while he kept up a holy fear of God, and worshipped him in that fear) so long he exalted himself in Israel, that is, he was very considerable among the tribes and made a figure. Jeroboam, who was of that tribe, exalted himself and his family. When he spoke there was trembling, that is, all about him stood in awe of him; so some understand it. Note, Those that humble themselves, especially that humble themselves before God, shall be exalted. When people speak with modesty and jealousy of themselves, with a diffidence of their own judgment and a deference to others, they exalt themselves, they gain a reputation. But as for Ephraim he soon lost himself: When he offended in Baal he died, that is, he lost his reputation, his honour soon dwindled and sunk, and was laid in the dust. Baal is here put for all idolatry; when Ephraim forsook God, and took to worship images, the state received its death’s wound and was never good for any thing afterwards. Note, Deserting God is the death of any person or persons.
III. The lamentable growth of idolatry among them (v. 2): Now they sin more and more. When once he began to offend in Baal the ice was broken, and he grew worse and worse, coveted more idols, doted more upon those he had, and grew more ridiculous in the worship of them. Note, The way of idolatry, as of other sins, is down-hill, and men cannot easily stop themselves. It is the sad case of all those who have forsaken God that they sin yet more and more. Let us trace them in their apostasy. 1. They made themselves molten images, proud to have gods that they could cast into what mould they pleased; probably these were the calves in miniature like the silver shrines for Diana; the zealots for the calf-worship carried about with them, it may be, images of the gods they worshipped, made on purpose for themselves. 2. They made them of their silver, and then doubted not of their property in them, when they purchased them with their own money or made them of their own plate melted down for that purpose. See what cost they put themselves to in the service of their idols, which they honoured with the best they had, and therefore made their molten images of silver. 3. They made them according to their own understanding, according to their own fancy. They consulted with themselves what shape they should make their idol in, and made it accordingly, a god according to the best of their judgment. Or according to their own likeness, in the form of a man. And, when they made their idols men like themselves in shape, they made themselves stocks and stones like them in reality; for those that make them are like unto them, and so is every one that trusts in them. 4. It was all the work of the craftsmen. Their images did not pretend, like that of Diana, to have come down from Jupiter (Acts xix. 35); no, perhaps the workmen stamped their names upon them, such an idol was such a man’s work. See Hos 8:6; Isa 44:9, c. 5. Though they were thus the work of their hands, yet they were the beloved of their souls for they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. Either the priests called upon the people thus to pay their homage, or the people, who were not allowed to come so near themselves, called upon the men that sacrificed, the priests that attended for them, to kiss the calves in their name and stead, because they could not reach to do it, so very fond were they of paying their utmost respects to such an idol as they were taught to have a veneration for. Though they were calves, yet, if they were gods, the worshippers, by themselves or their proxies, thus made their honours to them. They kissed the calves, in token of the adoration of them, affection for them, and allegiance to them, as theirs. Thus we are directed to kiss the Son, to take him for our Lord and our God.
IV. Threatenings of wrath for their idolatry. The Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to another; and therefore all those that worship images shall be confounded, especially if Ephraim do it, Ps. xcvii. 7. Because they are so fond of kissing their calves, therefore God will give them sensible convictions of their folly, v. 3. They promise themselves a great deal of safety and satisfaction in the worship of their idols, and that their prosperity will thereby be established; but God tells them that they shall be disappointed, and driven away in their wickedness. This is illustrated by four similitudes:–They shall be, 1. As the morning cloud, which promises showers of rain to the parched ground. 2. As the early dew, which seems to be an earnest of such showers. But both pass away, and the day proves as dry and hot as ever; so fleet and transitory their profession of piety was (ch. vi. 4), and so had they disappointed God’s expectation from them, and therefore it is just that so their prosperity should be, and so their expectations from their idols should be disappointed, and so will all theirs be that make an idol of this world. 3. They are as the chaff, light and worthless; and they shall be driven as the chaff is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor,Psa 1:4; Psa 25:5; Job 21:18. Nay, 4. They are as the smoke, noisome and offensive (see Isa. lxv. 5), and they shall be driven away as the smoke out of the chimneys, that is soon dissipated and disappears, Ps. lxviii. 2. Note, No solid lasting comfort is to be expected any where but in God.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
HOSEA – CHAPTER 13
GOD’S FINAL LAMENT AGAINST ISRAEL AND EPHRAIM
Verses 1-8:
Verse 1 describes how that when Ephraim spoke “trembling,” or in reverence before God, he exalted himself, with distinction, as a royal tribe in Israel, had high respect of all Israel, and of heathen nations around her, Job 29:21. But in contrast, when he “offended in Baal,” and Moloch in union worship before the heathen calf-gods of Baal worship, he offended God and was brought to death, emptiness or unfruitfulness to Jehovah God, Jos 4:14; Dan 5:19; Hos 11:2; 2Ki 17:16; 2Ki 17:18. Here prosperity and destruction are contrasted.
Verse 2 renews the grave charges of idolatry and its consequence against whoring Ephraim, as she adds sin to sin, of their own choosing, Col 2:23. First, under Jeroboam they began worship of the calves; Second, under Ahab they worshipped Baal the bull; Third, they followed this by multiplying the idols, circulating them among the less wealthy in their private lives, 2Ki 17:9-10. They say to or of them that worship these idols, “Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves,” or show adoration to them, an heathen adoration of an heathen idol, that can not see, hear, speak, walk, or work, Psa 2:12; Psa 106:20; Psa 115:5-9. Men are to “kiss the Son,” not heathen calf-idols, Psa 2:12.
Verse 3 concludes that in their future judgment they shall be like:
1) Morning clouds, soon gone without rain.
2) Early dew that is soon gone, of little good.
3) As chaff driven away by the wind, of no value are their riches. 4) Smoke out of the chimney—a fading mirage, empty of good.
Verse 4 contains God’s claim of His caring Lordship over them, even from the days of Egypt. Though He is divorcing Israel, He claims her as His property still, and that she is still to know, recognize, or worship no god but Him, as set forth in His primary law at Sinai, Exo 20:1-5. He then asserts and concludes that there exists no saviour or liberator except Him, Hos 12:10; Jos 24:14-15; Isa 43:11; Jon 2:9; Joh 8:24; Joh 14:6; Act 4:12; Isa 45:21.
Verse 5 states that God did know, recognize, or show favor to Ephraim and Israel in the wilderness to give them drink, food, clothes, and the needs of life, when they could not provide for themselves, in the wilderness, Deu 8:15. This He did from His storehouse of grace, mercy, love, and compassion to care for His own, whose Ephraim was, though in rebellion and anarchy against Him, Psa 144:3; Amo 3:2.
Verse 6 describes them as cattle who were filled in a pasture of plenty, then stampeded against their Lord who gave them the pasture and caused the grass to grow. They had forgotten God and turned away from their best friend and lover, with selfish pride, to await their own destruction, the very thing against which their own law had warned them, Deu 6:11-12; Deu 8:11; Deu 22:15.
Verse 7 recounts God’s threat to be toward them as a lion and as a leopard by the way, that stalks and slays, and devours sheep and cattle that have no keeper, whose keeper has left them to stampede and stray to their own destruction, while He Himself would keep watch over them from the shadows as they suffered, 1Sa 15:22-23. See also Lam 3:10; as a lion or leopard lurks for its prey, so the Lord lay in wait watching over His own, Jer 13:23.
Verse 8 continues God’s threat in their judgment, to assure them that their coming captivity judgment sufferings are caused by two things: 1) First, their unrepented sins, and 2) Second, His Divine intervention to use their heathen enemies to humble them, because of their idolatry and vain pride in a state of impenitence. God describes His judgment like that of a wild bear, bereaved, or robbed of her whelps, 2Sa 17:8; Pro 17:12. She is savage and vicious, satisfied with nothing less then ripping the heart from her detractors, her enemies, 1Sa 17:34. Where they sinned they shall be punished. Those beasts are similar in their vicious prey upon Ephraim to those that Daniel saw and described, Daniel ch. 7.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Interpreters agree not in their view of this verse. Some say that trembling was excited in Israel when Ephraim, that is, Jeroboam, who was born of that tribe, exhorted the people to worship the calves. By the word רתת, retat, “trembling,” they understand, that the people were so astonished, that they without thought immediately obeyed the will, or rather the humour, of their impious king. And if this sense be approved, the word, trembling, may be in another way explained, even in this, — that the people did not immediately embrace that perverted worship, but dreaded, as is wont to be the case with regard to new things, and which seem to have nothing reasonable in their favour. But these expounders wholly depart, in my judgement, from the intention of the Prophet; for, on the contrary, he sets forth here the twofold state of the kingdom of Israel, that it might hence be manifest that the ten tribes had been through their own fault rejected by the Lord, and had thus fallen from that dignity unto which the Lord had raised them.
He therefore says, When Ephraim spake formerly, his voice dreaded, (89) and he raised himself in Israel; that is, among the whole race of Abraham. But now he is dead, or is fallen, after he has begun to sin in Baal. Then, in the first sentence, the Prophet records the honours with which God had favoured that tribe. Ephraim, we know, was the younger of the sons of Joseph. Manasseh ought not only to have had the pre-eminence, but also to have reigned alone in that family; for the people were divided into twelve tribes. But God intended to raise up two chiefs in the house of Joseph, and preferred the younger to the first-begotten. Hence Ephraim, who had increased in number and power, and had at length obtained the royal dignity, ought to have acknowledged the singular favour of God. And by way of reproach, the Prophet here says, that all trembled at the single voice of Ephraim; that is, when he became endued with authority, and then, that he was exalted in Israel. He ought to have been deemed of no account, he ought to have been inferior to his brother, who was the first-born, and yet he excelled all the tribes. Since, then, God had conferred so much honour on the tribe of Ephraim, the more grievous was his fault, that he afterwards had fallen away unto idols; yea, that he began his reign with superstition, when God was pleased to choose and anoint Jeroboam king. And surely that he, when raised beyond all hope to the throne by the hand of God, should, instead of testifying his gratitude, immediately corrupt the whole worship of God, this was extremely inconsistent.
But the Prophet says, in the second place, that they died from the time they had thus fallen away from true and lawful worship, in order that they might understand that they received the just reward of their impiety when God’s hand was opposed to them, when they were oppressed by adversity. We now perceive the obvious meaning, of the Prophet to be, that the Israelites formerly flourished, especially the tribe of Ephraim, from whom Jeroboam arose, so that, by their voice alone, they subdued all their neighbours, and that beyond the expectation of men, they suddenly emerged and erected a new kingdom among the children of Abraham.
He afterwards adds, that after they had sinned by Baal, they became dead: for God deprived the tribe of Ephraim of the power with which he had before adorned him, so that they were but little short of being destroyed. For though his kingdom had not wholly fallen, it had yet come to such an extremity that the Prophet might justly say that they, who were so far removed from their former state, were dead. But when he says that they sinned by Baal, he does not mean that this was the beginning of their idolatry; for Jeroboam at first made the calves, and it was his successor who built Baal, and borrowed that superstition, as it is supposed, from the neighbouring Sidonians. But God records here what is more grievous, and less excusable, — that the Israelites polluted themselves with the filth of the Gentiles, so that they differed nothing from the profane and unbelieving, who had no acquaintance with sound doctrine.
We are moreover taught in this place, that when kings are endued with any authority, when they are strong in power, all this comes from God; for unless God strikes terror into men, no one would receive the yoke of another, at least all would desire equality, or one would raise himself above others. It is then certain, that when any one excels among many in power, this is done through the secret purpose of God, who constrains to order the common people, and causes them not to deny obedience to the command of one man. This is what Hosea now teaches, when he upbraids the tribe of Ephraim with respect to this terror; for if Ephraim had been formidable through his own power, there would have been no room for the Prophet’s reproof: but as this was the peculiar gift of God, the Prophet justly says, that the tribe of Ephraim were in great honour until they had fallen into superstition. Let us now proceed —
(89) Horsley appears to have adopted Calvin’s view of this sentence. His version is this, — “When Ephraim spake, there was dread.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
HOSEAOR GODS AFFECTION FOR AN UNFAITHFUL PEOPLE
Hos 1:1 to Hos 14:9.
IT is our purpose in this series of articles on the Minor Prophets to throw such light upon these twelve Books as to make them meaningful and profitable to our readers. I suppose it may be safely said that the average Christian leaves these Books unstudied, and some of them unreada circumstance due to certain natural difficulties in their interpretation; but in greater measure still, to the poor work of present-day preaching. The custom of taking a text has wrought havoc in Bible study. Our fathers in the ministry were Bible expositors; their successors are textual preachers. The result is described in one of the minor Prophets:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the Words of the Lord:
And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the Word of the Lord, and shall not find it (Amo 8:11-12).
There are some simple and yet fundamental facts regarding the prophecy of Hosea that are essential to its proper understanding. It was doubtless written by the man whose name it wears. It refers, unquestionably, to the time of Jeroboam the Second, when Elisha, the Prophet of God, was living, and Isaiah, that great Evangel of the Old Testament, was a babe; and when those kings of Judah Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiahwere successively occupying the throne. The date is supposed to be 790 to 725 B. C.
Hosea was the great Evangel of his time. While he was an Elijah the Tishbite, in his stern denunciation of sin, he was a John the Apostle in his sense of Divine love and his eloquent call to repentance.
Some of the Books of the Bible break easily into divisions, and some of the students of Hosea have seen fit to divide it into two such. But our research does not justify the method. To us it is one grand whole, with not a break in thought from first to last. It is a recital of Israels history in her unfaithfulness, and an illustration of Gods goodness to His own people.
For our convenience, however, we divide it into four sections.
THE SYMBOLISM OF GOMERS SIN
And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the Lord.
So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim (Hos 8:2-3).
These opening sentences of Hosea have given no small trouble to students. Some have received it historically; while others have insisted that God could not send the Prophet on any such mission, without Himself being a party to sin; and so have attempted to interpret it as a dream or vision. Following the custom which we have found alone to be safe, we believe with those who accept the Book at what it says. And yet we have not found the question involved so difficult of solution as some. When it is remembered that the whole people of Israel had already turned to idolatry, we can understand that any daughter selected from them could be spoken of in this language, since the charge of whoredom, with the false gods of the land, lay against every son and daughter of Israel. And even when the narrative seems to specifically charge this woman with this sin, it does not necessitate Gods participation in evil because He sends Hosea to wed her. You will see, ere the history ends, she is won to a righteous life again. So the Prophet is to her what he has become to all IsraelGods agent of salvation. But her sin is symbolical.
It was a sin against law and love. The seventh commandment antedated Hosea and stood as a protest against the violation of that relation which husband and wife sustain to one another, as the whole decalogue stands as Gods protest against the violation of the relation which He and His people sustain to each other. When, therefore, Gomer forgets the law and despises the love of Hosea, she fitly represents the conduct of the whole kingdom in forgetting Gods Law and despising the Divine love. The man who, today, living under the reign of grace, disregards the moral Law and tramples it beneath his feet with impunity, is guilty of a crime of the first magnitude. But the man who adds to that an equal disregard of the Divine love takes the last step needful in the contemplation of his folly and the sealing of his fate.
Paul wrote to the Hebrews:
If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the Truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
He that despised Moses Law died without mercy under two or three witnesses;
Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the Blood of the covenant, wherewith he wets sanctified, an holy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
For we know Him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me, I wilt recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge His people (Heb 10:26-30).
This sin was again symbolical in that it was against good society.
The moment the foundations of domestic life are undermined the whole fabric of society is endangered. When lust assaults the home it strikes the essential pillar of the State. And when it overrides the law and love of domestic relation, it leaves desolation in its track and brings in a dark day for the people. When such a sin as this can be found in the first houses the very nation has fallen. Dr. Talmage said truly enough that where there is no pure home there are the Vandals and the Goths of Europe; the Numidians of Africa, and the Nomads of Asia. No home, no school; no household, no republic; no family, no church.
But Gomers sin became more significant still, God made it to be a sorrowful instruction! Strange as it seems, it is yet probably according to the natural law in the spiritual world that Gods spokesmen must be sufferers. It was only after the iron had entered Moses soul as he watched the oppression of his own people from his position in the palace, and by his enforced exile spent forty years on the back side of the desert that he was eloquent as Israels leader. Joshua was fitted by forty years of wilderness wandering for his great work of commanding Israel and conquering Canaan.
But no man could read this Book of Hosea without feeling that its authorour Prophethad suffered probably as much as either of these great predecessors. Joseph Parker says, Hoseas sorrow was of the deepest kind. The daughter of Diblaim was the daughter of the devil. He had no peace, no rest, no singing joy within the four corners of his own house. He lived in clouds; his life was a continual passage through a sea deeper than the Red Sea. If we may vary the figure, his wandering was in the wilderness, unblessed; cursed by the very spirit of desolation.
And yet we do believe that strong natures have the very power to transmute their sorrows into eloquent appeals for righteousness; that the very intensity of their suffering adds solidity to their thought and eloquence to its utterance. We seriously doubt if Hoseas wife had not been a scarlet woman, as she was, whether he could ever have properly sympathized with God, the Father, in that Israel turned from Him to moral infidelity, by worshiping at false shrines and living wicked, sensual lives.
John Bright, that marvelous leader of thought in England, started on his career of splendid service in consequence of an unspeakable sorrow. His young wife, to whom he was devoted, lay dead when Richard Cobden called on him. Having expressed, as best he could, sympathy and condolence, Cobden looked up and said, Bright, there are thousands and thousands of homes in England, at this moment, where wives and mothers and children are dying of hunger. Now when the first paroxysm of your grief has passed, I would advise you to come with me and we will never rest until the corn-laws are repealed.
Cobden showed himself a philosopher that day. He knew full well that one way to recover from a personal pain was to take into ones heart as an antidote, the pain of the people.
You will remember what had more to do, perhaps, with the declaration of war with Spain than any other single thing, the destruction of the Maine excepted. It was Senator Thurstons speech. And how did it happen that this Nebraskan, who had never before been eloquent, spoke before the Senate of the United States with such an appeal as to move even opponents to agree with him? That speech opened in these words,
Mr. President: I am here by command of silent lips to speak once and for all upon the Cuban situation, and trust that no one has expected anything sensational from me. God forbid that the bitterness of a personal loss should induce me to color, in the slightest degree, the statements that I feel it my duty to make. I shall endeavor to be honest, conservative and just. Then he proceeded with such an oration as American law-makers of any decade seldom, if ever, heard. Concluding with these words, Mr. President, in the cable that moored me to life and hope the strongest strands are broken. I have but little left to offer at the altar of freedoms shrine. But all I have I am glad to give. I am ready to serve my country as best I can in the Senate or in the field. My dearest hope, my most earnest prayer to God is this, that when death comes to end all I may meet it calmly and fearlessly, as did my Beloved, in the cause of humanity, and under the American flag.
There is but one explanation of such an address as that. The eloquence of it was born of the sorrow of burying a beloved wife in Cuban soil, and feeling in his heart that the pain of the oppressed people of that land had been already the occasion of her death; and to relieve it, was worthy the laying down of his life.
The Psalmist said, I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good, and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue.
It was sorrow. It was that suffering that only a righteous man can feel when sinned against by her whom he loves most, that made Hosea understand the Divine Ones suffering in Israels sin, and adequate to its expression.
PHASES OF ISRAELS INFIDELITY
It found first expression in unwarranted forms. There seems to be a general agreement between students of Hosea that the groves and altars, when first chosen and erected, were unto the Lord. But it does not take long for them to go from unwarranted forms to open infidelity. God did not command any of these at their hands. Her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts, became occasions of Baal-worship. Instead of saying any longer, Ishimy husband, they turned to say, Baalimy lord. It is the history of unwarranted forms in all ages.
When Christ came into the world He found the Church of the Old Testament cold in death, slain by the hands of ceremonialists,the Scribes and Pharisees of His time,who, with their hollow ritualism and hypocrisies, had driven many men to the infidelity of Sadduceeism; so that they said, There is neither angel nor spirit. Truly, as Frederick Robertson said,
No self-righteous formalism will ever satisfy the Conscience of man; neither will infidelity give rise to a devoted spirit. Formalism in religion and infidelity in conduct often go hand in hand.
Charles Dudley Warner tells us that after having traveled around the world he came back to Brindisi, Italy, a so-called Christian country, and entered a so-called Christian Church to see a figure of Christ, the Crucified One, set off in a dark corner with dust gathered on it, while a representation of Mary, the mother, clad with the latest mode of French millinery, flamed before an altar, and their knees bowed there.
It was little better than the Baal-worship of Hoseas time. And if Jesus should come to that church He would have occasion to utter the words which He once addressed to Scribes and Pharisees.
Thus have ye made the Commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,
This people draweth nigh unto Me with their mouth, and honoureth Me with their lips; but their heart is far from Me.
But in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
This degenerate worship was popularized by priest and prince. By reading fourteen verses of the fifth chapter you will see they were its chief patrons. The Prophet of God addressed them Hear ye this, O priests; and hearken, ye House of Israel. Then, after describing their participation in these false and foul ceremonies, he voices God as saying: I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the House of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away: I will take away; and none shall rescue him.
It is a sad day for the Church when the prince, or the man in the place of power, is putrid. It is a darker day when the priest, or the leader in the Church of God, is correspondingly corrupt. When the time came that Tetzel could sell indulgences, with the consent of the priesthood of Rome, the very moral rottenness existing in the Name of Jesus, compelled the Reformation, and gave rise to Luthers opinions, and victory to his appeal. And when, at the present time, a Pastor, either by evil practices, leads his people into iniquity, or by his silence concerning the commercial and other sins of those who contribute to his salary, connives at iniquity, the condition becomes akin to that which Hosea was raised up to rebuke nearly three thousand years ago. And the result for the present day will be the very same as that which came to the Israel of Hoseas time.
It produced the grossest idolatry and immorality.
There is not time to read to you these chapters,4 to 13,but if there were, the reading would only profit you by giving you pain as you looked upon Israels open sore.
It was this principle that Hosea saw and clearly stated so many, many centuries ago,namely, when men become lawless, and are libertines, they cannot hope to keep women upon a plane of chastity and holiness. God distinctly declares that He would not punish their daughters for their sins, in view of the conditions of society, for which priest, prince and peasant were responsible.
George Adam Smith reminds us that history in many periods has confirmed the justice of Hoseas observations, and by one strong voice after another, enforced his terrible warnings. The experience of ancient Persia and Egypt, the languor of the Greek cities, the deep weariness and sated lust which in Imperial Rome made human life a hell. It is only another illustration of the Apostle James words,When lust hath conceived, it bring eth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death (Joe 1:15).
THE FOLLY WHICH INFIDELITY EFFECTS
There can be traced in this volume a striking parallelism between the conduct of the individual and of the nation. Gomers treatment of Hosea was Israels treatment of God.
There is a supreme insensibility to undeserved favor. The Prophet says, She did not know that I gave her corn, etc.
Insensibility to Divine favor has often marked the conduct of man. We easily forget that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights. We quickly attribute our blessings to our own ingenuity, to the bounty of nature, or to luck, and just as easily forget Godthe Giver of all. Strange isnt it that the one creature made in His image, endowed with the highest faculties, blessed of Him thousands of times beyond all other works of His hands, should be insensible to what he had received, and to what he is receiving, and know not God gave corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied * * silver and gold.
If this spirit were all in the world it were not so bad; but Gomer is the Prophets wife, and Israel is espoused of God; and this insensibility to Divine favor has smitten the Church, and her children forget Me, saith the Lord. Sam Jones had a man come to him who said, Jones, the church is putting my assessment too high. How much do you pay? asked Jones. Five dollars a year, was the reply. Well, said Jones, how long have you been converted? About four years. What did you do before you were converted? I was a drunkard. How much were you worth? I rented land, and was plowing with a steer. What have you got now? I have a good plantation and a pair of horses. Well, said Jones, you paid the devil two hundred and fifty dollars a year for the privilege of plowing a steer on rented land, and now you dont want to give the God who saved you five dollars a year for the privilege of plowing your own horses on your own plantation. Insensibility to Divine favor! Moses had occasion for that passage in his song, They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are a perverse and crooked generation. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish people and unwise? is not He thy Father that hath bought thee? hath He not made thee, and established thee? (Deu 32:5-6).
They were slow to realize the Divine intent of judgment. After announcing His purpose in judgment, I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the House of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him (Hos 5:14). The Lord reveals His reasons by adding, I will go and return to My place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early (Hos 5:15). Deliverance is always the Divine purpose in Gods judgments against His people. The Psalmist said, Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept Thy Word. And it was only after the Lord had visited them with judgment that Israel could say, Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for He hath torn, and He will heal us; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up (Hos 6:1).
But, like sinners of all ages, Ephraim must be smitten, her root dried up, so that they shall bear no fruit, and they realize themselves utterly cast away because they did not hearken unto the Lord. It is only after Israel hath destroyed herself that she realizes the source of life in God.
How strikingly this experience parallels that of weak men in all ages! Only when the prodigal, clothed in rags, starved to the point of sustenance on the honeysuckle, and sitting with the swine, does he come to himself. As a rule, the man that follows the lusts of the flesh, and goes the way of the libertine, or the drunkard, never sees the meaning of the Divine judgment until his sins have slain his manhood, wrecked his business, scattered his family, consumed his flesh, and left him as perfectly stranded as was ever a vessel when driven high upon the ragged rocks. It is amazing to study the folly of men who have departed from the Lord! Almost universally they are conceited up to the very day when they are undone. They think that they are going to recover themselves. Like Ephraim, strangers have devoured their strength, and they know it not: gray hairs are here and there upon them, and yet they know it not. They feed on the wind and follow after the east wind, and daily increase in desolation. They make a covenant with the Assyrians and boast their righteousness as Ephraim did, saying, In all my labours they shall find none iniquity in me that were sin.
God can do nothing else with such men than to bring them low; nothing else than to whelm them with sorrow; nothing else than to strike them to the very earth with judgment; for they must be made to see that their condition is not due to circumstances, but to an evil spirit.
Dr. Chapman tells the story of a woman who was seated in Central Park, New York, with her little child playing about her. Suddenly the child was startled by the barking of a dog. In her frightened state she ran into her mothers arms. When the dog ceased his barking she said, Why are you frightened, dear; he is quiet? Oh, yes, I know, mamma; but the bark is still in him.
One thing always being said by unregenerate men is, If I could only remove to a new location; settle myself with new associates, and in new business employment, I would be all right. All right! And yet evil still in you! Better turn over to Gal 5:19-21, and read, Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like What one needs is not a change of location, but a change of nature, so that the incoming of the Holy Spirit shall give you the fruits of the Spirit which are love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Such folly is followed only by shame and degradation. The tenth chapter of Hosea illustrates the consequences of Israels conduct.
Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images.
Their heart is divided: now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall spoil their images.
For now they shall say, We have no king, because we feared not the Lord; what then should a king do to us?
They have spoken words, swearing falsely in making a covenant: thus judgment springeth up as hemlock in the furrows of the field.
The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shalt mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.
It shall be also carried into Assyria for a present to King Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.
As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.
The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.
O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.
It is in My desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.
And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods.
Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till He come and rain righteousness upon you.
Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.
Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shahnan spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.
So shall Beth-el do unto you because of your great wickedness; in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.
In conclusion we pass to
GODS AFFECTION FOR AN UNFAITHFUL PEOPLE
That affection was expressed in undeserved words and acts. God bares His heart here as He has often done before, crying,
O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee? for your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away (Hos 6:4),
When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt,
I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them (Hos 11:1; Hos 11:3-4).
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? Mine heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together.
I will not execute the fierceness of Mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city (Hos 11:8-9).
Beloved, one lesson that it seems difficult to learn is thisto remember the goodness of God. One should adopt the custom of thinking upon Divine favor. It is only as we forget the source of our blessings, of every good and perfect gift that we grow indifferent to the grace of our God.
Dr. Torrey says, I was talking one night to one who was apparently most indifferent and hardened. She told me the story of her sin, with seemingly very little sense of shame, and when I urged her to accept Christ, she simply refused. I put a Bible in her hands and asked her to read this verse. She began to read, God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, and before she had finished reading the verse she had broken into tears, softened by the thought of Gods wondrous love to her.
It is a strange thing that more people dont answer temptation as did Joseph,How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?
When God executes judgment it is commonly for the purpose of correction. Take the reference in this volume,
Therefore will I return, and take away My com in the time thereof, and My wine in the season thereof, and will recover My wool and My flax given to cover her nakedness,
And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of Mine hand,
I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts, And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them,
And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and for gat Me, saith the Lord (Hos 2:9-13).
What is the purpose? He immediately proceeds to tell us, Therefore(God never employs that word without occasionit is the great conjunction with Him.)
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her,
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 (Hos 2:14-15).
Beloved, there is a beneficent purpose when the fiery trial is on. The very whips with which He makes Israels back to bleed are not the expressions of His wrath; but, rather, of His love.
Henry Ward Beecher declares that his father used to make him believe that the end of the rod that he held in his hand was a great deal more painful than the end which he applied to Henry. And the great preacher says, It was a strange mystery to me; but I did believe it, and it seemed a great deal worse to me to be whipped on that account.
It ought to be so with the children of God. I once had in my church a woman who punished her children by vicarious suffering. When they misbehaved at the table she denied herself a meal, and she told me that it broke their hearts.
Would to God that we were as sensitive to the suffering which our sin imposes upon the Heavenly Father, and as sensible concerning the purpose which He has in visiting correction against our sins.
But, after all, God gave best evidence of His affection by,
Keeping for His people an open heart. I like to dwell on the last chapter of this Book,
O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God; * *
Take with you words, and turn to the Lord: say unto Him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously (Hos 14:1-2).
And I like to listen to Gods answer to this cry which He Himself seeks to put into their lips,
I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for Mine anger is turned away from him.
I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.
His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon.
Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? (Hos 14:4-6; Hos 14:8).
It is a beautiful picture! It ought to encourage the children whose hearts have departed from the plain paths of privilege in Christ; it ought to incite hope in the heart of the individual who has played the prodigal and paid the penalty.
I like to reflect upon the words of that sweet-spirited man, F. B. Meyer, as he speaks of Gods attitude toward those who turn again to Him, saying,
Be sure that God will give you a hearty welcome. He has not given you up or ceased to love you. He longs for you. Read the last chapter of the Book of Hosea, which may be well called the backsliders gospel. Read the third chapter of Jeremiah, and let the plaintive pleadings to return soak into your spirit. Read the story of Peters fall and restoration, and let your tears fall thick and fast on John 21: as you learn how delicately the Lord forgave, and how generously He entrusted the backslider with His sheep and with His lambs. Be sure that though your repeated failures and sins have worn out every one else, they have not exhausted the infinite love of God. He tells us to forgive our offending brother unto four hundred and ninety times; how much oftener will He not forgive us? According to the height of heaven above the earth, so great is His mercy.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
CRITICAL NOTES.]
Hos. 13:1. Eph.] formerly enjoyed great distinction in Israel. Men listened with fear and trembling to him (Job. 29:21); he exalted himself, secured the rule among the tribes, and then seceded and established a separate kingdom. By the introduction of the worship of Baal and the custom of calf-worship he offended and died. Two conditions of Eph. are contrasted, prosperity and destruction.
Hos. 13:2. Sin] Add sin to sin, i.e. continue in former transgressions. 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 (2Ki. 17:9-10), penetrating and pervading the private life, even of their less wealthy people [Pusey]. Say of them] Such things as these mentioned. Kiss] An act of adoration (Psa. 2:2; Psa. 106:20).
Hos. 13:3. Therefore] punishment shall be swift. Their goodness is fleeting as the dew, and the morning cloud; their prosperity worthless is the chaff or the smoke.
HOMILETICS
SELF-ESTIMATION THE MEASURE OF RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE.Hos. 13:1-3
God raised Ephraim to chief power, and Judah was afraid of him. Through Gods goodness he was respected; but when he sinned, he lost his reputation and honour. When he exalted himself, he offended and died. When we walk humbly before God we prosper; but when we are proud and forsake him we die.
I. Humility exalts. When Ephraim spake all reverently feared him. Princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth. Men whom God blesses have mighty influence.
1. Humility exalts before God. God looks upon the contrite, and dwells with the humble. The world counts nothing great without display. The honour that cometh from God only is despised. Men like Job, Isaiah, and Paul, who abhor themselves in dust and ashes, are considered weak-minded. Humility is not a heathen, but a Christian, virtue. Conscious dependence upon God, as the animating principle of life in all its relations and duties, is opposed to the self-esteem and self-confidence of modern philosophy. True humility will lead to dependence upon God, and those who trust most in God will be the strongest and most honoured by God. Such the king delighteth to honour.
2. Humility exalts before men. Self-conceit will lower men in the estimation of others; but a true spirit and noble life will gain real worth. The dogmatical opinion, the fancied superiority, the over-weening pride of men will clothe them with shame (Pro. 26:12; Pro. 29:20). We lost our position through pride, and must recover it by humility. He that would build a lasting fame must begin low. David was as distinguished in retirement as in the court of Saul. Washington as a private citizen was admired as much as Washington the commander of an army. Some become great by elevation, others by condescension. We stoop to conquer, and before honour is humility. When God exalts and magnifies men, they are formidable, as Joshua and Moses. When crowned with virtues, and strong in faith, they are greater than Alexander and Csar. It is an uncontroverted truth, said Swift, that no man ever made an ill figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them. Every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
II. Self-exaltation destroys. The proud and insolent fall into danger. A mans pride shall bring him low; but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.
1. Self-exaltation tends to idolatry. Man unduly values himself, and raises himself to lofty heights only to fall from them. Men are proud of rank, talent, and success. They adore their gold and silver, and make idols of vanities. Disaffected toward God, they run to excess, unchecked by Divine goodness, and emboldened by human flattery. They lean to their own understanding, and reject the word of God. They cut out and carve images of their own, multiply and deify gods with their own fancies, and worship them. Go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands.
2. Self-exaltation tends to self-degradation. Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. What a degradation for king and counsellors, priests and people, to fall down to calves! What do we see now? The objects may be changed, but the same spirit is displayed. We have rivals of the Living God in the forms of human device. Potentates and princes kiss the feet of the Pope. Rich and poor adore the consecrated wafer, and fall before the golden crucifix. In the Christian Church, we have craftsmen, and gods that oppose and exalt themselves above all that is called God. Mortals sitting as God in the temple of God, and demanding the homage and service which are due to God. God has made us for himself, and to kiss any idol is to degrade our mental and moral nature. Stand up; I myself also am a man.
3. Self-exaltation tends to self-destruction. When he offended in Baal, he died by the judgments of God, which he brought upon himself.
(1) It increases sin. They sin more and more. They added one sin to another, until it became habitual and universal. Sin is essentially cumulative in its nature and consequences. One sin contains and brings on another. The perversion of religion leads to more ungodliness. To the guilt of idolatry is added obstinate persistence in evil courses. Under the pretence of ignorance and infirmity, idolators pursue their malicious designs.
2. It brings destruction. He died. Death, spiritual and eternal, is the penalty of sin. Israel died as a kingdom and nation. God is the fountain of all life, and departure from him is real death. The wages of sin is death. All prosperity and reputation based on wickedness, will violently and swiftly pass away like the morning cloud and the early dew. Every fleeting object in nature preaches the vanity of idolatry, and the transient hopes built upon it. Judgments upon the proud and impenitent will bring utter desolation. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more; but the righteous is an everlasting foundation.
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
Hos. 13:1. Natural conscience cannot but stoop to the image of God in whomsoever found. When Ephraim was first in the throne he became formidable; but when he fell openly from God he grew feeble; first he was a terror and then a scorn [Trapp].
Hos. 13:2. Idolatry. I. Its origin. A human creation. God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions. Discontent with God, they have invented a new mode of happiness. The first invention was the parent of many, all marked by the same folly and lies. Craftsmen now make their own deities, and worship creatures inferior to themselves.
1. An idol is the conception of man. It was the device of the human mind. It represents what the mind has imagined, and is no better, no higher than its creator. Idols according to their own understanding.
2. An idol is the work of man. All of it the work of the craftsmen, who completed with their hands what they conceived with their minds. Diana was said to have come from Jupiter (Act. 19:35); but men stamp their names upon and give their hearts to their own workmanship (Isa. 44:9). The scene at Sinai is often repeated in history and experience. These be thy Gods, O Israel. II. Its expense. Molten images of their silver. Wood and stone were not good enough. Gold and silver were thought to honour and exalt the gods. Wealth is often lavished on selfish ends, and men spare no expense to decorate and support their own idols. They tax their minds and spend their silver in the service of sin. What a blessing if men would devote as much time and energy in the service of God as in the because of idolatry! III. Its degradation. Men kiss the calves.
1. It degrades human nature. When we exclude spiritual interests, inferior matters become great, and the same energy of mind that might be employed for good will be expended in evil. The mind contracts its dimensions, impairs its powers, by devoting itself to objects below itself, and lowers itself to the level of those objects. But applied to higher objects, it is expanded, elevated, and strengthened. Gods service dignifies human nature by giving it useful activity, wise direction, and Divine influence.
2. It degrades the Divine nature. The conceptions and ideas of a corrupt mind are in harmony with that mind. Its worship is according to the flesh. As man cannot rise to God, God is brought down to the level of sinful man. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. IV. Its guilt. They add sin to sin. Idolatry is not a mere mistake, nor infirmity, but a guilty departure from God.
1. Men sin by forgetting God. We never forget anything in which we take great interest. The carnal mind takes no interest in God, is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God. God is excluded from the thoughts and life of the wicked.
2. Men sin by substituting idols for God. Men will worship something. If the true God is forsaken, they make gods of their own. This provokes God to anger, and brings misery upon them. Impenitence after Divine chastisement, perseverance in known sin after Divine warning, will aggravate human guilt, and result in fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which will devour the adversary. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.
Hos. 13:3. The prosperity of the wicked. I. It is of short duration. It may flourish and make a fair show for a while; but it vanishes away. It is evanescent as the early dew, which glistens only to pass away. It is deceptive as the morning cloud. You admire its beauty and changing hues. But its existence is short; it is only a temporary substance, and like mens goodness, it goeth away (ch. Hos. 6:4). II. It is worthless in its nature. If it continues long it does not satisfy. Like chaff, it is light and unsubstantial; lifted up, the sport of every wind, and carried along to be seen no more. As smoke out of the chimney, empty, baseless, and inflated, it disappears for ever. Such the prosperity of Ephraim, and such the prosperity built on any wickedness. The wicked may seem to live and flourish; but they sin, die, and perish eternally. Virtue makes man upright and stable; vice, empty and unstable, says an author. They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away (Job. 21:18; Psa. 1:4; Psa. 35:5; Pro. 14:32).
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 13
Hos. 13:1-3. Humility. The more God honoureth men, the more they should humble themselves. The more bounty God shows, the more humility he requires. Humility teaches us in our works to draw strength from God, not from ourselves; in our graces to ascribe their goodness to God, and their weakness to ourselves [Reynolds]. Praise is a comely garment. But though thyself doth wear it, another must put it on, or else it will never sit well on thee. Praise is sweet music, but it is never tuneable in thine own mouth. If it cometh from the mouth of another it soundeth most tuneably in the ears of all that hear it [Jermin].
When people once fall into the habit of admiring and encouraging ability as such, without reference to moral character, they are on the highway to all sorts of degradation.
Kiss. Read the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, and see if there is one exaggerating touch. That chapter is a terrible but true picture of the lower strata of humanity. What were the deities in heathen times? Jupiter was a monster, Mercury a thief, Mars a sort of cannibal, who drank the blood of his victims. Such the gods of the heathen; and like gods like people.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
REQUITINGGOD WILL PUNISH
TEXT: Hos. 13:1-8
1
When Ephraim spake, there was trembling; he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died,
2
And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.
3
Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the dew that passeth early away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing-floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
4
Yet I am Jehovah thy God from the land of Egypt; and thou shalt know no god but me, and besides me there is no savior.
5
I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.
6
According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted: therefore have they forgotten me.
7
Therefore am I unto them as a lion; as a leopard will I watch by the way;
8
I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart; and there will I devour them like a lioness; the wild beast shall tear them.
QUERIES
a.
Why did they kiss the calves?
b.
How is Israel to be like the dew that passeth early away?
c.
What is the caul of their heart?
PARAPHRASE
It used to be when Israel spoke, her neighbor-nations trembled because Israel was powerful and influential. But Israel let his pride destroy him. He spurned Jehovah God and rebelled against Him, worshipping pagan Baalism instead, and as a result, Israel began to die both spiritually and physically. And now the people disobey more and more. They melt their silver so that unprincipled silversmiths may mold it into pagan idols according to the desires of the people. Then the people say, Bring sacrifices to these godshow utterly stupid and wickedmen worshipping and kissing calves! Because of such wickedness Israel will perish and vanish from national existence as quickly as the morning clouds, or the dew, or the chaff, or the smoke that rises from the cooking fires. In contrast to the impotency and stupidity of your idol-gods, I AM THE ETERNAL JEHOVAH-GOD. You have every reason to know Me for I delivered you by signs and wonders from the land of Egypt. You have been given all the evidence you need to know that I am the only GodI am the only One who can save you. I saved, protected and led you in the wilderness; I delivered you time after time from plagues, droughts and famines. But when I brought you into the land flowing with milk and honey and prospered youwhen you had eaten and were filled, you allowed your heart to be lifted up in pride and you forgot Me, and I specifically warned you, through Moses, not to let this happen. Therefore I am going to come upon this people like wild beasts come upon flocks of sheep. I will tear this nation to pieces and tear its very heart out, and this nation will be swallowed up in My wrath.
SUMMARY
Israel could not stand prosperity. She let pride cause her to forget her prosperity came from Jehovah. Turning, in pride, to idols she persists in idolatry and incurs the terrible wrath of a jealous God.
COMMENT
Hos. 13:1 WHEN EPHRAIM SPAKE . . . THERE WAS TREMBLING . . . The struggles of the proud tribe of Ephraim to get the rule among the tribes of the covenant people led eventually to the secession of the ten tribes and the divided kingdoms and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel. Israel, the northern kingdom, then became powerful and rich, and when Israel spoke her neighbor-nations (esp. Judah) listened! When Israel became rich and powerful her kings (esp. Ahab, see 1Ki. 16:29-33) made alliances with heathen nations and brought in the worship of Baal. This offended the righteous and jealous love of Jehovah. From that time onward Israel began slowly but certainly to dieboth spiritually, and as a consequence, physically.
Hos. 13:2 AND NOW THEY SIN MORE AND MORE . . . THEY SAY . . . LET THE MEN THAT SACRIFICE KISS THE CALVES . . . The farther one goes away from the light, the darker the darkness! The more Israel sinned, the more she wanted to sin, They became stupid and shameless in their sin and melted their silver and fashioned it with their own hands into gods and then bowed down before them and even kissed them. Pusey says, Kissing was an act of homage in the East, done upon the hand or the foot, the knees or shoulder. It was a token of Divine honor, whether to an idol or to God (cf. 1Ki. 19:18; Psa. 2:12). It was performed, either by actually kissing the image, or when the object could not be approached, (as the moon) kissing the hand, and so sending, as it were, the kiss to it (cf. Job. 31:26-27). The apostle Paul reasoned logically with the philosophers of Athens that living men should never think that the Deity is like gold or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man (cf. Act. 17:22-31). Men, rational beings, professing to worship Jehovah, kiss, adore, worship, and expect help from calves made of silver. What foolish, stupid wickedness! There is even enough of the revelation of a personal God in nature that men ought not to worship idols or creatures (cf. Rom. 1:18-32). And Israel had in addition to this, a direct, miraculously confirmed, revelation of God!
Hos. 13:3 THEREFORE THEY SHALL BE AS THE . . . DEW THAT PASSETH EARLY AWAY . . . Hosea uses four common experiences of men to figuratively express the rapid demise of Israel. As suddenly as the morning clouds vanish, as quickly as the dew is dried up, as violently as the chaff is driven through the air by a whirlwind, and as completely as the smoke rising from a cooking fire vanishesso will Israel suddenly, quickly, violently and completely vanish from the land. Hosea uses dew in other places as a figure of other experiences (cf. our comments on Hos. 6:4 and Hos. 14:5).
Hos. 13:4-5 . . . I AM JEHOVAH THY GOD FROM THE LAND OF EGYPT . . . I DID KNOW THEE IN THE WILDERNESS . . . Again the prophet sets forth the contrast between the true God and the false gods. The enormity of their sin is evident once the comparison is recognized. Their God, Jehovah, delivered them from the power of Egypt and Egypts gods by demonstrating, through Moses and Aaron, the impotency of Egypts idols and His own omnipotence. Jehovah delivered them, sustained them in the wilderness and revealed His will to them by mighty miraculous signs and wonders which their forefathers had seen with their own eyes (cf. Deu. 32:1-43). How utterly stupid of this generation then, not to recognize that there is only One True God, Jehovah, and that He alone can save them.
Hos. 13:6 . . . THEY WERE FILLED AND THEIR HEART WAS EXALTED . . . How could a later generation (of Israelites be so mentally and spiritually depraved as to forget the facts of history? The answer is here in the sixth verse. Pride! They did exactly what Moses warned them not to do in Deu. 8:11-20! When Israel became affluent, they did like so many other nations have done, and like America is doing today, they lifted up their hearts in pride and said My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. Pridewhether it is military pride, political pride, affluent pride or intellectual pridecauses men to wilfully ignore the fact of history as Peter points out in II Per. Hos. 3:3-5. Pseudo-scientists, proud of their intellectualism, proud of their erudition, holding to evolutionary, uniformitarian views, will deliberately ignore the historical, empirical facts which testify to creation and catastrophism. Theologians, proud of their erudition or their religious heritages, will deliberately ignore the historical, textual integrity of the Bible and substitute theology and philosophy for the Word of God. Pride is the trap that snared the devil, snared Eve and then Adam and snares many millions today (cf. 1Ti. 3:6-7).
Hos. 13:7-8 THEREFORE I AM UNTO THEM AS A LION . . . AND WILL REND THE CAUL OF THEIR HEART . . . Gods flock had been caused to lie down in green pastures and drink beside the still waters. But now God will come upon this flock of helpless sheep (Israel) like all of the wild beasts and tear this nation to pieces. Caul is the pericardium or membranous sac surrounding the heart. God is going to tear the very heart out of this nation. He will cause it to be devoured and swallowed up in Assyrian captivity, like a lioness devours its prey.
QUIZ
1.
Who trembled when Ephraim spoke?
2.
When did Israel begin her downward plunge into moral decadence?
3.
Did men actually kiss claves? Why?
4.
How did Paul, the apostle, argue against idolatry to philosophers?
5.
Why should Israel have known the difference between Jahovah and idols?
6.
Why did Israel refuse to acknowledge the difference between God and idols?
7.
How extensive will the judgment of God be upon Israel?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XIII.
(1) There is a difference of opinion as to the construction and rendering of this verse. We adopt the interpretation, When Ephraim uttered terror, he rebelled in Israel; then he committed sin through Baal, and died. This points to the revolt of the Ten Tribes, and the consequent abandonment of the pure traditions of Jehovah worship for those of Baal. This idea and that of the previous verse (Hos. 12:14) may have been brought into prominence by the recent untoward antagonism aroused by the Syro-Ephraimitish war against Judah.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1-3. Israel’s apostasy its own death warrant. Though the interpretation of Hos 13:1 is not quite certain, that embodied in the translation of R.V. and suggested in the introductory remarks above is preferable to all others that have been proposed. Ephraim’s experience should have been a warning to the whole people.
Ephraim Not synonymous with Israel, as in practically every other case in the book, but the tribe of Ephraim.
When spake trembling, he exalted himself If rendered thus the meaning of the passage would be, “When the Ephraimites in trembling accents responded to the divine call, they rose to the exalted position which their prophetic ancestor foreshadowed” (Gen 49:22-26). This translation and interpretation are open to criticism on linguistic and other grounds, and there can be no doubt that R.V. has come nearer the truth: “When Ephraim spake, there was trembling.” The other tribes looked up to Ephraim with fear and trembling (Jdg 8:1; Jdg 12:1; compare Gen 49:16; Deu 33:17).
He exalted himself Not in a bad sense, “he became proud,” but, “he became a leader, a prince.” Many commentators read, with a slight alteration, “he was a prince.”
He died Loyalty to Jehovah contained elements insuring permanence; apostasy, on the other hand, contained those elements that made death and destruction inevitable (Hab 2:4). As soon as Ephraim apostatized the dying process began (Gen 2:17).
He offended in Baal Or, became guilty through the Baal (compare Hos 10:2). He became guilty when he accepted from the Canaanites Baal ideas and allowed these to corrupt the Jehovah worship (Hos 2:5 ff.). Baal is identical with Baals in other parts of the book (see on Hos 2:5). There may be also an allusion to the setting up of the “calves” (Hos 8:5; Hos 10:5) by Jeroboam I (1Ki 12:29), who was of the tribe of Ephraim (1Ki 11:26). The tribe of Ephraim, once so powerful, had become, in the days of Hosea, of little significance. The words of the prophet by no means imply that Ephraim alone was guilty, or that he alone suffered; only, in his experience the contrast between the former glory and the present oblivion illustrated most perfectly the lesson Hosea desired to teach. The experience of this one tribe should have had a wholesome effect upon the others. Not so.
Now In the prophet’s own day.
They The whole nation.
Sin more and more Or, they continue to sin (G.-K., 114m) notwithstanding the warnings.
The offense of Ephraim consisted in apostasy to the Baals; the nation as a whole gave itself to even grosser idolatry.
Molten images See on Nah 1:14 (compare Exo 34:17). These images may have been intended primarily to be representations of Jehovah (1Ki 12:28).
Idols The general term for an image of a deity.
According to their own understanding Their own skill and proficiency. What, power can there be in such images? LXX. reads, and other ancient versions, in part, favor the reading, “They made them molten images of their silver according to the likeness of idols.”
The work of the craftsmen Whatever the exact reading of the preceding, this clause brings out the point of greatest importance: the images are man-made; there is nothing divine about them. Hos 13:2 b is obscure. Various translations, all more or less forced, have been proposed. The text may be corrupt; at any rate, many emendations have been suggested.
They The indefinite people.
Say of them Or, concerning them, that is, the idols.
Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves The kiss is the kiss of homage (Psa 2:12; 1Ki 19:18). Those who offer sacrifice are urged ironically to bestow the kiss of homage upon the idolatrous calves. How absurd for human beings to kiss calves! Another possible translation is suggested in the margin, “Let the sacrificers of men kiss the calves.” This rendering emphasizes even more the absurdity of the religious practices. Men they sacrifice and beasts they kiss, instead of sacrificing beasts, and kissing men. That human sacrifices were offered in Israel at this time is not definitely stated in Hosea (but compare 2Ki 17:17); in Judah the practice was not unknown (2Ki 16:3; 2Ki 21:6). A third possible translation, secured by dividing the words into two clauses, reads, “To them (the idols) they speak (in prayer).” How absurd to address prayers to the work of their own hands! “Men that sacrifice (or, sacrificers of men) kiss the calves.” Sacrificers of men is the more natural translation of the Hebrew, but the other is not impossible (G.-K., 1281). The two clauses would have to be understood as exclamations of disgust by the prophet. Which one of these interpretations is right cannot be asserted with certainty. The Hebrew is peculiar and may be corrupt. Of proposed emendations two may be mentioned. Marti, omitting several words, reads, “Sacrificers of men they are; calves they kiss.” Harper, “People sacrificing to demons; men kissing calves.”
Such a condition of affairs cannot be permitted to continue. 3. Swift retribution will overtake them. This thought is expressed very emphatically by the accumulation of four separate figures, each one describing utter destruction. On the first two see Hos 6:4.
As the chaff The threshing floors were usually located on elevations, so as to take advantage of every breeze. The grain was winnowed by throwing it up into the air with shovels. The solid grains fell back to the ground, while the chaff was carried away by the wind. The stronger the wind the more quickly the chaff vanished; a whirlwind would drive it out of sight in a very short time (Psa 1:4; Isa 17:13; Isa 41:15-16, etc.).
Smoke It also is swiftly driven away by the breeze (Psa 68:2).
Chimney The same word is sometimes rendered “window”; literally, lattice (see on Joe 2:9).
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling,
He exalted himself in Israel,
But when he offended in Baal,
He died.
In a play on the use of the term Ephraim which can signify 1) Joseph’s Song of Solomon , 2 the tribe of Ephraim, 3) the whole of Israel, and 4) the rump of Israel left in the days of Hoshea, Hosea describes how Ephraim had previously been ‘feared’ and exalted in Israel. When he spoke (as the son of Joseph) men had trembled before him, and it was because YHWH had lifted him up. And later they had trembled before the powerful tribe of Ephraim in the land. Initially this was because Ephraim, as Joseph’s son, was a prince of Egypt, and then it was because the tribe of Ephraim had become the most influential in northern Israel (compare Jdg 3:27; Jdg 5:14; Jdg 8:1). Furthermore from Ephraim had come both Joshua, the Servant of God (Jos 24:30), and King Jeroboam I (1Ki 11:26; 1Ki 12:20) and his descendants. They were rivalled only by Judah.
But now Ephraim had sunk to the depths. They had offended through their worship of Baal. And that meant that in YHWH’s eyes they had ‘died’. They were as good as dead in His eyes. Initially their offence had been when Israel worshipped the golden calf in the wilderness, and subsequently it had been (a) at Baal-peor (Numbers 25); (b) through Baal worship in Jdg 2:11-12; Jdg 2:19, (c) as a result of the worship of the golden calves of Jeroboam, and (d) the consequence of the dedicated Baal worship under Ahab and Jezebel. And while Jehu had expunged the worship of the Tyrian Baal from Israel he had still not discouraged the worship of the golden calves, which were inevitably linked with Baal worship.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Because Ephraim Have Offended So Deeply, And Have Rejected Their Deliverer, Judgment Upon Them Is Inevitable ( Hos 13:1-16 ).
The crimes of Israel are again laid bear. They are guilty of idolatry (Hos 13:1-2), ingratitude (Hos 13:5-6), trusting in false leaders (Hos 13:10-11) and complacency (Hos 13:13), and above all of not recognising their true Deliverer and Saviour (Hos 13:4). Thus they must face up to the curses of wild beasts (Hos 13:7-8; compare Lev 26:22)), plagues and destruction (Hos 13:14; compare Lev 26:16; Lev 26:21; Deu 28:22), desert winds (Hos 13:15), the sword (Hos 13:16; compare Lev 26:25; Deu 28:22) and the loss of women and children (Hos 13:16).
Analysis of Hos 13:1-16 .
a
b And now they sin more and more, and from their silver have made for themselves molten images, even idols according to their own understanding, all of them the work of the craftsmen. They say of them, “Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves” (Hos 13:2).
c Therefore they will be as the morning cloud, and as the dew which passes early away, as the chaff which is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing-floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney’ (Hos 13:3).
d Yet I am YHWH your God, from the land of Egypt, and you shall know no god but me, and besides me there is no saviour (Hos 13:4).
e I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled, they were filled, and their heart was exalted, therefore have they forgotten me (Hos 13:5-6).
f Therefore am I to them as a lion, as a leopard will I watch by the way, I will meet them as a bear which is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the enclosure of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lioness, the wild beast will tear them (Hos 13:7-8).
g It is your destruction, O Israel, that you are against me, against your help (Hos 13:9).
f Where now is your king, that he may save you in all your cities? And your judges, of whom you said, “Give me a king and princes?” I have given you a king in my anger, and have taken him away in my wrath. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up, his sin is laid up in store (Hos 13:10-12).
e The sorrows of a travailing woman will come on him, he is an unwise son, for it is a time when he should not linger, in the place of the breaking forth of children (Hos 13:13).
d Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol, shall I redeem them from death? O death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction? Compassion will be hid from my eyes (Hos 13:14).
c Though he be fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of YHWH coming up from the wilderness, and his spring will become dry, and his fountain will be dried up, he will make ruination of the treasure of all goodly vessels (Hos 13:15).
b Samaria will bear her guilt, for she has rebelled against her God (Hos 13:16 a).
a They will fall by the sword, their infants will be dashed in pieces, and their women with child will be ripped up (Hos 13:16 b).
Note that in ‘a’ Ephraim was to die, and in the parallel they will die horribly in war. In ‘b’ they sinned more and more and submitted themselves to idols, and in the parallel they are to bear their guilt for their rebellion against God. In ‘c’ they will evaporate and will be blown away with the wind, and in the parallel an east wind from YHWH will dry them up. In ‘d’ YHWH proclaims Himself as their Deliverer and only Saviour, and in the parallel He indicates that He will now not deliver or save them because of their rebellion. In ‘e’ they were known by God in the land of great drought (as His son – Hos 11:1; Hos 11:3-4), and in the parallel they are to be left dying in the womb. In ‘f’ wild beasts will hunt them down and savage them, and in the parallel their king is unable to save them in their cities from their enemies (who are like wild beasts), because YHWH has removed their king. Centrally in ‘g’ their destruction lies in the fact that they are against YHWH their Help.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
AN APPEAL IS MADE TO JACOB’S EXAMPLE WHICH SIMPLY SERVES TO REVEAL ISRAEL’S PARLOUS STATE AND GUARANTEES THE COMING JUDGMENT OF DESTRUCTION AND THE EXILE BUT IT IS WITH THE PROMISE OF FINAL RESTORATION AND FRUITFULNESS IN VIEW ( Hos 12:1 to Hos 14:9 ).
These words were probably mainly spoken during the latter part of the reign of Hoshea, with the destruction of Samaria threatening on the horizon. After a further appeal for repentance Israel is seen to be finally doomed, with any hope that they have lying far in the future because of their unrepentant hearts.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Hos 13:14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.
Hos 13:14
1Co 15:55, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
Jesus is our Redeemer. Jesus will give us life, even resurrection and everlasting life (Joh 11:25).
Joh 11:25, “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
God’s Benefits Scorned by Israel
v. 1. When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel, v. 2. And now, v. 3. Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, v. 4. Yet, v. 5. I did know thee, v. 6. According to their pasture, so were they filled, v. 7. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them, v. 8. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
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.
Hos 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 , 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 is to fear, shudder, tremble; there is also, in Jer 49:24, the word , 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 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 , 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) Rosenmller 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 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 Psa 89:10 and Nah 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.”
Hos 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. , a molten image, like the molten calf of Aaron, is singular, but used collectively, so as to correspond with , 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 (Amo 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 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 is disputed, but without sufficient ground. No doubt the Septuagint, which is followed by the Chaldee, Arabic, and Jerome, probably read , rad , to build, like , figure, or ; for they translate
(2) according to the likeness or fashion of idols; while some manuscripts of Kennicott and De Rossi present
(3) the reading , 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 , but the feminine form is shortened before the suffix, like for (Job 11:9); and for (Pro 7:8); for (Psa 49:15). Some suppose it from a masculine form, , 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’ (Hab 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 1Ki 19:18), is painted, as it were, before the eyes.” As parallel to zobheche ‘adam, comp. evyone ‘adam (Isa 29:19). Several eminent modern commentators give the same or a similar explanation, with the exception that, instead of translating , “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 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’ (1Ki 19:17), while they shed innocent blood, and this is, ‘ And his blood shall he leave upon him’ (Hos 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 for zobheche, and , instead of , translate by, “They say, ‘Sacrifice () men, for the calves have come to an end’ [or, ‘failed,’ ].” “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.”
Hos 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 chaffit 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 lattice, from , to knit or twist, the Septuagint, according to Jerome, read locusts, as may be inferred from their rendering in the Complete-Man edition of the LXX; erroneously written in some copies , that is, vapor from locusts or from tears.
Hos 13:4, Hos 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.
Hos 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 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 methe opposite of the statement, “Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them” (Deu 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 (from , which, as the cognate Arabic signifies, “to go forth or away”) is synonymous with .
Hos 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 is , unused in Hebrew, but signifying, in Arabic, “to burn, dry, be dry,” akin to . 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.”
Hos 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 Israelthe 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, Deu 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.'”
Hos 13:7, Hos 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.
Hos 13:7
Therefore I will be unto them as a lion. The verb, 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. Rosenmller 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 (2Ki 8:12; 2Ki 10:32) and the Assyrians (2Ki 15:29). He also very aptly compares Isa 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 is properly
(1) the future of , to look around, and thence, to lie in wait; but
(2) some, taking the initial aleph as radical and the word as participle of , 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 , as Rashi rightly observes: “In every place where 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’ (Num 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.”
Hos 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 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 is akin to , the meaning of the root-syllable , 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 Hos 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 , equivalent to , is the wild beast as opposed to , 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.'”
Hos 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, is
(a) the Piel third person, and has the suffix of the second person, from which the pronoun may be supplied as subject of the concluding clause. The preposition be has here the meaning of “against,” as in Gen 16:12 and 2Sa 24:17, while is in apposition to it. The Hebrew commentators take 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 as a noun, the former translating by : “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 . 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 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 or . 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.
Hos 13:10-16
The concluding verse is at once a conclusion and commencementan 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 Hos 13:10 and Hos 13:11. Further, when in consequence of their iniquities treasured up, their sorrows and sufferings would be extreme, as stated in Hos 13:12 and Hos 13:13, yet they would be raised up as out of their graves, as promised in Hos 13:14.
Hos 13:10, Hos 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 , or shortened form , and this is strengthened by , equivalent to the Greek 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” (1Sa 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 as first person future of the verb ; 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.”
Hos 13:11
I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath. The imperfects and 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.
Hos 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”).
Hos 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 1Th 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
(3) “at the time,” but that would rather require ; 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. 2Co 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 by : “This wise son of thine [employed ironically] shall not stand [or, ‘endure’] in the destruction of his children or people.”
Hos 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. is to redeem by payment of a price; by right of kinship; while , the under world, is derived
(1) by some from , 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 , equivalent to (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 , 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 is
(a) incorrectly taken by some for the first person future of ; it is
(b) more properly taken in the sense of “where,” as in Hos 13:10 of the present chapter. is plural, referred by some to , hence , LXX.; it is, however, the plural of
(c) , pestilence, and , pestilence, destruction, from , to cut off, akin to . Hitzig says that , and are originally infinitives, and the last two designate instruments or members, and thus give a sort of support to the traditional 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 1Co 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 1Co 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.”
Hos 13:15
Though he be fruitful among his brethren. It should rather be, for he bear fruit among brethren. , 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 by being “only used in cases where a circumstance is assumed to be real For one that is merely supposed to be pebble, is required,” as may be inferred from the interchange of the two words in Num 5:19 and Num 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 , the aleph taking the place of he. The Septuagint , equivalent to “shall cause a division,” and Jerome’s divider, suppose or . 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 , as from , is an irregular formation for , as on the contrary we find the Hiph. , as if from .
Hos 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 , to atone or suffer the punishment of contracted guilt; in the former sense it is from , and it is translated accordingly by 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 (for its future would be ), but . 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 presents childhood on the side of playfulness or petulance. The pronominal suffix attached to 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; ,2Ki 8:12 and 2Ki 15:16).
HOMILETICS
Hos 13:1-8
Justification of the ways of God to man.
Israel had been the cause of their own calamitiesanother proof that sin is the procuring cause of all human suffering and sorrow. God’s character is seen to be everlastingly the samelong-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 deaththey 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 DOWNWARD 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 calvesa 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 (2Ki 17:9, 2Ki 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 vanishethboth 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 INGRATITUDE 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 AGGRAVATIONS, 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 beastsnay, 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. Sinners may shut the remonstrances and warnings of the Divine Word out of their hearts and remain obdurate, but afflictive providences or untoward events of some kind, may at God’s pleasure tear away the obstruction, and tear open the hardest heart. Whether the opinion of those who think there is a reference here to the four ancient monarchies is founded in fact, or is only the mere offspring of fancy, we care not to examine. That there is a resemblance between the terrible threats of this passage and the terrible treatment which the people of God experienced at the hands of those monarchies, there can be little doubt. Of the four monarchies represented by beasts in the seventh chapter of Daniel, the Babylonish was the lion, the Persian a bear, the Grecian a leopard, the fleetness of which suitably set forth the rapidity of Alexander’s exploits, all of which he performed in the space of twelve years, while he himself at his death had only reached the age of thirty-three years. The Roman empire is not likened to any one beast in particular, but is described as dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, with great iron teeth, devouring and breaking in pieces and stamping the residue with the feet, its ten horns standing for the ten kingdoms into which it was subsequently parceled.
Hos 13:9-13
Man’s marvelous perversity and God’s restorative mercy.
I. RUIN BY SIN, RECOVERY BY GRACE. When Israel had destroyed himself, and when there was neither help not’ hope for him in himself or in aught that man could do, help was to be found in God and in God alone. Throughout the whole course of human history wrath and ruin are the deservings of man, goodness and mercy the dispensation of God. In the worst of times and in the darkest day help is to be bad in God In the midst of merited wrath he remembers mercy. God volunteers his help to his erring children even when their sins have been blackest and their need greatest. When there is no human help at hand or anywhere available, God graciously proffers aid. There was now no king to save them in all their cities; God interposes and says, “I myself will be your King.” When there was no judge to deliver them, such as those that had been raised up for them on great emergencies in ancient timesno Gideon, no Jephtha, no SamsonGod himself stepped forth for their protection and stretched out his helping hand.
II. RELIANCE ON HUMAN HELP IS OFTEN AS FRUSTRATING AS FOOLISH.
1. Israel had expected much, but got little, from a king and princes. Thus we read in 1Sa 8:5, “Make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” Princes, though not expressed, are clearly implied in that passage, for wherever there is a king, there mast of necessity be a court and nobles, or officers of high rank, to attend him. The people gained their object, bat find their trust misplaced; in the day of their calamity and their oppression, those fro? whom they confidently expected such great things, are powerless as themselves and m just as great need of help. Thus history confirms the lesson, “Trust not in princes nor man’s son.”
2. The folly of obstinately neglecting or rejecting warning well meant and faithfully given. Forewarned is forearmed; this should be the ease, but the maxim is often disregarded. Samuel had faithfully warned Israel of the inconveniences to which they would expose themselves by imitating the surrounding nations when they sought a king. He told them truly, for God had instructed him, of the oppressions they might expect, the exactions they would be subject to, and the arbitrariness of rule to which they would have to submit; but, though they could not gainsay aught of his warning, they obstinately persisted in their determination, saying, “Nay, but we will have a king.” To their folly they added sin, as is usually the case, for in rejecting Samuel’s counsel they rejected the prophet’s Master, as it is written, “They have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.”
3. How little men know what is really good for them! Frequently we set our heart on things most prejudicial to our best interests. Like children crying for hurtful objects which a wise parent withholds in tenderest affection, and which if granted would be sure to inflict injury or even prove fatal, we clamor for things that would prove not only unsuitable but most harmful; and, childlike, we complain if our requests are not granted. We pray, and in our ignorance we know not what to pray for as we ought. What need we have of grace, that the right desires may be put into our hearts and right words in our lips; that, coming before God with acceptance, we may obtain those things that are most conducive to the Divine glory and expedient for ourselves!
III. REQUESTS GRANTED IN WRATH. God, in his providence ever wise and holy, may, as it were, stand aside from men for a season, and allow them to have their way. After rejecting the salutary warning of his Word they may succeed in their wicked enterprises, and seem even to be seconded in them.
1. No ground for caviling at God‘s providence. Without any imputation on the Divine holiness, men may be permitted to have their way and to get their will, yet in much wrath. “God,” says Calvin, “so executes his judgments, that whatever evil there is it ought to be ascribed to men; whatsoever good to himself…. God by his secret counsel had directed the whole business, and yet he had no participation in the sin of the people Let us learn wisely to admire the secret judgments of God, who thus makes use of wicked men, and directs for the best end what is done by men wickedly and foolishly.”
2. There appears to be an answer to a latent objection. The people might say to the prophet, “Why blame us when God permitted us to have a king, appointing Samuel to anoint Saul, and allowing Jeroboam to reign over ten tribes?” To this God, by his servant, replies, “I gave you a king when your hearts were so set on one; but I gave him to you in anger and as a punishment of sinSaul to punish your sin in rejecting Samuel; and Jeroboam to punish the idolatries in the reign of Solomon, as also your rebellion and apostasy.”
3. God‘s gifts are sometimes tokens of his wrath. “God,” says Augustine,” many times in giving is angry, and in denying is merciful.” We have positive proofs of this in Scripture. Besides the passage before us, there is a notable instance on record in Num 11:1-35.; there God gave the people what they greatly longed for, but in wrath. They had “wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it ,was well with us in Egypt.” They got the flesh they so vehemently craved; their desires were gratified; why? Just, we are told, because they despised the Lord who was among them. Thus God gave them flesh to eat, but it was in anger. The psalmist (Psa 78:1-72), commenting on the fact, explains it so, “While the meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them.”
4. The end was as bad as the beginning. A king was given them in anger, and a king was taken away in wrath. The proverb says, “Well begun is half done;” but we may add, “A bad beginning has most frequently an ill end.” “Nothing successful,” says Calvin, “could then proceed from so inauspicious a beginning. For it is only then an auspicious token when we obey God, when his Spirit presides over our counsels, when we ask at his mouth, and when we begin with prayer to him. But when we despise the Word of God, and give loose reins to our own humor, and fix on whatever pleases us, it cannot be but that an unhappy and disastrous issue will follow.”
5. Criteria of God‘s gifts. We may point out a few tokens by which men may judge whether God’s gifts are granted in love or in wrath. There are
(1) desires which have more respect to the gift than to the giver. Of such it has been well said, “Those desires that are not out of love are not satisfied from love.” If our regards are fixed on the creature and have no respect to the Creator, God may grant such desires, but not in love. “Whatsoever a gracious heart would have from God, yet this is the main thing in its desiresOh, let me have God in them!”
(2) Great vehemence and want of moderation in our desires betoken that the gratification of those desires proceeds rather from wrath than love. In such cases God, we may conceive, says, “If you must have them, if you will have them, take them; but take the consequences along with them.” Hence the necessity of moderating our desires in regard to all worldly things.
(3) God sometimes grants man’s desires, but withholds the blessing, so that it soon becomes abundantly manifest that the gift has come in anger, not in love. The desire has been granted, but there is neither comfort with it nor satisfaction in it. Thus we read,” They shall eat, but they shall not be satisfied.” Or a worldly benefit is bestowed, yet not only is spiritual enjoyment withheld, but spiritual declension follows; as the psalmist (Psa 106:1-48) says, “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul.”
(4) When benefits are bestowed, but grace for the right use of them not given, we have good reason to conclude that it is in anger, not in love. God may grant us prosperity in our business or improvement in our lot of life; but if we have not sufficient grace to make a sanctified use of such prosperity or improvement, the benefit is not a sign of love, but of anger. It has been well said that “it is not in love for God to give any success, except he give a measure of grace proportioned to the success.”
(5) If our desires are attained and our ends accomplished by unlawful means, we have a priori evidence that our success has been owing to anger, and not to love. Many other signs might be added, but they must be left to suggest themselves, as there is little doubt they will to a reflecting mind.
IV. RECKONING FOR SIN IS SURE TO COME ONE DAY. Men’s iniquity, like that of Ephraim, is bound up as treasure in a bag; it is sealed and kept safe, in order to be brought forth in due time. Sin, in like manner, is hid, not, however, from God, but with God, till the day of reckoning arrives. Just as gifts are bestowed, as we have seen, sometimes in anger and not in love, so sin is often hid in judgment, not in mercy, that is, not for protection but desolation.
1. God‘s patience towards, is no acquaintance of, the sinner. His forbearance with the antediluvians lasted several centuries, till all flesh had corrupted its way, and the earth was filled with violence; but his Spirit would no longer strive, and the Flood came, sweeping all except eight souls away. He bore with Sodom till the cry of their wickedness went up to heaven, and Divine vengeance descended on its inhabitants. He bore with the Amorites till the cup of their iniquity brimmed over and brought complete destruction. Every sin, however secretly committed or subtlety contrived, however long overlooked or left unpunished, shall come forth, on the day of reckoning, for just retribution. “Be sure your sin will find you out.”
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”
2. Security in sin is no safeguard for the sinner. One of the most destructive devices of the evil one is to tempt men to sin by suggesting the thought that what they do is no sin at all, or if it be a sin, that it is a little one, or too trivial to be punishable; or that the sin they commit is not known and shall never be known, or if it should, that it is too long forgotten or unnoticed to be ever punished. Equally devilish is the contrary device, by which, after he has succeeded in tempting men to sin, he drives them to despair by the thought that their sin is too great to be forgiven.
3. The less the apprehension, the nearer the punishment. As in the natural world, so in the morala dead calm is sometimes the precursor of a storm. So in the days before the Flood, men were “eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” buying and selling, building and pulling down, planting and sowing, busying themselves in the various engagements of daily life, and all the while felt perfectly secure till the very day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the Flood came and took them all away. Agag thought the bitterness of death was past, just before Samuel hewed him in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. The inhabitants of Laish dwelt securely till of a sudden they became a prey to their enemies. The Amalekites, after taking Ziklag, were feasting and making merry and fearing no danger, when David came upon them and smote them from the twilight even unto the evening of the next day. So in other cases recorded in Old Testament history. So in New Testament times, as the apostle warns that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”
V. RESEMBLANCE OF SINNERS SUDDEN AND BITTER SORROW TO TRAVAIL–PAINS. When God unlocks his treasury of wrath, and brings forth to light the sins now shut up and sealed and safely kept, men’s security and God’s forbearance shall in that day issue in sudden and sore sorrows. These sorrows are like the sorrows of a parturient woman, sharp as they are sudden. Many passages of Scripture might be quoted to prove travail-pains to be emblematical of acute anguish and extreme distress. They are at the same time inescapable.
VI. REPENTANCE IS CLOSELY CONNECTED WITH RENEWAL OF LIFE. As the travail-pains of the mother are usually associated with birth, and so a new life and therefore joy; so the godly sorrows of repentance are inseparably conjoined with conversion to God, newness of life, and consequent spiritual joy. The unwisdom of Ephraim is evidenced by his staying so long in the birth; in other words, by his delaying repentance. Ephraim persists in his sins, obstinately persists in them, and makes no effort to get out of them by repentance; he endeavors not, by aid of proffered grace, to extricate himself by repentance from his sin and misery and danger. How many there are, like Ephraim, who are content to lie long under convictions, but never think of agonizing to attain to thorough conversion! How many unwise sons there are! How many there are with strong convictions of sin, their conscience aroused, their understandings more or less enlightened, and affections much moved, and yet they stay there! They are brought to the birth, but they stop shortstay where they are, and refuse to come forth. They are not far from the kingdom of heaven, but unhappily they delay to enter into it, and that delay may prove fatal. They come to the place of breaking forth of children, but they stay long, alas! too long, in that perilous position. They are almost persuaded to become Christians, but not altogether; and so they are only almost, but not altogether saved. How sad the case of those who come within a mile of home, yet never reach it! or who come within view of port, yet sink to rise no more before they reach the harbor! How lamentable the fate of those Israelites who had reached Kadesh-barnea, within eleven days’ journey or less of the land of promise, but who never set foot in that goodly land, their carcasses having fallen in the wilderness!
Hos 13:14-16
The humiliations wrought by the sins of Israel.
The prophet representation implies that they were deadnationally, politically, and spiritually dead. They were like dead men; and not only so, they were like men dead and gone and buried out of sightso dreary and desperate was their condition.
I. THE DESPERATE STATE OF SINNERS. They are spiritually deaddead through trespasses and sins. Even the people of God may by reason of their sins bring upon themselves such calamities, and may sink so low, as to be like men without life and lying in the grave. It was so with Israel at the period in question. They had come under the dominion of death, and had become subject to the power of the under world. Their condition is similarly described by Ezekiel in his thirty-seventh chapter: “These bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.”
II. THE DELIVERANCE PROMISED. The deplorable state of a sinful people dead and buried under calamities is no proof helplessness when God undertakes their deliverance and presents no impossibility to the power of his omnipotence.
1. Israel in captivity were politically dead, the place of banishment was their grave. This is the condition of persons in exile, for in a civil sense they are spoken of as dead. Deliverance from captivity is here promised to that people primarily and partially from the country of Assyria, but fully and finally from the lands of their long dispersion and political death.
2. But Israel in all their remarkable history were a representative people; and so their restoration from a state so hopeless and helpless that to the eye of sense it seemed death, may typify the renewal of life in souls spiritually dead by the regenerating power of God, and further the resurrection of bodies long dead and moldered in the grave. The Septuagint expresses the sense of the original with perfect plainness by substituting “victory” for “plagues,” and “sting” for “destruction.” Paul, in his quotation of the passage, employs the Septuagint; and whether he employs the words allusively, or by way of accommodation, the better to express his sense of the mighty power of God, or as an exact citation, he celebrates the greatest of all deliverances, which shall be consummated in that day when the destroyer of the nations shall be himself destroyed, and when the universal conqueror shall himself be conquered, his sting being wrested from him and his power to hurt annihilated.
3. The deliverance thus effected by him who has the right to redeem, as having become our Kinsman, and who, having paid the ransom, possesses the privilege to redeem, both by price and by power, is extolled not only as a victory, but a triumph; while language of exultation is addressed to the ghastly tyrant now fallen and for ever prostrate.
4. When we revert to the immediate application of the words, we find the substance of the promise to Israel to be that, notwithstanding Ephraim’s unwisdom in rebelling against and delaying to return to God, and notwithstanding his long impenitence and false security, God’s faithfulness shall stand fast, and the truth pledged to his people shall not be disannulled What comfort for all humble penitents! However hopeless and helpless our condition, and however desperate our state, we have no reason to despair. However gracious the promises of God, and however mighty the power required for their accomplishment, we may rest assured that not one jot or tittle shall fail through fickleness or fall to the ground through lack of power, for he has solemnly said, “Repentance is hid from mine eyes.” He will not repent of mercy to his friends, nor relent in his wrath to their enemies.
III. THE DIGNITY AND DOWNFALL OF EPHRAIM. Promise and threatening frequently present themselves side by side in the Word of revelation, and sometimes alternate. The fulfillment of the one is a guarantee for the fulfillment of the other; the accomplishment of the one warrants us to expect the accomplishment of the other.
1. Ephraim’s fruitfulness had been the subject of promise, and the very name involved a prophecy. That promise had been realized in Ephraim’s great superiority over the other tribes in numbers, in power, and in wealth. The fruitfulness of the earth and the fruitfulness of the womb had been his; he had been blessed with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. Like his father Joseph, he had been a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well, whose branches run over the wall.
2. But as the promise had been so exactly fulfilled, so must the threatening. And notwithstanding the prosperity of this highly favored people, the day of adversity was at hand. The destructive elements that were commissioned to bring about the downfall of Ephraim are figuratively described; but the figures employed set forth very graphically the violence of the enemy who was approaching, the Power by whom he was sent, the quarter from which he came, the ruin he would accomplish, and the robbery he would effect. The figures are so obvious and applicable that they only need to be indicated. The east wind is the fierce Assyrian conqueror. He comes not by chance, but is commissioned of the Lord; he comes from an eastern land, but more particularly with the vehemence and violence of a wind from the wilderness, such as that great wind from the wilderness that demolished the dwelling where Job’s children were feasting; he would dry up and destroy all that lay in his way. The spring would become dry, and thus the streams soon cease to flow; the fountain would be dried up, and so the waters must fail. But to ruin he would add robbery, plundering the treasures of precious metals, costly garments, precious fruitseverything that the covetous, or avaricious, or voluptuous, or lascivious could desire.
IV. THE DESOLATION OF THE CAPITAL. Not only would the country be ravaged and laid waste, but the capital would be desolated. The citizens would be ruthlessly slain; the present population would be swept away, and the hope of posterity cut off.
1. Consider the cause of all these calamities. Why did all this desolation come upon Ephraim and their beautiful city of Samaria? The answer is plain as it is positive, and is given by the prophet in the closing verse: “Because she hath rebelled against her God.” The connection may be traced as follows: “Though Ephraim be high and mightily exalted above his brethren, yet, since he has not exalted my Name who exalted him, nor made my benefits and my mercies motives to duty and obedience, but has fought against me with my own favors, and abused my blessings to my dishonor, therefore I will bring the Assyrian upon him, who, like an east wind, shall blast him, utterly dash all his hopes, spoil his treasures, and carry him into captivity.”
2. The fate of Samaria, as recorded here and in Mic 1:6, has been fully realized. Near the middle of Palestine, and deriving its name from Shomer. the owner of the site on which the city was built, and not from Omri, the king who built it, B.C. 925, it continued to be the capital of the ten tribes for two centuries till their carrying away by Shalmaneser, B.C. 720, during all which period it was the scat of idolatry. The site of this celebrated capital was one of rare attractiveness; it combined strength, beauty, and fertility. It is “delightful,’ says Thomson, “by universal consent. It is a very large, isolated hill, rising by successive terraces at least six hundred feet above the valleys that surround it. In shape it is oval, and the smaller and lower end unites it to the neighboring mountain on the east.” Rebuilt by Herod, it received from him its later name of Sebastia, now Sebusteyeh, in honor of Augustus. “During the twenty-five centuries which have passed since the Captivity, its fortunes have been very various; often destroyed, again rebuilt, growing smaller by degrees, though not beautifully less, until it finally subsided into the insignificant village which now clings to the name and the site.” Its site and sin are similarly described by Stanley: “On that beautiful eminence, looking far over the plain of Sharon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and over its own fertile vale to the east, the kings of Israel reigned in a luxury which, for the very reason of its being like that of more Eastern sovereigns, was sure not to be permanent in a race destined for higher purposes.”
3. The ruinous nature of sin. Of the ancient capital of Ephraim, long “the nursery of idolatry and rebellion against God,” not even a wreck remains, nor a ruin to remind one of its ancient glory. See what ruin sin has wrought! “All the evil in the world may be seen in sin. Sin dries up all our springs, stops our fountains, spoils our treasures, and robs us of all our pleasant thingsour pleasant land, our pleasant food, our pleasant raiment, our pleasant houses, pleasant children and therefore, when anything goes amiss with us, we should search for the sin that has done us mischief; find out the Achan that has caused the trouble; find out the Jonah that has raised the storm; do justice on the one, and drown the other, and we shall have peace.”
HOMILIES BY C. JERDAN
Hos 13:1-8
Ephraim, living and dead.
This passage portrays anew the dreadful prevalence of apostasy and idolatry throughout the nation. “The same strings, though generally unpleasing ones, are harped upon in this chapter that were in those before” (Matthew Henry). Much of the imagery continues to be anthropopathic; the prophet exhibits an apparent tumult of contending passions in the Divine mind towards unfilial and rebellious Ephraim.
I. EPHRAIM WAS ONCE ALIVE. He had been so, both spiritually and temporally. The time was when the tribe of Ephraim, and the other nine tribes over which it cast its shadow, contained many God-fearing families. Joshua, the illustrious hero who led the Hebrews into Palestine, was of this tribe; and to him, doubtless, it owed not a little of its subsequent eminence. The “life” which once dwelt in Ephraim was reflected in:
1. God‘s mercies towards him. (Verses 4, 5) The Almighty set his love upon Israel; and “in his favor is life” (Psa 30:5). God had manifested himself to his people in the Exodus from Egypt. He “did know Ephraim in the wilderness;” he visited him there in pity and loverevealing his will at Sinai, feeding the people with manna, bringing them water out of the rock, leading them by the cloudy pillar, and delivering them from their enemies. He “led Joseph like a flock,” and at last “made him to lie clown in the green pastures” of Canaana land which was “the glory of all lands.” The Lord had set up his tabernacle in Ephraim; for Shiloh was a city of that canton, and the sacred tent remained at Shiloh for upwards of three centuries.
2. His own influence. (Verse 1) “When Ephraim spake, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel.” In the early days of the nation Ephraim had been the most powerful of the twelve tribes. Long before the lamentable disruption of the Hebrew state, it had exercised a sort of control over the others. It had a high reputation, and commanded unfeigned respect. At length Ephraim became itself a kingdom, and as such seemed for a time strong and prosperous, and was regarded by Judah as a formidable rival.
II. EPHRAIM IS NOW DEAD SPIRITUALLY. Spiritual life consists in union with Jehovah, and is maintained by communion with him. But sin separates from God, and gradually kills the life of the soul. Now, Ephraim in his prosperity had apostatized from God. The Divine complaint is, “They have forgotten me” (verse 6). Although the people owed everything to God, they allowed the very abundance of his gifts to become the means of withdrawing their hearts from him. In the time of Hoses the nation was really “dead in trespasses and sins.” Again, in this passage, the prophet laments the manifestations of this state of death.
1. The Baal-worship. (Verse 1) “When he offended in Baal, he died.” The introduction of the Phoenician idolatry involved Israel in spiritual ruin. The rites of that idolatry were in the highest degree obscene and cruel; and by the Law of Moses every breach of the first commandment was to entail terrible penalties. Yet, notwithstanding all, Israel went aside to serve Baal and Ashtaroth, and thereby became morally degraded and spiritually destroyed.
2. The image-worship. (Verse 2) Although Jeroboam’s sin (1Ki 12:28) was manifestly distinct kern that of Ahab (1Ki 16:1-34 :81-88), and in itself by no means so heinous, it had yet been the beginning of the evil disease which, under Ahab and Jezebel, culminated in the spiritual death of the nation. Image-worship is idolatry; and the “kissing” of the two golden calves had led to the multiplication of idolatrous images all over the land. The people in their blindness were addicted in their private life to all manner of “will-worship.” How melancholy that Ephraim should forsake Jehovah to bow down to manufactured gods”all of them the work of artificers”!
3. The self-worship. (Verse 6) Ephraim abused his prosperity to such an extent that his heart became at once steeped in materialism and elated with pride. He minded earthly things. His “pasture“ became everything to him; he was greedy, and could never have enough. “Jeshurum waxed fat, and kicked” (Deu 32:15). Selfishness and insolence and tyranny were born of Ephraim’s abundance; he became puffed up with self-sufficiency, forgot Jehovah his God, and “died.”
III. EPHRAIM WILL SOON BE DEAD OUTWARDLY. As the dissolution of the body follows death, so the temporal ruin of a state is the natural result of its moral decay. In cherishing his pride and pursuing his idolatries, Israel was busily digging his own grave. As his wealth and power increased, he steadily deteriorated in moral fiber, and thus gradually lost his prestige and reputation. So:
1. His destruction shall be swift. (Verse 3) This part of the prophecy probably belongs to the time of Hoshea, the last of the kings of Israel, who was “cut off as the foam upon the water,” and in whoso day the unhappy Ephraimites were carried away into Assyria. The captivity, therefore, was now at hand. The suddenness of the impending transplantation is indicated by four similitudes”the morning cloud,” “the early dew,” “the chaff,” and “the smokey.” Such is the result of the prosperity of nations which continue to be incurably wicked; the time comes at last when the whole fabric of the commonwealth suddenly falls to pieces
2. It shall be dreadful. (Verses 7, 8) Here also there are four comparisonsa “lion,” “a leopard,” “a bear,” and “the wild beast.” These shall come down upon the flock in their fat “pasture,” and devour them. It is remarkable that the same fern beasts reappear in Daniel’s vision of the four world-empires (Dan 7:1-28), and that they are combined into one bestial form in “the wild beast” of the Apocalypse (Rev 13:1-3). Alas! Jehovah, who has been the Shepherd of Israel, is now compelled to become Israel’s Devourer! He will send the Assyrianstrong as a lion, fierce as a leopard, and savage as a bearto tear the very heart of the nation. Thus would Israel “destroy himself” (verse 9), being carried away into sudden exile and total oblivion
LESSONS.
1. “Righteousness exalteth a nation” (verse 1).
2. “The Lord is a jealous God;” “His glory he will not give to another, neither his praise to graven images” (verses 2, 8)
3. God destroys our idols that we may learn to “kiss the Son;” for he is “the true God and eternal life,” and “there is no Savior beside him” (veto. 3, 4).
4. The dangers of material prosperity to all who neglect those means of grace which make prosperity safe (verse 6).
5. “Pride goeth before destruction” (verse 6).
6. The great moral evils of our age (intemperance, impurity, profanity, infidelity, social disorders, etc) constitute a call to God’s people to more faith and prayer and Christian activity.C.J.
Hos 13:9-16
Ruin, retribution, and resurrection.
Underlying these verses, and interpenetrating the judgment of Jehovah’s anger with which they are charged, there is a deep undertone of tenderness. The prophet speaks, in the Lord’s Name,” with the laboring voice, interrupted by sobs, of a judge whose duty it is to pronounce the final heavy sentence after all possible pleadings and considerations have been gone through ‘ (Ewald).
I. ISRAEL‘S RUIN. This is referred to, both as regards its origin and its most recent manifestations.
1. The ruin began with the revolt from the house of David. Ephraim’s proud determination to become politically independent of Judah was the root-sin from which sprang the corruption of his religion and the immorality of his whole life. In following Jeroboam, Samaria “rebelled against her God” (Hos 13:16), and entered upon a career which resulted in moral suicide. She rejected her only true “Help” when she said, “Give me a king and princes” (Hos 13:10). The kings of the ten tribes could not save the people; for Jehovah, the King of Israel, did not acknowledge their royalty. Neither Jeroboam I; nor any of the princes of the house of Omri, or of the dynasty of Jehunot to mention the military usurpers who afterwards snatched the crown from one anotherhad fulfilled the true function of a king as being a shepherd of the people. Despite the seemingly splendid reign of Jeroboam II; the history of the northern kingdom was all along one of misfortune, degradation, and self-destruction. Israel “destroyed himself” with the weapons of pride and idolatry, sensuality and anarchy.
2. The ruin was perpetuated through his refusal to repent. This seems to be the idea presented in Hos 13:13. Hosea had prophesied for upwards of half a century during the last long agony of his country; and during that period God had sent many calamities upon Israel, which were graciously fitted, like labor-pains, to induce the new birth. The latest of these travail-pangs are now imminent; but still Ephraim delayed thorough repentance, cleaved obstinately to his sins, and refused to be “born again.” The Lord desired that Ephraim’s “sorrows“ should suddenly cease, through the birth of a new Israel; but the people were “joined to idols,” and thusmeantime at leastthere could be no recovery from the ruin into which they had fallen.
II. ISRAEL‘S RETRIBUTION. The sin of the nation accumulated gradually. And the justice of God “retained” it, and pronounced punishment on it, and kept the punishment in store (verse 12). Notwithstanding the distresses of the last two generations, which Hosea had witnessed, and from which he had himself sufferedincluding now, it may be, the seizure and imprisonment of Hoshea, the last unhappy king of Israel (verse 10; 2Ki 17:4)there was still a load of stern wrath waiting to discharge itself upon the guilty commonwealth.
1. Ephraim has been punished through his kings. (Verses 10, 11) The whole nineteen were apostates from Jehovah, and under them the cup of the nation’s iniquity was slowly filled. The very “giving” of each monarch in the providence of God was a mark of his anger; indeed, many of them gained the throne as the result of military revolt and assassination of the preceding sovereign, whom God thus “took away in his wrath.”
2. The kingdom itself is now to be destroyed. (Verses 15, 16) The once “fruitful” Ephraim is about: to suffer an irretrievable blight. The Assyrian power, like the hot blast of the simoom, shall blow upon his land, and for ever dry up the springs of its fertility. Samaria, its capital city, after a protracted death struggle of three years, shall be subdued and devastated by Sargon, the successor of Shalmaneser. The treasures of the city shall be plundered, and its inhabitants cruelly murdered or dispersed among the heathen. Scarcely any trace will be left of the once proud and luxurious kingdom of Ephraim. The sentence of political extinction pronounced against that state is irreversible.
III. ISRAEL‘S RESURRECTION. The proper names “Hosea” and “Hoshea” mean help or salvation. In King Hoshea, however, there was no help during the final extremity of the national peril; but the venerable Hosea still lived, and announced that the Lord, whose word he had so long spoken to a disobedient nation, was still ready to become Israel’s “Help” (verse 9), notwithstanding all the wretched past. Although constrained passionately to denounce the sin of his people and to forewarn of the coming desolations, the prophet intimates that these dire punishments are also paternal chastisements, sent by Jehovah to arouse the people, and induce them to return to his service. The Divine heart is still full of tender compassion for Israel. The Lord cannot allow the nation utterly to perish. On the other side of the dreadful judgments and the long dispersion, there will be a recovery so glorious as to be called a resurrection. “What shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?” (Rom 11:15). This ultimate restoration is announced in the splendid apostrophe of verse 14.a passage which the Apostle Paul, following the Septuagint, quotes towards the close of his sublime argument for the certainty of the resurrection of the saints (1Co 15:55). In its original sense, however, this song of triumph refers to the deliverance of the posterity of Ephraim from their national doom. The ten tribes shall be carried captive, and shall become politically dead and buried; but the time is coming when God will raise them up spiritually, and restore them to his favor. This brilliant promise received no appreciable fulfillment in the return of a few exiles of Ephraim and Manasseh along with the first colony of Jews who went up from Babylon at the close of the seventy years’ captivity. The oracle clearly refers to Messianic times. It is in line with the general run of those Scripture prophecies which anticipate the national conversion of Israel, and announce the Lord’s unchangeable purpose to effect it (cf. verse 14, last clause, with Rom 11:29). And, as Israel was a typical nation, this paean of victory might well be used, as Paul uses it, to celebrate the triumph over death and Hades which the Messiah has already achieved in his own person, and which he wilt by-and-by repeat in the general resurrection of his people.
LESSONS.
1. God destroys no man; every sinner is self-murdered (verse 10).
2. Adequate temporal punishment for our sins often consists in the simple granting of our desires (verses 10, 11; Psa 106:15).
3. When God leaves a man, his prosperity withers (verse 15).
4. The soul that forsakes God for an earthly portion shall be overwhelmed with regrets (verses 13, 16).
5. Even while the Lord must denounce severe judgments, his love broods over the sinner, and remains invincible.C.J.
Hos 13:14
Jehovah the Destroyer of death.
This sublime promise of mercy is imbedded among threatenings of judgment. It reminds us, both as it occurs here and in the connection in which the Apostle Paul quotes it (1Co 15:55), that although in our world “sin hath reigned unto death,” it is the prerogative of the Almighty to rescue from the grasp of the grave, and even to abolish death itself. We may profitably consider some of the spheres within which the Lord has chosen to exercise this prerogative. The promise of our text applies to
I. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL Ever since the two captivities Israel has been, as it were, a dead nation The Jews have been dispersed over the world, and have not yet been able either to recover their national independence or to maintain their national worship But Hosea here assures his countrymen of future restoration and blessing, notwithstanding the final ruin of the kingdom of Ephraim. “The only meaning that the promise had for the Israelites of the prophet’s day was that the Lord possessed the power even to redeem from death, and raise Israel from destruction into newness of life; just as Ezekiel (37) depicts the restoration of Israel as the giving of life to the dry bones that lay scattered about the field” (Keil). But the future thus expressly predicted for Ephraim is more blissful than even Hosea, to whom this oracle was given, could readily, or perhaps possibly, conceive. Israel’s restoration shall be spiritual. The captive Hebrews, so far and so long estranged from God, shall return to his favor. The very people who at last crowned their sinful career by “crucifying the Lord of glory”a sin still more heinous than all the wickedness for which Hosea rebukes themshall be made the subjects of a glorious future. “They shall look upon him whom they have pierced” (Zec 12:10), and at last accept him as the Messiah. They shall become zealous and successful missionaries of the cross, and shall contribute largely to the bringing in of the world’s jubilee (Rom 11:15).
II. THE REDEMPTION–WORK OF CHRIST. Students of the New Testament find a larger and deeper meaning in this glowing promise than that which would limit it to the resuscitation of Israel. To our consciousness the Lord, who is “the Plague of death,” is Jehovah-Jesus. “He became incarnate” that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15). As the great Teacher, he proclaimed himself to be “the Resurrection and the Life” (Joh 11:25); and he sealed this testimony by rebuking disease of every kind, and even raising the dead. Most of all, he was himself “obedient unto death;” and by his own decease upon the cross he has “ransomed his people from the power of the grave.” Divine justice had put a dart into death’s hand to slay us therewith for our sins; but Jesus, in dying for us, satisfied that justice, made adequate atonement for guilt, and received authority to take the dart away. By coming himself under the power of the grave, the Lord Jesus has “abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light” (2Ti 1:10). Of this victory his own resurrection upon the third day is an infallible assurance. In emerging from the grave as the risen Savior, Jesus revealed himself as “the Plague of death,” and as the Source of spiritual life and Author of eternal salvation to his people. “Now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the Firstfruits of them that slept” (1Co 15:20).
III. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST‘S PEOPLE. Jehovah-Jesus is the Savior of the soul, and of the body also.
1. He redeems the soul from death. Is not the world of mankind like a vast graveyard, where men are lying “dead in trespasses and sins”? Sinful man is naturally destitute of the Spirit of life, and insensible to the beauties of holiness. He is unable to raise himself from the unclean tomb of his own evil lusts and passions. But, so soon as the voice of the Son of God speaks the word, “I will ransom them,” the same almighty energy which gave life to Jesus himself, when dead, breathes new spiritual vitality into those for whom he died (Joh 5:21-27). “Because he lives, they shall live also” (Joh 14:19).
2. He shall redeem the body from death. The final ruin of the soul is called in Scripture “the second death” (Rev 21:8); and, if the Lord Jesus can deliver from that, it is no wonder that he is also the Savior of the body. The order of redemption is that he redeems from the “second death” first; and thus the abolition of temporal death at the end of the world shall really be the destruction of” the last enemy” (1Co 15:26). All men naturally regard “the king of terrors “as the most formidable and cruel of foes. The grave seems to the eye of sense only a despoiler (Pro 27:20). But it is the glory of Christianity that the Redeemer has robbed death of its sting, lighted up the under-world with his love, and given us the sure and certain hope of a blessed resurrection. Faith sees hanging at the girdle of the Son of man “the keys of death and of Hades” (Rev 1:18). The grave is to the saints only an underground pathway to heaven, and “death is swallowed up in victory” (1Co 15:54-57).
“Death, thou wast once an uncouth, hideous thing:
But since our Savior’s death Has put some blood into thy face,
Thou hast grown sure a thing to be desired
And full of grace.”
(George Herbert)
It is also a great joy to know that the Lord’s promise to redeem his people from death is certain to be fulfilled. He has passed his word for it; and, as he here assures us, “repentance shall be hid from his eyes.” Multitudes of believers die in perfect peace, and some even in triumph, for they are conscious that he is “with them.”
LESSONS.
1. The harmony of the Old and New Testaments in teaching that “unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.”
2. Christ Jesus is the Lord, who by his Spirit exercises this prerogative, both as regards nations and individuals.
3. The alienation of the soul from God is a state of deaththe most awful condition possible to man; and from that state he can only escape by being “born again.”
4. The dissolution of the body is not death to the believer, but simply a lulling asleep in Jesus.
5. The doctrine that Christ is “the Resurrection and the Life” brings solid comfort in the hour of bereavement.C.J.
HOMILIES BY A. ROWLAND
Hos 13:9
Self-destruction.
Hosea more than once sought to bring this solemn truth home to the conscience of the people (Hos 14:1, etc). They saw that national disasters were impending, but attributed these to any other cause than their own sin; e.g. to the divided counsels of their leading statesmen, to neglect of the army, to the ambition of their rulers, to temporary reverse of fortune. The prophet says, in effect, “These would not be against you, if God were not; and he is no longer your Deliverer, because you have turned against him. O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!” This truth may be seen in the fall of other kingdomsthe Assyrian, Roman, etc. These were destroyed, not by an isolated detent, but by the moral deterioration preceding it, which had destroyed all recuperative power. If we should live to see England’s decayour land untilled, our docks empty, our mills and factories silent, our colonies torn away, our people crashed by a debt too heavy for them to bearit will be due, not to this mistake of policy or to that unfortunate war, but to the fact that as a people we had forsaken righteousness and mercy. This deterioration will precede that desolation. It is true of individuals as of nations. If a man sinks into an abyss of despair or of vicious indulgence, it will be, not through the force of his circumstances, but through the worthlessness of his character. To such a one God says, “Thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.” In treating of self-destruction we will speak of
(1) its causes;
(2) its delusions; and
(3) its remedy.
I. ITS CAUSES. The importance of the subject is seen from the frequency with which its lamentable issues occur. “Wide is the gate, and broad is the road, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat.”
1. Neglect of the means of grace. The Word which reveals God, the Son who declares him, etc. “This is life eternal, that they may know thee,” etc. A man who denies himself food till he perishes of starvation, or refuses medicine till the disease proves fatal, practically “destroys himself.”
2. Inward iniquity. The passions, the worldly spirit, the self-will, etc; which unfit for fellowship with God and prevent all desire for it, are the causes of spiritual ruin. These, and not death, are the true causes of destruction. When a dead tree is cut down as a cumberer of the ground, it is not the gleaming axe, which we can see and hear that destroys it. The tree is destroyed before the axe is laid at its root, and perhaps only after its fall will the cause of death be revealed.
3. Outward transgression. Show how sin committed leads to other sins, how the sense of shame dies out with the frequency of the act, how habits of evil doing grow till there seems no escape, and to all holy influence the man seems dead. Conscience says, “Thou hast destroyed thyself.”
II. ITS DELUSIONS. Whatever, in a moment of despair, a man might do with his natural life, he would surely not destroy all hope of spiritual life unless the words were true, “The god of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not.” Some justify their irreligiousness to their own consciences:
1. By referring to God‘s perfections; e.g. to his sovereignty (“If I am to be saved, I shall be”), or to his mercy (“God is too merciful to punish”).
2. By referring to the condition of their fellow men. Of the godless, they urge they are so numerous that it is not credible that they should all be in the wrong; of Christians, they say that they are too scrupulous for ordinary society, or else that they are so inconsistent that religion cannot be of great worth.
3. By referring to their own state. If they are moral, they “thank God that they are not as other men are;” if licentious, they argue that they are “committed to do all these abominations;” if ignorant, they declare they are not scholarly enough to understand the teaching of the Church; if intellectual, they maintain that they require no spiritual illumination; if attentive to the externals of religion, their spirit is that of the Pharisee who said, “I fast twice in the week,” etc.
III. ITS REMEDY. “In me is thine help.” The Speaker is “the Lord Jehovah, in whom is everlasting strength.” He alone can save. When there was no eye to pity, he brought to men salvation. The remedy is to be found:
1. In the atonement Christ has made. “He was wounded for our transgressions,” etc.; “The blood of Jesus Christ…cleanseth from all sin.”
2. In the intercession he presents. “Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us.”
3. In the grace he gives. When the Holy Spirit is come, “he wilt convince the world of sin,” etc. The Spirit comes to cast out the strong man armed. By his grace he vivifies, purifies, sanctifies, until at last we shall stand faultless before God’s throne. “Thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.” “Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved.”
CONCLUSION. In the text there are
(1) enlightenment for the ignorant;
(2) warning for the self-righteous;
(3) hope for the despondent; and
(4) a song for the redeemed.A.R.
HOMILIES BY J.R. THOMSON
Hos 13:2
They sin more and more.
The tribe of Ephraim was especially upbraided by the prophet on account of their addictedness to idol-worship. Separating themselves from the religious observances which were proper to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the members of this powerful and central tribe had distinguished themselves by their defection from Jehovah, and by their zeal in the service of Baal and other gods of the nations. One sin led to another; and they sinned “more and more.” In these words a great principle is enunciated. There is a tendency on the part of sinners not only to continue, but even to exceed, in sin. To understand this, it must be observed that
I. TEMPTATIONS BECOME GROWINGLY NUMEROUS AND POWERFUL.
1. Circumstances are often in an increasing measure favorable to sin. The sinner puts himself in the way of stronger temptations.
2. Wicked companions and instigators to sin gain in boldness and persuasiveness. They learn by experience that no resistance need be anticipated.
3. Restraints are culpably removed. The practice of sin breaks down the fences which virtue sets up around the law-abiding and obedient.
II. RESISTANCE BECOMES GROWINGLY MORE FEEBLE AND FAINT.
1. Desire is strengthened by indulgence. Unbridled passion, ungoverned pride, insatiable selfishness, have everything as they would.
2. Shame is lessened. The reproach of conscience is silenced. Fear is quieted and stifled. The blush no longer rises to the cheek; and the tongue is habituated to falsehood, or profanity, or impurity, without any check.
3. Moral power is weakened. At first there is a contest within between the better feelings and the worse; but after a while there is no conflict, and the vanquished protest dares no longer assert itself.
APPLICATION. The picture thus drawn of the sinner’s progress is so fearful, that the contemplation of it may well lead him who is on the downward road to pause. Facilis descensus Averni. The only hope lies in immediate and sincere repentance, and (by Divine grace) an urgent application for forgiveness, and for a new and better mind.T.
Hos 13:3
Driven chaff and vanished smoke.
The imagery here employed is of obvious interpretation. When the blast of the whirlwind or of the winnowing fan passes ever the threshing-floor, the chaff is driven away and dispersed. When the fire is kindled upon the earth, the smoke makes its escape through the lattice-work below the roof into the open air. Even so, those who wickedly depart from Jehovah and addict themselves to the worship of idols shall, says the prophet, learn by bitter experience the folly of their course and the vanity of their trust. No safety, no stability, but certain ruin and destruction shall be their lot.
I. DEFECTION FROM TRUE RELIGION EXCITES THE DISPLEASURE AND INDIGNATION OF THE ONLY TRUE GOD. There are many who refuse to admit that the supreme Ruler concerns himself with the conduct of men. And others consider that benevolence is so all-absorbing an attribute of Deity that they will not hear of punishment either in this world or in a world to come. The declarations of the prophet are utterly inconsistent with such views as these.
II. RETRIBUTIVE JUSTICE WILL CERTAINLY ASSERT ITSELF IN THE CONDEMNATION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE IRRELIGIOUS.
1. There is national retribution, as the history of Israel and of every nation abundantly proves.
2. There is individual chastisement, as every human life in a measure may convince us.
3. The punishment inflicted upon the ungodly and impenitent is not limited to this earthly life, to this transitory scene of probation.T.
Hos 13:4
The only Savior.
The prophets were in the habit of appealing to the past history of Israel as a nation when they would urge the people to repent of present sin, and would encourage them to seek Divine favor and acceptance. Certainly the records of the past proved that only in returning and in rest had the people ever been saved, and that when they had turned elsewhere than to Jehovah they had only met with disappointment and misery.
I. THE VANITY AND INSUFFICIENCY OF ALL EARTHLY HELPERS.
1. As Israel, when seeking help and deliverance from the deities of the heathen, ever found such a refuge vain, so will all men who look elsewhere than to the Most High experience certain and bitter disappointment. “The idols of the heathen have ears, but they hear not they that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.”
2. Even the best-intentioned of human friends and counselors are powerless to aid and save. The lesson has to be learned afresh by every generation that the help of man is vain. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put your confidence in princes.”
II. THE SOLE SUFFICIENCY OF GOD AS A MIGHTY SAVIOR.
1. He has wisdom to devise appropriate means of deliverance. Many an instance in Israel’s history might have been quoted, in order to produce this conviction. And we, as Christians, have the one supreme evidence of God’s infinite wisdom in the provision of spiritual and eternal salvation in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is the wisdom as well as the power of God.
2. The heavenly King has the disposition to deliver. Salvation is not only his prerogative; it is his delight. Mercy and compassion animate him in his treatment of the children of men. “God so loved the world,” etc. There is no pity like Divine pity.
3. For an all-sufficient authority and efficacious power to rescue man from sin and death we must look above. The Eternal is “mighty to save.” And in appointing his Son to be the Savior, he has laid help upon One who is mighty
“So strong to deliver,
So good to redeem,
The weakest believer
That hangs upon him.”
T.
Hos 13:5
Remembrance in the wilderness.
No more signal instance of Divine interposition is recorded, even in the wonderful history of Israel, than the care and guidance and protection vouchsafed to the chosen people in their desert-wanderings. No wonder that the inspired prophets should again and again refer to this marvelous record of Divine regard, remembrance, and assistance.
I. THE OCCASION OF DIVINE REMEMBRANCE.
1. To Israel and to humanity (for of the race at large was the chosen people a type) God reveals himself when help is sorely needed. In the wilderness the people hungered; they thirsted; they were in danger from many perils of the way; they were opposed and harassed by many foes; they were beset by frequent perplexities; they were cast down by many fears. Similarly, this race of mankind was without any supply for its sorest needs, without any deliverance from direst dangers and mightiest and most malignant foes, when the eternal Father “remembered us in our low estate.”
2. It was an occasion when all other resource and hope were vain. In this respect the tribes in the desert were representative of humanity. “I looked, and there was no helper.”
II. THE FRUITS OF DIVINE REMEMBRANCE.
1. The thoughtfulness of God supplies his people’s wants. Israel’s hunger was met by manna; Israel’s thirst by water from the rock, etc. So “the Lord hath been mindful of us.” Every spiritual want is supplied in the gospel, where is living water, heavenly bread, etc.
2. Adversaries are overcome by the interposition of the Most High. He who vanquished Israel’s foes led captivity captive, and secured salvation for all who trust in him.
3. Difficulties are removed by Divine intervention.
4. Courage and hope are inspired in the breasts of the timid and downcast.
5. Gratitude, piety, and devotion are enkindled in the souls of those who are set free and rescued by the interposition of a merciful and mighty Savior.
APPLICATION. The gracious knowledge and remembrance of God, leading to merciful interposition on our behalf, should incite us to think upon and to remember him “who led his people through the wilderness; for his mercy endureth forever.”T.
Hos 13:6
Forgetting God.
The conduct of Israel in the wilderness was an anticipation and prediction of their national history generally. The parallelism suggested itself to the minds of the prophets, who evidently referred to the books of Moses to find there a description and a censure of their own contemporaries.
I. THE CAUSE OF FORGETFULNESS OF GOD.
1. Generally speaking, this sin arises from absorption in earthly pursuits and pleasures.
2. Particularly it may be learned from this passageand the lesson is enforced by daily observationthat prosperity is the occasion of irreligion. The more this world’s good is sought and prized, the more it often proves to be the case that the great Giver of all good is forgotten.
II. THE SIN AND GUILT OF FORGETTING GOD.
1. This appears from human dependence upon the Maker and Ruler of all.
2. And from the consequent indebtedness of the creature to the Creator. To him men owe all they have, and it is the basest ingratitude to forget the one Divine Benefactor.
3. And from their responsibility to God. Life has to be accounted for, at last, before him who gave it as a sacred trust. If the trust has been abused, such abuse is sin, and sin of the deepest dye.
III. THE CONSEQUENCES OF FORGETTING GOD.
1. Moral deterioration will certainly follow. The soul from which God is banished is degraded and ruined by the absence of what alone can dignify and bless.
2. Judgment cannot be escaped. If men forget God he will indeed remember them, but he cannot remember them “for good.”T.
Hos 13:9
Self-destruction.
This is language, not merely of reproach, but of sorrow. After all that Jehovah had done for his favored people, it grieved him that to so large an extent his goodness was abused, and that those who had enjoyed the greatest advantages had made the worst use of them. At the same time, he justly cast all the blame upon Israel, who, against the Savior and Helper, had resolved, as it were, upon spiritual suicide.
I. IN TURNING AWAY FROM GOD, MEN TURN AWAY FROM THEIR TRUE SAVIOR AND THEIR TRUE SALVATION. They often look upon the great and righteous Judge as their enemy, hostile to their pleasures and interests, and consequently imagine that they will secure their own welfare by forgetting and forsaking God. That this is a delusion is certain. In setting themselves against God, men set themselves against their help.
II. IN SEEKING THEIR OWN SELFISH ENDS, MEN ACCOMPLISH THEIR OWN DESTRUCTION.
1. Ungodliness is destructive of all peace of mind.
2. Ungodliness is destructive of character. They who live without God in the world deprive themselves of the highest motives to obedience, and ensure their own spiritual deterioration.
3. Ungodliness is destructive of all bright and blessed prospects for the future life. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Destruction, ruin, banishment from God, such is the doom which sinners work out for themselves. It is not the arbitrary appointment of the Supreme Judge; it is the self-inflicted fate.T.
Hos 13:9
Thy help.
There is great simplicity and great beauty in this designation of the Almighty. It is indeed wonderful that he who fashioned and who rules this mighty universe should deign to reveal himself to the poor, frail, feeble children of men as their Help!
I. MAN‘S NEED OF HELP. We need help from one another; and there is no member of society who is independent. The child is dependent upon the help of the parent, the master upon the help of the servant, etc. But all stand in need of moral, spiritual help, which none but God can bring. And there are special occasions and circumstances which bring home to us our need of help; e.g. when we feel our weakness in the presence of difficult duties, sore temptations, crushing sorrows.
II. GOD‘S SUFFICIENCY AS THE HELP OF MAN.
1. We perceive this from the consideration of Divine power and resources. All things are at God’s command and under God’s control.
2. His pity and sympathy assure us of effective help. There are circumstances in which power and even-liberality are of little avail. The heart craves for the heart’s sympathy. Of God we know that “in all our afflictions he is afflicted;” and Christ has revealed himself as “touched with a feeling of our infirmities.” God makes himself known to men as their Help, and his assurance must be unhesitatingly and joyfully accepted.
3. The experience of “all saints” witnesses to God’s power and willingness to help in time of need.T.
Hos 13:10, Hos 13:11
The vanity of earthly kings.
The historic reference of this passage is obvious. The Hebrew nation was properly a theocracy. God himself was their Lawgiver, Ruler, Leader, and Judge. But the people desired a king, that they might resemble the nations around them; and God, in condescension to their infirmities and in answer to their entreaties, gave them a king. The kings proved by no means an unmixed blessing. Many of the kings, both of Judah and of the northern dominion, led the people astray. Hosea addressed himself especially to Israel; and the chronicles of that nation show us how many evils followed upon the reign and power of their monarchs. Disasters and ruin came upon the tribes of Israel, and the inspired prophet well urged upon the people the question, “Where are your kings, to save and deliver you?” The principle involved in the appeal is one of general application.
I. MORAL MALADIES ARE NOT HEALED BY POLITICAL REMEDIES.
II. THE SPLENDOR OF KINGS IS NO COMPENSATION FOR THE MISERY OF THE PEOPLE.
III. EARTHLY AUTHORITY CAN ONLY BE EXERCISED WITHIN LIMITS APPOINTED BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE.
IV. A CORRUPT COURT IS AN EVIL EXAMPLE TO AN UNSTABLE POPULATION.
V. NO SECULARCIVIL OR MILITARYPOWER CAN AVERT THE CONSEQUENCES OF APOSTASY AND DEBASEMENT.
VI. KINGS THEMSELVES ARE SUBJECT, AS WELL AS CITIZENS, TO THE LAWS OF A RETRIBUTIVE PROVIDENCE.T.
Hos 13:14
Redemption from death.
Different interpretations are possible of this majestic language. According to one view, these words express the resolution of the righteous King and Judge to let the powers of death and destruction loose upon apostate Israel. According to another view, they express a determination, at some future time and upon Israel’s repentance, on God’s part to destroy the powers of destruction and to secure for his people an everlasting salvation. Regard the great truths common to both interpretations.
I. DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE BUT CREATURES AND MINISTERS OF THE ETERNAL. There is apparent among men a tendency to attribute to the forces of destruction an independent power, to regard death as a natural and necessary law of being. But the fact is otherwise; these are only agents used for a temporary and governmental purpose by the Lord of the universe.
II. DEATH AND THE GRAVE ARE TERRIBLE ONLY TO THE ENEMIES OF GOD. To such as resist and defy Divine authority it must needs be a depressing and terrible thought, that their power will speedily come to an end, and they leveled in the dust. But God’s people need have no fear of their Father’s messengers.
III. DEATH AND THE GRAVE HAVE BEEN ALREADY POTENTIALLY VANQUISHED BY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. The Apostle Paul makes use of this language in expounding the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection, and sanctions the application of the language of Hosea to the triumph of the Divine Redeemer, when he arose from the dead and abolished death, and became the Firstfruits of them that sleep. The words are in this connection precious and consolatory to the Christian mind.
IV. DEATH AND THE GRAVE, WHEN THEY HAVE FULFILLED THEIR DIVINELY APPOINTED PURPOSE, SHALL FOREVER CEASE TO BE. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” The destroyer’s turn shall come; the grave shall itself be buried; death shall itself be slain. From all fear of mortality the glorified saints shall be eternally delivered. And God shall be forever glorified in the reign of imperishable life.T.
Hos 13:16
Rebellion against God.
Samaria here is no doubt put for the Israelitish kingdom, of which that city was the capital. The seat of government concentrates within itself the various elements of the national life. If there be profligacy, ambition, cruelty, treachery, self-seeking, in a nation, these qualities will be pre-eminently apparent in the capital. Israel, in the person of her monarch and her capital, “rebelled against her God.”
I. THE SYMPTOMS OF REBELLION. These are:
1. The defiance of rightful authority. When God’s Name is profaned, and God’s laws are violated, and God’s threatenings are despised, this is a sign that those who are bound to be loyal subjects are so far from fulfilling their obligations that they are in rebellion.
2. The substitution of another authority for that of the Supreme. Whether this be an idol, or a hierarchy of pagan deities, or some selfish, carnal, worldly principle, is of little consequence; the allegiance has been transferred.
II. THE WICKEDNESS OF REBELLION. Samaria’s special sin was in rebelling against her God. It is the consideration that God has done everything for us; that he has regarded us as his own, and treated us with bounty, forbearance; and loving-kindness, that, in a word, he has every claim upon us;it is this that brings home the charge of rebellion, and exhibits it in all its heinousness.
III. THE END OF REBELLION. This must be either
(1) submission with true repentance, or
(2) conquest and destruction. The Lord shall have the defiant rebels in derision, and break them with a rod of iron.T.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Hos 13:3
The life of the wicked.
“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 out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.” This verse may be taken as a picture of a human life unregenerate, out of vital sympathy with God and goodness.
I. IT IS DECEPTIVE. “Like the morning cloud.” In Palestine and countries of the same latitude, dense clouds often appear in the morning, cover the heavens, and promise fertilizing showers that never come. The farmer whose land is parched by drought looks up with anxious hope as he sees them gather and float over his head. But they often pass away without a fertilizing drop, and leave him with a disappointed and anxious heart. A life without moral goodness is necessarily deceptive. It walks in a vain show, it deceives itself and deceives others; it is an acted lie from beginning to end. How many lives seem full of promise! They awaken as much interest and as much hope as clouds that float over parched lands; but they result in nothing but disappointment. Oh, what lives there are which are like clouds without water!
II. IT IS EVANESCENT. “The early dew that passeth away.” In such latitudes, too, the copious dews that sparkle on the hedges and the fields soon evaporate and disappear. How transient is life!not the life of the wicked only, but the life of the righteous as well; just like the dew, appearing for a short time, then gone for ever. The Bible abounds with figures to represent the transientness of human lifethe grass, the flower, the vapor, the dew, the shadow. The millions that make up this generation are only as dewdrops, sparkling for an hour and then lost and gone!
III. IT IS WORTHLESS. “As chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor.” Like chaff stowed away from the threshing-floor. Chaff, empty, dead, destined to rot. How empty the life of an ungodly man! The life of the righteous is grainit will grow and flourish; but that of the wicked is only chaff. It is destitute of moral vitality. “Driven away.” “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness, whilst the righteous hath hope in his death.” The wicked die reluctantly, they hold on to the last; it is only the strong storm of death that bears them off.
IV. IT IS OFFENSIVE. “As the smoke out of the chimney.” The ancient houses of Palestine were without chimneys; the smoke filled the houses, and smoke is a nuisance. A corrupt life is evermore offensive to the moral sense of mankind. To what conscience is falsehood, selfishness, carnality, meanness, and such elements that make up the character of the wicked, at all pleasing? To none. The aroma of a corrupt life is as offensive to the moral soul as “smoke out of the chimney.”
“Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flight of eagles are,
Or like the fresh spring’s gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew,
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood,
E’en such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to-night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in autumn lies,
The dew dries up, the star is shot,
The flight is pastand man forgot.”
(Henry King)
D.T.
Hos 13:5-8
Mercy in beneficent action and in retributive displeasure.
“I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought,” etc. Mercy is the subject of these words; and mercy, like the mystic pillar that guided the Israelites in the wilderness, has two sidesa bright one to guide and cheer, and a dark one to confound and destroy. In these two aspects the text presents it.
I. Here is mercy IN BENEFICENT ACTION. “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled.” What mercy did the great Father show the Israelites in the wilderness! The wilderness was a trying region (Deu 8:15; Jer 2:6). How constantly the Almighty interposed on behalf of his people! He gave them water from the rock and manna from the clouds. He fought their battles, guided them through perplexities, and helped them in every exigency and trial. The hand of mercy was ever outstretched on their behalf, supplying them with all that they required. In truth, mercy gave them, not only necessities, but luxuries. “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked.” Thus mercy is treating us now, giving us “all things richly to enjoy” in nature, and offering to us all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. The bright side of mercy gleams on us in this life, lights up our path and cheers us on the way.
II. Here is mercy IN RIGHTEOUS DISPLEASURE. “They were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me.” Observe:
1. The cause of the indignation. “They have forgotten me.” They abused his mercy. His mercy led them to self-indulgence, the pampering of their appetites, the gratification of their lusts, and the fostering of indolence and pride. Alas! how often the mercies of God in providence are abused I Whilst they should lead men to repentance and to a higher life, they lead them to worldliness and impiety. Because of this, mercy becomes indignant, the oil breaks into flame.
2. The severity of the indignation. “Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.” What terrible words are these! As a lion, savage and strong; a “leopard,” crafty and vigilant, watching an opportunity to wreak destruction; a “bear,” bereaved of her whelps, terribly exasperated and heartless ;he “will rend the caul of their heart.” It is said the lion always aims at the heart of the beast he falls upon. “Devour them like a lion; the wild beast shall tear them.” What does all this mean? It does not mean that the Almighty is carried away by a savage impulse, that he has, in fact, aught of passion in him. No, but it means that after his mercy has been abused it will assuredly become the destroyer. Mercy abused becomes a determined, resistless destroyer. A plant that is not strengthened by the sunbeam is scorched; the soul that is not saved by mercy is damned,
“Thy mercy, Lord, is like the morning sun,
Whose beams undo what sable night had done;
Or like a stream, the current of whose course,
Restrained awhile, runs with a swifter force.
Oh I let me glow beneath those sacred beams;
After, bathe me in those silver streams.
To thee alone my sorrows shall appeal;
Hath earth a wound too hard for Heaven to heal?”
(Francis Quarles)
D.T.
Hos 13:9
Sin the destroyer, God the Restorer.
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.”
I. SIN THE DESTROYER. “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.” What connected with self does a man destroy? Not his mental faculties, not his conscience, not his moral responsibilities, These he cannot put an end to. But he destroys the liberty, the peace, the blessedness of his being. He can destroy all connected with his existence that can make existence tolerable or worth having. How is this done? By sin. Sin is the soul-destroyer. Every sin is destructive of something. From the eternal laws of moral mind men cannot commit a wrong act without the infliction of an injury to the soul, without blinding the judgment, deadening the sensibility, curtailing the liberty, drying up the affection, enfeebling the will. Sin is suicidal. “He that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul.” What is a sinner doing? Murdering himself. Every lying word, every dishonest act, every impure thought, every impious sentiment, every lustful gratification, is a deadly blow inflicted upon the soul. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” There is nothing arbitrary in this. “To be carnally minded is death.”
II. GOD THE RESTORER. “In me is thine help.” Who can restore a destroyed soul? God, and he only. He restores it:
(1) By extracting the poison of sin.
(2) By breathing into it a new life.
(3) By bringing it out into the salubrious atmosphere of truth.
(4) By affording it the most wholesome supplies and invigorating exercises.
“In me is thy help found.” Yes, thou art mighty to save.D.T.
Hos 13:14
The great conqueror of the world conquered.
“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O Death, I will be thy plagues; O Grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.” Delitzsch translates this, “Out of the hand of hell will I redeem them; from death will I set them free. Where are thy plagues, O Death? Where thy destruction, O Hell? Repentance is his idea from mine eyes.” Primarily, these words apply to God’s restoration of Israel from Assyriapartially, and in times yet future, fully, from all the lands of their present long-continued dispersion and political death. But Paul’s reference to it (1Co 15:23) authorizes us to give it a wider application; and we may regard it as referring to death and Christ.
I. Here is the great CONQUEROR, called the “death and the grave.” What a conqueror is Death!
1. Heartless, dead to all appeals.
2. Resistless. Bulwarks, battalions, castles, are nothing before him.
3. Universal, his eyes fastened on the world. Young, old, rich, poor, he has marked them all as victims.
4. Ever active. He does not pause a moment. Year after year, month after month, day after day, minute after minute, he works without a pause. Thousands fall before him every hour. This is the conqueror keeping the world in awe, filling our houses with mourning, our streets with funereal processions, our cemeteries with the dead.
II. Here is the great conqueror of the world CONQUERED. “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death I will be thy plagues, I will be thy destruction.” I. Who? “I am the Resurrection and the Life: whoso believeth in me shall never die.” How has he conquered Death? Not by weakening his power or arresting his progress, for he is as mighty and active as ever, but by stripping him of his terror. Mentally he overcomes him, swallows him up. He fills the souls of his people with such love to the infinite Father, such interest in the spiritual universe, such desire for a higher life, that they say, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” A few weeks hence, and spring will come forth as a messenger from the great fountain of life, and look abroad over the earth in winter desolation under the icy reign of death; and will say to every withered plant and buried germ, “I will ransom thee from the power of the grave.” This Christ says to all dead souls.
“It is not death, to die;
To leave this weary road,
And ‘midst the brotherhood on high
To be at home with God.
“It is not death, to close
The eye long dimmed by tears,
And wake in glorious repose
To spend eternal years.
“It is not death, to bear
The wrench that sets us free
From dungeon-chain, to breathe the air
Of boundless liberty.
“It is not death, to fling
Aside this sinful dust,
And rise on strong, exulting wing
To live among the just.
“Jesus thou Prince of life,
Thy chosen cannot die;
Like thee, they conquer in the strife,
To reign with thee on high.”
D.T.
Hos 13:15
Reverses of fortune in human life.
“Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.” “For he will hear fruit among brethren. East wind will comea wind of Jehovah, rising up from the desert; and his fountain will dry up, and his spring become dried. He plunders the treasuries of all splendid vessels” (Delitzsch). “This and the following verse set forth the devastation and destruction of the kingdom of the ten tribes, which was to precede the deliverance promised in that which precedes. While the promise was designed to afford consolation to the pious and encouragement to the penitent, the threatening was equally necessary for the refractory and the profane” (Henderson). We shall take the words as suggesting a few remarks on the reverses of fortune in human life.
I. Reverses in human fortune are SOMETIMES VERY STRIKING. Ephraim was “fruitful among his brethren.” The very name signifies fruitfulness. Its territory was most fertile, its people the most numerous.
(1) Its riches would give way to poverty. Ephraim was at once a rich and a Populous tribe; but see the change predicted: “His spring shall become dry…. He shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.” The enemy would invade the country, impoverish husbandry, check merchandise.
(2) Its populousness would give way to paucity. The enemy would reduce its numbers and almost depopulate it. “His fountain shall be dried up.” How great the reverse! and yet such reverses in human history are frequent. Saul, Herod, Nebuchadnezzar, Napoleon, are a few amongst millions of examples. Constantly do we see men hurled from the sunny mountain of opulence into the gloomy valley of poverty. Such reverses should teach us:
1. To hold all worldly good with a very light hand.
2. To settle our interests on the good that is permanent. “Labor not for the meat that perisheth.”
II. Reverses in human fortune are GENERALLY BROUGHT ABOUT BY SECONDARY INSTRUMENTALITY. “An east wind shall come, shall come from the wilderness.” Nations, communities, and individuals may always trace their calamities to certain natural causes. If a kingdom decays, if a mercantile transaction breaks down, if a fortune is lost, man can generally trace the dispensation to some “east wind”some secondary agent. This should teach us
(1) to study natural laws;
(2) to be diligent in checking all elements inimical to human progress.
III. Reverses in human fortune are UNDER THE DIRECTION OF GOD. The change in the fortunes of Ephraim, although brought about by a variety of secondary agencies, was nevertheless under the superintendence of the Almighty. Though a country may be ruined by civil wars, or foreign invasions, or pestilential atmospheres, or unfruitful harvests bringing on famine, still Divine intelligence foresees all, and Divine power overrules all. Both true philosophy and religion teach us to trace all the events of life to him. Some come directly from him; all are directed by him. Friendship and bereavement, prosperity and adversity, sickness and health, sorrow and joyhe is in all. “The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away.” Learn
(1) to acquiesce in his dispensations;
(2) to look to him for all that is good.D.T.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR
Hos 13:1-4
Baal-exaltation.
The first clause is better read, “When Ephraim spake, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel.” The contrast is between what Ephraim once was, and what his offending in Baal had now brought him to. Once he was great in Israel. He had authority, influence, power to inspire terror. Now he was but the wreck of his former self. He would be swept away like chaff before the whirlwind.
I. THE FIRST FALSE STEP. (Hos 13:1) It is the first false step in sin which needs specially to be guarded against. Israel’s first false step as a separate kingdom was the denial of God’s spirituality, and the breach of his commandment, in the setting up of the worship of the calves. This was:
1. Trespass in a fundamental article. It was practically the denial of the Godhead. It made God likenot to corruptible man-but, worse, to four-footed beasts (Rom 1:23). They called their worship still Jehovah worship, but God repudiates it as in no sense his. It was really Baal-worship. God gives the sin its right name
2. The admission of a wrong principle. The principle was that of self-will in religion. Setting aside God’s commandment, Ephraim claimed to organize his worship after his own heart. He would have no law but his own will. It was to gratify himself that he had set up an independent kingdom. It was to gratify himself that he now set up the golden calves. The adoption of a wrong principle by an individual or nation is the sowing of a seed out of which is sure to spring ulterior mischief. Israel reaped from this seed of self-will, sown in the heart of the constitution, an unforeseen harvest of evil and woe.
3. A fatal step. One false step is often decisive of a whole future, it was so with our first parents. Adam’s sin determined the spiritual condition of the race. “In Adam all die” (1Co 15:22). It was so with this first false step in Israel. “When he offended in Baal, he died.” tie died:
(1) Morally. We die morally the moment we determine to take our own will rather than God’s as the law of our life. Self-wall is the seed-principle of sin. It is a seed of death.
(2) As a nation. That was the step which settled Ephraim’s future. It determined the direction of his after-way. Looking back from the end, it could be seen that this was the time when the fatal course was entered on. Virtually, this step doomed him. As Adam, on the day of his transgression, became a dying man, though he did net actually die till long after, so Israel, in this early sin, wrote out their sentence of death as a people.
II. SIN‘S PROGRESS. (Hos 13:2) Sin, like strife, is in its beginning as the letting in of water. Israel, having admitted into its midst a wrong principle, went on from bad to worse. Idolatry spread in the nation. In the practice of this idolatry the people were:
1. Extravagant. “They have made them molten images of their silver.” They lavished their wealth upon their idols. People are generally willing to spend extravagantly upon their vices.
2. Ingenious. “Idols according to their understanding; all of it the work of the craftsmen.” Not content with the gods of their neighbors, they invented new forms of idolatry for themselves. They were ingenious in forming, adorning, and diversifying their idols. Nothing they could do, however, could make the objects of their ingenuity aught else than idols. “All of it the work of the craftsmen”this only. And to this product of their own crafts they bowed themselves down. Men whose hearts are too proud to bow to God are ready to bow clown to idols of their own making (Isa 2:9).
3. Intolerant. “They say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.” The world will brook no refusal to worship at its shrines. E.g. the tyranny of codes of fashion.
III. VANISHING PROSPERITY. (Hos 13:3) Four images are employed to set forth the swiftness, suddenness, and completeness with which Ephraim’s once lordly prosperity would vanish. These are
(1) the morning cloud;
(2) the early dew;
(3) the chaff driven by the whirlwind;
(4) smoke escaping from a chimney (or window).
Some of these things are:
1. Beautiful at first. The cloud hangs gay and gilded in the morning sky, and the dewdrop sparkles with a heavenly beauty as it catches the sun’s rays.
2. Unsubstantial. The cloud, though fair, is a mere mass of vapor. The dew but borrows its sparkle from the light. The chaff is husk without substance. The smoke, rising at first in a solid-looking column, or in thick, heavy folds, is bodiless and without coherence.
3. They rapidly vanish. All the four metaphors represent something that “appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away” (Jas 4:14). The cloud is gone while yet we gaze on it. The dew, drenching grass and flowers at dawn, soon dries up with the heat. The wind rapidly bears off the chaff. The smoke scatters, or is dispersed by the breeze, and vanishes. In combination, the figures point to different causes of vanishing. Internal lightness (chaff), dissipation of parts (vapor, smoke), external absorption (sun and air), strong forces of destruction (whirlwind). The whole show the short-lived nature of the sinner’s prosperity. Its beauty is not abiding. It is substanceless. It is soon swept away.
IV. GOD, NOT BAAL. (Hos 13:4) The end of this judgment was, not utterly to destroy the people, but to drive them out of false confidences, and tend them to the right knowledge of God. It would bring them to see:
1. That God had been faithful to them, though not they to him. “Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt.”
2. That there was no God but himself. “Thou shalt know no God but me.” They worshipped Baal as God, but experience only showed that he was none.
3. That God was the only Savior. “There is no Savior beside me.” Yet be was a Savior. He had sought to be their Savior all through. He would save them still, if they would but turn to him.J.O.
Hos 13:5-8
Self-exaltation.
As Moses had foretold (Deu 8:10-18; Deu 32:15), when Israel became prosperous, he forgot God, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation. The exaltation of Baal was itself an act of self-willa species of self-exaltation. The egoistic principle, however, had more direct manifestations. We have in these verses
I. GOD KNOWN IN ADVERSITY. “I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought” (Hos 13:5).
1. God knew Israel, in the great care he exercised over the nation, leading it, providing for its wants, protecting it, and showing it manifold tokens of his goodness.
2. Israel knew God. The nation was never nearer to its God than during these years of severe trial and hourly dependence. It believed in him, waited on him, trusted him, and wasat least latterlywilling to serve him. Adversity had its uses. It did the people good, It made a strong nation of them, fit to conquer and occupy Canaan.
II. GOD FORGOTTEN IN PROSPERITY. (Hos 13:6) As the people grew prosperous, they forgot God. The stages are:
1. Sense of repletion. “They were filled.” Satisfied with the good things of earth, they did not feel the same need of God’s blessing. They had not the same sense of dependence.
2. Uplifting of heart. “Their heart was exalted.” Prosperity tends in this direction. It uplifts the heart. It makes the possessor of wealth proud, self-sufficient, arrogant.
3. Forgetfulness of God. “Therefore have they forgotten me.” This was their base ingratitude. Yet the sin is common. The more we receive from Godso perverse and prone to depart are wethe more ready we are to forget him. We feel as if we were independent. We are full. We reign as kings without him.
III. THE PENALTY OF SELF–EXALTATION. (Hos 13:7, Hos 13:8) Pride in the creature is the sin which more than any other provokes God to wrath. The Greeks, with just discrimination, viewed the gods as specially wroth with the man who unduly exalted himself. never failed to bring down on the unhappy mortal who was guilty of the sin “swift destruction.” God here likens himself to the wild beasts that tear the flockso fierce and unsparing is his anger. He will be “as a lion,” “a leopard,” “a bear bereaved of her whelps.” Strange images to apply to him whose name is Love! But love, outraged and grieved, is the most vehement and fierce of all passions. God’s love, because it is intense and real, is not to be trifled with, and, when roused to anger, is terrible to encounter. Better meet wild beasts of the forest than fall into the hands of the living God.J.O.
Hos 13:9-14
God-exaltation.
God is exalted, negatively, by the overthrow of whatever is opposed to himin Israel’s case, by the humbling of their pride, the discovery of the vanity of their earthly trusts, and the overthrow of the sinful kingdom; and, positively, by the ultimate triumph of his purpose of salvationa triumph even over death.
I. ISRAEL THE AUTHOR OF HIS OWN DESTRUCTION. (Hos 13:9) It was a destruction:
1. For which he only was responsible. “Destroyed thyself.” It was entirely the result of his own perverse actings. Had he taken God’s way, all would have been well with him. Butso the words literally runhe was against God. He chose of his own will the way which God told him was the way of death. The sinner’s ruin is entirely his own work. God refuses all responsibility for it. He has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth (Eze 18:32).
2. Resulting from refusal of Divine help. “Thy help.” This aggravated the sin. “Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” (Jer 8:22). God wished to be Israel’s helper, but Israel would not let him. Sinners perish though salvation is within reach. “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light,” etc. (Joh 3:19); “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life” (Joh 5:40).
3. Which his self-sought helpers were unable to avert. Israel found in his hour of need the vanity of trusting to his earthly helpers. “Where is thy king, that he may save thee in all thy cities? and the judges, of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes?” (Hos 13:10). Baal failed him (Hos 8:5; Hos 10:5); the Assyrian failed him (Hos 5:13); his kings failed him (Hos 10:3, Hos 10:15). Thus it was demonstrated that God is the only Helper, that there is no Savior beside him (Hos 13:4). God in Christ is the only Hope of the sinner. He is an all-sufficient Hope, if the sinner will only be persuaded to apply to him. Instead of this, how many “refuges of lies” do men resort to I
II. ISRAEL PUNISHED BY THE GRANTING TO HIM OF HIS OWN DESIRE, (Hos 13:10-12) Often nothing will please the sinner but to get his own way. God, in wrath, sometimes grants the sinner his own way. When he gets it, he finds it to be to his hurt. This is illustrated in the case of Israel.
1. The desire for a king. “Thy judges of whom thou saidst, Give me a king and princes.” The kingdom of Israel had its origin in self-willwas an embodiment of that principle. Rehoboam’s rough answer afforded the occasion of revolt, but the desire of the northern tribes to have a king of their own was the real soul of the movement. It was a rebellion against the house of David. The people set up kings, but not by God (Hos 8:4).
2. The desire granted. “I gave thee a king in mine anger.” Partly as a punishment of the sins of David’s house, and partly as a punishment of the tribes themselves, God granted the wish for a king. The rebellious spirit in which the separate kingdom was set up was chastised by the calamities brought upon the nation by its self-chosen rulers. There is a difference between granting a desire and approving of it. It does not imply approval that Jeroboam was designated beforehand by the prophet as the person to whom God would give the kingdom. God did give Israel its king, but it was “in anger.” Doubtless had Jeroboam, on receiving the kingdom, walked in God’s ways, his rule, as having a relative sanction from Heaven, would have been established (1Ki 11:38). But it was obvious, both from the spirit of the man, and from the motives of the rebellion, and the temper in which it was carried out, that nothing of this kind could be expected.
3. The king given in anger taken away in wrath. “I took him away in my wrath.” The northern monarchy brought only evil on the nation. The principle of self-will in which it originated wrought itself out further into state-idolatry, Baal-worship, frequent revolutions, intestine conflicts, alliances with Assyria and Egypt, sins and crimes of every description. The kings vied with each other in their wickedness. They set an example which their subjects were only too ready to follow. Thus wrath was prepared which at length swept them away like the whirlwind. Their king perished with them. The monarchy fell, never to rise again.
4. In the wrath which overtook the kingdom, hidden iniquity was brought to mind. “The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid.” His whole career was remembered against him. Like a thing treasured up, put past, but not forgotten, it was brought forth at the appointed time for punishment. No sin escapes the remembrance of God. Unrepented of, it will have to be reckoned for in the judgment.
III. ISRAEL UNDULY DELAYING HIS CONVERSION. (Hos 13:13) The pangs of distress which came on Israel were, had he understood their end, meant for his salvation, They ought to have issued in a change of heart, and in “newness of life.” While, however, he felt alarms, convictions, and compunctions for what be had done, Israel failed to come to the birth of a genuine conversion. He was an unwise son, who prolonged the birth-labor by refusal to come forth.
1. The delay of conversion is a cause of needless pain. How much better bad Ephraim come forth at once, instead of thus, as it were, lingering in the womb! Many delay their conversion by indecision, by unwillingness to part with some darling sin, by slowness of heart to believe God’s promise, by the thought of what the world will say, what friends will say, etc; thus unnecessarily prolonging their distress, fear, and pains of conscience, and shutting themselves out from the peace, joy, and comfort of the new life of grace.
2. To delay conversion is to risk the loss of life. The infant, delaying to come forth, dies in the womb. Israel, because it refused to be taught by the sorrows which had come upon it, was, as regards the nation at large, to be destroyed. It would perish through its delay of conversion. Procrastination in spiritual child-birth is a cause of spiritual death Compunctions die away, the Spirit ceases to strive, anxiety disappears, the crisis passes and never comes back.
3. Israel‘s conversion, though long delayed, will yet take place. A remnant of the people will be preserved, and thesethough the process is slow and tediouswill yet be reborn to God. The nation will be recovered as from death (Hos 13:14).
IV. GOD THE RANSOMER EVEN FROM DEATH. (Hos 13:14) God’s gracious purpose in the case of Israel, of the elect soul, of humanity, cannot be defeated. The words contain a pledge:
1. Of national restoration. Israel, though now cast away, will yet be recovered as from death (Hos 6:2; Rom 11:15). God had promised to be the God of this people, and his love would triumph even over their unbelief and sin, Their recovery will have in it all the marvel of a resurrection.
2. Of spiritual renewal. There is a spiritual death from which recovery is more difficult than from national death, or even from the death of the body. A nation, having played its part in history, and perishing, rarely recovers the life it has thus lost. It needs the power of God to restore national life to Israel. It needs a yet higher exercise of God’s power to restore life to their souls, dead in long-continued unbelief. But every soul by nature is “dead in trespasses and sins,” and needs a moral miracle to be wrought upon it to give it life. God alone can ransom it from death. Each conversion is a new triumph over him that hath the power of death.
3. Of bodily resurrection. Salvation would be incomplete if it left its subjects still under the power of physical death. This is clearer under the New Testament than it was under the Old, but it underlay the promise of salvation there also. Christ has made the truth perfectly distinct. He has, by his own resurrection, “brought life and immortality to light” (2Ti 1:10). “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1Co 15:26). Death meanwhile claims all as his prey. He reigns over all. He comes to men in innumerable forms of horror and anguish. His plagues are terrible. But Christ will rescue his own even from the power of this inexorable destroyer. Then, in their full sense, the words of the prophet will be fulfilled (1Co 15:55).J.O.
Hos 13:15, Hos 13:16
Figure and fact.
The end of the kingdom is first described in expressive figure; it is then foretold in plain terms, which give a fearful idea of its horrors.
I. THE FIGURE ANSWERS TO THE FACTS. (Hos 13:15) Ephraim was as a fruitful tree among his brethren. But:
1. The east wind would blight him. To this answers the statement that Samaria would become desolate. Ephraim fed on wind, and pursued the east wind; now its hot, scorching breath was his destruction.
2. His spring would become dry. To this answers the statement that mothers and children would be destroyed. These were the spring, the fountains of his fruitfulness. He would be dried up at his roots. The hope of revival through offspring would be cut off from him.
3. His treasures of goodly vessels would be plundered. This leaves the image of the tree. It returns to realism. Plundering would succeed victory. We may apply to sin. It blights the soul; robs it of its bloom and fruitfulness; dries up the springs of its life, which are in God; despoils it of its costly treasures of goodness, truth, holiness, affection, etc.
II. THE FACT IS NOT LESS TERRIBLE THAN THE FIGURE. (Hos 13:16) We are apt, in reading figurative descriptions of the doom of the sinnerthe worm, the fire, weeping and gnashing of teeth, etc.to break their force to our minds by the secret reflection that they are “only figures.” “Only figures.” But the figures surely mean something. And is the reality likely to be less terrible than the figures of it? The verse before us should warn us against this delusion. We have in Hos 13:15 the figure; we have the reality in plain terms here. Which is the more awful? The naked description of what will happen to Samaria greatly surpasses in terribleness all the figures that are employed to image it. And what was predicted actually occurred.J.O.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Hos 13:1. When Ephraim spake, trembling When Ephraim promulged his edicts, or first became a kingdom. Houbigant. It may be otherwise understood, that when he behaved himself with dutiful submission and obedience to God, his kingdom was powerful; but when he gave himself up to idolatry, his strength immediately declined. The word Baal is here used in its general sense, for false gods.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
2. The Judgment of Gods Anger
Hosea 13
1 When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling;1
He exalted himself in Israel,
Then he transgressed through Baal and died.
2 And now they continue to sin,
They made for themselves idols of their silver,
Images according to their understanding [as they pleased],
All of them the work of artificers;
To them men who sacrifice2 are speaking (in prayer),
They kiss the calves.
3 Therefore will they be like the morning cloud,
And like the dew, which soon passes away,
Like chaff which is whirled3 out of the threshing-floor,
And like smoke from a window.
4 And (yet) I am Jehovah, thy God,
From the land of Egypt,
And thou dost not know a God besides me,
And there is no Saviour except me.
5 I knew thee in the desert,
In the land of droughts.
6 According to their pasture [as they fed] they were satisfied,
They were satisfied, and their heart was uplifted,
Therefore they forgot me.
7 And (so) I became4 as a lion to them,
And as a leopard I lurked in the path.
8 I will attack them like a bear 5 robbed of her whelps,
And rend the inclosure of their heart,
I will devour them then like a lioness;
The wild beast of the field shall rend them.
9 It has destroyed thee,6 Israel,
That thou (hast been) against me, against thy Help.
10 Where7 then is thy king,
And he (who) will help thee in all thy cities?
And thy judgest8 of whom thou saidst:
Give me a king and princes?
11 I give thee a king in my anger,
And will take him away in my wrath.
12 Ephraims guilt is bound up,
His sin is treasured away.
13 The pains of a travailing woman shall come upon him:
(But) he is an unwise son;
Because at the (right) time9 he would not enter the opening of the womb.
14 Should I redeem them from the hand of hell?
Should I free them from death?
Where are thy plagues, O death?
Where is thy destruction, O hell?
Repentance shall be hidden from my eyes.
15 For (though) among (his) brethren he may be fruitful,10
An east wind will come,
A breath of Jehovah rising from the desert,
And his spring shall dry up and his fountain be parched;
He [Assyria] shall plunder the treasure of all the costly vessels.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Hos 13:1. When Ephraim spoke, etc. An allusion to the high respect paid to Israel. here is intransitive [comp. Psa 89:10; Nah 1:5.] The reference is to the unrighteous desire for predominance cherished by Ephraim, which led at to the schism from the House of David. But internal declension was immediately connected with this. The worship of Baal evidently began really the calf-worship according to the view of the Prophet. He cannot allow it to be maintained the latter was the worship of Jehovah. And died: They died spiritually, and then outward that ruin comes also. [This view of the whole is verse approved by Henderson, Pusey, and most recent Expositors.M.]
Hos 13:2. All their former transgressions were continued. . This is difficult. is not=who sacrifice men, for human sacrifices were not offered in the calf-worship, but=those among men who sacrifice, according to the analogy of (Isa 29:19). Keil renders: of them they say (those of the men that sacrifice); they kiss the calves. But this is linguistically harsh, for they kiss calves would be oratio obliqua, and would mean: of them, namely, of the images. It is besides unnatural. To whom should the offerers say that they kiss the calves? They certainly perform such actions, and it is that is the conduct here rebuked, but their saying that they do so is a very remote idea. We are therefore obliged to take here absolutely as it is nowhere else employed=speak in prayer. This is just the thought that is suitable here. It had been previously said that these images are purely the work of men themselves, and yethow cutting is the reproof!they speak with these very works of their hands, they kiss them, as though they were flesh and blood.
Hos 13:3. The punishment of this is swift destruction. As to the figures of the morning cloud and the early dew, see on Hos 6:4. Here there are added other comparisons; the usual one of chaff, and, besides, that of smoke, which escaped by the windows since there were no chimneys.
Hos 13:4-5. As contrasted with Israels idolatry Jehovah points again to what he had done for Israel long ago, at first with the same words as those employed in Hos 12:10, but afterwards more fully. I knew thee, with the accessory notions of love and compassion.
Hos 13:6. The goodness of God is abused. According to their pasture, i.e., in the land given them by God. The complaint rests upon Deu 8:11 ff. (comp. also Hos 31:20; Hos 32:15 ff.). That against which they were there warned, has been done.
Hos 13:7-8 therefore describe the punishment, in accordance with the figure of the pasture, in which Israel is the flock. The flock will be rent as by wild beasts (comp. also, Hos 5:14). , and I became to them: the punishment had already begun and would be continued. The inclosure of their heart = their breast.
Hos 13:9. It has destroyed thee, O Israel, that thou wert against me, thy Help. The second clause gives the cause of the first. is then to be taken in the sense of against; that thou against me, against thy help. According to the sequel the special reference is to the falling away from the House of David. [So Ewald, Keil, and most of the recent Continental Expositors agree in adopting the above explanation. Pusey and Noyes among the Anglo-Americans also prefer it. The others generally hold to the rendering of the E. V. The two chief objections against the latter view are that it demands a very roundabout rendering of , and that the second is most naturally to be taken in the same sense as the first, and therefore cannot be a Beth essenti.M.]
Hos 13:10. Israel had indeed a king, but not one who could help them, or defend their cities (against Assyria). And thy judges, probably=the princes who surround the king, the ministers and counsellors appointed by the king, who along with him exercise the highest judicial and executive authority. Give me a king and princes; not without allusion to the request of the people in the time of Samuel. On the case of Jeroboam, they repeated this ancient demand, at that time reproved by the Lord, in a still more sinful way.
Hos 13:11. I give thee a king in my anger, not: I gave thee, because the expression is not to be limited to the elevation of Jeroboam, but refers generally to the kings of Israel. When they separated from the House of David and set up their own kings, God punished them, because in doing so they forsook his worship, and gave themselves over to the power of their ungodly kings. And will take him away. This refers not merely to the dethronement of one king by another, but to the kingdom generally, which God would overthrow in his anger. The anger of God stands therefore at the beginning and at the end; giving kings and taking them away, are both an evidence of his displeasure.
Hos 13:12 shows that the taking away of the king is inevitable: servata sunt ad vindictam omnia peccata eorum [Henderson: The metaphors are here borrowed from the custom of tying up money in bags and depositing it in some secret place in order that it might be preserved. The certainty of punishment is the idea conveyed by them. Comp., for the former, Job 14:17; for the latter, Deu 32:34; Job 21:19.M.]
Hos 13:13 describes the punishment under the image of birth-pangs, in which, however, the pains of the mother are not so much thought of as the pressure which the child must suffer. And yet, though there is distress in child-birth, it does not tend to destruction, but to birth, to a new life. So also here. But death does follow if the child is not pressed out into the vagina in consequence of the labor, so as to come into the world alive: So is it with Israel. Under Gods judgment they put off a return to Him, and will not be born again; that judgment must therefore be their destruction.
Hos 13:14, according to the common view, introduces a promise without any preparation. Yet, though we cannot be surprised at the occurrence of sudden transition in our Prophet, a promise is evidently quite unsuitable. We would from the foregoing words rather expect a mention of the punishment reserved for their guilt, or a description of their pains. It would then be surprising if a promise were introduced; and the fact is that threatening is here unmistakably becoming stronger, until Hos 14:1. To be sure, if Hos 13:14 be regarded as a promise, Hos 13:15 must bear the same character, as they are connected by for. But the change would be only the more violent, taking place in one and the same verse, and Keil only imports his notion into the passage, when he, for this reason, makes a distinction, and refers the beginning of the verse to those who walk in the footsteps of the faith, etc., of their progenitor, and the rest to Ephraim who had become changed into Canaan [a merchant]. But, besides, the second part of Hos 13:15 manifestly presupposes the beginning of the same verse, the image of the blasting wind presupposing that of the fruit-bearing, or the former is chosen with direct reference to the latter; the judgment is regarded as a devastation by scorching wind, because Israel is conceived of as a fruitful field. Under any other view members of a verse, which are connected in meaning, would be sundered. If therefore Hos 13:15 throughout is nothing but threatening, its beginning with for argues the same character for Hos 13:14. The beginning of Hos 13:14 is then to be explained as a question, though without the particle of interrogation: From the hand of hell should I deliver them? The second member contains an energetic negative response. Nay, even death and hell are summoned and charged to inflict and execute the judgment upon them. as in Hos 13:10 =where (see farther in the Doctrinal Section, No. 4).
: either repentance or compassion. The former is most suitable: it is not to be supposed that I repent of this threatening, that I recall it.
Hos 13:15. alludes, with a play upon the name Ephraim ( and ), to their fruitfulness, in order to represent the judgment as a scorching wind destroying that fertility. He will spoil. He, i.e., the enemy presented under the image of the parching wind, Assyria. The treasure of all precious vessels, is to be sought especially in the chief city, Samaria, which is named immediately hereafter.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Apostasy from Jehovah, which appears here also as Israels chief sin, brought death upon them: they died (Hos 13:1). This conception sounds the depths of the subject. Outwardly regarded, they lived long, even after they gave themselves up to the worship of Baal (just like a fruitful tree, Hos 13:15), but in truth inwardly they were dead. For true life consists in union with Jehovah: idols can give no life. Israel owed its life to Jehovah alone (Hos 13:4). Therefore, Hos 13:9 : It has destroyed thee that thou hast been against me, thy help. What God had done for Israel from the beginning is here again (Hos 13:4-5) made prominent, and the deliverance from Egypt with the leading through the Desert appear again as the fundamental act of mercy, for through them Israel became living. Their present conduct towards God was a base and ungrateful ignoring of those deeds in the presumption of a prosperity which they owed to their God (Hos 13:6). A people who are inwardly dead cannot long outwardly survive. That God whom they had forgotten and from whom they had turned away, would and must at last show them that He had not forgotten them (Hos 13:12) by destroying them without sparing. This is indeed the only means of bringing them to life. For that and that alone is designed by God in their case; see Hosea 14. This must ever be kept in view if we are to understand the threatenings aright, which are reproduced here in a peculiarly intensified form: Hos 13:7-8, Hos 13:12 to Hos 14:1. But how true and striking is such a description seen to be, when we remember that this divine judgment is executed by the invasion of a foreign conqueror! With what can his attack be better compared than with the attack of devouring beasts, or, after another image, with a scorching wind that destroys everything in its course? How often has that been repeated in the history of the nations!
2. The whole (temporal) kingdom was a divine system of punishment and chastening. At the request of the people, He granted them a king, but with the expression of his displeasure at their desire because it proceeded from unbelief and vanity, and with the declaration that they would lose their freedom by its realization. But, at the same time, this kingdom of Israel might become a blessing if it with its king would obey God. Nay, God, by establishing the throne of David in Zion, even connected the most precious promises with this kingdom, if the king were entirely one with God and should gather about him a nation obedient to God. But the people with their king followed more and more decidedly a course opposed to God by separating (in the kingdom of the Ten Tribes) from the house with which God had connected his promises, and so forsaking the king which God had given them, they must therefore be punished by having this self-erected kingdom taken away, and the punishment is all the greater that they shall never return to a state of freedom, but must lie under the much viler bondage of foreign rulers until they return to the king whom God had promised to raise up from the House of David.
3. The passage in Hos 13:14 is and remains difficult, and, although in the light of the context we cannot regard it as containing a promise, yet the view which regards it as such is in so far to be respected as the beginning of the verse especially, taken by itself, makes it appear natural. For this reason, probably, the LXX. translate in this sense, and the Apostle Paul, freely following them, cites these words (in connection with Isa 25:8; 1Co 15:55), in the sense of a challenge indeed, but in the same with the implication that death and hell should reveal their impotence, and therefore in the sense of a promise. But this will not compel us to explain the words otherwise than as the context requires, and we find this in accord path any but the simply mechanical theory of inspiration. But it is still to be kept in mind that in one passage the possibility of a redemption from death and hell is presupposed even if its accomplishment is refused by the threatening. But it corresponds with the character of the New Testament that it has changed the threatening into a promise. While the Old Testament summons death and the underworld to execute judgment upon their servants, the New Testament rather shows them conquered and powerless, so much so that they must even yield up the prey which they already have, and so far Paul had internal justification to convert the Old Testament threatening into a promise, or rather into a pan of triumph, and thus in the Spirit chose the true course. For the view of Hos 13:14 as containing a promise, we may cite further the beautiful remarks of Rieger: Outward ruin becomes to many a path upon which they rush suddenly down to death and hell, and with their hardened hearts they prefer to be lost beyond redemption in death and hell rather than turn to God with contrite hearts, and yield themselves up to trust in Him. Therefore Gods promise comprehends the whole ruin, the whole abyss of destruction into which the sinner rushes, so as to subdue proud unbelief by the promised redemption from death and hell, and make men driven to extremity well disposed towards God. O, that all to whom sin has become their destruction would allow themselves to be rescued by this hand offered them at the brink of death and hell, especially as we can behold more fully in the New Testament the victory which God has given us through Christ Jesus, and thus more easily gain its consolation.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Hos 13:1. Gerlach: Pride comes before a fall. See how the sins of pride and false worship lead to spiritual and eternal death! With sin there came not only guilt but also the seeds of death, and so the heart and life-blood are consumed. On the other hand, with the new righteousness comes new life into dead souls.
[Fausset: Sin separates from God, the true life of the soul. Let all professors of religion ever remember this, that sin, habitual or unatoned for, and spiritual life cannot coexist in the same individual (Rom 8:6).M.]
Hos 13:4. Pfaff. Biblewerk: Since God has showered down upon us so many blessings from our youth up, and since all that we have we owe to his goodness, it is vile ingratitude to rely, not upon Him, but upon human power, false worship, and the like. We have only one God and Redeemer. Besides Him we must know no other.
[Matthew Henry: It is a happy ignorance not to know that which we are not to meddle with. Whatever we take for our God we expect to have for our Saviour, that is, to make us happy here and hereafter. As where we have protection we owe allegiance, so where we have salvation, and hope for it, we owe adoration.M.]
Hos 13:6. Pfaff. Bibelwerk: So is it with the ungodly. They misuse Gods blessings and become secure, forgetting the gracious Giver, when they should rather erect an imperishable monument to Him in their souls. See thou, too, O my soul! whether thou art thankful to thy Saviour, whether thou dost bring home to thyself rightly and constantly the blessings which God has given thee, both temporal and spiritual, whether thou dost praise and live for the gracious Giver with mouth and heart and a holy walk.
[Pusey: They who follow God for Himself, things of this sort are not called their pasture, but the Word of God is their pasture, according to Deu 8:3. In like way, let all think themselves blamed, who attend the altar of Christ not for the love of the sacraments [ordinances] which they celebrate, but only to live of the altar.M.]
Hos 13:9. It is the conduct of men towards God which determines their woe or weal. God alone is our true Help; therefore everything that resists Him must be lost; and there is no greater folly than to rise up against Him.
Pfaff. Bibelwerk: God is guilty of no mans destruction, but only man himself.
Hos 13:11. Pfaff. Bibelwerk: It is a great callamity to a country when the Lord gives it a prince in his anger that he may be the instrument of his vengeance.
[Fausset: God often punishes men by giving them their wish.M.]
Hos 13:12. God can and would remit our sins; but He can also retain them, and must do so as long as we remain impenitent; and as long as God retains them all hope of being freed from them is vain.
Hos 13:14. So far can the love of God be changed into wrath that He, to whom it were easy to save, does not do so, but delivers over to death and destruction, nay, even, as it were, invokes the powers of destruction to execute his wrath, without his repenting or recalling his purpose. Even in this God has assuredly purposes of salvation. He punishes so severely only to open the eyes, when and since all other means have failed. [See the Exegetical and Doctrinal Remarks.M.]
Hos 13:15. When God withdraws his hand all prosperity disappears, and that often suddenly, before men are aware.
[Matthew Henry: See the folly of those that lay up their treasures on earth, that lay it up in pleasant vessels, vessels of desire, so the word is, on which they set their affections, and in which they place their comfort and satisfaction.
Pusey: Such are ungodly greatness and prosperity. While they are fairest in show their life-fountains are drying upM.].
Footnotes:
[1]Ver. l. , . .= [Jer 49:24. Targ. .M.]
[2][Hos 13:2. . This construction is to be explained on the principle laid down by Ewald, 287 g, that the subordinate word in the construct may sometimes denote the individual or individuals of the class denoted by the principal word. For an example of the same construction in addition to the one given in the exposition, see Mic 5:4, , those of men that are anointed.M.]
[3][Hos 13:3.. See Green, 92 bM.]
[4][Hos 13:7.. is inferential, Green, 287, 1.M.]
[5][Hos 13:8. here means the female bear, and yet, being of the common gender, it may be joined with a part, masculine. Comp. Psa 144:14 for a parallel caseM.]
[6][Hos 13:9.. We have here the third sing. Piel. There is no ground for assuming a substantive: destruction, as Henderson does.M.]
[7]Hos 13:10.. A particle of interrogation. It is dialectical, and occurs only here and in Hos 13:14. It is = : where, and is strengthened by = tandem, when then?
[8][Hos 13:10.Supply before .
[9][Hos 13:13. must be taken here adverbially: at the (right) time.M.]
[10][Hos 13:15. A . . The form is supposed, with probable correctness, to have been chosen instead of the usual , in order to conform to , of which it is the root.M.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
Ephraim is still under reproof in this Chapter. But grace still triumphs in the Lord’s victory for Ephraim, over death, hell, and the grave.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Here is a striking representation made in the character of Ephraim, and which suits all backsliders like Ephraim. First, departures are made with trembling: After falls are in more confidence. Hence the Apostle’s kind caution. Heb 3:12-13 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Morning Cloud and Early Dew
Hos 13
“When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died” ( Hos 13:1 ).
It would be pleasant to read these words in the obvious sense which they bear, but that sense is not the right one. Ephraim never “spake trembling,” in any sense that indicated upon his part humility, diffidence, unworthiness. Ephraim was always proud, and therefore always cowardly; always boastful, and therefore never better than a bully. What blessing he had Was given to him through heredity, and not through any personal desert. “When Ephraim spake trembling,” when he gave Israel a sense of his awe, his military grandeur, his personal pomp, his wonderful influence, “he exalted himself in Israel;” that is to say, he made almost a god of himself; he lifted himself up to his full stature, he rose amongst his brethren, as it were, toweringly, and cast upon them a very long and very sobering shadow. It is the portrait of one who does not know the measure of human strength, how little it is; it is the action of one who has not sounded the little depths of human wisdom and human power and human dignity. Ephraim altogether played the fool in Israel. There is another sense in which the passage has been mistakenly regarded that is full of suggestion, and pregnant with real encouragement and comfort. Annotators have not hesitated to collect around this verse others which they have thought to be of kindred import, such as, “He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” “When thou wast little in thine own sight… the Lord anointed thee king.” “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” These citations have been thought to be worthy company for these historical incidents; they need not be dismissed from the incident, but they must not be regarded as still further elaborating and expressing its intent. Let them remain as a foil. So regarded, they are of infinite importance. No man who exalts himself in any mean way shall ever rise to enduring influence; but there is an exaltation that is heroic, sublime, made necessary by all the fitness of things a declaration of power and a claim to attention, arising out of ministries numerous and unnameable that seem to constitute a definite and inevitable divine election. It is always difficult for some minds to distinguish between vanity and greatness, conceit and divinely-given consciousness of power. If a man should say he has no power when he knows he is able, he is not humble, he is false; when a man says he cannot contribute when all his treasury is full, he is not representing the spirit of poverty, he is representing the spirit of falsehood and ingratitude.
“And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen” ( Hos 13:2 ).
The emphasis there is where you would not expect it to be; it is upon the words “all of it.” There is not one sacred spot in any idol; there is not one faint signature of the living God upon anything that man has made with his own hands to worship; it is as if eyes of fire had searched the idols through and through, and as if the hands of critics had written their record and reported in these words: The idol is all base, all dross, all material; all of it is the work of the hands of craftsmen. Men cannot step from the finite to the infinite. A finite creature cannot make an infinite idol. Whatever is made is less than the maker. If a man has made a god, he is greater than the god he has made. To have genius and power to make it is to have another genius and power equal to condemn it. Men get tired of what they have made. Ambition may arise and say, Make a better; then comes the displacement of the former god, amid every sign and token of contempt. These words should be cried out poignantly, bitterly, sarcastically. A man is standing before the idol, and he has gone through it atom by atom, so to speak, lineament by lineament, and he says at the end “all of it”: There is not one speck of heavenly gold in all this handful of earthly rubbish. “They say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.” It was said in Israel concerning the calves, “These be thy gods, O Israel.” To kiss was in the ancient times a sign of homage either human or divine. Men kissed their gods. When they could not kiss their gods, as, for example, in the instance of the heavenly bodies, they kissed their fingers, and waved their kissed hands to the objects of worship. The divine Being does not hesitate to accept this action, and give it its highest meaning; hence in the second Psalm there is one who says, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way.” That man should have descended to kiss a god of his own making is the consummation of weakness, and the very climax of ignorance and blasphemy. All this happened in ancient times. That is true, but all this happens letter for letter to-day. Man cannot get beyond the tether of his race. It is man that is tethered; not a man, some man, a particular and dying man, but humanity. We are all in one condemnation; the act of homage has not ceased, the object of desire may have changed. Men live in circumstances, and are lost in details, and therefore it is probable that they may imagine if they have substituted some other object for the calves of Israel therefore they have left the old idolatry. That is not so. If a man be trusting to his own right arm he is as great an idolater as any that ever lived in Israel. Whoso says he has money enough to keep out the difficulties of time, the slaves of want, and therefore he need not concern himself with providence in any spiritual and metaphysical sense, is as much an idolater as he who in uncivilised lands bows down to stock or stone, or lifts eyes of wondering ignorance to the blue heavens that he may fix them upon something of which he will make the image of a god.
Yet all these heathen practices admit of the highest applications. Let no man reject nature, it is God’s handiwork; no craftsman made the sun; no hireling servant set the stars in their places. If any poor heart, ill at ease, should pick out some fair-faced star and say, Be thou god to me, it might be the beginning of the higher religion, the nobler and truer faith. These are mysteries, and are not to be spoken about scornfully. He does not know the human heart who says to men who know no better, that idolatry is a sin. It was a sin in Israel, because it involved backsliding from the true God; but find a man in a savage land who has never heard of God or Christ, and to whom the words father, mother, brother, sister, carry no dew of blessing, no colour of poetry, no suggestion of wider and eternal fellowships, find a man there clinging to but a handful of mud in the expectation that there is something in it that can help him, and it is no sin: it should be the business of those who know better to teach him better; let what he has seized be the alphabet out of which to make words and music and wisdom. Sometimes men are prone to say that a Christian country is no better than a heathen land because the Christians of the country have abandoned their Christianity. That is not fair to heathen lands. Any man who has been a Christian, and has left his Christianity, or defiled his faith, is infinitely worse than any pagan who never heard of the Cross. No pagan can be so bad as an apostate Christian.
The prophet proceeds to poetry, and yet under his poetry there is a line of practical wisdom and monition:
“Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away” ( Hos 13:3 ).
That is beautiful, “morning cloud”: why, that may be a robe of glory; it may be a treasure-house into which the sun has transferred all manner of rich colour and tender suggestion of brighter mornings than ever dawned upon the earth. “Early dew,” jewels from the womb of the morning, benisons from heaven’s smile, gifts of God, liquid flowers. Oh, who shall tell what early dew means? This is the divine aspect of the symbolism. There is nothing wrong in morning cloud, or in early dew, but if the flowers do not receive immediate benefit from that dew they cannot receive permanent advantage; the dew will go as soon as it sees the sun. The dew is as one waiting for the morning to come out in full smile, and then it will claim kindred, and pass away to be merged into cloud and rainbow and wizardry of summer skies. So upon our youth there may have been signs of beauty; yet because we did not turn those signs to spiritual utility, they have passed away, and that which was once baptised with dew is as arid and barren sand. But there are two sets of figures in this verse; here is a quartette of symbolism: morning cloud and early dew on the one side; on the other, chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney. Let these figures stand in mutual illustration, in forcible solemn contrast: on the one side morning cloud, early dew; on the other chaff, and smoke out of the chimney. Is the smoke out of the chimney to be described as a morning cloud? See, it becomes blacker and blacker; there is no suggestion of beauty in it, there is no fragrance in that incense; it is smoke only, worthless, without beauty, without utility; let it be blown away by the wind. And the chaff, who will run after it? Who is miserly enough to rise early that he may save the chaff from the contempt of the wind? In this poetry there is stern reason; in this imagery there is highest righteousness. God will distinguish between the morning cloud and the smoke out of the chimney, the early dew which no hand but his own could mould, and the chaff out of which the wheat has been taken, and that the wind, yea, the whirlwind, may play with as it pleases, for it can lose nothing. These are indications of character, these are etchings of life. There is infinitely more in these figures than mere symbolism. Who has not seen the morning cloud in a child? It was a cloud, but a morning cloud, edged with light, filled with possible glory; quite an evanescent thing, yet suggestive of real beauty, of vital worthfulness. Who has not seen the early dew in the young life, all beauty, all tenderness, all hopefulness? And who could distinguish between the flower and the dew which was the dew, which was the flower? How beautiful they both are, and how they belong to one another! And who can tell what is coming out of that sacred union? And yet the morning cloud has disappointed the parent, and the early dew has not left any blessed memory for the pastor. Who does not know the chaff, and who has not seen the smoke? The chaff cannot long pass as wheat; its true quality will soon be discovered. Smoke is not to be mistaken for incense of the true and acceptable kind. How many men there are who have no substance, no reality. What beauty they may have is a borrowed beauty; it is shed upon them, it does not flash out of them; it is an accident, not an expression of nature: “Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”
“I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought” ( Hos 13:5 ).
God knows his people where nobody else will take any notice of them. You do not know a man until you know him in the wilderness. There is but little revelation of character in laughter. So long as a man is living in rioting and wantonness, in great abundance and prosperity, having only to lift his hand to command a regiment of servants, you cannot really tell what his true quality is. Men show themselves in the darkness; men cry out of their hearts when they are in distress; it is in the night time of life’s bitter sorrows that men’s true quality is revealed. God never forsakes his people in wildernesses and in desert places; he is more God and Father to them there than ever. No man knows God who only knows him theologically. It is impossible to read much about God; you must read the writing in your own heart. The world is within you; you carry the universe in your own bosom. Unless you have the faculty and the genius of introspection, and the power to read the small print that is being daily typed upon your inmost life, you can never be scholars in the sanctuary of Christ, you can never attain to high degrees of wisdom in the school of heaven. Men seek God in the wilderness. The wilderness is the school of discipline. In the Bible there lies one great desert land, and it is called “that great and terrible wilderness.” There could not be two such in any globe; there could not be a duplicate experience in any life. Some things can be done only once; no man can be twice in Gethsemane; no man can be twice crucified. There are acts in life which, having been accomplished, enable the sufferer to say, The bitterness of death is passed; come what will now, it is but a day’s march into heaven.
Now comes a stroke of satire, tremendous in its urgency and awful in the whole range of its suggestion:
“According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me” ( Hos 13:6 ).
The emphasis is upon the words “their pasture.” The figure is that of a man who has sown a field, and now must reap what he has sown he has sown to the flesh, now he must put his sickle into corruption, for they that sow unto the flesh must of the flesh reap corruption. “Their pasture”: their way of doing things, their invented joys, their fabricated fortunes and delights and prospects; their weaving, their sowing, their mechanism; their pasture through and through what does it amount to? To hunger. The more they eat of their pasture the keener and larger their necessity. For a time they are filled as a man might fill himself with chaff; for a time they are filled as with foam; for a time they are filled, but it is with the exhilaration of swiftly coming madness; for that time they forget God; they say they can do without him. God simply leaves them to their pasture, and when they have gone into every corner of it, and eaten up every particle of chaff they can find, he simply waits and looks on. The cry of hunger will soon announce the result of grubbing in a pasture that is not rooted in the sun.
Then across all this complaining there come voices that are charged with gospel music:
“O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help” ( Hos 13:9 ).
There is a whole evangelical revelation: self-destruction, divine redemption; man the sinner, God the Saviour; man lost, and God in search of him what more is there in Gethsemane, on Calvary?
Then comes another phase of the Gospel before the time, Paul’s great argument on resurrection sketched by the strong hand of Hosea:
“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction” ( Hos 13:14 ).
How much higher did Paul rise? Not one step higher did apostolic genius, divinely-inspired, ascend. Here are lives ransomed, bought, paid for, bought with blood, the price paid; here is redemption from death, a power confronted with death, and that power tearing out its teeth, extracting its sting, blinding its hideous eyes, and triumphing over it as a silent and humiliated and dishonoured opponent; and here is the old grave, the old worrying, all-devouring, all-concealing grave, torn asunder, and its victims liberated, and made into sons of light. I will be thy destruction, O grave; I will be thy plagues, O death. Put it in Christian language: O grave, where is thy sting? O death, where is thy victory? Thus the Testaments hail one another on resurrection morning. The Old Testament could not have been written but for the resurrection that is revealed in all the fulness of its meaning in the New Testament. There be those who say, Is there aught about the resurrection in the Old Testament? And there have been those who have said, Nay, it is not so much as named there, unless we take a passage in Job and one or two hints elsewhere, and amplify them into an argument. On the contrary, I find in “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” the resurrection; I find in “And God created man in his own image and likeness” the resurrection; I find in “The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent the death of death, and the filling up of the grave.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
VIII
THE BOOK OF HOSEA PART 2
Hos 4:1-14:9
What has previously been presented in figure and symbol in the first section of the book is now plainly and literally stated. Jehovah’s controversy with Israel is set forth in Hos 4:1-5 . Someone has called this “The Lord’s Lawsuit” in which he brings grave charges against Israel for sins of omission followed by sins of commission. The sins of omission which led to the sins of commission are that there were no truth, no goodness, and no knowledge of God in the land. These omissions led to the gravest sins of commission, viz: profanity, covenant-breaking, murder, stealing, and adultery. The evidence in this case was so strong that there was no plea of “not guilty” entered, and Jehovah proceeded at once, after making the indictment, to announce the sentence: Destruction!
This verdict of destruction was for the lack of knowledge, which emphasizes the responsibility of the opportunity to know. They had rejected knowledge and had forgotten the law of Jehovah, and as the priests were the religious leaders and instructors of the people, the sentence is heavy against them, but “like people, like priest” shows the equality of the responsibility and the judgment. There is no excuse for either. He who seeks to know the agenda, God will reveal the credenda. The sentence is again stated, thus: Rejection, forgetting her children, shame, requite them their doings, hunger and harlotry. Such a sentence hung over them like a deadly pall.
In Hos 4:11-14 whoredom and wine are named together, not by accident but because they are companion evils, which is the universal testimony of those who practice either. Here they are said to take away the understanding, or as the Hebrew puts it, the heart. Both are literally true. That the understanding is marred and blighted by these evils is evidenced in the case of the thousands who have rendered themselves unfit for service anywhere by wasting their strength with wine and harlots. That the heart, the seat of affections, is destroyed by these evils witness the thousands of divorce cases in our courts today. By such a course the very vitals of man are burnt out and he then becomes the prey to every other evil in the catalogue. Let the youth of our country heed the warning of the prophet. Here Israel, engrossed with these sins, is pictured as going deeper and deeper in sin and degradation until they pass beyond the power of description. Notice that the Lord here holds the men responsible and pronounces a mighty invective against the modern double standard of morals. In God’s sight the transgressor is the guilty party, whether man or woman.
Though Israel has played the harlot, Judah is warned in Hos 4:15-19 that she may not follow the example of Israel. The places of danger are pointed out and the example of Israel is used to enforce the warning. Israel is stubborn; Ephraim is joined to his idols; let him alone. Israel is wrapped in the winds of destruc-tion and shall soon be put to shame, therefore, take heed, Judah.
There are several notable things in the address of Hos 5:1-7 : First, the whole people priests, Israel, and the royal house was involved in the judgment because each one was responsible for the existing conditions, their great centers of revolt against Jehovah being pointed out as Mizpeh, east of the Jordan; and Tabor, west of the Jordan. Second, the fact that Jehovah himself was the rebuker of them. God is the one undisputable judge and he will judge and he will judge them all. Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all,
Third, God’s omniscience: “I know Ephraim, and Israel is not hid from me.” So he knows us and there is nothing hid from him. Fourth, men are hindered from turning to God by their gins. Fifth, positive instruction awaits the sinner (Hos 5:5 ). Sixth, sacrifices and seeking are too late after doom is pronounced. Repentance must come within the space allotted for it; otherwise, it is too late.
The cornet and trumpet in Hos 5:8-15 signifies the alarm in view of the approaching enemy. In the preceding paragraph the prophet signified their certain destruction and now he indicates that it is at hand, again assigning the reason, that Judah had become as bold as those who remove the landmarks, and Ephraim was content to walk after man’s commandments. Then he shows by the figure of the moth and the woodworm that he is slowly consuming both Israel and Judah, but they were applying to other powers for help to hold out and that the time would come when he, like the lion, would make quick work of his judgments upon Israel and Judah; that they will not seek him till their affliction comes.
Paragraph Hos 6:1-3 is the exhortation of the Israelites to one another at the time of their affliction mentioned in the last verse of the preceding chapter and should be introduced by the word, “saying,” as indicated in the margin of Hos 5:15 . The expressions, “He hath torn” and “he hath smitten,” evidently refer to the preceding verses which describe Jehovah’s dealing with Israel and Judah as a lion. This exhortation represents them after their affliction, saying to one another, “Come, and let us return unto Jehovah,” etc. The “two days” and the “third day” are expressions representing short periods, not literal or typical days. They are then represented as pursuing knowledge which is the opposite to their present condition in their lack of knowledge. Now they are perishing for the lack of knowledge but then they will flourish as land flourishes in the time of the latter rain. There is a primary fulfilment of this prophecy in the return after the captivity but the larger fulfilment will be at their final return and conversion at which commences the revival destined to sweep the world into the kingdom of God. As Peter says, it will be “the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord” (Act 3:19 ).
A paraphrase of Hos 6:4-11 shows its interpretation and application, thus: “O Ephraim, O Judah, I am perplexed as to what remedy next to apply to you; your goodness is so shallow and transitory that my judgments have to be repeated from time to time. I desire goodness, i.e., works of charity, the right attitude of life, and the proper condition of the heart, rather than sacrifice. But instead of this you have, like Adam in the garden of Eden, transgressed my covenant and have dealt treacherously against me, as in the case of the Gileadites and the case of the murderous priests in the way to Shechem, and oh, the horribleness of your crimes! and, O Judah, there is a harvest for you, too.”
In the charges against Israel in Hos 7:1-16 the prophet gives the true state of affairs, viz: that the divine desire to heal was frustrated by the discovery of pollution, and by their persistent ignoring of God; that the pollution of the nation was manifest in the king, the princes, and the judges; that Ephraim was mixing among the people and had widespread influence, over the ten tribes, yet he was as a cake not turned; that he was an utter failure, being developed on one side, and on the other destroyed by burning; that he was unconscious of his wasting strength and ignored the plain testimony of the Pride of Israel; that as a silly dove, he was indicating fear and cowardice. Then the prophet concludes the statement of the case by a declaration of the utter folly of the people whom God was scourging toward redemption, to which they responded by howling, assembling, and rebelling.
Now we take up Hos 8 . From the statement of the case the prophet turned, in Hos 8:1-14 , to the pronouncement of judgment by the figure of the trumpet lifted to the mouth, uttering five blasts, in each of which the sin of the people was set forth as revealing the reason for judgment. The first blast declared the coming of judgment under the figure of an eagle, because of transgression and trespass. The second blast emphasized Israel’s sin of rebellion, in that they had set up kings and princes without authority of Jehovah. The third dealt with Israel’s idolatry, announcing that Jehovah had cast off the calf of Samaria. The fourth denounced Israel’s alliances and declared that her hire among the nations had issued in her diminishing. The fifth drew attention to the altars of sin and announced the coming judgment.
These judgments in detail are given in Hos 9 . Its first note was that of the death of joy. Israel could not find her joy like other peoples. Having known Jehovah, everything to which she turned in turning from him, failed to satisfy. How true is this of the individual backslider! The unsatisfied heart is constantly crying out, Where is the blessedness I knew, When first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and his word?
The second note was that of actual exile to which she must pass: back to the slavery of Egypt and Assyria and away from the offerings and feasts of the Lord. The third was that of the cessation of prophecy. The means of testing themselves would be corrupted. The fourth declared the retributive justice of fornication. The prophet traced the growth of this pollution from its beginning at Baal-peor, and clearly set forth the inevitable deterioration of the impure people. The fifth and last was that of the final casting out of the people by God so that they should become wanderers among the nations.
In Hos 10 we have the prophet’s recapitulation and appeal. This closes the section. The whole case is stated under the figure of the vine. Israel was a vine of God’s planting which had turned its fruitfulness to evil account and was therefore doomed to his judgment. The result of this judgment would be the lament of the people that they had no king who was able to deliver them, and chastisement would inevitably follow. The last paragraph is an earnest and passionate appeal to return to loyalty.
Some things in Hos 10 need special explanation: First, note the expression here, “They will say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.” This furnishes the analogue for the final destruction of the world and the judgment as given in Luk 23:30 and Rev 6:16 . Here the expression is used to indicate the horrors of the capture and destruction of the kingdom of Israel, the sufferings and distress of which are a foreshadowing of the great tribulation at the end of the world.
Second, the reference to Gibeah in Hos 10:9 needs a little explanation. This sin of Gibeah is the sin of the shameful outrage which with its consequences is recorded in Judges 19-20. That sin became proverbial, overtopping, as it did, all the ordinary iniquities, by its shameless atrocity and heinousness. By a long-continued course of sin, even from ancient days, Ephraim had been preparing for a fearful doom.
The third reference is to Shalman who destroyed Betharbel (Hos 10:14 ). There are several theories about this incident. Some think that “Shalman” is a short form of “Shalmaneser,” that Shalmaneser IV, who in the invasion which is mentioned (2Ki 17:3 ) fought a battle in the valley of Jezreel, in which he broke the power of Samaria in fulfilment of Hos 1:5 and about the same time stormed the neighboring town of Arbela, but who this “Shalman” was and what place was “Betharbel” are only matters of uncertain conjecture. All that is positively known is that the sack of Betharbel had made upon the minds of the Israelites an impression similar to that which in the seventeenth century was made far and wide by the sack of Madgeburg.
According to our brief outline the title of section Hos 11:1-14:8 is “Pollution and Pity.” This third cycle of the prophecy sets forth the pity which Jehovah has for his sinning people, and contains a declaration of Jehovah’s attitude toward Israel notwithstanding her sin. Chapters 11-13 are for the most part the speech of Jehovah himself. He sums up, and in so doing declares his sense of the awfulness of their sin, pronouncing his righteous judgment thereupon. Yet throughout the movement the dominant notes are those of pity and love, and the ultimate victory of that love over sin, and consequently over judgment. Three times in the course of this great message of Jehovah to his people (Hos 11:1-13:16 ), the prophet interpolates words of his own.
This message of Jehovah falls into three clearly marked elements which deal: (1) with the present in the light of past love (Hos 11:1-11 ); (2) with the present in the light of present love (Hos 12:7-11 ) ; (3) with the present in the light of future love (Hos 13:4-14 ).
The prophet’s interpolations set forth the history of Israel indicating their relation to Jehovah, and pronounce judgment. They form a remarkable obligate accompaniment, in a minor key, to the majestic love song of Jehovah, and constitute a contrasting introduction to the final message of the prophet. The first of them reveals the prophet’s sense of Jehovah’s controversy with Judah, his just dealings with Jacob, and, reminiscent of Jacob’s history, he makes a deduction and an appeal (Hos 11:12-13:6 ). The second traces the progress of Israel to death (Hos 12:12-13:3 ). The third declares their doom (Hos 13:15-16 ).
Then in general, Jehovah’s message in Hos 11:1-11 is as follows:
In this first movement, Jehovah reminded the people of his past love for them in words full of tenderness, setting out their present condition in its light, and crying, “How shall I give thee up?” Which inquiry was answered by the determined declaration of the ultimate triumph of love, and the restoration of the people.
There are two incidents of Israel’s history cited in this first part of Jehovah’s message. The first incident cited is the calling of Israel out of Egypt, which is quoted in Mat 2:15 and applied to our Lord Jesus Christ as a fulfilment of this prophecy. Hosea clearly refers to the calling of Israel out of Egypt, the nation being elsewhere spoken of as God’s son (Exo 4:22 ; Jer 3:9 ). But there is evident typical relation between Israel and the Messiah.
As Israel in the childhood of the nation was called out of Egypt, so Jesus. We may even find resemblance in minute details; his temptation of forty days in the desert, resembles Israel’s temptation of forty years in the desert, which itself corresponded to the forty days spent by the spies (Num 14:34 ). Thus we see how Hosea’s historical statement concerning Israel may have been also a prediction concerning the Messiah, as the Evangelist declares it was. It is not necessary to suppose that this was present to the prophet’s consciousness. Exalted by inspiration, a prophet may well have said things having deeper meanings than he was distinctly aware of, and which only a later inspiration, coming when the occasion arose, could fully unfold BROADUS on Mat 2:15 . The second incident in the history of God’s people cited is the destruction of Adman, Zeboim, Sodom, and Gomorrah, all of which are mentioned in Deu 29:23 as destroyed by Jehovah for their wickedness. The warning is a powerful one to Ephraim, or Israel, who are here threatened with destruction.
The prophet’s message in his first interpolation (Hos 11:12-12:6 ) is a lesson from the history of Jacob showing Israel’s relation to him. The prophet here goes back to the earliest history of Jacob showing God’s dealing with him from his conception to his settlement at Bethel, where God gave him the promise of a multitude of descendants. This bit of history includes the struggle between him and Esau before birth, and his wrestling with the angel.
In Hos 12:7-11 Jehovah sets out their present sin in the light of his present love. The sin of Ephraim and its pride and impertinence are distinctly stated and yet over all, love triumphs. Jehovah declared himself to be the God who delivered them from Egypt, and who would be true to the message of the prophets, to the visions of the seers and to the similitudes of the ministry of the prophets. There is an allusion in verse 7 to Jacob’s deception of Isaac, which characteristic seems to have been handed down to his posterity, as here indicated.
In the prophets second interpolation (Hos 12:12-13:3 ) he traces the progress of Israel to death, beginning at the flight to the field of Aram, through the exodus from Egypt and the preservation to the present, in which Ephraim was exalted in Israel, offended in Baal and died. Their certain doom is here announced.
Then follows Jehovah’s message in Hos 13:4-14 in which he sets forth the present condition of Israel in the light of his future love. Sin abounds, and therefore judgment is absolutely unavoidable. Nevertheless, the mighty strength of love must overcome at last.
There are several things in the passage worthy of special note. First, the allusions here to Jehovah’s dealings with them from Egypt to their destination in Canaan, their exaltation and his destruction of them. Second, the allusion to their history under kings, beginning with Saul, whom he gave them in his anger and whom he took away in his wrath. The statement may apply to the long line of kings of the Northern Kingdom, but it fits the case of Saul more especially and throws light on the problem of Saul’s mission as king of Israel. Third, the promise of their restoration under the figure of a resurrection (Hos 13:14 ), which is quoted and applied to the final resurrection by Paul (1Co 15:55 ) and which shows the typical import of this passage. It is like a flash of light in the darkest hour of despair.
Dr. Pusey on this passage has well said:
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 the 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 temporal deliverance. A little longer continuance in Canaan is not a redemption from the power of the grave; nor was Ephraim so delivered.
The expression, “repentance shall be hid from mine eyes,” means that God will never turn from his purpose to be merciful to Israel.
In the prophet’s last interpolation (Hos 13:15-16 ) he goes back to the death sentence showing the complete destruction of Ephraim and Samaria by the Eastern power, Assyria. The reference to Ephraim’s fruitfulness goes back to the promise of Jacob to Joseph, “He shall be a fruitful bough,” though Ephraim had turned this fruitfulness to evil and thus is brought to desolation.
Hos 14 gives us the final call of the prophet with the promise of Jehovah. The call was to the people to return because they had fallen by iniquity. It suggests the method of returning, as being that of bringing words of penitence, and forsaking all false gods. To this Jehovah answered in a message full of hope for the people, declaring that he would restore, renew, and ultimately reinstate them. There is no question but that this final word of prophecy has a reference to the return from the exile but that this return does not exhaust the meaning of this prophecy is also very evident. The larger fulfilment is to be spiritual and finds its expression in the final conversion of the Jews as voiced by Peter: “Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may come seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord” (Act 3:19 ).
The book closes with a brief epilogue, which demands attention to all the prophet has written, whether for warning, or reproof, or correction in righteousness, or encouragement to piety and virtue. 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. So it is added that, while the righteous walk therein, in them the wicked stumble.
In closing this chapter I will say that Hosea occupies a period of transition in developing the messianic idea from the earlier prophets to Micah and Isaiah, in whose writings abounds the messianic element:
(1) Hosea, like Amos, predicts the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, but he looks beyond it to a brighter day, when the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea in number, will be accepted of Jehovah as sons and daughters, and Judah and Israel will have one head, Christ (Hos 1:10-2:1 , et al).
(2) Hosea’s experience with an unfaithful wife is an object lesson of God’s forgiveness of Israel. Their spiritual adultery must lead them into exile but Jehovah will betroth Israel to himself in righteousness, and take the Gentiles into the same covenant (Hos 2:2-3:5 ; Rom 9:25-26 ).
(3) Hos 11:1 was fulfilled in the return of Joseph and Mary from Egypt with the babe, Jesus (Mat 2:15 ). So Jesus the antitype of Adam, Israel, and David.
(4) Hos 11:8-11 expresses Jehovah’s promise to restore Israel.
(5) Hos 13:14 is a messianic promise foreshadowing the resurrection.
(6) Hos 14:1-8 is a messianic promise of Israel’s final repentance, God’s reinstatement of them and their abundant blessings in the millennium.
I quote Dr. Sampey: In general, the earlier prophets describe clearly a terrible captivity of Jehovah’s people, to be followed by a return to their own land, where they were to enjoy the divine blessing. The everlasting love and compassion of Jehovah are repeatedly described, and the future enlargement of Israel is clearly set forth. The person of Messiah, however, is not distinctly brought before the reader. Isaiah and Micah will have much to say of the character and work of the Messaih Himself
QUESTIONS
1. What the character of this division, as contrasted with the first three chapters of Hosea?
2. What Jehovah’s controversy with Israel as set forth in Hos 4:1-5 ?
3. Why the verdict of destruction, as set forth in Hos 4:6-10 ?
4. What two practices are named together in Hos 4:11-14 , and what their effect upon the mind of man?
5. What warning to Judah in Hos 4:15-19 ?
6. What the notable things in the address of Hos 5:1-7 ?
7. What the significance and the application of the cornet and trumpet in Hos 5:8-15 ?
8. What the interpretation and application of Hos 6:1-3 ?
9. Paraphrase Hos 6:4-11 so as to show its interpretation and application.
10. What the charges against Israel in Hos 7:1-16 ?
11. How does the prophet pronounce judgment and what the significance in each case (Hos 8:1-14 )?
12. Describe these judgments in detail as given in Hos 9 .
13. State briefly the prophet’s recapitulation and appeal (Hos 10:1-15 ).
14. What things in Hos 10 need special explanation, and what the explanation in each case?
15. According to our brief outline what the title of section Hos 11:1-14:8 , and what in general, are its contents?
16. What the general features of the message of Jehovah?
17. What the general features of the prophet’s interpolations?
18. What, in general, is Jehovah’s message in Hos 11:1-11 ?
19. What two incidents of Israel’s history cited in this first part of Jehovah’s message, and what their interpretation and application?
20. What the prophet’s message in his first interpolation (Hos 11:12-12:6 )?
21. What, in general, Jehovah’s message in Hos 12:7-11 ?
22. What allusion to an incident in the life of Jacob in this passage?
23. What the substance of the prophet’s second interpolation (Hos 12:12-13:3 )?
24. What, in general, Jehovah’s message in Hos 13:4-14 ?
25. What things in the passage worthy of special note?
26. What the prophet’s message in his last interpolation (Hos 13:15-16 )?
27. What the contents of Hos 14 ?
28. Give a summary of the messianic predictions in the book of Hosea.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Hos 13:1 When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
Ver. 1. When Ephraim spake trembling ] Or, there was trembling, as there is among the beasts of the field when the lion roareth. Ephraim, while innocent of the great offence, spake with authority, and none durst budge against him; for he had great power in his hand. Now, as the philosopher told Adrian the emperor, who challenged him to dispute, Difficile est ei contradicere qui potest aqua et igni interdicere; vel adversus eum scribere, qui potest proscribere. It is dangerous meddling with the lion’s beard. Nebuchadnezzar’s majesty was such that “all people, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him,” Dan 5:19 ; wheresoever his commands or armies came there were very great heart quakes and concussions of spirit. “Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?” Ecc 8:4 . Job was no king; and yet while he was Jobab, Gen 36:34 , that is, in a prosperous condition, “The young men saw him, and hid themselves; the nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth,” Job 29:8 ; Job 29:10 . The people feared Joshua, Jos 4:14 , as they feared Moses, all the days of his life; for what reason? the Lord had magnified him in the sight of all Israel. Natural conscience cannot but stoop to the image of God in whomsoever. When Ephraim was first in the throne he became formidable; but when he fell openly from God he grew feeble; first he was a terror, and then a scorn.
But when he offended in Baal, he died
“ Morti vicinus iam magis atque magis. ”
He that departeth from God (who is his life) by an evil heart of unbelief, Heb 3:12 , subjecteth himself to all sorts of deaths, natural, civil, spiritual, and eternal.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Hos 13:1-3
1When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling.
He exalted himself in Israel,
But through Baal he did wrong and died.
2And now they sin more and more,
And make for themselves molten images,
Idols skillfully made from their silver,
All of them the work of craftsmen.
They say of them, Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves!
3Therefore they will be like the morning cloud
And like dew which soon disappears,
Like chaff which is blown away from the threshing floor
And like smoke from a chimney.
Hos 13:1 When Ephraim spoke there was trembling There are two possible understandings of this verse. This is an unusual use of the term Ephraim because it seems not to be a reference to the entire Northern Ten Tribes, but to the arrogance (He exalted himself, BDB 669, KB 724, Qal PERFECT) of that individual tribe only (e.g., Jdg 8:1; Jdg 12:1). The fear of this tribe can be seen in that when it spoke, the other tribes trembled (BDB 958). Remember that Ephraim and Manasseh are half-tribes because they are the children of Joseph (cf. Genesis 48), but they represent the largest tribe, both geographically and numerically.
The second possibility is that Ephraim stands for the leaders and king of the capital, Samaria. It was the first king who set up the golden calves as a rival to the Jerusalem temple (cf. 1Ki 16:31). It was Ahab and Jezebel who brought Ba’al worship to Israel (cf. 1Ki 16:31).
Baal This refers to the male fertility god of the Canaanite pantheon. For an excellent reference see William Foxwell Albright’s book, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, page 72ff.
he did wrong and died This refers to the powers and preeminence of the tribe ceasing (died BDB 559, KB 562, Qal IMPERFECT, used metaphorically of God’s judgment, e.g., of Moab in Amo 2:2; of Israel in Eze 18:31).
Hos 13:2 molten images. . .idols This may refer to the golden calves of Bethel and Dan (cf. line 5). However, these descriptions do not exactly fit them. They were made of wood and overlaid with gold. Therefore, this may refer to images at local Ba’al shrines (cf. Hos 2:8; Isa 46:6; Jer 10:4).
Let the men who sacrifice kiss the calves We learn from 1Ki 19:18 and Job 31:27 that kissing the idol was part of Ba’al worship (the VERB could be an IMPERFECT or a JUSSIVE, NASB). This is one example of how the supposed worship of YHWH, by means of the golden calves, was corrupted into Ba’al worship. They worshiped what they made that could not see, hear, or act!
Hos 13:3 There are four elements mentioned which describe Israel in her transitoriness and rebellion, which will be quickly judged and removed: morning cloud, dew, chaff, and smoke.
chimney Literally this is window (BDB 70). Chimneys were non-existent in the ancient world. The buildings had small windows close to the ceiling for the purpose of letting the smoke out. Many homes placed the fire in the center of the room and allowed the smoke to exit at whatever window was possible.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
spake trembling = spake (authoritatively) [there was] attention; as in Joshua’s clays (Jos 4:14). Compare Job 29:21-25.
trembling = panic. Hebrew. retheth. Occurs only here. Similar to retet, which occurs only in Jer 49:24 (“fear”).
exalted himself: carried weight, or was exalted.
offended = trespassed. Hebrew. ‘asham. App-44.
in Baal = with Baal: i.e. with the idolatrous worship of Baal, in Ahab’s days.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 13
Now when Ephraim was speaking trembling ( Hsa Hos 13:1 ),
That is, when Ephraim was not proud and exalted, but recognized their own weakness and all,
then the LORD exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died ( Hsa Hos 13:1 ).
The Bible says, “Righteousness exalts a nation; sin is a reproach to any people” ( Pro 14:34 ). When Ephraim was trembling… “He that humbles himself shall be exalted, but he who exalts himself shall be abased” ( Luk 14:11 ). How true it was with Ephraim. When they spoke trembling, God exalted them. But when they offended in their worship of Baal, they were destroyed.
And now Ephraim sins more and more, for they’ve made them little molten images of silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: and they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves ( Hsa Hos 13:2 ).
And so they would make these little silver calves and wear them around their necks on a chain and it was a good luck omen to kiss it. When you wanted something good to happen you’d kiss your little god that you’ve got hanging around your neck. This was happening among the people of God.
Therefore they shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passes away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as smoke out of the chimney ( Hsa Hos 13:3 ).
So Hosea is great at picturesque speech and at writing. And so he talks about their being driven away as the morning cloud, the fog that burns off in the morning, or as the early dew of the morning that dries up as the sun comes up, or as the chaff that blows out of the threshing floor with the wind, or as the smoke that comes out of the chimney but disappears into the atmosphere.
Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me ( Hsa Hos 13:4 ).
This is, of course, the covenant that God had made with them, the covenant whereby they would be established in the land, the covenant whereby they would be blessed that they would worship the Lord God and have no other gods. But they had broken that covenant.
God said,
I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought ( Hsa Hos 13:5 ).
When you were in that area where you had to depend upon Me, I knew you; you were calling upon Me all the time. Always in trouble, always calling upon the Lord.
But according to their pasture ( Hsa Hos 13:6 ),
So they were filled when they came into the land and they were in this fertile land and they began to be prosperous.
and they were filled; and their heart was exalted; then they forgot God ( Hsa Hos 13:6 ).
How true it is with so many people. They seek God in the time of trouble, in the time of need, in the time of poverty, but when riches increase then they forget God. They get all caught up with their possessions. They lose the true perspective of life and they get their priorities all out of whack.
Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and I will rend the caul of their hearts, and there will I devour them like a lion: and the wild beast shall tear them ( Hsa Hos 13:7-8 ).
Now, here he’s using these animals, talking about how he’s gonna destroy Ephraim and all. But it brings to mind the prophecy of Daniel where the lion is Babylon, the bear is the Medo-Persian Empire, the leopard is Greece, and the wild animal is the Roman Empire. So here again these nations God is going to use as instruments of judgment against Ephraim. And so they were, first they were subjected by the Babylonians. Of course with Israel, the Assyrians, then the Babylonians and then the Medo-Persians and then the Greeks conquered them, and then conquered and subjugated by the Roman Empire, the wild beast. And so these very animals that are used in Daniel to represent these kingdoms are used also in Hosea representing the kingdoms that God would use as instruments of judgment against His people who would turn their backs on Him.
O Israel, you have destroyed yourself [God said] ( Hsa Hos 13:9 );
God wants a person to face the responsibility of their own actions. Don’t blame someone else for what you are. You’re responsible yourself for what you are. You’re gonna have to answer to God for what you are.
O Israel, you have destroyed yourself ( Hsa Hos 13:9 );
Now they were saying, “Our fathers have eaten sour grapes and our teeth are set on edge.” God said, “That’s not so. You’ve destroyed yourself. Your teeth are on edge because you’ve eaten the sour grapes; you’ve destroyed yourself.”
but in me is thy help ( Hsa Hos 13:9 ).
Even though a person has made a mess of their lives, yet God still stands by ready to help them. “In Me is your help.” God said,
I will be your king ( Hsa Hos 13:10 ):
Just turn your life over to Me, turn your life over to My lordship.
where is any other that may save thee in all of your cities? ( Hsa Hos 13:10 )
There’s no one else that can save you. Turn your life over to God; let Him make your life what He would have it to be.
thy judges of whom you said, Give us a king and princes? I gave you a king in my anger, and took him away in my wrath. The iniquity of Ephraim is bound up; his sin is hid. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children ( Hsa Hos 13:10-13 ).
Literally from the Hebrew, “coming to the place of birth but not being born.”
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death ( Hsa Hos 13:14 ):
The nation was to go down, in a sense, to the grave, which they did. You remember, the Lord took Ezekiel to the valley that was full of dry bones and was scattered and God said to Ezekiel, “Can these bones be made to live again?” And Ezekiel said, “Lord, you know.” And he watched the bones as they came together and as they stood on their feet, the skeleton stood on his feet and muscle and sinew and flesh and all came upon it, and the word of the Lord came Ezekiel the prophet saying, “Thus saith the Lord, so will I gather together again My people who have been scattered throughout all the world and I will bring them back and I will plant them into the land and I will make them a nation there and I will put muscle and flesh upon them and they shall dwell in the land.”
All right, here again, God said, “I will bring them back from the grave.” Israel was for two thousand years without a homeland, scattered throughout the world, nationally dead, but God promised that He would ransom them from the power of the grave, that He would redeem them from death. And so He has. And Israel is now a nation once again as a witness and a testimony of the faithfulness of God to His Word.
We were travelling in Israel and we picked up a young girl who was in the Israeli army, and my wife began to engage her in conversation. And she said, “Do you believe in God?” And she said, “Oh, no.” My wife said, “Well, have you ever read the Bible?” She said, “Of course, we have to. It’s required reading in our schools.” And she said, “Well, what do you think about the Bible?” She said, “Well, it’s just stories that men made up because they have to believe in something, and so they made up these stories about God so you could have something to believe in.” I said to her, “Why do you think this land belongs to you?” She said, “Well, God promised… ” I said, “Wait a minute. You don’t believe in God. Those are just stories that men made up because they needed something to believe in.” She started thinking back and I said, “Do you know that because of you being in this land I believe in God?” I said, “Your being here is one of the proofs that this is not a bunch of fairy tales, that this is really the Word of God and that God is true to His promise.” I said, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here now and you’d have no right to be here. But because God is true to His promises you are here and you’re proof that God exists.”
Here God promises,
I’m gonna ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes ( Hsa Hos 13:14 ).
Paul probably was thinking of this passage in Hosea when he closed off his first epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 15. And he said, “And then shall be brought to pass the same.” The same probably being this reference here in Hosea “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? For the sting of death is sin, but thanks be unto God that through Jesus Christ we have victory over sin” ( 1Co 15:55-57 ). So that sting of death has been removed through Jesus Christ and he’s no doubt referring here to God’s destruction of death and grave as a fearful last enemy of man.
Though he be fruitful among his brothers, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up and he shall spoil the treasure of all the pleasant vessels. Samaria shall become desolate; for she has rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women who are pregnant shall be ripped up ( Hsa Hos 13:15-16 ).
The horrible judgment as God pronounces that which is going to happen. Not that which God brought–that which they brought upon themselves because they would not turn to God. Don’t blame God for the tragedies that befall an individual. God does everything to avert these tragedies and to cause you to avert these tragedies by turning to Him. And God stands there and says, “Don’t do that, you know, you’re gonna get hurt.”
It is like, say you had a very obstinate, stubborn child that insisted on playing in the street, and you come home and you find him playing out there in the street. You say, “Now don’t play in the street. It’s dangerous to play in the street.” And you’d spank your child. So you come home again and there he is playing in the street and you warned them, you spanked them, you punished them, you restrict them, you do everything you can to keep them from playing in the street. And one day they’re hit by a car and they’re severely injured. And he says, “Why did you do that to me, Daddy?” “I didn’t do that to you. I tried to keep you from that. I knew it was dangerous. I warned you it was dangerous. I tried to keep you from it. I punished you. I tried to reprimand you. I tried to correct you. I did everything I could, but you insisted.” And so is man. God warns you, “Look, that path is gonna bring you to destruction. That path is gonna bring harm. That’s gonna hurt.” And God warns, God reproves, God corrects, God does everything He can to turn you, and still in your stubborn obdurate way you go right on in it until those things that God told you are gonna result from taking that path happen to you and then people say, “I don’t know why God ever allowed this to happen to me. If He’s a God of love, why did He allow it to happen?”
Well, you see, you are the one responsible because you’ve gone against God. God has done His best to keep you from that hurt, from that injury, but you would refuse to listen and hearken and obey. As the prophet said, “God speaks to us through similitudes.”
Years ago, when we were back in Toledo, Ohio, we were ministering to the Northend gang there and we promised them a beach party up on Lake Eire. So we went up to a beach there in Lake Eire, and in the evening we went swimming and then we built this giant bonfire and we had wieners and so forth and we were gonna have a party for these kids. And as we built this fire, suddenly the flame attracted thousands of these June bugs, and they started flying into the flame. Well, some of the guys thought that they were gonna be helpful and rescue these June bugs from their destruction because they were flying right into the flame and just being, you know, sizzled. And so these guys got out there and they started batting. You know, the bugs would come flying, they’d bat the bugs back, you know, and knock them down and pick ’em up and throw ’em away, and the bugs would just circle and zoom right back into the flame. And these kids are doing their best to keep them out, but with all of the batting and everything else, you know, they’d sort of roll over in the ground and recover and get, you know, just take off and fly right back into the flame. And I said to them as we started to have our serious time, I said, “You remember early in the evening as you kids were trying to keep the bugs from destroying themselves in the flame. And you did your best.” I said, “If you were listening, God was speaking to you and telling you that He’s trying to keep you from destroying yourself in the fire. He’s done everything He can, but if you will not listen, if you will not obey, if you will not hearken, you can destroy yourself and you will destroy yourself.” It was a very heavy message. God spoke to them by a similitude. God uses similitudes often to speak to us. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Hosea was full of complaints against the people of God; for, in his day, they had very sadly wandered from the Lord. They had even forgotten him. In Hoseas prophecy, we have the plaintive voice of a loving God chiding his backsliding children.
Hos 13:1. When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
A modest, humble, trembling heart is often by far the sounder heart, but when we begin to sin, and to sin boastfully, and to wrap ourselves about with the robe of self-complacency, then is death very near to us: When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
Hos 13:2. And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the word of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.
When Jeroboam became king of the new kingdom of Israel, in order to prevent his subjects from going to Jerusalem to worship God in Solomons temple, he started two shrines at Dan and Bethel, and there he set up what Holy Scripture calls in derision calves. I suppose that his idea was to make images of a bull, the emblem of power, intending them to be the symbol of the Divine Being, and that the people intended still to worship God, but to worship him under the image of a bull. It is the same in Roman Catholicism to this day, the worship of God, the worship of Christ, by means of crucifixes, and emblems and symbols of various kinds. But when men once begin that kind of idolatry, there is no knowing where they will stop; for the worship of God, through the medium of symbol, soon grows into the worship of other gods saints and saintesses, blessed virgins and I know not what besides, are pretty sure to be set up when once people begin to make use of outward and visible emblems of the Deity. So it was with these ancient Israelites. From worshipping the bull, which was meant to be a type of the omnipotent God, they went on to the worshipping of molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding. Brethren, let us take warning from these idolaters, and always keep to the simplicity of worship ordained by God in his Word. However comely and beautiful, or grand and imposing, and, consequently, fascinating, any form of idolatry may be to some minds, let us utterly despise it if it is not according to the mind of God, and the teaching of his spirit, as revealed in his Word.
Hos 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 out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney.
Those who will have gods of their own making shall have but a brief enjoyment of them. He who truly worships the everlasting God shall have an everlasting blessing; but he who worships gods that he has himself made, mere objects of this mortal day, shall have but a short day of it. He shall be as the early dew, which glistens brightly, but is soon gone; or as the morning cloud, which is banished by the rising of the sun.
Hos 13:4-5. Yet I am the LORD thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no Saviour beside me. I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought.
The Israelites drew near to God when they wanted bread and water in the wilderness. God says, I did know thee in the wilderness, in the land of great drought; and the Lord might say to his people nowadays, I did know you when you were very sick, when you were very poor, when you were in great trouble. You sought me then; how is it that you are trying to do without me now?
Hos 13:6-8. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted; therefore have they forgotten me. Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them: I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.
When men forget God, they may expect that they will meet with some terrible judgments; and Gods own people especially will find this to be the case with them if they forget the Lord. Our God is a very jealous God; and when his children will set their hearts on other objects instead of upon himself, he will take care to embitter those objects of their affection to them. He will make their idols to be loathed by them. If God did not love us very much, he would think little of our faults, but just because he loves us so much, he cannot bear that any part of our hearts affection should go away from himself. So, if he sees that we deal unfaithfully with him, he will make us realize that sin is an exceedingly evil and bitter thing. His anger against us will be like that of a bear that is robbed of her whelps, or of a lion or leopard leaping upon his prey.
Hos 13:9. Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.
You have gone away from me, but I will bring you back again. You have destroyed yourself by your sin, but I will restore you to my favor by my grace. You may look within yourself for causes of repentance, but you must not look to yourself for the means of restoration; you must look to me, your Saviour and your God. So this verse teaches us O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Hos 13:1-8
REQUITING-GOD WILL PUNISH
TEXT: Hos 13:1-8
Israel could not stand prosperity. She let pride cause her to forget her prosperity came from Jehovah. Turning, in pride, to idols she persists in idolatry and incurs the terrible wrath of a jealous God.
Hos 13:1 When EphraimH669 spakeH1696 trembling,H7578 heH1931 exaltedH5375 himself in Israel;H3478 but when he offendedH816 in Baal,H1168 he died.H4191
Hos 13:1 WHEN EPHRAIM SPAKE . . . THERE WAS TREMBLING . . . The struggles of the proud tribe of Ephraim to get the rule among the tribes of the covenant people led eventually to the secession of the ten tribes and the divided kingdoms and the establishment of the kingdom of Israel. Israel, the northern kingdom, then became powerful and rich, and when Israel spoke her neighbor-nations (esp. Judah) listened! When Israel became rich and powerful her kings (esp. Ahab, see 1Ki 16:29-33) made alliances with heathen nations and brought in the worship of Baal. This offended the righteous and jealous love of Jehovah. From that time onward Israel began slowly but certainly to die-both spiritually, and as a consequence, physically.
Zerr: Hos 13:1. As long as the people of Israel trembled or had reverence for the Lord, they were exalted in the divine favors. But they did not remain thus faithful; instead, they committed the offence of sacrificing to the false god called BaaL When that took place the Lord decreed that the nation should die. That means it was to die nationally, and it was fulfilled when it was dethroned and taken away into the captivity (Isa 22:14; Isa 22:18).
Hos 13:2 And nowH6258 they sinH2398 more and more,H3254 and have madeH6213 them molten imagesH4541 of their silver,H4480 H3701 and idolsH6091 according to their own understanding,H8394 allH3605 of it the workH4639 of the craftsmen:H2796 theyH1992 sayH559 of them, Let the menH120 that sacrificeH2076 kissH5401 the calves.H5695
Hos 13:2 AND NOW THEY SIN MORE AND MORE . . . THEY SAY . . . LET THE MEN THAT SACRIFICE KISS THE CALVES . . . The farther one goes away from the light, the darker the darkness! The more Israel sinned, the more she wanted to sin, They became stupid and shameless in their sin and melted their silver and fashioned it with their own hands into gods and then bowed down before them and even kissed them. Pusey says, Kissing was an act of homage in the East, done upon the hand or the foot, the knees or shoulder. It was a token of Divine honor, whether to an idol or to God (cf. 1Ki 19:18; Psa 2:12). It was performed, either by actually kissing the image, or when the object could not be approached, (as the moon) kissing the hand, and so sending, as it were, the kiss to it (cf. Job 31:26-27). The apostle Paul reasoned logically with the philosophers of Athens that living men should never think that the Deity is like gold or silver, or stone, a representation by the art and imagination of man (cf. Act 17:22-31). Men, rational beings, professing to worship Jehovah, kiss, adore, worship, and expect help from calves made of silver. What foolish, stupid wickedness! There is even enough of the revelation of a personal God in nature that men ought not to worship idols or creatures (cf. Rom 1:18-32). And Israel had in addition to this, a direct, miraculously confirmed, revelation of God!
Zerr: Hos 13:2. Baal was one of the invisible gods that the idolaters worshiped which was foolish enough, but God accused them of sinning more and more. That was because they were not content to serve a god that was invisible, and in that respect was like the true God, but went further and served the gods of their own making. A little reasoning should have shown them the folly of depending upon a god of human origin, for such a thing could not possibly possess any more power than a human being.
Hos 13:3 ThereforeH3651 they shall beH1961 as the morningH1242 cloud,H6051 and as the earlyH7925 dewH2919 that passeth away,H1980 as the chaffH4671 that is driven with the whirlwindH5590 out of the floor,H4480 H1637 and as the smokeH6227 out of the chimney.H4480 H699
Hos 13:3 THEREFORE THEY SHALL BE AS THE . . . DEW THAT PASSETH EARLY AWAY . . . Hosea uses four common experiences of men to figuratively express the rapid demise of Israel. As suddenly as the morning clouds vanish, as quickly as the dew is dried up, as violently as the chaff is driven through the air by a whirlwind, and as completely as the smoke rising from a cooking fire vanishes-so will Israel suddenly, quickly, violently and completely vanish from the land. Hosea uses dew in other places as a figure of other experiences (cf. our comments on Hos 6:4 and Hos 14:5).
Zerr: Hos 13:3. A morning cloud and early dew soon disappear, and the comparison is made to the shortness and un-certainty of all false gods and the suc-cess of those who worship them. All of the illustrations in this verse are for the same purpose, and they predict the overthrow of the rule of corruption which the men of Israel had maintained to the disadvantage of the common. people.
Hos 13:4 Yet IH595 am the LORDH3068 thy GodH430 from the landH4480 H776 of Egypt,H4714 and thou shalt knowH3045 noH3808 godH430 butH2108 me: for there is noH369 saviourH3467 besideH1115 me.
Hos 13:5 IH589 did knowH3045 thee in the wilderness,H4057 in the landH776 of great drought.H8514
Hos 13:4-5 . . . I AM JEHOVAH THY GOD FROM THE LAND OF EGYPT . . . I DID KNOW THEE IN THE WILDERNESS . . . Again the prophet sets forth the contrast between the true God and the false gods. The enormity of their sin is evident once the comparison is recognized. Their God, Jehovah, delivered them from the power of Egypt and Egypts gods by demonstrating, through Moses and Aaron, the impotency of Egypts idols and His own omnipotence. Jehovah delivered them, sustained them in the wilderness and revealed His will to them by mighty miraculous signs and wonders which their forefathers had seen with their own eyes (cf. Deu 32:1-43). How utterly stupid of this generation then, not to recognize that there is only One True God, Jehovah, and that He alone can save them.
Zerr: Hos 13:4. From, the land of Egypt is explained at Hos 12:9. Shalt know no god but one has a twofold bearing, it denotes the commandment of the Lord and is the first of the ten commandments (Exo 20:3). It is also a prediction of the state of Israel to he manifested after the captivity. The history quoted in connection With Isa 1:25 shows that Israel was completely cured of Idolatry after the captivity. Hos 13:5. I did know thee denotes the attention the Lord gave to Israel in the wilderness. There were many times that the nation would have perished for the necessities of life had God not been good enough to provide food and water for them.
Hos 13:6 According to their pasture,H4830 so were they filled;H7646 they were filled,H7646 and their heartH3820 was exalted;H7311 thereforeH5921 H3651 have they forgottenH7911 me.
Hos 13:6 . . . THEY WERE FILLED AND THEIR HEART WAS EXALTED . . . How could a later generation (of Israelites be so mentally and spiritually depraved as to forget the facts of history? The answer is here in the sixth verse. Pride! They did exactly what Moses warned them not to do in Deu 8:11-20! When Israel became affluent, they did like so many other nations have done, and like America is doing today, they lifted up their hearts in pride and said My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. Pride-whether it is military pride, political pride, affluent pride or intellectual pride-causes men to wilfully ignore the fact of history as Peter points out in II Per. Hos 3:3-5. Pseudo-scientists, proud of their intellectualism, proud of their erudition, holding to evolutionary, uniformitarian views, will deliberately ignore the historical, empirical facts which testify to creation and catastrophism. Theologians, proud of their erudition or their religious heritages, will deliberately ignore the historical, textual integrity of the Bible and substitute theology and philosophy for the Word of God. Pride is the trap that snared the devil, snared Eve and then Adam and snares many millions today (cf. 1Ti 3:6-7).
Zerr: Hos 13:6. According to their pasture, The Lord provided abundant pasturage for his stock, but the sheep devoured it to excess and then forgot the Shepherd who had done so much for them. Heart was exalted refers to the pride that took possession of the people as a result of their prosperity.
Hos 13:7 Therefore I will beH1961 unto them asH3644 a lion:H7826 as a leopardH5246 byH5921 the wayH1870 will I observeH7789 them:
Hos 13:8 I will meetH6298 them as a bearH1677 that is bereavedH7909 of her whelps, and will rendH7167 the caulH5458 of their heart,H3820 and thereH8033 will I devourH398 them like a lion:H3833 the wildH7704 beastH2416 shall tearH1234 them.
Hos 13:7-8 THEREFORE I AM UNTO THEM AS A LION . . . AND WILL REND THE CAUL OF THEIR HEART . . . Gods flock had been caused to lie down in green pastures and drink beside the still waters. But now God will come upon this flock of helpless sheep (Israel) like all of the wild beasts and tear this nation to pieces. Caul is the pericardium or membranous sac surrounding the heart. God is going to tear the very heart out of this nation. He will cause it to be devoured and swallowed up in Assyrian captivity, like a lioness devours its prey.
Zerr: Hos 13:7. The Lord was a tender shepherd over his people while they respected the divine law. However, they were unappreciative of the many favors that were shown them, and then God changed his attitude toward them and threatened to act as a harsh beast. The figure has reference to the exile into a strange land that was destined to come upon the unfaithful nation. Hos 13:8. This verse continues the figures that indicate the fierceness of Gods wrath against the wicked nation. Caul is from CEGOWE, which Strong defines, Shut up, i. e., the breast (as inclosing the heart).” The clause means that God will rend the protecting covering of their heart, and expose it to the rigors of the chastising wrath of Him whom they so ungratefully disobey.
Questions
1. Who trembled when Ephraim spoke?
2. When did Israel begin her downward plunge into moral decadence?
3. Did men actually kiss claves? Why?
4. How did Paul, the apostle, argue against idolatry to philosophers?
5. Why should Israel have known the difference between Jahovah and idols?
6. Why did Israel refuse to acknowledge the difference between God and idols?
7. How extensive will the judgment of God be upon Israel?
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
to Oppose God Is Destruction
Hos 13:1-14
Again, a very tender chapter. The lips that speak with trembling betray the heart that God can exalt. But when we turn to Baal, the emblem of self-confidence, we pass as the morning cloud the dew, the chaff, and the smoke.
In Hos 13:4 we again get the sweet strain of early memory. God had not changed and was waiting to save. They had refused His help and had destroyed themselves, and He who would have done His best for them had been constrained to act as though He were a lion, a leopard, or a bear. In the wilderness we are thankful enough for His help, but when we reach the land of the vine and olive, we follow the devices and desires of our own hearts.
What a magnificent outburst is that which declares the divine intention to ransom even from death and the grave! We all know the New Testament setting of these words. Our Savior by His death destroyed him that had the power of death. He is deaths plague and the graves destruction. The sting of death is sin, but Jesus has borne sin away. The strength of sin is a violated law, but He has fulfilled the law. He is more than conqueror, and the soul that is one with Him shall share His triumph.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter 13
In Me Is Thy Help
The opening words, which are really a continuation of the burden begun in the last verse of chapter 11, remind us forcibly of the word of the Lord to Saul when he had turned back from obeying His voice. (See 1Sa 15:17.) When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel: but when he offended in Baal, he died (ver. 1).
These words give us the spiritual history of thousands who have begun well, but ended badly, because of failure to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart. As we trace out the biographies of many of the kings of Judah, we see the same thing exemplified. And if it is otherwise with the kings of Israel, it is only because not one of them began with God at all. They were idolators, all of them; and of the entire number, Jehoahaz is the only one of whom it is stated that he ever sought the Lord, and that only when in deep distress.
But among Judahs rulers there were many who started out well, of whom it might be said that as long as he sought the Lord, the Lord made him to prosper. With most of them, however, failure came in eventually, to mar their testimony, and bring sorrow and trouble in its train.
When God first took Ephraim up, he was little in his own eyes, and he spake trembling; that is, realizing in some measure his weakness and insufficiency, he was humbled when the word of the Lord came to him. God says, To this man will I look; even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word (Isa 66:2). Such was Ephraim in the freshness of early days. And when this was his condition, he exalted himself in Israel. But when he offended in Baal, he died. Alas, that the last sentence had ever to be penned! How much happier had it been for Ephraim, as for untold thousands more, if they had never left their first love! These things are our types, and from them God would have us learn not to trust our own deceitful hearts, but to walk softly before Him, in reverence and godly fear. In no other way shall we be preserved from a moral and spiritual breakdown. Self-confidence is ever the prelude to severe and crushing defeat.
And it is generally found that, the first step taken away from God, each succeeding one becomes easier and easier. Twinges of conscience are less frequent; the strivings of the grieved Holy Spirit attract less and less attention as the heart becomes hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. So was it with Ephraim. And now they sin more and more, says the prophet, as he proceeds to picture the gross idolatry which everywhere pervaded the land, prevailing among all classes of people (ver. 2). Consequently they are to be carried away in judgment. They shall be as the morning cloud, and as the early dew that passeth away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney (ver. 3). In this way the Lord was about to purge His floor.
But, as so frequently declared, He did not purpose to make a full end of them, the people of His choice. On the contrary, He remained the only true God, the Lord who had been their God from the land of Egypt. The day would come when they should own Him alone, and know no God besides Him; for He only was the Saviour of Israel. In the wilderness-that dry and thirsty land-He had sustained them, till their heart was exalted: and when they were filled with all good things they had forgotten Him, therefore He who had given them all these mercies would be to them as a leopard by the way, and as a bear bereaved of her whelps, who would rend the caul of their heart, and tear them like a lion. The wild beast was appointed to devour them (vers. 4-8).
In the figures here used it would seem that we have more than a hint of the character of the Gentile empires which were to become successively the oppressors of Israel. If the passage be compared with Dan. 7, I think most readers will feel that it is more than a mere coincidence that the lion was there used as the symbol of Babylon; the bear, of Medo-Persia; and the leopard, of Greece. The generic term, the wild beast, or, the beast of the field, is possibly a veiled reference to the last beast, dreadful and terrible, typifying the Roman empire, for long years the persecutor of Israel, and which, though now fallen, is yet to be revived in the first beast of Rev. 13, when the time of the end is come, and the great tribulation shall conclude the sufferings of Jacob.
They alone were responsible for all that had befallen them, and for all that should yet come upon them. O Israel, God says, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in Me is thy help (ver. 9). Their self-will had been their ruin; but He waited still to save, ready to make bare His arm for their deliverance, if there were any sign of repentance and self-judgment. None other could avail for their salvation if they turned not to Him. Where is thy king? He asks. (See margin.) Hoshea,13 in whom they trusted, was a prisoner in the hands of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria (2Ki 17:1-4). Where was any other that could save them, in all their cities? They had asked for a king, to be like the nations around them; God had granted their request; but where was the power of their king and his judges? They had been trusting in a bruised reed.
It may seem strange, so many centuries after the establishment of the monarchy, and at the close of the history of the ten tribes as such, that God should thus reproach them for the sin of asking a king in the days of Samuel. This but illustrates the remarks already made in seeking to expound chapter 7. The same spirit of independency that led them to desire a king to go in and out before them (when Jehovah Himself was their King), prevailed among them still; and for that, judgment must fall. Solemn are the words, I gave thee a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath (ver. 11). So may God often allow His children to have what they desire, when their hearts are away from Him; giving them their requests, but sending leanness into their souls. It is well when the will is subject, and in all our prayers and supplications we say, Thy will be done. He knows so much better than we possibly can what is best for us; and where there is subjection of heart He will reply, not according to our faulty petitions, but according to His own loving-kindness and wisdom. When it is otherwise, He often has to answer our prayers in judgment, and we may have years to regret our folly in not having left all our affairs in His hands.
To all his other failures Ephraim added this, that he kept his iniquity bound up and his sin covered (ver. 12). As long as this is the case with any, Gods hand must be on them in discipline: He that covereth his sins shall not prosper. On the other hand, the moment all is out in the light, and sin is judged and confessed, God Himself provides a covering, and the evil is gone from His sight forever. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile (Ps.32:l, 2).
Because of Ephraims persistency in covering his own sin, the sorrows as of a travailing woman must come upon him. This at once suggests another simile. He is an unwise son, remaining where his presence can only be most embarrassing and foolish. So he persisted in his folly when warned and entreated to cease therefrom (ver. 31).
The last two verses continue the general subject, declaring the terrible extent of the disastrous judgments they must undergo. But ere these solemn scenes are depicted, a precious word of grace, like a rainbow of hope in the gloomy, wrath-laden sky, is seen in ver. 14. He who is about to visit them in His anger speaks of mercy and kindness, giving a promise of the triumph of His love at last. I will ransom them from the power of sheol; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O sheol, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from Mine eyes.
What could be more blessed than such a promise in the midst of so solemn an arraignment? In wrath God will remember mercy. He will yet appear as the Redeemer of His chosen, despoiling death and sheol (synonymous with hades, the unseen world of spirits-not hell nor the grave) of their prey, and saving all who turn to Him in brokenness of spirit, owning their guilt. Of His purposes of grace He will never repent; they shall abide forever in His goodness and mercy.
For centuries now Israel has been like a dead man, buried among the nations, wandering like a shade in sheol; but the hour is not far distant when the closing message to Daniel shall be fulfilled, as also the prophecy of the valley of dry bones in Ezek. 37. At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt (Dan 12:1, 2). Such also is the testimony of an older prophet, Isaiah (ch. 26:19, R. V.). Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth her dead. All these passages will have their glorious fulfilment when the Kemnant of Israel and Judah are awakened from their death-sleep, and shall come forth at the call of God to return to Zion with singing and with everlasting joy upon their heads.
Literally, too, there will be a wondrous fulfilment when All that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection! (Joh 5:28, 29; Rev 20:6).
It would be happy indeed to close our chapter with this precious reminder of the grace of our Saviour-God. But it is salutary and necessary to be reminded that the day of Jehovahs power and Messiahs appearing has not yet come; so we are once more turned back to contemplate the lamentable estate of Israel and the dark days awaiting them ere the glory dawns.
As we dwell upon the solemn words of verses 15 and 16, the rainbow like unto an emerald seems to fade away; the dark clouds of doom gather heavier and heavier above the land of promise; while out of the throne proceeds lightnings, and thunderings, and voices, presaging the dreadful storm about to burst upon those who, having eyes to see, saw not, and having ears to hear, heard not the ominous rumblings of the approaching day of wrath, till it was too late to find a hiding-place. An east wind from Jehovah shall come up from the wilderness, drying up all the springs of hope and fountains of joy, and spoiling all the vessels of desire. Desolation should enwrap Samaria in midnight gloom and direst woe; for she hath rebelled against her God. Therefore they should fall beneath the avenging hand of the bloodthirsty Assyrian, who would spare neither age, sex, nor condition.
All this has had a fulfilment in the march of Shalmanesers hordes through the land. It shall have another and more dreadful one when the last Assyrian sweeps down,14 like a resistless flood, till stopped by the breath of the Lord.
With this the body of the prophecy closes. The next, and last, chapter is a tender call addressed to the backslidden people, exhorting them to return to Him, who is their only good and their only hope.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Hos 13:9
I. Self-destruction is possible to us men-even the destruction of the highest, noblest, and divinest part of our nature.
II. The only power by which we can destroy ourselves is the power of sinning.
III. Every finally destroyed man is self-destroyed.
IV. The self-destroyer who is in this perilous position may be saved from self-destruction. (1) A man cannot save himself. (2) No fellow-man can save the sinner. God can save the self-destroyer, but God alone. (3) Think of the encouragement to return. “As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but rather that he should return unto Me and live.”
S. Martin, Westminster Chapel Pulpit, 4th series, No. 11.
References: Hos 13:9.-W. Jay, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 61. Hos 13:10.-Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi, p. 321.
Hos 13:11
The Israelites seem to have asked for a king from an unthankful caprice and waywardness. To punish them, God gave them a king after their own heart, Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite; of whom the text speaks in these terms: “I gave them a king in Mine anger, and took him away in My wrath.”
I. Saul, the king whom God gave them, had much to recommend him to minds greedy of the dust of the earth. He was brave, daring, resolute; gifted, too, with strength of body as well as of mind-a circumstance which seems to have attracted their admiration. Both his virtues and his faults were such as became an Eastern monarch, and were adapted to secure the fear and submission of his subjects. Pride, haughtiness, obstinacy, reserve, jealousy, caprice,-these, in their way, were not unbecoming qualities in the king after whom their imaginations roved. On the other hand, the better parts of his character were of an excellence sufficient to engage the affection of Samuel himself.
II. Why was Saul marked for vengeance from the beginning? Is his character so essentially faulty that it must be thus distinguished for reprobation above all the anointed kings after him? This question leads us to a deeper inspection of his character. Now we know the first duty of every man is the fear of God-a reverence for His Word, a love of Him, and a desire to obey Him; and besides, it was peculiarly incumbent on the king of Israel, as God’s vicegerent, by virtue of his office, to promote His glory whom his subjects had rejected. Now Saul lacked this one thing. It would appear that he was never under the abiding influence of religion-or, in Scripture language, the fear of God-however he might be at times moved and softened. Mere natural virtue wears away, when men neglect to deepen it into religious principle. Saul appears in his youth to be unassuming and forbearing; in advanced life he is not only proud and gloomy (as he ever was in a degree), but cruel, resentful, and hardhearted, which he was not in his youth. He began by consulting Samuel as a diviner; this showed the direction of his mind. It steadily persevered in its evil way-and he ends by consulting a professed sorceress at Endor. Unbelief and wilfulness are the wretched characteristics of Saul’s history-an ear deaf to the plainest commands, a heart hardened against the most gracious influences.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. iii., p. 29.
Hos 13:14
I. There are other graves worse than the graves which lie in the churchyard. The grave of which Hosea and Isaiah speak is partly the grave of Israel’s fallen state, and partly the consequence of that fallen state-their captivity at Babylon. Of every grave, physical and moral, Christ is the destruction. His own grave was a grave annihilated, simply because He was in it.
II. There are Kibroth-hattaavahs, “graves of lust.” Do you wish to escape from that lust? Have you been wrestling to get out, and you cannot? It is a resurrection, it requires the supernatural agency of a resurrection. There is only one can do it, and that one is Christ. Use that Conqueror’s hand; take Christ into your heart, and realize Him there. He will break through that iron-bound gate of the moral death in which you lie, and He will say to that evil which is enthralling you, “Oh grave, I will be thy destruction.”
III. There is another state-a soul which has once tasted life, life from God. But now it is gone. The spiritual life is fled, it is in the dust, it cannot lift itself up again. Who will roll away the stone? What shall we do? Believe in the resurrection. The heart that has Christ in it cannot be a sepulchre long. He will make the way through as surely as He did in the sepulchre at the garden.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 69.
Reference: Hos 13:14.-H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1994.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 13 Ephraims Ruin and judgment
1. Ruin and judgment (Hos 13:1-8)
2. It is thy destruction, O Israel! (Hos 13:9-11)
3. Mercy to follow wrath (Hos 13:12-14)
4. The desolation of the nearing judgment (Hos 13:15-16)
Hos 13:1-8. In the beginning Ephraim was humble, and knowing his dependence, he spoke with trembling. Then he became puffed up, exalted himself in Israel, loving the preeminence, it led on to the schism from Judah and the house of David. The next step after this separation from Judah was idolatry, then the dying of the nation began. This sad history of Ephraim, revealing the steps of decline, beginning with self-exaltation and ending in ruin and death, has often been repeated in the individual history of countless multitudes among the professing people of God.
Then they went from sinning to sinning, from bad to worse, just as in our own days, the apostates in Christendom go from bad to worse in fulfillment of 2Ti 3:13. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. Idolatry flourished on all sides. They added idol images in Gilgal and Beer-sheba to the golden calves Amo 8:14. Then the judgment is announced. Just as the rising sun quickly disperses the morning clouds and the dew, so they should pass away (Hos 6:4). They would be like the chaff driven with a whirlwind out of the threshing floor Psa 1:4; Psa 35:5; Isa 17:13; Isa 41:15-29); they would be like the quickly evaporating smoke, which comes out of the windows of a house without a chimney.
Then the Lord reminds them of their former relationship and that He is the true God, and there is no Saviour beside Me. In the land of the wilderness He knew them and there He cared for them and provided all their needs. But instead of acknowledging Him, they became full; self-exaltation followed, and then they forgot Him. Throughout the Word of God self-exaltation, pride is always given as the starting point of departure from God and the consequent ruin.
Hos 13:7-8 are interesting. They are to be rent by wild beasts, which, symbolically, represent the Gentiles. The ten tribes were carried away by the Assyrian, while later, when Judah met its judgment, the whole land was devastated by the lion-empire (Babylonia); by the bear (Medo-Persia); by the leopard (the Graeco-Macedonia); and finally by the dreadful beast, the beast of the field shall tear them, the Roman power.
Hos 13:9-11. It is thy destruction, O Israel, that thou art against Me, against thy help. What they had done in lifting themselves up, in forsaking Jehovah was spiritual and national suicide. They were alone responsible for their destruction. Where was their king to save them out of such ruin and destruction? The house of David with which the covenant had been made they had forsaken. He reminds them again of an episode in their past history, when they, their fathers, were rebellious and asked for a king. Such kings like Saul had been their kings which reigned over the ten tribes.
Hos 13:12-14. Ephraim deliberately held on to his sin. Their iniquity was bound up; it was laid by in store. The reference is to the oriental custom of tying up money and other valuables into a bundle and hiding it somewhere. It was done for security. So the Lord would see to it that their sins and iniquity would not be forgotten; all their sins were preserved for punishment (see Deu 32:34). Sorrow and great trouble should come upon them. It has been thus in the past, it will be so in the future, in the time of Jacobs trouble Jer 30:7. When that time comes, when all their hope and strength is gone Deu 32:36-52) then He will deliver. Then all the enemies will be put down. Redemption from death and the plagues will come; they will be ransomed from the power of Sheol (not hell). Israel will be raised from its national death-sleep. Long she has been buried among the nations, without spiritual and national life, like those who are in the power of Sheol. But Jehovah will deliver the faithful portion of Israel and Judah, and they will rise from the dust of the earth, the symbol of their national restoration. To use this passage, as it has been done, to teach the restitution of the wicked, is wrong. It has nothing to do with the wicked dead and their future, but all applies to the restoration of Israel. (See the annotations of chapters 16 and 37 of the Prophet Ezekiel.)
Hos 13:15-16. These verses describe the horrors of the coming judgment by the Assyrians 2Ki 8:12; 2Ki 15:16, and Amo 1:13).
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Ephraim: 1Sa 15:17, Pro 18:12, Isa 66:2, Luk 14:11
exalted: Num 2:18-21, Num 10:22, Num 13:8, Num 13:16, Num 27:16-23, Jos 3:7, 1Ki 12:25
offended: Hos 11:2, 1Ki 16:29-33, 1Ki 18:18, 1Ki 18:19, 2Ki 17:16-18
died: Gen 2:17, Rom 5:12, 2Co 5:14
Reciprocal: 1Sa 9:21 – my family 2Ch 12:1 – he forsook Pro 14:34 – Righteousness Isa 17:8 – the work Isa 28:4 – shall be Hos 2:13 – the days Hos 5:3 – Ephraim Hos 5:9 – Ephraim Luk 8:47 – she came Rom 11:4 – Baal 2Co 7:15 – with
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 13:1. As long as the people of Israel trembled or had reverence for the Lord, they were exalted in the divine favors. But they did not remain thus faithful; instead, they committed the offence of sacrificing to the false god called BaaL When that took place the Lord decreed that the nation should die. That means it was to die nationally, and it was fulfilled when it was dethroned and taken away into the captivity (Isa 22:14; Isa 22:18).
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Hos 13:1. When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself While he behaved himself submissively and obediently, and humbled himself before God, he was reckoned among the principal tribes of Israel. Here Ephraim is spoken of as distinct from the other tribes: in other places of this prophecy he is put for the whole kingdom of the ten tribes. But when he offended in Baal, he died When he gave himself to idolatry, his strength immediately declined, and had manifest symptoms of ruin and destruction. Bishop Horsleys version of the verse is, When Ephraim spake there was dread: he was exalted in Israel. But he offended in Baal and died The former part of the verse describes the consequence and pre-eminence of Ephraim in his own country, and among the neighbouring nations; the latter part, his diminution and loss of consequence by his idolatry. The word Baal is here taken in a general sense for all false gods or idolatrous ways of worship, so as to comprehend the worship of the golden calves, though they were designed for symbolical representations of the true God.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Hos 13:2. Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves. The readings vary here. The LXX, You must sacrifice men, for there are no more calves. The Vulgate Latin reads, Sacrifice the men that worship the calves. The reading of the English is nearer the truth, and better supported by appeals to ancient customs. It is equivalent to saying, that the men who sacrificed their children had the first claim to kiss the calves. In 1Ki 19:18, we read that God had reserved seven thousand men who had neither bowed the knee, nor kissed Baal. In Sabian worship, the hosts of heaven, being high in the firmament, the idolaters lifted up their hand, and then kissed it. Job 31:27. This custom of kissing the idol, and of kissing the hand, is named by many of the ancient writers. Cicero mentions a statue of Hercules at Agrigentum, in which the configuration of the mouth was evidently worn by the kisses of devotees. Our Dr. Smith, in his view of the manners of Italy, visited the silver statue of our lady, the holy virgin, at Loretta. The image was rather short, and one foot less than the other, which was attributed to the kisses of pilgrims and devout persons. This lady fled away a little before the arrival of the French army.
Hos 13:7. I will be to them as a lion, and as a leopard. These two wild beasts are most terrific to the traveller and the shepherd, and the more so as the leopard roars not like the lion, but leaps from his lurking place upon the unwary. In this manner the Lord would surprise the Israelites, when going to seek aid from Assyria.
Hos 13:11. I gave thee a king in mine anger. This may allude to Saul; but it may also allude to Hoshea, whose name is delicately omitted. He ascended the throne in a storm, and in his ninth year Samaria was utterly destroyed.
Hos 13:14. I will ransom them from the power of the grave. Of the words sheol and hades, which mostly denote the state of the dead, we have already spoken. See Job 26:4. Psa 9:16. Isa 30:33.I will redeem them from death. Maveth, corruption; the former word regards the soul, the latter the body. The same ideas are resumed in Rev 20:13-14.
Oh death, I will be thy plagues. Our version follows Junius and Montanus. The LXX have , thy revenge; but St. Paul prefers , victory. The words that follow are in unison. Mortality shall be swallowed up of life. A fine allusion to the serpent, who does not, like the beasts, masticate his food, but swallows his prey. Thus death shall be no more.
Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. These abrupt transitions from words of mercy to those of vengeance, were probably occasioned by the arrangements of the parchments. The prophets in modesty wrote merely what they had from the Lord; and suppressed an infinity of enlargements, which arose in their own minds.
REFLECTIONS.
Happy was Israels youth; he had God for his Father, and the choicest blessings of earth for his heritage. No nation had God so near to them; no nation multiplied like the Hebrews. Their cities were built, their fields were cultivated by the heathen.
On the other hand, no nation was more ungrateful for unexampled mercies. Therefore the Lord was more angry against them, than against all the gentiles. After all means had failed to reclaim and convert them from idolatry, and the sins of the heathen, he turned upon them as a lion, and as the furious bear robbed of her whelps. This is the God with whom we have to do.
The supreme Being was provoked with their aptitude, as Ezekiel states, chap. 33:10, to charge their miseries on others. This error the Lord indignantly rebuts. Oh Israel, thou hast wickedly and wilfully destroyed thyself. Thy bent of sinning has been regardless of judgments. I have loved thee. I have done all for my vineyard that could have been done for it. Thy destruction is not of me, but wholly of thyself. Yet in me is still thy help; all is not lost. There are treasures, unsearchable treasures of grace in Christ for future years; in me is thy help. Behold that arm which is able to save to the uttermost. The power which restored the captive jews, can do every thing for his long-afflicted saints.
Oh Ephraim, incorrigible Ephraim, doomed as thou art to drink the bitter cup, and perish with thy gods; there is yet a smiling sun behind the cloud. Crime shall not abound for ever, death shall not reign eternally. I will ransom the captives from the grave, and bring them into their own land. Who will limit the Holy One of Israel? Who will set bounds to the Most High? I will supersede moral evil by righteousness, and will vanquish death by eternal life. All my promises shall be unfolded in acceptations, with a plenitude above the utmost stretch of thought. In this manner an apostle also dwells on the subject of the resurrection of the dead, with all the sublimity of argument, and an admirable exuberance of words, 1Co 15:54-58.
Rejoice then, oh my soul, though the figtree shall not blossom; for the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Hos 13:1-16 (= Heb. Hos 13:1 to Hos 14:1). Facilis descensus Averno.Israel has persistently lapsed into the Baal-worship and idolatry, and therefore shall be swept away as the chaff (Hos 13:1-3). Yahweh has brought him up from Egypt, protected him in the wilderness, and given him plenty, yet he has forgotten Him (Hos 13:4-6), therefore He is against them as a bear bereaved of her whelps. Israels ruin is self-imposed (Hos 13:7-9) and his kings are powerless (Hos 13:10 f.) Ephraim has cherished his sin as a priceless treasure; the crisis of his fate has comea last opportunity of regenerationbut he is impotent to seize it (Hos 13:12 f.). Shall Yahweh, even now, ransom him from death? He cannot; the punishment must go its inevitable course (Hos 13:14). The hurricane of the Divine wrath shall blast and spoil Samarias land and pleasant vessels; because she hath rebelled against her God, she must suffer all the horrors of war (Hos 13:15 f.).
Hos 13:1. When Ephraim spake, there was trembling cannot be right, but no satisfactory emendation has been proposed.exalted himself: read, was prince.
Hos 13:1 b expresses Hoseas conviction that Israels strength had been sapped and destroyed by Baal-worship.
Hos 13:2. understanding: read, model (cf. LXX). Perhaps gods (Heb. elhm) should be inserted in last clause (cf. Hos 14:3). Then render, They say of them gods (i.e. they call them gods), sacrificing men kiss calves (cf. 1Ki 19:18). But text is uncertain.
Hos 13:3. they shall . . . away: perhaps inserted from Hos 6:4. For the figure of the chaff, cf. Isa 17:13, Dan 2:35.out of the chimney: render, from the window.
Hos 13:4. from: render since. The allusion is to the Exodus.Shalt know: read mg.The LXX inserts here a passage like the creation passages in Amos (Amo 4:13; Amo 5:8 f., Amo 9:5 f.).
Hos 13:5. I did know thee: read, I shepherded thee (LXX) (cf. beginning of Hos 13:6).
Hos 13:6. i.e. The more they were fed the more they gorged themselves; and the more they gorged themselves the more their heart was uplifted. The last clause may be an addition; cf. Deu 8:14; Deu 32:18.
Hos 13:7. watch: render, leap (G. A. Smith); or read, I am sleepless (Heb. eshqd, cf. Jer 5:6).
Hos 13:8. as a bear, etc. (cf. 2Sa 17:8, Lam 3:10).the caul is lit. the enclosure (of their heart), i.e. the heart. Read, and lions of the forest shall devour them there (LXX).
Hos 13:9. Read (cf. LXX), I will destroy thee, O Israelwho can help thee?
Hos 13:10. in all . . . judges: read, and all thy princes that they rule thee?of whom . . . princes: may be an addition (cf. for the words 1Sa 8:6).
Hos 13:11. Hosea thinks primarily of the puppet-kings, usurpers of the moment; not of the older line of princes. Render as presents, I give, etc.
Hos 13:12. bound up: in a bag as a precious treasure (cf. Job 14:17).
Hos 13:13. The crisis of Ephraims fate has arrivedshall a new and better time be born out of the accumulating troubles of the present? The childs weak will imperils the birth (notice change of figure from mother to child). The sense intended is given by mg., At the right time (read kath) he standeth not in the mouth of the womb (cf. Isa 37:3).
Hos 13:14. Render as questions, Shall I ransom . . . redeem? In the clause O death, etc., the question is rhetorical. Where are thy plagues? Here with them!repentance: render compassion. Note the application in 1Co 15:35.
Hos 13:15 f. reads like an appendix to preceding.
Hos 13:15. As Ephraim is here not a single tribe but the whole northern kingdom, among his brethren cannot be right. Read, perhaps, Though he (i.e. Ephraim) flourish among the reed-grass (reading ah) the east wind (i.e. Assyria) shall come up. The word rendered flourish (maphr) is a play upon Ephraim.the breath . . . wilderness: ? a gloss on east wind.the . . . vessels: probably a gloss. The subject is no longer the wind, but the Assyrian.
Hos 13:16. Read mg.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
13:1 When Ephraim spake {a} trembling, he {b} exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, {c} he died.
(a) He shows the excellency and authority that this tribe had above all the rest.
(b) He made a king of his tribe.
(c) The Ephraimites are not far from destruction, and have lost their authority.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Israel’s sin against privilege 13:1-3
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
When members of the tribe of Ephraim spoke, the other Israelites trembled because they looked to Ephraim for leadership (cf. Jdg 8:1-3; Jdg 12:1-6). Jacob had prophesied that Ephraim would lead (Gen 48:13-20), and the first king of the Northern Kingdom, Jeroboam I, had come from the tribe of Ephraim (1Ki 11:26; 1Ki 12:25). The Ephraimites exalted themselves in the North as well. Yet they were also the leaders in Baal worship. Therefore they were as good as dead since God would judge idolaters.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
THE FINAL ARGUMENT
Hos 12:1-14 – Hos 14:1
THE impassioned call with which the last chapter closed was by no means an assurance of salvation: “How am I to give thee, up, Ephraim? how am I to let thee go, Israel? On the contrary, it was the anguish of Love, when it hovers over its own on the brink of the destruction to which their willfulness has led them, and before relinquishing them would seek, if possible, some last way to redeem. Surely that fatal morrow and the peoples mad leap into it are not inevitable! At least, before they take the leap, let the prophet go back once more upon the moral situation of today, go back once more upon the past of the people, and see if he can find anything else to explain that bias to apostasy {Hos 11:7} which has brought them to this fatal brink-anything else which may move them to repentance even there. So in chapters 12 and 13 Hosea turns upon the now familiar trail of his argument, full of the Divine jealousy, determined to give the people one other chance to turn; but if they will not, he at least will justify Gods relinquishment of them. The chapters throw even a brighter light upon the temper and habits of that generation. They again explore Israels ancient history for causes of the present decline; and, in especial, they cite the spiritual experience of the Father of the Nation, as if to show that what of repentance was possible for him is possible for his posterity also. But once more all hope is seen to be in vain; and Hoseas last travail with his obstinate people closes in a doom even more awful than its predecessors.”
The division into chapters is probably correct; but while chapter 13 is well ordered and clear, the arrangement, and, in parts, the meaning of chapter 12 are very obscure.