Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Hosea 10:8
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.
8. The high places also of Aven ] Perhaps the same as Beth-aven, i.e. Bethel (Hos 4:15, Hos 10:5). But ‘the high places of idolatry’ (as Aben Ezra) is an equally admissible rendering of the phrase; all the local sanctuaries of the steer-god will then be referred to. The term ‘high place’ includes both the mound and the shrine and altar erected upon it.
they shall say ] Applied proverbially by our Lord (Luk 23:30) and by St John (Rev 6:16; Rev 9:6).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The high places of Aven – that is, of vanity or iniquity. He had before called Bethel, house of God, by the name of Bethaven, house of vanity; now he calls it Aven, vanity or iniquity, as being the concentration of those qualities. Bethel was situated on a hill, the mount of Bethel, and, from different sides, people were said to go up (Jos 16:1; 1Sa 13:2; above Hos 4:13; Gen 35:1; Jdg 1:22; 1Sa 10:3; 2Ki 2:23) to it. The high place often means the shrine, or the house of the high places. Jeroboam had built such at Bethel 1Ki 12:31; many such already existed in his time, so that, whoever would, he consecrated as their priests 1Ki 13:32-33. The high place or shrine, is accordingly said to be built 1Ki 11:7, broken down and burnt 2Ki 23:15. At times, they were tents, and so said to be woven 2Ki 23:7, made of garments of divers colors Eze 16:16. The calf then, probably, became a center of idolatry; many such idol-shrines were formed around it, on its mount, until Bethel became a metropolis of idolatry. This was the sin of Israel, as being the source of all its sins.
The thorn and the thistle shall come up upon their altars – This pictures, not only the desolation of the place, as before Hos 9:6, but the forced cessation of idolatry. Fire destroys, down to the root, all vegetable life which it has once touched. The thorn, once blackened by fire, puts out no fresh shoot. But now, these idol fires having been put out forever, from amid the crevices of the broken altars, thorn and thistle should grow freely as in a fallow soil. Where the victims aforetime went up is also a sacrificial term), or were offered, now the wild briars and thistles alone should go up, and wave freely in undisputed possession. Ephraim had multiplied altars, as God multiplied their goods; now their altars should be but monunments of the defeat of idolatry. They remained, but only as the grave-stones of the idols, once worshiped there.
They shall say to the mountains, cover us – Samaria and Bethel, the seats of the idolatry and of the kingdom of Israel, themselves both on heights, had both, near them, mountains higher than themselves. Such was to Bethel, the mountain on the East, where Abraham built an altar to the Lord Gen 12:8; Samaria was encircled by them. Both were probably scenes of their idolatries; from both, the miseries of the dwellers of Bethel and Samaria could be seen. Samaria especially was in the center of a sort of amphitheater; itself, the spectacle. No help should those high places now bring to them in their need. The high hills round Samaria, when the tide of war had filled the valley around it, hemmed them in, the more hopelessly. There was no way, either to break through or to escape. The narrow passes, which might have been held, as flood gates against the enemy, would then be held against them. One only service could it seem, that their mountains could then render, to destroy them. So should they be freed from evils worse than the death of the body, and escape the gaze of people upon their misery. They shall wish rather to die, than to see what will bring death. They shall say to the mountains on which they worshiped idols, fall on us, and anticipate the cruelty of the Assyrians and the extreme misery of captivity. Nature abhors annihilation; man shrinks from the violent marring of his outward form; he clings, however debased, to the form which God gave him. What misery, then, when people long for, what their inmost being shrinks from!
The words of the prophet become a sort of proverbial saying for misery, which longs for death rather than life. The destruction of Samaria was the type of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and of every other final excision, when the measure of iniquity was filled, and there was neither hope nor remedy. This was the characteristic of the destruction of Samaria. They had been Gods people; they were to be so no more. This was the characteristic of the destruction of Jerusalem, not by the Babylonians, after which it was restored, but by the Romans, when they had rejected Christ, and prayed, His Blood be on us and on our children. So will it be in the end of the world. Hence, our Lord uses the words Luk 23:30, to forewarns of the miseries of the destruction of Jerusalem, when the Jews hid themselves in caves for fear of the Romans ; and John uses them to picture mans despair at the end of the world Rev 6:16. I dread says Bernard , the gnawing worm, and the living death. I dread to fall into the hands of a living death, and a dying life. This is the second death, which never out-killeth, yet which ever killeth. How would they long to die once, that they may not die forever! They who say to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us, what do they will, but, by the aid of death, either to escape or to end death? They shall seek death, but shall not find it, and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them, saith John Rev 1:6.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Hos 10:8
The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed.
Redeeming qualities gone
Beth-el means the house of God, and by iniquity, manifold and black, Beth-el was turned into Beth-aven, which means the house of vanity. This is an instance of deterioration, and more than mere deterioration; it is an instance of transformation from good to bad, from the heights of heaven to the depths of the world of fire. Such miracles can be accomplished in the individual character, and such miracles have been found possible in ecclesiastical relationship. But the case is worse. We now read of the high places also of Aven; the Beth is left out: once it was Beth-aven, the house of vanity; now nothing is left but the vanity itself. That is the process of unchecked, untaught, unsanctified nature. We say of a man, he has still one or two redeeming qualities; but the time comes when every redeeming feature is lost. Then men say of the abandoned one, Aven, vanity, all vanity and vexation of spirit. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
Degeneration
When men degenerate from the pure teaching of God, they in vain cover their profanations with empty names. God loudly proclaims respecting Beth-el that it is Beth-aven, and the reason is well known; it is because Jeroboam erected temples and appointed new sacrifices without Gods command. The Lord approves of nothing but what He Himself commands. Hence the high places of Aven shall perish. (John Calvin.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 8. The high-places] Idol temples.
Of Aven] Beth-aven.
The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars] Owing to the uncultivated and unfrequented state of the land, and of their places of idol worship, the people being all carried away into captivity.
“And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us,
And to the hills, Fall on us.”
“This sublime description of fear and distress our Lord had in view, Lu 23:30, which may be a reference, and not a quotation. However, the Septuagint, in the Codex Alexandrinus, has the same order of words as occurs in the evangelist. The parallelism makes the passages more beautiful than Re 6:16; and Isa 2:19 wants the animated dramatic form. That there is a reference to the caverns that abounded in the mountainous countries of Palestine, See Clarke on Isa 2:19.” –Newcome.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The high places; the temples and altars of Baal and other idols.
Aven, for Beth-aven, say most interpreters: what if. Aven, vanity, folly, be here put for all idol worship and rites, which was notoriously
the sin of Israel?
Shall be destroyed; utterly overthrown; and lie so long waste and desolate, that thorns and thistles shall spring up out of the places where their altars once stood within their stately temples. When this shall be brought to pass, the idolatrous Israelites shall be in such perplexity, that they shall wish the mountains and hills might fall on them, and bury them alive, that they might escape the troubles that they did foresee were coming upon them; or it may be an upbraiding them for praying to lifeless stocks or statues, and telling them in their distress, and when their gods are gone, and cannot help, they should cry to deaf mountains to cover them.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. Aventhat is, Beth-aven.
the sinthat is, theoccasion of sin (Deu 9:21;1Ki 12:30).
they shall say to . . .mountains, Cover usSo terrible shall be the calamity, that menshall prefer death to life (Luk 23:30;Rev 6:16; Rev 9:6).Those very hills on which were their idolatrous altars (one source oftheir confidence, as their “king,” Ho10:7, was the other), so far from helping them, shall be calledon by them to overwhelm them.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The high places also of Aven,…. Bethel, which is not only as before called Bethaven, the house of iniquity; but Aven, iniquity itself; the high places of it were the temple and altars built there for idolatrous service, which were usually set on hills and mountains:
the sin of Israel shall be destroyed; that is, which high places are the sin of Israel, the occasion of sin unto them; and where they committed sin, the sin of idolatry, in worshipping the calves; these should be thrown down, demolished, and no longer used:
the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; lying in ruins, these shall grow upon them, the people and priests being carried captive that used to sacrifice upon them; but now they shall lie deserted by them, being destroyed by the enemy:
and they shall say to the mountains, cover us; and to the hills, fall on us; not that the high places and altars shall say so in a figurative sense, according to R. Moses in Aben Ezra; but, as Japhet, they that worshipped there, the priests and people of Samaria, Bethaven, and even of all Israel, because of their great distress; and, as persons in the utmost consternation, and in despair, and confounded, and ashamed, shall call to the mountains and hills where they have been guilty of idolatry to hide and cover them from the wrath of God; see Lu 23:30 Re 6:16.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
We see how much the Prophet dwells on one thing: but, as I have already said, there was need of a strong hammer to beat this iron; for the hearts of the people were iron, or even steel. This hardness could not then be broken except with violence. This is the reason why the Prophet goes on with his threatening and places before their eyes in so many forms the vengeance of God; of which it would have been enough for him briefly to remind them, had they not been so perverse.
And first he says, The high places of Aven have perished, or shall perish. He now calls Bethel Aven, as he called it before Bethaven. We have stated the reason for changing the name. Jeroboam might indeed have disguised the worship, which he had profanely introduced by this pretext, that God had appeared in that place to holy Jacob, and we know its name was given to it by God: but in the meantime, as the people had made a wrong use of the Patriarch’s example, the place was called Bethaven. Bethaven, we know, is the house of iniquity; as though the Prophet had said, “God dwells not in this place, as superstitious men imagine; but it has been corrupted by ungodly worshipers.” He therefore says, “The high places of Aven;” that is, of impiety. But it may be expedient to repeat here what we have before said, namely, that when men degenerate from the pure teaching of God, they in vain cover their profanations with empty names, as we see the Papists doing at this day; for they adorn that profanation, the Mass, with the title of Sacrament, as if it was something allied to it. They wish even their own Mass to be regarded as the Holy Supper, as if it were in their power to abolish what has been prescribed by the Son of God, and to substitute in its place their own inventions. Hence, how much soever the Papists may dignify their profanations with honourable names they effect nothing. How so? Because God loudly proclaims respecting Bethel that it is Bethaven; and the reason is well known, because Jeroboam erected temples, and appointed new sacrifices, without God’s command. Whenever, then, men depart from the word of the Lord, it will avail them nothing to disguise their own dreams; for the Lord approves of nothing but what he himself commands. Hence the high places of Aven have perished, or “shall perish.”
He adds The sin of Israel This sentence, placed in apposition, belongs to the former. What is meant is, The sin of Israel shall perish. But, as it was said yesterday, the Israelites thought that they performed a service acceptable to God; and hence it was that they were so sedulously attentive to their holy rites; but God, on the contrary, pronounced them to be sin. How so? Because it is profanation and idolatry in men to leave off following God’s command, and to give way to their own fancies and inventions. We must then understand, that it is not in the power of men to form any modes of worship they please; nor is it in their power to decide on this or that worship, whether it be lawful or spurious; but nothing remains for us but to attend to what the Lord says. When, therefore, the Lord pronounces that to be profane which pleases us, we ought to acquiesce in his judgement; for it does not become us to dispute with him, and it would be vain to do so.
The thorn and the thistle, he says, shall come up on their altars It may be asked, Ought the Prophet simply, by these tokens, to have reproved the superstition of the people, seeing that the same thing happened to the temple a short time after, though not built by the counsel of men, but by that of God? Since, then, the grass grew where the temple was, was not that worship, which we know was founded by God, exposed to ridicule? It is only the same that can be said of the calves. We grant that the calves were carried into Assyria, as a price from the wretched Israelites to pacify the king, who was angry with them. Was not the ark of the covenant taken also into captivity by enemies? Did not king Nebuchadnezzar take away the vessels of the temple? And was not pious Hezekiah constrained to strip the doors of the temple of their ornaments? Then this seems not to have been fitly spoken by the Prophet. The answer to all this may be readily given: The Israelites promised to themselves what they saw, and found afterwards to be vain as is the case with hypocrites, who securely despise all judgements and all punishments. How so? Because they thought their own perverted worship to be sufficient for their safety; though they were in their whole life abominable yet as some form of religion was observed by them, they thought that God was bound to be with them: such and so supine was the security of that people. Very different was the case with the tribe of Judah. For God, by his Prophets, proclaimed aloud, “Trust not in words of falsehood; for ye boast continually, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, (Jer 7:4,) but I no longer dwell in that temple:” and Ezekiel saw the glory of the Lord departing elsewhere, (Eze 10:4.) What is said here could not then apply to the temple, nor to the true and lawful altar, nor to the true worshipers of God; but the Prophet justly reproaches the Israelites for expecting safety from their own altars, while yet they were provoking God’s wrath against themselves by such inventions. We ought, then to remember this difference between the tribe of Judah and the ten tribes.
But he adds, — They shall say to the mountains, Cover us: and to the hills, Fall on us. By this form of speaking, the Prophet intended to express the dreadful vengeance of God; as if he had said, that the destruction, which was at hand, would be so grievous that it would be better to perish a hundred times than to remain in that state alive. For when men say to hills, Fall on us, and to mountains, Cover us, they doubtless desire a death too dreadful to be spoken of; but it is the same as if the Prophet had said, that life and light, and the sight of the sun and the common air, would become a horror to them, for they would perceive the hand of God to be against them. And further, it is a sign of extreme despair, when men willingly seek the abyss, where they may sink to avoid the presence of God and present destruction. And hence Christ has also transferred this passage to set forth the last judgement, of which he speaks, — ‘They shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us;’ (67) that is, what was once said by the Prophet shall then be again fulfilled; that the wicked will prefer a hundred deaths to one life; for both light and the vital air will be hated and detested by them; because they will perceive themselves to be oppressed by the dreadful hand of God. It follows —
(67) Luk 23:30. — fj.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(8) Aven.On Beth-Aven, see Note on Hos. 4:15. The thorn and thistle are part of the first curse upon apostate Adam (Gen. 3:18), and the prophet not only predicts utter ruin for king and calf, temple and shrine, but the future desolation which should conceal all. Meanwhile, the people shall desire death rather than life. The awful words in the latter part of this verse are used by our Lord concerning the terrors of the impenitent in the fall of Jerusalem (Luk. 23:30), and twice by St. John (Rev. 6:16; Rev. 9:6), to denote the extremity of despair.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
‘The high places also of Aven, will be destroyed,
The sin of Israel,
The thorn and the thistle will come up
Upon their altars,
And they will say to the mountains, “Cover us,”
and to the hills, “Fall on us.”
And what has been left behind, the high places of Beth-Aven (or ‘of evil’) will be destroyed, because they represented ‘The Sin Of Israel’. Beth-aven more than anywhere else symbolised their unfaithfulness and apostasy. Thus, with their altars destroyed, there would be nothing left for the calves to come home to. They had failed the land, and the land had spewed them out. And their deserted altars will become overgrown with weeds, a place of thorns and thistles, symbolic of YHWH’s curse on the ground in Gen 3:18 and an indication that the land has been cursed.
The final awfulness of the situation comes out in the final two lines. Such will be the desolation and misery that the people will call on the mountains to cover them with a rockslide, and will call on the hills to fall on them. They will not be able to bear the thought of what the future holds.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Hos 10:8. The high places The altars, &c. The latter part of the verse is expressive of the confusion and despair to which the Israelites should be reduced by the destruction of their country. Our Saviour has made use of the same words to denote the extremity of the Jews in their last siege; and St. John in the Revelation, to set forth the terror of the wicked in the day of judgment.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
An Overthrown Altar
Hos 10:8-12
The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed.” We have seen that “Beth-el” means The house of God, and that by iniquity, manifold and black, Beth-el was turned into Bethaven, and that Bethaven means The house of vanity. This is an instance of deterioration, and more than mere deterioration; it is an instance of transformation from good to bad, from the heights of heaven to the depths of the world of fire. Such miracles can be accomplished in the individual character, and such miracles have been found possible in ecclesiastical relationship. Nature will not let things alone at any given point; nature is a destroyer; its very growths, if not checked and regulated, may come to express judgment, destruction, ruin. But the case is worse We now read of “the high places also of Aven”; the “Beth” is left out: once it was Bethaven, the house of vanity; now nothing is left but the vanity itself. As a house it was significant of definition, limitation: it was so much and no more for the time being; but the walls of definition have fallen down, the hedges and the boundaries are taken away, and there is nothing left but the smoke of vanity. That is the process of unchecked, untaught, unsanctified nature. We say of a man, He has still one or two redeeming qualities: he is sober, he is punctual, he is not wholly without feeling in the presence of sorrow or weakness. Gladly we point out two or three features that are supposed to be of a redeeming kind, and we gladly infer that so long as these exist the man may be saved, restored, set up again with rights and privileges in the household of God; but the time comes when every redeeming feature is lost, every fair line is blotted out, every sweet little thing that seemed to be as a prophecy in the life, foretelling summer, deliverance, and blessed immortality, is driven out; then men say of the abandoned one, Aven, vanity, all vanity and vexation of spirit, nothing of strength or beauty left; the whole man has gone away, and the brightest angel despairs of bringing him back again. The sin of Israel was the building of houses of vanity, the erection of altars on high places. Israel was theologically inventive; as soon as one pantheon was burned down Israel put up another. What is the issue according to prophetic instinct? “The thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars.” The words “come up” are very significant as originally used. Men always go “up” to the metropolis; no man goes “down” to London, Paris, St. Petersburg; to the capital, come from what place soever men may, they go up. It is even so with the house of God: no man goes down to church; the tribes go up; be the church ever so humble, and geographically or typographically be it in ever so little a place, no man goes down to it. To pray is to go up; to attend the humblest meeting-house is to ascend.
The mocking prophecy is full of bitter irony and taunt. The thorn and the thistle shall go up, come up, ascend to the altar; living men shall no longer be found there, disappointed souls shall have vanished from such mean altars; but now the worshippers shall be thorn and thistle, and weed of every name and quality. This the infinite mockery of God pronounced upon all merely natural religion. If men want nature they shall have it. God will remonstrate and expostulate, yea, he will solicitously importune them not to play such folly; but if they insist upon it they shall have nature in an abundance of growth, they shall be choked with its very luxuriance. Picture the altar with the thorn and the thistle growing all over it. Is there aught so mournful as an abandoned king? The very greatness of his former estate throws into humiliating contrast his present condition. A little cottage lying in a ruin is pathetic enough in its suggestions, for who can tell what births were there, and weddings, and little festivals, dances of glee and songs of innocent wildness? Who knows what honeysuckle grew there, or what roses jewelled the humble door? Who can tell how long and merrily the cradle was rocked there, and what little simple tragedies were wrought out under the unnamed and unknown roof? Every house has its sacred histories. But to see a great palace, a solemn, massive, magnificent architectural pile unroofed, the owl and the satyr hooting in it, and nature weaving her green robe as if to hide some mortal wound, what a sight is that! Compared with all such sights there is no vision so terrible, so humiliating, so instructive, as an overthrown altar a place once made sacred by prayer laughed at by nature, tormented as it were by a spirit of vengeance; dismantled, overthrown, mocked, leaped upon as if by invisible beasts of prey. There is but a step between thee and death. O man of genius, thou dost live next door to insanity; praying man, seraphic soul, one little step, and thou art with Lucifer. The altar will not save us, it must represent the altar of the heart; the outward sanctuary is no defence, it must represent by holy tender symbol the fortress of omnipotence, the very arms of Jehovah. “And they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.” So much for nature-worship. A mountain should be satisfied with admiration, and we ourselves should be satisfied in according admiration to a mountain; or say for admiration wonder, with some touch of almost reverence in it: the pile is so vast that where other little hills catch only green patches, it goes high enough to catch the snow. But there must be no worship of nature; men must not even worship the sun. The sun is only an infinitised sparklet; it is nothing in itself. There never flew a comet through the sky that could not be put into a thimble. We must use nature, seek out the purpose of God in nature; use the mountains as stairways leading to something beyond themselves, and we may be most grateful to nature, responding to every tone of music, answering every appeal of abundance; but worship we must keep for God. If we will persist in worshipping the material, the natural, the outward, at last it will come to desiring the very thing we have worshipped to fall on us. We exhaust nature; we spend the stars, and are paupers after the revel. It is only God that is everlasting; it is only Christ who has unsearchable riches; it is only the Holy Ghost that can train man into perfectness, and therefore into rest and peace and the very quiet of the calm of God. There is no picture in all the gallery of Holy Writ so terrible as that which represents men as seeking death, and not finding it; desiring to die, and death fleeing from them. So men shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and it will be as if the mountains rooted themselves more firmly to the rocks on which they rest: men shall say to the hills, Fall on us; and the hills will fail to answer. For “mountains,” for “hills,” put any other terms that suggest false worship, false trust, profane loyalty put money, health, influence, greatness of any kind, all things that are not in God and of the quality of God; and according to the will and purpose of God, they come to this, that they disappoint their devotees, and turn their worshippers into victims. Such has been the consistent story of human experience.
“It is in my desire that I should chastise them” ( Hos 10:10 ).
That is a graphic expression; the whole meaning of it does not appear in the English tongue. God does not willingly afflict the children of men; it is not the delight of Almightiness to crush. It is the vanity of considerable strength to tyrannise, but in proportion as strength becomes complete it pities, it spares the helpless, for it knows that by one uplifting of its arm, and the down-bringing of the same, it could crush every opponent. Imperfect strength is a despot: Almightiness is mercy. But now there is a stirring in the divine emotions. God says, It will be better for these people to be afflicted; they have left nothing for themselves now but depletion, and they must be brought to the very point of extermination. “It will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies”; “Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted.” These are not the first words that God utters. Their meaning is in their postponement. Our eloquence has to be forced out of us. The Lord is very pitiful and kind, and his eyes are full of tears, and judgment is his strange work; but there have been times in the history of Providence which could only be consistently and rationally construed by granting that even the divine Father must be stirred to the desire to chastise and humble wicked men. “And the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.” Change the grammar if you would see the deeper meaning. Not, They shall bind themselves; but, They shall be bound as well. There shall be a voluntary act, but above that there shall be a confirmation of that act, that shall turn the change of it into an impossibility. Men bind themselves with a yoke, and God takes care to lock that yoke upon them. It is a human act, and it is also a divine act. Men will enclose themselves in their concealed chambers that they may perpetrate what iniquity they please, and when they have fastened themselves within, God fastens them without, the door closes on both sides; so when the revellers have ceased their carnival, and seek to return, lo! the door is locked on the other side. When will men see the two sides of everything, the corresponding aspects of every action? Life is not, as we have often seen, a series of dissociated accidents; it is one and the same, a continuity, an ongoing process, every part of which belongs to every other part. “They shall bind themselves in their two furrows”; that is to say, they shall be unanimous in sin; they never could draw equal furrows before them. In everything that expressed discipline, wise training, right education, submission to divine law, the furrow was crooked, the furrows when two were drawn together were dissimilar; the ox and the ass could not plough equally; the furrows betokened reluctance on the part of the plough, or restiveness, or ill-behaviour; but now men can be unanimous in sin. who never could get into accord in prayer, in benevolence, in noblest thinking. There are fellowships of darkness; there are men who unhappily can agree in spoiling the helpless, in wrecking the poor, in doing mischief. Ask them to agree in theological opinion, and they instantly fly away from the suggestion involving, as they suppose, an impossibility. Propose to them to act in accord upon any really noble question, and you will find their minds most inventive in the originating of excuses, difficulties, and hindrances of every name and degree; suggest to them that they should drink out of the same goblet, and they will seize the goblet with avidity; suggest that they should co-operate in evil, and the devil never had servants who more eagerly engaged in his service. How many are the compacts in life that are based on a determination to do that which is wrong! Pilate and Herod were made friends one day. They who were dissimilar in thought and feeling were united under circumstances of the most tragical interest. There must be binding; yoke upon yoke must be added to the neck. The question is, whether we will submit to a yoke that is imposed upon us for the outworking of our ruin, or whether we will listen to the voice that says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest: take my yoke upon you; my yoke is easy, my burden is light.” A yoke you must have, says every voice wise in history: it is for man to say whether he will be yoked as a beast, or whether he will be disciplined as a child of God.
“And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn” ( Hos 10:11 ).
Poor Ephraim! History has no good word to say about Ephraim. Ephraim, though carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle; Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, whose appetites are excited and trained and directed along certain lines, and Ephraim loveth to tread out the corn. Is not that a compliment to Ephraim? Have we not in Jewish history seen the patient oxen going round and round the mill, and causing the stones to revolve so that the corn might be ground? Is not that a very excellent thing to do? No, not for Ephraim, because Ephraim gets advantage from this. “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.” Ephraim wanted plenty to eat; put Ephraim in a pasture, and he was most buoyantly, though selfishly, obedient and religious; put Ephraim to treading out the corn where he could fill himself from morning till night, and he walked as if an obedient child. There are too many men who are wonderfully obedient and pious when they are making gain by it. History is not wanting in instances in which men have apparently been going about their business in the most faithful, obedient, scrupulous manner, when in reality they were only going about it in order that they might eat the feast. Hence the meaning of the words that follow: “But I passed over upon her fair neck”: I handled the yoke daintily, I did not force it upon the face of Ephraim, as if to break his teeth in the act of putting the yoke over the neck; but I acted daintily; I studied the occasion, I watched when Ephraim lifted the head, and presently the yoke was put over the fair neck, and that which lifted itself in pride found itself to be bent down in humiliation. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” We never know what God is doing. In the very midst of our rioting and feasting he slips a yoke over our fair neck, and we who sat down as guests remain as prisoners. “I will make Ephraim to ride.” The grammar must be changed in order to get at the meaning: I will send a rider upon Ephraim, who shall so handle the bridle and dig the spurs into his quaking sides as to make him feel that he is no longer master. “Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods”: they shall begin at the other end of the work; they shall not have all the corn-grinding and corn-eating to do, but they shall plough, do the hard work. “And Jacob shall break his clods”: clods that he cannot eat; if he attempt to eat them, they shall break his teeth as with gravel-stones. Judah and Jacob shall be taught to work, to do what is useful, and by-and-by they may have plentifulness of bread. Until this is done nothing is done solidly in life. If you have not learned how to make your money’s worth your money is of no use to you; if you are operating by trickery or by falsity, the end is simply disappointment and possible ruin. He who cannot plough and break his clods has no right to the loaf. We have only a right to the bread we have worked for. When men understand this, boys will be brought up to be independent. No boy is independent who cannot work. There is only one independent man in the world, and that is the working man. He is independent in poverty; nature lives for him, nature waits for him, nature says to him, I am your humble servant. A man who has only money can lose it; a man who has skill has treasure in a bank that will not fail. This is the difficulty of all education to bring parents to understand that their children must be taught to plough and to break up the clods. No, it is better that the boy should be clothed in broadcloth, and should have white hands, and should not be put to any inconvenience; the boy must not go out at five in the morning, and yoke horses and get the plough into the furrow and attend to the drudgery of husbandry, the boy must be a “gentleman farmer”! This is called kindness. The boy will live to curse the cruelty of such benevolence.
“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy.” Rather, Sow righteousness in the proportion of mercy: as God has been merciful to you, so be ye righteous to him; keep pace for pace with the divine mercy: be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect; be ye holy as your Father in heaven is holy. This is the ideal; God would have human righteousness in proportion to divine mercy. The standard is not arbitrary, it is gracious and tender and condescending; but who can attain unto it? It is not in man that liveth to keep pace with God. “Break up your fallow ground”: this is not the order of husbandry. The Scripture cares nothing for your orders and chronologies. This Book in particular is a book that is urgent, energetic, tumultuous in its style. There are those who will only go with the clock, and have the clock strike two after it has struck one; this Book will strike twelve after one, and ten after seven. It is God’s indicator; it will excite attention; it cares nothing for your mechanical orders; it rushes, roars, exclaims as with a trumpet voice, whispers as it delivering the message of burdened life. “Break up your fallow ground.” Stir your souls, put on your strength, excite yourselves to the highest, noblest animation; no longer live the life of indifference, but live the life of enthusiasm and passion: make the best of yourselves; cultivate every out-of-the-way corner of your lives: break up, break up, break up; prepare for the harvest. “For it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” It is always time to seek the Lord; let us say here, It is high time, it is more than time; the hour is almost past up! It is the appeal of one who would stir the sluggard from his sloth, and break in upon the glamour of his destructive dreams. “Till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” That is an unfamiliar figure; that, indeed, is not the figure which the prophet represented. To rain righteousness means, in the Scriptures, to teach righteousness. Here some of the ripest and holiest commentators have found what they believe to be a prophecy of the coming of the Holy Ghost It is the business of the Spirit to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come; it is the function of the Spirit to reveal the righteousness of God. We are therefore to seek the Lord till he come, in some form or personality of ministry, to represent righteousness, to teach righteousness, to make the world forget all its mistakes, and begin anew, to do the right thing and the beautiful thing. No prophet could anticipate the coming of the Holy Ghost who did not first accept in his deepest consciousness the coming of the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, from whom, as from the Father, proceedeth the eternal Spirit Whilst we are anxious not to import meanings into the Bible, we should be equally anxious not to impoverish the Bible of its richest suggestiveness.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Hos 10:8 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.
Ver. 8. The high places also of Aven, &c. ] Sept. the altars, ab Alto dicta ( whence B ). Of Aven, for Bethaven (whereof before), a place so hateful now, that God loathes at large to mention it; he even cuts off the head of it, as he had threatened to do by the altars, Hos 10:2 . So Jeconiah degenerating is Coniah, &c.
The sin of Israel
Shall be destroyed
The thorn and the thistle shall come upon their altars
They shall say to the mountains, Cover us
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
sin. Hebrew. chata. App-44. Put by Figure of speech Metonymy (of Adjunct), App-6, for the idols associated with it. Compare Deu 9:21. 1Ki 12:30.
the thorn and the thistle. Ref to Pentateuch (Gen 3:18). This combination of words occurs only in these two places. “Thorns” is found in Exo 22:6, &c.; “thistles”, Hebrew. darda, only here, and Gen 3:18. Compare Hos 9:6.
mountains. Such was Beth-el in the hill country of Ephraim (Jdg 4:5). Contrast Gen 49:2, Gen 49:6.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
high places: Hos 10:5, Hos 4:15, Hos 5:8
the sin: Deu 9:21, 1Ki 12:28-30, 1Ki 13:34, 1Ki 14:16, Amo 8:14, Mic 1:5, Mic 1:13
the thorn: Hos 9:6, Isa 32:13, Isa 34:13
their altars: 1Ki 13:2, 2Ki 23:15, 2Ch 31:1, 2Ch 34:5-7
they shall: Isa 2:19, Luk 23:30, Rev 6:16, Rev 9:6
Reciprocal: Isa 2:10 – Enter Isa 22:5 – crying Eze 6:6 – and the Hos 8:11 – many Amo 5:5 – and Bethel Nah 3:11 – thou shalt be hid Heb 10:27 – a certain
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Hos 10:8. Avert, is an abbreviation of Bethaven, and that name refers to the idolatrous practices at Bethel. It is predicted here that the sin was to be destroyed, and that was fulfilled by the exile. The land was to be deserted by its idolatrous inhabitants so that the thorn and thistle could grow up over the spots where the false worship had been conducted. Saw to the mountains , . . fall on us is figurative and refers to the dejected state of mind that Israel was to have as a result of the national corruption of idolatry.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
10:8 The high places also of {i} 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.
(i) This he speaks in contempt of Bethel. Read Geneva (t) “Hos 4:15”
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The Assyrians would also destroy the sites of the idolatrous shrines at Aven (wickedness, i.e., Bethel), where the Israelites had sinned. Ironically, when the Israelites had entered the Promised Land, the Lord had commanded them to destroy such places (Num 33:52; Deu 12:2-3). Since they had not obeyed, the Lord would use the Assyrians to fulfill His command. The pagan altars there would become overgrown with wild thorns and thistles. The Israelites would then express their terror over this judgment by calling on the mountains and hills to cover them (cf. Luk 23:30; Rev 6:16). They would prefer death to life (cf. Jer 8:3; Rev 9:6).